Not surprisingly there are no major changes in the top teams. Red Bull, Mclaren, Ferrari and Mercedes will have the same drivers as last [...]]]> With less than 50 days remaining until the start of the F1 season in Melbourne, I figured it would be a good idea to figure out who will be racing.

Not surprisingly there are no major changes in the top teams. Red Bull, Mclaren, Ferrari and Mercedes will have the same drivers as last year. There are rumors of this being Felipe Massa’s last season with Ferrari. Sauber has also kept the same lineup of drivers with Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez. The only difference for Lotus will be in their name which has been changed to Caterham.

Renault has officially changed it’s name to Lotus and have brought back Kimi Raikkonen to head the team. He will be partnered with Romain Grosjean. Raikkonen replaces Vitaly Petrov who is still without an F1 seat for 2012. The only opening remaining is with the Spanish team, HRT. He has also been approached by Pirelli to be their test driver. Romain Grosjean replaces Nick Heidfeld who is reportedly going to sign with Rebellion Racing for a partial season in the World Endurance Championship.

Force India have retained Paul di Resta and have replaced Adrian Sutil with Nico Hulkenberg. Sutil was fired by Force India at the end of last season due to an altercation between Sutil and team owner, Eric Lux. Adrian Sutil faces charges of aggravated assault and will be going to trial at the end of this month. He does not have a seat for the 2012 season.

Toro Rosso has ousted both of its drivers, Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi and have replaced them with Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne. Vergne moves up from the Red Bull young drivers program and was a test and reserve driver for Red Bull during the 2011 season. Alguersuari turned down an offer by Red Bull to become their test driver. This position was claimed by Sebastien Buemi. It is unclear where Alguersuari will be for the 2012 season.

Bruno Senna replaces Rubens Barrichello at Williams while Pastor Maldanado will remain. Rubens Barrichello, who began his Formula 1 racing career in 1993, will not have a seat in the 2012 season. He is scheduled to test drive the IZOD Indy car later this month.

HRT have announced Pedro de la Rosa as one of their drivers. The second seat still remains open. Although Vitantonio Liuzzi has a contract with HRT for 2012 his future within the team remains uncertain.

Virgin has taken on the name of the team’s major stockholder and Russian sportscar maker Marussia. Timo Glock remains and will be teamed up with rookie Charles Pic. Pic has spent the last two seasons racing in the GP2 Series. He finished the 2011 season in fourth position with two wins and three pole positions.

The final major change for the 2012 F1 season will be in its television coverage. It was announced in July that the BBC would share coverage with Sky Sport which has created a new Formaul 1 channel. Jake HUmphrey, Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard will remain as BBC presenters. Martin Brundle will appear in the commentary box for Sky Sport. Sky Sport will have full live coverage of all races from March thru November. The BBC will air ten races (China, Spain, Monaco, Europe, Britain, Belgium, Singapore, Korea, Abu Dhabi & Brazil) live with extended highlight programming for the remaining ten races.

Teams have already begun to unveil their new challengers and liveries. Pre-season testing will be underway in Jerez, Spain starting February 7th.

If not for the unfortunate radio transmission by Red Bull’s Mark Webber, the incident of “front-wing gate” may never have received as much press as it had. The situation unfolded mere minutes before qualifying was set to begin at Silverstone when the new front wing was taken off Webber’s car and given to Sebastian [...]]]>

If not for the unfortunate radio transmission by Red Bull’s Mark Webber, the incident of “front-wing gate” may never have received as much press as it had. The situation unfolded mere minutes before qualifying was set to begin at Silverstone when the new front wing was taken off Webber’s car and given to Sebastian Vettel. Although Vettel managed to capture pole position, an extremely angry and frustrated Webber was able to pull off the win. In the heat of the moment Webber made his now famous comment from inside the cockpit, “Not bad for a number two driver”.

Webber’s defeat by Vettel for the World Championship position has now made him this season’s number two driver. How prophetic.

Among the changes in regulations this year is the re-introduction of KERS. The kinetic energy recovery system was first introduced in 2009 [...]]]> Once again, Ferrari are the first team to unveil their new challenger for the 2011 Formula 1 season. The driver lineup remains the same this season with Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa.

Among the changes in regulations this year is the re-introduction of KERS. The kinetic energy recovery system was first introduced in 2009 but not without problems. Teams agreed not to implement the technology in 2010 and have brought it back for 2011. It is not a compulsory addition. The addition of the KERS unit will prove a challenge for engineers due to the ban on refueling their is less space available. This was not the case in 2009 when refueling was still allowed.

Chief designer Nikolas Tombazis explained some of the key changes in respect to the KERS:

Furthermore, the reintroduction of KERS has led to a substantial change in the architecture of the front end of the engine, with modifications to the drive shaft system of the KERS itself and the crankshaft and this has led to changes to the cooling and lubrication systems.

The kinetic energy recovery system, designed by Ferrari, has been produced in conjunction with MTS and Magneti Marelli and was fine tuned based on experience acquired in 2009, with the aim of reducing its size and weight, while maintaining, in accordance with the regulations, the maximum use-able power and its usage cycle over one lap. This is another area where great attention has been paid to cost reduction, both in terms of its development and the way it is run, so as to make the system equally viable for our customer teams, Sauber and Toro Rosso.

The positioning of the KERS within the fuel cell was a further impetus to look at solutions aimed at reducing fuel consumption: in this area, the contribution from a key partner in the form of Shell was vital and will continue to be so throughout the season.

Comparison photos:

Ferrari F10 2010

Ferrari F150 2011 (image flipped horizontally)

Ferrari F10 2010

Ferrari F150 2011

Ferrari F10 2010 (double diffuser)

Ferrari F150 2011

New Rules:

Formula One is comprised of twelve teams with two cars and [...]]]> The 2010 season of Formula One has been relatively controversy free; no major scandals or upheavals to even report about. That all ended yesterday with Ferrari blatantly giving team orders to Felipe Massa to let his teammate, Fernando Alonso, through to win the race.

Formula One is comprised of twelve teams with two cars and two drivers in each team. Team orders, which have been banned since 2002, are part of the strategy for teams to gain as many championship points as possible. After all, it is the team that comes first; drivers are second. However, in order for the team to successfully grab the championship one of their drivers must also win. As the season progresses and the number of championship points dwindles, teams may choose one of their drivers who may have the best chance at clinching the championship. This driver will then receive the full backing of the team and assistance from his teammate. Even though the regulations ban this type of behavior all of the teams do this. Ask any of them, however, and they will vehemently deny it.

So, if they all do it and everyone knows that they all do it, what’s the big deal? It was the manner in which the team orders were given that has most people pissed off. The orders were so obvious to anyone watching the race and the lying that ensued afterwards was downright embarrassing.

Here is how the race played out –
Fernando Alonso qualified in second position with his teammate, Felipe Massa in third. Massa was able to get a better start and got by Alonso and Vettel for first position. Alonso also got by Vettel and claimed second. The rest of the race was rather uneventful with Alonso posting fastest lap times and Massa responding with his own fastest lap times. Ferrari should have been happy with a 1 – 2 finish the problem was that the wrong driver was in the lead; Alonso was leading Massa by 21 points in the championship.

Alonso did eventually manage to catch up to his teammate and tried to get around him during lap 23. Massa, however, held onto his position. A frustrated Alonso was then heard over the radio saying, “This is ridiculous”. Massa was able to pull away from his teammate and looked fairly secure in his lead. Alonso, once again, caught up to Massa and by lap 40 had closed the gap down to 1 second.

This is when Rob Smedley, Massa’s race engineer, is heard telling Massa that “Fernando is faster than you.” Not shortly after this transmission, Massa is seen dramatically slowing down, Fernando went by and Rob Smedley is heard apologizing to his driver.

The FIA have fined Ferrari $100,00 for this indiscretionary use of team orders. This is mere pocket change and amounts to nothing more than a wimpy slap on the wrist. The case has been handed over to the World Motor Sport Council who have the ability to impose whatever sanctions they want; if they decide to do anything at all.

Meanwhile, Alonso gets the win, Ferrari garner more points towards the championship and fans, like myself, feel cheated at not getting a clean race. This is, after all, what Formula One is – a race.

It is a pretty amazing crash when you consider that cars are going somewhere in the neighborhood of 120mph into this turn. An investigation into the crash by Williams has determined that a loose manhole cover [...]]]> It’s the hot story coming out of last weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix; the fantastic crash by Rubens Barrichello.

It is a pretty amazing crash when you consider that cars are going somewhere in the neighborhood of 120mph into this turn. An investigation into the crash by Williams has determined that a loose manhole cover was the culprit. As Barrichello came around turn 2 he hit the cover which flipped up and hit his left rear tire causing him to lose control of the car. In the video you see Rubens throw his $50,000 steering wheel onto the track. This is actually a breach in FIA regulations as the steering wheel must be reconnected after abandoning a stricken car. However, Rubens Barrichello, the man who has an excuse for absolutely everything as nothing is ever his fault stated:

“I threw the steering wheel because I wanted to get out of the car as soon as possible. After the shunt I was facing the wrong side of the track and the car was on fire.”

First of all, I didn’t see any flames shooting from the vehicle. Secondly, why couldn’t he have simply placed the steering wheel on top of the car, gotten out and tossed it back into the cockpit if he didn’t have time to reconnect it? Instead, he had a typical Rubens baby fit and tossed the steering wheel onto the track and into traffic without a second thought regarding the safety of the other drivers. Rubens Barrichello of all people should know the danger of debris on the track. It was a spring that came off his car last year during the Hungarian Grand Prix that hit Felipe Massa in the head sending the Brazilian hurtling off the track unconscious. Massa required brain surgery and subsequently missed the rest of the 2009 F1 season.

In this video you see the Hispania Racing Team car of Karun Chandhok run over Barrichello’s discarded steering wheel and drive off with it:

The steering wheel finally came dislodged before Chandhouk entered the tunnel only to be run over again by his teammate, Bruno Senna. Luckily, neither driver expeirenced any mishaps.

You may also remember the famous “blah blah” incident where Barrichello lashed out at his team during the 2009 German Grand Prix after he went from first to sixth place:

There was a great show from the team today of how to lose a race. I did all I could today, I got first at the first corner, and they made me lose the race.

If we keep going like this we’re going to lose both championships. To be very honest with you I wish I could get on a plane and just go home, because when I go to the team afterwards there will be a lot of ‘blah, blah, blah’ and I don’t want to hear that right now.

Formula 1 is generally depicted as the crème de la crème of motorsport; a gentlemen’s sport if you will. So, why does Rubens stomp around, throw fits and continually make a horse’s ass out of himself? Sometimes errors are made in team orders, sometimes incidents occur that are the fault of the driver. Never once have I heard Rubens take responsibility for what has happened on the track. And to publicly lash out at the team, whoever was at fault, is quite unheard of.

I’m not a Lewis Hamilton fan mainly because he does his fair share of whining. However, Rubens has just knocked Hamilton out of the “least favorite driver” list for me. Perhaps Rubens should take a lesson from Fernando Alonso. Alonso crashed his car during Saturday practice at Monaco, causing such damage that he missed qualifying and had to start the race from the pit lane. Pretty upsetting and frustrating especially considering that he is considered to be one of the top drivers to win the championship. He admitted to his crash being due to driver error. No whining. He simply pointed out that Michael Schumacher had started from the pit lane in 2005 and ended up in fifth place at the end of the race. Alonso managed sixth.

It was a Red Bull 1 – 2 for qualifying and all bets were on a Red Bull 1 – 2 for the finish of the race at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya. It shoulda, woulda, coulda, but was not meant to be and Red Bull had to settle for a 1 – 3 finish. [...]]]>

It was a Red Bull 1 – 2 for qualifying and all bets were on a Red Bull 1 – 2 for the finish of the race at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya. It shoulda, woulda, coulda, but was not meant to be and Red Bull had to settle for a 1 – 3 finish. Mark Webber had no problems taking his lead from start to checkered flag without incident. But once again, his teammate, Sebastian Vettel, suffered from unreliability issues with his RB6. Vettel had to wait for traffic to clear during his pit stop which put him behind the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton. To make matters even worse, he then suffered a brake failure. Vettel was then forced to limp his car around the track for the remaining 12 laps. Luckily the gap between Vettel and fifth place Schumacher was a substantial one and he was able to maintain his position. A delaminated brake disc turned out to be the culprit.

Lewis Hamilton experienced the largest set-back of the race. Lewis suffered a deflation in his left front tire during his penultimate lap which sent him sailing into the tire wall, ending his race. Had Hamilton finished the race he would have been just one point shy of his teammate, Jenson Button, in the championship points standing. With Hamilton out, Alonso was able to capture second place to a cheering Spanish crowd. Sebastian Vettel managed a podium finish in third.

It was a frustrating race for Jenson Button. His pit stop was slowed due to a dragging clutch which sent him back onto the track behind Michael Schumacher. Even though Button was in a faster car, Schumi didn’t give the Brit any opportunity to get by. Michael Schumacher finished the race in fourth, his best result thus far for the season and Jenson Button claimed fifth.

With five races now completed, the top three contenders for the championship title are Jenson Button with 70 points, followed by Fernando Alonso with 67 and Sebastian Vettel with 60 points. However, with 14 races still to be had, a clear cut winner has yet to be determined. It’s still anyone’s race.