Overnight a number of video clips featuring the Red Bull Racing RB8 have been uploaded to YouTube. We’ve assembled them together here in one place for you. Also included are Q&A interviews with the team’s major players.
The image above, captured from the first video, gives one of the best looks yet at Adrian Newey’s answer to the stepped-nose phenomenon seemingly forced upon the teams by the new 2012 regulations. The question is, does that vent/intake do anything meaningful and if so, what?
BMW has today released a statement confirming what we already knew; they will be cutting full factory support from Prodrive for its MINI WRC program. However, Prodrive will continue as a factory-supported privateer team—Dani Sordo in the lead car, with the second car sold on a pay-per-drive basis. They will also continue to build customer MINI WRCs on behalf of BMW.
So, what at first seems like a sorry picture for Prodrive and would seem to put a major dent in the enormous goodwill the return of MINI to the world rally stage has earned may not be so bad.
Prodrive chairman, David Richards, explains, “Fundamentally, the nature of the relationship between Prodrive and MINI will not change,” he said. “We will still be working very closely with them on the test program for the car and, in fact, the development of the car will be enhanced by this news for reasons which will soon become clear. There will be more resource for the development of the MINI, which will further improve the performance of the car in the future.”
BMW will now lend its support to the Motorsport Italia-operated WRC Team MINI Portugal. They will run a two car team in all remaining races in 2012 to will be driven by Portuguese pair Armindo Araújo and co-driver Miguel Ramalho, as well as Brazilian duo Paulo Nobre and co-driver Edu Paula.
Dr Kay Segler, Senior Vice President MINI Business Coordination and Brand Management said: “I am delighted that the future of MINI in the WRC has been secured on a long-term basis
“We remain convinced that the sport of rallying is perfectly suited to our brand. The situation we now find ourselves in means the MINI Motorsport family can, and will, continue to grow on the rally scene. With three podiums from just seven starts in the world championship, the MINI John Cooper Works WRC has already emphatically proven its potential.
“With its great enthusiasm and hard work, the Prodrive team has played a major role in the remarkable sporting success we have achieved on our initial outings with the MINI John Cooper Works WRC. On behalf of MINI Motorsport, I would like to thank everyone at Prodrive for their efforts so far and we look forward to working with them in support of our MINI John Cooper Works WRC customers in the future.”
Overnight the covers came off the Scuderia Toro Rosso STR7. As has become the norm a ‘platypus’ style nose is featured and on the STR7 it’s one of the more elegant examples we’ve seen to date. Although it doesn’t have an intake/scoop as seen on the sister Red Bull car.
Following the fortunes of Toro Rosso takes on extra impetus this year with 22-year-old Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo securing a full time drive. He is joined by 21-year-old Frenchman Jean Eric Vergne.
The pair have raced against each other in junior categories and this intra-team duel shapes as one of the more fascinating aspects of the 2012 F1 season. It’s widely accepted that this year is essentially a job interview for the plum Red Bull Racing drive if this ends up being Mark Webber’s final year with the team.
Franz Tost, Team Principal, says, “We are looking forward to working with our rookie driver line-up of Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne, both of whom are very talented young drivers.”
Technical Director, Giorgio Ascanelli, explains one of the overlooked regulation changes this year: “One very significant change concerns the front wing. It was announced quite late in the form of an FIA technical directive: concerned by vibration and excessive deflection of the front wing, for 2012, the governing body has drastically reduced the flexibility of the front wing, allowing it to move by only 10mm instead of 20mm when a 100kg load is applied to it. The need for added stiffness means an increase in weight and so we have a large amount of weight added to the nose of the car, which can be problematic in dealing with the regulation regarding the weight distribution of the car.”
More detail can be read below in the full version of the Toro Rosso press release. Of course, there’s more pics, all accessible as 2000px super images and a brief video as well.
Here’s a quick comparison of the last two Red Bull Racing F1 cars, the RB8 and the RB7. We don’t have a lot of comparable pics at this stage, but click on the pic above to launch a 2000px super image.
Despite a poor angle, the change in the nose design is clear to see. In 2012 the front of the nose has had to be lowered to meet new safety regulations, aimed to minimise injury with another driver in the event of a t-bone accident. It’s this which has led to the ‘platypus’ phenomenon we’ve been seeing so far this year.
You can also see the rear end of the RB8 is much neater than the car it replaces, due to changes in exhaust placement specified in this year’s regulations after exhaust blown diffusers were banned.
Red Bull Racing has just unveiled is title-defending RB8 racecar in Jerez. For now we have just two studio images of the most eagerly awaited car in F1. Already we can see the RB8 features the now ubiquitous ‘platypus’ style nose. Click on the pics to view them at 4000px.
The RB8 appears to bring something new to the 2012 nose fad in the form of a small air intake, of sorts, where the nose steps up. Is this an indicator to a further hidden design breakthrough from Adrian Newey?
Probably not, as Newey explains, “The restriction nose height which is a maximum height just in front of the front bulkhead hasn’t really changed the chassis shape very much. We’ve kept more or less the same chassis shape, but had to drop the nose just in front of the front bulkhead, which, in common with many other teams, has led us to I think I’d probably say a slightly ugly looking nose. We’ve tried to style it as best we can, but it’s not a feature you would choose to put in were it not for the regulation.”
Team Principal Chrisitan Horner says building the RB8 progressed smoothly over the winter break.
“This year’s car build has gone fantastically well, and I think it’s the epitome of continuity, continuity across all areas. I think we’ve designed and built this car in a record amount of time, in a ridiculously short amount of time,” said Horner.
“Adrian’s never famous for his drawings being early, but the design team, the production teams, all the associated departments that go into producing these cars, have delivered, and delivered in a fantastic way. We’ve hit our target of being at the first test so, despite the snow over the latter part of this week, I think we’re in great shape for the first test.”
While Mark Webber gives a bit of an insight into what he’s hoping to find when he tests the RB8 later today.
“The characteristics of the RB8 we’re looking for is a car that’s very driveable which means not only from an engine side, Renault are doing a good job there, but also aerodynamically we need a car that’s functional on all circuits in all temperatures and clearly we need to get the best out of the tyres which was a huge thing last year for everybody,” he said.
Full Q&A interviews with Newey, Horner, Webber and, of course, defending World Champion Sebastian Vettel can also be viewed after the break.
We’ll add more pics from the launch and test sessions in Jerez as they become available. You can download the team’s 2012 press kit (3.0mb PDF) direct from the Red Bull website.
[Studio pics: David Clerihew/Red Bull Content Pool]
The Sauber C31 has just been unveiled in Jerez and we learn another platypus has been sacrificed at the 2012 F1 altar. Sauber is entering its 20th F1 season and maintains its driving line up from 2011 with Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez. Similarly the relationship with Ferrari as drivetrain supplier remains.
“The Sauber C31-Ferrari boasts a large number of promising new developments, but in other areas it is a systematic further development of last year’s car,†says Team Principal Peter Sauber.
“We’re aiming to start the new season as strongly as we did in 2011, but then also to maintain this level of performance throughout the year,” he added.
“Our goal is to finish regularly in the points so as to put ourselves in a significantly better position in the World Championship.”
Chief Designer Morris is ready to knuckle down and get testing. “The current plan is to launch a fairly basic roll-out version of the car, which was defined quite some time ago. We will then be testing development parts during the upcoming weeks with a late upgrade for the first race on 18th March in Australia. Therefore the car will look quite different in Melbourne compared to the roll-out car,” Morris explained.
More pics of the C31 can be seen after the break.
The new BMW F10 M5 is about to be released in Australia and soon you’ll be reading reviews around the traps. We’ve not been lucky enough to score a drive just yet but a long-term AUSmotive reader has.
Wayne was invited by BMW to attend a launch event at the Ascari Race Resort in Spain last November and we thought we’d take the opportunity to discover his thoughts on the car. He has plenty of experience with M product over the years, but isn’t wedded to the brand by any means. These are the thoughts of a car enthusiast just like me and you; albeit one with a bit more cash than me and you.
He’s a good sport and we thank Wayne for agreeing to the following Q&A interview. There’s also some first hand videos at the end of the article which complement the text nicely.
Word on the street says this is the new Red Bull Racing RB8 being unloaded at Jerez, where it’s due to be launched tonight (midnight AEDT). Of great interest is discovering if the RB8 will follow the alligator/platypus interpretation of the 2012 regulations, as Caterham, Ferrari, Force India and Lotus have done.
Based on the limited detail you can see in the image above, if the car is indeed the RB8, it appears as though any platypus style nose is more on the conservative side a la the Lotus E20.
Helmut Marko’s words support such a theory too. “Our car is not as ugly as the Ferrari, but it’s also not like the McLaren, which doesn’t have a kink in the nose at all,” Marko told reporters.
“Ours is just a bit smaller and more elegant (than the Ferrari solution),” he added.
We’ll bring you RB8 pics and info later tonight/tomorrow morning.
[Source: Motorsport.com | Pic: F1today.nl | Thanks to Paul for the tip]
UPDATE: Red Bull’s RB8 has now been officially revealed. CLICK HERE for more.
Honda has released a new promo video for the NSX. Pleasingly, it’s not over-produced and there’s no Hollywood style voiceover. There’s lots of old skool footage of the original NSX lapping the Nürburgring Nordschleife before a GT5-style animation of the new NSX concept doing the same. About all we can fault is some of the audio seems a bit out of sync.
The Lotus F1 Team unveiled its 2012 F1 car early this morning. It’s called the E20 and, as you can see, it features the “alligator” style nose we’ve seen already on the Caterham, Ferrari and Force India. We’re not sure if it’s because we’re now getting used to these noses, but the E20’s design doesn’t look too bad.
Of course, 2012 marks a new era for the Lotus F1 Team, which can trace its roots way back Toleman, the team which gave Ayrton Senna his F1 debut. There’s a new name and two new drivers, Kimi Raikonnen and Romain Grosjean. Technical Director, James Allison said: “Romain put in two very promising sessions at the end of last season, having not driven an F1 can for more than a year. He jumped in the car and was immediately competitive with our race drivers at the time, in a quite impressive fashion. I think that has gone a long way to getting him the ride for this year. So we’re looking forward to a strong start with him. Kimi’s recent test in Valencia with the R30 showed that he has lost none of his speed and that he is full of appetite for the season ahead. It is going to be great for us to work with a driver of such clear quality.”
Speaking about his hopes for the E20, Allison is keeping his cards close to his chest. “We’ve worked hard and long on the car. We have tried to react to the regulatory picture as it’s unfolded, but we will only really start to be able to judge how well we have done once we start to run the car in pre-season. Even then we won’t really know until qualifying in Melbourne,” he said.
There’s more pics and detail from Lotus after the break. Towards the end of the material you can also download the team’s 2012 press pack, which is loaded with information, some useful, some not so! You can even relive the launch thanks to a 20 minute video hosted by Jonny Smith from Fifth Gear.
With the official unveilings of new F1 cars taking place it’s a timely reminder that official pre-season testing starts later this week at Jerez, in Spain.
In-season testing returns in 2012, but it has come at the expense of a pre-season slot. That means the teams have less time to prepare before the season kicks off in Australia on 18 March. Although, the in-season test is scheduled after the fourth race, Bahrain, before the teams get stuck into the European races (click here for full 2012 calendar).
Mark Webber will start proceedings for Red Bull in Jerez and let’s hope he has a better and more successful year in 2012.
Official 2012 F1 testing calendar
7–10 February: Circuito Permanente de Jerez, Spain
21–24 February: Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
1–4 March: Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
1–3 May: Mugello Circuit, Italy
Narain Karthikeyan has officially become the last driver signed for the 2012 Formula One season. The 35-year-old Indian has been signed by HRT where he will join fellow old timer 40-year-old Pedro de la Rosa.
Luis Pérez-Sala, Team Principal HRT, is happy to see Karthikeyan back after he started eight races for the team last year. “I am pleased to count with Narain for this season, as he will contribute continuity and stability. He is a quick, intuitive and secure driver who met his expectations despite a lack of continuity last year. Of the eight Grands Prix he contested in 2011, he only failed to finish on one occasion and had a great performance in the last race he took part in,” said Pérez-Sala.
“This is a year in which you could say that the team starts from scratch and everyone’s input will be fundamental,” he added.
Naturally, Karthikeyan is also happy to have secured a full-time gig. “It has taken a lot of hard work to make this happen but I am absolutely elated to feature on the 2012 grid with HRT F1 Team. I was pleased with our strong performance at the Indian Grand Prix, in front of my passionate home fans and I look forward to building on this result in 2012,” Karthikeyan said.
There’s more from HRT after the break, including a Q&A interview with Narain Karthikeyan.