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Formula 1

F1 winter testing: Jerez day 3

Felipe Nasr, Sauber C34, Jerez

Sauber’s F1 rookie Felipe Nasr (1:21.545) has kept Ferrari power at the top of the timesheets in Jerez overnight. He completed 109 laps overall and this is in stark contrast to pre-season testing last year when cars were falling over themselves to break down first.

Kimi Raikkonen (1:21.750) went second fastest and managed 94 laps in his SF15-T. Nico Rosberg again covered more miles than any other driver doing 151 laps and setting the third best time (1:21.982).

The fourth best time was set by Felipe Massa (1:22.276) who racked up 71 laps. Half a second behind was Pastor Maldonado (1:22.713) in the Lotus E23. He managed 96 valuable laps.

Carlos Sainz Jr managed the most laps of the two Renault-powered teams, 137 in all, and went sixth fastest (1:23.187). Daniel Ricciardo had a slow start to the day after his RB11 was given a new engine. He was not chasing outright pace and went seventh quickest (1:23.901), managing 49 laps.

“Although we were limited with running today, we got some long runs together and that was encouraging,” said Daniel. “I was happy to do some 10–15 lap runs as that’s always where you get a better understanding of the car.

“I think the consistency today was good, we put a few laps together in the end, so a few positives to take away from today.”

McLaren took its place at the bottom of the pile, with Fernando Alonso some 14 seconds off the pace (1:35.553). Still, he’ll be pleased that he managed to complete 32 laps. The Honda-powered McLarens have a long way to go although the team remains bullish and says its happy with the progress being made.

“Operationally, we’ve already covered everything in our programme,” enthused Eric Boullier, McLaren racing director. “But what’s even more positive is that we’ve been able to carry out a number of longer runs. They’ve shown us that the car doesn’t have any conceptual or architectural issues.”

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Formula 1

F1 winter testing: Jerez day 2

Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari SF15-T, Jerez

Sebastian Vettel has kept himself and Ferrari atop the lap charts in Jerez overnight, going fastest (1:20.984) for the second day running. The four-time champ knows it’s far too early to get excited about his season’s prospects yet, but admits “we have a good basis to work from.”

Inclement weather late in the day interrupted proceedings although some teams did get some testing done on intermediate tyres.

Before the rain set in Sauber also showed it’s relative pace on day 1 was no fluke, with rookie Felipe Nasr (1:21.867) posting the second best time during his first day as a bona fide F1 driver. Around half a second back was Valtteri Bottas (1:22.319) for Williams in the first of the Mercedes powered cars.

Lewis Hamilton enjoyed his first day out for Mercedes AMG in 2015, racking up 91 laps, more than anyone else and laying down the fourth quickest time of the day (1:22.490).

The baby of the bunch, 17-year-old Max Verstappen, managed 73 useful laps for Toro Rosso and was fifth fastest (1:24.167). In its track debut with the Mercedes power unit Lotus notched up 41 laps with Pastor Maldonado at the wheel. His best time (1:25.802) was the last of the meaningful laps with Jenson Button (1:54.655) and Daniil Kvyat (No time) having difficult days.

McLaren hopes to have a better day tomorrow with Yasuhisa Arai, Honda’s chief motorsport officer, telling journalists, “Today was another tricky day, but we feel like we’ve overcome the main issue that affected our running during the first two days of the test. For tomorrow, we’re hopeful that we’ve moved on, and that we can get some more laps completed.”

Meanwhile, Daniil Kyvat’s Red Bull career got off to an embarrassing start when he clipped a wall on his out lap and broke the front wing. At this early stage of the year the team did not have a replacement readily available and he had to make do testing other aspects of the car.

Red Bull will have a replacement wing ready for day 3 of testing which begins late tonight (Australian time).

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Formula 1

F1 winter testing: Jerez day 1

Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari SF15-T, Jerez

Sebastian Vettel has started his Ferrari career on a high after setting the fastest time (1:22.620) on the opening day of pre-season testing in Jerez.

Ferrari power proved strong, with Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson going second fastest (1:22.777). You get the sense though, even this early on, that Mercedes is just playing with its rivals. Nico Rosberg completed 157 laps, more than Vettel and Ericsson combined, and bossed the morning session setting the quickest time and third best overall (1:23.106).

Daniel Ricciardo was fourth fastest (1:23.338) in the RB11. The young Aussie completed 35 laps and his day ended in the afternoon due to an undisclosed technical glitch.

“We got going pretty well this morning and I got a few laps under my belt,” said Daniel. “I can feel a step forward. I won’t go into too much detail but it’s there. We didn’t do a whole lot of laps but definitely more than at this test last year!”

Red Bull can expect a much closer relationship with engine provider Renault in 2015 now that it is in effect Renault’s sole customer, in conjunction with its junior Toro Rosso team.

Valtteri Bottas tallied up a handy 73 laps for Williams and posted the fifth best time (1:23.906). Carlos Sainz Jr finished his first full day on track as an F1 driver with the sixth fastest lap (1:25.327) in the STR10.

The slowest time of the day was left to Fernando Alonso (1:40.738) who was well off the pace in the McLaren-Honda. The dual world champ managed just six laps and it’s likely to be a difficult pre-season for the MP4-30.

Force India has chosen to delay its first pre-season appearance until Barcelona (19 February). Meanwhile, Lotus is trackside in Jerez and says it expects to debut its E23 on Tuesday.

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Formula 1 Mercedes-Benz

2015 Mercedes AMG F1 W06 revealed

2015 Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 W06

After showing off its new car via twitter last week Mercedes AMG went with a low key launch for its 2015 Formula 1 car on the morning of testing in Jerez.

World champion Lewis Hamilton and teammate Nico Rosberg were on hand to take the covers off the F1 W06 Hybrid for the second time. Rosberg then took to the track to begin the car’s official test season.

Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport says his team will not be taking anything for granted as it prepares to defend its dominant 2014 season.

“From outside, winter might look like a rest time in Formula 1. But this couldn’t be further from the truth,” Wolff said. “Long before the end of last season, development work on our 2015 car became the main priority. The winter months are the most intense, with everybody at Brackley and Brixworth working around the clock to prepare for the season ahead.

“There’s a famous Babe Ruth quote I always say to people: ‘Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.’ We are fully aware that success is not only hard won but can also be short-lived without the right approach.”

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Formula 1

2015 Williams FW37 revealed

2015 Williams FW37

Williams has released this single image of its new FW37 on the morning of its track debut in pre-season testing. Pretty stingy, hey! And it’s not even 2000px in size.

Truth be told, the pictorial offerings from Williams have been pretty tight since Martini began to sponsor them.

It’s okay, there is a video of the car launch, too. Just don’t blink!

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Formula 1 Red Bull Racing

2015 Red Bull RB11 almost revealed

2015 Red Bull Racing RB11

Day one of Formula 1 pre-season testing is currently underway in Jerez and without any fanfare or launch of any kind Daniel Ricciardo simply wheeled out of the pits and drove onto the circuit.

And with that the 2015 RB11 was revealed. Well, kind of.

As you can see, for reasons best known to them, Red Bull has chosen to run with a temporary camouflage livery. They do say that, obvious nose change aside, most changes to the car compared with the RB10 have been made under the skin.

Outwardly Red Bull has been rushed in its preparation of the RB11 and has only just had its chassis’ crash tests approved. Team boss Christian Horner is downplaying any such talk, of course.

“We’ve been pushing to the limit as usual,” Horner said. “We had a very tight timescale for the car to be prepared in time for the first test, but that’s normal in this team.

“If you’re not on the limit you’re not trying hard enough.”

Daniel Ricciardo is keen to build on his stellar 2014 season and is itching to get back on track.

“There was plenty of pressure on me last year to prove myself in a top team,” Ricciardo said. “I think everyone knows now what I’m capable of so I’m excited—excited to build on what we achieved in 2014 and ready to give Mercedes a good fight.”

Young Daniel will be joined by an even younger Daniil this year and the expectation will be that D1 is faster than D2. We look forward to seeing how this intra-team rivalry pans out.

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Formula 1 Toro Rosso

2015 Toro Rosso STR10 revealed

2015 Toro Rosso STR10

The creche of Forumla 1, otherwise known as Toro Rosso, has taken the covers of the STR10. Ten, of course, being the combined age of rookie drivers Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr.

Actually, this car looks pretty damn good. Indeed most of the cars from the class of 2015 look the goods, under the terrible paint jobs at least.

Franz Tost, Team Principal, is keen for a big year and has set the pass mark for his pupils at fifth place in the constructors’championship.

Last year STR finished seventh in the constructors’ race. Its best finish was sixth in 2008 when some punk called Vettel was racing for them and notched up the team’s single race win.

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Fenix Formula 1

2015 Ferrari SF15-T revealed

2015 Ferrari SF15-T

Ferrari has unveiled its new 2015 Formula 1 car, the SF15-T. It’s a big year for the Scuderia as it hopes to make up for the disappointment of 2014, which saw its lead driver depart and two Team Principals get the arse.

Leading the charge in 2015 is new Team Principal Maurizio Arrivabene who will have two pretty healthy egos to play with. Those, of course, belong to four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel and one-time champ Kimi Raikkonen.

The Vettel to Ferrari narrative will be one of the big stories of the forthcoming season. We hope to learn if he’s as good as his breathatking record suggests, or was he simply the right guy at the right time to benefit from the genius of Adrian Newey?

Arrivabene has targeted two race wins for the team this season and when targets like that are made public it’s fun for all of us seeing if they can be achieved.

Bring on 2015!

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Formula 1

2015 Sauber C34 revealed

2015 Sauber C34

Well, hallelujah to Sauber! They’ve got no money, no hope and no chance of achieveing great things in 2015. But they’ve had a decent crack at livening up the grid with a new livery that, in some ways, takes us back to the halcyon days of Formula 1 with a hint of Williams-Renault.

The new C34-Ferrari will be at the first test in Jerez next week. It will still rely on some parts from the C33, with the team planning to introduce upgrades across the pre-season.

Sauber is F1’s perennial underdog, the team is entering its 23rd season and this year it’s with an all-new driver lineup. Swede Marcus Ericsson is back for his second year in F1 and he will be joined by Brazilian rookie Felipe Nasr.

It’s difficult to not have a soft spot Sauber. The team had a disappointing season last year and we hope they return to form in 2015.

Go Sauber!

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Formula 1 Mercedes-Benz

2015 Mercedes AMG W06 previewed

2015 Mercedes AMG W06

The Mercedes AMG F1 team has all but revealed its title-defending F1 W06 Hybrid with a couple of images first published to twitter. The official unveiling is not due until the morning of the opening day of testing in Jerez on Monday, 1 February.

Briefly on track for a filming day at Silverstone the 2015-spec F1 W06 managed to complete 18 laps with Nico Rosberg at the wheel before inclement weather brought a halt to proceedings.

From what we can see here, and below, it’s quite a nice looking and sounding car.

[Source: Mercedes AMG]

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Formula 1 Honda McLaren

2015 McLaren MP4-30 revealed

2015 McLaren-Honda MP4-30

McLaren luanched its 2015 Formula 1 car overnight, the MP4-30. The biggest development, of course, is the use of the Honda RA615H Hybrid power unit.

McLaren-Honda, there’s a lot of great memories in those two names. Cigarette sponsorship gave those cars from the late 1980s and early 1990s an evocative red and white livery. The marketing spin says the 2015 livery is an “evolved colour scheme that firmly contextualises McLaren’s brand in the 21st century.”

We don’t like it at all.

McLaren had a great opportunity to really leverage of the enormous goodwill from its first partnership with Honda by creating a new and unique livery that not only looked great but also stood out on the grid.

Instead we get this bland half-arsed attempt to blend two looks that was never going to work.

Thankfully, the car itself looks okay, and that horrible nose from the MP4-29 has been removed. Fingers crossed for McLaren, for Honda and for everyone in Formula 1 that the MP4-30 has a great year ahead.

It’s great to have Honda back!

The other big move for McLaren is the return of Fernando Alonso. His first stint with the team was a bit of a disaster in terms of fitting in with the team’s strong personalities. Alonso is a damn good driver, let’s see if he’s a truly great driver.

Waiting for you after the break is a number of videos, more photos of the new car and a couple of press releases for you to download.

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Formula 1 McLaren Video

Jenson and Fernando ham it up

Back to the racetrack

Someone at McLaren has forced Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso to play it up on camera for a pre-season promo. At least we hope they were forced to take part in this Back to the Future spoof.

It’s a bit of harmless fun, of course, and let’s hope the McLaren-Honda partnership is more than a nostalgic memory. Also worth noting the black and silver clothing worn by the leading men.

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