Red Bull Racing has put together this nifty video guide for the 2014 F1 season. You’ll see our Daniel and their Sebastian go through the key points of difference between the 2013 cars and the new and so far troublesome RB10. If only the team’s pre-season testing went as smoothly as this!
The Nürburgring has been sold. But not to the American investment firm HIG Capital as first thought, but rather the German-based capricorn group.
With a background in motorsport it appears fans can rest easy that the Nürburgring is in capable and willing hands.
“The buyer will take over and continue to run the business operations of the Nürburgring, with its numerous motor races, music events, tourist and test drives as well as the hotels and holiday facilities,” an official press statement reads.
“The business strategy of the bidder is that the capricorn GROUP will develop and expand the Nürburgring into an Automotive Technology Cluster. This new approach goes well beyond pure motor sport and offers the prospect of further jobs in the region.”
The purchase price for the Ring was in excess of €100 million and capricorn promises to spend up to €25 million on development, which includes the Autmotive Technology Cluster. That’s to say not all of the money assigned for development will be focused on track operations.
Other plans include the dismantling and relocation of the failed ring°racer rollercoaster. Similarly, the controversial ring°card payment system will be scrapped.
Jens Lieser, who helped to oversee the sale explained: “We had two excellent offers that were presented to the creditors’ committee. Finally they opted for the offer that delivered the highest purchase price and good prospects for the region.”
Adam Osieka, a local businessman and active racer at the Ring, who will take on the role of Managing Director under the new ownership regime, said it was key to ensure the people of the Eifel region had a positive future.
“Responsibility for local people and safeguarding the interests of the region are key to sustainable success,” he said. “They are the foundation for the new economic prospects of the Nürburgring. If the Nürburgring does well, then the people in the region also do well.”
Meyrick Cox an English businessman and racer, who was involved in the HIG Capital submission says he hopes capricorn will do well.
“Of course we are disappointed,” said Cox. “We have great experience in this sector, and our consortium runs three circuits already (including the Circuit of the Americas), and has excellent experience with the F1 and music businesses. We hope that the winning bid can do as much good for the Nürburgring as we had planned.”
All 2014 race events and public access days are scheduled to go ahead as planned. Capricorn Nürburgring GmbH will officially takeover on 1 January 2015.
[Source: Bridge to Gantry]
With 16 outright victories at Le Mans you’d reckon knowledge of Porsche’s success was pretty well established. But with its return to La Sarthe later this year Porsche took its most recent winning car, the 911 GT1-98, to the Geneva Motor Show to remind us of its race winning heritage all the same.
Finding archival footage of the 911 GT1 on the Tubes is not the easiest thing. Especially if you’re trying to find a decent clip of the car winning the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans.
We’ve assembled the best we could get our hands on, including a clip from the 1998 Petit Le Mans, and now see the pedigree which attracted Mark Webber to sign with Porsche. He should feel right at home!
There’s also a clip from Evo‘s Henry Catchpole talking about his time behind the wheel of a 911 GT1 strassenversion.
Clichés are usually so entrenched they cannot be avoided. In Rally Mexico three clichés became clear: 1. Sebastien Ogier wins rallies; 2. the winner in Mexico MUST wear a sombrero; and 3. Robert Kubica rolls rally cars.
Business as usual, then, it would appear. Although, Ogier did have to overcome Citroën’s Mads Ostberg on Day 1 to claim the lead, before once again settling into what appeared to be a controlled rhythm of excellence.
Ostberg’s challenge ended on Day 2 after his car suffered suspension damage as Ogier began to sieze control of the rally. The reigning world champion eventually won by more than 70 seconds from teammate Jarri-Matti Latvala. Meanwhile, Ostberg struggled on to finish ninth.
In a boost for the sport Thierry Neuville achieved Hyundai’s first WRC podium, despite being more than five minutes behind the race winner. Neuville’s joy was almost short lived, though, with a holed radiator after the final stage almost making him late for time control, which would have denied him of that podium result. Some quick thinking and repairs aided by a bottle of Corona to top up the radiator were enough to bring Neuville home.
Chris Atkinson got his first taste of Hyundai’s teething problems on Day 1 when a suspension arm broke for no apparent reason, sending him down the leaderboard. It was a precursor to a raft of issues and he did well to fight back and earn the team some solid points thanks to a seventh place finish.
Ford’s hopes were carried by youngster Elfyn Evans who recorded his best WRC result with P4, with Mikko Hirvonen well behind in eighth place after an alternator problem ended his assault on Day 1. Robert Kubica rolled his car heavily twice, first on Day 1 and again the following day.
Kubica wasn’t alone, with Volkswagen’s Andreas Mikkelesen missing a pace note and flipping his Polo in spectacular fashion. Amazingly he landed on his wheels and was able to finish the stage, but not much more. Kris Meeke endured a troubled event in his Citroën and finished outside the top 10.
Ogier now resumes the lead of the world championship, three points ahead of Latvala, both are comfortably ahead of Ostberg in third.
The next rally will be held in Portugal across the first weekend in April, where we hope Hyundai can continue to push for another strong result. Or that anyone can make Volkswagen fight for victory.
The official Formula 1 website is pushing the official Formula 1 app for iOS (Android version coming soon). It’s available as a free download, which includes live lap times for individual drivers, lap numbers, sector classifications as well as news items and text-based commentary.
If you’re willing to pay the AU$11.49 price for the premium version of the app you’ll be rewarded with the ability to customise timing screens; monitor in-corner analysis to compare throttle positions, braking points and speeds; tune into team radio broadcasts exclusive to the app; watch DRS monitoring; read live updates from Race Control; check each driver’s tyre history and more, plus it can be all rounded out with live audio commentary.
Sounds pretty good. As an added bonus the app is much cheaper than previous years. And it’s not very often you say that about F1.
[Source: Formula1.com]
Several media outlets are reporting that doctors treating Michael Schumacher have told his family “only a miracle” can save him. Although respected former F1 doctor Gary Hartstein rejects claims doctors would use such a term.
In his blog Hartstein states: “Doctors, no matter their spiritual bent, do NOT talk to patient’s families about miracles saving anyone. Ever. From a practical viewpoint, this gives a patient’s family absolutely NO useful information on which to act.”
Officially, Schumcher’s publicist Sabine Kehm released a statement on Friday which read in part: “Michael is still in a wake up phase, the situation has not altered.”
Alas, that line of response from Kehm for too long now, perhaps that’s as much a tactic to try and get the media to give Schumacher’s family some space as it keeping his fans up to date. However, hopes for Michael achieving a full recovery after his skiing accident on 29 December 2013 must surely be very faint now.
Hartstein concluded his thoughts by saying: “And again, despite a day during which we’ve been told Michael is breathing on his own AND that it would take a miracle to save him, we know nothing more than we knew yesterday or the day before.”
[Source: SMH & Former F1 doc | Pic: Mercedes AMG]
The Williams F1 Team was expected to announce a new sponsorship deal with Martini and that confirmation came through overnight. With that news comes a host of images bringing us the latest interpretation of the classic Martini racing stripes, as applied to the 2014 FW36.
Sir Frank Williams spoke with optimism about the season ahead as well as the team’s new commercial partner. “2014 is going to be a fascinating season, with regulation changes of this scale often shaking up the grid and creating opportunities for teams to make a good step forward,” he said. “Over the winter we have proved our ambition by making a number of positive changes; we welcome a new driver pairing, new senior technical personnel, and a number of new commercial partners for 2014.
“In Martini we have a brand that shares a passion for motor racing and winning championships. This partnership is a milestone in our history and we look forward to working closely with MARTINI over the coming years.”
More photos of the new Martini livery and the full press statement from Williams Martini Racing can be seen after the break.
Porsche has now released preliminary details for the 919 Hybrid, following the earlier leak. Not much else to add except to invite you to check out the images and information after the break.
Pics are also included for the 2014-spec 911 RSR which will fight for Porsche in the GTE Pro class during the FIA World Endurance Championship.
The full press kit from Porsche at the Geneva Motor Show is available below as well.
Porsche will be officially unveiling its 919 Hybrid LMP1 challenger at Geneva in the next 24 hours, but as is the way these days images have already surfaced online.
We thought there might have been some Red Bull livery somewhere on there with the arrival of Mark Webber to the team. As yet that’s not the case.
Power for the 919 comes thanks to a 2.0 lite V4 petrol engine and a whole bunch of electric gubbins harvesting, storing and releasing power. It will make its race debut at the 6 Hours of Silverstone on 20 April.
Oh yeah, there’s also the new 911 RSR, which looks massive alongside the 919. We’ll bring you more when Porsche says we can.
[Source: Autocar]
Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes-Benz walk away from the final day of F1 pre-season testing with their heads held high. Lewis (1:33.278) finished the day on top of the timesheets, just 0.02s off Felipe Massa’s fastest time at Bahrain during testing. While Mercedes AMG completed 4973km of testing in all, more than any other team.
Hamilton had a delayed start to his day with a gearbox issue, but was able to put that behind him with most of his running done during the afternoon session which was peppered with red flag stoppages.
“This has definitely been the most challenging winter I’ve experienced and the car is still very much a work in progress,” Lewis said. “But we’ve learnt a lot over the course of these last few weeks and overall it’s been a good winter of testing for us.
“There’s been an incredible amount of work put in by the team back at the two factories and on track. I have to say a special thanks to the crew here today who had a tough task in front of them but never lost their cool.
“It was a tough start to the day but they managed to get the car turned around for me to complete some good laps in the afternoon, which was a fantastic effort.”
Valtteri Bottas (1:33.987) went second fastest for the increasingly confident Williams team. That’s despite an old skool engine failure for Bottas right near the end of the day, which was extended by 25 minutes to make up for the lost time due to red flags.
A transmission problem interrupted the day of Fernando Alonso (1:34.280), but not enough to stop him from registering the third best time. A little over a second behind was Nico Hulkenberg (1:35.577) in the always thereabouts Force India.
Fifth fastest was Jean-Eric Vergne (1:35.701) who was pleased his testing ended with a 77-lap haul. Sauber ran both of its drivers for an incredible combined tally of 177 laps. Adrian Sutil (1:36.467) took the intra-team honours with the sixth fastest time and 91 laps. Esteban Gutierrez (1:37.303) went eighth fastest during his 86 laps.
The Sauber pair were split by Marussia’s Max Chilton (1:36.835). Sebastian Vettel (1:37.468) was ninth fastest, but his overall pace won’t have been a huge concern with track time the aim for Red Bull. He managed 44 laps in the morning session and a further 33 after lunch. That was his best result, in terms of mileage, during testing and much better than the day in the garage he spent on Saturday.
Jenson Button (1:38.111) ended testing on a relatively sour note for McLaren who have been used to being at the pointy end. Button managed just 22 laps and his day was curtailed by an engine failure and an unspecified electronics fault.
There was no surprise to see a couple of Renault-powered runners at the foot of the timesheets. As usual mileage wasn’t a problem for Caterham and Kamui Kobayashi (1:38.391) racked up 106 slow laps.
Romain Grosjean (1:39.302) and Lotus have the indignity of the day’s slowest time and whether or not they think they’ve suffered by being absent from the opening four days in Jerez they clearly have a lot of work ahead of them.
However, Lotus is not alone there. All teams are speaking very cautiously about their prospects in Melbourne and while this is normal behaviour after F1 winter testing there’s a definite sense that we’re about to head into the unknown when the cars head out on the Albert Park circuit.
There’s less than two to go now and, like you, we can hardly wait!
Young Kiwi Scott McLaughlin has been making waves in V8 Supercars and his dice with Jamie Whincup in Race 2 of the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide yesterday has helped put his new car, the Volvo S60 Polestar on the map.
The final lap of Race 2 saw a balls to the wall fight between McLaughlin and Whincup. And just when you thought it was all over a rookie mistake handed the sport a massive boost going into a new season.
Make sure you tune in for McLaughlin’s post-race interview.
Felipe Massa topped the timesheets for Williams on the second last day of pre-season testing overnight. His time of 1:33.258 is the quickest lap posted at Bahrain in seven days of testing.
“We did a lot more performance work in the car which is something that we haven’t done so much of so far,” Felipe explained. “I’m really happy with the car and feel we found a good balance. We did so much work on the set-up but it is very important that we go to Australia prepared.
“You can never be sure that you are 100% ready for the first race, but I feel that what we have done in these days testing has been important for making sure that we have a car that can not only get to the end of the race, but that will have good performance as well.”
Meanwhile, at Red Bull it was a total disaster. Sebastian Vettel was three hours late onto the Sakhir circuit and when he did finally emerge he could only manage half a lap due to an “electrical fault”. Red Bull worked on the car and got him out again, this time though, he didn’t even make it to the end of pit lane. The fault was pinned down to a “leak” according to Andy Damerum, Race Engineering Co-ordinator. And that was the end of Sebastian’s day!
“We can just hope for a better day tomorrow and then to have a decent start to the season in Melbourne but at this stage obviously reliability is still a big question mark,” a forlorn Vettel said. “It’s difficult to say how long it will take to remedy. I think some things will just come down to the fact that in two weeks’ time we’ll have lots of new parts on the car.
“We’ve had some damage because of the problems we’ve had here and the parts aren’t available overnight, so from that side I think things will get better over the next couple of weeks. We obviously haven’t done much running but from the little we have done has been quite promising, so I think once we get going the speed should be OK.”
Elsewhere things were better for Nico Rosberg (1:33.484) who overcame an early engine change to complete 103 laps and set the second fastest time. A couple of seconds back was Kimi Raikkonen (1:35.426) in the Ferrari, who managed 87 laps but was still unhappy with his lot. Thank goodness he didn’t go to Red Bull!
Two F1 rookies were next in the always impressive Kevin Magnussen (McLaren, 1:35.894) and Daniil Kvyat (Toro Ross, 1:36.113). For a brief moment Kvyat’s time was on top of the lap charts but he’ll be more than happy with his 81 laps, the most time he’s had in an F1 car so far this winter.
Nico Hulkenberg (1:36.113) oversaw another solid day for Force India with the sixth fastest time, while Jules Bianchi (1:37.087) and Marussia will be enjoying the rarified air found further up the order than they’re used to being.
Marcus Ericcson (1:38.083) totalled 117 laps which tends to mask the issues being suffered by the Renault-powered teams. Caterham has covered the most miles of the Renault teams so far this the pre-season, they’re just way off the pace.
Ninth fastest was Romain Grosjean (1:42.166) who got an early shower after just 33 laps and seeing the Lotus E22 fail due to an MGU-K fault.
Then came the woes of Adrian Sutil who smoked the engine of his Sauber C33 after just one lap and the lapless Vettel right at the bottom of the timesheets.
One day of testing left and a lifetime of problems facing Red Bull. Can they recover?