Here we go again, another season of Formula 1 images starting in the best place on the calendar, Australia! You can relive the 2015 season opener after the break with our gallery of 89 images, all clickable to 2560px mega image sizing.
Tag: Williams
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2015 Williams FW37 revealed
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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2015 Williams FW37 images revealed
After the Williams FW37 broke cover yesterday we had hoped we’d be able to bring you a great selection of 2560px mega images to you this morning. Alas, we’ve got two new pics we’ve nicked from twitter, a dodgy video animation and a press release from the notoriously image shy Williams Martini Racing outfit.
However, Pat Symonds, Chief Technical Officer, does give us some insight into the FW37: “The notion for the FW37 was to look closely at the FW36 and its performances.
“We then went about recognising what had worked well and identifying and resolving the areas that we felt needed to be improved. Although the aerodynamics of the car were impressive there is always room for improvement particularly as we handle the new 2015 nose regulations.
“The desire to beat Ferrari to third place in the Constructors’ in 2014 meant we pushed our development through to late autumn, but the size of the team is now at a point where it was able to sustain this development whilst still working on the FW37.
“We felt we came up against design barriers in the FW36 and so took the opportunity to remove those barriers for the benefit of the performance. The FW36 carried a reasonable amount of ballast, so we were able to make alterations to the design for added performance without the fear of adding excessive mass.
“The change in regulations offered us a slight headache. The new front bulkhead and nose geometry had much more of an impact than we had initially anticipated and the effect on the aero was profound. The team have worked hard on pulling back the deficit these regulations have made for us.”
We’ll bring you more detail on the FW37 when we can.
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2015 Williams FW37 breaks cover
The 2015 Williams FW37 has quite literally broken cover and will be revealed in full in the latest issue of F1 Racing magazine.
We can see the long droopy nose from the FW36 has been replaced by a stumpy version, which is hopefully the first small step in seeing a grid of F1 cars that we can finally stop laughing at.
We’ll have more for you on the FW37 when we can, along with coverage of all the F1 team launches which will be kicking off later today with the Force India VJM08.
Bruce Thomson is an all round good guy. We know this because he hits our inbox from time to time with some seriously cool automotive drawings. Over the last few days he’s been sharing with the world a few illustrations showing how he would like the F1 cars of 2015 to look.
So far he’s given us the Ferrari F15, McLaren MP4-30, the Mercedes AMG W06 and the Red Bull Racing RB11.
If you follow those links then you’ll be treated to much larger versions of these images where you can further appreciate the detail.
Even better, there’s the promise of a Lotus and Williams concept to follow. Keep up the great work Bruce!
UPDATE 11 January: Now with Williams FW37 and Lotus E23 concepts.
Another Formula 1 season has come and gone and, as usual, it’s been a hell of a ride. Lews Hamilton’s win in Abu Dhabi secured his second world crown and put the perfect exclamation mark on a season of dominance for Mercedes AMG.
It’s a big job for a sole contributor compiling a season’s worth of F1 images too. Apologies for the delay in getting these images to you, but I’m not scared to admit there’s a sense of relief in posting the last gallery of photos for the year.
Never fear, the lure of F1 is great and I’ll be back again in 2015, hope to see you here.
As you might expect the post-race press conference after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was all about the newly crowned world champion Lewis Hamilton. It’s good for the fans that he was on the podium so that we can get a first-hand account of his thoughts after a big season.
Similarly, it would have been nice to see Daniel Ricciardo on the podium so we might have been able to get some more insight into his breakout year in Formula 1. Instead we have to make do with the words supplied to us by Red Bull:
“I think it was pretty much a faultless race from all sides, from the strategy, to myself and the pit stops, everything was good so we did everything we needed to,” Daniel said. “I had fun passing, it wasn’t boring out there, so it was pretty much what I asked for. One spot better would have been nice, but fourth is really cool from the pit lane.
“It’s been pretty much a perfect season, as perfect as it can be without holding a world title, so no real regrets, no complaints. It’s nice to not only start the season well, but to finish it well also and I think all the way through it was good—we had a strong summer as well, so the start, middle and end were pretty good!”
If last summer was a strong one, let’s pray this summer is a bit stronger for Daniel and Red Bull. It will need to be of they’re to catch the all conquering Silver Arrows.
Lewis Hamilton secured his eleventh race win for the season and his second world championship with victory in the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix overnight.
The 29-year-old Briton made a lightning start from P2 on the grid, powering into the lead leaving his championship rival and teammate Nico Rosberg in his wake. Rosberg wasn’t able to mount a serious challenge and his title hopes were dashed mid-race when his ERS system failed, meaning he lost the ability to boost engine performance by 120kW for 33 seconds per lap.
Despite his engineer asking him to retire with two laps to go, Rosberg held on to finish the race having dropped to a lowly P14 and was also lapped by Hamilton.
Felipe Massa made a late charge and although Hamilton’s winning margin was a reasonably slender 2.5 seconds the Williams driver wasn’t able to get close enough to challenge for the lead of the race. In the end Massa will be happy with P2, his highest finishing position this season.
Valtteri Bottas finished third and proved he’s got some serious potential. The 30 points he collected were enough to elevate him to fourth in the world championship.
After starting from the pitlane due an illegal wing used in qualifying Daniel Ricciardo impressed everyone, but surprised noone to charge his way through the field to finish the race in P4. He also set the fastest lap and a podium finish may have been possible had he been able to start from the P5 he qualified in. Still, it’s a been a great year for Daniel and we hope Red Bull is able to provide him with a decent car in 2015.
Jenson Button finished fifth in what could be his final race in Formula 1. It would be a quiet and understated ending for the likeable Brit if that were the case. As a world champion he probably deserved the right to say goodbye, assuming McLaren has already made up its mind on who will drive for the team next year.
The Force India pairing of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez finished in sixth and seventh, ahead of Sebastian Vettel and the Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen.
Hamilton’s win is the 33rd of his career, which now moves him ahead of Fernando Alonso on the all time winners list. In addition to his 2008 title, he now joins Jim Clark (1963, 1965) and Graham Hill (1962, 1968) as Britons who have won two world championships.
Nico Rosberg needs a lot to go right for him this weekend to wrest the world championship from the grasp of Lewis Hamilton and he started well by earning himself pole position for tonight’s race.
Rosberg’s time (1:40.480) was comfortably faster than Hamilton’s (1:40.866) who made a few minor mistakes. It would be easy to say the pressure is getting to Lewis and maybe it is, but if he can stay out of trouble and finish the race he should be celebrating his second world championship.
Valtteri Bottas (1:41.025) edged out a flying Felipe Massa (1:41.119) for P3 but as the image above shows, the only story in town is all about the Lewis v Nico title fight.
Qualifying in P5 and P6 were Red Bull teammates Daniel Ricciardo (1:41.267) and Sebastian Vettel (1:41.893) but they have both been disqualified for running an illegal front wing.
Speaking before the Stewards had disqualified him Ricciardo said: “I’m really happy with quali; we knew after FP3 we had a bit of work to do, but we knew when the sun went down the temperature would drop so we stayed optimistic that our set up would work better in the evening and we made some good changes for that.
“I was the happiest I have been all weekend during quali. We are fairly close to the Williams and not too far off at least one of the Mercs, so not a bad session.”
Daniel and Sebastian will start from the back of the grid and any points they can claim will be a bonus.
The top 10 was rounded out by Daniil Kvyat (1:41.908), Jenson Button (1:41.964), Kimi Raikonnen (1:42.236) and Fernando Alonso (1:42.866).
It will be all eyes on the front of the grid at the start of the grand prix. Lewis Hamilton needs third or better to guarantee his title win. Let’s hope we see an exciting and fair race.
Nico Rosberg’s win at the 2014 Brazilian Grand Prix will give his confidence a nice boost going into the title deciding double points bonanza in Abu Dhabi.
Wouldn’t it be the ultimate troll on British F1 fans if Nico could beat Lewis Hamilton to the title with four fewer race wins!
This morning’s 1–2 result for Mercedes AMG at the Brazilian Grand Prix was their eleventh of the year, the best ever in a single season, eclipsing the 10 1–2 results secured by Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna at the wheel of the legendary McLaren MP4/4 in 1988.
In the post-race presser there was a bit of focus on the history made by Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton. Also of note are some of Hamilton’s answers where he’s clearly trying to get into the mind of Rosberg as the pair head into the title deciding final race in Abu Dhabi.
Meanwhile, in what’s probably his worst race weekend all year, Daniel Ricciardo remained philosophical: “When I went into Turn One, the car went to the right and I knew there was a problem. I came into the pits and the team told me it was suspension failure and we retired.
“It had been a bit of a boring race, we were close to everyone but not close enough to have many fights. It’s a shame, but I had a pretty good run until now, so I can’t be too greedy. It would be good to finish on the podium at the final race of the season.”
The full press conference transcript featuring Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa can be read after the break.
[Pic: Sky Sports F1]
Nico Rosberg has kept his title hopes flickering by winning the Brazilian Grand Prix this morning. He was fast all weekend, he started the race from pole and he was fast when it mattered most. Lewis Hamilton was second, of course. It’s the eleventh 1–2 finish for Mercedes AMG this year.
Rosberg’s winning margin was only 1.4 seconds and but for a spin early on Lewis Hamilton might have overtaken Rosberg during the second round of pitstops. As it stands the Brit takes a 17 point lead into the final race, with a maximum of 50 points for first, 36 points available for second and so on.
Felipe Massa’s good late season form continued and he was able to overcome clumsy tyre change and a five second penalty for speeding in pit lane to finish third in his home race. Jenson Button reminded Ron Dennis that he’s actually a pretty handy driver by finishing fourth (five places ahead of his teammate Kevin Magnussen).
Sebastian Vettel made a clunky start, losing two places, but clawed his way back to fifth, finishing ahead of the Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen. There was a moment late in the race where Alonso was behind Raikkonen and clearly the faster of the two. In the past Ferrari would have paved the way for Alonso to stroll past his teammate, this morning though he was made to earn it. There’s no favours now for the wantaway Spaniard.
Nico Hulkenberg, Kevin Magnussen and Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top 10 in a race that didn’t have any major incidents or excitement it has to be said. If you slept in past your 3am alarm call you didn’t miss much.
Daniel Ricciardo’s race came to an uncustomary early finish on Lap 39 when his front left suspension broke, forcing him into only his second retirement for the year. The other was in Malaysia, where he suffered wing damage late in the race.
In better news for Daniel other results from Sao Paulo mean that he will finish third in the world championship this year; he enjoys a 55 point lead over Sebastian Vettel, who now sits fourth ahead of Fernando Alonso and Valtteri Bottas.
The season will reach its climax in two weeks at Abu Dhabi and with Lewis Hamilton’s title chances looking good the bias and focus on his fortunes during the race from the British media and commentary crews will be nigh on unbearable. C’est la vie. Love or hate Lewis, with 10 race wins already to his name, it’s hard to deny him the championship this year.