Am really psyched...I can't wait for this season to start. It will be one of the most interesting seasons in recent years. I think it will be very close. Mercedes will have an improved car, Red Bull had the best chassis at the end of last season and they surely will be up there again, Ferrari has spent a lot of time developing their new car and they'll be a contender again, McLaren had a great car by the end of last year and they'll keep the Mercedes engine which is probably the best one in the field. The tests haven't started yet, so this might be a bit premature, but I don't expect too much of a difference among these four teams. They will all be strong. Also, the driver's situation will be interesting: Mercedes: Schumacher vs. Rosberg Usually one would think that Schumacher is too old and has been out for too long, but there's no underestimating him. On the other hand, I think that Rosberg is highly talented. This will be the most interesting pairing, at least at first. Red Bull: Vettel vs. Webber One of the strongest pairings. To me, Vettel is the most talented driver in the field (except for Schumacher of course) and Webber has shown that he can compete with the best last season as well. I expect Vettel to do better though. McLaren: Button vs. Hamilton Very interesting as well: The last two champions united. I expect Hamilton to spank Button's butt though. Button is a decent driver but he lucked out last season to be in the dominating car. These two do complement each other rather well though. Hamilton is the more spectacular driver but he also tends to be a hot head at times, Button is the conservative driver. Ferrari: Alonso vs. Massa Massa has had a good season in 2008, but Alonso will be the obvious number one. I'd be surprised if he wouldn't dominate Massa, at least after the first races when he had time to adjust to the Ferrari.
And the new McLaren: Beautiful in a weird kinda way...and more silver than the Mercedes. I know that looks are deceiving here, but it definitely looks fast...I'm now I'm really interested in the Mercedes. R.Brawn has hinted at a very different design for the 2010 car. Apparently they started working on the new car very early on during last season...
I see a bit of variety between those two. I like it. I think I like the McLaren a bit better. Last year, I felt the nose area seemed too squarish onsomeof the cars.With Ferrari,that's still true to some extent, but again, that's the route they've gone, and McL has gone a diffeent route. Variety and thought are evident. F1 is going to put IRL to shame this year. IRL is one make of chassis, " " engine, " " tire,IIRC.
great looking car! one of the most beautiful in F1 ever I think. and yes, it does look like it's going to be fast.
First thing I noticed was in this picture. That front wing looks like it was meant to be at a construction site, or maybe cleaning debris in Haiti. It is just more, or do you think the car looks like it has a rocket engine above the driver. On a more serious note, is the fin connected to the rear wing on the McLaren?
It certainly looks like it... Here are some more: The new Renault: Reminds me of the late Jordan F1 cars
Completely looks like the 30 years anniversary livery used on the R27 in 2007 ! Although I'm glad the diamond brand came back to their traditional colours, I think the design itself could have been better. Petrov in the second seat, nice for him, nice for Russia and nice for the team I guess. They need the dough don't they ? Despite saying that, Vitaly came second in GP2 last year so that's not a scandal after all...Chinese/Dutch Ho-Pin Tung and Belgian Jérôme d'Ambrosio are the reserve drivers and will also race for DAMS which will use the same colour scheme as Renault. I think this team fully accepts being a second tier now... Speaking about Renault, they are the only one with Brawn/Mercedes well and STR) not to have a very high flat nose as for now. With Sauber pushing the envelope quite far ! Looks like feeding the diffuser is such a priority that most designers are ready to use that configuration despite some of its drawbacks like a higher centre of gravity, a weaker rigidity on the front end and a certain sensitivity to 'dirty' air...The latter being exactly the opposite of what FIA intended with the 2009 rules...Merc GP and Renault on the other hand have taken the middle road on the matter even if the former diving nose of the Brawn GP has risen a bit. The double bulge à la Red Bull on the top of the monocoque seem to be a hit too as can be seen on the Ferrari, the Mercedes and of course the Toro Rosso. PS : for disambiguation, we should call the Mercs the 'Silver Arrows' and the Mac Larens should be then named 'Chrome Arrows' !
I guess never before has the first day of testing seen so much attention, mainly for two reasons of course: 1) Because of the strict limits on testing 2) Because of this guy: On a slightly different note, here's a great Q&A with Ross Brawn about Schumacher and Rosberg, the new rules, the new cars, aerodynamics, tires and fuel tanks...very interesting. A couple of other news: The official name of the Sauber team is still BMW Sauber F1 Team. While it shouldn't be a problem to change the name, apparently the team doesn't plan on doing so, even though there are no ties left to BMW. It probably has to do with the troubles the Brawn team had to go through last season after changing the name. Flavio Briatore was against giving the money that would have gone to the Honda team to the now renamed Brawn team, claiming that it was not the same team. In the end, Brawn got the money, but it's very well possible that Sauber doesn't want to risk anything, given that their calculations leave no room for any money loss. The FIA has released the new scheme for allocating points. It's as follows: 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 With the new rules, winning a race will be more important again since the difference between first and second place is now 7 points instead of 2 points. I'm looking forward to that rule change as it should lead to less conservative driving. Also new are a couple of rules regarding tire usage. On the request of Bridgestone, the tire sets per car are reduced from 14 to 11. Also, in order to encourage using the training sessions, the drivers have to return one set of tires after each session. Finally, the top ten drivers will have to start the race on the same tires as they finished qualifying. The idea behind that is similar to the old "no refueling" rule. It's supposed to lead to a more exciting early phase of the race. From next year on, the double diffusors will be history. The diffusor height will be limited to 125mm, down from 175mm. Another thing that'll be interesting is how the teams will react to the ban on refueling. Especially early on in the race it can make a huge difference if one car is considerably lighter than the other. So the engines need to be optimized for fuel consumption as well. I can also imagine that it might make sense to start with less fuel in order to move away from the competition early on, only to reduce engine output later on and save some gas then. Especially for second tier teams this might be a strategy worth looking into.
Interesting looking cars. That sauber sticks out like a sore thumb. Dam that's one ugly looking car. Massa and Ferrari seem to be fast but than again fuels are always a mystery. The new point system is shocking to say the least. F1 just did a 360 after changing it from 10-6-4 to 10-8-6 which according to the FIA was to make it more competitive. So how does 25-18-15-12-10 make things more competitive? Button would of won the championship by mid-season with 25 points a win and only 18 for second. 7 point gap is to big of a gamble for competitiveness. F1 is always dominated by 1 or 2 teams just lately has it been close but history will repeat itself and forget about championships being decided in the last 2 rounds.
25 points for the winner are a bit too much IMO for this point system ; I still think that 20-14-10-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 is better. Plus everybody understands that 20 is the best mark... Anyway, I prefer a point system that rewards victory rather than Bernie's silly medal system ! As for competitiveness, well, it's a dilemma. The 10-8-6 was introduced to prevent Ferrari and MS from taking the championship too early but on the other hand, Button was criticised last year for being very conservative in the second part of the season knowing that he did not have to win, so... Personally unless someone wants a 10-9-8-7-... system in order to have the championship decided as late as possible, I think it's normal to give an incentive to win, after that, it's a question of balance...
New F1 in motion (too bad the aspect ratio ain't right) [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcNYJ3fPZBI"]YouTube- F1 Testing 2010 Valencia 1-2-2010[/ame]
It has got to be deafening to be in the garage as one of those cars starts up. Stationary, the Ferrari sound weird, almost like a dune buggy. What is that spike-ish thing on the top of Farrari's car?
An F1 engine must be the loudest thing I ever heard... The garage thing reminds me of a report which dealt with "ordinary" guys driving an F1. You can do that at Le Mans or Le Castellet with AGS notably, a former F1 team that now specialises in such events. At some point, the journalist described the faces of the people when the engine got started in the garage. They were all jokes and happy to be there but when the engine started, it was more like : "OMFG, I'm gonna drive with THAT in my back..." I don't know how it is now but I guess it hasn't changed much, a few years ago, the idle of an F1 engine was something like 5,000 rpm... Not sure at all. I'd say it's a special antenna for testing that transmits good quality signal at high rate. Another guy thought it was a yaw (roll ? pitch ?) sensor...
Today, Virgin has presented their new car for this season: In other news, Serbian team Stefan GP also announced that they'll present a new F1 car shortly and plan to test it and that they'll send equipment to Bahrain for the first race of the season even though they don't have an entry. Stefan GP's only chance to participate this season is for one of the new teams to fold so that they can take over that spot. Apparently, both USF1 and Campos are still struggling to make it and Stefan would be the first in line to replace either of them. Interestingly, none of the new teams opted to take over the Toyota team which has a fully developed 2010 car. So Stefan jumped in and has bought the Toyota designs for both the chassis as well as the engine. That should give Stefan GP a head start over all the other new teams who are all designing their own cars from scratch. Also, the 2009 Toyota was a decent enough car, so I'd expect the new Stefan car to be ahead of any of the new teams. The team said it will test its car at Portimao on 25-28 February. Also, Stefan has signed former McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan who had to resign after the spying scandal involving McLaren and Ferrari.