Bit of this, bit of that

Williams became the last team to launch their 2013 car, the FW35. Adrian Sutil had had a seat fitting made at Force India, and are testing the new car in Barcelona, while the Kingfisher Airline owned by team owner Vijay Mallya is in deep financial trouble. Mercedes rejects the claims that they are about to pull out of F1 all together, and Lewis Hamilton has beaten Sebastian Vettel´s time on TopGear.

According to two shareholders of Mercedes, Michael Muders form the fund manager Union and henning Gebhardty, of DWS, the foray into F1 has been to expensive for the Daimler group and the yield is not big enough to continue, they say.

“Mercedes has been behind for years, without consequence,” said Muders. “But Formula One is expensive and brings nothing to the (Daimler) group.”

Gebhardt added: “Formula One no longer enhances the image (of Mercedes), especially if we are in countries criticized of human rights violations.”

Truly some good and valid points and they need to be discussed. But is it a carmakers job to deal with human rights issues? Who draws the line between hat is right and what is wrong? Personally, I think the Bahrain story of 2011 and 2012 was a very good example of how a completely different event drew attention to F1, even though the demand for reforms and basic human right has nothing to do with 24 cars screaming around the desert. Of course the carmakers could and should be concerned about what is going on in the world, and yes I do tink that the event in bahrain was controversial. But a carmakers finest task is to build cars and if they wish, to race them. Don´t race cars and then say it costs too much. You´re in or you´re out.

Mercedes´ new chairman Niki Lauda, rejected the claims from the two shareholders, saying that there are more TV viewers today and there is a lot of growth to be seen, as more and more countries are added to the calendar.

Over at Force India, Adrian Sutil is back. Or is he? The German, who has spent his entire F1 career at the team, when it was known as Midland and Spyker, and knows his way around the team. Sutil was in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, when he was incolved in a nihgt club incident with Genii´s Eric Lux. Sutil was charged with assault, received a suspended 18 month prison sentence and a fine of €200.000. His career looked to be over. But then, as the teams managed to fill their seats, Force India was the only one left with a vacant seat. The call came and Sutil had a seat fitting last week, and he is today testing the brand new car. But there is still no contract for him to race this year.

So, a team in financial distress, a team owner who has not shown up and taken the bull by the horns, not even trying to explain what is going on in his own team, and a experienced driver who is testing their car. For free, it seems. If Force India does not sign Sutil, they are shooting themselves in the foot. Rumour has it that Sutil has secured a sponsorship package worth €8 million, so the money is clearly there. Just sign it, Vijay…

Lewis Hamilton appeared on TopGear recently, and was eager to beat his own previous time in the reasonably priced car. And not only did he do that, he also smashed Sebastian Vettel´s time, who at the time was the fastest time of F1 drivers past and present, with more than a second. Kudos to you, sir.

Finally, Williams launched their FW35 car. it is blue and white. Four wheels. A steering wheel. Ok, so it looks enormously dull, but Mike Coughlan, you remember, the guy with the spy shit some years back, said that the team had made a great deal of dyno testing to ensure reliability. The work also includes a new gearbox new rear suspension, new radiators, a new floor, new exhausts, new bodywork, a new nose and a significant amount of weight-saving.

It will be interesting to see how well Williams will fair this season, considering their improved form last year.

Clever diffuser design for Ferrari

On the third day of testing in Jerez, Felipe Massa managed to climb to the top of the timesheets, with a clear message to the rivals.

On Tuesday, the Brazilian driver, who will stay alongside Fernando Alonso for this year´s campaign, said that the new F138 was on a different planet, commenting on how different the feel and drive was, compared to the 2012 car. And the results didn´t fail to show.

Massa clocked a time at 1:17.879, more than a second faster than Nico Rosberg for Mercedes. And though no clear image can be made from testing, the new diffuser on the Ferrari might have a thing to do with the pace.

According to Massa, the new F138 doesn´t have the corner or traction issues the old car had, and said the 2013 was very different to handle, unlikelast year´s car. Ferrari had a slow start to the 2012 campaign, but will be looking to improve in 2013.

Marco Sørensen close to Lotus test seat

Danish race driver Marco Sørensen, 22, is reportedly very close to signing a deal with the Lotus F1 team, to become their test and reserve driver for 2013, a source says.

Speaking on Danish TV2, the Formula Renault 3.5 Series driver for Lotus revealed that he had some interesting news in a week, but could not yet disclose the nature of it. Sørensen is heavily tipped to become the team´s test driver, after a solid performance for Lotus´ Formula Renault team, picking up 3 podiums and 6th overall in the standings.

Fellow Dane, Kevin Magnussen, son of former Stewart Racing driver Jan Magnussen, also did well in 2012, with 7th overall in the same series as Marco, and is part of McLaren´s Young Driver test programme.

Hamilton crashes brand new Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton has suffered a crash on his first day of testing ofr his new team, Mercedes.

After Tuesday´s test day had to be cut short, due to faulty wiring on Nico Rosberg´s car, Lewis Hamilton did not have much luck either in getting some good laps under his belt. Just 15 laps into the second day of testing in Jerez, the 2008 world champion had a braking issue, which caused hamiltno to lose control of the car at the end of the back straight.

Hamilton was unhurt from the crash and Mercedes are now investigating what went wrong.

De la Rosa signs with Ferrari

Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa has signed a deal with Ferrari, to become their development driver.

The former HRT driver, who until today was unemployed when the Spanish team folded last year, will take on the role as development driver for the Italian marquee, the team said Wednesday. Pedr de la Rosa has had a long career as test and reserve driver, starting at Jordan in 1998, then went to Arrows for 1999 and scored his first championship point in the Australian Grand Prix that year. For 2001 de la Rosa signed a three year deal with Jaguar, but the effort ended with a goodbye a year earlier, as the results didn´t show. Between 2003 and 2009, Pedro de la Rosa was working with McLaren, both as test and reserve driver, but also as race driver. Juan Pablo Montoya injured his shoulder and de la Rosa took over the car, leading to a fifth place in the Bahrain GP.

From 2010 to 2011, de la Rosa was hired by BMW Sauber/Sauber and drove 14 races for the swiss team, was dropped in favour of Nick Heidfeld, a move that was seen as not tought through by Sauber. De la Rosa then replaced Heidfeld as test driver for Pirelli, but was soon back in action when Sergio Perez got injured during the Monaco GP, so the Spaniard raced the Canadian GP, eventually finishing 12th after torrential downpour had red-flagged the race.

Pedro de la Rosa returned to McLaren as test driver for 2011, and for 2012 it was announced that he would form one half of the driver line-up at HRT, the team that never really got the hang of things. As the HRT team folded last year, de la Rosa was without a job, until Ferrari picked him up.

The team also announced that they will reveal their 2013 challenger on February 1, at Maranello, the same day Force India reveals their car.

Petrov or Kobayashi?

There are several new drivers on the 2013 grid and that of course means that there are some other drivers who now doesn´t have a seat anymore.

One is Kamui Kobayashi, the former Sauber driver. The Swiss based team have said their goodbyes to both Sergio Perez and Kamui kobayashi and employed the services of Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Gutierrez, the latter promoted from his role as test and reserve driver.

There are not many race seats left on the grid and HRT is no longer an option, as the hapless team folded shortly after the 2012 season finished. No buyer has shown interest in the scraps and that also means two seats less to fill.

Caterham is taking an awful long time to announce their driver line up. Heikki Kovalainen and Vitaly Petrov are no longer part of the team, instead Charles Pic signed a multi-year deal with the team, but his team mate is yet to be announced. Petrov would be a good choice, but despite reports from germany that the management behind Petrov had secured new large sponsors, Petrov´s manager Oksana kosachenko is no longer that optimistic about a race seat for 2013.

“So far, we haven’t managed to find new sponsors,” said Kosachenko.

“At the moment there are a lot of unanswered questions. There are too many nuances that need to be sorted out. We’re at the waiting stage, which is linked to the team’s restructuring. We completely depend on them and can’t speed anything up.”

And Kamui Kobayashi is also a driver with no seat, despite having secured in the area of £6m, raised by sponsors and fans. Such is the support behind Japan´s most succesful F1 driver in history, but perhaps he has a future at Caterham?

Everything is speculations at this moment, but time is running out. The first pre-season test is on February 5 at Jerez, and it would suit the teams with vacant seats to finalize their driver line-ups and start getting to work. Kobayashi is perhaps not the obvious choice for Caterham, but I personally think that he could be the driver who can move the team forward, not Petrov.

 

A bit of everything

Catching up a little is always a good thing, and now that I have re-booted the blog, slowly but surely, I have decided to make the format a little different than before. Formula One Update originalle started as a gateway to all the relevenat news stories related to F1, I made huge attempts to cover as much as possible and tried to be the first with the story. But I ran out of energy, I didn´t feel I got enough out of the work I did, so for some months the blog has been disabled. Until now.

The idea is that now I try to find some relevant stories whenever I feel like it, and they might not be brand spanking new, but at least you get my weird sense of humour to go along with it, so hey. I will not be covering every angle or every story out there, I just don´t have the time for it. So for now, this is a cozy little project and I hope you feel that you still get something out of it. Enjoy.

Red Bull has become the next team in line to reveal their launch date of their 2013 car, the RB9. The team has admitted that their development on the new car has been somewhat delayed, since they concentrated on getting everything out of the 2012 season, eventually finishing with Sebastian Vettel taking his third consecutive championship. The new car will be revealed on february 3, at the Red Bull factory in Milton Keyes, just two days before the first pre-season test at Jerez, Spain.

Over at Williams, Valtteri Bottas, who has been promoted from test and reserve driver for this season, after Bruno Senna was dropped, says that the un-popular stepped-nose design of the FW34 from last year, will not be on the new car. The frton nose of the FW35, which is the brilliant new name for the 2013 car, will instead be covered by a laminate panel, so the design will look more like a 2011 model, Bottas says.

“In terms of looks, the car is pretty much the same as last year,” Bottas said. “With the new rules, the stepped nose has been straightened. It is the biggest difference in its appearance.

“The new car is a development of last year’s car. There are certain improvements in aerodynamics, we have tried to gain more traction in the corners.”

Williams enjoyed a boost in their confidence in 2012, as the team managed to score points on 15 occasions, 5 for Maldonado and 10 for Senna, leading to 8th in the championship with 76 points. For 2013 Bruno Senna is no longer part of the driver line-up.

New McLaren-Mercedes driver Sergio Perez, who will partner Jenson Button, has said that a mentality change is necessary in order to be competitive at this new level in his career.

“It definitely changes,” Pérez said of his overall approach to racing. “At McLaren, you are not here to just fight for the points. You are here to fight for victories at every single race.

“Your race preparation has to be 100 percent. It has to be 100 percent for all 20 races because at every race you have the opportunity to win. Then you can fight for the championship.”

Perez had a strong season at Sauber, scoring three podium places and finishing his season in 10th place. Throughout 2012 he was rumoured to be replacing Felipe Massa at Ferrari, but the Maranello-based team said that though they really would like to sign the Mexican, he needed a little more time in order to mature as a driver. McLaren snapped up the talented driver, as Lewis Hamilton found a vacant race seat at Mercedes, after Michael Schumacher finally retired his career.

Perez is adamant that he will learn a lot from Button, even though he eventually would like to beat the 2009 champion at some point.

“I have got a lot to learn from him,” Pérez said of Button. “His experience, his knowledge, it will all be useful for me. I am really looking forward to working with a World Champion, a great guy. The whole team has so much respect for him.

“I am looking forward to building my relationship with him, to help the team become the best and to have the best car possible. I think we’ll have a good relationship.”

Perez´ former team mate, Kamui Kobayashi, is without a race seat for 2013, as Sauber opted for a all-new line-up with Esteban Gutierrez and Nico Hulkenberg, but thinks that the japanese driver can find a seat for 2014.

“He’s a great driver and a great guy and someone who can do a very good job for a team,” Perez said. “I feel a bit sorry for him but I’m sure he’ll be back next year because with his speed he should be able to find a good seat and hopefully we’ll have him back.”

Car releases so far

A new season looms, and though the 2012 edition lasted until late November, it´s not to soon to start getting excited.

A few teams have released launch dates so far, but a few others are expected to present theirs at the first day of winter testing, at Jerez on February 5th.

The teams who have confirmed launch dates are:

McLaren-Mercedes January 31

Force India February 1

Ferrari February 1

Sauber February 2

Red Bull February 3 at Jerez

Mercedes February 4

Toro Rosso February 4 at Jerez

Caterham February 5

Williams February 5 at Jerez.

Red Bull, the triple world champions, have said that the development of their 2013 car has been compromised, due to the result of Vettel´s title run-in. The last gasps were made to the very last turn, in order for the team to makke sure, that the German won his third consecutive title.