Red Bull floor not legal!

The FIA on Saturday deemed the Red Bull RB8 illegal, due to the much debated holes in the floor, located in front of the rear tyres.

The decision from the FIA leaves the team with only one week to sort out the fix before the Canadian GP, but lucky for the team it is a relatively easy thing to change.

Red Bull used the floor, and the holes, since Bahrain where Sebastian Vettel won the race and again in Monaco, who had Mark Webber as the winner. Neither of those victories will be affected.

Several teams had raised concerns over the floor, another genius design-feature from Adrian Newey and in Monaco race director Charlie Whiting had declared it within the rules. Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes considered launching an official protest but was advised not to, as it could damage the image of the sport even further, as there have been several incidents between teams and FIA, where a certain part has been deemed legal at first and then illegal the next week. Instead a clarification was called for, and as mentioned, the floor is illegal.

Mere hours before the decision, team principal Christian Horner said:

“The rules are written in such a way that they are open to interpretation and our interpretation of that particular rule was accepted. We were always confident that our car complied fully with the regulations.”

The Guardian reports:

‘However, the FIA statement, which referred to “discussions in Monaco, during which it became clear that certain misunderstandings existed”, was unequivocal, stating, in reference to the location, that “fully enclosed holes may not be located there”.’

Ferrari and Sauber uses very similar holes under their cars, but has a small gap at the edge of the floor, this defines them as ‘slots’, not holes.

Yes, I know…

To learn more about the floor used in Monaco, do make a habit of visiting the excellent ScarbsF1, run by Craig Scarborough. Click here

Official Red Bull Racing Spy app review

Once again I have teamed up with WareWolf, who has made it his mission, well one of his missions, to review the app´s some of the teams have made.

He has already reviewed the Linkin Park GP app, a joint effort with the Lotus GP team for the Monaco race, and this time he is looking at the Red Bull Racing Spy.

To see the full review, just click here.

Monaco – The Day After

When Mark Webber took his second Monaco win on Sunday, he send a message to Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull: I might be number two, but I am faster than Vettel!

The build-up for this year´s Monaco Grand Prix was the usual. Media reported, myself included, about the glamour and the superstars and every single media outlet were as surprised as ever when a Antonio Banderas or a Royal person showed up. The inevitable headlines filled the papers and the websites, but no amount of amazing-ness, a word I picked up from a blog writing about shoes (don´t ask!), could disguise the fact that the race was ultimately a snore fest.

Webber started from pole, his second in the streets of Monaco, bt as the Aussie has had a string of bad starts, most notably in 2011, everyone was looking at Nico Rosberg, starting 2nd, to see if he could leap-frog the Red Bull man. But Webber made a brilliant start, probably the best start he has made in several years and held the other drivers behind him. And so it went. Mark Webber delivered a stunning performance in a place where winning really is everything. He has now fought his way to 3rd in the standings, equal in points with you know who.

Procession, parade, boredom. Well, yes it was. I actually managed to fall asleep a little between lap 56 and 61, which was aok, because nothing happened. But we might be forgetting something. In 2009 everyone was yelling that we need interesting races and overtakings and great drives. Then we got that. Apart form the usual Bore-rain show in that country where ‘nothing is wrong and everyone is doing fine’, seasons 2011 and 2012 so far have been amazing. Simply astonishing to watch. The number of overtakings are through the roof, ok granted it´s pretty much only because of the DRS system, but still. We got what we wanted. We also got surprises this year, with six winners from the first six races, a record. So when we occasionally drop by Monaco to drive around the beautiful, but in reality utterly boring place where absolutely nothing happens 360 days a year, it´s ok to have a little rest.

Driver of the Day: Mark Webber

Naturally it is always easy to give the Driver of the Day to the race winner, but Webber deserved it. He timed the use of the tyres to perfection, he carefully managed how much wear and degradation the tyres encountered and more importantly, knew how to act accordingly. Controlling a race from start to finish is no easy feat, and as the six fastest drivers of the day finished within six seconds, you are beginning to see a pattern here, aren´t you, it was as close as it could get. I did mention that there weren´t much happening on the circuit and overtakings between the front runners were none. ut the pressure that started to mount on Webber towards the end, was immense. He held them off and took the win. Job done.

Best of the Rest: Sebastian Vettel

The German double world champion started 9th and finished in 4th. So not that great, huh? But Vettel was the driver of all the front runners, 1-10, who improved the most, and he drove a careful, well-planned and methodical race. Not great, not amazing in any way, but he scored some vital points.

Best of the Rest Part II: Paul di Resta

The Force India should probably get Vettel´s award, since di Resta improved more. The Scot started 14th and finished 7th, scoring six points in the process and he now has triple the amount of points teammate Nico Hulkenberg has.

Good Impressions: Heikki Kovalainen

Caterham should be very pleased with the result in Monaco. Yes, several cars retired, but only five of the nine cars retired where starting in front of him. The reality is, no matter how you look at it, Kovalainen is slowly but surely driving his way back into the memory of a lot of people. After his stint at McLaren, it was too soon, he should have been able to stay one more season at Renault, Heikki has gotten lost a little in the back rows of F1. But Tony Fernandes and the entire Caterham team has a vision, where Kovalainen is very much in the frame and 13th is a very, very solid performance.

Worst Performance: McLaren

I am very sorry to the many, many McLaren fans out there, but it´s simply not good enough. Race after race this season, we have witnessed how the pit crew have botched so many pit stops, you have to wonder if they have simply forgot how to do it. Lewis Hamilton started 3rd and should have been able to at least keep that, but another pit stop gone bad, means he finished 5th, with a slim to none chance of pushing for a step forward. And Jenson Button started to let his frustrations show, as a rare example of a driver error from the Frome Flyer, send him to the showers with eight laps to go. The mistakes from the team and the inability to get the car to perform as it should, have cost the team at least one victory and more points than I care to think about.

Worst Driver of the Weekend: Pastor Maldonado

He won in Spain, a brilliant win and everyone was so happy for him. But then he basically took all the good things he has built up since then, and flushed it down the toilet. In the final practice, Maldonado made a stupid and completely un-necessary move on Sergio Perez, as first the Mexican tried to steer out of the way of Maldonado, who in turn bumped into the rear of the Sauber and at Portier, on the next lap, Maldonado just cut across the front of Perez´ car, damaging the front wing. Sergio Perez later crashed at Casino, possible due to a damaged rear wheel from  the earlier clash with Maldonado. As a result, the Williams driver received a ten-grid penalty, and I guess it was bad karma or something, because Maldonado had to change his gearbox, and received a further five-grid penalty, meaning he started from the very back.

The Canadian Grand Prix is in two weeks. Last year´s winner Jenson Button, will face an uphill battle if he is to stay on the front row, but can the Lotus duo finally take a win of the season?

Mark Webber celebrates winning the 2012 Monaco Grand Prix.
Copyright Red Bull Racing

Report: Vettel has signed with Ferrari

A possible bombshell has rocked the F1 community, as two British newspapers claims that Sebastian Vettel has already signed a deal to join Ferrari from 2014.

Both The Independent and The Sunday Times claims that double reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel have already signed a pre-contract with the Ferrari team to join them for 2014. Both reports are separate of each other.

“Insiders are adamant that the German has signed an option with Ferrari for 2014, subject to competitive form from the Prancing Horse stable for the rest of 2012,” said the Independent.

Vettel´s team mate, Mark Webber, has just won the Monaco rand Prix, his second victory in the principality, as the Aussie also took a win fro Red Bull here in 2010. Webber has been heavily rumoured to be replacing Felipe Massa for 2013, but only for one season in order to make room for Sergio Perez for 2014.

The Times commented:

“It is not known whether the Vettel option is binding on either side, but if there is a one-year Ferrari vacancy for 2013, it strengthens the case for Webber being the man to fill it.”

Mark Webber wins the 2012 Monaco Grand Prix

Mark Webber on Sunday took his second win in Monaco of his career, after 78 laps of tight and fast racing.

The Aussie started from pole, after Michael Schumacher, who set the fastest qualifying time of all, had a five-grid penalty carried over from Spain, and lead the entire race.

There were close battles here and there throughout the race, but the real close battles came just 8 laps before the chequered flag. Spots of rain started to fall on the track surface, and as Jean-Eric Vergne, who ran 7th, decided to pit for intermediates – a strategy that proved disastrous, the front runners got closer to each other. Six drivers were fighting for the win, with an additional four coming in from behind, battlig among themselves as well.

Nico Rosberg finished in 2nd, after starting 2nd too and Fernando Alonso rounded off the podium in 3rd. Sebastian Vettel ends in 4th, Lewis Hamilton 5th and Felipe Massa takes his best result of the season in 6th. Paul di Resta finished 7th, Nico Hulkenberg 8th, Raikkonen a lowly 9th and Bruno Senna 10th, his third point finish in 2012.

11th is Sergio Perez, Jean-Eric Vergne, who gambled on the tyres in 12th, Heikki Kovalainen in 13th, his best result all year since Italy 2011. 14th is Timo Glock with Narain Karthikeyan as the final finisher in 15th.

Fernando Alonso is leading the championship with 76 pts, ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber tied at 73 pts, Lewis Hamilton has 63 pts in 4th and Nico Rosberg looks good in 5th with 59 pts. Kimi Raikkonen has 51 pts, Jenson Button 44, Romain Grosjean 35, Pastor Maldonado 29, Sergio Perez 22, Paul di Resta 21, Kamui Kobayashi 19, Bruno Senna 15, Felipe Massa 10, Nico Hulkenberg 7, Jean-Eric Vergne 4, Michael Schumacher 2 and Daniel Ricciardo 2.

Are the Red Bulls illegal?

A rumour has appeared in the Monaco paddock on Sunday, just a few hours before the race start. Are the Red Bull´s legal?

Following Ted Kravitz on Twitter, which I would strongly recommend to anyone, you´ll see that at the moment there is speculation that Red Bull might be running with an illegal floor. According to Kravitz, several teams believe that Red Bull has a hole in the floor of the car, right in front of the rear tyre, which might be positioned illegally.

The rules state: “All parts lying on the reference and step planes, in addition to the transition between the two planes, must produce uniform, solid, hard, continuous, rigid (no degree of freedom in relation to the body/chassis unit), impervious surfaces under all circumstances.”

It then adds: “Forward of a line 450mm forward of the rear face of the cockpit entry template, fully enclosed holes are permitted in the surfaces lying on the reference and step planes provided no part of the car is visible through them when viewed from directly below.”

The slots in question are designed in order to get higher energy airflow into the gap between the tyres and diffusers. This helps airflow disruption caused by the rear tyres and helps produce more rear downforce. Something the Red Bulls are in desperate need of.

The changing of the floor is an easy fix, it can be done in a matter of minutes. The question is, will Vettel and Webber start from the pitlane? For now Christian Horner are having a talk with race director Charlie Whiting.

Maldonado: From hero to zero

Pastor Maldonado is probably kicking himself at the moment.

After a decent qualifying round in Monaco on Saturday, where he placed the Williams car in 9th best time, the Venezuelan driver could only watch as he was dropped ten places for cutting across the front of Sergio Perez during practice on Friday. The shunt meant that Perez likely damaged his steering and subsequently, during qualifying, experienced the rotten fortune, of crashing in Monaco for the second consecutive year.

The damage meant that did not progress from Q1, as the left front wheel turned the wrong way after Perez hit the barrier.

As for Maldonado, he didn´t capitalize at all from the accident. He was penalised ten places to start 19th, but the Williams team discovered that there had been too much damage to the car, to the extend that the gearbox needed a change. And that drops Maldonado to 24th.

“The car had a lot of damage in it, to the point where we are having to change the gearbox in it as well,” said the Williams team.

“There was a significant amount of damage to the car, so the guys did a really good job to even get it out for qualifying.”

Read more about the ten place penalty here.

 

Horror in Monaco, driver survives airborne crash – VIDEO

American Conor Daly, driving for Lotus GP in the GP3 Series, was involved in a horrible crash in Monaco on Saturday.

After starting 8th on the grid, was trying to pass Dmitry Suranovich, Marussia Manor Racing for quite some time, and as they came into Mirabeau, Daly got a little too close to the Marussia in front. However, Suranovich was missing his rear wing and was easing off immensely going round the track. But as the drivers came out of Tunnel, with Suranovich blocking and waeving all over the place, Daly suddenly had nowhere to go and hit the back of the Marussia and was airborne.

The accident happened just outisde Tunnel and Daly was a passenger in the car, which were almost standing up with the under-side of the car facing the driving direction. Then it smashed into the barrier, just before Nouvelle Chicane, at which point the car flew over and the chicane and landed hard on the escape road, narrowly missed by Suranovich.

Amazingly, no one was injured, despite two cameramen standing at the tower right next to the action being very close to getting hit. In fact, you might be able to see one of them being a few yards away from being hit by the flying Lotus.