The Formula 1 Blog

  The first official preseason testing for Formula1 2012 Championship is about to get started at Jerez with 11 teams present and Marussia being the bad student.

  The Spanish circuit officials have issues the running order for the event and only nine cars will be allowed to run for the first time, among the runners Mercedes GP will bring to the test the last year car and their main goal is to test the new Pirelli tyres.

  HRT F1 Team will also be present with the F111 and they want to give Pedro de la Rosa as much running time as possible in order get him fit by the time the season will start.

Official running order is as follows:

  The new FW34 from Williams F1 Team will make it’s debut ahead of the official announcement, and will be on the Idiada Circuit situated in Taragona province this Thursday.

  William’s  FW34 will make it’s fist laps on Idiada testing circuit before will be officially presented to the public next Tuesday in Jerez, the word is that the security measures will be tighten in order to prevent any leakage of photo or video materials in the press or on the internet but we remain confident that some spy-pics will emerge, in the same way that autosport.com was able to get a glimpse on Kimi’s first new laps in Formula1.

  Anyway we must take under consideration the meteorological conditions from the circuit and the snow that fell there in the past few days, and even if for now is not much if the weather remains unchanged this session can be postponed or even canceled.

  But we have to remain optimistic and according to the same Spanish websites McLaren can also be present at the same circuit and Oliver Turvey will be the man in charge to take on the circuit the newly presented MP4-27 for the first time and this is not unthinkable because the last year the MP4-26 touched the concrete on the same track before it’s official debut for the 1st Formula1 Championship training so a repetition of the events is highly possible.

   The  McLaren drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, unveiled today in London the new car for 2012 season, the so called MP4-27, a car that has the most updated mechanical systems and a totally reworked rear.
   The presentation took place at the team headquarters in Woking (London), McLaren revealed the appearances and technical characteristics of a car that they think will be able  to challenge Red Bull for both titles this year. The car will touch asphalt for the first time next Tuesday at the Spanish circuit of Jerez.
   The new silver arrow MP4-27, is an evolution of the last year car who won for the McLaren team six World Cup races and finished second in the Constructors Championship while Jenson Button also finished second in driver’s Championship.
   Its main technical innovations are to be seen in the rear part where the body work has been redesigned to improves the aerodynamics of the car and to accommodate an upgraded cooling system, which will improve the oil cooled gearbox. After uncovering Lewis Hamilton described the new McLaren as having "the most refined aesthetics seen in the latest years". Lewis is confident that his 6th season with the British team will be a strong one, and the 2008 world champion said about the team that: "is working from a solid foundation," and "never surrender" and because of this is always "getting stronger".
   Janson Button added that the presentation of the new car shows the "hard work" that the team has put in the construction of the new MP4-27. "We have to thank the guys who have been working overtime this winter to develop this car," said the British pilot, who will be headed now to Jerez for the next week, when the tests will begin and where all can see what MP4-27 is all about.

see more pictures inside…

Read the rest of this entry »

  McLaren has published the provisional dates for our 2012 pre-season test days, so here they are:

Jerez

Barcelona

Barcelona

  After failing in it’s first attempt Scuderia Ferrari passed the mandatory F.I.A. crash test on the second attempt. It leaked into the press that the new car code named 663 had to undergo a test at a technical facility in Bollate, near Milan after failing the first attempt with F.I.A.

  Various sources reported that the monocoque it’s supposedly much lighter than it’s predecessor and that it has been reinforced with additional layers of carbon fiber in order to sustain subsequent side-impact test. According to Spanish newspapers the new carbon fiber addition will have a negligible effect in term of speed, and the new Ferrari car is much expected to be presented at Jerez next month.

  There are unconfirmed rumors that Ferrari’s new “revolutionary” design will have something of a “dolphin nose” similar with what we could see last year at McLaren.

  The new Ferrari will be introduced to the world by Felipe Massa at Jerez, who will drive the car in the first 2 days and then Alonso will take it’s place for the reminder of the test days (also 2), and according to the schedule the two drivers will have similar apparitions at future tests in Barcelona.

  It was also reported that the new Sauber C31 also passed it’s preliminary crash test with F.I.A. for the rear structure of the car. As many of you might know Sauber will continue to be Ferrari powered for 2012 as well. Sauber also announced that they will unveil the new car on the eve of the test day also at Jerez.

Formula 1 racing came into being after World War II. The first great Formula 1 races were held in Italy, France and Great Britain, using pre-war cars. Here are some of the greatest Formula 1 cars of all times.

Scuderia Ferrari
This team of racing cars has an unprecedented 15 driver’s and 16 constructor’s championships. The F2007 won both the World Championship and the Constructor’s Championship in the 2007 season with a Ferrari 700 horsepower V8 engine.

Williams-Renault
The Williams-Renault FW18 was one of the top Formula 1 racing cars in the 1990s. In 1996 it won 12 of its 16 races. It had a Renault V10 engine and was designed by Patrick Head and Adrian Newey for the Williams team.

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes was dominant during the 1980s with its MP 4 series of racing cars. The very successful MP4/2 won 12 races in 1984, and was one of the only Formula 1 cars that used carbon brakes. It had a V6 Turbo engine manufactured by TAG Porsche. The chassis was made of composite materials by the American Hercules Company, a company that specialized in aerospace design.

Alfa Romeo
The Alfa Romeo 158 Alfetta won all of its races in the 1950s championships. It had a V8, 350 horsepower engine hat could run at 8500 rpm.

Ferrari
The 246 was brought out in 1957 and had a V6 engine and won four races with four drivers between 1958 and 1960, and was the last of the Ferrari cars to have a front mounted engine.
The 312T4 of 1979 won that year’s championship with Jody Scheckter as the driver. Gilles Villeneuve came in second in the same model car. Unfortunately, Villeneuve died in a tragic accident during a qualifying race in 1982. The Ferrari 126 C4 of 1984 had a then state of the art chassis of nomex honeycomb with carbon fiber and kevlar panels.

Cooper
The Cooper Climax T 51 of 1959 debuted the rear mounted engine. In 1959 it won the World Championship, driven by Australia’s Jack Brabham. Brabham later won a second championship with the Cooper-Climax T-53, which he helped design.

Brabham
The BT 19 was designed by Brabham and his compatriot Ron Tauranac. It won the championship in 1966 whilst driven by Brabham. The BT 24 of 1967 also won a championship for its year.

Lotus
The Lotus 49 of 1968 had a new Ford-Cosworth engine which powered many champions up till 1983. Driver Jim Clark won three Grand Prix competitions with this model car. The Lotus 72 of 1972, also named the John Player Special, won fifteen races between 1972 and 1974. It had inboard front brakes and a torsion bar suspension.

The Formula1 Blog wants to thank  Nisha, she represents  Wish.co.uk, Nisha loves to write, especially about cars, games and technology. Feel free to visit Wish to look at embarking on the great experiences of life!

Italian magazine Autosprint is linking Red Bull’s aerodynamics chief Peter Prodromou with a move to Mercedes GP.The dominant RB7′s creator Adrian Newey is not interested in switching camps for now, but 42-year-old Prodromou also worked closely alongside the talented Briton at McLaren. Also rumoured this week is that Ferrari’s new technical boss Pat Fry is working on moving two key engineers to the famous Italian team from his former employer McLaren. Finland’s Turun Sanomat and other newspapers even named Fry’s apparent targets: senior aerodynamicist Rupad Darekar and CFD expert Ioannis Veloudis. Sources at Ferrari neither confirmed nor denied the speculation. Much of the credit for Fernando Alonso’s Silverstone win has been credited to recent aerodynamic improvements. "Now with better aerodynamics and better understanding of the tyres, we will constantly improve," Alonso’s race engineer Andrea Stella said. Meanwhile, Italiaracing reports that Force India is in talks with Williams’ departing technical director Sam Michael.

Original article: MadeInMOTORSPORT.com

I must say I liked the race from Sunday it had little bit of everything and if it weren’t for the long race behind the safety cars I think it could have been even more entertaining. We all saw Mark Webber hitting the walls and loosing vital points in his fight for the title, but this was at the beginning what was more interesting happened at the end when Vettel managed to blow his engine only 10 laps to go, and how he did that? well easy pushing the car hard and trying to match Alonso’s great lap times. Read the rest of this entry »

Now the 3rd practice session has ended and what we could see so far is that Kubica will play a major role in the qualifying session. Alonso had a little slowdown on a really fast tour when he need to pass Nico who was running on turtle speed on  the turn 15. Vettel only did 9 laps and his time is far from the top positions only 16th place. Webber was consistent again and manage the 4th place while Massa testing the dirt quality managed again the 6th position. This being said The Formula1 Blog brings you the table in full:

Korea 3rd Practice Results:

The Red Bulls are on the hunt again, after the 1st session when they were a little bit slower now Mark Webber has improved the time considerably, also it seems that McLaren and Renault are the best fitted cars for the long straits and Red Bull is loosing ground there, but Alonso with his Ferrari also cached up in this second session and Massa is keeping his word so far in fighting for top 5 places scoring a 6th place on the second Korean practice.

Korean 2nd Practice Results in full: