Formula 1 - Archive Thread

[Iceman]

Right thats me out of here, my dad is watching on Setanta Sports and I wanna watch on the Beeb so retreating to my room, hopefully I'll be back and Fernando and the Tifosi will be cheering

[Iceman]

Congratulations to Red Bull 2010 Constructors Champions.

Abu Dhabi gonna be crazy

[Iceman]

Next Weekend either Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber or Fernando Alonso will be the World Drivers Champion. Going to be crazy

[Iceman]

Ive merged the 2010 threads, gives a great view on the season as a whole.......will merge with F1 thread aswell after the last race.

[Iceman]

Hamilton wants Webber as WDChampion :D

[Iceman]

Holy ****

Weather forecast says WET Qulaifying, YES WET!

gonna be epic

[ange7]

Hamilton wants Webber as WDChampion :D
lol, that surprised me given their crashes in Australia and Singapore.


points calculator for the last race...
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/championship-calculator/

...this one will be massive.

[Iceman]

If Hamilton wins, Vettel is third, webber is 6th and Alonso doesnt finish it ends up like this:

Hamilton 247
Alonso 246
Webber 246
Vettel 246

:shocked:

[Niamh.]

Fingers crossed for Webber and if not him Vettel!

[Iceman]

Fingers crossed for Webber and if not him Vettel!

Webber or Alonso for me, webber because he's been treated so badly by the team this season and Alonso cause even though I hate him I was a ferrari supporter for all of my life until this year. It's going to be a nerve racking race though.

[ange7]

If Hamilton wins, Vettel is third, webber is 6th and Alonso doesnt finish it ends up like this:

Hamilton 247
Alonso 246
Webber 246
Vettel 246

:shocked:

lol ... odds for that must be 2000 to 1. But if he wins that's fine. If Vettel wins I'll be pi**ed. The German owners treat him like a golden boy :P
Go old man Webber!...this has got to be his last chance at a championship.

[Niamh.]

Webber or Alonso for me, webber because he's been treated so badly by the team this season and Alonso cause even though I hate him I was a ferrari supporter for all of my life until this year. It's going to be a nerve racking race though.

yeah that's why I've switched from Vettel to Webber as well, plus as ange said it's probably his last go at it, Vettel will win another time.

Gav is hoping for Alonso

[Iceman]

lol ... odds for that must be 2000 to 1. But if he wins that's fine. If Vettel wins I'll be pi**ed. The German owners treat him like a golden boy :P
Go old man Webber!...this has got to be his last chance at a championship.

Yeah I pray webber wins, I think even if your not a fan people can see he's tried the hardest this year with a team that are against him......

[Iceman]

yeah that's why I've switched from Vettel to Webber as well, plus as ange said it's probably his last go at it, Vettel will win another time.

Gav is hoping for Alonso apparently its going to be a wet qualifying :shocked:

I want webber to win, celebrate with his mechanics and then say to Christian Horner "**** off I quit, mate"

[Niamh.]

apparently its going to be a wet qualifying :shocked:

I want webber to win, celebrate with his mechanics and then say to Christian Horner "**** off I quit, mate"

that's good for Hamilton:bawling:

and yeah, definitely, he seems like such a nice humble kind of a fella too!

[Iceman]

that's good for Hamilton:bawling:

and yeah, definitely, he seems like such a nice humble kind of a fella too!

I think he is, I mean when they took the rear wing off his car and gave it to vettel that was just :nono:, I love how he always comes out stronger than Vettel under pressure......

also hamilton has no pressure now so he could be the dark horse......:devil:

[Niamh.]

I think he is, I mean when they took the rear wing off his car and gave it to vettel that was just :nono:, I love how he always comes out stronger than Vettel under pressure......

also hamilton has no pressure now so he could be the dark horse......:devil:

Yeah that was awful, and did I imagine the fact that when Red Bull won the championship after last weeks race they only said well done to Vettel? eventhough Webber came second and is beating Vettel on points?

I hope Hamilton doesn't win he annoys me:devil:

[Iceman]

Yeah that was awful, and did I imagine the fact that when Red Bull won the championship after last weeks race they only said well done to Vettel? eventhough Webber came second and is beating Vettel on points?

I hope Hamilton doesn't win he annoys me:devil:

He annoys me too but I've come to like him, he isn't as arrogant anymore and doesn't come across as a twat! :D

[ange7]

that's good for Hamilton:bawling:

and yeah, definitely, he seems like such a nice humble kind of a fella too!
webber?..yeah ..except for when he gets up on the podium and strikes his superman pose lol.

[Niamh.]

He annoys me too but I've come to like him, he isn't as arrogant anymore and doesn't come across as a twat! :D

He doesn't seem as bad I suppose, maybe he's just growing up a bit!

[Niamh.]

webber?..yeah ..except for when he gets up on the podium and strikes his superman pose lol.

:joker: aaawwwwwwwww though!

[ange7]

:joker: aaawwwwwwwww though!
hehe ..he is humble except when he does this

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/8593/webbopsdcopy.jpg

[Iceman]

haha that is amazing!

[Niamh.]

hehe ..he is humble except when he does this

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/8593/webbopsdcopy.jpg

:laugh2:

[Iceman]

http://www.lolcaption.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/funny-demotivational-pics-lolcaption-webber-valencia-crash-red-bull-ari-race-doing-it-wrong.jpg

[ange7]

I'm not taking credit for that.... just image googled webber and superman.

Anyhow
Jack Brabham, 3 time champ, thinks Webber has no chance since he lost it in Korea and is too old to win another.
"It's a young man's game" he says.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/mark-webbers-blown-his-fi-chance-says-former-champ-jack-brabham/story-e6frg7mf-1225945264260
I bet Schui says bollocks to that.

[ange7]

http://www.lolcaption.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/funny-demotivational-pics-lolcaption-webber-valencia-crash-red-bull-ari-race-doing-it-wrong.jpg

Passing back markers.
"Your doing it wrong"

lol no but that was Kovaleinen being mong like Senna was last weekend at Brazil.

[Niamh.]

I'm not taking credit for that.... just image googled webber and superman.

Anyhow
Jack Brabham, 3 time champ, thinks Webber has no chance since he lost it in Korea and is too old to win another.
"It's a young man's game" he says.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/mark-webbers-blown-his-fi-chance-says-former-champ-jack-brabham/story-e6frg7mf-1225945264260
I bet Schui says bollocks to that.

Well, I hope he's proven wrong, he has every chance of winning it!

[Iceman]

Schumacher 2011 champion, nice ring to it :D

[Niamh.]

Schumacher 2011 champion, nice ring to it :D

doubtful Eoin!

[Iceman]

doubtful Eoin!

Hmm maybe not, we have new tyres for everyone next year, thats been his biggest problem this year so if he can get to grips with them quick and get a race win or two he'll get the form back. Michael Schumacher 2.0 has been filling in for the real michael, the ruthless, couldnt care less what you think Michael :D:devil::devil::devil::devil::devil:

[Niamh.]

Hmm maybe not, we have new tyres for everyone next year, thats been his biggest problem this year so if he can get to grips with them quick and get a race win or two he'll get the form back. Michael Schumacher 2.0 has been filling in for the real michael, the ruthless, couldnt care less what you think Michael :D:devil::devil::devil::devil::devil:

lmao he's a dirty driver though, I don't like him

*runs and hides*

[Iceman]

lmao he's a dirty driver though, I don't like him

*runs and hides*

I love him as a dirty driver, we saw glimpses of this the past year, he's coming, mark my words!

[Niamh.]

I love him as a dirty driver, we saw glimpses of this the past year, he's coming, mark my words!

:joker: we'll see............

[Iceman]

http://c0013544.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/x2_357fcd4

Abu Dhabi this afternoon.

[Iceman]

:joker: we'll see............

I really hope he just wins 1 more race :( thats all I want

[ange7]

doubtful Eoin!
yep agree
Iceman.."Michael Schumacher 2.0" was still hungry and competitive enough this year to try and drive Barrichello into a concrete wall. (lol that was cold hehe of him) He hasn't lost that competitive need to win, he was just off this year I think. Hope he is firing next year.

[Iceman]

Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher has warned "we shouldn't expect any miracles" from his Mercedes team in 2011.

:bawling:

[ange7]

Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher has warned "we shouldn't expect any miracles" from his Mercedes team in 2011.

:bawling:

then maybe he should drive the popemobile next year...
it's a mercedes!
http://www.zercustoms.com/news/images/Mercedes-PopeMobile-b.jpg

[pinkmichk]

right firstly can someone give me practice etc times
secondly in my little dream world
lewis to win vettel will crash out both alonso and webbers engines go bang. but its a long shot although any thing can happen so if lewis cant win title it has to be webber can not stand vettel or alonso

[James]

(All times UK)

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Yas Marina, 12-14 November 2010

Fri 12 Nov: Practice 1 0900-1030; Practice 2 1300-1430
Sat 13 Nov: Practice 3 1000-1100; Qualifying 1300
Sun 14 Nov: Race 1300

I was looking at the odds for the championship. It's basically 50-50 between Alonso and Webber.

http://www.oddschecker.com/motor-sport/formula-one/drivers-championship

Ive merged the 2010 threads, gives a great view on the season as a whole.......will merge with F1 thread aswell after the last race.

Maybe leave the main F1 thread unmerged? That goes back to 2008.

I'd like to see a few changes with the drivers at the top teams for next year. I like to see the best drivers at the best teams.

[Iceman]

(All times UK)

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Yas Marina, 12-14 November 2010

Fri 12 Nov: Practice 1 0900-1030; Practice 2 1300-1430
Sat 13 Nov: Practice 3 1000-1100; Qualifying 1300
Sun 14 Nov: Race 1300

I was looking at the odds for the championship. It's basically 50-50 between Alonso and Webber.

http://www.oddschecker.com/motor-sport/formula-one/drivers-championship



Maybe leave the main F1 thread unmerged? That goes back to 2008.

I'd like to see a few changes with the drivers at the top teams for next year. I like to see the best drivers at the best teams.

Good idea, I'll change this to just the 2010 F1 thread after the season is over.

best drivers in best teams? is that a Nod to Schumi ;)

Also who do you think will win?

[James]

Umm, well Rosberg has beaten him 13 times to 5 in races this year. Don't know what the quali head-to-heads say.

Think Alonso might shade it. Depends if Vettel does Webber a favour and if the Red Bulls don't break down. :S

Hope it is a good race, we'll know by how many 'art shots' they show of that hotel during the race. They showed it all the time last year. :hugesmile:

[Iceman]

Umm, well Rosberg has beaten him 13 times to 5 in races this year. Don't know what the quali head-to-heads say.

Think Alonso might shade it. Depends if Vettel does Webber a favour and if the Red Bulls don't break down. :S

Hope it is a good race, we'll know by how many 'art shots' they show of that hotel during the race. They showed it all the time last year. :hugesmile:

I'm hoping its a real fight between webber and Vettel, would love to see Webber win the title and then announce he's leaving Red Bull.....or if he wins go "not bad for a number 2 driver eh Seb?"

[James]

Rosberg is winning 15-3 in qualification, btw. ;) I just checked.

[Iceman]

Rosberg is winning 15-3 in qualification, btw. ;) I just checked.

:bawling: Still think Schumi has 1 more title in him, im hoping the Pirelli tyres will help him adjust back into things.

[King Gizzard]

Whats the time?

http://www.formulaf1.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/nico-rosberg-hot-chick.jpg


It's Nico time

[James]

That reminds me, didn't we have some prediction league or sweepstake or something? I wonder how that is going.

[Iceman]

That reminds me, didn't we have some prediction league or sweepstake or something? I wonder how that is going.

Yeah i made it too complicated but will get onto it soon. actually ill tot it up now.

[Iceman]

Gonna add this up now, ive discounted the fastest lap and hat trick thing.

[Iceman]

Mark & Fernando Alonso - 246

Will do them all at different times I cant be bothered doing them all now :D

[Iceman]

PRACTICE 1 RESULTS

1. Vettel
2. Hamilton
3. Button
4. Webber
5. Kubica
6. Alonso
7. Schumacher
8. Kobayashi
9. Rosberg
10. Heidfeld

[pinkmichk]

ta for times will miss fp3 & qualies (looking at you eoin for twitter updates ;) )
still lots of talk of wet over weekend

[Iceman]

I might be in the hospital im not sure but will try my best to tweet ya!

[Iceman]

Practice 2 Results

1. Hamilton
2. Vettel
3. Alonso
4. Webber
5. Kubica
6. Massa
7. Petrov
8. Button
9. Liuzzi
10. Rosberg

[Iceman]

Lewis has his good luck charm in Abu Dhabi........it's called Nicole and sometimes it attempts to sing.

[Iceman]

Red Bull’s Mark Webber is remarkably relaxed for a man about to take part in the most important race weekend of his career. The permutations which could see Webber wrap up the the 2010 drivers’ championship seem endless, but for the Australian himself there’s one clear aim - win the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The rest depends on the other title contenders...

Q: Do you like the Abu Dhabi track?
Mark Webber: Yes, it is pretty good. It is not like Silverstone, which means that it hasn’t got many fast corners. As a result I really have to be at the top of my game for the slow-speed corners. It’s probably not 100 percent to my liking - but that’s the way it is. The car feels very good and that is important. So my impression is that I can do very well here, which is crucial, isn’t it!

Q: Are you worried about what engine to use?
MW: From the engine side it should be okay. This morning we were running the Brazil engine then in between the sessions we made a change, and for the race on Sunday I will use a different one again. Probably the Suzuka engine.

Q: Why should you walk away with the title on Sunday?
MW: Because I am the oldest! (Laughs) Why not! I think that it is about time to have a decision because my feeling is that we could have two or three more races without a clear title claimant. We all have led the championship at one point in the season, but the important thing is to be in the lead after the last race. I think that I have a pretty good chance and Fernando (Alonso) has a bit of a better chance.

Q: Would you say it is better to win the championship with team orders, rather than lose it without team orders?
MW: I think it is best to win the championship because in a little while from now people wouldn’t remember about any team orders. They only remember the winner. There have been many championships won in the past with team orders and there will be many more in the future. That’s the way it is in Formula One.

Q: What chance do you think you have?
MW: At the end of the day it is a question of the car. And then, in that case, what can you do! It is like when you’re running but your heart rate is too high and you still want to go faster. That doesn’t work - so what can you do! There is nothing left to do and you cannot change it. I am ready to go and I know that I can perform at a really good level this Sunday.

Q: How important was it to win the constructors’ championship?
MW: It was fantastic. I have been with this team for so many years and there have been so many crucial moments over the last few years, like David Coulthard getting Adrian Newey on board and so on and so forth. It has been a pretty big thing ever since it started and this year we won ahead of the Ferraris and the McLarens. Probably for them it wouldn’t be so important because they have so many titles under their belts, but for us it is really great and was an important step, as they don’t hand out championship titles that easy! It was great that we have achieved that.

Q: So from your side, you’ve won 50 percent of what you hoped to achieve. What about the other 50 percent - the drivers’ title?
MW: It is even less than 50 percent for me. The reality is that people remember the drivers’ championship more. That is the one that remains in people’s minds. The constructors’ title is something for the team and it’s a real feather in the cap.

Q: Everyone seems to be puzzling about whether Sebastian Vettel will let you pass, but isn’t that somehow missing the point? You need to go out and get it yourself…
MW: Yes, everybody is talking about positions. But what if I am leading the race!

Q: So will that be your tactic?
MW: Absolutely. I am trying to win the race. So there are no discussions. But if Fernando is second he’s still the champion!

Q: If things turn out like they did in Brazil, with Vettel ahead of you and Alonso behind you, what do you think will happen?
MW: I need to pass Seb. Obviously we don’t want another Turkey situation do we? As I just said the best situation is if I lead the whole race and win. And if this is not going to happen then we will see. It is a long race and the engines are on the limit.

Q: This season finale is a real marathon with two races within a week. How have you prepared yourself and what have you done to keep fit over the last few days?
MW: I have been here since the beginning of the week. I flew out from Brazil the night after the race and did a little training, but I have done quite a number of races in my career so I am ready to go. I am pretty relaxed. I just feel like I want to get in the car and get the job done!

Q: Are you thinking this could be your last shot at the drivers’ title?
MW: No. I am not wasting any thought on thinking that. I am not too stressed about that. I am just very satisfied that I am in the situation I am in now. The team is fantastic and we have come a long way. We have already pocketed the constructors’ title and now the drivers’ would be the icing on the cake.

Q: If you don’t win the title, who is your preferred champion? Lewis Hamilton, Alonso or your team mate?
MW: I think we all deserve it in lots of different ways. Seb has driven very, very well but had some reliability problems. Fernando probably didn’t have the car but is still in the fight. I think we all deserve the chance and it is impossible to say who deserves it over the others. It sure would be great for the team to win both titles in one year, so I would prefer Seb to win for the team.

Q: Will you and Vettel discuss the situation?
MW: I don’t know. Let’s wait until after qualifying. If I am on pole there is not much to talk about. If Seb is in front - then maybe!

Q: What about Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz saying that team orders are not an option?
MW: I think it is fine. This has been a philosophy all year and this was good for the fans. The team’s position has been clear all the way. It sure made it a bit easier for Ferrari, but that’s what has happened.

Q: So who will be champion?
MW: Who knows! Sunday - after the race - we will all wiser.

[ange7]

MW: "As I just said the best situation is if I lead the whole race and win."
Fat chance from 5th position. :(

1 Sebastian Vettel 1:39.394
2 Lewis Hamilton 1:39.425
3 Fernando Alonso 1:39.792
4 Jenson Button 1:39.823
5 Mark Webber 1:39.925
6 Felipe Massa 1:40.202

[Iceman]

I think only Alonso is gonna finish the race, hamilton will take Vettel out first corner.....webber will struggle and end up 6th....... :O

[Iceman]

Ladies and Gentleman I give you your new F1 World Drivers Champion, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

[James]

Lights out at 1 pm. Should be a good one.

[ange7]

Alonso and vettle crash on the first corner...and take out Hamilton! ...
chances of this equal happening equal Webber's chances of winning the championship.

[James]

Vettel's done it. :o

Alonso gesturing at Petrov at the end there. :hugesmile:

[Iceman]

I hate Vettel but I have to say he was the best all season he kept his cool when the others cracked. World Drivers Champion :)

Also Michael Schumacher will win it next year, i'm calling it now :)

[ange7]

What a suckbag ( could be a word) Alonso was. Clearly slowing down Webber and only had eyes for him. When Webber pits Alonso suddenly does his 2 fastest laps but by then the gap he opened was filled with the guys who pitted on the yellow.... that was funny. He needn't have bothered since Webber was way off the pace.
Oh well congrats Vettel... he was the best this year, no doubt, but dam he is as charismatic as a wet fart. I mean what was that acceptance speech about...blah blah blah... they shoot horses for less than that don't they?

[Iceman]

Just thought I'd start this for the rumours :)

* Rubens Barrichello confirmed for Williams drive.

* Nico Hulkenburg Confirms Williams Exit.

[Niamh.]

I'm going to the Barcelona Grand Prix next year wooooooooooo:dance:

[Iceman]

I'm going to Valencia, weekend of my birthday :D

[Niamh.]

cool! Gav went to that one 3 years ago

[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lLsdaCVk3Kk/SdoHqv0LHlI/AAAAAAAA13I/4II_oP2UJL0/s400/JensonButton07.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lLsdaCVk3Kk/SdoHq520MYI/AAAAAAAA13Y/5Z9_tv7wmb8/s400/JensonButton08.jpg

:love:

[Mr XcX]

I hate racing!!!

Love Horse Racing though!!!

[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

i want to marry him

[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

/thread rape

[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

i like all male sport apart from darts and snooker

[Iceman]

jenson is a knobhead :)

[Iceman]

Stickied :D

[Iceman]

* On the eve of the 2010 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Nico Hülkenberg's manager, Willi Weber, confirmed that the rookie would be leaving Williams at the end of the 2010 season. Weber claimed Hülkenberg would remain on the grid for 2011, though he did not comment on which team he would be driving for.

OH

[Iceman]

* Sergio Pérez, who finished runner-up in the 2010 GP2 Series driving for Barwa Addax, was signed by Sauber to partner Kamui Kobayashi.

[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

jenson is a knobhead :)

:mad: :nono:

your the knobhead!

*runs away and hides*

[Iceman]

THE Formula One year may be over on the track - but now we're heading flat out towards the awards season.

It's when drivers and teams pick up salutes and silverware at a host of glittering ceremonies.

Naturally, SunSport is in pole position as the first to hand out such well-deserved gongs.

So here are my F1 Awards for 2010 . . . with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

CRAZIEST DRIVER OF THE YEAR: Sebastian Vettel

Yes, yes, I know he's the new world champion. But he could have wrapped up the title so much earlier were it not for his moments of madness. His potty tangle with team-mate Mark Webber in Turkey was as nothing compared to his kamikaze assault on Jenson Button at Spa. That was the moment Jenson knew his hopes of retaining the world championship went up in smoke. Or should that be steam?

BEST ALTERNATIVE CAREER AWARD: Heikki Kovalainen

The Finn proved he could easily hack it as a fireman by coolly dousing the inferno that was once his Lotus in Singapore. It was a shame in a way. I thought those bright orange flames looked particularly lovely against the night sky.

HISSY-FIT OF THE YEAR (presented by Louis Walsh): Lewis Hamilton in Singapore

That's where Lewis hurled 50 grand's-worth of steering wheel out of the cockpit after his clash with Mark Webber wrecked his McLaren - and his title hopes. Some would say it showed Lewis's true emotions, normally carefully concealed in corporate wrapping paper. I'll drink to that. Sparkling water, though, of course.

FUNNIEST MOMENT OF THE YEAR (presented by Dick Dastardly): Sebastien Buemi in Shanghai

The Swiss ace might not agree with this one, but who couldn't help but collapse on the floor with laughter when BOTH front wheels of his Toro Rosso sheared clean off as he hit the brakes in Shanghai. A moment straight out of Wacky Races.

TONGUE-TWISTER OF THE YEAR:

Choose any one of 100 from BBC TV pundit Eddie Jordan. Every time he opened his mouth he threatened to disappear up his own backside with his incoherent mumblings, leaving co-host David Coulthard permanently bemused. But when his thoughts finally emerged from the fog, Fast Eddie spoke a lot of sense, particularly on behalf of the ordinary F1 fan.

NOT LIVING UP TO A GREAT NAME AWARD: Bruno Senna

OK, it's hard being related to a legend but more often than not, Bruno was outpaced by a multitude of team-mates at tail-enders HRT. Just goes to show a famous name can't guarantee success. Ask Nelson Piquet Junior, Nicolas Prost and Leo Mansell.

MOST PICTURESQUE CIRCUIT:

Any track where Jenson's Button's girlfriend Jessica Michibata turned up. He may have lost his F1 crown, but who cares when you've got Jessy to go home to?

RED BULL AERIAL DISPLAY AWARD: Mark Webber at Valencia

Webber briefly joined the Red Bull Air Race by launching himself into the sky off the back of Heikki Kovalainen's Lotus. After coming in to land, he rammed the tyre barrier at enormous speed, yet walked away unharmed. A huge testament to the strength of modern F1 cars.

SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY AWARD: Ferrari

A no-brainer, given their disastrous strategy that cost Fernando Alonso the title in Abu Dhabi. And you can just as easily argue the Italian squad scored a massive own goal in Germany by letting Alonso pass team-mate Felipe Massa, who would have raised the roof by winning a year on from his near-fatal accident. Massa never really recovered from that crude fix and couldn't really be blamed for not being Alonso's greatest wingman towards the end of the season.

DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE YEAR:

No, not Michael Schumacher, though he is a valiant runner-up. The award is shared between the three new teams - Lotus, Virgin and HRT. OK, so it's incredibly tough to break into F1. But none of the three showed even flashes of promise. And it became more tedious than Big Brother to see them trailing around at the back race after race. Improvements next year, please.

BEST DIVE OF THE YEAR (presented by Didier Drogba): Mark Webber

Webber's perfectly executed back flip into the pool after winning at Monaco. Degree of difficulty 5.8. Tom Daly would have been proud of that one.

MOST SARCASTIC COMMENT OF THE YEAR (presented by Jack Dee): Mark Webber

The Aussie sailed majestically to victory at Silverstone after team-mate Vettel was given a new front wing by Red Bull, and he wasn't. As he crossed the line, he told his bosses on the radio: "Not bad for a No2 driver." Ouch!

GREATEST ESCAPE OF THE YEAR: Michael Schumacher

Some would say Schuey lost his head when he decided to return to F1. But he nearly lost it for real when Tonio Liuzzi's Force India vaulted on to the cockpit of the ex-champ's spun Mercedes in Abu Dhabi. A few centimetres to the left and...

And finally, one deadly serious gong...

MOST DESERVING WORLD CHAMPION: Sebastian Vettel

He and his Red Bull were the fastest combination out there from the first lap in Bahrain to the last in Abu Dhabi. The 23-year-old German - who finally revealed his youth by blubbing like a baby when he sealed the title - made it hard for himself and should have put it to bed earlier. But in my book it would have been a travesty if anyone else had been crowned champ. Oh, and he's a super smiley guy who will be a terrific ambassador for F1.

[Iceman]

THE Formula One year may be over on the track - but now we're heading flat out towards the awards season.

It's when drivers and teams pick up salutes and silverware at a host of glittering ceremonies.

Naturally, SunSport is in pole position as the first to hand out such well-deserved gongs.

So here are my F1 Awards for 2010 . . . with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

CRAZIEST DRIVER OF THE YEAR: Sebastian Vettel

Yes, yes, I know he's the new world champion. But he could have wrapped up the title so much earlier were it not for his moments of madness. His potty tangle with team-mate Mark Webber in Turkey was as nothing compared to his kamikaze assault on Jenson Button at Spa. That was the moment Jenson knew his hopes of retaining the world championship went up in smoke. Or should that be steam?

BEST ALTERNATIVE CAREER AWARD: Heikki Kovalainen

The Finn proved he could easily hack it as a fireman by coolly dousing the inferno that was once his Lotus in Singapore. It was a shame in a way. I thought those bright orange flames looked particularly lovely against the night sky.

HISSY-FIT OF THE YEAR (presented by Louis Walsh): Lewis Hamilton in Singapore

That's where Lewis hurled 50 grand's-worth of steering wheel out of the cockpit after his clash with Mark Webber wrecked his McLaren - and his title hopes. Some would say it showed Lewis's true emotions, normally carefully concealed in corporate wrapping paper. I'll drink to that. Sparkling water, though, of course.

FUNNIEST MOMENT OF THE YEAR (presented by Dick Dastardly): Sebastien Buemi in Shanghai

The Swiss ace might not agree with this one, but who couldn't help but collapse on the floor with laughter when BOTH front wheels of his Toro Rosso sheared clean off as he hit the brakes in Shanghai. A moment straight out of Wacky Races.

TONGUE-TWISTER OF THE YEAR:

Choose any one of 100 from BBC TV pundit Eddie Jordan. Every time he opened his mouth he threatened to disappear up his own backside with his incoherent mumblings, leaving co-host David Coulthard permanently bemused. But when his thoughts finally emerged from the fog, Fast Eddie spoke a lot of sense, particularly on behalf of the ordinary F1 fan.

NOT LIVING UP TO A GREAT NAME AWARD: Bruno Senna

OK, it's hard being related to a legend but more often than not, Bruno was outpaced by a multitude of team-mates at tail-enders HRT. Just goes to show a famous name can't guarantee success. Ask Nelson Piquet Junior, Nicolas Prost and Leo Mansell.

MOST PICTURESQUE CIRCUIT:

Any track where Jenson's Button's girlfriend Jessica Michibata turned up. He may have lost his F1 crown, but who cares when you've got Jessy to go home to?

RED BULL AERIAL DISPLAY AWARD: Mark Webber at Valencia

Webber briefly joined the Red Bull Air Race by launching himself into the sky off the back of Heikki Kovalainen's Lotus. After coming in to land, he rammed the tyre barrier at enormous speed, yet walked away unharmed. A huge testament to the strength of modern F1 cars.

SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY AWARD: Ferrari

A no-brainer, given their disastrous strategy that cost Fernando Alonso the title in Abu Dhabi. And you can just as easily argue the Italian squad scored a massive own goal in Germany by letting Alonso pass team-mate Felipe Massa, who would have raised the roof by winning a year on from his near-fatal accident. Massa never really recovered from that crude fix and couldn't really be blamed for not being Alonso's greatest wingman towards the end of the season.

DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE YEAR:

No, not Michael Schumacher, though he is a valiant runner-up. The award is shared between the three new teams - Lotus, Virgin and HRT. OK, so it's incredibly tough to break into F1. But none of the three showed even flashes of promise. And it became more tedious than Big Brother to see them trailing around at the back race after race. Improvements next year, please.

BEST DIVE OF THE YEAR (presented by Didier Drogba): Mark Webber

Webber's perfectly executed back flip into the pool after winning at Monaco. Degree of difficulty 5.8. Tom Daly would have been proud of that one.

MOST SARCASTIC COMMENT OF THE YEAR (presented by Jack Dee): Mark Webber

The Aussie sailed majestically to victory at Silverstone after team-mate Vettel was given a new front wing by Red Bull, and he wasn't. As he crossed the line, he told his bosses on the radio: "Not bad for a No2 driver." Ouch!

GREATEST ESCAPE OF THE YEAR: Michael Schumacher

Some would say Schuey lost his head when he decided to return to F1. But he nearly lost it for real when Tonio Liuzzi's Force India vaulted on to the cockpit of the ex-champ's spun Mercedes in Abu Dhabi. A few centimetres to the left and...

And finally, one deadly serious gong...

MOST DESERVING WORLD CHAMPION: Sebastian Vettel

He and his Red Bull were the fastest combination out there from the first lap in Bahrain to the last in Abu Dhabi. The 23-year-old German - who finally revealed his youth by blubbing like a baby when he sealed the title - made it hard for himself and should have put it to bed earlier. But in my book it would have been a travesty if anyone else had been crowned champ. Oh, and he's a super smiley guy who will be a terrific ambassador for F1.

[Iceman]

http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg140/scaled.php?tn=0&server=140&filename=rdne.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=640

First Pirelli tyre picture. :D Not long to go now ;)

[Iceman]

Vitaly Petrov's manager is confident the Russian will be able to sign a new contract for the 2011 Formula One season within weeks.

Amid the 26 year old's mixed rookie season, Renault has openly mused the possibility of a change of team-mate for the highly rated Robert Kubica for next year.

But the well financed Petrov had a more solid finish to the recently concluded 2010 campaign, and reports suggested the Kremlin might add to his coffers now that Russia is embarking on a Formula 1 circuit project.

"Since (Russian President) Vladimir Putin became a Formula One fan, Petrov has even more support in his pocket," Nick Heidfeld, a potential suitor for the second Renault cockpit, told Germany's Auto Motor und Sport.

Petrov's manager Oksana Kosachenko on Thursday acknowledged the likelihood of a new deal.

"I am still working in this direction, but so far nothing definite can be said," she told the Moscow published Sovetsky Sport newspaper.

"Most likely, we'll sign a contract in the second week of December," added Kosachenko, revealing she is aiming for a new two year deal.

She said Petrov will not be testing Pirelli's 2011 development tyres in Abu Dhabi on Friday and Saturday.

"Vitaly is on vacation now and he'll spend the next two to three weeks outside Russia," said Kosachenko, who said she has a backup plan to prolong Petrov's Formula 1 career in the event he leaves Renault.

[pinkmichk]

i like all male sport apart from darts and snooker

*cough* :xyxwave:

awww bye bye bridgestone
i love silly season
heard today apparently both force india seats are up for grabs next year which doesnt make sense where sutil concerned also apparently massa is rumoured to be heading to renault with bobby k
i think mclaren is the only 1 that'll be guranteed i still think webber will jump ship

[Iceman]

Merc will be the same, schumi is going nowhere neither is Nico!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pinkmichk]

i wasnt sure bout nico knew schumi would be same has nico been confirmed?

[Iceman]

Confirmed So Far:

Ferrari - Alonso & Massa
Mercedes - Schumacher & Rosberg
McLaren - Button & Hamilton
Red Bull - Vettel & Webber
Sauber - Kobatashi & Pérez
Toro Rosso - Alguesairi & Buemi
Renault - Kubica & ????
Virgin - Glock & ????
Williams - Barichello & ????
Lotus - ???? & ????
HRT ???? & ????
Force India ???? & ????

[pinkmichk]

quite suprised by buemi too
there was a rumour while back lotus were dropping heikki cos they were selling his hats off cheap but not the same for trulli

[Iceman]

It's weird cause theres only 9 seats left to fill and we arent even a week out of the 2010 season.

[Iceman]

Following the final race of the 2010 season, FIA President Jean Todt revealed his stance on the use of team orders, promising regulation of the practice rather than allowing them outright. Todt discolsed that while team orders would not be banned, any team using coded instructions - for example, the FIA alleged that a message sent to Felipe Massa stating that "Fernando is faster than you" was a secret message instructing Massa to yield position to Alonso in Germany - would be prosecuted as such messages would be used to deceive spectators and would require teams and drivers to lie to stewards in order to substantiate the claims made in the message.


Woop

[Iceman]

Unofficial Friday times from Abu Dhabi Pirelli Test 1:
1. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 1:40.170, 94 laps
2. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 1:40.500, 78 laps
3. Gary Paffett, McLaren, 1:40.874, 94
4. Kamui Kobayashi, BMW Sauber, 1:40.950, 83
5. Robert Kubica, Renault, 1:41.032, 39
6. Rubens Barrichello, Williams, 1:41.425, 91
7. Paul di Resta, Force India, 1:41.615, 21
8. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes GP, 1:41.778, 81
9. Jaime Alguersuari, Toro Rosso, 1:42.019, 71
10. Adrian Sutil, Force India, 1:42.859, 20
11. Timo Glock, Virgin, 1:44.124, 78
12. Heikki Kovalainen, Lotus, 1:44.686, 88
13. Pastor Maldonado, HRT, 1:45.728, 83

[Iceman]

Unofficial Saturday times from Abu Dhabi Pirelli Test 2:
1. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, 1:40.529, 105 laps
2. Michael Schumacher, Mercedes GP, 1:40.685, 74
3. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 1:40.825, 66
4. Rubens Barrichello, Williams, 1:41.294, 100
5. Robert Kubica, Renault, 1:41.614, 90
6. Gary Paffett, McLaren, 1:41.622, 46
7. Oliver Turvey, McLaren, 1:41.740, 30
8. Paul di Resta, Force India, 1:41.869, 35
9. Kamui Kobayashi, BMW Sauber, 1:42.110, 43
10. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, 1:42.145, 98
11. Vitantonio Liuzzi, Force India, 1:42.416, 46
12. Sergio Perez, BMW Sauber, 1:42.777, 46
13. Jarno Trulli, Lotus, 1:44.521, 83
14. Pastor Maldonado, HRT, 1:44.768, 65
15. Timo Glock, Virgin, 1:44.783, 82

[Iceman]

http://www.formula1.com/wi/597x478/manual/dcd1020no154.jpg

Looking Sharp ;)

[Iceman]

Jarno Trulli has hinted he will remain a Lotus Racing driver next season despite a troubled campaign this year.

The Norfolk-based team have yet to announce their drivers for 2011, but the Italian has revealed he has been working on next season's car.

"I'll go to the factory in a few days to get ready and prepare the 2011 season chassis, cockpit and seat," the 36-year-old told BBC Radio Norfolk.

"Then I will probably have a break with my family, just relaxing."

Lotus established themselves as the strongest of F1's new teams in 2010, finishing 10th in the constructors' championship.

But Trulli was hindered more by technical issues than his team-mate Heikki Kovalainen, with the pair ending up 21st and 20th respectively in the drivers' standings.

His best result came in Japan where he qualified in 19th and crossed the line 13th, but a 19th-placed finish in Brazil stands out in an otherwise disappointing season.

You've got to have the motivation in order to push harder, no matter where you are at the end of a lap. Some performances have been pretty bad compared to what I was used to

Lotus driver Jarno Trulli

"It's really hard to find a highlight for me, but Brazil was a great weekend, nearly a smooth weekend for me," he said

"I qualified well, unfortunately during the race I had another failure, but my pace was unbelievably quick.

"At the end of the season I found something in the setup and car characteristic which gave me a good step in terms of performance.

"In the end I was happy with it even though it was a tough season."

Trulli has competed in 14 F1 seasons for six different teams, securing his only Grand Prix victory at Monaco with Renault in 2004.

After agreeing to join Tony Fernandes' Lotus team in January the prospect of fighting for position at the back of the grid and aiming for a top 20 finish could have come as a culture shock to the veteran.

"You've got to have the motivation in order to push harder, no matter where you are at the end of a lap," he added.

"Some performances have been pretty bad compared to what I was used to.

"But nevertheless I have always tried to get the best out of myself and the car, I've still enjoyed a lot of good fights."

so thats what 7 seats left?

[Iceman]

Ferrari - Alonso & Massa
Mercedes - Schumacher & Rosberg
McLaren - Button & Hamilton
Red Bull - Vettel & Webber
Sauber - Kobatashi & Pérez
Toro Rosso - Alguesairi & Buemi
Lotus - Heikki & Trulli
Renault - Kubica & ????
Virgin - Glock & ????
Williams - Barichello & ????
HRT ???? & ????
Force India ???? & ????

[Grimnir]

if ferrari have any sense they will try to get either rosberg or kubica to be alonso partner for next season

and red bull should get whoever ferrari dont get to partner vettel

[Iceman]

if ferrari have any sense they will try to get either rosberg or kubica to be alonso partner for next season

and red bull should get whoever ferrari dont get to partner vettel

I doubt it will happen this year but Kubica has always been linked to Ferrari, wouls be nice to see him there though he has done great things with under performing cars.

[Iceman]

The sound of champagne corks popping may still be ringing in the ears after Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel’s title celebrations, but Formula One racing waits for no man. And if one was needed, the recent Pirelli tyre test served as a stark reminder of that. The switch from Bridgestone rubber is just one of a number of technical changes for next season, and as we await the publication of the full 2011 regulations, we take a look at the revisions the teams are expecting…

Farewell to F-ducts and double diffusers
Two of the most overused technical watchwords of the past two seasons will be made redundant next year, as both double diffusers and F-ducts are banned. Indeed any system, device or procedure which uses driver movement as a means of altering the aerodynamic characteristics of the car is prohibited from 2011.

The return of Pirelli
Following Bridgestone’s decision to withdraw at the end of this season after 13 years, the Italian company will take over as the sport’s sole tyre supplier from 2011. The Italian company, last part of F1 in 1991, will provide all teams with rubber for the next three years, in compliance with existing F1 sporting and technical regulations. Last week’s two-day test at Abu Dhabi gave the teams a good gauge as to how similar/different Pirelli’s rubber is from Bridgestone’s, though ongoing development means the compounds they run in Bahrain next March are likely to be quite different. The handling characteristics of the new tyres could be quite different, and the teams and drivers who adapt best will be looking to benefit. One constant across teams, however, will be front-rear weight distribution, which is expected to be regulated to 46.5% front, 53.5% rear.

Adjustable rear wings
Under new moveable bodywork regulations for next season, drivers will be able to adjust the rear wing from the cockpit, with the current moveable front wing due to be dropped. The system’s availability is expected to be electronically governed and under initial proposals it would only be activated when a driver is less than one second behind another at pre-determined points on the track. The system would then be deactivated once the driver brakes. It would be available at all times throughout practice and qualifying and, in combination with KERS (below), should boost overtaking. Also like KERS, it won’t be compulsory.

A comeback for KERS
A badge of honour for some, a bugbear for others on its debut in 2009, KERS is to be reintroduced next season after the teams mutually agreed to suspend its use in 2010. KERS - or Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems - take the waste energy generated under braking and turn it into additional power. This is then made available to the driver in fixed quantities per lap via a steering wheel-mounted ‘boost button’. The systems will be essentially the same as those seen in ’09, with no increase in the maximum permitted power (though that could change in subsequent seasons). The challenge for the engineers this time round will be packaging. Last time KERS was run, refuelling was legal. Now, with it banned, fuel tanks are larger and finding room to accommodate battery packs etc won’t be as easy. Hence don’t be surprised if bodywork grows in places, relative to 2010. On the plus side, minimum car weight will be upped by 20kg to 640kg next season, meaning larger drivers won’t pay the weight-distribution penalty they once did in a KERS-equipped car.

[Iceman]

Williams have announced that 2010 GP2 champion Pastor Maldonado will contest the 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship for the team. The appointment finalises Williams’ line-up for next season following last month’s confirmation that Rubens Barrichello will remain with the British squad for a further season.

“I feel very privileged that Williams has selected me as one of their race drivers,” said Venezuelan-born Maldonado. “It is a great way to end what has already been an amazing year for me. I tested with the team in Abu Dhabi, but can’t wait to start working with everyone properly to be in the best possible shape going into next year.”

Maldonado, now 25, started his motorsport career in karts at the age of seven, his passion for the sport ignited by a father and uncles who all competed. Having won seven national karting titles, he moved into Formula racing in 2003. With three series championships and 30 wins to his credit, including victory at Monaco in his debut year in GP2 in 2007, he brings a wealth of single-seater experience to Williams.

“I will be doing my best over the winter to prepare myself, and I know the team will be working hard to ensure a successful season,” he continued. “2011 will be the first time in nearly 30 years that a Venezuelan has driven a Formula One car so I will be looking to get some good results in return for the support my country has given me to help get me to this position today.”

Maldonado’s promotion to Formula One follows an impressive 2010 GP2 campaign in which he was crowned champion and became the only driver to win six successive feature races in a single season. He also comes to Williams with nearly 2,000 kilometres of F1 testing mileage in hand, having driven all four of the recent Abu Dhabi test days.

“Pastor first caught my eye in 2007 when he drove a masterful race at Monaco,” commented Williams team principal Frank Williams. “Since then, he has regularly reminded us of his unquestionable talent with some skilful wins, particularly during this year’s GP2 championship.

“Of course, we already know Pastor from the time he spent with the team at the Abu Dhabi test, but we are very much looking forward to developing his talent over the winter and a fruitful season with him next year.”

Maldonado will make his debut in Williams’ 2011 race car, the Williams Cosworth FW33, in next February’s winter test programme.

[Iceman]

Confirmed So Far:

Ferrari - Alonso & Massa
Mercedes - Schumacher & Rosberg
McLaren - Button & Hamilton
Red Bull - Vettel & Webber
Sauber - Kobatashi & Pérez
Toro Rosso - Alguesairi & Buemi
Renault - Kubica & ????
Virgin - Glock & ????
Williams - Barichello & Maldonado (GP2 Champion)
Lotus - ???? & ????
HRT ???? & ????
Force India ???? & ????

[Iceman]

Sauber have become the first team to confirm a launch date for their 2011 car. The Ferrari-powered C30 will be unveiled at Valencia on January 31, the day before the first pre-season test of the New Year gets underway at the Spanish circuit.

The C30 will be piloted by Japan’s Kamui Kobayashi, who scored 32 of the team’s 42 points in 2010, along with Mexican newcomer Sergio Perez, this year’s GP2 Series runner-up.

The car will be the first Sauber designed under the guidance of technical director James Key, who joined the Swiss squad from Force India earlier this season.

“We’re setting our sights high, and things are looking good so far,” team principal Peter Sauber said of the C30 earlier this week. “James Key has proved in the past that he knows how to build fast cars.

"All the changes to the technical regulations - including the ban on double diffusers, the introduction of Pirelli tyres, adjustable rear wings and the option of using KERS - make this a particularly exacting challenge this year.”

All 12 teams are due to participate in the three-day Valencia test commencing February 1. That will be followed by Jerez and Barcelona sessions later that month, with a final pre-season test expected in Bahrain in early March.

[Iceman]

Whilst playing down expectations of being able to reprise his former title-vying form, record-breaking multiple F1 World Champion Michael Schumacher has nonetheless affirmed his conviction that Mercedes Grand Prix is ‘clearly in a better situation’ heading into 2011 than it was 2010 – a season that, he now reflects, was always going to be ‘a compromise’.

In his much-hyped, eagerly-anticipated comeback campaign following three years away from the cut-and-thrust of top flight competition, to say that Schumacher flattered to deceive would be something of an understatement. Indeed, notching up barely half the points total tallied by team-mate Nico Rosberg, no podium finishes to his younger compatriot’s three and being routinely outperformed both in qualifying and on race day, it was an embarrassing situation for the most successful driver in the sport’s long history to find himself in – but he insists there were reasons.

“I was away for three years, and I’m no longer 25,” he told German magazine Auto Motor und Sport. “There were a lot of changes – (former owner) Honda was gone and there wasn’t the money to hold the team together. The car was a compromise and with the [Bridgestone] tyres, it was difficult for me to drive how I wanted to.

“In retrospect, there were things...my floor was burned because of the exhaust being too hot, or the F-duct working in places where it should not. There were many [issues], resulting from the fact that we were in a restructuring phase – but we still wanted to go for the title.”

In evidence of the problems that seemed to materialise predominantly on his MGP W01 rather than that of Rosberg, Schumacher pointed to Singapore – arguably the nadir of his season, in performance terms at least, with an uncharacteristically lowly 13th place at the chequered flag. That, too, he recalls, was not quite as straightforward as met the eye.

“A week later, I got the team’s analysis,” the German legend revealed. “My team-mate and I were five degrees apart on the front wing. In F1, that’s a world. At Spa, my F-duct didn’t work, but I didn’t say anything. At Suzuka it happened again, again a problem with my car but not with Nico’s. I said to Norbert [Haug – Mercedes-Benz Motorsport Vice-President] and Ross [Brawn – team principal] that it was time for an explanation of the reasons. I prefer to speak inside the team, and I am convinced that in 2011 the problems will exist no more.”

Indeed, with stability having been largely restored now at the Brackley-based outfit and off the back of a far more encouraging conclusion to proceedings this year than the way it had begun, ‘Schumi’ is cautiously confident about his prospects for 2011, as he endeavours to make sure 2010 was the only campaign in his F1 career that yielded not so much as a single podium finish – an outcome the 41-year-old is palpably in no rush to repeat.

“We are clearly in a better situation now because of the immense support from Mercedes,” he underlined in conclusion, “but we cannot presume to think that we will be fighting for the championship. We will make a big leap forward and, if all goes well, win races.”

[Iceman]

MARK WEBBER has revealed he fractured a shoulder when he was within sight of clinching this year's Formula One world title.

Webber suffered the injury with four races remaining, when he was 11 points ahead of Fernando Alonso, and 21 clear of Red Bull team-mate and eventual champion Sebastian Vettel.

But in his book Up Front — 2010, A Season To Remember, Webber does not blame the injury for missing out on the title.

Although Webber, who finished third, needed pain-killing injections ahead of the Japanese and Korean Grands Prix, he decided to keep the injury secret from Red Bull boss Christian Horner.

Webber says in the book: "If I thought heading home to Australia ahead of Japan might make life easier, I had another think coming.

"On the Sunday morning a week before the Japanese Grand Prix, I got on a mountain bike for the first time since my accident in Tasmania at the end of 2008.

"I was riding with a great mate of mine. Suddenly, he crashed right in front of me and I had nowhere to go but straight through the ears of the horse!

"I suffered what they call a skier's fracture to my right shoulder.

"Suzuka is a brutal track so it was a blessing the Japanese weather gave me an enforced rest day on the Saturday, and a pre-race injection helped, too. In the end, we got through the weekend all right."

It was his first time back on a bike since his crash in November 2008 when he broke his right leg.

On that occasion Webber also fractured a shoulder, again opting not to reveal details of the injury to the Red Bull hierarchy.

[Iceman]

http://www.formula1.com/wi/597x478/manual/fia_gala_008.jpg

One of many I'm sure.

[Iceman]

Michael Schumacher has again spoken out to defend his choice to return to F1 in 2010 following a three-year absence from the grand prix grid – insisting that he has ‘the right to do what I enjoy’ and that regardless of whether he is putting at risk his illustrious reputation, he ‘feels good’ about coming back.

The bare statistics – just 72 points to Mercedes Grand Prix team-mate Nico Rosberg’s 142, no podiums to his younger compatriot’s three and finding himself routinely out-qualified and outraced by the man in the sister car – do not make for encouraging reading for the most successful driver in the sport’s long history, but towards the end of the campaign, there were signs that Schumacher was beginning to get on top of his troubles and regain some semblance of his erstwhile all-conquering form.

That it has been a frustrating season – one that culminated in a lowly ninth spot in the final title standings – is beyond doubt, but despite 2010 having failed to even come close to fulfilling his expectations, the German legend insists he remains firmly committed to his comeback and is confident of brighter times ahead in 2011.

“I enjoy it,” ‘Schumi’ told CNN. “I feel I have the right to do what I enjoy. Whether I put in dispute my reputation... I just feel good about my decision and I have so much support from people. It’s certainly not as successful as I thought initially and many other people had thought – but I want to make it a successful return.

“I’m only happy if I’m back on the winning road with the team – this is what I’m working for; this is the joy of the passion for F1 – and having such a strong group and team behind, Mercedes pushing so hard, I have no doubt about success in the future.”

“It’s been disappointing,” concurred the Brackley-based outfit’s team principal Ross Brawn. “In overall performance, we haven’t had the car [and] Michael’s taken a little time to get up to the performance he’ll be able to deliver. I’ve seen patches of that performance – the last few races of the season was the Michael Schumacher I expected to see – but now it’s all coming together and I think next year we’re going to have a really exciting time.”

Schumacher has received support, too, from fellow multiple F1 World Champion Alain Prost and Lotus Racing ace Heikki Kovalainen – both of whom underline that at 41 years of age now and following so long away from the cut-and-thrust of competitive action at the highest level, it was never going to be the most seamless of returns to begin with.

“People had high expectations, people expected him to win,” acknowledged Kovalainen, “but [Mercedes] didn’t have a car to win and second of all, things have changed since he left F1.”

“For me, it is difficult, almost impossible to go back to [win] the title after three years,” added Prost, “but if there’s one driver who would be able to do it, I think it’s Michael.”

[Iceman]

The BBC is set to confirm that Jonathan Legard will no longer form part of its F1 commentary team next year, and that he is to be replaced alongside Martin Brundle by David Coulthard.

We have learned from a source close to Legard that the former Radio 5 Live man’s contract will not be renewed into 2011, following two seasons in the F1 commentary box during which the 49-year-old failed to hit it off with Brundle and committed a number of well-publicised gaffes.

Crash.net understands that Brundle – a favourite both amongst F1 fans and inside the corporation – has successfully persuaded the BBC to replace Legard with his fellow former grand prix ace Coulthard, a driver who triumphed 13 times in the top flight between 1995 and 2003. The Scot will dovetail his new commentating duties with his ongoing punditry role alongside ex-team owner Eddie Jordan and the Beeb’s anchorman Jake Humphrey.

Whilst a BBC spokesman told us that ‘we’re still looking at our line-up for next year’s F1 coverage’, Crash.net has been reliably informed that Legard’s replacement by Coulthard is a done-deal, with the lack of chemistry and personality clash with Brundle a key factor in the decision. MotoGP commentator Charlie Cox had previously been mooted as the most likely candidate to take over the reins.

‘DC’ ranked seventh out of the 13 choices we proposed to you in our poll back in September as to who should partner Brundle in 2011, with Legard tenth. David Croft was your runaway favourite with 20 per cent of the vote, with current ITV BTCC commentator Ben Edwards second.

:(:( I loved his gaffes

[Iceman]

Toro Rosso have become the second Formula One team to announce the launch of their new car ahead of the 2011 season.

The marque, based in Faenza, Italy, are to unveil the STR6 on the first day of testing on February 1 at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia.

Earlier this month Sauber were the first team to confirm their launch date of January 31 at the same venue.

[Iceman]

Also talk from Ferrari president that they will breakaway at end of 2012 and set up a new series... De Javu????

Bernies says its rubbish...hmm time will tell i suppose.

[Mystic Mock]

I hate racing!!!

Love Horse Racing though!!!

yuck i hate horse racing.

formula one lacks the crashes atm.

[Iceman]

yuck i hate horse racing.

formula one lacks the crashes atm.

It's not about the crashes, the teams and true fans dont want to see that. We want to see racing and overtaking.

[Mystic Mock]

It's not about the crashes, the teams and true fans dont want to see that. We want to see racing and overtaking.

i think its also lacking overtaking atm aswell because they make the tracks length really tiny.

[James]

The BBC is set to confirm that Jonathan Legard will no longer form part of its F1 commentary team next year, and that he is to be replaced alongside Martin Brundle by David Coulthard.

We have learned from a source close to Legard that the former Radio 5 Live man’s contract will not be renewed into 2011, following two seasons in the F1 commentary box during which the 49-year-old failed to hit it off with Brundle and committed a number of well-publicised gaffes.

Crash.net understands that Brundle – a favourite both amongst F1 fans and inside the corporation – has successfully persuaded the BBC to replace Legard with his fellow former grand prix ace Coulthard, a driver who triumphed 13 times in the top flight between 1995 and 2003. The Scot will dovetail his new commentating duties with his ongoing punditry role alongside ex-team owner Eddie Jordan and the Beeb’s anchorman Jake Humphrey.

Whilst a BBC spokesman told us that ‘we’re still looking at our line-up for next year’s F1 coverage’, Crash.net has been reliably informed that Legard’s replacement by Coulthard is a done-deal, with the lack of chemistry and personality clash with Brundle a key factor in the decision. MotoGP commentator Charlie Cox had previously been mooted as the most likely candidate to take over the reins.

‘DC’ ranked seventh out of the 13 choices we proposed to you in our poll back in September as to who should partner Brundle in 2011, with Legard tenth. David Croft was your runaway favourite with 20 per cent of the vote, with current ITV BTCC commentator Ben Edwards second.

:(:( I loved his gaffes

I think the problem with Legard was he was too bland, never said much interesting. It was all, 'pushing on', 'on a charge', 'in the wars'. I like gaffes. DC seems an odd choice for main commentary. maybe it will be Brundle doing that.

[Iceman]

i think its also lacking overtaking atm aswell because they make the tracks length really tiny.

nah its just the constant development in f1, will be more overtaking this year with KERS back and the flexi wing, also new tyres could provide a better source of grip. I dont think there has been a lack of overtaking IIRC James posted in the 2010 thread about how there was actually quite a bit at the start of the year, not sure how it panned out towards the end.

[Iceman]

I think the problem with Legard was he was too bland, never said much interesting. It was all, 'pushing on', 'on a charge', 'in the wars'. I like gaffes. DC seems an odd choice for main commentary. maybe it will be Brundle doing that.

I know I;ll regret saying this but I would love EJ doign commentary or even Jake, let them share and have fans vote, get them more involve in the sport???

(so long as its not Damon Hill then I'm happy)

[Iceman]

More than 70 per cent of those surveyed by the major German news agency SID do not believe Michael Schumacher will win an eighth world title in 2011.

The most successful driver in F1 history had a difficult return to the sport in 2010 after three years of retirement, finishing ninth in the championship and 70 points behind his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg.

Comparing the return to his own comeback in the 80s, triple world champion Niki Lauda told Spain's El Pais newspaper: "In my second phase in F1, the testing was not limited so I had plenty of mileage to prepare.

"Michael has had trouble adjusting. Furthermore, he has been against a lot of young guys eager to prove they can beat him, including Rosberg who is really fast.

"2010 was a year of practice for him (Schumacher)," added Lauda. "At first I thought he would not take more than four races to be back, and winning races has never been easy, but now it is harder than ever before.

"Anyway, if anyone can do what he has to do, it's him," said the Austrian great.

[pinkmichk]

legard gone is just the best thing to happen :)

anyone else planning on going to the autosport show in jan the bit i'm most looking forward to is he mclaren part

the tracks that cause no overtaking are mostly the tilke tracks they need to make tracks now based on old school ones

[Iceman]

Despite the stoic demeanour that he carried through the hard-fought 2010 F1 season, Lewis Hamilton has admitted that there were problems away from the track that meant that he wasn't as fully focused on the job at hand as he would have liked.
- 0
Related Links

* Alonso unfazed by Vettel talk
* Bahrain test gives Pirelli confidence

The Briton remained in the hunt for a second title - to add to his 2008 triumph with McLaren - through to the season finale in Abu Dhabi, but insists that he could have been more of a factor had he not had to deal with 'personal issues'.

Although his interview with the BBC's Radio One station did not disclose the exact nature of his worries, there were several high profile stories surrounding the Briton, starting with his decision to ditch father Anthony as his manager - a situation still not resolved by the appointment of a replacement - the on-off nature of his relationship with Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Sherzinger at the start of the season, and the 'hoon' charges levelled at him during the Australian Grand Prix weekend.

“The personal life, the way things have gone have not been as smooth and as happy as they could have been in the past and to do what I do is a combination of many, many things that are surrounding you,” Hamilton admitted.

“It’s not just arriving at the race track and driving, it’s your [personal and sponsor] appearances, it’s your mood swings, it’s the people that are around you – your family and your friends – and the time that you are able to give to them and the relationship that you have with them.

"As soon as some of those things are off, and you’ve not got all those pieces of the puzzle in place, then it makes it very hard to do other aspects of your life as easily. The key I think to life is getting all those pieces of the puzzle in place.”

Having gone into the Yas Marina finale needing a miracle to overturn the points deficit to Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton finished second on the road, but only fourth in the drivers’ championship - having to watch as race winner Vettel also claimed his mantle as youngest-ever champion.

Although, ultimately, only 16 points separated the two young talents, Hamilton admitted that he was not happy with his overall placing.

“It’s been a long time since I finished out of the top three in a championship,” he pointed out, “so finishing fourth is not something that I’m not particularly proud of.

“We had a couple of bad races, where I lost points which would have put me in a much stronger position to compete for the championship at the end of the year, [so] my plan right now is to smooth everything off and make sure that, next year, I am 100 per cent clear in my mind and have no outside intrusions mentally."

Hamilton was at the UK radio station to pick his top ten tunes of 2010 - a list the, perhaps unsurprisingly, contains girlfriend Scherzinger's debut solo single Poison, which he watched her perform on a recent edition of The X Factor.
Crash.net / Eurosport

I feel sorry for him now :(

[James]

Here's the updated driver line-ups.

Ferrari - Alonso & Massa
Mercedes - Schumacher & Rosberg
McLaren - Button & Hamilton
Red Bull - Vettel & Webber
Sauber - Kobayashi & Pérez
Toro Rosso - Alguersuari & Buemi (though not confirmed yet?)
Lotus Renault - Kubica & Petrov
Marussia Virgin Racing - Glock & d'Ambrosio
Williams - Barichello & Maldonado
Team Lotus - Trulli & Kovalainen
HRT ???? & ????
Force India ???? & ????

[Iceman]

Going to do an easier prediction league this year aswell I think.

[pinkmichk]

i cant see HRT even racing next year sounds like they have even more money trouble than did during the season
also petrov is a really dumb choice imo he shouldnt have a drive

[Iceman]

i cant see HRT even racing next year sounds like they have even more money trouble than did during the season
also petrov is a really dumb choice imo he shouldnt have a drive

Oh I havent been up to date with any F1 news (only schumi and lewis), I hope HRT make it, I like more cars on the grid.

[pinkmichk]

just after i posted that saw on twitter that they are taking their 2010 car to the valencia test thats not a good sign is it

[Iceman]

No that sounds pretty bad actually

[Iceman]

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/1193/captureod.png

Nice Picture someone tweeted.

[sexyb4ck]

such a brilliant season last year was what the sport needed. 5 men gunning for the championship, with 3 men in the final race with a sporting chance of winning. I went for Mark Webber, if I knew he had a broken shoulder, I would have gone with Alonso! Yes at that time no one would have thought that Vettel had any chance of winning the championship, even if he did win the race. Win he did and win both he did. He is a worthy champion just like Jenson Button was the year before.
This year we see new rules, how do you think this will change the racing, should we have rules changes like this every year? My biggest question for you all is this. Who is your money on for 2011?

Mine is Mark Webber. He will be very hungry for the wins and to snatch the crown back from his team mate, let me remind you, no love lost between those to. Also Vettel should now be more relaxed then ever having done what he wanted to do the year before. Jenson and Lewis ,a strong team combination, will also want the crown. Will Massa be strong enough this year, or has his accident ruined his career. Alonso will also want to win for Ferrari, one of the most loved drivers by the Tifosi fans.

Out of this I still say Mark will give everything this year, wanting this before he retires, lets face it he is now one of the elder statesmen in the field.

So who do you want to see life the crown this year?

[Iceman]

I disagree with absolutely every point you made there haha. Will be an okay season nothing will beat this years though.

[Iceman]

Ross Brawn is convinced Michael Schumacher will show a big improvement in form in 2011 - judging by the progress the seven-time champion made at the end of last year.

Schumacher's return to F1 in 2010 did not live up to its pre-season hype, as he failed to finish on the podium and was beaten regularly by team-mate Nico Rosberg.

Speaking in the week that Schumacher celebrated his 42nd birthday, Brawn reckons the onus is now more on him to help Mercedes to produce a better car, rather than expect major progress from his driver.

When asked if he had thought of any birthday present to give Schumacher, Brawn told Gazzetta della Sport: "No, I haven't thought about any particular present for Michael Schumacher, because I already know what he wants from me: a competitive car.

"I'm still optimistic because Michael's performances at the end of last season were encouraging. I'm convinced he will go decidedly better this year."

A lot of Schumacher's early-season problems were blamed on the characteristics of Bridgestone's 2010 tyres – with the narrower fronts not giving the German the confidence he had enjoyed earlier in his career.

Schumacher hopes Pirelli's 2011 rubber will help him, but that is far from guaranteed – with early impressions from the first F1 test with the tyres not proving conclusive.

"It's premature to say that," said Brawn when asked if the Pirelli's would help Schumacher.

"In the Abu Dhabi test we didn't detect big differences compared to the performances obtained with Bridgestones, but it's clear that, by changing supplier, the cars need to be adapted. We'll see a lot of changes during winter testing."

[Iceman]

Although Ferrari are keeping the exact details of the launch of their new car under wraps for the time being, the Italian team have confirmed they will unveil their 2011 challenger during the final week of January. The event will take place at the end of the month, before the first official test of the year gets underway at the Spanish circuit of Valencia on February 1.

Ferrari are hoping the as-yet unnamed car, along with their driver line-up of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, will help them return to the front of the field in 2011. They scored five victories last season, but ended the year third in the constructors’ standings - 102 points behind champions Red Bull.

The team also revealed that the new car passed a series of crash tests before the Christmas break, and confirmed Alonso and Massa will attend their annual ‘Wrooom’ media event at Italy’s Madonna di Campiglio ski resort next week.

[Iceman]

Ferrari having a big engineering reshuffle.

Oh also "statistically the greatest driver in F1 history" turned 42 the other day :) Happy Birthday Michael Schumacher! :D

[Iceman]

BERLIN (AP) — A former German bank executive has been arrested for allegedly accepting a $50 million kickback in the 2006 sale of a large stake in the Formula One's rights holding company, German prosecutors said Wednesday.

The former risk manager of regional public-sector bank BayernLB was taken into custody on charges of corruption, tax fraud and breach of trust toward his former employer, prosecutors in Munich said in a statement.

Gerhard Gribkowsky was in charge of managing the sale of the bank's F1 stake to London-based buyout group CVC Capital Investment.

But prosecutors say he led the bank to sell it "without evaluation of its current value" which, in turn, earned him "two consultancy contracts totaling $50 million."

The money was paid to firms in Austria that he had set up for that purpose, prosecutors said.

German media on Wednesday widely cited unnamed judicial officials as saying the money had been paid by firms based in Mauritius and the Caribbean, but prosecutors declined to comment or to say who had been the source of the payment.

A spokesman for CVC in Germany, who declined to be named in line with company policy, declined to comment on Gribkowsky's arrest and the bribery allegations.

However, the prosecution statement alleged Gribkowsky failed to pay millions of euros in taxes on the additional income.

BayernLB, or Bayerische Landesbank, held a 48 percent stake in SLEC Holdings, which owned the companies that run the F-1 racing series. At the time, 25 percent were owned by the family trust of Bernie Ecclestone, the longtime commercial head of Formula One, and the remainder was held by other banks.

CVC bought Ecclestone's and the BayernLB's stakes and regrouped them in a firm named Alpha Prema, becoming the Formula One's majority shareholder. The price of the deal has not been disclosed.

Gribkowsky was BayernLB's chief risk officer and a member of the board between 2003 and 2008.

BayernLB was not immediately reachable for comment Wednesday.

[Iceman]

Renault have joined a growing list of teams set to reveal their 2011 car ahead of the year’s first pre-season test. The wraps will come off the R31 in Valencia on January 31, the day before testing gets underway at the Spanish circuit.

The new Renault will feature a black and gold livery following the team’s recent tie-up with Group Lotus, now the Enstone squad’s title sponsor. The car will be driven by the unchanged driver line-up of Poland’s Robert Kubica and Russia’s Vitaly Petrov.

Sauber, Toro Rosso and Ferrari have all confirmed they will launch their 2011 cars before the Valencia session, which runs from February 1-3 with all 12 teams expected to participate.

[Iceman]

Narain Karthikeyan is to make a surprise comeback to Formula One racing after being signed by HRT for the 2011 season. Karthikeyan, who last competed in the sport in 2005 for Jordan, tested for the Williams team in 2006 to 2007 and remains the only Indian driver to have scored world championship points, after finishing fourth at the 2005 United States Grand Prix.

“It’s been a while in the making, but I am extremely happy to be racing again in Formula One in 2011,” said the 33 year-old. “I've always maintained that I have not given up on my desire to return to the pinnacle of world motorsport. I am confident that I still have the pace, the fitness and the will to succeed in Formula One.

“I’m looking forward to racing for Hispania Racing, and to working again with Dr Colin Kolles. We have a long standing and excellent working relationship together. I’m also looking forward to racing at the first ever Indian Grand Prix in October, and I hope that the Indian public will spur me on with their blessings and good wishes.”

Karthikeyan was the lead driver for A1 Team India in A1GP for two seasons from 2007 and won two events. In 2009, he raced for the Kolles Audi Team in the Le Mans Series and the Le Mans 24-Hour race, becoming the first-ever Indian to compete in the legendary event. The car finished seventh overall.

In 2010 the Chennai-born driver raced in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in the USA, as well as in the Superleague Formula in Europe, where he won a race at Brands Hatch. His win there extended a unique run of luck at the UK circuit, where he is the only driver to win a round in every series in which he has competed.

Before his 19-race Formula One foray in 2005, Karthikeyan had completed spells in Formula Three, Formula Nippon, Formula Vauxhall and the Nissan World Series to name just a few. Highlights include his fourth place in the standing for the 2000 British Formula Three championship and his 1996 Formula Asia title.

“It is a great pleasure for us to have signed Narain as our race driver,” commented HRT team principal Colin Kolles. “I have known Narain for a long time and he can revert to the experiences he gained when he was competing for Jordan Grand Prix and being test and reserve driver for Williams F1.

“Narain has also been driving in other racing series and running in one of the legendary Audi sports cars in the Le Mans Series. I am sure that his experience and speed will be very useful for the team during the season. We are welcoming Narain to our team and we look forward to working closely with him this year.”

HRT endured a difficult debut season in 2010. No pre-season testing and a changing driver line-up, which included Bruno Senna, Karun Chandhok, Sakon Yamamoto and Christian Klien, saw the team finish the year 11th in the standings, without a single world championship point.

The team have yet to announce who will partner Karthikeyan in 2011, though Kolles has already ruled out Senna.

[Iceman]

As he continues to mull over the possibility of resuscitating his 'breakaway' threat, Luca di Montezemolo has contended that F1 could survive under a different name – and insists that the rule-makers must not 'give up everything that made our sport for the sake of costs'.

di Montezemolo has been one of the most fervent opponents to the drive to cut expenditure in the top flight in recent years, and on several occasions has raised the spectre of forming a 'breakaway' series with like-minded rivals – a notion that F1 commercial rights-holder Bernie Ecclestone has rubbished as 'complete nonsense'.

Two years ago, it was Ferrari who led the outcry against then FIA President Max Mosley's controversial budget cap initiative – and with the terms of the governing Concorde Agreement due to be debated this year ahead of a new one being signed in 2012, the Scuderia's ever-outspoken President argues that now is the moment to bring about genuine change and urges that the ball is very much in the teams' court.

Somewhere along the line, a long-term compromise needs to be struck between F1's three principal factions – the FIA, Ecclestone's Formula One Management (FOM) organisation and the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA), of which di Montezemolo is a founding chairman – but the Italian has hinted that the sport's owners, private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, could similarly play a pivotal role.

“We need to think about what to do,” the 63-year-old told German magazine Auto Motor und Sport. “It cannot go on as it is now. It cannot be that we give up everything that made our sport for the sake of costs – F1 is about extreme innovation and technology. Do we need the name 'F1'? I believe we could go on with a different one.

“Theoretically-speaking, we can have one of three alternatives. One is that we renew with CVC, but only with better financial conditions. For how many years, we have to discuss, but I am in favour of many years because I don't want to be back every three or four years. So, assume five-to-eight years. Second, we want to ensure that Bernie will remain in a strong position. How long? I hope for a long time. It is not a new choice; it is to continue as it is.

“The next option is that we find a different company [promoter] and start discussions. Third, we can establish our own company. At this point of time we would theoretically offer to Bernie to be chairman; more than honorary chairman – a chairman. We put a very strong marketing-oriented mind, nothing to do with the teams, to manage it and think of new and modern methods for marketing, as they did in the NBA. Only in the first case would we insist on Bernie, because I don't want to discuss with people that I respect but who don't know anything about F1.”

Hailing Ecclestone as central to his vision for the future of F1 due to the Englishman's 'passion [for] racing and not the stock market', di Montezemolo added that one more alteration he would like to see made is to the start time of grands prix, suggesting the sport is missing a trick and potentially sacrificing television viewers the way things are.

“I don't think it's good that in July or August the races begin at 2 o'clock when most people are lying on the beach,” he told German publication Sport Bild. “Football games don't get started until 5 o'clock or later.”

[Iceman]

60 Days to go.... less than 2 months :D

[pinkmichk]

yay cant wait
am off to autosport show at the weekend for a much needed motorsport fix

[Iceman]

yay cant wait
am off to autosport show at the weekend for a much needed motorsport fix

I am really missing F1 this year more than ever before..... I want season NOW!

(oh that sounds cool, I expect some pics :tongue:)

[Iceman]

http://mickeypath.com/id/03-11-2011_F1+2011_0-0-0_255-0-0.png

[Iceman]

Martin Brundle is to become BBC Sport's lead Formula 1 commentator in 2011, with David Coulthard moving alongside him as co-commentator.

Brundle, who replaces Jonathan Legard, has commentated on 231 grands prix since retiring as an F1 driver in 1996.

Brundle said he was "absolutely delighted and very motivated" by his new role alongside Coulthard.

The Scot, who joined the BBC after retiring from F1 in 2008, said: "F1 is all about challenging yourself."

Ben Gallop, BBC's head of F1, said: "We're always looking for ways to take our F1 coverage to another level - and for 2011 we have an exciting new combination in the commentary box.

"We're keen to make the most of Martin Brundle's wealth of broadcasting experience and his popularity with the audience by giving him the role of lead commentator and putting him alongside David Coulthard, one of the biggest names in British motorsport and a skilled race analyst.

"We want to tap into their combined on-track expertise - together they will provide our viewers with more immediate discussion, analysis and debate as the action happens."

I've never felt more passionate about F1 and I can't wait to get started

Martin Brundle

Coulthard, who won 13 grands prix in a 15-year F1 career, added: "This will be a big challenge for me, but one that I am looking forward to. There is a great team on the BBC F1 show and we're looking forward to the year ahead and to bringing something new to our loyal viewers."

Brundle has commentated on 231 grands prix since he first joined ITV in 1997 after a 13-year F1 career, during which he drove for Tyrrell, Zakspeed, Williams, Brabham, Ligier, Benetton, McLaren and Jordan.

This will be the first time he has been the lead commentator.

Brundle and Coulthard have done screen tests in their new roles and Gallop said: "The results of screen tests have been very impressive and we are convinced this combination will deliver a fantastic commentary for our audience for what promises to be a thrilling 2011 season."

Brundle said: "I'm absolutely delighted and very motivated that BBC Sport has asked me to become the lead Formula 1 commentator alongside David Coulthard.

"We have been friends, rivals and colleagues for 18 years and combined we have driven more than 400 F1 grands prix and attended more than 700.

"I've never felt more passionate about F1 and I can't wait to get started."

Coulthard added: "I'm very excited to be joining forces with Martin in this new role of co-commentator. F1 is all about challenging yourself and this will be a big challenge for me, but one that I am looking forward to.

"There is a great team on the BBC F1 show and we're looking forward to the year ahead and to bringing something new to our loyal viewers."

The decision to team Brundle with Coulthard means there is no place for Legard in the BBC F1 commentary set-up.

Gallop added: "We'd like to take this opportunity to thank Jonathan for his great work over the last two seasons.

"He is a first-rate journalist and broadcaster who has been a core member of our team, helping to re-establish BBC Sport as the nation's F1 broadcaster. We wish him all the very best for the future."

[Iceman]

‘Schumi’ has come back to win - Ross Brawn

Despite of all the poor performances, the Mercedes GP team boss, Ross Brawn has firm faith in Michael Schumacher’s racing skills. He believes that the driver still has the same strength and determination, which is all he needs to bag another championship of his career.

The seven times world champion, Schumacher is statistically the best racer ever in the sport’s history. The driver bagged five consecutive championships, first time ever in the 61-year history of Formula One from 2000 to 2004 under the Ferrari umbrella. However, Fernando Alonso’s determination in 2005 broke the spell, as Alonso stepped on the podium as the winner. The long dominance of the German was dismissed by the Spaniard who made the record of being the youngest champion ever in the sport in 2005. The following season saw him bag the second championship of his career, which forced Schumacher to announce his retirement in early 2007. However, in the last season the restless German announced his return to begin the battle for the title once again.

The surprising news was happily embraced by his fans. The hype of the 42-year-old’s return further mounted as he decided to tie up with the legendary name, Mercedes GP, the team that won both the drivers’ as well as the constructors’ titles only a year back, under the title of ‘Brawn GP’. The experience of Ross Brawn and Mercedes-Benz, coupled with Schumacher’s unmatched driving skills, was expected to do wonders on the track.

However, it was not very late that the fans started losing hope, and the race analysts began discussing Schumacher’s decision of return as a big mistake. The team failed to provide the driver with a competitive car, while he failed to draw the best out of what he was handed. In many races, he was outperformed by his teammate, Nico Rosberg, a far younger and inexperienced racer than the veteran.

The driver’s inability to win any race or even finish on the podium even once called for huge condemnation and criticism from all around. Almost everyone believed that the driver will not be seen on the track next season. All the Formula One experts thought that his stay will further tarnish his legacy.

However, the determined and strong minded man not only announced to continue with the series next season as well but also announced his will to dominate the track once again. Earlier this month, he declared that he has come back to the sport with a three-year project in his mind. He will bag another championship in these three years and will leave, not to come back again.

Although, he has not been able to convince many people in the sport, his team boss, Brawn is undoubtedly convinced by his skill on the grids.

Brawn insisted that the driver’s 4th place finish in Korean GP and 6th slot in Japan is an indicator of a better season ahead. He believes that the driver still has the potential, and all he needs is a competitive car to beat all his rivals. While talking about the upcoming season, he insisted that now the onus is on him. He said that the driver will perform just as well as Mercedes’ car will allow him to, and he is sure to hand him a competitive car in 2011.

He explained saying, "I'm still optimistic because Michael's performances at the end of last season were encouraging. I'm convinced he will go decidedly better this year."

Moreover, the return of Pirelli is also expected to help the driver as all through the last season Schumacher blamed the characteristics of Bridgestone tyres to be unsuitable for his driving style. With the first Grand Prix around the corner, all his fans anticipate seeing the same wonders he has been displaying during his early career.

http://blogs.bettor.com/Schumi-has-come-back-to-win-Ross-Brawn-a52477

[Iceman]

http://images.pistonheads.com/nimg/23021/Lotus_1-L.jpg

Dont know if this is the final colour design or not just got it set to me on twitter.

[Iceman]

Formula One Management (FOM) is pleased to announce that Formula One racing’s global television audience increased to 527 million individuals over the course of the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship.

In what will be remembered as one of the hardest fought F1 seasons in history, TV audiences across the globe swelled in response to the on-track excitement.

A function of this increased demand was additional coverage in many territories, as live free practice and additional qualifying and race programming were added to schedules around the world. In total over 16,000 hours of coverage were telecast to 187 countries.

There was growth in nine of the 11 largest TV markets, and it was a particularly strong year for Formula One’s European audience, with many of FOM’s broadcast partners reporting their highest race audiences in a number of seasons.

“Whilst 2010 has delivered some great things, 2011 promises even more as Formula One seeks to build upon the foundations laid in our emerging markets and enthral our audiences across the world,” commented Formula One Group CEO, Bernie Ecclestone.

The 2011 season will see Formula One racing televised in HD for the first time, with all FOM’s broadcast partners being offered HD coverage of all sessions. The 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship begins in Bahrain on March 13.

Source: F1.com

[James]

BBC says Paul di Resta will be getting a drive with Force India. I used to watch him in DTM, good driver.

Hulkenberg set for third-driver role after turning down Virgin Racing.


Scot Paul di Resta is poised to seal a deal to race for Force India and become the third British driver in Formula 1.

BBC Sport understands Force India have decided to promote the 24-year-old from his position as test driver and pair him with German Adrian Sutil.

But the team have not yet concluded negotiations with Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi, who has a contract for 2011.

Liuzzi's manager Peter Collins said: "Tonio will be in F1 this year. Will he be racing? I don't know."

Force India refused to comment on the situation and Di Resta and his manager Anthony Hamilton, father of McLaren driver Lewis, were not available.



Force India are expected to employ former Williams driver Nico Hulkenberg as their third driver, although he is also hoping for a similar role at Mercedes.

Hulkenberg impressed in his rookie season for Williams last year but the team decided to replace him with Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado, who succeeded the German as GP2 champion and whose presence in the team is tied to a multi-year multi-million pound sponsorship from Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.

Hulkenberg's manager Willi Weber told the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport this week that the 23-year-old had an offer to race for Virgin but preferred to be a reserve driver for a more established team.

"We have been thinking and asking do we want to pause a year? But in this day and age you are forgotten because everything changes so quickly," Weber said.

"Therefore, I am of the opinion that it would be better for Nico to go to a team where he can at least drive in Friday practice. That would be the ideal solution for him. So he stays on the ball.

"With the small teams, someone like Nico, who has a season behind him, does not have much more to learn."


Article http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9368179.stm

Driver line-ups

Ferrari - Alonso & Massa
Mercedes - Schumacher & Rosberg
McLaren - Button & Hamilton
Red Bull - Vettel & Webber
Sauber - Kobayashi & Pérez
Toro Rosso - Alguersuari & Buemi
Lotus Renault - Kubica & Petrov
Marussia Virgin Racing - Glock & d'Ambrosio
Williams - Barichello & Maldonado
Team Lotus - Trulli & Kovalainen
HRT - Karthikeyan & ????
Force India - di Resta? & Sutil? (unconfirmed)

[Iceman]

So we nearly have our full grid!!!!!! Hulkenburg is an idiot, any race seat is better than none.

[Iceman]

THE City of Melbourne signed a lucrative sponsorship deal with the Australian Grand Prix just days before Lord Mayor Robert Doyle called for the event to be scrapped.

The ink had barely dried on the contract, formalised on January 17, when Mr Doyle criticised the cost of the event to taxpayers, saying it no longer offered value for money and had outlived its welcome.

Concerns about the cost saw the State Government yesterday refuse to guarantee the future of Melbourne's Formula One event after the current contract expired in 2015.

Premier Ted Baillieu admitted the GP might have to go, unless costs could be cut substantially.

If the event were to have a long-term future at Albert Park, Mr Baillieu said the $50 million bill picked up by taxpayers for last year's event -- more than double the losses incurred in 2006 -- would have to be reduced.

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* Hot Topic: Is the GP out of gas? Herald Sun, 42 minutes ago
* Time we left grand prix behind Herald Sun, 42 minutes ago
* End flagged for Grand Prix Courier Mail, 6 hours ago
* Final lap for Melbourne's Grand Prix? Herald Sun, 1 day ago
* Time to kiss the GP goodbye Herald Sun, 1 day ago

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Over the past three years, the event has run up losses of about $130 million with attendances hitting a low of 287,000 spectators in 2009.

Mr Baillieu said that the GP had been great for Melbourne and Victoria.

"But we look forward to the Grand Prix performing financially better and we will be looking to make sure that happens," he said.

Stunned GP insiders were yesterday struggling to understand the criticism.

"It's a strange move for the mayor to come out against the event when the contract has only just been signed," one source said. Australian Grand Prix Corporation sales and commercial manager Jeremy Kann confirmed that a deal had been struck.

Cr Doyle did not respond to calls yesterday. But in an article for the Sunday Herald Sun he said "time's up" for the GP.

[pinkmichk]

woooooop raceday ticket for the british gp has just been purchased with my birthday money roll on 10th july

[Iceman]

woooooop raceday ticket for the british gp has just been purchased with my birthday money roll on 10th july

I will be at Oxegen yet again :(

[pinkmichk]

fail! you should do the f1 this year

[Iceman]

Im still trying to go to Valencia, I get my Carers grant in March so might try get my ticket then......or might try and go to turkey and a holiday while im at it.....

[Iceman]

'Simulator sickness' does not explain Michael Schumacher's disappointing return to Formula One alongside Nico Rosberg in 2010.

That was the gist of a statement issued by Mercedes following reports this week that the seven time World Champion did not work in the team's Brackley simulator last year due to motion sickness.

A source had told Dutch website f1today.nl that while Rosberg's set-up work was "largely done" by the time he got to a Grand Prix, "Michael begins with a basic setting" because of his inability to work effectively in the simulator.

But Mercedes clarified in a statement that the reports were wrong to say Schumacher, 42, has only been suffering from motion sickness since returning to Formula 1 after an initial career spanning 91 wins.

"Throughout his career, Michael from time to time has been susceptible to simulator sickness which has affected the length of time that he can spend on a simulator," said the German team.

"Michael has not been disadvantaged as together with his engineers he has made his simulation work effective," added Mercedes.

However, the statement did say Schumacher's problem with simulators was "exacerbated" in 2010 because Mercedes' technology is not yet up to scratch with some of its rivals.

Schumacher is my Idol and all but the team need to forget about last year, I'm sure he has...move on.....

[Iceman]

Ferrari's 2011 formula one car will be called F150, the famous Italian team has announced.

The car, to be launched and given its track debut on Friday at Ferrari's headquarters, is named in tribute of the 150th anniversary of Italian unification.



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"All the men and women who put so much effort and passion into their work at Maranello share the pride and responsibility of representing our country around the world and it is in this spirit that we chose to dedicate this car to an event that is so important for the whole of Italy," said Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo.

A statement issued by the Maranello based team also said Giorgio Napolitano, the president of the Italian Republic, "took the opportunity to wish the Scuderia the best of luck for the forthcoming season" after being told of the 2011 car's name.

Last year's Ferrari was called the F11. Until now, the codename for the 2011 project was 288.

F150 is also known as a model of Ford's famous series of full-size pickup trucks.

[pinkmichk]

1 seat left on the grid now & thats the HRT 1 now sutil & di resta have the force india ones (with hulkenberg as reserve)

eoin i would love to go to 1 of the races abroad (canada would be my dream one) but doubt can afford this year maybe next

[Iceman]

Michael Schumacher is confident that he can still add to his seven World titles despite suggestions that he is too old to reach the summit of F1.

Having returned to the sport after a three-year absence, the German failed to reach the standards he had set in the past and generally performed below most expectations.

Despite this, the World Champion has lost none of the self-belief that helped him to seven World titles during the 1990's and 2000's, declaring that he is certain he can challenge for the top honours in 2011.

"Absolutely [I can win another title]," the German told F1 Racing.

"Look, we have a three-year project. Very clearly right now, we are not where we want to be. We've put a lot of effort into coming back and are optimistic we have a chance.

"But in the history of Formula 1, when does it ever happen that you come back straightaway from this level to win in just one year? Very rarely.

"So I'm sure we can fight for wins this year and we might be able to fight for the championship. I hope so. I'm here on a mission and I want to succeed. I want to perform and I'm going to put 100 per cent into it. And if that's not the case in 2011, then we will have to do it in the final year," he added.


:shocked: This is the Michael of old, the Michael I thought was gone........ Mind games have begun people. He seems so committed for 2012 too. I cant wait for season now.

[Iceman]

New Ferrari Car

http://www.formula1.com/wi/597x478/manual/dne1028ja09.jpg
http://www.formula1.com/wi/597x478/manual/dne1128ja10.jpg
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Source: www.F1.com

[Iceman]

http://cdn.images.autosport.com/editorial/1296226519.jpg

Source: www.autosport.com

[Iceman]

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER believes 2011 will be his year — and says he is 'on a mission' to win his eighth Formula One world title.

Schuey, 42, failed to make the podium in his unspectacular comeback with Mercedes last season.

But he said: "We have a three-year project. In the history of F1 when does it ever happen that you come back to win in one year? We can fight for wins this year and fight for the championship.

"I'm here on a mission and I want to succeed. I want to perform and I'm going to put 100 per cent into it."

Schumacher will be back on track next week in Valencia for the first of the four pre-season tests ahead of the opening Grand Prix in Bahrain on March 13.

Source: Thesun.co.uk

I didnt know the testing was next week :D

[Iceman]

http://www.formula1.com/wi/597x478/manual/dal1128ja16.jpg
http://www.formula1.com/wi/597x478/manual/dal1128ja17.jpg
http://www.formula1.com/wi/597x478/manual/dal1128ja21.jpg

Source: www.F1.com

[Iceman]

http://images.itv-f1.com/ImageLibrary/59932_2.jpg

Source: www.ITV.com

[Iceman]

Team Lotus

http://www.formula1.com/wi/597x478/manual/team-lotus-launch-02_2-4.jpg
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Team Lotus have unveiled their 2011 challenger online ahead of its track debut later this week. The UK-based team hope the T128 will make them midfield contenders and bring them their first world championship points.

After contesting their 2010 debut season with the deliberately conservative, Cosworth-powered T127, Lotus have taken a more aggressive approach with the new car, which uses Renault power and Red Bull transmission systems.

“This year’s car is a much more contemporary design,” said chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne. “The car really will be a midfield runner. It’s a modern F1 car. I’m very confident it is a big step up and it’s the start of a process that takes Team Lotus back to the front of the grid.”

"T128 takes Team Lotus in exactly the right direction,” added team CEO Riad Asmat. “We have said since day one of the Team Lotus dream that the plan for our second year was to take the fight to the midfield, and with this car we are all confident that is what we will be able to do."

Team principal Tony Fernandes commented: "There has been so much focus off-track it's a thrill to be able to get back to talking about racing. The launch of the T128 is a big step forward for Team Lotus and I want to thank the whole team for the amount of hard work that has already gone into the car, and I want to thank Renault and Red Bull Technology for their tremendous support in helping us make this step forward and for being such great team partners."

The T128 is expected to make its track debut on Wednesday, in the second day of this week’s official F1 test session at Valencia in Spain. The team's driver line-up remains unchanged for 2011, with Finland's Heikki Kovalainen and Italy's Jarno Trulli at the wheel.

Source: www.F1.com

[Iceman]

Sauber

http://www.formula1.com/wi/597x478/manual/c30_angle.jpg
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Sauber’s 2011 race line-up of Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez were on hand at the Valencia circuit in Spain on Monday to unveil the team’s new car, ahead of its track debut in testing on Tuesday.

After the upheavals of 2010, with their metamorphosis from a works to a private team, Sauber hope the Ferrari-powered C30 will form the basis of a more stable 2011 campaign and help them better last year’s eighth place in the constructors’ standings.

“We want to finish in the points regularly and clearly improve our position,” said team principal Peter Sauber ahead of his squad’s 19th F1 season. “2010 marked the 41st year of our company history and one of the most difficult. But we managed to overcome these difficulties in the second half of the season.

“We implemented some well-considered structural changes. The appointment of James Key as technical director already bore fruit last season, and he is now in charge of development of the Sauber C30-Ferrari. At the same time, we have managed to secure our business foundation for the 2011 season. In these economically straitened times that is something we can be proud of too.”

Sauber’s aim is for the C30 not just to prove more reliable than its predecessor; there were a number of other weaknesses to be banished as well. One of the team’s overriding targets is to improve aerodynamic efficiency, low-speed cornering, mechanical grip and to gain more flexibility in suspension tuning.

The striking visual features of the Sauber C30 are a raised front, slender waist, compact rear, new rollhoop and downward-sloping engine cover. Propelling the car as before is the Ferrari 056 engine, while power delivery is courtesy of a new Ferrari transmission. Its KERS system also comes from the Maranello factory.

“In order to take a step forward in 2011, we were already systematically tackling the C29’s weaknesses over the last season - and we’ve made progress,” explained technical director Key. “The insights we gleaned were taken into account when the concept for the new C30 was being drawn up."

The new technical regulations presented Sauber’s engineers with a tricky assignment, since the ban on double diffusers fundamentally alters the car’s aerodynamic concept. Another tough challenge was the switch to Pirelli tyres, which meant the engineers had to make decisions during the concept phase before the teams had a chance to test the tyres out on track.

“Since some of the changes decreed by the regulations - particularly regarding the tyres - can only be analysed out on track, it was important for us to build, firstly, a fundamentally predictable car and, secondly, one that would provide sufficient flexibility to respond to ongoing findings at the track and during further development stages,” added Keys.

After completing a few installation laps on Monday, the C30 will begin a full test schedule alongside its rivals on Tuesday at the start of a development programme that will see it fitted with a new aerodynamic package before 2011’s season-opening Grand Prix in Bahrain on March 13.

Source: www.F1.com

[Iceman]

Renault (Lotus 2.0)

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Hot on the heels of rivals Lotus and Sauber, Renault have become the latest team to reveal their 2011 car. The R31, bedecked in the iconic black and gold colours associated with backers Group Lotus, was presented to the media in the pit lane of the Valencia track, ahead of the first pre-season test of the year which will begin on Tuesday at the Spanish circuit.

Race drivers Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov were on hand to unveil the new machine, alongside technical director James Allison, team principal Eric Boullier and chairman Gerard Lopez. For Allison, the long months of hard work have paid off and the engineer is confident that the R31 will present a tangible step forward from its predecessor, the R30, which powered the team to fifth in the 2010 constructors’ standings.

“Words like ‘aggressive’ and ‘innovative’ are very much in vogue in Formula One at the moment, but where the R31 is concerned we feel those adjectives are appropriate,” he said. “It’s true to say that the car has been designed in an ambitious manner and a quick glance at the layout will confirm that its entire concept differs considerably, not just from last year’s car, but from any car this team has ever produced.”

Team principal Boullier was just as optimistic, thanks to the new car’s strengths, as well as the Enstone team’s growing efficiency.

“All the hard work over the winter has been focused on delivering a big improvement for 2011,” he said. “The result is a car with more than 92 percent new parts compared to the R30. But technical innovation isn’t the only key to performance. Since last year, we have reviewed all our internal processes and our overall efficiency has now improved by 15 percent. That means we should be more competitive than last year, on the track and at the factory.”

Petrov, who gleaned 27 points from his debut season in 2010, will be in charge of the R31 when it makes its on-track debut on Tuesday, and for the Russian it’s a thrilling opportunity.

“It feels exciting to be starting my second year of Formula One and I can’t wait to try this beautiful car for the first time tomorrow,” hesaid. “Now that I have a year of F1 experience behind me, I feel more confident and ready to deliver. I’m determined to do well and fight hard for this team.”

Petrov's more experienced team mate Kubica will take over the car for the remaining two days’ of testing from Wednesday. The Polish driver, who scored 136 points and three podium finishes in 2010, is also targeting a much more productive 2011.

“After a long winter break you always feel ready to jump back in the car,” he added. “At the moment it’s difficult to know just how competitive our package will be, but the engineers have decided to go for an innovative design, which is good.”

Renault also presented their new third drivers Bruno Senna and Romain Grosjean at the event, whilst the team’s reserve drivers (and members of their young driver academy) were confirmed as Jan Charouz, Ho-Pin Tung and Fairuz Fauzy, who was unable to attend the launch due to his GP2 commitments.

Source: www.F1.com

[Iceman]

F1 2011 Constructors Champions & Drivers Champion Michael Schumacher AKA Mercedes

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A confident-looking Mercedes GP launched their 2011 car in the Valencia pit lane on Tuesday. After their championship-winning success as Brawn in 2009, the team endured a hit and miss 2010 season and are now targeting a return to their winning ways with the new MGP W02, which will once again be driven by Nico Rosberg and seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher.

Despite their stellar line-up, Mercedes finished fourth in the 2010 standings, with less than half the points’ tally of champions Red Bull. After 12 months of intense design and development work, however, the team are hopeful their new challenger could see them back in front-running form.

“It is always a thrill to see a new car ready to take the track for the first time and this year is no exception,” said team principal Ross Brawn. “After our first year as the Mercedes-Benz works team, we are now seeing the benefits of our chassis group and our engine group working well together.

"With a good technical structure and a strengthened race engineering organisation, both at the factory and the race track, I am confident that we have done and will continue to do a better job this year in all key areas.

"The concept development for the MGP W02 started early and we have set challenging targets for the design, combined with a robust plan to ensure that the pace of development can continue throughout the long 2011 season. We want to be setting the standard right from the start but if we are not, we will respond very strongly to get ourselves into the game. Everyone is excitedly waiting to see what the new season will reveal.”

As well as Pirelli tyres, an adjustable rear wing, KERS and a striking, high-gloss airbrush effect livery, the MGP W02 features a raft of technical innovations and changes. And the aggressive approach taken by Mercedes’ engineers means the new car is almost unrecognisable from its 2010 forerunner.

“The new Silver Arrow for the 2011 season has little in common with its immediate predecessor,” explained Norbert Haug, vice-president of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport. “Our chassis engineers have taken a fairly ruthless approach and were determined to shave off every superfluous gram and millimetre.

“What emerged from this process is a compact and exquisitely shaped vehicle that introduces a host of sophisticated solutions and truly reflects the enormous dedication of its constructors. We have given it a brand new coat of paint, and we aim to see a smile on the faces of our hard-working drivers and team members that is as bright as our new silver livery.”

Of the team’s two drivers, it was Schumacher who struggled the most with their 2010 car, scoring just 72 of the team’s 214 points. The German, however, is optimistic about his targets for the season ahead.

“Finally the waiting is over and things get started,” he said. "Even if I have been involved and updated all winter on the developments, and even if I know the improvements are significant, it is still different to see the new car literally for the first time in front of you.

"You automatically build up this nice pre-start tension. I very much look forward to the new season. We have said it several times already but again, we are really to building up something big together. I am very confident that this season we will be standing on the podium much more regularly; ideally in the middle!”

Although his team mate Rosberg did manage to clinch three podiums during the course of 2010, the younger German wants much more from his second season with Mercedes.

“I am very much looking forward to having a much stronger season than last year and as always, our targets are aggressive,” he said. “We want to be competing at the front and challenging for race wins. Everyone at our factories in Brackley and Brixworth has worked extremely hard on the new Silver Arrow and we are all looking forward to seeing how it performs.”

The MGP W02 makes its on-track debut at the Spanish circuit on Tuesday, with both Rosberg and Schumacher expected to get a turn at the wheel.

[James]

Here's the latest on Robert Kubica after his rally crash.


Renault driver Robert Kubica has regained consciousness as he begins his recovery following seven-hour surgery.

The 26-year-old's right hand was partially severed and he suffered arm and leg fractures when he crashed during a rally in Italy on Sunday.

"The doctors have said he has taken important steps forward," said Kubica's agent Daniele Morelli.

Renault said in a statement that Kubica had been able to move his fingers and had talked to his relatives.

"He was briefly woken up by the doctors," said the Renault statement.

"He was also able to move his fingers, which is encouraging for the rest of his recovery process.


"In order to avoid any physical stress, Robert will be put under gentle medication in order to sleep for the next 24 hours at least.

"Meanwhile, the doctors will decide how they will treat his elbow and shoulder fractures. Robert may have to undergo surgery once again for this, but not for a few days."

Pole Kubica crashed after his car hit a church wall as he approached the start of the Ronde di Andora rally and it was reported that his Formula 1 career could be at risk as a consequence of the injuries.

The 26-year-old, who finished eighth in the drivers' table last season, was in an induced coma overnight after seven hours of surgery before waking on Monday morning.

"Kubica is conscious, he talks and understands what has happened," said Dr Giorgio Barabino.

"The first thing he thought about was his co-driver and was informed about his condition.

"Things are going well considering that there was substantial damage. There were huge difficulties we faced and the necessary measures were taken immediately.

"Kubica lost a lot of blood, that is why the first hour was critical. He was unconscious and could not be operated on when he arrived at the hospital. He needed many transfusions during the stabilising process as well as during the very long surgery." We need at least six days to check if the circulation of the blood in the limb responds as it should
Professor Mario Igor Rossello


Professor Mario Igor Rossello was part of the surgery team and said it would take a week to determine if the operation had been a complete success.

"The hand is warm and this means the operation went well," said Rosello.

"It was a difficult operation. We need at least six days to check if the circulation of the blood in the limb responds as it should."

Renault team boss Eric Boullier, who is due to visit Kubica along with the driver's team-mate Vitaly Petrov, told the BBC on Monday: "When you have a big crash like Robert suffered on Sunday, doctors always predict the worst-case scenario.

"Definitely he took seven hours in the surgery room to repair his hand and his arm.

"This morning it was really fine - they needed 24 hours to make sure he recovered completely and it looks like this morning they are all happy.

"He is definitely out for a couple of months. The recovery will be quicker than one year but it is a bit early to know exactly how long he will need."

Kubica was reportedly trapped in his car for more than an hour while specialist cutting equipment arrived at the crash scene before he airlifted to the Santa Corona hospital near Genoa, where the operation took place.

Renault have defended Kubica's decision to participate in a rally so close to the start of the F1 season, which begins on 13 March.

"He loves rallying. We knew the risks and so did he," added Boullier told Italian news agency Ansa.

"We didn't want a robot or a corporate man for a driver. It was agreed together."

Renault will decide who will replace Kubica in his absence once they have a better idea of how long it will take for him to recover.

The former driver for the BMW Sauber team regularly competes in rallies and was driving a week after a successful testing session in the new Renault car in Valencia, ahead of the season's opening grand prix in Bahrain.

He had been due to lead the Renault team alongside Russian Petrov, who has a long-term contract after signing for the 2011 and 2012 campaign during the winter.

The reserve drivers for 2011 include Bruno Senna - who raced for Hispania last season - and Frenchman Romain Grosjean, who drove for Renault as a replacement for Nelson Piquet Jr in 2009.

"We are already starting to think and work on a contingency plan," added Boullier.

"We don't know yet, we are actually waiting to know how long it will take because [if it is] a short-term replacement we will take one of our reserve drivers; if he has to be longer we may have to consider different options."

It is likely that one of the reserve drivers will be called up for the second pre-season test, which starts in Jerez on Thursday.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9389513.stm

[Iceman]

Stupid Polish man going and crashing when I was on a break :nono: well I'm back now so from what I've read and been told he will be out indefinately????

[Iceman]

Mercedes GP’s Michael Schumacher responded on Friday to Felipe Massa’s swift Thursday pace for Ferrari, as this week’s four-day test continued in Jerez. Schumacher’s fastest lap, a 1m 20.352s, was almost four-tenths of a second quicker than Massa’s best the day before - and six-hundredths up on the Brazilian's own Friday best at the Spanish circuit.

Jenson Button finished third behind Massa as he sampled the new McLaren, the MP4-26, for the first time, whilst Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari took fourth slot after covering 72 laps in the STR6. Alguersuari’s programme featured three key elements - tyre evaluation, weight distribution and set-up work. His team mate Sebastien Buemi will take charge of the car on Saturday.

“I tried all compounds except the super-soft here and I had a good feeling from the car with all of them, getting an idea of their different behaviour,” said the young Spaniard. “I also made progress in terms of using the KERS and the DRS (downforce reduction system) which to be honest, does not look as complicated as I expected it to be.

“The important thing is that we are making progress every time I go out of the garage. In performance terms, it is still a bit too early to start drawing conclusions, especially as the lap times here vary a lot from the morning to the afternoon, but I am reasonably confident that this side of the car’s progress is on the right track.”

Red Bull’s Mark Webber finished in fifth, ahead of Force India’s Adrian Sutil and Sauber’s Sergio Perez.

Full report to follow.

Unofficial Friday test times from Jerez:
1. Michael Schumacher, Mercedes GP, 1:20.352
2. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 1:20.413
3. Jenson Button, McLaren, 1:21.009
4. Jaime Alguersuari, Toro Rosso, 1:21.214
5. Mark Webber, Red Bull, 1:21.613
6. Adrian Sutil, Force India, 1:21.780
7. Sergio Perez, Sauber, 1:21.857
8. Timo Glock, Virgin, 1:22.208
9. Vitaly Petrov, Renault, 1:22.493
10. Pastor Maldonado, Williams, 1:22.591
11. Jarno Trulli, Lotus, 1:23.216

[Iceman]

AbTGzYuF9zI

YIKES

[Iceman]

Mercedes GP’s hit and miss performance at the recent Jerez test has prompted some to speculate that the team are on the back foot ahead of the 2011 season. But team principal Ross Brawn is confident they have plenty of time to remedy any reliability issues and is optimistic that by the time March’s Bahrain Grand Prix gets underway any teething problems will have been solved.

“Reliability is our main challenge at the moment,” Brawn told Mercedes GP’s official website. “Although we have completed the third highest mileage of any team with our new car (a total of 2310km), our level of reliability is not where it needs to be yet. We have experienced our share of teething problems with the MGP W02 but we have solutions in the pipeline to resolve them.

“The second pre-season test in Jerez was extremely useful. Our priorities at this stage are improving the reliability of the new car, working with the KERS system, and developing our understanding of the Pirelli tyres. We had good reliability for the middle two days which allowed us to accumulate mileage and collect a lot of data to study ahead of the next test in Barcelona this weekend."

Whilst Michael Schumacher ended his two days at Jerez a happy man, setting the fastest time on Friday and the second-best time on Saturday, a much gloomier Nico Rosberg climbed out of the MGP W02’s cockpit on Sunday after a precautionary engine change interrupted his programme. Brawn, however, is relaxed about progress.

“Michael had the better of the reliability in Jerez where he completed 226 laps in total, and this has provided us with a wealth of data to study prior to Barcelona,” explained Brawn. “Nico was slightly unfortunate with the issues that we faced on his running days but still achieved some good work and will have better days to come in Barcelona and Bahrain. Only each team knows the truth about its performance during the pre-season period, and knowing all the facts, I am satisfied with our progress over the first two tests.”

Although determined to keep his cards under the table and wait until Bahrain to see how the car fares, Brawn was keen to remind the team’s fans that Mercedes GP will introduce a comprehensive aero upgrade ahead of the Sakhir race.

“We made a deliberate decision towards the end of last year to have a very ‘plain’ car for the first tests and a significant upgrade for the first race in Bahrain,” Brawn said. “With the Pirelli tyres, and the return of KERS, we wanted to make sure that our new car was ready for the first test and this was certainly the correct decision.

“The final features for the Bahrain upgrade were confirmed recently and we are comfortable with the performance step that these developments will bring. Our current package includes some compromises, and we know that there is more performance to come from the car. Of course, we don’t know where the other teams are, and what they have planned in terms of development. No-one will have the full picture until the racing starts in Bahrain.”

[Iceman]

LONDON (Reuters) - Lewis Hamilton's younger brother Nicolas, who has cerebral palsy, is to compete in the junior Renault Clio Cup series in Britain after gaining his racing licence last week.

The older Hamilton, Formula One world champion with McLaren in 2008, has described the 19-year-old as his biggest fan and inspiration.

The teenager said in a statement on Wednesday: "I have loved motor sport from a young age and watching my brother achieve so much has given me inspiration to make my own racing debut."

[Iceman]

Heidfeld confirmed at Renault. (Imagine he was a title contender???)

[michael21]

http://uk.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20110204&t=2&i=327708146&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=460&pl=300&r=2011-02-04T141220Z_01_BTRE71313GN00_RTROPTP_0_GERMANY

This is the car & team to beat in 2011

[Iceman]

http://www.lincah.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2009-mclaren-mp4-24-f1-team-side-picture-588x391.jpg

This is the car & team to beat in 2011

I cant see anything I'm assuming it's the mclaren though?

[michael21]

I cant see anything I'm assuming it's the mclaren though?

yes :hugesmile:

[Iceman]

The test this week should show a good sign of whos gonna be quick or not come Bahrain

[michael21]

The test this week should show a good sign of whos gonna be quick or not come Bahrain

wish there would show the test on tv (Red Button)

[Iceman]

_

????

[Iceman]

Looks like the Season won't start in Bahrain.

[Iceman]

Bahrain cancelled.

[Iceman]

Practice 1 Fri 01:30
Practice 2 Fri 05:30
Practice 3 Sat 03:00
Qualifying Sat 06:00
Race Sun 07:00

Who do you think will come good for the first race of the season?

[Iceman]

Red Bull’s Mark Webber topped the timesheets as the final pre-season test began at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya on Tuesday. Webber’s best time, a 1m 22.544s, was almost four tenths of a second faster than the quickest lap from McLaren's Jenson Button in second.

The weather made life tricky for the eight teams in action, with lower-than-expected temperatures and a blustery wind hampering their programmes at the Spanish circuit. Most, however, enjoyed productive days, with Webber managing to complete almost 100 laps in the RB7.

Renault’s Vitaly Petrov and Nick Heidfeld ended the day in third and fifth respectively, with Sauber’s Sergio Perez dividing the duo in fourth. Force India were in sixth place with Paul di Resta at the helm of the VJM04. The team’s tester Nico Hulkenberg was in action before lunch and ended the day in ninth.

Seventh slot went to GP2 driver Davide Valsecchi in the Lotus. Valsecchi’s AirAsia team mate Luiz Razia also enjoyed a drive in the T128 and finished in 10th. Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi was eighth, whilst Virgin’s Jerome D’Ambrosio was the day’s final runner in 11th.

Testing continues at Barcelona on Wednesday, when Mercedes, Williams, Ferrari and HRT are expected to join proceedings.

Unofficial Tuesday test times from Barcelona:
1. Mark Webber, Red Bull, 1:22.544, 97 laps
2. Jenson Button, McLaren, 1:22.910, 74
3. Vitaly Petrov, Renault, 1:22.937, 27
4. Sergio Perez, Sauber, 1:24.117, 90
5. Nick Heidfeld, Renault, 1:24.735, 20
6. Paul di Resta, Force India, 1:25.039, 38
7. Davide Valsecchi, Lotus, 1:25.406, 50
8. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, 1:26.004, 48
9. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, 1:26.030, 31
10. Luiz Razia, Lotus, 1:26.723, 29
11. Jerome D’Ambrosio, Virgin, 1:32.060, 57


Source www.f1.com

[Iceman]

The World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) met on Tuesday and agreed a number of changes to the sporting regulations, which will be applied with immediate effect. The amendments include tweaks to safety car periods and tyre usage. The FIA also revealed the Circuit Design Group is to examine Grand Prix circuits to identify the possibility of increasing overtaking opportunities.

Details from the WMSC in full:
Amendments have been made to the Sporting Regulations for immediate application:

At certain events, one additional specification of dry weather tyre may be made available to all teams for evaluation purposes. Teams will be informed about such an additional specification at least one week before the start of the relevant event. Two sets of these tyres will be allocated to each driver for use during P1 and P2, and any such tyres must be returned to the tyre supplier before the start of P3.

One additional set of ‘prime’ specification tyres may be made available to all drivers. Teams will be informed about such an additional set at least one week before the start of the relevant event. In this instance, the additional set will be available for use during P1 and P2. One set of ‘prime’ tyres must then be returned to the tyre supplier after P1, and two further sets of ‘prime’ and one set of ‘option’ specification tyres returned before the start of P3.

The safety car speed limit (an approximate 40 percent decrease in lap time) will now be enforced over two laps instead of one. The purpose is to ensure that cars are driven at a safe speed until they reach the safety car.

During a safety car period the pit exit light will remain green for the duration, unless the race is subsequently suspended.

Other than when the safety car has been asked to use the pit lane, no car may enter the pits while the safety car is deployed unless it is for the purpose of changing tyres.

Source www.f1.com

[Iceman]

Sebastian Vettel continued where team mate Mark Webber left off yesterday by setting the fastest time for Red Bull.

The world champion set a 1’21.865 within the first hour of the test and the time wasn’t beaten all day.

Sebastien Buemi was second fastest for Toro Rosso.

But his STR6 stopped shortly after Buemi did his best time. The team did a series of practice pit stops in the afternoon.

McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton spent much of the day towards the bottom of the times sheets but moved up to fourth behind Vitaly Petrov later on.

Felipe Massa was fifth-quickest for Ferrari.

Williams had more problems with their Kinetic Energy Recovery System which caused Pastor Maldonado to stop early on. The team removed the system before continuing with the test.

Among the other drivers to hit trouble with Paul di Resta, Sebastien Buemi and Jerome d’Ambrosio, all of which caused stoppages during the day.

D’Ambrosio’s Virgin had an electrical fault and Force India said the failure on di Resta’s car was “minor”.

For the second day running, the red flag ame out in the dying minutes of the test following a late stoppage. This time it was Petrov in the Renault whose car came to a halt on the track.
Driver Car Best time Laps Difference
1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault RB7 1’21.865 112
2 Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR6 1’22.396 120 0.531
3 Vitaly Petrov Renault R31 1’22.670 115 0.805
4 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes MP4-26 1’22.888 57 1.023
5 Felipe Massa Ferrari 150° Italia 1’23.324 99 1.459
6 Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes VJM04 1’24.334 118 2.469
7 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari C30 1’24.436 105 2.571
8 Nico Rosberg Mercedes W02 1’25.807 100 3.942
9 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault T128 1’26.090 98 4.225
10 Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth FW33 1’26.989 29 5.124
11 Jerome d’Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth MVR-02 1’28.982 42 7.117

[Iceman]

Latest times, 7 minutes to go

1.) Schumacher 1:21.249
2.) Alonso 1:21.614
3.) Rosberg 1:21.788
4.) Heidfeld 1:22.073
5.) Barrichello 1:22.233
6.) Kobayashi 1:22.315
7.) Alguersuari 1:22.675
8.) Vettel 1:22.933
9.) Kovalainen 1:23.437
10.) Sutil 1:23.921
11.) Maldonado 1:24.108
12.) di Resta 1:24.721
13.) Button 1:25.837
14.) dAmbrosio 1:27.375

[Iceman]

They reckon it's gonna be minimum of 3 pitstops per race :S

[Iceman]

Mercedes GP is still far from disappointed when it comes to the performance of the seven-time World Champion, Michael Schumacher. While talking to the media earlier today, the team management stated that they have not actually ruled out extending the driver’s contract with the team.

Schumacher returned to the track at the start of the 2010 Formula 1 season after three years. However, the much anticipated comeback of statistically the best racer ever in the history of the sport was much of a disappointment. The team failed to hand over a competitive car to the driver, while he failed to get the best out of what he was given.

However, unlike expectations, even after the abortive season, the driver not only chose to stay in the sport, but also revealed his strong desire to win another Championship before leaving the sport once for all.

Currently, the German has signed a three year contract with the team. This means even after the upcoming 2011 season, he will have a chance to run another season with the squad. The competition director at Mercedes, Norbert Haug, admitted earlier today that he would love to see the legendary racer with the team for a long time.

He explained, “If Michael wants it and we can agree on a right price — with pleasure.”

However, the initial pre-season test sessions did not unfold brilliantly for the team, as it was seen suffering from various issues of pace and reliability. Although many predict another poor season from the team ahead, yet, the team boss Ross Brawn is adamant to make the car stronger with some quick upgrades.

Brawn not only admitted that the team will soon be able to improve its car and hand over the drivers a stronger and better package, but also predicted a strong season ahead for its driver, Schumacher. He admitted, “Michael looks really strong. He could surprise some people this year.”

Moreover, the two-time World Champion and Ferrari driver, Fernando Alonso also proclaimed that Schumacher was still the most dangerous man on the track. While the Red Bull driver and the reigning World Champion, Sebastian Vettel also predicted a strong season ahead for the driver.

[Niamh.]

I hope Webber does well this year, he was so close last time!

[Iceman]

Everyone is saying watch out for Schumi..... Alonso said it first, then Bernie, now Vettel....... I think (and pray it happens)

If not Schumi then I want webber to do well.

[Iceman]

6 days, 6 hours and 58 minutes until the Australian Grand Prix

[Iceman]

The 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship finally gets underway in Australia next weekend, with all 12 teams eager to discover how their new cars stack up against the competition. There’s new rules, new tyres and more, but one thing that remains reassuringly consistent is the warm welcome guaranteed for the paddock at Melbourne’s Albert Park…

Heikki Kovalainen, Lotus
2010 Qualifying - 19th, 2010 Race - 13th
"As Melbourne is now the start of the season it will be very exciting. The Australian fans are great people and the city always has a carnival atmosphere because the race is right in the middle of town. The track itself is a semi-street circuit so it's tricky. It evolves a lot throughout the weekend as the rubber builds up and traction and grip improves. On Friday morning it's always very slippery and you need to bear that in mind when you're setting the car up. If you have some balance problems in the first session it's better not to worry about it too much as you just need to get a feel for the downforce levels, gear ratios and the tyres. By the third session on Saturday morning the track really starts to come into its own. In qualifying it improves every lap and the grip level gets better as people put more rubber down - it can be hard on the tyres as well so you need to look after them. It's a difficult track to overtake on and whether we get an opportunity to make the moveable wing really work for us there is still open to question. Whatever happens I'm really excited about getting back to racing and with the steps forward we have taken this year I think we're going to have a really good year."

Jarno Trulli, Lotus
2010 Qualifying - 20th, 2010 Race - DNF
(On DRS (Drag Reduction System), aka moveable rear wing): "People sometimes ask me what the acceleration of a Formula One car is like, and the only way I can describe it is that it's like driving a rocket - now we have a rocket that suddenly takes another leap forward when it's already at full speed! It was a strange feeling the first time we used the moveable rear wing, because you suddenly have about 15% less drag and therefore a lot more speed. The more you use the wing the more you get used to it and its effect on the car's behaviour. We can use it wherever we like in practice and qualifying but in the races it'll only be when we're within one second of the car ahead and in the designated area so I think it will have a big part to play strategically. We'll see how it improves the actual racing, but I hope it will make a difference."

Tony Fernandes, Lotus team principal
"I cannot wait to get back to racing. This is a very important season for Team Lotus as we are no longer a new team - we achieved what we set out to in 2010 but now it's effectively a clean sheet - an entirely new car, a fully fledged race team and factory and much higher aspirations. Now comes the next phase of the hard work - time to prove that our pre-season promise can help us take the next step forward in the amazing story that is Team Lotus."

Mark Webber, Red Bull
2010 Qualifying - 2nd, 2010 Race - 9th
“As an Australian I'm looking forward to Melbourne being the first race. We've done a huge amount of testing and a lot of work has gone into the cars - now we'll put them through their paces at Albert Park and lots of questions will be answered. It's going to be an eventful weekend, especially as the weather can be a bit hit and miss. We'll learn a lot about the tyres, which will play a key role. I hope I can improve my luck there, as it hasn't been incredible since since my first GP in '02. I hope to get my best result and there's every indication we can do that. This is the best winter we've had - let's hope we can carry it on into this event.”

Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull
2010 Qualifying - 1st, 2010 Race - DNF
“We know what it feels like to start the season in Australia, it's a special place with a special track - It's one of the few cities that lives Formula One for the week, so I'm looking forward to it. It has been an exciting winter and the time around Christmas was important to calm down, but since February we have been back in the rhythm. It's nice to look back at last year and at what we achieved but we're all looking forward now and focusing on the new car and season. It all starts from zero again; we're excited, we've had enough of testing now and we want to go racing again."

Lewis Hamilton, McLaren
2010 Qualifying - 11th, 2010 Race - 6th
“It’s felt like a very long winter. I started the new season feeling fitter and more positive than ever and I’ve maintained that enthusiasm and momentum despite a somewhat difficult few weeks of winter tests. We can’t hide the fact that testing has been tougher than we expected: our test mileage hasn’t been as high as that of our rivals, nor have we had the outright pace of the fastest cars. Still, I have a good feeling with MP4-26: I like driving our car, I think it will look after its tyres quite well and I understand that we’ll be making further performance steps ahead of this opening race.

“Nevertheless, we know we go to Melbourne ready for battle: some teams are extremely well prepared - both from a pace and reliability point of view - but that can sometimes count for little in the unpredictable and somewhat chaotic opening races where it’s equally vital just to take points home. I strongly believe that, while our preparations haven’t gone as smoothly as we’d have liked, I get the impression that we’ll be arriving in Melbourne with everything finally meshing together - and that makes me really excited.”

Jenson Button, McLaren
2010 Qualifying - 4th, 2010 Race - 1st
“In the past, I’d always travelled to Melbourne full of positive energy and enthusiasm. But, at the moment, my heart is with the people of Japan as they struggle to come to terms with the scope of the terrible devastation and loss of life wreaked by last week’s earthquake and tsunami. While the prospect of a Formula One race seems to pale in the face of such a disaster, there have been occasions before when the healing power of sport can actually be beneficial; an escape for people. So I go to Melbourne this weekend resolving to not only try my best, but also to salute the brave people, and my many friends, throughout Japan.

“Albert Park has been good to me: I’ve won there for the past two seasons; it’s a great circuit for racing, it always seems to create unpredictable races and, perhaps because it’s habitually at the start of the season when a precise pecking order has yet to be established, we often see fast cars running out of sequence - and the excitement that that brings. With the added issue of multiple tyre stops, it could be a very exciting and unpredictable race weekend. I’m regularly being asked if I can make it three wins in a row this year. On paper that might not look likely, but, seriously, who knows? I most definitely wouldn’t rule it out.”

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal
“Over the winter, we set ourselves some extremely ambitious performance targets for MP4-26. Vodafone McLaren Mercedes are an uncompromising team and, as with every car we build, we tend to push development to the limit. In some cases, we’ve pushed over those limits, and the resulting lack of mileage has invariably eaten into our pre-season preparation.

“However, it’s called testing for a reason - and testing MP4-26 beyond its limit has, in some ways, been highly instructive. In actual fact, we’ve gathered a huge amount of useful data about the car, its handling characteristics and its management of the tyres. So while we’ve further fine-tuned the package for Melbourne, we’ve once again set ourselves some extremely tough targets for this opening race weekend.

“So, do I think our testing pace is representative of the pace we’ll show in Australia? No. Do I think we head into the weekend as race favourites? Unfortunately, no. But do I feel that we have the capacity to surprise a few people and be competitive? Very much so. As with everything we do at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, we never give up: we’re fighters - that’s the spirit that has won us 20 world championships in the past and which makes us a team you can never under-estimate.”

Michael Schumacher, Mercedes GP
2010 Qualifying - 7th, 2010 Race - 10th
"Australia has always been one of the highlights on the Formula One calendar in all my years of competing. It is the atmosphere which makes Albert Park so special, and when you see all of the fans having fun, that just gives you a great feeling of how motorsport can be. I am lucky enough to have a lot of good memories from Melbourne: it's a venue where I have won four times and those races will always be very special. I'm sure it will be a great weekend, and an exciting season-opener. I'm looking forward to getting to the paddock on Thursday.

"We are well prepared. All of the hard work over the winter will start to come together over the first few races and then we will know more about the position we are in, and what still needs to be achieved as Formula One never stands still of course. I feel very 'at home' with the team after one year of working together and this experience has really benefited our pre-season preparations."

Nico Rosberg, Mercedes GP
2010 Qualifying - 6th, 2010 Race - 5th
"I love visiting Australia and Melbourne is one of the most chilled-out cities on the calendar so it's a cool venue for the first race of the season. I'm travelling out early to get acclimatised to the time zone and am looking forward to training by the beach and relaxing in St Kilda in the evenings. The Australian fans are so enthusiastic which is great to see and it makes the atmosphere around Albert Park very special. The circuit holds some great memories for me from achieving my first podium here in 2008, and I have finished in the points in the last four races.

"We're in good shape. The team and car have progressed a lot over the winter, we're pleased with the performance from our upgrades and the car is handling well. Our aim is to make a good step forward from last season and I am confident that we will be able to achieve this."

Ross Brawn, Mercedes GP team principal
"This year marks our second season as Mercedes GP Petronas, and the team has made real progress over this period. With the support of Daimler, Aabar and our team partners, we are gaining strength from being a single entity and building the team that we want for the future.

"Our pre-season programme has gone as well as we could have wanted. However, as always, the first race will be the real measure of where we are in terms of competitiveness. Everyone is eagerly waiting to see how the grid shakes out in Melbourne, and wherever we find ourselves, we will respond accordingly. Our ability to react strongly has improved considerably over the past twelve months and we have a robust development plan in place for the season. 2011 will be the second season with our drivers, Michael and Nico, and this continuity, together with our well-established relationships, has enabled both the drivers and team to prepare well for the challenges ahead.

"I believe that we can expect a very exciting season in 2011. The strategic battle is going to be fascinating with the Pirelli tyres, combined with the new adjustable rear wing and the return of KERS, increasing the challenges for the teams and drivers, and hopefully providing lots of track action for the fans.

"The Australian Grand Prix is always a fantastic motorsport weekend, and with the added excitement of being the first race of the season this year, we are all looking forward to the racing starting again next week."

Norbert Haug, Vice-President, Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
"It has been an intensive winter for Mercedes GP Petronas. We covered more than 5700 km during a total of 15 test days, which is the equivalent of more than 18 Grand Prix distances. The final test in Barcelona with our planned technical updates saw us take a step forward which is a tribute to the dedication and hard work of our whole team. There are still a lot of question marks about how the racing will unfold in 2011 with the new Pirelli tyres, the adjustable rear wing and the reintroduction of KERS. These are demanding challenges for the drivers, and Michael and Nico have done a good job mastering the new systems and understanding how to get the most out of the tyres.

"Melbourne holds many good memories for Mercedes-Benz, as the venue for our first modern era victory in 1997 with David Coulthard in a McLaren-Mercedes, and Albert Park has the knack of producing exciting races. Making predictions before the first Grand Prix of the season is certainly not what I want to do, but our target is clear from the first race: to improve on the position in which we finished our first season as Mercedes GP Petronas.

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our hard-working team members in Brackley, Brixworth and Stuttgart for their relentless efforts since the final chequered flag of last season. The best reward for all of us would be to start the new season in a stronger position compared to 2010."

Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber
2010 Qualifying - 16th, 2010 Race - DNF
“Of course I was very worried about my country and so went to Japan after the Barcelona test. I must say the situation is really, really bad. So many have lost their lives, become homeless, are without food and water in the cold winter, and have lost their loved ones. It is difficult to believe that a scenario worse than in any movie has become reality. We need to stay together and we need help from all over the world. I am worried the whole country could disappear - it is just too awful. Since the earthquake and the tsunami news is getting worse every day, there is nothing positive to look forward to at the moment. I feel I have to do something, I want to help - but in fact there is nothing I can do by myself. I think at least for the time being what I can do is to be focused and fully concentrate on the season’s opening race in Melbourne. Originally I was looking forward to this with great joy. Now what I really want to do is my very best to achieve a good result, which perhaps can at least give the people in Japan a little bit of hope and positive news.”

Sergio Perez, Sauber
2010 Qualifying - n/a, 2010 Race - n/a
“Without a doubt I am also worried about the people in Japan, and I really wish them all the best. At the same time personally a dream is about to come true. I have dreamed for many years of competing in my first Formula One Grand Prix, and now it is going to happen. I am excited and I am very much looking forward to it. It will be a weekend during which I have to adapt quickly to many things - to the circuit, which is new to me, and to all the aspects of a grand prix weekend from free practice to qualifying and the race. I cannot imagine yet how it will be for me when the lights go out on Sunday, but I can’t wait to find that out. I have never been to Australia before. Of course, I have checked the circuit lay-out and other things. I understand it is a tough track, very challenging and not easy to find the limit, so it will be hard.”

James Key, BMW Sauber technical director
“Everyone in the team is looking forward to starting the 2011 season in Melbourne. It’s a good track to go to for the first race. It will be interesting to see on how things develop on what could potentially be a higher track temperature, because this is something none of us have tested yet, and there are still a few unknowns in this respect. We will go with the specification of the car that we finished the Barcelona test with, with some final refinements to it after what we learned from that test.

“The format of the weekend will be somewhat different, given the fact the tyres are little less consistent than those we are used to, so this is something we need to optimize. With regard to the drivers, we’re obviously looking forward to working with Sergio at a F1 race weekend for the first time. He displayed some good progress during winter testing, and we hope we can transfer that directly to the first race weekend where the pressure of course is higher. I’m sure he can manage that. Unlike Sergio, Kamui doesn’t have to learn the track, so it will be more a case of car set up and general performance work for him. Particularly on Friday, it will be important to find the right direction. Considering the events in Japan, we know this will be a very difficult weekend for Kamui, but everybody in the team will give him all possible support.

“With regard to the track, Albert Park is half street circuit with stop start, some chicanes at the beginning and then a few medium to high speed corners in the latter part of the lap. It will be interesting because it tends to be a circuit that is hard on the rear tyres, whereas the ones we have been testing on were harder on the fronts. So the balance of the car could really change in Melbourne, and if the track temperatures are higher we’ll have to watch out for the rear tyres a little more than in testing, but this is part of the process. We go there as well prepared as possible.”

[Iceman]

The 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship finally gets underway in Australia next weekend, with all 12 teams eager to discover how their new cars stack up against the competition. There’s new rules, new tyres and more, but one thing that remains reassuringly consistent is the warm welcome guaranteed for the paddock at Melbourne’s Albert Park…

Heikki Kovalainen, Lotus
2010 Qualifying - 19th, 2010 Race - 13th
"As Melbourne is now the start of the season it will be very exciting. The Australian fans are great people and the city always has a carnival atmosphere because the race is right in the middle of town. The track itself is a semi-street circuit so it's tricky. It evolves a lot throughout the weekend as the rubber builds up and traction and grip improves. On Friday morning it's always very slippery and you need to bear that in mind when you're setting the car up. If you have some balance problems in the first session it's better not to worry about it too much as you just need to get a feel for the downforce levels, gear ratios and the tyres. By the third session on Saturday morning the track really starts to come into its own. In qualifying it improves every lap and the grip level gets better as people put more rubber down - it can be hard on the tyres as well so you need to look after them. It's a difficult track to overtake on and whether we get an opportunity to make the moveable wing really work for us there is still open to question. Whatever happens I'm really excited about getting back to racing and with the steps forward we have taken this year I think we're going to have a really good year."

Jarno Trulli, Lotus
2010 Qualifying - 20th, 2010 Race - DNF
(On DRS (Drag Reduction System), aka moveable rear wing): "People sometimes ask me what the acceleration of a Formula One car is like, and the only way I can describe it is that it's like driving a rocket - now we have a rocket that suddenly takes another leap forward when it's already at full speed! It was a strange feeling the first time we used the moveable rear wing, because you suddenly have about 15% less drag and therefore a lot more speed. The more you use the wing the more you get used to it and its effect on the car's behaviour. We can use it wherever we like in practice and qualifying but in the races it'll only be when we're within one second of the car ahead and in the designated area so I think it will have a big part to play strategically. We'll see how it improves the actual racing, but I hope it will make a difference."

Tony Fernandes, Lotus team principal
"I cannot wait to get back to racing. This is a very important season for Team Lotus as we are no longer a new team - we achieved what we set out to in 2010 but now it's effectively a clean sheet - an entirely new car, a fully fledged race team and factory and much higher aspirations. Now comes the next phase of the hard work - time to prove that our pre-season promise can help us take the next step forward in the amazing story that is Team Lotus."

Mark Webber, Red Bull
2010 Qualifying - 2nd, 2010 Race - 9th
“As an Australian I'm looking forward to Melbourne being the first race. We've done a huge amount of testing and a lot of work has gone into the cars - now we'll put them through their paces at Albert Park and lots of questions will be answered. It's going to be an eventful weekend, especially as the weather can be a bit hit and miss. We'll learn a lot about the tyres, which will play a key role. I hope I can improve my luck there, as it hasn't been incredible since since my first GP in '02. I hope to get my best result and there's every indication we can do that. This is the best winter we've had - let's hope we can carry it on into this event.”

Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull
2010 Qualifying - 1st, 2010 Race - DNF
“We know what it feels like to start the season in Australia, it's a special place with a special track - It's one of the few cities that lives Formula One for the week, so I'm looking forward to it. It has been an exciting winter and the time around Christmas was important to calm down, but since February we have been back in the rhythm. It's nice to look back at last year and at what we achieved but we're all looking forward now and focusing on the new car and season. It all starts from zero again; we're excited, we've had enough of testing now and we want to go racing again."

Lewis Hamilton, McLaren
2010 Qualifying - 11th, 2010 Race - 6th
“It’s felt like a very long winter. I started the new season feeling fitter and more positive than ever and I’ve maintained that enthusiasm and momentum despite a somewhat difficult few weeks of winter tests. We can’t hide the fact that testing has been tougher than we expected: our test mileage hasn’t been as high as that of our rivals, nor have we had the outright pace of the fastest cars. Still, I have a good feeling with MP4-26: I like driving our car, I think it will look after its tyres quite well and I understand that we’ll be making further performance steps ahead of this opening race.

“Nevertheless, we know we go to Melbourne ready for battle: some teams are extremely well prepared - both from a pace and reliability point of view - but that can sometimes count for little in the unpredictable and somewhat chaotic opening races where it’s equally vital just to take points home. I strongly believe that, while our preparations haven’t gone as smoothly as we’d have liked, I get the impression that we’ll be arriving in Melbourne with everything finally meshing together - and that makes me really excited.”

Jenson Button, McLaren
2010 Qualifying - 4th, 2010 Race - 1st
“In the past, I’d always travelled to Melbourne full of positive energy and enthusiasm. But, at the moment, my heart is with the people of Japan as they struggle to come to terms with the scope of the terrible devastation and loss of life wreaked by last week’s earthquake and tsunami. While the prospect of a Formula One race seems to pale in the face of such a disaster, there have been occasions before when the healing power of sport can actually be beneficial; an escape for people. So I go to Melbourne this weekend resolving to not only try my best, but also to salute the brave people, and my many friends, throughout Japan.

“Albert Park has been good to me: I’ve won there for the past two seasons; it’s a great circuit for racing, it always seems to create unpredictable races and, perhaps because it’s habitually at the start of the season when a precise pecking order has yet to be established, we often see fast cars running out of sequence - and the excitement that that brings. With the added issue of multiple tyre stops, it could be a very exciting and unpredictable race weekend. I’m regularly being asked if I can make it three wins in a row this year. On paper that might not look likely, but, seriously, who knows? I most definitely wouldn’t rule it out.”

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal
“Over the winter, we set ourselves some extremely ambitious performance targets for MP4-26. Vodafone McLaren Mercedes are an uncompromising team and, as with every car we build, we tend to push development to the limit. In some cases, we’ve pushed over those limits, and the resulting lack of mileage has invariably eaten into our pre-season preparation.

“However, it’s called testing for a reason - and testing MP4-26 beyond its limit has, in some ways, been highly instructive. In actual fact, we’ve gathered a huge amount of useful data about the car, its handling characteristics and its management of the tyres. So while we’ve further fine-tuned the package for Melbourne, we’ve once again set ourselves some extremely tough targets for this opening race weekend.

“So, do I think our testing pace is representative of the pace we’ll show in Australia? No. Do I think we head into the weekend as race favourites? Unfortunately, no. But do I feel that we have the capacity to surprise a few people and be competitive? Very much so. As with everything we do at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, we never give up: we’re fighters - that’s the spirit that has won us 20 world championships in the past and which makes us a team you can never under-estimate.”

Michael Schumacher, Mercedes GP
2010 Qualifying - 7th, 2010 Race - 10th
"Australia has always been one of the highlights on the Formula One calendar in all my years of competing. It is the atmosphere which makes Albert Park so special, and when you see all of the fans having fun, that just gives you a great feeling of how motorsport can be. I am lucky enough to have a lot of good memories from Melbourne: it's a venue where I have won four times and those races will always be very special. I'm sure it will be a great weekend, and an exciting season-opener. I'm looking forward to getting to the paddock on Thursday.

"We are well prepared. All of the hard work over the winter will start to come together over the first few races and then we will know more about the position we are in, and what still needs to be achieved as Formula One never stands still of course. I feel very 'at home' with the team after one year of working together and this experience has really benefited our pre-season preparations."

Nico Rosberg, Mercedes GP
2010 Qualifying - 6th, 2010 Race - 5th
"I love visiting Australia and Melbourne is one of the most chilled-out cities on the calendar so it's a cool venue for the first race of the season. I'm travelling out early to get acclimatised to the time zone and am looking forward to training by the beach and relaxing in St Kilda in the evenings. The Australian fans are so enthusiastic which is great to see and it makes the atmosphere around Albert Park very special. The circuit holds some great memories for me from achieving my first podium here in 2008, and I have finished in the points in the last four races.

"We're in good shape. The team and car have progressed a lot over the winter, we're pleased with the performance from our upgrades and the car is handling well. Our aim is to make a good step forward from last season and I am confident that we will be able to achieve this."

Ross Brawn, Mercedes GP team principal
"This year marks our second season as Mercedes GP Petronas, and the team has made real progress over this period. With the support of Daimler, Aabar and our team partners, we are gaining strength from being a single entity and building the team that we want for the future.

"Our pre-season programme has gone as well as we could have wanted. However, as always, the first race will be the real measure of where we are in terms of competitiveness. Everyone is eagerly waiting to see how the grid shakes out in Melbourne, and wherever we find ourselves, we will respond accordingly. Our ability to react strongly has improved considerably over the past twelve months and we have a robust development plan in place for the season. 2011 will be the second season with our drivers, Michael and Nico, and this continuity, together with our well-established relationships, has enabled both the drivers and team to prepare well for the challenges ahead.

"I believe that we can expect a very exciting season in 2011. The strategic battle is going to be fascinating with the Pirelli tyres, combined with the new adjustable rear wing and the return of KERS, increasing the challenges for the teams and drivers, and hopefully providing lots of track action for the fans.

"The Australian Grand Prix is always a fantastic motorsport weekend, and with the added excitement of being the first race of the season this year, we are all looking forward to the racing starting again next week."

Norbert Haug, Vice-President, Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
"It has been an intensive winter for Mercedes GP Petronas. We covered more than 5700 km during a total of 15 test days, which is the equivalent of more than 18 Grand Prix distances. The final test in Barcelona with our planned technical updates saw us take a step forward which is a tribute to the dedication and hard work of our whole team. There are still a lot of question marks about how the racing will unfold in 2011 with the new Pirelli tyres, the adjustable rear wing and the reintroduction of KERS. These are demanding challenges for the drivers, and Michael and Nico have done a good job mastering the new systems and understanding how to get the most out of the tyres.

"Melbourne holds many good memories for Mercedes-Benz, as the venue for our first modern era victory in 1997 with David Coulthard in a McLaren-Mercedes, and Albert Park has the knack of producing exciting races. Making predictions before the first Grand Prix of the season is certainly not what I want to do, but our target is clear from the first race: to improve on the position in which we finished our first season as Mercedes GP Petronas.

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our hard-working team members in Brackley, Brixworth and Stuttgart for their relentless efforts since the final chequered flag of last season. The best reward for all of us would be to start the new season in a stronger position compared to 2010."

Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber
2010 Qualifying - 16th, 2010 Race - DNF
“Of course I was very worried about my country and so went to Japan after the Barcelona test. I must say the situation is really, really bad. So many have lost their lives, become homeless, are without food and water in the cold winter, and have lost their loved ones. It is difficult to believe that a scenario worse than in any movie has become reality. We need to stay together and we need help from all over the world. I am worried the whole country could disappear - it is just too awful. Since the earthquake and the tsunami news is getting worse every day, there is nothing positive to look forward to at the moment. I feel I have to do something, I want to help - but in fact there is nothing I can do by myself. I think at least for the time being what I can do is to be focused and fully concentrate on the season’s opening race in Melbourne. Originally I was looking forward to this with great joy. Now what I really want to do is my very best to achieve a good result, which perhaps can at least give the people in Japan a little bit of hope and positive news.”

Sergio Perez, Sauber
2010 Qualifying - n/a, 2010 Race - n/a
“Without a doubt I am also worried about the people in Japan, and I really wish them all the best. At the same time personally a dream is about to come true. I have dreamed for many years of competing in my first Formula One Grand Prix, and now it is going to happen. I am excited and I am very much looking forward to it. It will be a weekend during which I have to adapt quickly to many things - to the circuit, which is new to me, and to all the aspects of a grand prix weekend from free practice to qualifying and the race. I cannot imagine yet how it will be for me when the lights go out on Sunday, but I can’t wait to find that out. I have never been to Australia before. Of course, I have checked the circuit lay-out and other things. I understand it is a tough track, very challenging and not easy to find the limit, so it will be hard.”

James Key, BMW Sauber technical director
“Everyone in the team is looking forward to starting the 2011 season in Melbourne. It’s a good track to go to for the first race. It will be interesting to see on how things develop on what could potentially be a higher track temperature, because this is something none of us have tested yet, and there are still a few unknowns in this respect. We will go with the specification of the car that we finished the Barcelona test with, with some final refinements to it after what we learned from that test.

“The format of the weekend will be somewhat different, given the fact the tyres are little less consistent than those we are used to, so this is something we need to optimize. With regard to the drivers, we’re obviously looking forward to working with Sergio at a F1 race weekend for the first time. He displayed some good progress during winter testing, and we hope we can transfer that directly to the first race weekend where the pressure of course is higher. I’m sure he can manage that. Unlike Sergio, Kamui doesn’t have to learn the track, so it will be more a case of car set up and general performance work for him. Particularly on Friday, it will be important to find the right direction. Considering the events in Japan, we know this will be a very difficult weekend for Kamui, but everybody in the team will give him all possible support.

“With regard to the track, Albert Park is half street circuit with stop start, some chicanes at the beginning and then a few medium to high speed corners in the latter part of the lap. It will be interesting because it tends to be a circuit that is hard on the rear tyres, whereas the ones we have been testing on were harder on the fronts. So the balance of the car could really change in Melbourne, and if the track temperatures are higher we’ll have to watch out for the rear tyres a little more than in testing, but this is part of the process. We go there as well prepared as possible.”

[Iceman]

Italian tyre manufacturers Pirelli, embarking on the first season of a three-year agreement to supply Formula One, have revealed the colours that will distinguish the six different types of rubber that will be used throughout 2011.

Each type will carry its own distinct colouring on the Pirelli and PZero logos affixed to the sidewall. Under the sport's rules, only two compounds of slick tyre - known as the prime and the option - will be used for each race. In addition to this, intermediate and wet tyres can be fitted if it rains.

The six colours are as follows:
Wet - orange
Intermediate - light blue
Super soft - red
Soft - yellow
Medium - white
Hard - silver

In order to make the differences between the prime and option tyre more pronounced, Pirelli's strategy is to offer a step of at least one compound between the tyres nominated for each race. If the track conditions require it though, this strategy may be revised.

The prime and option tyres for the first three Grands Prix of the year - Australia, Malaysia and China - will be hard and soft compounds, meaning that silver and yellow tyres will be first to make an appearance in Melbourne.

"We' re very excited by the prospect of returning to Formula One for the first time in 20 years, and we're aiming to be a proactive and colourful partner in Formula One,” commented Pirelli's Motorsport Director Paul Hembery. “So what better way to symbolise this than a brightly coloured selection of Pirelli logos to run on the sidewalls? These will enable both live and television audiences to tell at a glance who is on what compounds, which will be vital knowledge as tyres are set to form a key part of race strategy this year."

Pirelli is no stranger to brightly-coloured tyres: when the firm was previously involved in Formula One, the Benetton team was supplied with multi-coloured rubber to run as part of their ‘United Colors’ campaign back in 1986.

[Iceman]

If you thought that 2010 was a classic year of F1, buckle up and get ready for the 2011 season in which four or even five teams seem set to go head-to-head as no fewer than five world champions go into battle, and the midfield fight promises to be harder-fought than ever.

Red Bull and Ferrari appear to have set the genuine pace in the four pre-season tests in Spain, with Mercedes moving up to a perceived third in the pecking order after the final runs but still slightly adrift, and McLaren possibly in trouble and seeming likely to battle initially with Renault for fourth place.

Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and Michael Schumacher give Formula One tremendous heavyweight glitter, while promising rookies such as Scot Paul di Resta, Mexican Sergio Perez, Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado and Belgian Jerome D’Ambrosio underline the sport’s ability to keep re-inventing itself. In between them, long-time runners Felipe Massa, Nick Heidfeld, Jarno Trulli, Heikki Kovalainen and Nico Rosberg add further depth.

The midfield battle is also likely to be just as fraught as the fight for the title, with Williams, Force India, Sauber, Toro Rosso and, perhaps, Lotus, scrabbling for supremacy.

Yet again, the rules have been revised, throwing things back into the melting pot once more. Out go the double diffusers (that so helped Jenson Button and Brawn GP to the world championship in 2009), F-ducts and the adjustable front wings that were meant to promote more overtaking but which most drivers neither liked nor used. In their place come moveable (for which, read adjustable) rear wings, KERS (making a return after a year’s hiatus), trick exhausts and a new tyre supplier in the form of Pirelli.

The idea behind the rear wing is that in certain parts of the circuit a following driver will get a signal that he can momentarily activate the control that opens the gap between the upper and lower wing planes, in order to boost straight-line speed by reducing drag. The driver of the car in front cannot do that, thus conferring a temporary advantage on the follower. The exact location and length of the ‘wing zones’ will be decided by the FIA, who are committed to making the technology work.

There has been talk of making the Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) more powerful in the future, but for now the outputs are the same as in 2009 - 80 bhp. Unlike the rear wings, it’s up to the driver to decide when and where to deploy this technology. With KERS and adjustable rear wings to figure out, F1 2011-style is more likely to favour the more cerebral than the aggressive. In 2009 McLaren and Ferrari won with KERS, with which Renault, Sauber and Williams also experimented; this year McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, Renault, Williams and Force India will all use it, as may Sauber and Toro Rosso.

The forward-facing exhaust introduced this year by Renault on their R31 could, according to Mercedes GP’s Ross Brawn, be more significant than the double diffuser. By routing the gases forward, which the rules permit, teams can clean up the rear end of the car significantly, enhancing airflow and thus aero efficiency.

The arrival of Pirelli to replace Bridgestone has already started to shake things up. The Italian tyres degrade far quicker than the Japanese - deliberately, Pirelli stresses. Some drivers speak of only three laps on the super-soft compound and eight on the soft before performance drops off markedly, which suggests that the smoother, Alain Prost-like drivers will be advantaged when it comes to nurturing their rubber. Step forward Jenson Button...

With up to four pit stops envisaged at some races, it’s going to be a busy year for the pit crews and lap charters. Last year Ferrari and Virgin both recorded remarkable 3.6s stops, and that could well become the ante this season.

For all that, Fernando Alonso believes that it will still come down to the fastest car when all is said and done, rather than canny strategy, tyre preservation and fast stops. “As usual the quickest or best car will win the championship in the end,” the Spaniard says. “Maybe one or two races will be decided by very good strategy, which will be important, but over 19 races it will still be more important to have the best car and that’s what we will always be aiming for.”

Elsewhere, the dreaded 107 percent qualifying rule makes a return, which means that the tailenders won’t get to race if they don’t get within five or six seconds of the Q1 time on a Saturday afternoon. The ban on team orders has been lifted, in tacit recognition that it is almost impossible to police; the race stewards, aided once again by former F1 drivers, will have wider powers; and as drivers are now officially only allowed to move once to defend themselves in a corner, the act of crowding - such as Michael Schumacher did to Rubens Barrichello in Hungary last year - is now punishable.

So who is going to set the initial pace? It really is almost impossible to say. While Alonso acknowledges the inherent strength of Red Bull and counsels not to overlook McLaren’s threat regardless of testing form, Red Bull boss Christian Horner says he is feeling far from complacent.

“We genuinely don’t know where we are in comparison to the others,” he says. “The fuel loads make such a big difference.” In testing these could vary between 10 and 160 kg, with each 10 kg adding 0.3s to lap time.

“We’ve had our best pre-season to date, and arguably we are in the best shape ever,” Horner continues. “But there are no points for winter testing; the points start in Melbourne and right now everyone is on the same number.”

In the second installment of our look ahead to the start of the 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship, we examine the prospects of the key contenders in the race for the drivers' and constructors' crowns (Continued from Part One)...

Red Bull
1 Sebastian Vettel
2 Mark Webber
Red Bull-Renault RB7
A year ago Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz made it clear that he expected his burgeoning team to deliver a world championship. It looked at times as if they were deliberately seeking a means by which to make things as difficult for themselves as possible, but in the end they came up with not one, but two, the constructors’, which they clinched in Brazil, and then the drivers’ which Sebastian Vettel wrapped up in the dramatic finale in Abu Dhabi. Can they do it again?

Well, don’t rule out some serious Red Bull domination. For the first time design guru Adrian Newey (whose cars have now won for three different teams) got his new contender out early, and pre-season test form has shown the RB7 not only to be fast in qualifying and race trim, but also fearsomely reliable.

Factor in Mark Webber, who will be fitter and more determined than ever, and it is going to be very difficult to beat the team from Milton Keynes.

McLaren
3 Lewis Hamilton
4 Jenson Button
McLaren-Mercedes MP4-26
Oh, oh. The signs this early in the season have not been favourable for McLaren. They deliberately ‘did a Red Bull’ and did not introduce their new car, the MP4-26, until as late as possible. But seemingly the plan has thus far backfired.

The new car looks the part, with its L-shaped sidepod intakes and trick rear end, but reliability issues dogged its progress in the three tests that it did, and the team have logged only about half the testing mileage of either Red Bull or Ferrari. That’s down to some technical issues which saw rear end problems - believed to have centred around the exhausts - seriously impinging on the test programme.

Jenson Button said he thought the balance was better when an upgrade went on the car for the final Barcelona test, while Lewis Hamilton has suggested that they haven’t really been able to put all the factors together at once, so that their form seems worse than it really is. Equally, however, the 2008 champion says the car is not yet a title winner... There’s much work to be done here.

Ferrari
5 Fernando Alonso
6 Felipe Massa
Ferrari 150° Italia
It is not possible to overstate just how much it burned Ferrari to have fumbled their world championship chance in Abu Dhabi last year. They were gutted. But where years ago heads would have rolled, Luca di Montezemolo and Stefano Domenicali simply pulled their troops back together over the winter and the Scuderia looks every bit as dangerous as it did at its title-winning best, even if the team did initially run into trouble with the Ford Motor Company after initially christening its 2011 contender the F150. The way it’s been going in testing suggests that nobody is likely to mistake it for a pick-up truck; it’s the one car that genuinely looks as if it is ready to give the Red Bulls a run for their money.

Alonso is raring to go, and remains what he has so long been: one of the two best drivers out there. If Vettel starts favourite, the Spaniard is right up there at his shoulder. Meanwhile, Felipe Massa knows that he has to deliver solid results this year, if he is to retain his Ferrari seat.

Mercedes GP
7 Michael Schumacher
8 Nico Rosberg
Mercedes MGP W02
The final test in Barcelona changed the way observers thought about Mercedes’ hitherto disappointing MGP W02 challenger. Up until then it had been generally disappointing, rather like the McLaren, but a significant upgrade transformed the car into something that was impressively quick in short runs. It remains to be seen how fast it is over a race distance, and the feeling persists that Red Bull and Ferrari will be the outright pacesetters, with Mercedes chasing them ahead of McLaren and Renault.

Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg both believe that the team, whose purchase from the former Brawn principals was finalised at the beginning of the month, now have the platform from which to make the significant progress that they lacked in 2010.

Schumacher said recently that while he does not believe they can challenge for the world championship, he does think podiums will be possible, while Rosberg will be going all out to prove that his dominance of the older German last year was no fluke.

Renault
9 Nick Heidfeld
10 Vitaly Petrov
Renault R31
Renault may have rallied quickly around Nick Heidfeld, but there is no doubt that Robert Kubica’s rally accident will have a very debilitating effect on the chances of a team that showed such promise in initial testing. The Pole has speed, commitment and charisma in spades and just loves driving an edgy car that gives its best at the very limit. Heidfeld is older and less aggressive, and prefers an easier car to drive. That difference may prove critical. That said, the German is a safe pair of hands, but one can’t help wonder whether the team would have been better off with Vitantonio Liuzzi, whom Kubica recommended.

Vitaly Petrov far from disgraced himself in his first season, despite a few heavy shunts, and his containment of Fernando Alonso in Abu Dhabi was indication of the progress he’d made.

Renault’s test form has been difficult to assess accurately, but their trick exhaust system has attracted a lot of interest and several other teams are investigating similar solutions. Expect Renault to challenge McLaren for fourth overall in the early going.

In the final instalment of our look ahead to the 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship, we consider the chances last year’s midfield teams have of challenging the frontrunners, and the odds on the newest teams breaking free from the back of the grid (Continued from Part Two)…

Williams
11 Rubens Barrichello
12 Pastor Maldonado
Williams-Cosworth FW33
In Rubens Barrichello and reigning GP2 champion Pastor Maldonado, Williams have two very aggressive drivers. And now they have an aggressive car too, in Sam Michael’s FW33 which features one of the most tightly packaged rear-ends in the business.

The team have full sponsorship for 2011 and were recently floated on the German stock market, so things are looking up and there is an air of confident determination to get back to mixing it with the top teams the way that last happened at times during the ill-fated alliance with BMW.

Michael said in 2010 that Barrichello was the best driver he had ever worked with in F1, and the evergreen Brazilian still has much to give. Maldonado is an unknown quantity thus far in F1, but the Venezuelan brings welcome financial support from his national oil company, and could spring some surprises.

Force India
14 Adrian Sutil
15 Paul Di Resta
Force India-Mercedes VJM04
Out goes Tonio Liuzzi and in comes promising Scottish rookie Paul di Resta. Part of the Anthony Hamilton-managed youngster’s dowry is reportedly Mercedes’ KERS system, and that should help the Silverstone-based team to fight hard for its place in the upper midfield.

Adrian Sutil stays for another year, after plans to have him replace Felipe Massa at Ferrari fell apart in the aftermath of last year’s team orders argument. This will be a crucial season for the German, who showed great pace in 2010 allied to the occasional brain fade (Korea springs to mind). Di Resta will be praying for better reliability than Liuzzi enjoyed (notably with his car’s F-duct), and the man who beat Vettel to the European F3 title is itching to show that he can do the same to Sutil.

Sauber
16 Kamui Kobayashi
17 Sergio Perez
Sauber-Ferrari C30
Confounding the critics, Peter Sauber’s little team regrouped again in 2010 after the departure of BMW. Times were still tough for the men and women from Hinwil, even though there was some helpful BMW cash to smooth the transition, but they made it.

Along the way they acquired James Key from Force India as long-time technical director Willy Rampf retired, and the Englishman did not lose much time pointing the C29 in the right direction. At the same time Kamui Kobayashi established a reputation as a racer that was only marginally diminished by a penchant for long opening stints which meant he was later able to use fresher rubber to embarrass rivals towards the end of a race. Good tyre management will be a feature of 2011 races, so watch him.

In GP2 runner-up Sergio Perez, Kobayashi has a team mate who will push him all the way and the money that the fiery young Mexican brings from Telmex will undoubtedly help the team.

Toro Rosso
18 Sebastien Buemi
19 Jaime Alguersuari
Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR6
This time last year Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari had been setting some very quick times during testing for Franz Tost’s Red Bull-supported satellite team. But in the races the STR5 disappointed more often than not. This time around the story looks the same, and even Lewis Hamilton was recently moved to suggest that the STR6 might spring a surprise.

But will all that apparent promise just turn out to have been some low-fuel grandstanding in an attempt to draw attention to a team that still needs to find decent funding? Time will tell, but it would indeed be surprising to see an outfit that has to design its own car these days being able to run at the pace of one penned by Adrian Newey.

Meanwhile, Buemi and Alguersuari will be looking over their shoulders in the first half of the season as World Series by Renault racer Daniel Ricciardo is waiting for the chance to step into one of their seats at the midpoint.

Lotus
20 Jarno Trulli
21 Heikki Kovalainen
Lotus-Renault T128
By the time his team heads to his native Malaysia, Tony Fernandes should know whether he can still use the Team Lotus name, as the court case with Group Lotus will be heard in London’s High Court during the Australian Grand Prix. But regardless of the outcome, the AirAsia boss has clearly won the right to race at the highest level.

Last year’s start-up T127 was a necessarily conservative machine intended simply to get the team racing. This year technical director Mike Gascoyne has been more adventurous with the aerodynamics, while mating the chassis to a Renault rear end complete with the pull-rod rear suspension made fashionable again on last year’s Red Bull RB6.

With Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen, Lotus have two proven race winners who can deliver the goods, and who should be able to challenge Toro Rosso and Force India if either of those more established teams falter. Reliability issues in testing, however, will be an early concern.

HRT
22 Narain Karthikeyan
23 Vitantonio Liuzzi
HRT-Cosworth F111
On the face of it HRT are in as much trouble in 2011 as they were heading to the first race of 2010 when neither of their cars had turned a wheel, after the sleek new F111 was unable to run as planned in the last Barcelona test. Ironically, the team’s national customs held up their dampers.

However, the new car comes from respected F1 designer Geoff Willis of BAR and Red Bull fame, and the statement livery from famed Hollywood designer Daniel Simon signals a clear intention by team principal Colin Kolles to move far away from the drab grey image the team had in its rookie season.

Signing Narain Karthikeyan, who last raced in F1 in 2005, is something of a gamble but makes sense as he brings strong budget from Tata and can be quick when the mood is upon him, while opting for Force India refugee Tonio Liuzzi is clear indication that Kolles values speed, experience and technical ability over other ‘renta-drivers’ potential budgets.

Virgin
24 Timo Glock
25 Jerome D’ambrosio
Virgin-Cosworth MVR-02
Like Lotus and HRT, Virgin defied the pessimists and go into 2011 stronger than ever thanks to recent investment by Marussia. The result is a sound financial position and enhanced management, but the early signs are that the latest car from Nick Wirth is some way off the pace. Glock, the tough German racer who is recovering from a recent appendectomy, admits that they are some way off realising their early season targets. D’Ambrosio, the quick young Belgian who replaces Brazilian Lucas di Grassi, will find his graduation to race seat status even harder as a result.

[Iceman]

If you thought that 2010 was a classic year of F1, buckle up and get ready for the 2011 season in which four or even five teams seem set to go head-to-head as no fewer than five world champions go into battle, and the midfield fight promises to be harder-fought than ever.

Red Bull and Ferrari appear to have set the genuine pace in the four pre-season tests in Spain, with Mercedes moving up to a perceived third in the pecking order after the final runs but still slightly adrift, and McLaren possibly in trouble and seeming likely to battle initially with Renault for fourth place.

Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and Michael Schumacher give Formula One tremendous heavyweight glitter, while promising rookies such as Scot Paul di Resta, Mexican Sergio Perez, Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado and Belgian Jerome D’Ambrosio underline the sport’s ability to keep re-inventing itself. In between them, long-time runners Felipe Massa, Nick Heidfeld, Jarno Trulli, Heikki Kovalainen and Nico Rosberg add further depth.

The midfield battle is also likely to be just as fraught as the fight for the title, with Williams, Force India, Sauber, Toro Rosso and, perhaps, Lotus, scrabbling for supremacy.

Yet again, the rules have been revised, throwing things back into the melting pot once more. Out go the double diffusers (that so helped Jenson Button and Brawn GP to the world championship in 2009), F-ducts and the adjustable front wings that were meant to promote more overtaking but which most drivers neither liked nor used. In their place come moveable (for which, read adjustable) rear wings, KERS (making a return after a year’s hiatus), trick exhausts and a new tyre supplier in the form of Pirelli.

The idea behind the rear wing is that in certain parts of the circuit a following driver will get a signal that he can momentarily activate the control that opens the gap between the upper and lower wing planes, in order to boost straight-line speed by reducing drag. The driver of the car in front cannot do that, thus conferring a temporary advantage on the follower. The exact location and length of the ‘wing zones’ will be decided by the FIA, who are committed to making the technology work.

There has been talk of making the Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) more powerful in the future, but for now the outputs are the same as in 2009 - 80 bhp. Unlike the rear wings, it’s up to the driver to decide when and where to deploy this technology. With KERS and adjustable rear wings to figure out, F1 2011-style is more likely to favour the more cerebral than the aggressive. In 2009 McLaren and Ferrari won with KERS, with which Renault, Sauber and Williams also experimented; this year McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, Renault, Williams and Force India will all use it, as may Sauber and Toro Rosso.

The forward-facing exhaust introduced this year by Renault on their R31 could, according to Mercedes GP’s Ross Brawn, be more significant than the double diffuser. By routing the gases forward, which the rules permit, teams can clean up the rear end of the car significantly, enhancing airflow and thus aero efficiency.

The arrival of Pirelli to replace Bridgestone has already started to shake things up. The Italian tyres degrade far quicker than the Japanese - deliberately, Pirelli stresses. Some drivers speak of only three laps on the super-soft compound and eight on the soft before performance drops off markedly, which suggests that the smoother, Alain Prost-like drivers will be advantaged when it comes to nurturing their rubber. Step forward Jenson Button...

With up to four pit stops envisaged at some races, it’s going to be a busy year for the pit crews and lap charters. Last year Ferrari and Virgin both recorded remarkable 3.6s stops, and that could well become the ante this season.

For all that, Fernando Alonso believes that it will still come down to the fastest car when all is said and done, rather than canny strategy, tyre preservation and fast stops. “As usual the quickest or best car will win the championship in the end,” the Spaniard says. “Maybe one or two races will be decided by very good strategy, which will be important, but over 19 races it will still be more important to have the best car and that’s what we will always be aiming for.”

Elsewhere, the dreaded 107 percent qualifying rule makes a return, which means that the tailenders won’t get to race if they don’t get within five or six seconds of the Q1 time on a Saturday afternoon. The ban on team orders has been lifted, in tacit recognition that it is almost impossible to police; the race stewards, aided once again by former F1 drivers, will have wider powers; and as drivers are now officially only allowed to move once to defend themselves in a corner, the act of crowding - such as Michael Schumacher did to Rubens Barrichello in Hungary last year - is now punishable.

So who is going to set the initial pace? It really is almost impossible to say. While Alonso acknowledges the inherent strength of Red Bull and counsels not to overlook McLaren’s threat regardless of testing form, Red Bull boss Christian Horner says he is feeling far from complacent.

“We genuinely don’t know where we are in comparison to the others,” he says. “The fuel loads make such a big difference.” In testing these could vary between 10 and 160 kg, with each 10 kg adding 0.3s to lap time.

“We’ve had our best pre-season to date, and arguably we are in the best shape ever,” Horner continues. “But there are no points for winter testing; the points start in Melbourne and right now everyone is on the same number.”

In the second installment of our look ahead to the start of the 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship, we examine the prospects of the key contenders in the race for the drivers' and constructors' crowns (Continued from Part One)...

Red Bull
1 Sebastian Vettel
2 Mark Webber
Red Bull-Renault RB7
A year ago Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz made it clear that he expected his burgeoning team to deliver a world championship. It looked at times as if they were deliberately seeking a means by which to make things as difficult for themselves as possible, but in the end they came up with not one, but two, the constructors’, which they clinched in Brazil, and then the drivers’ which Sebastian Vettel wrapped up in the dramatic finale in Abu Dhabi. Can they do it again?

Well, don’t rule out some serious Red Bull domination. For the first time design guru Adrian Newey (whose cars have now won for three different teams) got his new contender out early, and pre-season test form has shown the RB7 not only to be fast in qualifying and race trim, but also fearsomely reliable.

Factor in Mark Webber, who will be fitter and more determined than ever, and it is going to be very difficult to beat the team from Milton Keynes.

McLaren
3 Lewis Hamilton
4 Jenson Button
McLaren-Mercedes MP4-26
Oh, oh. The signs this early in the season have not been favourable for McLaren. They deliberately ‘did a Red Bull’ and did not introduce their new car, the MP4-26, until as late as possible. But seemingly the plan has thus far backfired.

The new car looks the part, with its L-shaped sidepod intakes and trick rear end, but reliability issues dogged its progress in the three tests that it did, and the team have logged only about half the testing mileage of either Red Bull or Ferrari. That’s down to some technical issues which saw rear end problems - believed to have centred around the exhausts - seriously impinging on the test programme.

Jenson Button said he thought the balance was better when an upgrade went on the car for the final Barcelona test, while Lewis Hamilton has suggested that they haven’t really been able to put all the factors together at once, so that their form seems worse than it really is. Equally, however, the 2008 champion says the car is not yet a title winner... There’s much work to be done here.

Ferrari
5 Fernando Alonso
6 Felipe Massa
Ferrari 150° Italia
It is not possible to overstate just how much it burned Ferrari to have fumbled their world championship chance in Abu Dhabi last year. They were gutted. But where years ago heads would have rolled, Luca di Montezemolo and Stefano Domenicali simply pulled their troops back together over the winter and the Scuderia looks every bit as dangerous as it did at its title-winning best, even if the team did initially run into trouble with the Ford Motor Company after initially christening its 2011 contender the F150. The way it’s been going in testing suggests that nobody is likely to mistake it for a pick-up truck; it’s the one car that genuinely looks as if it is ready to give the Red Bulls a run for their money.

Alonso is raring to go, and remains what he has so long been: one of the two best drivers out there. If Vettel starts favourite, the Spaniard is right up there at his shoulder. Meanwhile, Felipe Massa knows that he has to deliver solid results this year, if he is to retain his Ferrari seat.

Mercedes GP
7 Michael Schumacher
8 Nico Rosberg
Mercedes MGP W02
The final test in Barcelona changed the way observers thought about Mercedes’ hitherto disappointing MGP W02 challenger. Up until then it had been generally disappointing, rather like the McLaren, but a significant upgrade transformed the car into something that was impressively quick in short runs. It remains to be seen how fast it is over a race distance, and the feeling persists that Red Bull and Ferrari will be the outright pacesetters, with Mercedes chasing them ahead of McLaren and Renault.

Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg both believe that the team, whose purchase from the former Brawn principals was finalised at the beginning of the month, now have the platform from which to make the significant progress that they lacked in 2010.

Schumacher said recently that while he does not believe they can challenge for the world championship, he does think podiums will be possible, while Rosberg will be going all out to prove that his dominance of the older German last year was no fluke.

Renault
9 Nick Heidfeld
10 Vitaly Petrov
Renault R31
Renault may have rallied quickly around Nick Heidfeld, but there is no doubt that Robert Kubica’s rally accident will have a very debilitating effect on the chances of a team that showed such promise in initial testing. The Pole has speed, commitment and charisma in spades and just loves driving an edgy car that gives its best at the very limit. Heidfeld is older and less aggressive, and prefers an easier car to drive. That difference may prove critical. That said, the German is a safe pair of hands, but one can’t help wonder whether the team would have been better off with Vitantonio Liuzzi, whom Kubica recommended.

Vitaly Petrov far from disgraced himself in his first season, despite a few heavy shunts, and his containment of Fernando Alonso in Abu Dhabi was indication of the progress he’d made.

Renault’s test form has been difficult to assess accurately, but their trick exhaust system has attracted a lot of interest and several other teams are investigating similar solutions. Expect Renault to challenge McLaren for fourth overall in the early going.

In the final instalment of our look ahead to the 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship, we consider the chances last year’s midfield teams have of challenging the frontrunners, and the odds on the newest teams breaking free from the back of the grid (Continued from Part Two)…

Williams
11 Rubens Barrichello
12 Pastor Maldonado
Williams-Cosworth FW33
In Rubens Barrichello and reigning GP2 champion Pastor Maldonado, Williams have two very aggressive drivers. And now they have an aggressive car too, in Sam Michael’s FW33 which features one of the most tightly packaged rear-ends in the business.

The team have full sponsorship for 2011 and were recently floated on the German stock market, so things are looking up and there is an air of confident determination to get back to mixing it with the top teams the way that last happened at times during the ill-fated alliance with BMW.

Michael said in 2010 that Barrichello was the best driver he had ever worked with in F1, and the evergreen Brazilian still has much to give. Maldonado is an unknown quantity thus far in F1, but the Venezuelan brings welcome financial support from his national oil company, and could spring some surprises.

Force India
14 Adrian Sutil
15 Paul Di Resta
Force India-Mercedes VJM04
Out goes Tonio Liuzzi and in comes promising Scottish rookie Paul di Resta. Part of the Anthony Hamilton-managed youngster’s dowry is reportedly Mercedes’ KERS system, and that should help the Silverstone-based team to fight hard for its place in the upper midfield.

Adrian Sutil stays for another year, after plans to have him replace Felipe Massa at Ferrari fell apart in the aftermath of last year’s team orders argument. This will be a crucial season for the German, who showed great pace in 2010 allied to the occasional brain fade (Korea springs to mind). Di Resta will be praying for better reliability than Liuzzi enjoyed (notably with his car’s F-duct), and the man who beat Vettel to the European F3 title is itching to show that he can do the same to Sutil.

Sauber
16 Kamui Kobayashi
17 Sergio Perez
Sauber-Ferrari C30
Confounding the critics, Peter Sauber’s little team regrouped again in 2010 after the departure of BMW. Times were still tough for the men and women from Hinwil, even though there was some helpful BMW cash to smooth the transition, but they made it.

Along the way they acquired James Key from Force India as long-time technical director Willy Rampf retired, and the Englishman did not lose much time pointing the C29 in the right direction. At the same time Kamui Kobayashi established a reputation as a racer that was only marginally diminished by a penchant for long opening stints which meant he was later able to use fresher rubber to embarrass rivals towards the end of a race. Good tyre management will be a feature of 2011 races, so watch him.

In GP2 runner-up Sergio Perez, Kobayashi has a team mate who will push him all the way and the money that the fiery young Mexican brings from Telmex will undoubtedly help the team.

Toro Rosso
18 Sebastien Buemi
19 Jaime Alguersuari
Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR6
This time last year Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari had been setting some very quick times during testing for Franz Tost’s Red Bull-supported satellite team. But in the races the STR5 disappointed more often than not. This time around the story looks the same, and even Lewis Hamilton was recently moved to suggest that the STR6 might spring a surprise.

But will all that apparent promise just turn out to have been some low-fuel grandstanding in an attempt to draw attention to a team that still needs to find decent funding? Time will tell, but it would indeed be surprising to see an outfit that has to design its own car these days being able to run at the pace of one penned by Adrian Newey.

Meanwhile, Buemi and Alguersuari will be looking over their shoulders in the first half of the season as World Series by Renault racer Daniel Ricciardo is waiting for the chance to step into one of their seats at the midpoint.

Lotus
20 Jarno Trulli
21 Heikki Kovalainen
Lotus-Renault T128
By the time his team heads to his native Malaysia, Tony Fernandes should know whether he can still use the Team Lotus name, as the court case with Group Lotus will be heard in London’s High Court during the Australian Grand Prix. But regardless of the outcome, the AirAsia boss has clearly won the right to race at the highest level.

Last year’s start-up T127 was a necessarily conservative machine intended simply to get the team racing. This year technical director Mike Gascoyne has been more adventurous with the aerodynamics, while mating the chassis to a Renault rear end complete with the pull-rod rear suspension made fashionable again on last year’s Red Bull RB6.

With Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen, Lotus have two proven race winners who can deliver the goods, and who should be able to challenge Toro Rosso and Force India if either of those more established teams falter. Reliability issues in testing, however, will be an early concern.

HRT
22 Narain Karthikeyan
23 Vitantonio Liuzzi
HRT-Cosworth F111
On the face of it HRT are in as much trouble in 2011 as they were heading to the first race of 2010 when neither of their cars had turned a wheel, after the sleek new F111 was unable to run as planned in the last Barcelona test. Ironically, the team’s national customs held up their dampers.

However, the new car comes from respected F1 designer Geoff Willis of BAR and Red Bull fame, and the statement livery from famed Hollywood designer Daniel Simon signals a clear intention by team principal Colin Kolles to move far away from the drab grey image the team had in its rookie season.

Signing Narain Karthikeyan, who last raced in F1 in 2005, is something of a gamble but makes sense as he brings strong budget from Tata and can be quick when the mood is upon him, while opting for Force India refugee Tonio Liuzzi is clear indication that Kolles values speed, experience and technical ability over other ‘renta-drivers’ potential budgets.

Virgin
24 Timo Glock
25 Jerome D’ambrosio
Virgin-Cosworth MVR-02
Like Lotus and HRT, Virgin defied the pessimists and go into 2011 stronger than ever thanks to recent investment by Marussia. The result is a sound financial position and enhanced management, but the early signs are that the latest car from Nick Wirth is some way off the pace. Glock, the tough German racer who is recovering from a recent appendectomy, admits that they are some way off realising their early season targets. D’Ambrosio, the quick young Belgian who replaces Brazilian Lucas di Grassi, will find his graduation to race seat status even harder as a result.

[Iceman]

http://www.f1manager.info/index.php

[Iceman]

http://twitpic.com/4cl55l

[Iceman]

Practice 1 is on in less than 2 hours EEK

[Iceman]

Raining in Melbourne, Mercedes expect to be very Fast, Ross Brawn compared this car to the 2009 Brawn car :amazed:

[Iceman]

Webber fastest folowed by Vettel, Lewis 7th, schumi 8th.

(Merc have the fastest car in the speed traps.... very packed Practice though and schumi lost a lot with the tyres, whcih by the way degrade stupidly, massive chunks out of them)

Not watching Practice 2 but it's on at 5.30 for anyone whos up.

Also Chandhok is the first person to crash this season on turn 3 LOLOLOLOL

[James]

I was thinking of doing a prediction game, but don't know how much interest there is in it.

[Niamh.]

I was thinking of doing a prediction game, but don't know how much interest there is in it.

If I can use Gavs predictions I'd be interested:joker:

[Niamh.]

Webber fastest folowed by Vettel, Lewis 7th, schumi 8th.

(Merc have the fastest car in the speed traps.... very packed Practice though and schumi lost a lot with the tyres, whcih by the way degrade stupidly, massive chunks out of them)

Not watching Practice 2 but it's on at 5.30 for anyone whos up.

Also Chandhok is the first person to crash this season on turn 3 LOLOLOLOL

didn't Hamilton and Button do best?

[Iceman]

I was thinking of doing a prediction game, but don't know how much interest there is in it.

Yes :D

[Iceman]

didn't Hamilton and Button do best?

In Practice 2 I couldnt stay up to watch both knowing I'll be up at 6 this morning and then 7 tomorrow (including the clocks going forward)

[Niamh.]

In Practice 2 I couldnt stay up to watch both knowing I'll be up at 6 this morning and then 7 tomorrow (including the clocks going forward)

we're just going to watch the replay at 1 and stay away from all froms of all worldly communications till then! my brother (also called Gav strangely enough) is far more F1 hardcore and will be watching live

[Iceman]

I have to watch cause I know I could easily get the results haha... even if it means being knackered for the weekend haha

[Kerry]

My OH watches it and follows it. I just tend to ask who won :joker:

[Shaun]

I used to be addicted to F1...back in 1997 :( LOL

Giancarlo Fisichella, Jean Alesi, Mika Hakkinen and Heinz-Harald Frentzen :love: -bets they're all retired now-

[Niamh.]

I have to watch cause I know I could easily get the results haha... even if it means being knackered for the weekend haha

yeah, my brother is like that too, two years ago himself and my hubby Gav went to watch the GP in silverstone and he entered a competition with vodafone where you had to do a race in a simulator and he won so the two of them got VIP passes to the pit lane and they met alonso and eddie jordan (also the vodafone version of the iphone) but yeah Gav knows everything about F1, it'd be funny actually you two having a conversation cos Ayrton Senna was his hero, he hated Schmacher!

[Iceman]

I used to be addicted to F1...back in 1997 :( LOL

Giancarlo Fisichella, Jean Alesi, Mika Hakkinen and Heinz-Harald Frentzen :love: -bets they're all retired now-

Yup Fisichella is a reserve or test driver now, the others are all long gone :(

[Iceman]

yeah, my brother is like that too, two years ago himself and my hubby Gav went to watch the GP in silverstone and he entered a competition with vodafone where you had to do a race in a simulator and he won so the two of them got VIP passes to the pit lane and they met alonso and eddie jordan (also the vodafone version of the iphone) but yeah Gav knows everything about F1, it'd be funny actually you two having a conversation cos Ayrton Senna was his hero, he hated Schmacher!

haha I respet Senna though he was one hell of a man, I bet Gav hates Schumacher cause if Senna hadn't of died Shumacher wouldnt have won them 2 titles....

[Niamh.]

haha I respet Senna though he was one hell of a man, I bet Gav hates Schumacher cause if Senna hadn't of died Shumacher wouldnt have won them 2 titles....

well, schmacher had no real competition when Senna died. God, he was so upset when Senna died though:(

[Iceman]

Yeah the race shouldnt have happened after what went on in practice, just a tragi day, he would have been 51 this week.

[Shaun]

I remember this game of F1 I had on the N64, they had some driver for the Williams team simply called Williams - I guess they didn't want to include him.

[Iceman]

I remember this game of F1 I had on the N64, they had some driver for the Williams team simply called Williams - I guess they didn't want to include him.

Yeah there was a huge dispute about it.... I remember the commentator going and that's Williams driving the Williams LOLOL

[Niamh.]

Yeah the race shouldnt have happened after what went on in practice, just a tragi day, he would have been 51 this week.

It's very sad, one of Gavs defining moments I think as a teenager, for me it was Kurt Cobain and River Phoenix:bawling:

[Iceman]

It's very sad, one of Gavs defining moments I think as a teenager, for me it was Kurt Cobain and River Phoenix:bawling:

I never had a moment like that when I was a teenager.... although I didnt know much then I was a shielded kid then i discovered the internet and my porno cards seemed so prehistoric! :laugh2:

[Niamh.]

I never had a moment like that when I was a teenager.... although I didnt know much then I was a shielded kid then i discovered the internet and my porno cards seemed so prehistoric! :laugh2:

lol, well we didn't have the internet, for me it was film and music, hence River Phoenix and Kurt(more so Kurt) for Gav F1 was everything so Senna dying was horrendous

[Iceman]

Yeah i get you, I suppose it would have had a huge affat if he was your favourote and that....

Also here's a brand new interview with Michael Shumacher, he's ****ing happy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9435615.stm

[Iceman]

Shumacher slamming Red Bull's team size

Said he still doesnt know what was up with the tyres last year much prefers the Pirelli's

Likes KERS and Rear Wing.

[Niamh.]

Shumacher slamming Red Bull's team size

Said he still doesnt know what was up with the tyres last year much prefers the Pirelli's

Likes KERS and Rear Wing.

hmmm, well, I'm going for Red Bull again this year, I really hope Webber wins but I like Vettel too

[Iceman]

Schumacher saying wont win championship, he's bluffing MEMBA I TOLD YOU

[Niamh.]

Schumacher saying wont win championship, he's bluffing MEMBA I TOLD YOU

has been.......................MEMBA I TOLD YOU!

[Iceman]

hmmm, well, I'm going for Red Bull again this year, I really hope Webber wins but I like Vettel too

Im gonna say Vettel, Webber, Schumaher in that order for qualifying.

[Iceman]

has been.......................MEMBA I TOLD YOU!

:shocked:

Bitch dont make me come to Cork and kick your ass:joker:

[Niamh.]

Im gonna say Vettel, Webber, Schumaher in that order for qualifying.

Really? do you think Schmy will get up that far? no Button or Hamilton?

[Niamh.]

:shocked:

Bitch dont make me come to Cork and kick your ass:joker:

Ha! You couldn't handle a Cork girl Mr.:nono:

[Iceman]

Really? do you think Schmy will get up that far? no Button or Hamilton?

Merc have the fastest car out there and they had problems in practice, McLaren not so much in Qualifying but definitely in the race, i think button will drop off completely this year, the only way for him is down.

[Iceman]

Ha! You couldn't handle a Cork girl Mr.:nono:

LOL I did before :tongue: but then I put her down she was too heavy

[Niamh.]

Merc have the fastest car out there and they had problems in practice, McLaren not so much in Qualifying but definitely in the race, i think button will drop off completely this year, the only way for him is down.

well, I wouldn't care much tbh they're not my favourites but they seem like the ones to beat right now

[Iceman]

well, I wouldn't care much tbh they're not my favourites but they seem like the ones to beat right now

Who Merc or McL im confused haha

[Niamh.]

LOL I did before :tongue: but then I put her down she was too heavy

http://www.sk8dork.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/wonder.jpg

[Niamh.]

Who Merc or McL im confused haha

oh sorry McL

[Iceman]

http://www.sk8dork.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/wonder.jpg

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRGu6q7iIAU4j0pogUWds8rAu3QDqlN8 VyAE7BglgC1CVw2LWoVOQ

[Iceman]

oh sorry McL

Yeah I think they'll be competitve enough this year, maybe not title contenders but towards end of season can see them coming good....

[Niamh.]

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRGu6q7iIAU4j0pogUWds8rAu3QDqlN8 VyAE7BglgC1CVw2LWoVOQ

http://fintysworld.typepad.com/fintys_world/images/2008/07/06/pity_de_tool_3.gif

[Niamh.]

Yeah I think they'll be competitve enough this year, maybe not title contenders but towards end of season can see them coming good....

I don't know why but I always wish they don't do well, it's like they're too cocky or something:joker:

[Iceman]

http://fintysworld.typepad.com/fintys_world/images/2008/07/06/pity_de_tool_3.gif

I give up on gifs haha im trying to load something on my PC so have imgs off LOL

[Iceman]

I don't know why but I always wish they don't do well, it's like they're too cocky or something:joker:

its been drilled into them that they are the best all the time, when they really arent LOL I blame Ron Dennis

[Niamh.]

its been drilled into them that they are the best all the time, when they really arent LOL I blame Ron Dennis

see, I think the whole underdog attitude wins the race

[Niamh.]

I give up on gifs haha im trying to load something on my PC so have imgs off LOL

Good cos I'm tired of it anywayand I'll take that as a win!

[Iceman]

see, I think the whole underdog attitude wins the race

Yeah I mean if your confident in your car then by all means be cocky, you need cockiness in this sport but dont be arrogant, look what happened alonso last year......

[Niamh.]

Yeah I mean if your confident in your car then by all means be cocky, you need cockiness in this sport but dont be arrogant, look what happened alonso last year......

yep definitely, but we're going to the Barcelone GP this year and Gav reckons I need an Alonso T-Shirt, I said no way:nono:

[Iceman]

yep definitely, but we're going to the Barcelone GP this year and Gav reckons I need an Alonso T-Shirt, I said no way:nono:

:shocked: DONT Do it haha, get a schumacher one LOL and get me a picture of him for me LOL

[Niamh.]

:shocked: DONT Do it haha, get a schumacher one LOL and get me a picture of him for me LOL

I'll be wearing a Red Bull one:D

[Iceman]

:bored: but so long as it has webber on it it will do haha

[Niamh.]

I was trying to post a picture Gav took when they got in the pit lane of Alonso but I can't upload it for some reason :(

[Iceman]

AW :( well make sure you get me one of Schumi :tongue:

[Niamh.]

AW :( well make sure you get me one of Schumi :tongue:

I'll do my best!:hugesmile:

[Iceman]

Danke!

EEK I cant wait for Qualifying now

[Niamh.]

are you just going to stay up all night?

[Iceman]

Yeah i dont usually sleep until 4 anyway so ill stay up and then stay up tomorrow aswell.... then I have to build a wall on Monday :9 then new job following monday :( to quote you WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[Niamh.]

lolololol, why not just go to bed a bit earlier though, would save all the suffering and hardship:laugh: