Formula 1

Real footage from the inaugural 2003 Lunar Grand Prix. Sadly poor attendance saw it axed after only one year

This is a dedicated page for all the happenings in the weird world of Formula 1. Primarily it's for anyone who wants to read all my F1 posts without scrolling tediously through the Motorsport tab, which has other stuff in it too, but if there's something that pops up which doesn't really need a whole post about it, you can find it here too. Enjoy!

2014 Season (current)

Preview:

The Cars

The Grid

Allan McNish Explains All
The Engine Noises

Car Reveals:

Williams FW36

McLaren MP4-29
Lotus E22
Ferrari F14-T
Sauber C33
Taureau Rouge STR9

Red Bull RB10 / Mercedes W05 / Force India VJM07

Caterham CT05

Marussia MR03

I wouldn't expect any Grand Prix reports this year. I can't promise I'll have time for them all, so there's no point deliberately doing a half-arsed job. Sorry if you liked them.


2013 Season

Car Reveals:

Lotus E21

McLaren MP4-28

Ferrari F138

Force India VJM06

Sauber C32

Red Bull RB9

Mercedes W04

Toro Rosso STR8 (their 2014 car is definitely straight, too...)

Caterham CT04 and Marussia MR02

Other Stuff:

LOLTUS

An Introduction To The 2014 Engines

Alonsobombing

Season Preview... After Two Grands Prix

Fernando Alonso Looking At Things (he's just so easy to Photoshop!)

LaFerrari Test Mule Running 2014 Engine

Australian Grand Prix Report - The only one I managed last year =/

Sections:

Random Titbits
2012 Pre-Season
2011 F1 Season
2012 F1 Season


Random Titbits

22/5/12 - Williams unveiled their new hydro-solar hybrid racing car at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Taking four years to develop using a process called "cultivating", the car - finished in "a new organic shade" of British Racing Green - celebrates 35 years of the F1 team and 70 years of Sir Frank Williams, and features four bio-cyborg pit members, which you can see posing  in this photo while handling some remarkably wide tyres. Frankly (if you'll excuse the pun), the technology here is groundbreaking not only in the world of Formula 1, but on a global technological scale. The fact that a privately-owned Formula 1 team was able to "grow" trained pit crew and create this machine - whose performance stats are hitherto unknown - is just mind-bendingly astonishing. Running on a mixture of water and solar power, this is a real jump up from their hybrid flywheel accumulator. Hopefully it will be allowed to race in F1 once the new rules in 2014 come into effect. Rumours that Adrian Newey is designing a version to run on Red Bull and artificial super-light for a 40% power boost are so far unconfirmed. (actual story here)

13/5/12 - After the Spanish Grand Prix, the Williams team garage caught fire after a KERS explosion triggered a suspected fuel fire. Some minor injuries, none to drivers or team bosses. More here.

10/5/12, 5:35, 2521 views (when posted)

This is double Formula 1 World Champion Sebastian Vettel. He drives for Red Bull Racing. Red Bull Racing is sponsored by Infiniti. Infiniti are doing an "Inspired Performers" marketing campaign that has somehow lead to the combination of a German Formula 1 driver and cheap kung-fu movies. Watch it... if you dare.

SPOILER ALERT:

An American forum I frequent has a rule where you put spoilers in replies, so since the Australian GP was on last Sunday, there's a lot of "F1 spoiler in reply" posting going on. Sometimes people just post a picture of an F1 car's rear wing in the reply to wind people up, so I made this. It's a spoiler on a spoiler. Not my most original idea, but hey.

At this year's BAFTAs, the Senna movie won two awards! One for Best Editing (beating The Artist and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which have both been cleaning up at awards shows) and one for Best Documentary. It's great to see a motorsport documentary (although it feels more like a movie when you watch it) get some major recognition in a non-sporting awards ceremony. But then, as Stephen Fry said after the award was given, "even if you don't know a thing about F1 or motor racing, then you still see it and think it the best documentary you'll ever see". If more documentaries were made like this, I might watch more of them without assuming they're just dull history lessons. This has happened within a week of Le Mans being called "The Greatest Sporting Event In The World" by National Geographic, in a list of all sports, not just within a motorsport section. I like these two things. There's no car event at the Olympics, but this could be a start on the road to getting motorsports acknowledged in the same way as athletics and ball games by the world. Well, most of the world - the Oscars judges didn't even nominate Senna at all...

Sections:
Random Titbits
2012 Pre-Season
2011 F1 Season
2012 F1 Season

2012 Season

Race Reports:
Australia and Malaysia

China
Bahrain
Spain
Monaco
Canada
Europe
Great Britain
Germany
Hungary
Belgium
Italy
Singapore
Japan
Korea
India
Abu Dhabi
USA
Brazil

Those without links either haven't been published. Sorry! Stuff got in the way.

Other F1 Posts During 2012:
A clear explanation of KERS and DRS, inspired by David Letterman being annoying.

Sections:

Random Titbits

2012 Pre-Season

2011 F1 Season

2012 F1 Season

2012 Pre-Season

Jerez Testing:

Day 1 Times (from F1Fanatic):

Note: For this first test week, Mercedes GP is running last year's car, the W02, because the W03 isn't ready yet, basically. HRT are doing the same and Marussia (ex-Virgin) aren't even there.

Day 2 Times (also from F1Fanatic). It seems a bit weird that last year's Mercedes is atop the leaderboard, but then the teams don't exactly treat these as qualifying sessions, so you can't really gauge how fast each team are, plus the W02 has a blown diffuser, which is banned this year. Kimi Räikkönen does seem to be really enjoying himself in the Lotus though.

Day 3 times (same source).

Day 4, the final times at Jerez in 2012.














Car Unveils:
The last to arrive, the last on the grid, here are the Marussia and HRT cars for 2012. There's not much to say about their designs, as they both look pretty basic. The only point of interest really is the Marussia's flat nose.

Mercedes W03 is finally unveiled, with some aerodynamic innovations and the most... prominent nose of all.

Williams FW34 Unveiling, plus a decent shot of the Caterham and Red Bull's mysterious vent.

Three More F1 Cars, Three More Stepped Noses - Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Sauber unveiled on the same day.

Lotus E20 To Be Powered by Ice Cream and Frog's Legs - Formerly Lotus-Renault, now just Lotus, but powered by Renault, piloted by a Finn and a Frenchman. Quite pretty considering.

Two More F1 Cars, Two More Stepped Noses - Ferrari and Force India confirm stepped nose trend.

McLaren Isn't As Ugly As Caterham. Thank Goodness! - McLaren relieves us after leaked Caterham images reveal horrid "stepped nose".

Lastly, my very helpful (to blow my own diffuser) roundup of the Winter period.

Sections:
Random Titbits
2012 Pre-Season
2011 F1 Season
2012 F1 Season

2011 Formula 1 Season

Race Reports:

In chronological order, we have:

Australia
China (yeah, I missed out Malaysia, my bad)
Turkey
Monaco (oops, I missed out Spain too, it appears...)
Canada (also Le Mans)
Europe (Valencia)
Britain
Germany
Hungary
Belgium
Italy
Singapore
Japan
Korea and India
Abu Dhabi
Brazil

Other F1 Posts From 2011:
A thought I had about the Lotus T125 (which is almost an F1 car) after seeing it on TopGear.

My comparison between the Red Bull X2010 Prototype and a Formula Gran Turismo (based on a Renault R24 but with a V12), which has proved incredibly popular with Google Images searchers.

An immediate and angry reaction to the Sky F1 deal... and another go at it after I'd calmed down.

Me pretending I know what I'm talking about when it comes to circuit design.

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