Karthikeyan Makes Surprise F1 Return With HRT
Source: http://f1fanatics.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/karthikeyan-makes-surprise-f1-return-with-hrt/
Bob Bondurant Felice Bonetto Jo Bonnier Roberto Bonomi Juan Manuel Bordeu
Source: http://f1fanatics.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/karthikeyan-makes-surprise-f1-return-with-hrt/
Bob Bondurant Felice Bonetto Jo Bonnier Roberto Bonomi Juan Manuel Bordeu
Chastened by the disappointments of 2011, Ferrari promised an "aggressive" approach to the design of their new Formula 1 car and they have not disappointed.
The new F2012, unveiled via the internet on Friday because of unusually heavy snow at the team's base in Maranello, is the most radical of the four new cars that have broken cover so far this season.
Many will also regard it as the most unattractive, featuring as it does a pronounced 'step' on the upper nose that even Ferrari themselves have described as "not aesthetically pleasing".
Fernando Alonso, the man on whose shoulders rest Ferrari's huge expectations, paused when asked for his impressions of the car and said, politely, that it "looks very different".
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It is a design that will feature, to a greater or lesser extent, on most of the F1 cars this season - with the notable exception of the McLaren which was unveiled on Wednesday.
The McLaren is undoubtedly more beautiful than the Ferrari but it also appeared a little conservative - a charge vigorously denied by the team. In fact, that is a charge Ferrari have levelled at their own recent efforts, and the Italian team's new car is certainly anything but.
There is no doubting Ferrari's ambition. "We want to go back to the top level," said the company's flamboyant president, Luca di Montezemolo. "We want to win. We don't want to lose the world championship at the very last race [as they did in 2010]. We have all the ingredients for a perfect recipe."
That remains to be seen. Certainly this season could not be more critical for the sport's most famous team.
The fact is that since a major set of new regulations were introduced into F1 in 2009, Ferrari have not produced a car that was right on the pace.
The 2009 car was uncompetitive - taking only a single win in Kimi Raikkonen's hands. The 2010 was their best stab yet, but even though Alonso took it to the brink of the world title, he was only able to do so because Red Bull, who had a faster car, made so many errors between the team and drivers.
Last year was not quite as bad as 2009, but still Alonso, a man regarded widely as the most complete racing driver in the world, was able to take only one win, despite producing what he said himself was his best season in F1.
It's not hard to see where Ferrari may have created a problem for themselves.
Having put such emphasis on the need to be competitive this year, on the need to rid their design department of what they described as its conservatism, what happens if this year's car does not live up to their expectations?
They have already dismissed one technical director. Aldo Costa - who was at the team through the glory years with Michael Schumacher - was pushed aside and replaced by ex-McLaren engineer Pat Fry.
Equally, Alonso has effectively committed his career to them. This is, as team boss Stefano Domenicali has said, a huge benefit - he is a gold standard and no failure of pace can be laid at his door. But that is a double-edged sword. If the car is not winning, it is clearly Ferrari's fault, not his.
"Fernando did an incredible, extraordinary season [in 2011]," Domenicali said on Friday. "He has extended his relationship with us for many years and that is a sign of the responsibility we feel - we have to offer you a competitive high-performing car. I'm sure it will be winning from the very beginning."

Ferrari's F2012: Is this the car that will complement the exceptional talents of driver Fernando Alonso?
A lot rests, then, on the performance of the F2012. Whether its stepped nose, pull-rod front suspension and exhaust exits angled low down will make it competitive remains to be seen, but it is at least clear what Ferrari are trying to do.
The ugly step on the nose will undoubtedly cause more airflow disruption on the top of the car than any other seen so far, but it also means that Ferrari can get the much more important bottom part of the chassis higher across its entire width.
In theory, that means more airflow under the car, and therefore increased downforce, the holy grail for all F1 designers.
However, according to BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson - a man with 20 years' experience of designing grand prix cars - the curved chassis underside that will result from the 'eye-let' design on the Force India is actually advantageous in terms of directing the air where it needs to go - under the floor.
The pull-rod front suspension - where the rocker arms run from the top of the wheel to the bottom of the chassis rather than the other way around - has advantages in that it gets the weight of the suspension lower down in the car, and Ferrari claim there is an aerodynamic benefit, too.
And it remains to be seen whether Ferrari's solution on exhaust exits - which look like remaining a key issue this year, despite the ban on exhaust-blown diffusers - is as effective as that of their rivals.
"I really believe in the skills we have here in Ferrari," Alonso said. "We have to be optimistic. We have two months to get ready for the first race in Australia. We have to fight for this title."
Alonso, Ferrari say, works more closely with the team than even Schumacher did. But he is a very demanding man, who expects the absolute best from those around him, just as he delivers it on the track.
If the F2012 does not go better than it looks, things will get very uncomfortable at Maranello.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/02/ferraris_f2012_is_a_bold_step.html
Chris Craft Jim Crawford Ray Crawford Alberto Crespo Antonio Creus
Amid the widespread astonishment at how Fernando Alonso has found himself leading the world championship after two races despite driving the worst car Ferrari have produced for nearly 20 years, it has been somewhat overlooked that McLaren are topping the constructors' championship.
Victory for Jenson Button in Australia, two third places for Lewis Hamilton and two front row lock-outs have demonstrated that the MP4-27 is not only the best-looking car on the grid, it is also the fastest.
This is quite a turnaround from the last three years, when McLaren have been off the pace at the start of the season, putting their title challenge on the back foot before it had started.
The man responsible for this turnaround is McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe, who is in charge of the team's design and engineering.
A likeable, down-to-earth character, Lowe says "relief" is the first emotion he feels as a result of this impressive achievement after three years of struggling in vain to keep up with Red Bull.
He says: "There is a lot of pressure - people going around saying what you need to do is deliver a car that is quickest at the first race, as though we hadn't thought of that, you know?
"You go and estimate what you think that involves with no certain knowledge and then you go and try to deliver it. It's tough."

McLaren driver Jenson Button tackles a rain-swept Malaysian Grand Prix. Photo: Getty
Ask Lowe how McLaren have ended up with the fastest car at the start of a season for the first time in four years, and he'll tell you there is no "magic".
In reality, there are several factors behind McLaren's ability to leapfrog Red Bull this year and stay ahead of everyone else.
McLaren had a successful winter that was not affected by reliability problems with the car, as had been the case in 2011. That meant they could spend pre-season perfecting what they had rather than, as Lowe puts it, "fighting fires".
Equally, Red Bull appear to have been more badly affected than most other teams by the banning of exhaust-blown diffusers, last year's must-have technology, which the world champions are widely believed to have exploited more effectively than any other team.
For McLaren, starting 2012 with the fastest car is the culmination of a three-year battle to return to the top that began with the disaster of 2009, when they started the season more than two seconds off the pace.
That was the result of Hamilton's intense title battle with Ferrari's Felipe Massa in 2008 - which deflected resource away from both team's new cars - as well as the introduction of the biggest regulation change for 25 years.
McLaren recovered well in 2009 to win a couple of races later in the season, once they had adopted the 'double diffuser' that caused controversy at the start of the year and led to Brawn's championship win.
In 2010 they moved forward, but were still only third fastest behind Red Bull and Ferrari; and in 2011 they leapfrogged Ferrari but were still behind Red Bull.
At the same time, there was a re-organisation of the technical department undertaken in 2010-11, which has taken time to settle down.
"We came out (in 2011) pretty much in the same place we had been at the end of 2010," Lowe says. "So Red Bull had made decent progress over the winter and so had we.
"You have got to do not only what your competitors have done over the winter but then a bit more and then some to generate a lead over them.
"But that is difficult when there aren't fundamental changes in the rules for the car.
"You'd need Red Bull to go on holiday for a month, and then if you were working to the same general output you'd catch them up, but obviously they don't do that so you've just got to push it."
The same thoughts were going through the minds of the bosses at Ferrari. But whereas Maranello responded by undertaking a major change in design philosophy - which has backfired, notwithstanding Alonso's win on Sunday - McLaren realised this would be a mistake.
"In general you are going to be reluctant to say: 'I need to tear this up'," Lowe says.
"Here and there we were quicker than a Red Bull and we were certainly close to them when we weren't.
"The car performance at that point, given also there is not a big regulation change, is a consequence of a great deal of hard work. So it's quite rash to throw that away in too many areas rather than just build on it and iterate further and further.
"That doesn't mean you're not constantly looking for new ideas and trying to make them work. (But) you have to make very sure that whatever change you make is going to be better."
Lowe's contention that there has been no miracle at McLaren, just good, solid development work, is backed up by the fact that other teams have clearly made even more progress compared to Red Bull than they have - such as Lotus and Williams.
In pointing this out, Lowe betrays the natural caution of the F1 engineer - an approach that is understandable when, as Malaysia proved, even having the outright fastest car is no guarantee you will win the race.
Hamilton stepped down from the bottom step of the podium on Sunday to tell the waiting media he needed to find more race pace to capitalise on his strong qualifying form.
Lowe's "new challenge", it seems, has already arrived.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/03/lowe_confident_of_mclaren_succ.html
Chuck Daigh Yannick Dalmas Derek Daly Christian Danner Jorge Daponte
![]() © Save Team Lotus |
Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/11/campaign_launched_to_save_team_1.php
Jim Crawford Ray Crawford Alberto Crespo Antonio Creus Larry Crockett
Ronnie Bucknum Ivor Bueb Sebastien Buemi Luiz Bueno Ian Burgess
Attended my first race ever this past weekend at Barber Motorsports in my hometown of Birmingham, and it was an amazing thrill. Went with my father-in-law, who also had never seen one. I wanted to make an indycar kit to commemorate the event, and other than basic info about the chassis, I don't really know much about what to look for. I'm not a "car guy" so it difficult for me to pick out the tiny details that most of you are so very good at. That being said, if I wanted to try to reconstruct the #12 car (that won this weekend) to give to him, what is a good base kit to start with? Thanks so much!!!!!
Source: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/thread/1010662.aspx
Karun Chandhok Alain de Changy Colin Chapman Dave Charlton Pedro Matos Chaves
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2012/03/26/bruno-senna-in-the-wet-we-were-very-strong/
Tommy Byrne Giulio Cabianca Phil Cade Alex Caffi John CampbellJones