The two Kimi Raikkonens

There are, it turns out, two Kimi Raikkonens.

The public face of the 2007 world champion, who has returned to Formula 1 this season after two years in rallying, is of a monosyllabic, monotone, unsmiling figure, energised only the moment he steps into a racing car.

The one who emerges in private is very different - a talkative, jocular man, who can happily sit and shoot the breeze like anyone else.

As Lotus trackside operations director, Alan Permane has worked closely with Raikkonen since he joined the team last November.

Kimi Raikkonen

Kimi Raikkonen has been perceived as cold and uncommunicative. Photo: Getty

The 32-year-old Finn, Permane says, "is happy to sit and talk, not only about technical stuff, but laughing and joking and talking rubbish with his engineers about all sorts of stuff".

He is just not interested in any of his dealings with the media and, unlike his rivals, doesn't bother to hide it.

Permane worked with Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso through the title-winning years with the team formerly known as both Benetton and Renault. He has been impressed with Raikkonen from the start.

Raikkonen first drove one of the team's cars at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia in late January. Straightaway the team knew they had something special.

He had not driven an F1 car since the 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and had no experience of the Pirelli tyres he was using. Yet, after a single installation lap to check the car's systems were working, his first flying lap was within a few 10ths of a second of the fastest lap he would do over the next two days.

The good impressions did not go away.

Permane said, "He has never driven a car with a full load of fuel in it.

"We went from 30-160kg [of fuel load in Valencia] to show him that's the sort of difference you can expect - certainly from qualifying to race it's even bigger than that.

"We calculate the lap time difference the fuel load will make and his first lap was absolutely spot on that difference. That is impressive."

After that, Raikkonen did another 20 laps, each one exactly 0.1secs slower than the last - the lap time lost by tyre degradation.

There is a widespread belief that Raikkonen is as unforthcoming in his technical debriefs as he is in public, but that, too, appears to be a fallacy.

Lotus have found his comments in debriefs to be not only lengthy but very perceptive, too.

He was slightly quicker than new team-mate Romain Grosjean throughout pre-season testing, so it was a surprise that he was about 0.2secs slower than the Franco-Swiss semi-novice in the practice sessions in Melbourne.

Equally, the errors Raikkonen made on his qualifying laps that left him down in 18th on the grid betrayed a certain ring-rustiness, as well as perhaps the pressure he was feeling from Grosjean's pace.

In the race, though, something of the old Raikkonen returned as he fought back up from his low starting position to take seventh place by the end.

Clearly, though, there is more to come.

Raikkonen is not entirely happy with the feel he is getting from the Lotus's steering, but Permane plays down the significance of the problem.

"He's very particular," Permane says. "He knows what he wants and it's not quite to his liking. It's not a million miles away, but we'll get it there."

Raikkonen can drive perfectly well with the steering as it is, but the problem probably does mean that he is driving a little below his maximum.

The question now is, at what level is his maximum?

The reason Raikkonen left F1 in the first place was because he performed for Ferrari for much of 2008 and 2009 way below the level expected of him.

Ferrari, in fact, terminated Raikkonen's contract a year early and paid him not to drive in 2010 so they could bring in Alonso.

The Spaniard has since out-performed Felipe Massa, the man who generally had the better of Raikkonen from the start of 2008 until fracturing his skull in an accident in Hungary in July 2009.

Does this mean Alonso is that much better than Raikkonen? Or that Raikkonen in 2008-9 was a long way below his best? Or that Massa is not the driver he was?

No one knows for sure, but for Raikkonen's comeback to be considered an unqualified success he will have to be able to match his new team-mate's pace.

The fact Lotus have regrouped over the winter and produced one of the year's fastest cars only increases the pressure - it's not so bad to be beaten by a team-mate when you're battling to get into the top 10; but a very different matter when you're fighting for the podium.

That, it appears, is what Lotus are in a position to do.

"We screwed up with the car last year," Permane says, "and we know we've done a lovely car this year, not only aerodynamically, but we've done a nice package mechanically."

So pleased are Lotus with the new E20 that Permane says he "dared to compare it with 2005", when Alonso won the first of his two titles.

That is not so much a measure of Lotus's realistic hopes as a reflection of how much the drivers like the car, and how well it responds to changes.

Nevertheless, the team are confident they can keep up with the break-neck development pace of the likes of McLaren and Red Bull and hold on to their position.

For Raikkonen, the requirement now is prove that he can go with them. So far, the signs are positive.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/03/the_two_kimi_raikkonens.html

Eitel Cantoni Bill Cantrell Ivan Capelli Piero Carini Duane Carter

Meyers Manx Ready To Cruise

This started as a WIP in the Community Build section , but I decided to post the finished pictures here .    This dune buggy wasn't built for off-road but for crusin' the beach on weekends !

The paint is Krylon Orange Glitter Blast over a Pumpkin Orange base . The tires are from the AMT '62 Vette . The wheels and baby moons are from the AMT '57 Ford .  And the seats are from the Revell Gypsy Dune Buggy .  I scratch built the rear seat cushions ,  the softtop , and the tail lights .  I also printed my own license plate .  I look forward to your comments and suggestions .   Thanks for looking .

 

Source: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/thread/1010639.aspx

Ettore Chimeri Louis Chiron Joie Chitwood Bob Christie Johnny Claes

The two Kimi Raikkonens

There are, it turns out, two Kimi Raikkonens.

The public face of the 2007 world champion, who has returned to Formula 1 this season after two years in rallying, is of a monosyllabic, monotone, unsmiling figure, energised only the moment he steps into a racing car.

The one who emerges in private is very different - a talkative, jocular man, who can happily sit and shoot the breeze like anyone else.

As Lotus trackside operations director, Alan Permane has worked closely with Raikkonen since he joined the team last November.

Kimi Raikkonen

Kimi Raikkonen has been perceived as cold and uncommunicative. Photo: Getty

The 32-year-old Finn, Permane says, "is happy to sit and talk, not only about technical stuff, but laughing and joking and talking rubbish with his engineers about all sorts of stuff".

He is just not interested in any of his dealings with the media and, unlike his rivals, doesn't bother to hide it.

Permane worked with Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso through the title-winning years with the team formerly known as both Benetton and Renault. He has been impressed with Raikkonen from the start.

Raikkonen first drove one of the team's cars at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia in late January. Straightaway the team knew they had something special.

He had not driven an F1 car since the 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and had no experience of the Pirelli tyres he was using. Yet, after a single installation lap to check the car's systems were working, his first flying lap was within a few 10ths of a second of the fastest lap he would do over the next two days.

The good impressions did not go away.

Permane said, "He has never driven a car with a full load of fuel in it.

"We went from 30-160kg [of fuel load in Valencia] to show him that's the sort of difference you can expect - certainly from qualifying to race it's even bigger than that.

"We calculate the lap time difference the fuel load will make and his first lap was absolutely spot on that difference. That is impressive."

After that, Raikkonen did another 20 laps, each one exactly 0.1secs slower than the last - the lap time lost by tyre degradation.

There is a widespread belief that Raikkonen is as unforthcoming in his technical debriefs as he is in public, but that, too, appears to be a fallacy.

Lotus have found his comments in debriefs to be not only lengthy but very perceptive, too.

He was slightly quicker than new team-mate Romain Grosjean throughout pre-season testing, so it was a surprise that he was about 0.2secs slower than the Franco-Swiss semi-novice in the practice sessions in Melbourne.

Equally, the errors Raikkonen made on his qualifying laps that left him down in 18th on the grid betrayed a certain ring-rustiness, as well as perhaps the pressure he was feeling from Grosjean's pace.

In the race, though, something of the old Raikkonen returned as he fought back up from his low starting position to take seventh place by the end.

Clearly, though, there is more to come.

Raikkonen is not entirely happy with the feel he is getting from the Lotus's steering, but Permane plays down the significance of the problem.

"He's very particular," Permane says. "He knows what he wants and it's not quite to his liking. It's not a million miles away, but we'll get it there."

Raikkonen can drive perfectly well with the steering as it is, but the problem probably does mean that he is driving a little below his maximum.

The question now is, at what level is his maximum?

The reason Raikkonen left F1 in the first place was because he performed for Ferrari for much of 2008 and 2009 way below the level expected of him.

Ferrari, in fact, terminated Raikkonen's contract a year early and paid him not to drive in 2010 so they could bring in Alonso.

The Spaniard has since out-performed Felipe Massa, the man who generally had the better of Raikkonen from the start of 2008 until fracturing his skull in an accident in Hungary in July 2009.

Does this mean Alonso is that much better than Raikkonen? Or that Raikkonen in 2008-9 was a long way below his best? Or that Massa is not the driver he was?

No one knows for sure, but for Raikkonen's comeback to be considered an unqualified success he will have to be able to match his new team-mate's pace.

The fact Lotus have regrouped over the winter and produced one of the year's fastest cars only increases the pressure - it's not so bad to be beaten by a team-mate when you're battling to get into the top 10; but a very different matter when you're fighting for the podium.

That, it appears, is what Lotus are in a position to do.

"We screwed up with the car last year," Permane says, "and we know we've done a lovely car this year, not only aerodynamically, but we've done a nice package mechanically."

So pleased are Lotus with the new E20 that Permane says he "dared to compare it with 2005", when Alonso won the first of his two titles.

That is not so much a measure of Lotus's realistic hopes as a reflection of how much the drivers like the car, and how well it responds to changes.

Nevertheless, the team are confident they can keep up with the break-neck development pace of the likes of McLaren and Red Bull and hold on to their position.

For Raikkonen, the requirement now is prove that he can go with them. So far, the signs are positive.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/03/the_two_kimi_raikkonens.html

Gary Brabham Jack BrabhamÜ Bill Brack Ernesto Brambilla Vittorio Brambilla

F1 pre-season testing provides poor guide to form

So, after four days of testing and nearly 3,500 laps of running at Jerez in sunny southern Spain, what has the first Formula 1 pre-season test revealed about the season to come?

The simplest answer – as ever – is “not much”. Testing – or the “winter world championship”, as McLaren chairman Ron Dennis famously described it – is a notoriously poor guide to form.

Or at least it is if you look only at the headline lap times. At the end of last year’s test in Jerez, the fastest man was Williams driver Rubens Barrichello – and his team were about to embark on the worst season in their once-illustrious history.

Likewise, if anyone thinks Lotus driver Romain Grosjean is going to win this year’s world championship after setting the pace in Jerez this week, they will be waiting a long time for those pigs to fly in front of that blue moon.

Fernando Alonso

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso set the fastest time on the final day of the first Formula 1 pre-season testing in Jerez, in Spain with a time of 1.18.877. Photo: Getty

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to say that Jerez has revealed nothing.

First of all, it has become clear the teams dislike the look of the new cars as much as anyone.

For them, the ugly step on top of the noses of all cars apart from the McLaren is an unfortunate necessity in the pursuit of the best possible aerodynamics, following a rule change requiring lower front noses.

"Performance comes before aesthetics," as Red Bull design chief Adrian Newey put it.

The teams head back to their factories with a mountain of data, on which decisions will be based about the direction in which to take the development of their new cars.

These gleaming machines are prototypes for their entire lives, but in terms of maturity right now they are still in the post-natal stage.

Nowhere, it seems, is that more true than at Ferrari, whose decision to start with a clean sheet of paper after a chastening year in 2011 has left them with a lot of work to do.

Fernando Alonso may have left Jerez with the fastest time from the final day - and the second fastest overall - but no-one was fooled by that.

Ferrari were clearly struggling to understand their new F2012 and spent most of the four days doing aerodynamic assessment tests.

The car, they said, was behaving inconsistently in the corners, and so far fixing its behaviour at one stage - the entry, say - messes it up at either the mid-corner or exit, or both.

This is not an especially encouraging sign for a team whose 2011 season came off the rails at the final pre-season test, when new parts that they expected to bring a chunk of speed actually made the car worse.

It turned out this was a result of a lack of correlation between the results that were being created in the wind tunnel and the actual performance of the car out on the track - a major problem in a sport where aerodynamics are critical to performance.

Ferrari spent most of last season trying to get on top of this, and by late summer they insisted they had. Yet when they introduced an update to the car at the Belgian Grand Prix in August, that too did not work.

Were they not concerned about this, I asked an insider a little later in the season. No, he said, they knew why it had happened - the wind tunnel correlation was fine.

Yet on Thursday this week, there was technical director Pat Fry admitting that there was still a small problem in this area. "There's reasonable correlation," Fry said. "I certainly wouldn't say it was perfect."

Despite that eye-catching lap time from Alonso, then, Ferrari's potential remains unclear.

"That time was on soft tyres," a source close to the team said. "It was not so special. The feeling is they are waiting for a lot from this car - but they don't know how to get it. It is impossible to say what will be the future."

But it is not just Ferrari. Over at McLaren, Lewis Hamilton has said his first impressions of the car were "all positive". But the more he talked, the more you wondered.

They had not found the best set-up yet, he said - unsurprising, perhaps, so early in testing.

"It feels like an evolution of last year's car in many ways but also there are some things that are not so good," he added. "The downforce on the rear for instance, is not as good through the high-speed corners as it was last year, but I'm sure we'll get that back."

Again, this was to be expected given the ban on exhaust-blown diffusers, from which all top teams gained huge amounts of rear downforce last year - and Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel also noticed a similar experience in his car.

But perhaps Hamilton's most revealing remark was this: "You never know what fuel loads people are on. I think we've been quite aggressive with our fuel loads."

A translation of which seems to be that McLaren are running with less fuel on board than they might normally be expected to - which will make their lap times look more impressive.

Despite that, the car looked as if it was not quite as fast as the Red Bull, which Hamilton effectively admitted. "I think you can see the Red Bull looks quick," he said.

The Red Bull indeed appeared to do its times with relative ease, both in the hands of Mark Webber and, later in the week, Vettel.

Just as much of a concern for their rivals will be that pictures suggest the car seems to have retained what most believe to be its crucial secret.

That is getting the front wing to run closer to the ground than any other car, a critical aerodynamic advantage.

This is despite design chief Adrian Newey saying they had had to reduce the rake on their car following the ban on exhaust-blown diffusers and despite the introduction of a tougher front-wing deflection test.

And yet even Red Bull clearly have work to do. After three pretty much trouble-free days, an electrical fault appeared on the final morning, and Vettel lost an entire morning's running while the team fixed it.

In summary, then, Red Bull again look like the team to beat, and there is a mixed picture from McLaren and Ferrari.

Just as it did in 2011 when the team were Renault, the Lotus has left a good initial impression.

Toro Rosso and Williams also appear to have decent cars, while Force India fell back after a promising start, almost certainly because of losing a day to reserve driver Jules Bianchi's crash on Thursday.

There follows a 10-day break before the teams reconvene at Barcelona on 21 February.

The Circuit de Catalunya's mix of long corners of varying speeds have long been the ultimate test of an F1 car's all-round capabilities, so more pieces of the jigsaw should fall into place there.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/02/f1_pre-season_testing_provides.html

John Cannon Eitel Cantoni Bill Cantrell Ivan Capelli Piero Carini

Ferrari director ‘disappointed’ with performance level

Ferrari Technical director Pat Fry has said that he doesn’t expect the team to start the 2012 season well. Who remembers the 1988 Austalian Grand Prix? Many have suggested that Ferrari need to hit the ground running to improve on last year, but Fry is in a rather pessimistic mood. Speaking at the end of a tough pre-season, [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/VcaBfnzCfTQ/ferrari-director-disappointed-with-performance-level

Bill Aston Richard Attwood Manny Ayulo Luca Badoer Giancarlo Baghetti

Journalists shocked at Korea award


Scarecrows adorn the entrance to a barren Korean International Circuit © Getty Images
Two leading Formula One journalists have expressed their surprise at Korea being named the best grand prix promoter of the season at the FIA’s annual prize gala in Monaco last Friday. The Korean Grand Prix received the Race Promoters' Trophy despite the event taking place at an incomplete facility with few race fans in attendance and team members and media staying at disparagingly dubbed 'love hotels'. "Korea. Korea? KOREA??!! I must have been somewhere else," said Times correspondent Kevin Eason on Twitter. Daily Mirror journalist Byron Young added, "The Korean GP, complete with event and flight chaos, shoddy hotels and things I won't mention, won the race promotors’ trophy. Why?"

Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/12/journalists_shocked_at_korea_a.php

Hans Binder Clemente Biondetti Pablo Birger Art Bisch Harry Blanchard

'71 GTX, Completed!

I started building a Revell '71 GTX . I went to the internet to get info on exterior paint codes and interior options for this car. I see that a gunmetal vinyl interior was offered for these cars. I want to do it in this color because, frankly, black or white is becoming boring! My problem is that I can't seem to find more than one poor photo of a car with this style interior. Anyone know where I can find any pics? Does Fury III know what this interior would look like? I might just "wing" it but I would like to be correct.

WF

Source: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/thread/998656.aspx

Giancarlo Baghetti Julian Bailey Mauro Baldi Bobby Ball Marcel Balsa