Coming up this week we discuss moonlighting, licensing issues, ideal tracks, self sponsorship, Virgin’s woes, and F1 fiction.
Intro
It's Valentine's Day and what are we doing? Making a podcast, obviously!
Good Week / Bad Week
A good week for Stefan GP because they still have the belief they will get onto the grid at some point in the first four races. Also a good week for Ron Dennis who was inducted into the Motorsport Magazine Hall of Fame. A bad week for Heikki Kovalainen who had to take a second job for Finnish TV during the Lotus launch, and for team bosses as Bernie Ecclestone would like to license them.
News and Views
Before we talk about the launches, there's a quick update on Silverstone who confirmed they would be running the new MotoGP layout for the race. Damon Hill is not impressed.
Three teams unveiled their new cars this week, with Force India the first to do so. Their online launch was barely a launch with just a few photos making an appearance. The car and livery look exactly the same as last year. Red Bull also have a similar car to last year, and also to Toro Rosso, but you can tell the (magic) hand of Adrian Newey has been on the case. Their launch was marginally better, as the car was at Jerez already.
Finally, Lotus showed them all how it was done with a real life London launch, and the green/yellow livery caused no end of debate. They also have a podcast starring none other than Ted Kravitz (and some Lotus people...).
Here's the updated table of our launch scores:
Team Launch
Christine's Score
Mr C's Score
Mercedes
3
4
Ferrari
6
4
Williams
0
6
McLaren
8
6
Sauber
2
4
Renault
2
4
Toro Rosso
1
3
Virgin Racing
-5
0
Force India
2
2
Red Bull
3
4
Lotus
5
6
We move on to testing talk, but really it was not as exciting as last week due to the weather. Virgin Racing had a terrible time, Michael Schumacher prefers to eat at Ferrari, and they like to run out of fuel on purpose.
Feedback
I'm keen on starting a Mailbag show, but for now, two voicemails kick off the Feedback section. RG is not at all impressed with this year's liveries, whilst Adie had a minor breakdown when the doohickey malfunctioned.
Luis tells us how Formula 1 is in Portugal, Myles credits Ted, Sandy confirms he will photograph the marmots for me, Alberto talks F1 and music, and Steve points out McLaren's latest initiative for bloggers and fans. Also, happy birthday to Zoe.
Housekeeping
The wiki is in a state of disrepair at the moment but I'm working on it. Also I have started writing some fiction, in which you can vote on the outcome.
Outtakes
Not really an outtake, but something you wouldn't expect Mr C to say:
Whilst Mr C and I have settled for discussing the launches briefly in the podcast, and scoring them out of 10, new guest writer KerbRider has taken a more detailed look at the teams we've seen so far.
2010 has promised to be a great year for F1 since Sebby V took the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi. The off season has now ensured this will be the case.
A lot of people have gotten excited over the game of musical chairs the drivers like to play every few years. Some even more so because a certain driver, I like to call Voldemort, decided he wanted to play again.
Although all these changes have been great to see, and have whet my appetite for what is promising to be a great season, the real excitement for me is launch season.
I love the smell of Duco in the morning!
The reason I love launch season is because I'm a 'details' man. I will study photos of the new cars for hours on end to see their subtleties and nuances, and speculate as to why they did this, or that, and then formulate how I think a particular design philosophy might work.
Different strokes for different folk I guess.
I'll start with the fundamentals of design philosophy, and I'll thank Mr Codling for his insightful article in this months F1 Racing. Cant wait to get the book.
The way I see it, the fundamental concept of designing a quick car is to have the air under the car moving a lot quicker than the air on top. This is basic aeronautics. What an F1 designer must try to achieve is to have four separate airflows to make a car work effectively. Underneath, above, and the two sides of the car.
The idea is to keep these "chunks" of air as independent of each other as possible. So in other words, we don’t want air flowing from the side of the car bleeding into the air flowing over or under the car. As there are four big black squares on a car, the philosophy is to minimise this "bleeding" as much as possible.
It all about compromise.
So on to the cars that have been launched to date.
Ferrari
Ferrari seem to have a simple and sleek design. Quite an attractive car I think, and it hurts me to say that. Love the lighter red colour, and the white wings are bearable for sponsorship purposes. Not a bad deal for Ferrari to get Alonso basically for free, when Santander are obviously footing the bill for him. So can we now class Fernando as a pay driver!
Average height for the nose. Not as high as others and about even with Mercedes. The all important front wing is clearly not as detailed as Mclaren, Red Bull and Sauber, but maybe it doesn’t need to be because the rest of the car deflects the air where needed. Fat, and weighty sidepods are well streamlined, and have the bulk purely for side impact crash testing. A feature most cars have this season.
Where I think Ferrari have excelled is the rear end. Although they haven't chosen to go the "sharkfin" path, there is so much free space at the back for clear airflow over the rear wing. Of course the "sharkfin" is subject to crosswind buffeting that can affect pitch and yaw mid-corner, and more importantly, under braking. What might let them down is the lack of cover over the rear suspension. This may cause turbulent air affecting the air that exits above the diffuser.
McLaren
For one, I am glad McLaren kept their silver and red livery. Its effective, sexy, and unique. Even if the Mercedes has tried to replicate without copying.
McLaren have boldly copied the splitter/divider underneath the nose that Williams had last year but strangely decided to opt against this year.
If we look at a front on view on the MP4-25, it is clear that this device will divide the air to flow more cleanly through the suspension arms and steering column, and swiftly into the sidepods. It will have the effect of forcing more air faster into the sidepods, which explains in a fashion as to why they are so small compared to other teams.
"The front wing is, in layman's terms, off its face!"
The front wing is, in layman's terms, off its face! Incredibly detailed, and obviously Mclarens' philosophy this year was to not be caught out by last year's mistakes. They learned a lot last year as a design team. Although they seemingly have "borrowed" ideas from RBR and Brawn, they have made them uniquely Mclaren. The Sharkfin is high, and long, and a bit fatter at the bottom. This is to accommodate the exhaust exits that, again unique to Mclaren, exit horizontally, rather than vertically like the rest of the grid. It will be interesting to see what benefit this has. The MP4-25 is vastly different in appearance to anything else this year which means that this year Mclaren will go either one of two ways - that is poor, or win the lot.
Mercedes
My overall view is that I'm largely unimpressed by Mercedes. I was expecting big changes in this year's car. The Mercedes livery is average, and hopefully will be updated next year.
They have gone with a higher nose than the Brawn, and the design remains largely unchanged. Of course as Ross alluded to last year, the nose has the air channelling veins. This seems to be a large talking point, although I think its effectiveness is overrated. I can only assume the concept was born out of a need to direct airflow away from the drivers helmet, which is a rather large obstacle.
The most noticeable change is the air box. Low and broad with a splitter. There is a semi-sharkfin, and I expected tighter packaging at the rear considering they have had a year with the engine and drive train. All this being said, I still believe they will be a top four team.
Sauber
This one gets me excited. BMW obviously did a lot of work before the withdrawal. A great looking front wing that should be successful in diverting airflow around the front wheels and into the rear sculpted body work. A high nose to increase the amount of air flowing underneath the car, and unique sidepods that have the idea of moulding airflow back inward toward the rear wing.
A large and bulky sharkfin as per Mclaren, but inspiringly sculpted sidepods and tight rear packaging. All in the name of rear stability and front end grip. I believe the Sauber should have great traction with the low sitting rear, and as F1 is mainly made up of slow to medium speed corners, this will be a great advantage over the course of 19 races. I think they will be the surprise of the year. Kubica left too early. Which leads me to...
Renault
U-G-L-Y they aint got no alibi, its ugly!! For a team that pulled out as late as they did officially, I think they must have pulled out mentally beforehand as this year's car will be the joke of 2010. My heart sinks for Kubica, it really does. Ugly cars rarely do well in F1, and I don’t think this year will be any exception.
Of course I'm saying this under the impression that this is the car that will actually race.
It looks quite uninspiring, and a bit too bulky at the sides. Like a driver, the car needs to be fit, and trim the fat. It looks shorter than the rest, as does the RBR at first glance. Go Renault engine efficiency!!
"I expect design changes early on in the year"
The rear wing is left of field, and might suit their own philosophy, but I expect design changes early on in the year, if not before Bahrain. The front wing endplates are also a tad bland, and are the least detailed of the already established teams.
Let's not expect much unfortunately.
Williams
I always hold high hopes for Williams. Shouldn't everyone? Real racers, battlers and sadly of late, the perennial underachievers. This all stems from their brief encounter with a walrus, and they have never recovered fully from that.
I'm a bit befuddled as to why they went with a clean sheet, as last year's car was quite decent, and an evolution of that may have pushed them up the grid. I hope it works for them, but as strange as it sounds, the car seem too clean to be a top performer.
It seems as of late, to find real performance and aero gains, a car needs to look messy. But I guess the 2009 Brawn put that to rest too. Nose is high, which in the past meant high centre of gravity, but with the double diffuser malarkey, this is necessary to maximise air flow underneath the car. I suspect that with this year's cars most performance will be found from the floor, and suspension geometry.
Interesting to note the Williams front wing sits backward from the mounting pillars, whereas the other teams have their mounting pillars attached closer to the front of the front wing main plane. There are some interesting components on the end fences that look successful in dispersing airflow around the tyres.
Toro Rosso
Nothing to see here folks! Keep moving. Seriously, not much change from last years RBR. Not expecting great feats from the driver pairing, although Buemi has some potential. I expect them to be toughing it out with Williams and or Renault at best, Virgin and Lotus at worst.
Virgin Racing
There will be some bad headlines printed about this team this year. My impressions of the car are that it might surprise. Well packaged at the rear, and sidepods of a Mclaren nature. The real sticking point will be suspension geometry and heating the tyres in unison. The front wing looks large, and dual channel end plates look as though they will get the desired result there. Except for one fine point. Sure the CFD would have calculated big downforce levels, but as our friend Mr Saward mentioned in a podcast last year, how will it go in turbulent air? There are no intricate details that suggest it will cope well in traffic, and there is a massive space behind the front wing that has no details to direct air straight toward the floor splitter and onward and downward toward the diffuser.
The car itself looks fantastic. I love the livery, the addition of the Yorkshire rose is just brilliant. I'm Australian, and it means nothing to me, but it’s a beautiful design. For me it harks back to the first Jordan in '91. Clean and unpretentious (even though it is a Branson baby). I think they will score points for sure, but not more than 10 unless they get lucky in the wet.
Red Bull
The one we were all waiting for. The thread for the launch was full of negative comments which surprised me. Sure it looks like last year's car, but they were the quickest last year, so the only thing they had to concentrate on was the rear end because they missed the double diffuser boat. Additionally if RBR can get Total to incorporate into blue, why did Renault insist on that hideous red?
"The rear end is even more tightly packaged than last year"
Firstly the front wing. Equal in development man hours of the Mclaren I would imagine, and running in turbulence was an issue for them last year until they introduced the stepped top wing. The nose is almost round once we get past the yellow tip, and the airflow channels on top are more pronounced and sharper at the front than other teams who have copied the idea. The rear end is even more tightly packaged than last year and it looks low thanks to the pull rod suspension geometry. This will assist with traction out of the slower corners, as last year, the RBR was an oversteer car compared to the understeering Brawn.
The sharkfin has now been filled in underneath the rear wing, and comprises the rear wing support post. It should be quick, but will it be the quickest?
Force India
With the Mclaren association, I am expecting big things from this team this year. The front wing is nicely detailed and there is plenty of space under the high nose to get lots of under the car and into that diffuser. High chunky sidepods like the Ferrari, and the rear packaging looks too high. First impressions are that it has a higher centre of gravity than the others as the exhaust exits sit high in the bodywork.
No change in livery, which is fine by me. Its effective, if not attractive. I'm also expecting over the course of the season for Liuzzi to beat Sutil resoundingly.
It really is all up in the air this year, and anyone who thinks they know who will win at this stage is kidding themselves. There will be some good guesses only in prediction land, and I for one am predicting a Lewis WDC and a Red Bull WCC.
Testing begins in earnest today, with all the teams we've seen already in action returning, and hopefully some new ones! We had so much information coming out of the last test that we know as much as it is possible to know, with the usual caveat of fuel loads applying. More of the same today, please!
Talking of new things, Red Bull are due to launch today. We're expecting big things from Adrian Newey, but I have a sneaky feeling that it's going to be very similar to last year's car, just like the Force India did yesterday.
King of the Twitpic during the last test was Craig Scarborough, as we discussed in this week's F1 Debrief. Now, Scarbs F1 has set up his own blog, and you need to head on over and subscribe right now. It all goes over my head, obviously, but I recommend it to all!
I mentioned in yesterday's F1 Minute that Jean Todt has been talking about all things F1, and whilst he drew short of making any plans, he had some interesting things to say. He's disappointed KERS was scrapped, is in favour of cost cutting but not budget caps, and won't stay forever like a certain Mr Mosley tried to.
That should do for now. We'll have threads for testing and the launch today, so I will see you in the comments.
Tuesday is here and with it brings our first action of the week, in the shape of a Force India launch. The team are going online with their new car, so let's hope they are more successful than Virgin were. Keep an eye out for the breakout thread ahead of the action at 9am. Meanwhile, here are some of the things we're talking about:
F1 Debrief is up and ready for everyone to listen to, and I would warn you of two things. Firstly, there is quite a lot of Twitter talk, and whilst we both find the service leaves a bad taste in our mouths, it is revolutionising F1 coverage all the time. Secondly, I try and be down with the kids a couple of times and it's quite embarrassing. Enjoy!
Adam Cooper has been delving into the history books to find out some of the stories of other new teams, in this case Mastercard Lola. It's fair to say that fiasco is an understatement, but it makes fascinating reading, and like the comments say, let's hope for more history from Mr Cooper.
I may have started another blog yesterday, and whilst that may not make a change, the content is certainly a bit different to our normal offerings. After thinking about it a lot, I started writing fiction again, and I've posted the beginnings of an F1 story that you get to control. Hopefully it is self-explanatory, but head on over to Ten Step Stories and cast your vote.
That should do it for now. Hopefully, you've had a good start to the week, let us know, and I'll see you in the comments.
Monday morning sees us dive headlong into another week of launches and testing, but things don't get underway until tomorrow when we have a Force India launch, and Wednesday when the Jerez test gets going. For now, we have to keep ourselves occupied by other means. Here are some of the things we're talking about:
The doohickey has changed ever so slightly, well quite a major change, really. If you're reading this in the doohickey, then success! We have made the post content for each active thread show up in the doohickey itself, above the comments. The idea is to fend off the many questions we get regarding information that is in the post itself, try and stop the time-consuming thread confusion, plus add video streaming functionality. The design is nowhere near complete yet, but let us know your thoughts on the functionality for now.
We recorded the weekend's F1 Debrief yesterday, so keep your eyes peeled for the edited show later today. To make up for the lack of live show, we have started to host a thread dedicated to Giggles Radio. You can read more about the first ever guest broadcast on Sidepodcast on the introductory thread.
Stuart has blogged about his brand new book, which he's been working on for aaaages, and been keeping us updated on his progress throughout. It looks like it is available as soon as February turns into March, so I hope it is on your wish list. It's certainly on ours!
That should do it for now, let us know how your weekend went, and what you're up to for the rest of the week, and I will see you in the comments.
We spent most of last night watching some ARCA racing which was very confusing but also kinda fun. I don't know that we'll be following it particularly closely but sometimes it's nice to watch things that are a bit different. It was certainly interesting to see Piquet bashing into people. Anyway, here are some of the things we're talking about:
Whilst catching up with the Quotes pages on F1 Minute, we introduced a new feature called Tweets of the Week. It does what it says in the title, by grouping together ten of the best F1 related tweets of the week, from our Twitter lists of journalists, drivers and teams. It's nothing revolutionary, but it's a nice way to keep up with what's happening from those who know.
Yesterday also saw the debut of the brand new item on Sidepodcast - Christine's Rankings. In an attempt to rank the F1 drivers from best to worst, I have taken it upon myself to work out a very scientific and not at all superficial method of scoring them each week. It's going to be fun, and you can help. Find out more here.
I've heard call for round-ups of the testing and launch action from the past week for those who were busy, and although I would always recommend F1 Minute first and foremost, it looks as though Adam Hay-Nicholls has written a collection of his thoughts as he catches up with all the happenings of the week. There are some interesting snippets in there, so get reading.
That should do it for now. Don't forget to sign up to Danny's new Fantasy WRC championship. You can't know any less than myself and Mr C, so it's just a bit of fun. After you've done that, I'll see you in the comments.
Ah, our first testing session has drawn to a close and we have a couple of days to rest and analyse what we've seen so far. It's always had to look at the times and draw anything conclusive, but it's plenty of fun looking. Meanwhile, here are some of the things we're talking about:
Virgin Racing had their launch... sort of. It was delayed and ultimately was just a few pictures and video, but there were plenty of thoughts on the new look car in the breakout thread. We featured the new car in the latest F1 Big Picture, and I must say the title is rather fabulous.
Autosport have prepared a good table of all the times from testing in Valencia, with the drivers from each day compared with all the others. It's a great way of sizing up the teammates at least, even if we can't really work out which team is ahead of all the others. That would appear to be Ferrari, but is it really?
It is Thursday Thoughts day today, and Journeyer has very kindly offered up a guest post with the question of the day on it. There'll be a post along later with the question in it, and to take part, all you have to do is write a post on your blog with your answer. If you don't have a blog, we'd be more than happy to host your answers via a guest post here. Get involved!
That should keep us going for a while. Thursdays are not normally good, but let's hope it goes smoothly enough, and I will see you in the comments.
Midway through the week and we have ourselves another launch to pore over, this time Virgin will be revealing their new car to the world. It's an online launch which is different to everything we have experienced so far this year, and I don't know about anyone else but I'm hoping for more: "Are you ready?" from Glock. Anyway, here are some of the other things we're discussing:
The first Aside with Joe of 2010 is edited and published and awaiting your consumption. I was present for this one which makes a nice change, and we covered all manner of topics, including how to write history books and the logistics of a meetup in London. There's some F1 stuff in there too, of course.
Over on his blog, Paul has been looking through some of the old liveries, year by year. So far, he's up to 1997, which features a Jordan looking a little bit like the current Renault, plus a McLaren running the West sponsorship that I would like to see return. Love these livery posts, keep them coming Paul!
Meanwhile, testing will continue today and we'll be covering it in a dedicated thread as usual. So far, testing has been a lot more popular than we expected, and that is brilliant. If you haven't managed to be around for any of it yet, then all I will do is recommend this Twitpic account. Mr C says it's his favourite page on the internets at the moment.
That's all for now. Let us know what you're up to and how you're liking the return of so much Formula 1 news and action. I will see you in the comments.
Yesterday was a bit mad, wasn't it? Launching and testing at the same time is quite a push, and it's no wonder Toro Rosso suffered some reliability issues. Anyway, today we just have testing to keep an eye on, and so far it's looking pretty interesting. Keep an eye on the dedicated threads for all the info. Meanwhile, here are some of the things we're discussing:
Talking of testing, Mr C pointed out yesterday that we saw the largest spike of traffic ever on Sidepodcast since we started - even bigger than when Lewis Hamilton took the championship in that oh-so-epic Brazil GP in 2008. I want to imagine this is down to a rejuvenated interest in F1 that isn't down to Schumacher, but... I can't really fool myself like that. Still, yay for F1!
Joe announced plans for A Formula 1 Evening With... which will see the man meet a limited number of Formula One fans in London, to discuss all things motor sport over a drink or three. There's a dedicated page should you need more detail.
Lukeh has been covering the launches pretty well so far, and yesterday he got to not only cover a brand new STR, but also the appearance of Rubens in his new Williams seat. Technically, Williams haven't done the whole launch thing and we've only seen a couple of leaked photographs before so seeing the new car in action was pretty good.
This weekend's F1 Debrief went up last night, and there's plenty of fine chatter in there, including my thoughts on the new Renault colours, and shock, horror, some compliments for Autosport. We even scored the launches out of 10, and intend to do more of the same! Let us know your scores, if you feel like it, in that thread.
I also want to highlight James Allen's Twitter thing, which is pretty impressive. we've heard mixed feelings about it so far, but whether you're a fan or not, it's quite the sight when you first check it out!
That should do for now. We'll be around all day following the action in Valencia, so I will see you in the comments.
This week we talk about goodbye videos, terrible lighting, spy photography, digital subscriptions, tweeting, Fantasy Racing and British accents.
Intro
It was incredibly busy this week with a grand total of five launches, and with more to come plus testing, there's plenty to discuss.
Good Week / Bad Week
Good week for Toyota leaving us with a fantastic video to sum up their time in the sport, and also for US F1 who finally got around to confirming their first driver... by proxy. Bad week for the F1 Calendar though, as Abu Dhabi want to keep their grip on the season finale, and for Kimi Raikkonen who smashed into a tree during his first rally of the year.
News and Views
We cover all the launches we've experienced so far, starting with Mercedes. Bad lighting, a wonky live stream and no actual new car didn't really get us off to a good start. Ferrari were next with an even worse stream, but a new car, and a tweaked livery. McLaren showed them all how it was done, though, with a stream that worked, a fascinating insight into how the team is going to work, a new car and bloggers in attendance. We listen to a voicemail from Adie who was present at the launch.
Sauber and Renault launched on the eve of the first pre-season test in Valencia, and whilst the BMW-Sauber was bereft of sponsors and a bit bland on the livery front, Renault took the opposite tack and turned up with a new bumble bee paint job.
We assessed each livery and assigned a score out of 10 for each one, for easy comparison:
Team Launch
Christine's Score
Mr C's Score
Mercedes
3
4
Ferrari
6
4
Williams
0
6
McLaren
8
6
Sauber
2
4
Renault
2
4
We also quickly mention the fantastic news about the Autosport magazine going digital, plus some Ted News and a particular Twitter update.
Feedback
Lukeh kicks off the feedback section with a Tremayne about the constant regulation changes. Then we discuss the new Fantasy Racers league, my pronunciation, some jokes, Monaco Baby, accents and mankinis, testing and the Sidepodcast calendar.
Housekeeping
We finish with a quick mention of our brand new Twitter page, as linked below.
