Lotus F1 Racing unveiled their 2010 challenger at a launch ceremony held at the Royal Horticultural Hall, London on Friday evening. The covers came off the car, named the T127, after an emotional introduction from team owner Tony Fernandes.
Credit: Lotus F1 Racing
Credit: Lotus F1 Racing
Mike Gascoyne on the Lotus Cosworth T127:
"The last few months have been some of the most challenging of my career, but it's been a challenge the whole team and I have thrived on since we first started work on the car up in Norfolk. I'm delighted that we’ve reached this point, and now we have a beautiful car that gives us a great base to work from for the season ahead and a fighting chance of going racing in the right way, with a winning mentality. The hard part starts now, and I know everyone in the team and I are up for whatever lies ahead."
Credit: Lotus F1 Racing
The new chassis was run briefly on Wednesday when Fairuz Fauzy tested it at Silverstone, and is set to take part in next week's F1 test in Jerez on 17 February. The T127 is powered by a Cosworth Engine and will use an Xtrac gearbox.
Lotus F1 Racing today announced that Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen will drive for the team in 2010. Fairuz Fauzy will take up third driver duties.
Team Principal, Tony Fernandes said of signings:
"Jarno and Heiki are winners and have proven track records in Formula 1, and will be a big asset to us as we look to develop the team and the car throughout 2010."
"Having Fairuz on board is also great news. He is undoubtedly the best Malaysian senior driver at the moment and it is a pleasure to welcome him into Malaysia's Formula 1 team."
Trulli, who started his career with Minardi in 1997, is one of the most experienced drivers on the grid with 216 starts, one win and a pole position to his credit.
"Tony has set out very ambitious plans and I am ready to help the team achieve these high targets. I am also pleased to be back working alongside Mike Gascoyne, someone with whom I have enjoyed previous success at other teams."
Kovalainen joins Lotus F1 having made 52 GP starts, he too has a win and a pole position to his name.
"I believe that appointing two drivers with the experience Jarno and I have shows how determined the team is to go racing in a truly competitive way, and our pairing sends out a very strong message to our competitors."
Fairuz Fauzy previously tested for Spyker as well as running in A1GP for Team Malaysia.
Welcome to the Sidepodcast F1 Advent Calendar 2009, where we are running through all the important moments of 2009 - in an extended mini series. Each day we’re opening the advent window on another key topics from the year gone by. Now it’s time to find out what story is behind Day Five - Rain Stops Play.
Following Brawn’s incredible start to the season and a 1-2 debut win, it was time to move on to the Malaysian Grand Prix. Bernie Ecclestone shifted the start time of the race, to appeal to the European audience - starting at 5pm local time.
All three Free Practice sessions were dry and went without major incident - apart from the bit where Kimi Raikkonen had to pull to a stop in the pitlane and jump out of his car quickly, as a KERS malfunction saw the cockpit fill with smoke. Button was on fine form once again, and took his second consecutive pole position, with Trulli lining up on the grid beside him.
The race begin and Button lost his lead at the start, allowing Rosberg, Trulli and Alonso all to get ahead of him, although he did make the places back thanks to some overtaking and some strategy work in the pits. Talk of rain started to emerge, and Raikkonen took the plunge and gambled on a set of wet tyres. It was much too early for that kind of thing.
It wasn’t until Lap 19 that it really started to rain, and wet tyres were put on right down the order. Timo Glock remained on intermediates, and whilst the others struggled with tyre wear thanks to little standing water, the Toyota driver moved his way up the field to third. Many drivers took his cue and pitted for intermediates, but then the rain really began to fall and the pack switched back to wets.
Then it was chaos. It was almost impossible to see who was where, what tyres they were on and whether they were even pointing in the right direction. On lap 33, the race was red flagged, and the drivers came to a halt on the grid waiting for further information. After waiting, and waiting, and waiting a little bit more, the time limit expired and the race was over with less than half distance completed.
That meant half points for the top eight drivers, and on countback that gave Button his second consecutive win - and another in unconventional circumstances. He followed a safety car home for the Australian Grand Prix and he won the Malaysian race stopped on the grid. I’m sure he didn’t mind either way, though.
This was only the fifth time in Formula 1’s history that a race has been stopped midway and half points have been awarded, and I don’t mind telling you that filling in the championship tables for the rest of the season was a complete pain.
Post-race, the drivers felt like the right decision had been made to halt the race, even if they would have preferred to be getting the laps in. Hamilton said: “It was impossible to drive out there, it was very, very dangerous. It’s the most dangerous conditions I have ever raced in.” And Button added: “It was way too wet out there and the decision to call it off was correct. I would obviously love to have the 10 points but this is the best we could have done and realistically it was the right thing to do.”
Bernie Ecclestone faced criticism for the change in start time, but defended his position strongly, saying he cannot control the weather. That’s all for this episode of the F1 Advent Calendar 2009. Please join me tomorrow when we’ll open another door of our calendar for another season snippet.
We have reached Sunday and it is Doctor Who day! Eh-hem. Please excuse any Doctor Who excitement in the daily thread today, but we have been waiting a long time for this! Of course, there are plenty of F1 things to talk about. Well, I say plenty, there are a couple of things.
Notus have confirmed that running a Malaysian driver is not crucial to their plans to hit the grid, and that is lucky, as there are only a couple of viable options. They are hoping for that in the future though, and looking at it as more of a long-term project rather than something they need for their first year in the sport.
In linkage news, Jackie came up with a great weekend idea to highlight some of the great posts and give you something to read over a weekend. Round up posts are always very interesting, especially when there is editorial in there as well.
Yesterday, we watched Cars and live commented our way through the film - it was brilliant fun, and thanks to everyone who was around to enjoy it with us. If you missed out this time, stay tuned for the next movie - we're taking suggestions over on the wiki. Whichever one we pick will have to go some way to beat Cars, though, it had rarely working traffic lights and everything!
That'll do it for now. Don't forget there's no live show tonight, but we are working on the podcast about our experience at the Mercedes-Benz event, and that should be with you at some point soon. I will see you in the comments.
Friday at last, and it is the final F1 free weekend of the summer break. I know a lot of you are missing the racing, but make the most of the time off and do something exciting. Maybe even go outside? But make sure you stay in touch, it's scary out there. Meanwhil, here's what we're talking about:
There's plenty of circuit news, as Bernie confirms that Malaysia will be starting an hour earlier, after the race had to be halted this year due to inclement weather. There also seems to be a possibility that Canada will be returning to the calendar soon, which can only be described in one word - woohoo!
Ari Vatanen has announced his cabinet for the upcoming elections. I don't really know what it means or whether it's good or not, but it is nice to hear from him. He's been a bit on the quiet side recently, with Jean Todt taking all of the headlines. Come on Ari, you can do it!
Piquet has hit out at Briatore again, suggesting that the Renault boss has no idea about F1. I think this is a bit on the harsh side, but I guess Nelson isn't in the mood for making friends and influencing people. If his future lies in building his own teams, I guess he doesn't need to.
That'll do it for now, I reckon. Let us know if you're doing anything exciting this weekend, and if you're not, let us know what you would want to do if you could do anything over the next two days. I'll see you in the comments.
It's not long now until the Sidepodscience meetup gets underway in London. However, before we get there, we've got a few news stories to discuss first:
BMW have confirmed that they're designing a super light-weight car for Kubica, hopefully in time for the Spanish Grand Prix. The weight factor has meant Kub can't run KERS, but the team are banking on some weight-saving techniques to sort it out. If there are such savings to be made, though, why haven't they done them before? And does this prove that KERS really is worth having?
Surprise, surprise, the organisers at Sepang have become less resistant to the idea of a night race. Given what happened last weekend, and the fact that Bernie always gets his way, this is hardly a completely radical step. However, will they be able to compete with the Singapore spectacle?
Ferrari are undergoing a major reshuffle to try and spice up their championship campaign. Luca Baldisserri is being given a factory-based role, whilst Chris Dyer takes over his duties trackside. Presumably this is a step down for Luca, regardless of how Ferrari try to portray it as a sideways move. It also turns out that Marc Gene undertook some straightline testing to evaluate a new front wing that will appear in China. Does this testing count under the FIA's restricted straightline days? Why don't we get to hear about it in a more public fashion?
That'll do it for now. It's always good to return from holiday and be cast straight back into the thick of some F1 news. It should keep us going for a while, and as usual, I'll see you in the comments.
We've just witnessed a fascinating race in Malaysia, but what was it like to actually be there? Guest writer Journeyer gives us an insight into how things appeared trackside, plus what the Sepang organisers can do to make it a little bit nicer for the fans.
Before coming in to this weekend, I was excited, but not THAT excited. The Malaysian Grand Prix had produced some good races, but had also produced some boring ones as well. The fact that the first race I attended was at Singapore last year set the bar pretty high for me. Surely, there was no way that could be beaten.
I was wrong. Yet I was also right. Confused? Read on.
FRIDAY: It was our first time going to the circuit, and the package we got (available from the Sepang website) was interesting. We took a monorail from the hotel to KL Sentral Train Station. From there, we took a Transit train to KL International Airport (KLIA). From there, a shuttle bus would meet us and take us to the outside of the circuit. From there, we'd switch to another bus that would take us to the gate. Once off the bus, it's a one-kilometre walk through the gates and to our stands. It was tiring at first, but you get used to it.
The two free practice sessions were on offer that day. In an effort to attract more people to the circuit, the Sepang organizers decided to open it to the public for free.
Did it help with the crowd? Perhaps a little, perhaps not - most of the people I saw on Friday also showed up on Saturday and Sunday. But it did allow us to sit where we want. My mom and my sister went with me and my dad that day - they weren't going to watch for the rest of the weekend.
We decided to sit here:
Yup, the front of the Brawn garage. It was quite interesting how they went about their work. They didn't care about how cramped their space was or how far away their garage was from parc ferme. All that mattered was that they thought they had the fastest car that weekend - and time would tell if they were right.
Another new feature of race weekends this year was the 'mandatory' autograph session. I say 'mandatory' because I encountered a couple of big issues with it. The first one was on Friday morning - I lined up for the Williams session. We were hoping to get Nico's signature at least - perhaps both him and Kazuki if we were lucky!
Then the Williams drivers came... well, driver.
Only Kazuki showed up - Nico got pulled from the line-up since he wasn't done yet with his debrief, according to the emcee on stage. So much for mandatory, then. It left us disappointed, but we weren't going to waste our spot in line - we got Kazuki's autograph.
Some of the others decided to skip Williams altogether and formed their own line for McLaren, who came later in the afternoon. I decided to go with Kazuki, thinking Lewis might not show up, especially after it was announced that McLaren only decided to go with the session at the last minute. As it turned out, Lewis did show up, but I didn't mind too much - was never really much of a McLaren fan, anyway.
On our way home from Sepang, we heard about Lewis' press conference and apology regarding Australia. Lewis was profusely apologizing, but I would've wanted to hear from Davy Ryan too. Martin Whitmarsh's run as team principal at McLaren is slowly descending into total chaos, it seems. It's hard to tell whether the bigger problem is their car or their reputation.
SATURDAY: My dad and I met up with a friend of ours that day who was also going to watch the race. It was a trouble-free ride to the circuit, everything going rather smoothly. What we did notice that morning, though, was just how hot it was - and I'm from a tropical country! But I was lining up for autographs again, this time for Ferrari, so I just grinned and bore the heat.
But I was only to be disappointed - again. Kimi and Felipe both showed up - but they came five minutes late and left five minutes early. There were people in front of us who had lined up for two and a half hours, and still didn't make the cut.
And here lies the other problem with these 'mandatory' sessions - if the organizers said they'd be there for 20 minutes, why would they only stay for 10? It's a bit unfair to those who stayed in line for hours just for them. I would've thought that such details were covered in the regulations for these autograph sessions. If they're not, they should be.
After all that, I decided to make a gamble. The Toyota drivers, Jarno and Timo, were next. Hearing that Brawn may have decided to have their session earlier than planned, I decided to skip Toyota, let those behind me past and wait for Brawn. Initially, the event security wouldn't let us, despite Friday's McLaren line. But we got some help - there was a Polish girl and a Japanese girl who, having missed Ferrari, wanted to see Brawn instead. We joined up and decided to do the same thing. There were also two Malaysian fans who joined us. The six of us just kept letting those behind us pass.
After Jarno and Timo said their thank you's and goodbyes, the news came from the emcee - Red Bull and Brawn would have their session together! That meant we'd get four autographs in one go. Our gamble worked beautifully. We even got a cameo in the form of Ralf Schumacher, who was on one side of the stage, happily doing work for RTL.
The other drivers, though, were a mixed bag when we saw them. Brawn's Jenson and Rubens were happy. Jenson, in particular, was absolutely beaming. We even had a quick chat about his hopes for the weekend. And he and Rubens signed this:
It's F1 Racing's 2009 Season Preview - Brawn GP didn't even exist yet as it went to print. Button signing it was a nice touch, and it would be even better if he won the whole thing this year.
Red Bull, meanwhile, was more downbeat. Mark and Der Seb had the 'I'd-rather-be-somewhere-else' look on their faces, and it showed. They were even hesitant to sign something other than their PR-provided driver cards. Not that it stopped my dad from insisting they sign our race programme, though. Event security were not amused.
Free Practice 3 was next on the agenda, so we went to look for our seats. When we found them, we couldn't believe our luck. The view doesn't get much better than this.
Just goes to show that, like Singapore, early booking reaps rewards.
The break between FP3 and Qualifying gave us a chance to buy some food. This wasn't Singapore, where there were dozens of different well-known establishments selling food inside the venue. Here, the options were much more limited: 1 type of burger, 2 types of hotdogs, 2 types of satay, and fish & chips. The taste left much to be desired, but it filled our tummies just fine.
Qualifying saw the same big names from Australia go for pole. It was a bit sad to see a lot of empty seats - there was no one to our left, right or front.
But there were bigger things to consider; we were on tenterhooks due to the possibility of rain - which never came. After Button seized pole, it was time to go home. We decided to take the circuit bus back to the front of the circuit. It was a big mistake.
First, there was no line to get on the bus - it was every man for himself. The bus driver also got mad for some reason we couldn't understand. He got so mad, he decided to just pick up sticks and leave - even if his bus wasn't full yet. He took the bus round the back of the circuit, which we didn't expect - it was different from what happened on Friday.
The traffic was bad at the back of the circuit. And just to make things worse, the heavens opened.
At this point, Sepang's organization just went belly-up. When we got out of the circuit bus, there were just a few, small, leaky tents to protect people from the monsoon. We even lost contact with our friends due to the chaos in the tents. Eventually, we saw them crossing the highway back to the shuttle bus. We followed them - and duly got wet. The highway crossing wasn't covered, so everyone who wanted to get out of the circuit got drenched.
Eventually, we got in line for the shuttle bus. There were tents provided for the queue, but the organizers didn't want to use them, leaving us outside the tents in the rain. Common sense eventually prevailed and they let us in. But we saw why they didn't want us to at first: the grass underneath the tent had turned to mud. Some foreigners took the opportunity to get photographed barefoot on the mud. We braved the mud and got on the bus eventually. The rest of the trip was uneventful, but I got home completely exhausted. Sleep came quickly.
SUNDAY: We knew that we were in for an awesome race. We took an early lunch, then got on the train to Sepang - and duly ran into a deluge. It was nice to see the British weather making an appearance in a Commonwealth country.
This was noon, remember, so the rain was earlier than usual. My initial thought was that the rain came too early - with the heavens having opened already, we were probably going to get little to no rain for the race.
The rain finally stopped when we got off the shuttle bus outside the circuit. We managed to get to our seats relatively dry - even if we had to avoid a lot of puddles. Now back in our seats, we were in for a bit of luck again. There were leaks of rainwater falling on the seats to our front and right. As it was, we were safe and dry - for the moment, anyway.
The rain delayed the GP2 Asia and Formula BMW Pacific races. It forced the organizers to compress the schedule a bit - which they did well, as the drivers parade still started on time. We got the less extravagant 'one-bus-fits-all' option. My dad asked how one bus could be a parade, and he had a point there. We also saw Lewis chatting with Felipe. One must wonder what they were talking about...
While the drivers were making their way round the circuit, the starting grid presentation began. Everyone took pictures of the performers - until the drivers got back to the front straight. At which point, everyone looked away from them and started taking pictures of the drivers again. Thankfully, the presentation wasn't done yet after the drivers went back into the paddock. It would've been a bit embarrassing for the performers if they finished without us looking.
It's nice to see the grid forming up live - I saw some great people, like Ross Brawn, Vijay Mallya, and John Button. I also saw the amazing Martin Brundle and Ted Kravitz having a quick chat before Martin's gridwalk - must be comparing notes or something. And I also saw this guy in red:
Yes, my favourite and Mr C's sworn enemy was on the grid - and for quite a while too. He had a good long look at Brawn's trick diffuser as well, trying to figure it out himself. This picture was taken as he was watching the cars go off on their formation lap.
The excitement in the crowd was amazing as the race got under way. Nico's start was unbelievable - he was already alongside Button within 10 yards of the line. We were stunned - and then we got even more stunned as Kubica wheezed his way off the line. Kubica's eventual retirement came as no surprise after that start.
As the race settled down somewhat, the Kangaroo TV helped us keep track of who to watch for as they entered the front straight. Those we had to keep an eye on a lot were Webber (who was either passing others or being passed), Alonso (who was racy even with an ear infection) and Hamilton. But again, we were on tenterhooks - would it rain?
It took forever, but when the heavens opened, everyone got soaked - even us! The rain had a certain charm to it though - the cars looked beautiful throwing up spray (a shame I never got to take a shot of that). The water leaking through the stands, as well as the fading light gave this shot an artistic feel to it.
As the race got red-flagged, we all wondered: would it get restarted, even if only under a Safety Car to get to the 3/4ths distance? The rain never wavered, and time was running out. By 6:30 PM, there was no sign of the race resuming - and by that point, I doubted we'd still see a restart.
To pass the time, FOM treated us to Kimi getting an ice cream and some cola, as well as some Europeans sliding down the hillside. It made us in the stands cheer them on, but it didn't make a restart any more likely.
True enough, the race was finally called off at 6:50 PM. No chequered flag for us, unfortunately, but we did get these money shots - in the dark:
And it's not only Michael and Stefano who get intimate:
They soon left the podium, and just like that, it was done.
So what if the race just lasted for an hour and change? This weekend had excitement stamped all over it - it even beat Singapore in terms of action. But the organization left a lot to be desired - we had to go through even more mud just to get home on Sunday night.
Sepang has the basic elements to create a good race - solid layout, changeable weather, long straights. But for a Tilke-drome and, in the words of Eddie Jordan, a 'circuit for the new millennium', it lacks a lot of basic features - like a covered walk and a proper bus shed. How can it expect to properly host an F1 race without these structures? For a place that sees a lot of rain, you'd have hoped they'd thought of that already. And it's in this aspect where Singapore is miles ahead, even if they've only hosted one race.
Would I recommend this race as one to watch in person? Absolutely - it's one of the cheapest races on the calendar, and we had tons of fun. But for the organizers, there is definitely lots of room for improvement.
This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.
The Malaysian Grand Prix was approached with some excitement, as we'd seen a great season opener, that really didn't match up with what we'd expected. The Brawn GP boys were really, really fast, and they didn't let up when we got to Sepang.
Jenson Button took pole position in qualifying, but it was to the back of the grid that we turned our attention. Both Ferrari drivers posted a lap in the first session of qualifying, and then returned to the garage to wait it out. They assumed that their laptime would be fast enough, but the track conditions just got better and better. Gradually the pair slipped down the order, until Massa found himself 16th and out of qualifying, with nothing he could do about it. Raikkonen only just managed to slip through in 14th.
Race day dawned, and we found ourselves looking at an ominously dark sky. The race got underway with the only two retirees of the entire afternoon out on the first lap. Kovalainen spun off before completing the first lap, whilst Kubica went nowhere off the line, and had to stop off track as his car caught fire. The BMW driver later said he'd had engine problems around the formation lap as well.
Button had a bad start and had been overtaken by Rosberg, but as pit strategies and tyre changes played out, the Brawn GP driver got his lead back. The rain gradually made it's way in, and Glock found himself on the right tyres at the right time, and able to storm his way through the field, overtaking wherever possible.
Then, the rain came fully, and the race had to be red flagged. We'd only completed 32 laps which wasn't quite 75% race distance - the amount required to hand out full points to the finishing order. Therefore, teams and drivers lined up on the grid, waiting to see if the race could be restarted. Mark Webber canvassed the drivers opinions and all seemed to think it wouldn't get going again. Eventually, the time ran out. The clock keeps going even when a race is red flagged, so the two hour limit was upon us and the race was won. Button took his second victory, albeit at a standstill on the grid. He was joined on the podium by Heidfeld and Glock.
Monday morning again, and time to recover from another weekend of racing action. Although, given that the GP was cut short, we had plenty of time to do that yesterday as well. Here's what's on topic today:
On that subject, Bernie has defended his start time decision and said that he has no plans to move it. The argument is that you can control the time but not the weather, and Flavio Briatore agrees with this. Meanwhile bosses at the Malaysian circuit have said they'll review it, but presumably what Bernie wants, Bernie gets.
The Paddock Life: Sepang Edition makes for a good read. I'm pretty sure I read about the snake thing on the BBC, so I guess it was someone over there. I also like the idea of Patrick Head just sitting in his car waiting for the rain to stop.
Finally, Martin Whitmarsh has placed his future in the shareholder's hands, suggesting that whilst he can make the decision whether he wants to stay or not, it is ultimately not his call to make. He adds that they will be planning on ways to do things better. I guess telling the truth would be a start?
That's all for now. Don't worry about staying on topic, that's what the daily thread is here for. There will probably be more reaction to yesterdays goings on throughout the day, so please feel free to share and discuss. I will see you in the comments.
Joe Saward joins us again, this time from Malaysia, for a quick rundown of what the weather is like, whether the penalties are all done now, and what the weekend holds for the teams.
We also talk about how the introduction of KERS went, and whether it has a future in the sport, plus we decide whether the fuel load publishing is a good or bad thing.
