Ferrari had the best possible start to their championship campaign, whilst Red Bull could have got a lot, lot more. Both McLaren and Mercedes finished ahead of them.
Friday has reached us at last, and I know I'm not the only one who is glad Thursday is over. From the very beginning when I thought it was still February, everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong. But never mind, we're on to another (hopefully better) day and here are some things we're talking about:
The very badly named HRT team dominated headlines yesterday as they launched a new car and confirmed another driver. With a full line up now of Senna and Chandhok, they're gearing up for the season to begin and team principal Colin Kolles is still suggesting they could be the most successful of the new teams. I'm not sure about that, they haven't had a minute out on track.
It looks as though we might be getting another of those pre-season controversies, with Red Bull "asking the question" about the McLaren's rear wing. This brings back so many bad memories of the diffuser issues before the 2009 season got underway, and through the first few races. Let's hope they can sort this out before it gets anywhere near overshadowing the action.
Renault will be running some Lada branding on their car this year, as the manufacturer get on board sponsoring both the team and Vitaly Petrov. Presumably they don't mind the horrible red mirrors, then. The name looks good on the car, although I can't decide if that's just because it's nice to see sponsorship rather than empty chassis'.
That's all for now, let us know what you've got planned for the weekend, and I will see you in the comments.
In this second preview edition of F1 Digest we take a look through the entry list, focusing on the teams and their new cars. How have they performed in testing? What features are on the new machines? Who has a strong lineup? All that and more will get you ready for the season to come.
The Teams
From the non-existant teams such as US F1 and Campos to those who are determined to challenge for another championship - Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes. In some teams, the drivers overshadow the cars, but we spend plenty of time discussing front wings, sidepods and shark fin engine covers.
There are new liveries to discuss, and how the teams managed their launches, plus the relationship between teammates - those who have new faces to get to know, and those who are continuing with their fellow driver from 2009.
We also take a quick look at the battle between Virgin Racing and Lotus, from testing, reliability issues, air stewardess outfits and launches. Everything is going to be different this year, and it's going to be great.
Fresh from delving into the new cars and their technical prowess, KerbRider is back to cast his eye over another - just as important - element of a successful team.
I want to attempt a psycho analysis of this years major driver pairings. The ones we will all be watching.
Ferrari
This for me will be one of the most intense and exciting battles of the year, and years to come. Alonso and Massa have a history. Remember the Nurburgring in 2007?
There was some rather close racing which eventually ended up in some argy bargy on and off the track.
Fernando was much quicker and trying to get past Felipe on a drying track. They had a moment at turn 5 with some banging of wheels, and the post race weigh in, and press conference, was a lot of fun to watch.
We have two Latino temperaments in the most emotionally charged outfit in the pit lane. Expect the sky at Maranello to rain fire. Gazetta de la Sport shares would be a great investment this year, as their readership will quadruple.
Fernando is a quiet genius in my eyes, and easily the best driver out there.
Fernando is a quiet genius in my eyes, and easily the best driver out there. Although the return of Voldemort will certainly make that more arguable. Lewis still has plenty of room to grow, as brilliant as he is already.
Felipe has been very impressive the past two years, and has grown enormously as a competitor with the benefit of Voldemort as a mentor. Unsurprisingly enough, this didn’t occur until the 7 time WC retired.
We should expect to see plenty of fireworks between FA and FM coming into the last half of the year. They will be media savvy and play it all down until it is obvious their despise for one another cannot be played down anymore.
Both are fiercely competitive and Massa will be territorial as Alonso will be intruding on Massa's home. Fernando wont get the measure of Massa consistently until probably 2011 as the first year with a new team is usually testing the waters. This was evident with Fernando's stint at McLaren. Besides, Massa won't allow Alonso to get the best of him.
Last year's accident is in the past, and I don’t think it will affect his overall approach to a race weekend. He certainly wont be frightened of driving the car, and he wont be slower as a result of the accident. Neither will win the title.
McLaren
McLaren have utilised the press superbly with the fact they have the two reigning WCs in their cars. It makes me wonder if that was a major factor in them hiring Button in the first place.
Lets make no mistake though, Button is quick. Well duh! I hear you say, and rightly so. But let me retort and say that there are still some question marks over Button's ability. Mainly due to the fact that he was not able to optimise his performances relative to Rubens in the latter half of 2009.
He may have been playing it safe, he may not have been as comfortable in the car as he was in the first 7 races of the year. Either way, it tarnished his championship victory.
Jenson is on the record as saying he moved to McLaren to prove he can race against the best, and there is no reason to not believe that, as he would be well aware of his reputation in the F1 community due to his tail off in performance post Turkey.
I think as people, Lewis and Jenson will get along as team mates more than friends. The reason being is that there is a slight age gap, which subsequently makes both have differing interests outside of F1.
Overall, I don’t think the team dynamic will ruffle too many feathers as both are gentlemen, but again fiercely competitive. The anger will be on track, rather than in the garage.
I expect Lewis to win the year for several reasons. One being is that Lewis is ultimately quicker in an ill handling car, and copes when the car doesn’t suit him better than Jenson does. 2009 proves that resoundingly. And with heavy cars and low(ish) grip tyres, this should fit into Lewis's domain more than Jensons.
Also Lewis will qualify consistently better, and create his own luck whereas Jenson will require the luck to fall upon him. Another reason is that Lewis is part of the McLaren furniture, and Jenson was in the right place at the right time. Again!
Red Bull
Sebby V in his third full year of F1 will push hard for the championship. I'd expect him to be top 3 at minimum. Where does that leave Mark? He surprised a bit last year with how close he pushed Sebastian. Especially once the circus got back to Europe, and the leg was healing better.
If it wasn’t for a string of 5 unlucky races for Mark from Valencia to Singapore, the end result might have been quite different. A mistake from the pit crew in Spa cost him a podium. The car was not suited to both Monza and Valencia. Vettel only scored 1 point from these two races. In Singapore he had brake fade, which was probably his own causing, and Japan he made a critical mistake in practice which cost him a Q3 run. He set the fastest lap.
Sebastian created his own bad luck last year which cost him a chance to win the championship
Sebastian created his own bad luck last year which I think cost him a chance to win the championship in Abu Dhabi. He lost 6 points in Australia, which I saw up close and personal. That led to a bad qualifying position in Malaysia. He made a big error of judgement in Monaco with tyres, which he will have no doubt learned from for this year.
This pairing will be the one to watch for purely sporting reasons I think. RBR will stick to their equal opportunity philosophy until the last minute, as will McLaren. Ferrari will have no choice.
Sebastian is driven to win. He has a genuine need to win like Schumacher does. It bodes well for a future champion. Whereas Mark, has more of a point to prove. He is as determined as anyone out there, and his fitness is unquestionable. Tony Purnell once commented that he was amazed that Ferrari were not looking to Mark to replace Schumacher once he retired. A big rap, I believe.
Sebastian may be more prone to errors than Mark, but Mark, as is his nature, will be more prone to catching bad luck. So again I expect a close battle between the two, but ultimately, Sebastian should end up on top in what again will be the car of the year.
Mercedes
Voldemort V Rosberg. This will be interesting to see how this dynamic reacts to the media bewilderment. Will it be a master and apprentice situation like Schumacher and Massa? Or will Schumacher do what he always has done, and hide his telemetry from his internal rival. I, for one, hope he doesn’t. I, for one, hope Ross doesn’t allow it.
His testing point of view alone should see Mercedes develop a strong car. It remains to be seen whether it will be up the pecking order in Bahrain.
Make no mistake, Schuey will be quick, and the pressure is really on Nico now to deliver. I hope he does, because I think he has matured well under Williams and last year he had some impressive races. Singapore was one until he blew it exiting the pit lane.
I'm predicting Schumacher to win this battle, but I cant wait to be proven wrong. This could ruin Nico's career. I don’t think either way it will propel him to superstardom. He lacks the charisma and personality. Fernando, Lewis and Sebby V have it all in spades. Nico has the Finnish persona that Kimi carries so well.
The questions at this point pre-season will be, if Nico beats Schumacher, will he fulfil the three year term at Mercedes. If Schumacher beats Nico, will he go the way of Heidfeld as an also ran that never reached a peak anyone noticed?
This is the team that will define careers. Schumacher could go the way of Alan Jones as a former world champion that never got back in the game, or he could launch an even greater legend in f1 folklore. I doubt he will go the way of Alan Jones.
Nico could be made to be a great number 2, or the man who beat the statistically greatest driver F1 will ever see, and create his own legend.
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.
The Toro Rosso team unveiled their 2010 challenger - the STR5 - at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia on Monday. The car features an almost identical livery to previous years, while the chassis takes its design cue from last year's car, including an extended engine cover and bevelled nose.
The rollout of this new chassis is an important achievement for the team, who this year have been required to bring the design department entirely in-house. The Italian outfit had until this season been riding on the coat tails of sister team Red Bull Racing.
Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images
The STR5 livery features stronger branding around the cockpit area, hopefully making it easier to distinguish from the Red Bull.
Chassis STR5-02 was presented at 09:05 GMT in Spain, where in front of the assembled media, drivers Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari pulled the covers back on the new car.
Shortly after the unveiling, Buemi took to the track, but completed just 10 laps before suffering a gearbox problem. By the end of the day the team had managed a total of 18 laps, however the team's technical director, Giorgio Ascanelli is more than aware they could be in for a tough time this year.
"Before even thinking about producing a car, we had to acquire the right tools to carry out these tasks and also hire the people who are to use these structures. Finding fifty people and putting them in an environment where they can do their job has been a tough task."
Team Principal, Franz Tost offered a more optimistic view stating that STR "Must aim to finish in the top eight in the Constructors’ Championship".
Credit: Ker Robertson/Getty Images
Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari display their 2010 helmet designs for the assembled photographers.
Chief Designer, Ben Butler was keen to point out that the car's heritage is closely tied to the package they ended their 2009 campaign with:
"The STR5 is definitely a case of evolution rather than revolution. We have taken a fantastic 2009 package as our starting point and we did not want to do too much with it, apart from changing and adapting it to take into consideration the regulation changes.
"It is easy to say there is little change between the 2009 and 2010 cars, but there have been a lot of significant evolutions that we have had to put in place, primarily to ensure reliability, and which will hopefully prove to be competitive once the racing starts."
Buemi will get two days in the car before Alguersuari takes over on Wednesday.
Kimi Räikkönen bounced back during the second day of the Arctic Lapland Rally to come within 0.8s per km of his more experienced team mate Dani Sordo. Day one, saw the Finn lose 30 minutes of running after he came off worst in an argument with a tree.
Credit: Tony Welam/ Red Bull
A smiling Kimi Räikkönen enjoys his time in ice and snow of Lapland. Far away from the world of F1 livery launches.
Räikkönen, and co-driver Kaj Lindström escaped unhurt from Friday's incident, but couldn't make up lost time before the end of the event on Saturday. The pair eventually finished in 58th position, but Kimi declared himself happy with how things had gone for them:
"We put a few more kilometres under our belt, which was vital to help us continue learning the C4 WRC. As well as being pleased by our performances I was also pleased by the way we were able to work with the team."
The Arctic Rally offered Kimi his first competitive outing in the C4 WRC and his Citroën team treated the event as test session in preparation for Rally Sweden, the first round of the 2010 World Rally Championship which begins next month.
If you are interested in seeing more from Lapland, Christine has compiled a gorgeous collection of large photographs in her F1 Big Picture - Kimi Special while the following video offers some insight into how much fun the Finn had in the snow.
All Posts in The Series: 2010 Arctic Lapland Rally
I wrote earlier this week about my desire to attend pre-season testing this year, partly as a way of seeing some F1 action, and partly as a way to prove to Mr C that track testing is still relevant and interesting. Four days later and things could be going better.
Credit: Force India F1
Adrian Sutil tests the Force India in 2009
We narrowed the choices down to the sole Valencia test, and the price and the location were pretty appealing. We already knew that Red Bull weren't going to be attending the circuit for the first test of the year, and that was a sticking point. It was almost acceptable to miss out on seeing the new Red Bull, despite it likely setting the 2010 aero standard. US F1 are almost certain to remain in the States for their first test, and new team Virgin Racing have also confirmed they would delay their first taste of track time until a later Jerez test.
This is all understandable, and no one could put money on the new teams being ready in time for the beginning of February, although they are going to have to get a wriggle on because the start of the season is not far behind. Roll on the next news announcements, and cue both Sauber and Force India stating they are not planning on attending the Valencia test either. For what reason?
"It's to optimise the time in the wind tunnel as much as possible"
It seems as though on track testing is just no longer as valuable to teams as days spent in the factory, hours spent in the wind tunnel, and computing minutes spent on CFD analysis. Christian Horner proves this point for at least one of the absentee teams: "It's to optimise the time in the wind tunnel as much as possible."
From the real life experience of track time, the future now seems to be sitting behind a wall of screens. As big enthusiasts for shunning the real world, I don't suppose I can fault the logic behind these decisions. The real question, though, is what are they doing? The regulation changes for the 2009 season were so massive that I would have forgiven teams for turning round and saying: "Hold up, we need a year out for this." But the majority were raring to go as soon as the track time was presented to them. 12 months later, and you can't coax them out onto the tarmac.
Is it an attempt at keeping secrets? Surely teams are aware by now that it is almost an impossible task. Or perhaps they have learnt from the double diffuser debacle that there is the possibility of springing a surprise.
Perhaps it is simply that the track at Valencia is not particularly useful and they would rather wait until Barcelona - they can certainly reuse data collected at Circuit de Catalunya during the season, whereas maybe the Ricardo Tomo track is less useful to them. What would happen if Bahrain got their way and became one of the pre-season preferred testing tracks instead? Would the teams be more or less keen to head out there and stock up on some numbers?
It's certainly something you'd want to experience
We've seen a distinct lack of interest in testing recently, but does that mean fans are missing out? I know when we attended Silverstone for mid-season testing in 2008 it was full of excited fans, a really good day out, and although different to a GP atmosphere, it's certainly something you'd want to experience. Now it's all pre-season, more clinical, and less teams are bothered. It seems like everyone from fans to drivers to mechanics are missing out.
That being said, it wouldn't surprise me if the trend for testing is over. With cost cutting the first bullet point on everyone's agenda at the moment, extra track time, flights, cargo, fuel and tyres can't be an appealing option. If the fans aren't bothered about going, the teams would prefer to stay in the warmth of the factory, then perhaps testing really is dead. Could we get by without it altogether?
Either way, I'm going to have to admit that Mr C might be right. It looks like we're just going to have to settle for a regular old holiday. Where's the nearest wind tunnel?
