Credit: Alastair Staley / GP2 Series Media Service
Karun Chandhok aboard the Indian Empress in Monaco, 2009.
Former GP2 driver Karun Chandhok, has today been announced as Bruno Senna's team mate in the second seat at HRT Formula 1. The HRT team, previously known as Campos Meta, are expected to officially reveal their new branding at a presentation in Spain later today.
The team presentation will happen in Murcia, a city in the South East of Spain from where HRT will run their F1 operations.
Speaking of the signing, Team Principal Colin Kolles said:
"We have been very impressed with Karun's performance in GP2. India is a great country. It will be great for the sport to have an Indian driver on the grid for the first Indian Grand Prix. Murcia is part of the roots of the team."
Chandhok previously partnered Bruno Senna in the iSport GP2 back in 2008.
Thursday sees the second day of testing in Jerez get underway. Teams, drivers and fans alike will almost certainly be hoping for better weather than day one produced. There's very little change on the driver front to look out for, with only Michael Schumacher and Robert Kubica the new faces in the crowd.
Yesterday saw the surprise introduction of the Williams live timing system. First day gremlins saw the site struggle to keep up with demand, but when it works it is rather fantastic. Williams weren't the only ones experiencing first days blues either, Virgin Racing managed just 5 laps on their F1 testing debut. Fingers crossed for a better run today.
Petrov had been scheduled to drive the Renault today, but good weather prompted the team to run the more experienced Kubica instead.
On track action begins at 9am CET (8am GMT).
Circuit Information
Track length: 4.428km
Corners: 13
Lap record: 1:23.135 (Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Williams, 1997)
You'll find Circuito de Jerez located in South of Spain.
Drivers and Teams Attending
The following teams and drivers are confirmed for testing on Wednesday
The second round of 2010 F1 testing gets underway today, this time at the Circuito de Jerez located in the city of Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. Red Bull will likely be the star attraction, unveiling their RB6 chassis to the media for the first time, before action gets underway.
Update: The Williams team today launched an official live timing page for up to the minute test information. This includes driver position, gap, best time, most recent time for both the Williams car and for the rest of the field. See the team's website for more detail.
Credit: f1photos.org (creative commons)
Jenson gets a soaking.
Virgin Racing will be the first "new team" to turn a wheel at a test, when Timo Glock sizes the VR-01 up against the competition. Force India will also be on track, running the VJM03 that was revealed to the world, yesterday.
Tyres will be of specific interest to teams and drivers as the aggressive layout of this circuit will stress rear tyres to a greater extent than last week. Additionally the weather will like play a key part as rain is expected to fall in the region at some point before the end of the test.
On track action begins at 9am CET (8am GMT).
Credit: f1photos.org (creative commons)
Alonso finds little grip in Jerez
Circuit Information
Track length: 4.428km
Corners: 13
Lap record: 1:23.135 (Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Williams, 1997)
Circuito de Jerez is located to the South of Spain, close to border of Portugal.
Drivers and Teams Attending
The following teams and drivers are confirmed for testing on Wednesday
Twitter has become the medium for accessing up to the minute testing insight. We recommend keeping an eye on James Allen's Twitter service, as well as the following accounts.
Following a frenetic first day of testing in Spain, Formula 1 teams continue to test at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Cheste, Valencia today. Monday brought all forms of excitement from the unveiling of the STR5 to the return of Michael Schumacher in a modern F1 cockpit. Additionally, Mercedes GP finally allowed fans and the media to see this years W01 chassis, while Robert Kubica began his new life as a Renault driver.
Lewis Hamilton arrives today to relieve Gary Paffett of his test driving duties, while Kamui Kobayashi will settle into the C29. Is it possible that Tuesday could be even more chaotic?
On track action begins at 10am CET (9am GMT).
Circuit Information
Track length: 4.051km
Corners: 14
Lap record (unofficial): 1:08.544 (Anthony Davidson, Honda, 2006)
The Circuit Ricardo Tormo circuit is located to the East of Spain, not far from Valencia.
Drivers and Teams Attending
We are expecting to see the following drivers and teams in action today:
F1 teams will today descend on the Spanish track Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Cheste, Valencia for what will be the first official Formula 1 test of 2010. From 1 February - 3 February, a number of teams will be running their new cars on track for the first time.
On track action begins at 10am CET (9am GMT).
Circuit Information
Track length: 4.051km
Corners: 14
Lap record (unofficial): 1:08.544 (Anthony Davidson, Honda, 2006)
The Circuit Ricardo Tormo circuit is located to the East of Spain, on the outskirts of Valencia.
Drivers and Teams Attending
We are expecting to see the following drivers and teams in action today:
Hello and welcome to our extended mini-series, the F1 Advent Calendar 2009. We’re peeping behind the door for each day of advent and finding the story of the 2009 season, told in bite-size chunks. Let’s get on, then, with Day Six - Running on Empty.
By the time the Spanish Grand Prix rolled around, Jenson Button and Brawn had allowed Vettel to win the Chinese race with Red Bull, but were back on form in Bahrain to take their third victory of the season. There were plenty of new updates on their competitor’s cars, though, so the battle was back on.
Not really though, as in Spain, Button qualified on pole position, with Vettel lining up in second beside him, followed by Barrichello and Massa on row 2. Unusually, Barrichello made a good start in the race, and jumped into the lead at the very first corner. Vettel slipped backwards, allowing both Button and Massa in front of him.
There was carnage on the first lap, initiated by Rosberg. He ran wide which pushed Trulli off track who then spun back on, knocking out Sutil. Buemi braked to avoid the out of control Toyota and Bourdais ran into the back of him, ending Toro Rosso’s race very early. A Safety Car was called out for about four laps, and then the race could get underway proper.
At the front, the two Brawns were battling for the lead, but it was to Ferrari that our attention was turned. Raikkonen suffered a hydraulic failure that saw him retire about halfway through the Grand Prix. Massa was running fourth, but received word from the pit wall that there was a problem with the car. They hadn’t put enough fuel in at the last pit stop, and he was instructed to try and conserve fuel otherwise he wouldn’t finish the race. At the time, they weren’t sure if they had made their calculations wrong, or if the refuelling rig had failed to dispense the correct amount.
Either way, the lack of fuel inevitably meant slowing down, and gradually, the Ferrari slipped backwards. He was on the radio to his team, frustrated with losing places to conserve fuel, but they were adamant that it was either that, or run out before the race came to a close. They also had to consider the problem of the FIA requirement to have enough fuel left post-race for a sample to be taken.
Massa had to concede, he lifted off the throttle, and Vettel overtook him. This left him in fifth, and it was Alonso’s turn to catch him. It was touch and go but on the last lap, the Renault did manage to get past, so Felipe was sixth as he crossed the line. The only bright point must have been that Heidfeld was also very close behind him but just ran out of time to overtake before the race drew to a close.
Afterwards, Massa conceded that his chance at fighting for the championship again was over - as Button’s fourth victory of the year saw him with 41 points out of a possible 45, and Massa, well, he had three points.
Naturally, he was very disappointed, so imagine how he felt when it emerged that he may have had enough fuel all along. By the time Ferrari turned up at Monaco, the team had investigated the problem, and Massa said: “The refuelling machine was putting the right fuel in, it was reading the right numbers of the amount of fuel that went inside but the car was saying to the engineers, to the telemetry, that all the fuel was not inside. Then we changed the refuelling machine, we did exactly the same thing, and we again had the wrong numbers. So maybe I saved fuel for nothing.”
That’s all for today, thank you for listening, and I hope you’ll join me again tomorrow when we’ll open the next door on our 2009 season advent calendar.
With days one and two of F1 testing behind us, attention now turns to the final time we'll see cars running before the end of 2009. It's likely that this is also the last time we'll catch many of the current iterations of these chassis side-by-side on track.
We had a great debate in yesterday's thread about the amount of interest this particular test holds. I still remain excited to see what's going down in Southern Spain, so feel free to dive on in to the comments if you spot anything of note.
Circuit Information
Track length: 4.423km
Longest straight: 0.600km
Corners: 13
Lap record: 1:23.135 (Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Williams, 1997)
The Jerez circuit is located in the South of Spain not far from the cost of Portugal.
It seems this collection of drivers are doing their level best not to embarrass themselves, so neither the runoff areas nor the marshals have seen much action as yet.
Weather Information
Wednesday's predicted rain didn't amount to much, or cause any chaos, and today's outlook sees the return of the big yellow ball. Another great day to be testing a Formula 1 car.
Driver Information
We are expecting to see the following drivers tackle Circuito de Jerez today:
Day one of F1 testing came and went and now the teams repeat and rinse all over again.
Yesterday we had chance to get familiar with new drivers in old cars. To figure who wore what helmet and to see where they fitted into the grand scheme of things. Today should be a little easier in that respect.
Circuit Information
Track length: 4.423km
Longest straight: 0.600km
Corners: 13
Lap record: 1:23.135 (Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Williams, 1997)
The Jerez circuit is located in the South of Spain not far from the cost of Portugal.
Jerez is great place to hold this kind of test, a few red flags appeared during Tuesday but they were cleared without fuss and action soon got underway again. The circuit layout is as follows:
Weather Information
Tuesday started out cold but soon warmed up nicely. Wednesday on the other hand, may be a different story as heavy rain is predicted.
Driver Information
We are expecting to see the following drivers tackle Circuito de Jerez today:
Again, with any luck we'll be able to keep up to date with what is happening on track. If you spot any pictures, information or links, please let us know in the comments.
All Posts in The Series: Jerez Testing December 2009
The F1 paddock returns to its European roots, which means Joe Saward talks to us from the comfort of his (near) Barcelona hotel.
With questions from the comments, we discuss whether F2 can emulate or improve on the success of GP2, what is to be expected in Spain, plus the budget caps and their impact on the sport. We also investigate which potential new teams may have a chance in 2010.
Tune in for this, plus much more, on An Aside With Joe.
Free Practice gets underway today, so we will finally get back to the racing action. It's been a good couple of weeks, so it'll be nice to see those cars going round and round again. Meanwhile, here's what we've been talking about:
Turn 9 has had some safety upgrades following Kovi's massive accident there last year. Apparently a bit of an incline has been added at the back of the gravel trap, new gravel, plus some improvements to the tyre barrier itself. Heikki himself says he isn't worried about returning to the track at all.
Mario Theissen is just as concerned about the two-tier championship as the rest of us, and has even hinted that presenting it to the board - who are already unhappy about the lack of results - will not encourage them to continue in the sport.
Finally, Ferrari have decided to keep KERS on board for Barcelona, despite all the problems they've faced so far with it. Massa must have got his way, as he was adamant that without the technology they had nothing to give, and that pretty much seemed to be the case.
That'll do it for now. There'll be multiple threads along later to get the action going throughout the day. Don't forget to update your Fantasy Racers team (a reminder will be along shortly, so save your strategy stories for then!), and I'll see you in the comments.
