Selection box - I can see your halo - Media insights and close up technical views
Published by Christine
With pre-season testing almost over and done with, things were settling into a nice routine - check testing times at lunch to see morning progress, check testing times in the evening to see afternoon progress, ponder the significance of any events.
Kimi Räikkönen stirred the pot today though, with Ferrari's reveal of the halo design. Now that's all anyone can talk about but hey, don't worry, we've just got the one link on that topic. Here's some of the best that the interwebs has to offer on the subject of Formula One.
Kimi Raikkonen ran the ‘halo’ for two laps before it was taken off the car. Feedback has been mixed, however the majority of the opinions are negative. Martin Brundle, Sky F1 employee, tweeted, “That looks even worse than I feared, in several respects.”
Whilst on the subject of testing, there's been some great work done analysing what we've seen so far, particularly in terms of data extraction and bodywork analysis.
There is quite a range of performances, from some stints with very little degradation to others losing up to about 0.4 seconds per lap. What I also noticed, looking at the data on a per-team basis, is that the quickest overall stints almost invariably involved the higher rates of degradation, which is perfectly sensible, as those would be the stints where the drivers were actually pushing on the tyres.
Stability in the regulations inevitably leads to a convergence of several key concepts and are usually areas of the car that must be fixed within a team's overall philosophy. There are a few design features that seem to be cropping up on multiple cars, as everyone looks for bolt on performance whilst in the early design phase, before searching for refinement.
Next up, a spot of positivity amongst all the griping - Formula One may not be perfect but that doesn't mean it's completely out of kilter just yet.
Lined up in the paddock are dozens of new trucks, enormous motorhomes and armies of catering staff. Out on the track are 11 beautifully engineered racing cars, some of them effortlessly covering over 400 miles in a day, having only been bolted together for the first time days ago. This has the feel more of a Grand Prix weekend than a test.
Jenson and Alonso as featured on Fernando's Instagram account.
Talking of the Spaniard, there's plenty of speculation going around that he's unsatisfied at his team - yet again - and could be eyeing up a spot at the slightly more successful Mercedes squad. How much truth is there to these rumours though?
Fernando Alonso could have composed an opera, but he didn't. Fernando Alonso could have climbed Everest, but he didn't. Fernando Alonso could have driven the 2015 Mercedes, but he didn't. Whatever the truth of the story of the potential driver swap, it is a tale with only one salient fact: it didn't happen.
Across the pit lane, Red Bull have quietened down after the embarrassment of last year's engine troubles and perhaps the fear of not being able to even participate in 2016's proceedings. The next two links take a closer look at what we might expect from them this year.
Daniel says he wants to win races, however according to race engineer Simon Rennie, what he really wants to do is overtake everybody else: there's nothing he enjoys more than getting embroiled in a scrap with the best racing drivers in the world. "Perhaps they weren't noticed by the cameras because we weren't necessarily fighting for points but there were really good fights last year. Russia was fun; coming from the back into the points and Monza was good too."
F1 by contrast can change drastically between seasons, and even those most decorated can fall victim. Red Bull knows this now. It dominated the sport for years by entirely focusing on chassis excellence and despite having rather an arms-length relationship with its engine supplier Renault. Then the game changed, for 2014 the sport became an engine formula and overnight Red Bull's approach was obsolete.
Finally, a brilliant roundtable discussion with some fabulous media names from Formula One, covering topics such as how to get access to the right people in the pit lane, and just how frustrating it is to hear that F1 is boring these days.
Formula One preseason testing starts in Spain on Monday, but before the craziness of the new season begins, we caught up with a group of F1 journalists to get some insight on their jobs and their views on the state of the sport (as well as some recent airport horror stories).
