February 2010 Archives

Check out this amazing Mercedes advert for the SLS Gullwing. It was shot last year, and I saw an earlier version, but it's now been updated to include Herr Schumacher at the wheel.

It's certainly a damn sight better than his 'because I'm worth it' ad.

Autosport have run a story interviewing an anonymous USF1 insider, who claims the outfit is in "turmoil" and only Chad Hurley can save them.

"We feel Hurley and Parris Mullins [adviser to Hurley] have our best interest [at heart] and also feel Hurley has no intention of abandoning us even though the media has said he's gone to Campos."

The source says it was clear they were behind schedule in early December.

"Figure [that] we're all pretty experienced in various aspects of car design and build, and we all know what it takes from a time-line standpoint. So when it became apparent the drawing office wasn't releasing drawings at the rate we expected, it started to become clear we could be in trouble.

"All engineering decisions were having to be funneled through [Ken] Anderson before anything could be signed off. And that's where the hold up was.

"Tooling for the tub was completed in early December, but then it sat for nearly a month before the laminate schedules for the outer skin were approved.

"Now Anderson himself wasn't designing the laminate schedule, but he was in the wings... as early as last October the production manager was collared about the lack of resources, but the managers were put off by saying: 'Well, Ken has a plan'.

"The irony of all this is that there has been precious little in the way of formal planning and documentation. No production schedules, simply very little in the way of planning."
He added: "Our January 15 pay cheque was late. It was paid by the 20th or so, but it certainly caused commotion and people started asking questions.

"That's when all the company's issues came to a head, and the conclusion was... yes, we had been lied to about the long-term budget, and indeed the company had a cash flow issue. But as mentioned, that really was a secondary issue.

"Think of it this way, ignoring the fact that we were lied to about the budget, if you don't have a car or can't show serious progress in that direction, potential sponsors aren't going to have a tendency to give you money.

"At the moment there are still 60 people working in Charlotte, but 10 have already left."

It appears team co-founder and sporting director Peter Windsor, whose main task in recent months has been seeking sponsorship, only came to realize a month ago how dire the situation was.

"I do know that Windsor was told of our progress on a number of occasions off the record in informal settings, but it took a very contentious shop meeting in late January/early February for him to twig [that] indeed we had an issue.

"In a meeting between the employees, Windsor and Anderson, Windsor put the question up to the employees: 'Who here doesn't think we'll make Bahrain?' I think Windsor might have meant it somewhat rhetorically, but he was answered nonetheless, and 100 per cent of the staff raised their hands. He was visibly shocked."

When contacted by Autosport about the claims from the senior staff member, team principal Anderson declined to respond to the specifics - but did suggest the comments painted a biased picture of the situation at the team.

"The story that the employee tells is certainly twisted and one-sided," said Anderson. "There are also contradictions. Everybody that signed up here knew exactly what they were getting into, i.e. to have two cars on the track in Bahrain.

"Given the late start due to the FIA/FOTA situation of 2009, I asked everybody to keep the car simple, strong and reliable. The comment that the chassis moulds sat for a month while waiting for a lay-up schedule is exactly the sort of thing that hurt us. Way too complex and time consuming. I did question why it was so complex if it was not necessary.

"I don't want to retaliate point by point as they are entitled to their opinion."
Windsor himself said he would continue to work hard to help keep US F1 alive.

"I have given this project - and will continue to give - all the love and passion I have ever had for our sport," he said. "Some obstacles I won't be able to overcome but I'm not giving up."

We've seen a few posts on Ferrari's official website which seem, shall we say, unedited. I can guess who's writing them... They're bloshy, inelegant an unguarded. Which is quite refreshing in this uber-corporate paddock.

The attempts at poetic language do leave me reaching for the rat poison though.

Something tells me the FIA will be none too pleased with this latest post, which goes under the headline 'The Horse Whisperer - For whom the bell tolls'.

The commentator has a dig at the disarray of some of the new teams, which is firmly blamed on Max Mosley's decision to push the manufacturers out and welcome new constructors.

And Stefan GP doesn't escape the bile, lest we forget Mike Coughlan - he of Pronto Print fame - is now working for the Serbians.

"Firstly, they launched themselves into a quixotic legal battle with the FIA, then they picked the bones of Toyota on its death bed," writes 'The Horse Whisperer'. "Having got some people on board, around whom there was still a whiff of past scandals, they are now hovering around waiting to replace whoever is first to drop out of the game."

It goes on: "This is the legacy of the holy war waged by the former FIA president. The cause in question was to allow smaller teams to get into Formula 1. This is the outcome: two teams will limp into the start of the championship, a third it being pushed into the ring by an invisible hand - you can be sure it's not the hand of Adam Smith - and, as for the fourth, well, you would do better to call on Missing Persons to locate it. In the meantime, we have lost two constructors along the way, in the shape of BMW and Toyota, while at Renault, there's not much left other than the name. Was it all worth it?"

Adam Smith was, by the way, a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. Talk about obscure.


Read the full rant here.

I've written a piece for ESPN's F1 site about the 1979 French Grand Prix, scene of the greatest duel ever: Villeneuve versus Arnoux.

Lotus and Virgin have been hard at work in Jerez this week, but still we have no word from USF1 and Campos. No sign of a car at all. No sign of second drivers getting signed either. Things are not looking good. It's effectively two weeks till the cars need to be flown to Bahrain.

Virgin's 'virtual' car could revolutionize the way F1 cars are designed - by negating the need for expensive wind tunnel testing. However, the team has suffered some design issues on track. The front wing failed on Timo's car.

Adrian Newey has questioned whether Computation Fluid Dynamics alone is enough to build a competitive car. He believes wind tunnels are still vital to car design.

At the Lotus launch yesterday, Mike Gascoyne - like Newey, one of F1's premier aero men and a guy with a PHD in CFD - joined his Red Bull colleague in questioning the wisdom of a 100 percent CFD car.

Speaking to us at London's Royal Horticultural Hall, Mike said that the CFD tactic is "an integral part, but not a complete part. You look at BMW when Albert II was announced as one of the world's biggest supercomputers dedicated to just their CFD. If you look at Enstone... I don't think these guys are idiots, and they also have wind tunnels.

"I think CFD is a very exciting technology and it is advancing, but is it an absolute? I don't think there are many people who think it is."

While many of my colleagues are in Valencia for the first test, I'm at home in Paris. I've written a new book, the details of which I should probably keep slightly schtum on until it's unveiled - i.e given away - in Bahrain. It's been fun and I think the book will be a popular one, but I've been so busy writing, liaising with the designer, subbing, proofing and getting it signed off from the sponsor (yes, I'm a corporate whore) that I haven't managed to update my blog in a week. Apologies, I haven't actually slept in 60 hours. Print deadline, see.

Also, after a mammoth researching and writing sesh, my flat takes on the appearance of Withnail & I's and I cannot face anything. Always happens. I haven't done the washing up in three weeks.

I might not be in Valencia, but due to the amount my colleagues there have been Twittering I don't think I've missed anything. Thanks to the likes of @sarahholtf1, @byronf1, @NobleF1, @eddstrawF1, and @jamesallenonF1 for keeping me in the loop. Perhaps I should have F1 on the end of my name too.

But there's another reason I tend to avoid tests, unless there's a specific interview I'm going to get. It's because a) team personnel are really busy. I mean on a race weekend, it's difficult to talk to drivers and others because there are set schedules and 'it's grand prix weekend dahling' and that. But at tests, the only break they get in a 12 hour day is to stuff their faces. And then they physically cannot talk (I once got a frothing earful when I attempted to ask Alan Permane - aka Witness X, aka Bat - a question at the dining table. Calm down dear).

And b) because testing doesn't really mean much to journalists. Photographers yes, because they can get the first pics of Michael in the Mercedes and Jenson in the McLaren. But really, unless you know the fuel levels and set-up, it's hard to compare the times. It's all just guessing.



Fernando Alonso's first run in the Ferrari resulted in 40,000 Spaniards turning up to cheer him on. He was fastest, but is that a true indication of the car's abilities? Was it just PR? We don't know, that's the problem.

Most teams will be practicing with heavy loads. There's no refueling this year, and that will be a challenge when it comes to managing the tyres. The handling characteristics on light versus heavy loads will be very different too.

To find out who is genuinely fast, you have to talk to the drivers and technical chiefs, in the rare moment their not busy or inserting a vol-au-vont into their gob.

And then you have to hope their telling the truth. Teams have been known to pretend all is rosy, when all is not, in the hope that it comes right and they don't need to manage sponsor expectations (or they're still hunting sponsors - see Sauber). Or they say they're satisfied, when they mean the car is half a second quicker than anything else, but they don't want to be accused of running an illegal diffuser before Bahrain.

Red Bull, Force India and the new teams are not in Valencia. Ferrari look to be fast and reliable. McLaren are up there too. Mercedes have achieved quick times, but Schumacher has said he doesn't expect to be winning from the start and Ross Brawn has suggested the car isn't quite quick enough.

Renault hasn't set the world alight, but their new livery is much talked-about. I had managed to sneak a peek at some photos (and was sworn to secrecy), so I knew what was coming. It's already being called 'the yellow teapot' just as the Renault Turbo was in 1978. Yellow and black is back. It's in your face, and it's retro - with Mercedes and Lotus joining, it's like F1 has time traveled. Perhaps USF1 will enter a DeLorean.



As a nice retro nod, have you noticed that the red numbers on the Mercs, with a black outline and white circle, are just like they had in the 50s? Nice touch.



The McLaren is eye-catching, with that enormous engine cover linking the air-box to the rear-wing. I expect other teams may copy this.



The cars this year are longer, by 15-20cm, to accommodate bigger fuel tanks. And fuel companies have developed lower density fuel, so the cars can make a full race distance on a single tank.

Virgin unveiled their car yesterday. It was meant to be a 'virtual launch' online, but there was a technical hitch. Let's hope they'll be more reliable on track. A lot of commentators have praised the looks. My colleague Will Buxton and I agree it's a bit IRL, but hopefully it doesn't only turn left. It's all been designed on computer, using CFD rather than a wind tunnel. This saves a huge amount of money, and if the car is quick it'll cut F1 costs significantly. Will it be, though? Nick Wirth is very confident in his abilities, but when it comes to F1, well, his Simtek team hardly set the world alight.

We won't know until Bahrain whether he has a pair of trousers to go with his mouth.



On the drivers side, Renault confirmed Vitaly Petrov, which I think is a good move. He seems fast enough for F1, and Russian involvement is healthy for the sport.

A lot of noise has been made about the money he brings somewhere in the region of 10 million Euros. However, my colleagues at Metro Russia have told me that, though Vladimir Putin made calls on Petrov's behalf to engage Russian finance, Vitaly's father re-mortaged his real estate business to meet Renault's demands.

An Eastern European line-up, along with Robert Kubica, won't do Renault's car sales any harm in this developing region. This is smart.

Nick Heidfeld was left out on the musical chairs front and has joined Mercedes as reserve driver. It was the only option left to him, really. I think it is mad that Nick wasn't given a race drive. He may not be an Alonso, but he's still one of the top eight or nine drivers in F1, he outscored Kubica at BMW, he has been the most consistent finisher in the last couple of seasons and he has the record for the most second places without a win: eight.

He's a great development driver, and Mercedes are lucky to have him. But if I were a new team, and I wanted a driver who wasn't too expensive, was quick, experienced, and knew the tech side, he would be my first choice. Jose Maria Lopez... Are you kidding me??

Campos aren't going to any of the tests, so their place on the grid is looking a bit of a joke. The new Stefan Grand Prix set-up have come to an agreement to use Toyota's chassis and some staff, and I understand they're proposing to go to Bahrain without an official entry. I'm not sure how this is going to work out, but if it is - and I can't see that it will - they're going to have to do some pretty serious brown-nosing with the FIA.

The next new team launch will the Lotus, on February 12 in London. I'll be there.