The Monaco Grand Prix is the most glamorous race of the F11 calendar. Sun, sea and Formula 1.
It will be quite warm for Thursday’s practice. Qualifying will be much cooler with a chance of light showers. Predictions for the race will remain dry, with a very small chance of showers.
We head to Monaco this week one of the most anticipated and glamorous races of the Formula 1 season. Here are the broadcast times for the week ahead.
Note that Free Practice 1 and Free Practice 2 will be on Thursday and not on Friday, as is always the tradition in Monaco. All times are GMT+2.
Free Practice 1: Thursday 10:00
Free Practice 2: Thursday 14:00
Free Practice 3: Saturday 11:00
Qualifying: Saturday 14:00
Race: Sunday 14:00
As always catch our live commentary on twitter @F1_Madness.
Pirelli’s planned ‘tweaks’ to the 2013 tyres from the Canadian GP onwards has been reigned in by the FIA.
A ruling made by the sport’s governing body has stipulated that it will only allow changes to be made to the tyres on the grounds of safety. As a result the expected changes will be less significant that intially planned.
The FIA has clearly stated that it will not accept changes aimed at cutting down on the number of pitstops much less to reduce tyre degradation. Instead of reverting back to 2012 specification tyres Pirelli have been instructed to make adjustment to the current specification of tyres.
Article 12.6.3 of the technical regulations have been cited by the FIA with regard to their decision. The rule states:
“Tyre specifications will be determined by the FIA no later than 1 September of the previous season. Once determined in this way, the specification of the tyres will not be changed during the championship season without the agreement of all competing teams.”
There is however a different clause within the regulations which states that changes could be introduced “if the tyres are deemed by the tyre supplier and technical delegate as technically unsuitable.” But the FIA is adamant that the current ‘issues’ with the 2013 tyres falls within the purview of this rule.
Pirelli motosport director Paul Hembery admitted that the changes to the tyres would now be of a more modest nature. “Let’s wait and see exactly what changes we will be making, but we are doing everything we can to minimise what will be different,” he said.
The prospective changes were expected to benefit teams such as Mercedes and Red Bull who have been struggling to get on top of the tyres. In contrast, Ferrari and Lotus will breathe a sigh of relief as they look to maintain their tyre advantage.
There’s been plenty of talk amongst Formula One fans lately about the terrible form of the Mercedes F1 team. They’re performing really well over one lap for qualifying, but when it comes to race pace they’re just falling flat on their faces. Reynard Gelderblom wrote in to share his thoughts on the problems over at the Mercedes F1 team.
Silver Arrows in the grey
Three consecutive pole positions, front row domination and statistics favouring the front row starters at the Circuit de Catalunya. Still, Petronas Mercedes AMG F1 fell away like the American economy on Black Thursday.
In the Chinese Grand Prix Lewis Hamilton managed to salvage a podium. Not that this is much to write home about considering he started from pole. A week later in Bahrain Nico Rosberg again had the statistics in his advantage, but yet again he could only secure ninth with Hamilton at least salvaging some honour with a fifth place. After the three week break, the F1 circus moved to the traditional gateway to the European part of the season – Barcelona.
With all teams utilizing the opportunity to improve the cars closer to home and race at the only pre-season test venue slotted into the calendar, Mercedes was looking forward to converting pre-season pace into race winning performance. Back in February during their launch, the team promised that the 2013 season will be the start of the next phase in their evolution – the return of the championship contending Silver Arrows. To back that up, they arrived in Spain with a car that included a little bit more silver than grey. Performance, however, still proved to be a grey area that outshone that silver lining. Despite their dominant showing in qualifying, Rosberg had to settle for sixth with Hamilton finishing a lowly twelfth – managing to pass a Williams as one of his highlights of the day.
Where do the problems lie? Both Rosberg and Hamilton are more than competent drivers. For three years Rosberg has been faster than Michael Schumacher – granted this wasn’t the Schumi of old, but still. Hamilton is a former World champion with McLaren and except for choosing the wrong pit box, he’s really started to look like the driver who burst onto the scene back in 2007.
Tyres have been a great concern for Mercedes, but this isn’t a problem that just affects them. To some degree everyone has struggled with the tyres. Sebastian Vettel may have been very critical about them after Barcelona, but then again, Vettel and Red Bull have been competitive on days when Mercedes have just faded away.
There certainly is no shortage of funding and knowledge in this team. All this brings me to one question: Are we seeing yet another Toyota here? They used to have a bigger budget than Ferrari and certainly enough resources to build the next shuttle, yet none of that materialised into anything worth writing home about on the circuit.
I have been looking forward to a Silver Arrows revival ever since Sauber took to Kyalami in Free practice in 1993 with the “Concept by Mercedes-Benz” writing on the side. This was echoed by the McLaren livery change in 1997.
In 2010 I was smiling when Mercedes purchased the Brawn team. Mercedes is indeed on the platform to regain the glory years. All the components are there, they just need to present the complete package. I hope that day comes sooner, rather than later.
Reynard Gelderblom is the motorsport editor for Street Motion.
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Formula 1’s return to Europe this past weekend signaled the first round of major updates for most teams. Since most teams are based in Europe it makes bringing more substantial updates to the cars much more easier. Not that teams don’t update their cars at the fly-away races, but returning to Europe just makes things a little more easier. Here is a Part 1 of our F1 technical round up of the Spanish Grand Prix.
Some of the updates were major changes as in the case with McLaren and Toro Rosso. McLaren were somewhat relying on their Barcelona updates to bring them up to pace with Red Bull and Ferrari. Did it work for them? Not so much. Button struggled to make it into Q3 while Perez did slightly better and qualified P9. Their race performance, however, was much better and they finished P9 and P10.
Lets take a look at some of the teams.
Ferrari: They had little tweaks here and there with their body work. They brought a new engine cover which features a longer fin at the back and thats slightly lower than the
one they’re currently using. The rain in FP1 put a spanner in the works for them to test it. They will bring the same engine cover to Montreal. Together with the new engine cover they tested a new longer exhaust outlet with a more shallower angled exhaust. They also tried new sidepod airflow conditioners, similar to Red Bull’s “D” wing airflow conditioner, except the top section extends over the sidepod and attaches to the cockpit. They’ve somewhat kept the original design of the split airflow conditioner, only with this variation, the front section curves over the top of the sidepod and the rear section remains vertical. The purpose of the curved section is to bring the airflow around the outside of the sidepod, over the exhaust and eventually out the diffuser at the back. Both Ferrari drivers ran an additional horizontal cockpit fin ahead of the wing mirrors in addition to the two horizontal airflow conditioners behind the wing mirrors.
Lotus: Lotus came to Catalunya with a new front and rear wing. There were two changes on the front wing. They had a curved vane on the outer part of the end plate. The main deflector vane in the front wing is not slotted. The rear wing features tiny separated vanes on the endplate.
McLaren:McLaren brought along a new front wing. This new wing had one vertical slot on the endplate and a new upper flap.
They still stuck to the old three element front wing, whereas other teams are using 5-6 element wings. The sidepods have been given a make over. The vertical air flow conditioners are now attached to the edge of the sidepod making it similar to the “D” wing of Red Bull. They have ditched the horizontal airflow conditioner above the sidepods and went with twin vortex generators, similar to what they ran in 2012
Mercedes: Mercedes have dropped their three horizontal vortex generators on the side of the cockpit and have replaced it with one larger
wing. The rest of the car remained largely unchanged with most of the changes unseen.
Part 2 to follow soon.
Japanese manufacturer Honda has announced its return to Formula 1.
Honda has not competed in Formula 1 since shutting down its works team at the end of 2008. However, as a result of Formula 1’s planned change to 1.6 litre turbocharged V6 engines it has announced a ‘joint project’ with McLaren starting in 2015.
Rumours about a reunion between McLaren and Honda have been making the rounds for quite some time and the manufacturer is believed to be well advanced in the development of their an all-new 1.6 litre V6 turbo Formula 1 engine.
Honda is no stranger to Formula 1 or McLaren and have won both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles four times. The Japanese manufacturer’s previous partnership with McLaren stretched from 1988 to 1992. This alliance brought back fond memories for McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh. “Together Honda and McLaren have a great legacy; we formed a uniquely successful partnership that took on and beat the world,” he said. “Together, we created some of the greatest, most iconic Formula 1 moments of all time which are still being talked about today all around the world.”
Jenson Button, a former works Honda driver, was equally chuffed about the announcement.
“I’m so thrilled and excited about what is not only a fantastic opportunity for the team but also a great development for Formula 1 fans and the sport as a whole,” said the former champion. “I grew up watching McLaren-Honda Formula 1 cars racing and winning around the world – they wrote their own glorious chapter of F1 history.”
This brings to an end McLaren’s long-standing relationship with German engine maker Mercedes. The Woking based team have been using the Mercedes powerplant since 1995. Gone will be the familiar McLaren Mercedes to replaced, and re-named, McLaren Honda.
Hopefully, the gleaming silver livery of McLaren will still feature prominently as Honda doesn’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to the design of livery – the 2007 ‘earth dreams’ paint scheme being the perfect example.
Could this be the dynamic step that McLaren so desperately need to get back on track?
Honda has confirmed that it will return to Formula 1 in 2015 as engine supplier to McLaren.
The Japanese manufacturer has not competed in F1 since shutting its works team at the end of 2008, but has decided to return as a result of the change to 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 engines.
It has been known to have been in talks with McLaren for some time and has already made significant progress with design work on its new engine.
Honda previously supplied McLaren with engines from 1988-1992, winning both the drivers’ and constructors’ championship four times.
Source: autosport.com
Photo: Jmex60, cropped/retouched by Morio (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Pirelli have announced that it will make changes to its tyres from the Canadian grand prix onward
s.
This announcement comes after a raft of criticism has been aimed at the Italian manufacturer. Several teams have voiced their unhappiness about the excessiveness of the tyre degradation.
The Spanish grand prix saw four stop strategies implemented by the majority of the field.Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery told AUTOSPORT: “We never intended for there to be four-stop races, so we are going to make construction changes to the tyres.
“We will be taking some of the design of the 2013 tyres, but also some of the elements of the 2011 and 2012 products that served us so well during that period. We want to go back to having two or three stop races.”
Pirelli’s inexperience in the highly competitive world seems to have found them out. Hembery admitted that they had understimated the increase in performance the cars would make from year to year.
“They have basically been stressing everything far too much, and probably we underestimated the performance,” he said. “We cannot test with the current cars, and all we have access to is a 2010 Renault that laps four or five seconds slower than the current F1 cars do on a Sunday.”
Revisions to the structure of the tyres will be made along with possible changes to compounds. When asked about the possibility of the changes shaking up the competitive order Hembery responded with relative certainty that all should remain as is. “There have been concerns from some of the teams that the changes will favour one team or another, but we don’t think that will be the case,” he said.
The FIA has announced that no driver will be fined for speeding in the pitlane.
Instead, teams will now have to flash the cash if one of their drivers exceeds the pitlane speed limit. The Grand Prix Driver’s Association (GPDA) raised concerns that drivers were being punished for breaking the pitlane speed limit despite an agreemen
t that had been made with the FIA.
Formula 1’s sporting regulations state that a driver will be fined $200 (approx. R1800.00) for evering kilometre per hour they are over the speed limit. As a result the FIA conceded that they would no longer impose monetary fines on drivers and reduced the scale of the fines to $100 (approx. R900.00) for every kilometre per hour over the limit. A maximum limit of $1000 (approx. R9005.00) has also been imposed.
The new order has been in place since the Bahrain grand prix.
Sir Richard Branson today honoured a two year old bet with fellow air line chief, Tony Fernandes.
Branson and Fernandes bet each other in 2010, agreeing that whoever’s Formula One team finished the 2010 season lower than other, would serve as an air hostess on the other’s airline.
Branson lost the bet when his Virgin Racing Team (now Marussia F1 team) finished 12th, and Tony Fernandes’ Lotus Team (now Caterham) finished 10th in the Constructor’s standings.
Branson boarded the flight from Perth to Kuala Lampur in a bright red Air Asia uniform, fishnet tights and make up and served passengers on the flight. The entire day was held as a charity event in aid of the Starlight Foundation which they both support.
Over $300 000 was raised for the charity.
Here are a few photos of Sir Richard Branson’s day as an air hostess.
Images: Sir Richard Branson’s Blog.
