Zsolt Baumgartner Elie Bayol Don Beauman Karl Gunther Bechem Jean Behra
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Ferrari director ?disappointed? with performance level
Ferrari�Technical director Pat Fry has said that he doesn’t expect the team to start the 2012 season well. Who remembers the 1988 Austalian Grand Prix? Many have suggested that Ferrari need to hit the ground running to improve on last year, but Fry is in a rather�pessimistic�mood. Speaking at the end of a tough pre-season, [...]
How McLaren got back to the top
Amid the widespread astonishment at how Fernando Alonso has found himself leading the world championship after two races despite driving the worst car Ferrari have produced for nearly 20 years, it has been somewhat overlooked that McLaren are topping the constructors' championship.
Victory for Jenson Button in Australia, two third places for Lewis Hamilton and two front row lock-outs have demonstrated that the MP4-27 is not only the best-looking car on the grid, it is also the fastest.
This is quite a turnaround from the last three years, when McLaren have been off the pace at the start of the season, putting their title challenge on the back foot before it had started.
The man responsible for this turnaround is McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe, who is in charge of the team's design and engineering.
A likeable, down-to-earth character, Lowe says "relief" is the first emotion he feels as a result of this impressive achievement after three years of struggling in vain to keep up with Red Bull.
He says: "There is a lot of pressure - people going around saying what you need to do is deliver a car that is quickest at the first race, as though we hadn't thought of that, you know?
"You go and estimate what you think that involves with no certain knowledge and then you go and try to deliver it. It's tough."
McLaren driver Jenson Button tackles a rain-swept Malaysian Grand Prix. Photo: Getty
Ask Lowe how McLaren have ended up with the fastest car at the start of a season for the first time in four years, and he'll tell you there is no "magic".
In reality, there are several factors behind McLaren's ability to leapfrog Red Bull this year and stay ahead of everyone else.
McLaren had a successful winter that was not affected by reliability problems with the car, as had been the case in 2011. That meant they could spend pre-season perfecting what they had rather than, as Lowe puts it, "fighting fires".
Equally, Red Bull appear to have been more badly affected than most other teams by the banning of exhaust-blown diffusers, last year's must-have technology, which the world champions are widely believed to have exploited more effectively than any other team.
For McLaren, starting 2012 with the fastest car is the culmination of a three-year battle to return to the top that began with the disaster of 2009, when they started the season more than two seconds off the pace.
That was the result of Hamilton's intense title battle with Ferrari's Felipe Massa in 2008 - which deflected resource away from both team's new cars - as well as the introduction of the biggest regulation change for 25 years.
McLaren recovered well in 2009 to win a couple of races later in the season, once they had adopted the 'double diffuser' that caused controversy at the start of the year and led to Brawn's championship win.
In 2010 they moved forward, but were still only third fastest behind Red Bull and Ferrari; and in 2011 they leapfrogged Ferrari but were still behind Red Bull.
At the same time, there was a re-organisation of the technical department undertaken in 2010-11, which has taken time to settle down.
"We came out (in 2011) pretty much in the same place we had been at the end of 2010," Lowe says. "So Red Bull had made decent progress over the winter and so had we.
"You have got to do not only what your competitors have done over the winter but then a bit more and then some to generate a lead over them.
"But that is difficult when there aren't fundamental changes in the rules for the car.
"You'd need Red Bull to go on holiday for a month, and then if you were working to the same general output you'd catch them up, but obviously they don't do that so you've just got to push it."
The same thoughts were going through the minds of the bosses at Ferrari. But whereas Maranello responded by undertaking a major change in design philosophy - which has backfired, notwithstanding Alonso's win on Sunday - McLaren realised this would be a mistake.
"In general you are going to be reluctant to say: 'I need to tear this up'," Lowe says.
"Here and there we were quicker than a Red Bull and we were certainly close to them when we weren't.
"The car performance at that point, given also there is not a big regulation change, is a consequence of a great deal of hard work. So it's quite rash to throw that away in too many areas rather than just build on it and iterate further and further.
"That doesn't mean you're not constantly looking for new ideas and trying to make them work. (But) you have to make very sure that whatever change you make is going to be better."
Lowe's contention that there has been no miracle at McLaren, just good, solid development work, is backed up by the fact that other teams have clearly made even more progress compared to Red Bull than they have - such as Lotus and Williams.
In pointing this out, Lowe betrays the natural caution of the F1 engineer - an approach that is understandable when, as Malaysia proved, even having the outright fastest car is no guarantee you will win the race.
Hamilton stepped down from the bottom step of the podium on Sunday to tell the waiting media he needed to find more race pace to capitalise on his strong qualifying form.
Lowe's "new challenge", it seems, has already arrived.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/03/lowe_confident_of_mclaren_succ.html
Peter Arundell Lamborghini Alberto Ascari Peter Ashdown Ian Ashley
New F1 season could prove unpredictable
The Formula 1 teams arrived in Melbourne's Albert Park to be greeted by grey skies, intermittent rain and blustery wind. But not even the weather could dampen the palpable excitement and nervous tension.
The start of the new season is just a few hours away and everyone from world champions Red Bull to lowly HRT is desperate to find the answer to the question they have been asking all winter. Where will they be come Saturday and Sunday afternoons?
The F1 teams like to keep outsiders guessing before the first race by saying they don't know where they are in terms of competitiveness, but usually this is little more than kidology.
Such is their capacity to analyse data with massive super-computers that usually they have a very good idea of their position in relation to their rivals, despite the well-known difficulty of predicting form from pre-season testing.
But this year seems different; they genuinely don't seem to know - so the usual anticipation ahead of the first race of the season is magnified.
Lewis Hamilton said that judging by the data that mattered from winter testing he felt McLaren were "in the top three or four".
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso has also bigged up his team's chances for the 2012 season. Photo: Getty
Meanwhile, a senior engineer from one of the teams who will be contesting what is expected to be a congested midfield battle told me he was pretty sure Red Bull and McLaren were out front but he didn't know "whether we will be third or seventh".
Some people's anticipation is more nervous than others', though.
For teams such as Mercedes and Lotus, there is a genuine sense that they have done a good job and moved forward over the winter.
In fact there is a growing sense in the paddock that Mercedes may even be able to give McLaren and Red Bull a run for their money, something team principal Ross Brawn was quick to dismiss as "unlikely".
For others, the desire to discover the true pace of their car is tinged as much with trepidation as anticipation.
Ferrari have had what Fernando Alonso described here on Thursday as a "tough" winter, struggling with "quite a complex car in terms of set-up and understanding it".
Alonso was doing his best to talk up the team's chances, saying: "Maybe we didn't reach our targets but it doesn't mean that we are slower than the other cars. That we will not know until Saturday."
Others are keen to play down the importance of this first race of the season.
Vettel said that Australia this weekend and Malaysia next would do no more than demonstrate a "trend" for performance over the season.
And Brawn said he "preferred to look at the first four races and the range of circuits we have and see how that looks".
But the statistics belie that point of view.
Albert Park might be a unique street circuit, with a dusty, low-grip surface, and the teams may only just be beginning to work with their new cars. But actually it has proven to be a rather good arbiter of the season to come - five of the last six winners of the Australian Grand Prix have gone on to become world champion that year.
Other themes are also emerging this weekend that will have importance to one degree or another as the season develops.
F1 wouldn't be F1 without a good technical conspiracy and this year looks like being no different.
Already during pre-season testing there have been eyebrows raised at the way some teams are trying to exploit exhaust gases for aerodynamic effect.
This practice was supposed to have been ended by rule changes that have restricted the positioning and angle of the exhaust pipes and put much stricter limits on engine mapping - both an attempt to rid the sport of so-called exhaust-blown diffusers that became such important tools over the previous two seasons.
But this weekend another potential controversy has emerged over the rear wings on several cars, particularly the Mercedes, Red Bull and the Ferrari.
These new devices - that some believe to be on the fringes of legality - seem designed to exploit the DRS overtaking aid in ways not originally intended.
The DRS was designed as a tool to make overtaking less difficult - if a driver is within a one-second margin of a car he is trying to overtake, he can use the DRS in a specified zone on the track to give him a straight-line speed boost.
Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari, meanwhile, have what appear to be extra slots on the rear wing that can work in conjunction with the DRS to either increase straight-line speed even further, or allow the teams to run extra downforce with no drag penalty.
The most noticeable feature of the 2012 cars, though, remains the noses - and specifically the ugly 'platypus' step on all but the McLaren and Marussia.
This is a result of a rule that has lowered the nose tips of the cars to increase driver safety, but not lowered the top of the chassis.
The result is a grid full of ridiculous and ugly-looking cars, and very few are troubling to hide their frustration at the situation.
"It is unfortunate," Brawn said, "and the teams should look at themselves and blame themselves.
"[Governing body] the FIA tried to do what they could and a number of teams wouldn't agree to the changes because they said they wanted to carry over their chassis, which we all know is a load of nonsense because nobody has carried over their chassis.
"We've ended up with a very odd feature on the cars which is not very endearing and I'm sure will get fixed for 2013."
The noses, of course, will soon be forgotten if the season is close and competitive. And that will only begin to become clear as this weekend unfolds.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/03/new_f1_season_could_prove_unpr.html
Giovanna Amati George Amick Red Amick Chris Amon Bob Anderson
Sebastian Vettel: ?We are not where we want to be??
Sebastian Vettel has qualified sixth for the second consecutive race after taking a gamble that might pay off on Sunday. Thanks to a penalty for Kimi Raikkonen Vettel moves up to fifth, and he will start the Malaysian GP on … Continue reading 
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2012/03/24/sebastian-vettel-we-are-not-where-we-want-to-be/
Skip Barber Paolo Barilla Rubens Barrichello Michael Bartels Edgar Barth
Ford Fiesta ECOnetic
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With fuel economy in the forefront of most drivers? minds, Ford has announced that a new fuel sipper has gone into production. Strangely enough, Ford?s newest fuel miser is not a hybrid car; it is a diesel-powered Ford Fiesta. This diesel engine, which Ford of Europe dubbed the Duratorq TDCi engine, uses ECOnetic Technology ? a series of modifications to reduce both emissions and fuel consumption. These modifications allow this Fiesta to reach new heights as the most fuel-efficient Ford car ever built, getting 3.3 liters per 100km, which equals out to 86.5 mpg.
The driving force of the ECOnetic Fiesta is a 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine. It cranks out an acceptable 95ps (94 horsepower) and 205 Nm of torque (151 pound-feet). The Fiesta ECOnetic is definitely not a speed demon, but that is more than enough power to tinker around on any American road.
The 2013 Ford Fiesta ECOnetic is set to debut later this year, as Ford of Europe continues to lower CO2 production from its vehicles and increase fuel economy. Ford also states that about half of its European models will have ECOnetic Technology by year-end and they are committed to increasing that to two-thirds in 2013.
There is no anticipated release of ECOnetic technology in the U.S. to date, but we hope that it eventually makes its way across the pond. It?s safe to say that with the increasing price of gas, it is only a matter of time before Americans are clamoring for an 86.5 mpg Fiesta that does not have the future cost risks of a hybrid or electric car.
Click below to read more about the Fiesta?s ECOnetic Technology and Ford?s official press release.
Ford Fiesta ECOnetic originally appeared on topspeed.com on Wednesday, 28 March 2012 18:00 EST.
Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/ford/2013-ford-fiesta-econetic-ar127033.html
Jean Alesi Jaime Alguersuari Philippe Alliot Cliff Allison Fernando Alonso
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