photo credit: Flickr/eltham_mob

It turns out Force India was so rattled by what happened upon the team’s arrival in Bahrain, they briefly considered withdrawing from the race last night.

In return for them probably considering this and actually pulling out of second practice, the team’s cars were apparently very absent from live feeds throughout qualifying today.

Classy, FOM. When questioned, Bernie Ecclestone said nobody wants to see who is in tenth place.

Note: Fernando Alonso starts 9th. Kimi Raikkonen starts 11th. Does nobody care who is in 11th place?

Bernie also tried to blame the alcohol advertisements on the car, however, Red Bull has also kept theirs on the car. To add to the “try to get out of this one, jerk” fuel, Force India was given the okay to keep their sponsor’s ads on the car.

Other low level teams are worried about their safety as they have not been offered or do not have the funds for the level of security teams like McLaren and Red Bull can get.

A protester was found dead before the start of Saturday’s events. He was identified as Salah Abbas Habib Musa, and he had taken part in one of the peaceful protests that turned violent with police action.

Track protests are apparently planned for tomorrow. Hopefully everyone stays safe.

If you would like actual qualifying news, well, Sebastian Vettel is back on top. And it’s hard for me to take the high road about this whole thing because of it, but I could be far worse off.

Bahrain International Circuit (image from Wikimedia Commons)

Friday April 13
First Practice Session: 3:00am
Second Practice Session: 7:00am

Saturday April 21
Final Practice Session: 4:00am
Qualifying: 7:00am

Sunday April 22
Race: 8:00am

SPEED will show a pre-race show beginning at 7:30am. Second practice is also live, and the others can be streamed on SPEEDtv.com. All times eastern.

Last year’s winner: no race held (Sebastian Vettel won in 2010)

What to expect: A lack of safety. Force India’s drivers have spoken out about the petrol bomb incident from the previous day. Other drivers have gone the tacky road and compared it to Brazil (sorry Sebastian but no), and some straight up won’t answer questions. Sorry boys, but this is what people want to know about.

Search “Bahrain Grand Prix” on Google News and you’ll find that since yesterday things have taken a turn for the critical. According to a Reuters article, hospitality groups have seen a massive decline in sales, and many corporate sponsors are not doing much. Shell, a major sponsor of Ferrari, will not be entertaining guests. UBS has no plans to sponsor any events.

Other than that, well, it’s racing as usual.

Weather: It’s a desert. Figure it out.

Tires: Tire compounds for the race will be the white/mediums and yellow/softs. Grip is often reduced by sand blowing onto the track. In fact, when Pirelli was testing tires here before the 2011 season, they had to stop for a sandstorm at one point.

DRS: With no race last year, DRS is new here in Bahrain. The detection point is through the last turn, with the activation zone the final straight.

Like I said before, you’re going to have to look elsewhere for updates on anything unless it’s about how terrible of an idea this race is.

And let’s hope I have no reason to update anything regarding people being hurt. Plenty of protests are planned over the next few days, and while the protestors claim to be peaceful, it only takes one jerk to ruin it all.

photo credit: Flickr/Jose Mª Izquierdo Galiot

2004 called, and Michael Schumacher was fastest overall in Friday’s afternoon practice session.

It of course rained between the first and second sessions. Some drivers went out while it was wet, on wet tires, but once again it came down to the last 30 minutes.

Mercedes powered teams made a strong showing, first with both Force India drivers. Nico Hulkenberg had the second fastest time overall, and while Paul di Resta was on top at one point, he finished sixth.

Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi also had a strong showing, despite the fact both almost pushed it too far in the wet. Kobayashi had an amazing save when he started to lose control around the final corner as time ran out. Perez was third fastest, and Kobayashi fifth fastest.

The two were separated by Fernando Alonso. Felipe Massa managed seventh overall, and also managed to not spin out.

Heikki Kovalainen, besides becoming an Angry Grassmowing Bird at one point, finished a surprising eighth overall, outpacing the Red Bull drivers.

Pedro de la Rosa was able to complete one whole lap!

Other things that have happened:

- The FIA is looking to get rid of the ugly noses on the cars next season. The rules in 2014 would actually kill them off, but apparently we are all a bunch of people with fine aesthetic taste and they want to please us.

- Teams want the FIA to police the RRA, or Resource Restriction Agreement. Actually, all teams except Red Bull and Toro Rosso signed the letter; previously Christian Horner has said he doesn’t think the RRA is the way to control costs. The letter asks the FIA to make teams follow the agreement through the sporting regulations.

- Pedro de la Rosa is confirmed as the GPDA (Grand Prix Drivers Association, acronyms are so fun at 9am on a Friday) chairman. Rubens Barrichello was previously chair. Sebastian Vettel and Felipe Massa will continue to hold their roles as directors.

photo credit: Flickr / Gil Abrantes

I am really bored now with testing.

This is how I imagine it goes:

Everyone wakes up, eats breakfast. Time to get in the car.

Okay, driver, go drive around a bit. We’re going to do aero tests/long runs/low fuel runs/blah blah things nobody really is going to know because secret.

Cars go around. Cars report back awesome important secret information to people who understand it and don’t share it because this is a competition, after all.

Cars may stop on track. Hopefully cars don’t go off the track.

Then it’s time to stop for lunch and time to get some quotes from drivers and team principals.

» Continue reading “Testing As Usual”

(photo credit: Flickr/jiteshjagadish)

Fernando Alonso posted the fastest time this morning with a 1:18.877. Insert some kind of discounting of it because it’s testing here. But come on, you know it makes Ferrari feel a lot better about their car after less-than-stellar showings earlier in the week.

Of course, the afternoon was a setback as hydraulic issues limited afternoon running for the team.

Overall, the typical frontrunners have been on top, although Lotus and Toro Rosso are showing tons of progress. It is of course hard to gauge anything about the upcoming season from testing, since every team has a different focus of what to work on throughout the four day period.

Red Bull had some electrical gremlins at work today. In the end he was able to complete 50 laps today with a third fastest time of 1:19.606.

» Continue reading “Ferrari Fastest As Jerez Testing Concludes”

(photo credit: Flickr/tik_tok)

OUR FIRST CRASH!

Bianchi was driving during the morning session for Force India when he lost control and hit the tire barrier.

Damage was thankfully minimal, but it was enough to keep the team busy on repairs for the rest of the day. Nico Hulkenberg was set to drive in the afternoon and lost out on testing time.

Bianchi apologized for the accident, saying he was sorry for causing the team delay.

The test driver shouldn’t feel too bad, since he’ll also be driving in the Formula Renault 3.5 series.

Also it could be worse… HRT’s new car failed its crash test today. According to Autosport, the car failed two of the 17 tests and was unable to complete one of them due to failure of the lateral nose test. » Continue reading “On The Third Day Of Testing, Jules Bianchi Gave To Me…”

Former Formula Renault 3.5 champion Giedo van der Garde signed with Caterham to become the team’s reserve driver. The Dutch driver has previously tested for other F1 teams including Super Aguri and Renault.

Van der Garde will get to drive in pre-season testing as well as on select Grands Prix Fridays.

Since winning his title, van der Garde has raced in GP2, where he finished 5th this past season.

Meanwhile, Force India’s reserve driver, Jules Bianchi, hopes to continue racing while holding his test driver role. He also raced in GP2 the past season, but GP2 is an unlikely place for him to land again due to those races typically taking place with F1 races.

Perhaps endurance racing of some sort might suit him?

Finally, the running order for Jerez was announced. Mercedes will do tire testing on their 2011 car for 3 days, and HRT will be testing the 2011 car for two. It’s not entirely complete, but can be seen under the cut. » Continue reading “Saturday Roundup: Reserve Roles, Jerez Running Order”

(photo credit: Force India F1 Facebook page)

Sahara Force India unveiled their 2012 car at Silverstone Circuit in England today. It’s a huge day for the team. Since becoming Force India in 2008, the car has never been ready in time for the first test.

Instead, here they are ready to go days before it. Congratulations, guys!

Now despite having the crazy beak like we have to get used to seeing, it actually looks right on the VJM05. Its nose is more like the Caterham than today’s other unveil, the Ferrari.

Exhaust sidepods are the other big change this year, and the Force India does not look to have made extreme changes to them (yet at least).

Force India hopes this new challenger will help them break into the top 5 finishers in the constructors championship. Last season they pulled off a team best 6th, and the momentum will continue.

(photo credit: Flickr/Paul Williams)

Adrian Sutil has been found guilty of grevious bodily harm and was sentenced today in Munich to an 18 month suspended sentence, plus a $262,200 fine to be paid to charities. The prosecutors were looking for a 21 month suspended sentence.

To recap, Sutil and other drivers were in a nightclub in China. Sutil says he was only trying to throw his drink on Eric Lux, who is a part owner of Lotus. He cut Lux’s neck, which required stitches. If you’re a German citizen, you can be tried in your home country, which is why this trial did not take place in China.

Sutil had tried to settle the matter with Eric Lux outside of the trial, apparently even offering millions of dollars to Lux himself. Of course you can’t really fight rich with money. Lux maintains that he was just looking for a direct, in-person apology from Sutil and never got it.

Sutil’s lawyer argued that his action was just an unintentional reflex, which still doesn’t make sense if you cut someone.

According to his agent, the former Force India driver still hopes to land a reserve role and his name is floating around regarding Ferrari’s test driver role.

For those not familiar with what a suspended sentence is, you must have forgotten the suspended sentence of Ferrari a couple seasons ago! Just kidding, I had to look it up too. Clearly it just means a) we’re not lawyers and b) we’re not criminals.

A suspended sentence means that as long as Sutil doesn’t do anything stupid again and break the law in the next 18 months, he won’t be put in jail. There could be some sort of probationary guidelines he has to follow, and I know the possibility he wouldn’t be allowed to enter China was out there.

I would figure the bigger problem in finding a test driver role is knowing he was found guilty rather than the suspended sentence. It looks like Sutil would rather spend the time to reflect on things and possibly look into something new than pursue a test seat.

(credit: Flickr/Rodrigo Vieira)

Force India announced Jules Bianchi as their reserve driver for the 2012 season. He should be getting extensive driving on Fridays during Grands Prix weekends, with the team promising him nine practice drives.

While I named Bianchi as one of Ferrari’s drivers in a post earlier this week, it doesn’t really change his position with Ferrari. He obviously won’t be driving for them this season, but they have 289 other drivers in their program. Bianchi will remain part of Ferrari’s young driver development program.

In other news today, Lotus announced the name of their 2012 car. The car will be called the E20, commemorating the team’s 20th season based in Enstone. This is somewhat of a big deal, considering the team considers themselves a continuation rather than a new team every time they change their name.

Marussia will not be running KERS in their car this season. Nothing says you’re running out of time like announcing that at the end of January.