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”

At first it looked like it wasn’t happening today. And then it happened. After weeks of speculation, Force India finally confirmed that Nico Hulkenberg will replace Adrian Sutil. Paul di Resta was also confirmed for his second season with the team.

No word on who replaces Hulkenberg as reserve driver.

This leaves just two obviously open spots: one at Williams and one at HRT.

In other news:

- In the United States, we’re all a bunch of idiots who will not be able to comprehend cars turning left and right all the time at high speeds.

Oh no wait, sorry, Bernie Ecclestone is using the excuse that “the US wants to see profits before anything else” regarding US races. So despite approving not one, but two, American grands prix he thinks the sport will not be big in America.

Just shut up.

Ecclestone also said the US Grand Prix is not guaranteed for 10 years. Of course, there’s never been any mention of the specifics of the new contract between Ecclestone and Circuit of the Americas. Neither seem to want to comment on the length, which possibly could have changed.

- Caterham announced their car has passed the required FIA crash tests. They have not announced when they will reveal their 2012 car.

- Sauber will unveil their car on February 6, the day before pre-season testing starts.

- I’ve been considering adding a bit of GP2 coverage in here, since many drivers come from the series.

The 2012 calendar for GP2 includes 12 events. Each event is made up of two races: one Saturday race with a format similar to an F1 race, and one Sunday shorter sprint race, where the top 8 finishers reversed. So, if you finish 8th on Saturday, you start first on Sunday.
March 23-25 – Sepang, Malaysia
April 20-22 – Sakhir, Bahrain
April 26-28 – Sakhir, Bahrain
May 11-13 – Barcelona, Spain
May 24-26 – Monte Carlo, Monaco
June 22-24 – Valencia, Spain
July 6-8 – Silverstone, Great Britain
July 20-22 – Hockenheim, Germany
July 27-29 – Budapest, Hungary
August 31-Sept 2 – Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
September 7-9 – Monza, Italy
September 21-23 – Marina Bay, Singapore

- HRT wasted no time naming a new team principal. The team appointed former driver Luis Perez-Sala to the position. He is, of course, also Spanish, making it look more and more hopeful that maybe Jaime Alguersuari will race with the team….or they could really go for a surprise and grab Maria de Villota…

Oddly enough, Perez-Sala was teammates with the man who first started the HRT team, Adrian Campos. The team was called Campos Meta when it was first founded, before it even ran any races.

- Speaking again of those former Toro Rosso drivers, Adam Cooper reported on Twitter that Sebastien Buemi was in the simulator in Milton Keynes when he got the news that he was out at the team. Seriously.

- Ferrari plan to unveil their 2012 car in “early February.” Testing begins on the 7th, and they will be ready for it.

- While it was believed that Force India would make a driver announcement today, it’s not looking so likely. Of course they might also be going for that weird time of day thing that Lotus has used twice so far. It’s widely believed now that Nico Hulkenberg will in fact replace Adrian Sutil.

Photo from Flickr user JiteshJagadish

- Colin Kolles is leaving HRT effective tomorrow. He has been the team principal for HRT for the past two seasons, and the team was based out of a factory he owns in Germany.

This is part of the step to move the entire team’s operations over to Spain after Thesan capital purchased a controlling share of the team.

No word yet on who will replace Kolles as team principal.

- Out of curiosity, I like to look at the website for Blick, a Swiss newspaper. It’s in German, but I love to see what they say about a couple Swiss hockey players. It is gossipy and I love it.

Well apparently I should have really looked at the top story in the Formula 1 section because I could have written about it in English first!

Supposedly Force India’s lineup will be announced tomorrow, with Nico Hulkenberg replacing Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta staying on with the team. Jules Bianchi, who is currently with Ferrari, will be the reserve driver. He would be contracted to the team similarly to how Daniel Ricciardo was with HRT.

Apparently there was also a rumor a few days ago that Bianchi would replace Kamui Kobayashi at Sauber. I have got to get in with this gossip quicker.

Additionally, there’s a possibility that team owner and principal Vijay Mallya may leave the team over his finances and lack of agreement with Sahara Group, who bought part of the team a couple months ago.

- The FIA joined Twitter, and started tweeting around 4am eastern time.

- Bernie Ecclestone said it was a mistake for Lewis Hamilton to drop his father as his manager. Ecclestone claims that Hamilton hanging around celebrities was a “bad influence.” I’m pretty sure that no matter who the manager is, celebrities tend to be at Grands Prix, but what do I know.

Hamilton of course responded, saying his problems were his fault and not his new management team’s fault. Duh.
But that’s not all the gossip involving Hamilton! Apparently Nicole Scherzinger still loves him despite their breakup. I personally always go to the press to tell everyone about how beautiful my ex-boyfriends are.

- Eric Boullier has hinted that it’s possible for Bruno Senna to be taking the reserve driver role at Lotus F1. Senna said that he would gladly accept the role if he couldn’t find a full-time drive elsewhere.

- Red Bull Racing plan to unveil their 2012 car on February 5, two days before the first testing session, according to French media.

- Caterham has released their logo for next season. You can see it here.

- Former driver JJ Lehto has been sentenced to a 28 month jail sentence for killing a friend in a boat crash. Lehto was drunk while operating the boat. He is appealing the sentence, claiming he was not the driver although the friend’s injuries indicated otherwise.

Lehto’s best result in F1 was a third place finish in 1991. He drove in the sport from 1989 to 1994. Outside of F1, he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice.

Photo from Flickr user nhayashida.

Kimi at the 2009 Singapore Grand Prix

The Formula 1 rumor mill this weekend is most excellent, isn’t it? (Although I think the creation of an east coast Grand Prix was more a matter of “when” and not “if” ever.)

After being spotted at the Williams HQ a couple weeks back, Kimi Raikkonen was supposedly back at in Grove  to get fitted for a seat. According to Finnish news, he’s also started intense training to get himself back in shape for Formula 1, as training for rallying would not require the same type of training (for instance, F1 requires much more out of the neck muscles). He also may already have some sponsors.

Supposedly, a deal for 2012 could be announced at next weekend’s Indian Grand Prix.

Kimi Raikkonen moved to the World Rally Championship after the 2009 Formula 1 season to make way for Fernando Alonso at Ferrari. He’s also dabbled in NASCAR, but ultimately has only raced once. He was the 2007 Formula 1 world champion.

If he does in fact go to the Williams team, he will likely be taking Rubens Barrichello’s seat. Pastor Maldonado has sponsorship money from the Venezuelan government so he’s not going anywhere just yet.

Also in seat taking news is the man who Maldonado replaced at Williams: Nico Hulkenberg. Hulkenberg, currently a reserve driver for Force India, is rumored to be taking the seat of Adrian Sutil next season. According to a couple sources, this is already a done deal, for 1 year with an option for 2013. Vijay Mallya has said previously that there will be no news of a 2012 driver lineup for his team until December. Then again Mallya said Force India wasn’t for sale, and days later the Indian conglomerate group Sahara bought a 42.5 percent stake in the team, so who knows.

Photo from Flickr user Aural Asia