Winter Updates 6

Greetings Internet,

Well after a more than slight delay I have returned once more, there was a more pressing matter of a performance to take care of it certainly went well. Although I think people who write reviews are naturally angry people with a malicious mind, three stars my bottom - not that I got a mention. Those were very noteworthy 30s of stage presence, in an actual theatre with seats that actually contained an audience - quite a miraculous sight really.

Alas I digress once more, stage is all to often a distraction, addictively at times - but time to bring things back now to the actual purpose of this little corner of the internet considering the world of racing is starting to warm up once more. Over in America the mad world of NASCAR had it's first race mid-week in preparation for the Daytona 500 at the weekend - and already one car ended up upside down with Jeff Gordon at the wheel. Likely a pattern for the rest of the superspeedway events of the season. Also the much more entertaining Australian V8 supercar season isn't too far away on the streets of Adelaide in a very entertaining and often manic event.

Now back to the main game, and everything now is set in place, all the cars are ready and all the drivers have been selected with a slight change at Caterham racing and HRT finishing their line up. However before I get onto that time to catch up on the other car releases that have taken place in the down-time the blog has taken in the past fortnight.

The Grid Part 2


Last time out we saw a lot of cars being released with unusual forehead shaped protrusions leaping out of the front nose section. developed as a result regulations governing the low height of the end of the nosecone. Almost all of the cars revealed here on the blog have incorporated this feature, with the only degree of sanity and normalcy coming from McLaren developing a normal nose section. However would they be alone, well lets have a belated look back at the other competitors

First up the newest release from Sauber and despite seeing a large amount of these new odd looking cars this doesn't look any better. In fact this looks rather awful, though the dull grey finish to the nose might be accentuating the disfigurement. Where the front half of the chassis looks a little angular and reminiscent of lego brick design Sauber have, along with Caterham brought the sharpest of these noses to the grid, almost pointy enough to be contained in a serial killers dismemberment kit.

After seeing the Sauber we move on now to their mid-field rivals from Torro Rosso - existing as a separate entity from the all dominant partner team of Red Bull the team have had to produce their own machine in recent years rather than RBR spare parts. So here is their contender for the current season .

The nose may not be visible so much in this shot but the forehead present on all the other cars remains something like the one on the Force India car. But was is worth looking at are the unusual sidepods that have been exaggerated in this edition. Seemingly more undercut than normal exposing more of the floor of the car. A design which is slimmer than a lot of the other cars with thinner side pod sections. When the car is stationary the car seems elongated in the second half of the car, but in motion the effect may be reduced.

From the smaller sub-team to the main championship winning offensively dominant Red Bull racing team, looking to see what the beat designers have come up with, looking for some validation that this odd nose ramp forehead thing would end up on the front car. Well Adrian Newey clearly thought it was a good idea...

It seems like the title contending car is an accumulation of several components of other cars looking to achieve the best of all worlds. The forehead and nose structure echo that of Ferrari mixed with Lotus yet the sidepods are part Torro Rosso and part McLaren. Not the traditional interpretation of a hybrid but follows the general format of all the other cars on the grid for the upcoming season. However there is likely lots of clever things going on underneath the carbon fibre uniform.

Next up we have one of the season regulars and traditional entrants in the form of Williams, often languishing just in front of the newer teams towards the back of the grid. At the tail end of division two struggling to compete with the mid-field and retaining the services of pay drivers to fund the team, and this is their 2012 entry.

Surprise, surprise another weird looking nose going on here with the addition of a platypus beak attachment. In contrast to the more refined shapes at the front of the grid from Ferrari and Red Bull. One thing worth noting about this car is that it seems to be one of the only vehicles still using a fin on the back of the engine covers. Lots of the cars so far have had rounded edge on the cover without the thin spinal section of bodywork extending out over the rear suspension and gearbox area.


Moving a little further up the grid now, just as Sky Tv plays another of their commercials marking their theft of half of 2012 from the BBC and a lot of fans - curse them. Anyway next up we have Mercedes and their entry, which was released a lot later than the cars so far, after the opening test in Jerez.

Looking at the photo, the forehead on the Mercedes seems more extreme than some of the others. Also the beak section is more rounded, and certainly narrower than some, especially the Williams one above. The wing supports on the Mercedes are more refined and less linear than the others. With the exception of the seemingly oversized elevation change at the front, this looks like one of the better forehead cars. All of them falling behind the regular sloping design of the McLaren.


That leaves two cars left to unveil, both from the newer teams HRT and Marussia - however both these teams are currently testing in Barcelona with their 2011 spec vehicles as the updates haven't been released. More than likely the HRT car won't be seen until the actual race in Australia and will be built out of paper mache - the same thing that is holding the Lotus team's chassis together at the moment as they encounter de-laminating problems. As for Marussia, not entirely sure - reckon there is a date around here somewhere but haven't really looked for it, however as it will be designed through CFD the outcome will be interesting.

Driver updates


Couple of changes to add to the roster one I was expecting to be announced considering the space remained empty and one surprising change to the grid. First up the last spot in the HRT line up will be taken by Indian driver Narain Karthekeyan - one of the drivers who was shuffled around in the 2010 and the 2011 seasons in Hispania's musical chairs system of driver placings. Sadly of course Narain doesn't have a proper car yet and will be made of duct tape when it finally does arrive, as the prototype failed the crash tests - not a good sign really. We saw the 2011 car crash in Monaco and the rear of it disintegrated as if it were a reject from blue peter.

Still in the same division, but at the other end of proceedings - changes are afoot for Caterham racing where their pairing of experience in the form of Kovalainen and Trulli has been altered a little. Considering Heikki's dominance of the team and finding speed that the car probably shouldn't have even making Q2 at some of the events of the season, his seat was safe. Jarno's position however, was less so and he has been ejected in favour of Renault Squadron escapee Wing-Commander Petrov. Which at least means some of the renaming convention can be carried over from that team, although I liked the idea of Renault-Squadron but a new season shall bring forth new naming conventions I expect.

Looking a little outside the realm of F1 to an extent - Rubens Barrichello formerly of Williams has paid a visit to America and performed some pre-season tests in the Indycar season with KV racing - the team running the legendary Takuma Sato and series veteran Tony Kanaan. Rubens is currently looking for sponsorship to get drive in the series, in a car I am still hoping will be developed by a modding team somewhere and be used as the new blogmobile for 2012. But no-one seems to have produced one yet, but it is early days.



Speaking of the 2012 blog progression here in blog HQ, this year I have a full compliment of tracks for the season including India and the new track in Texas - if it goes ahead. Also I have updated the on screen graphics for the lap videos with DRS (not sure if the DRS plugin will work on the current blogmobile as it is a 2007 champcar). So until the next update, this is farewell for now.