Greetings Internet,
The first tests of the year are underway over in Spain - over the first two days McLaren and Lotus have been the fastest teams. But in all reality the times we are seeing are probably not going to mean a whole lot when things get started properly in Australia, those people who are running off to the betting shop and throwing all kinds of money on Button and Grosjean to walk to the title will never see their money ever again. What the opening weekend of pre-season testing does provide however is the first glance at what the teams have been developing over the winter, and perhaps some rough estimation of a general order. For example Marussia have been a constant two seconds off the back of the entire grid - so things do not look particularly promising. Especially considering that HRT have vanished, and the vague rumour of 'Scorpion GP' has faded into the mysticism from whence it came, Marussia have no-one to race back there. I can gradually hear the opening bars of Kim Jong Il's 'I'm so ronery' sweeping through the garage, precluding what could be a dire season.
Moving on from the gloomy isolated realm at the bottom of the grid, this latest post is aimed at going through the new models that have arrived for the first test of the season.
New Cars of 2013
Red Bull have gone purple, which is probably the biggest change on the car. Well if it isn't broken, there is nothing to fix, and Adrian Newey could make a coffee table a race winning entry. Flurries of internal rumours always cover the roles of Vettel and Webber and relative equality. Nothing seems too different on the surface, but it can be safely assumed that in the maze of corporate secrecy, there is something going on. Something that would probably lead to that German bloke winning again...
The 2012 Ferrari was an abomination, looked appalling and didn't drive any better. Yet somehow Alonso won races and Felipe took the bonus points championship. This chassis is a massive improvement, and looks impressive. Ferrari are borrowing Toyota's wind tunnel now rather than the reduced scale in house approach. Perhaps a little early to declare Fernando the 2013 champion...
Having lost Hamilton to another silver car, McLaren have imported One-Stop Perez as a replacement. Button on the other hand lead the first day of testing, so early indications that this is another rather quick car. If lewis has taken all the reliability gremlins to Germany with him then this car could be immediately on the pace with Ferrari and Red Bull, and interestingly some resurgent pace from Lotus.
We've already seen Lotus' 2013 evolution of the car - the E21, like McLaren it has shown some preliminary pace. Even before Kimi has been placed in the car. Again this is not much of a change from the last entry from the team, but the folk at Endstone have set themselves some high targets of finishing in the top three teams at the end of the season. The vagaries of the Jerez times suggest that this may be plausible.
This what the Mercedes is supposed to look like, but Hamilton has placed his in the barrier so it is now misshapen. As with so many of the other cars, the livery and design remains identical, with the remodelling of the nose for the vanity panel. Having seen their fancy DRS system not produce the advantage they hoped, focussing on the car as a whole might help. If Lewis can keep all the wheels on it this time.
This is the Force India with Paul Di Resta who presently has no friends, the team haven't given him one yet. A completely random name in the form of James Rossiter has been in the car in testing but there is apparently a long list lining up for the second seat. Including Sutil, Bianchi, and Kobayashi. The car itself has been quick in testing, not that anything can be deduced from that, but whoever has enough money will have a decent car to play with this season.
The people over at Sauber have run out of white paint and gone for a more sinister livery this year, as they have gone to the dark side. Which actually looks cool. Additionally Sauber have a unique nose solution creating a stepped vent in the slope, something in between the steps of 2012 and the vanity panel lots of people have taken. Perhaps they are onto something, harnessing the power of darkness into a car powered by pure evil. Firing Kobayashi was a bad move, but this goes some way in forgiving that action.
Torro Rosso have dubbed their new entry the STR8 - catering to a younger market with that. Also they've released the sharpest nosecone in all of history, hoping to impale the competition instead. Not sure why they've attached a blade to the front of the car, but maybe it'll work - not that the testing data corroborates that theory. Sticking with Ricciardo and Vergne STR have one of the more consistent line-ups, so if stabbing everyone fails, there is a change trying to apply pace, maybe a little bit.
Despite having the slowest car in testing by a large margin, Marussia have come up with a nice looking car. As it happens, one of the few teams to redesign the car significantly the early rewards have not been very successful at all. Piloted by a lot of money named Chilton, and the recently revealed Luis Razia from GP2 in the other car, doesn't look like changing that. Destined to a life alone at the back - yet still managing to have more friends than Di Resta at Force India.
The final release belongs to Caterham, who apparently forgot to make a car and left the old one outside. The colours have faded in the sun and no really changes have been taken into effect. Pic was announced last year, but before the first test it was confirmed that Kovalainen had been fired and replaced. Meaning that the entire back of the grid is to be filled with people who are predominantly there due to funding. It's disturbing yet inevitable, so don't expect too much of an improvement over the course of the year.
There is one omission from this list, which is Willams, who haven't released a 2013 car, and have been turning up to testing with the 2012 version painted to look like the planned new release. Which is to say there is virtually no difference, dominated in part by Maldonado's funding from Venezuela. One the whole only The Sauber Empire have made a marked change to the livery, as they slide into the dark side.
Other things.
Last time there was some speculation that there would be a replacement 20th race, since New Jersey wasn't ready to host the race - the event of Hurricane Sandy has further dented that race. There was also issues surrounding the German GP, but that has now been settled to be held at the Nurburgring, where it was supposed to happen. The only other track news is that Sochi is on target to host the first ever Russian GP in 2014, brining the total up to 20 races - which does call into question which race is going to go missing if New Jersey is also going to be on the calendar as well. The finger of doubt is wavering towards Spain and Germany, and hopefully not Belgium - because Spa is awesome.
Work has started on designing the 2013 blogmobile livery, and that does mean that chassis has been chosen and draft liveries have been developed. There is a small section of the template which refuses to co-operate so I shall depart now and work on that, so until next time this is farewell from the blog.
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