Tag: Force India

Categories
Caterham F1 in pictures Ferrari Lotus McLaren Mercedes-Benz Red Bull Racing Toro Rosso

2014 Bahrain Grand Prix in pictures

2014 Bahrain Grand Prix

It took almost 58 years for Mercedes to repeat its 1-2 podium result from 1955. And after doing so in Malaysia last week it took just seven days to do it all over again in Bahrain, a world away from the era Juan Manuel Fangio once ruled.

Lewis Hamilton collected his second win on the bounce and it seems the only thing that can stop the two Mercedes AMG drivers will be each other. If they keep up that spectacular on track dicing it won’t be too long until the pair come to blows.

After the break you can relive the first night time race in Bahrain and the 900th grand prix of the modern era.

Continue reading “2014 Bahrain Grand Prix in pictures”
Categories
Formula 1 Mercedes-Benz

2014 Bahrain GP: Post-race press conference

2014 Bahrain Grand Prix

The post-race press conference from the Bahrain Grand Prix features questions mostly aimed at race winner Lewis Hamilton and his teammate Nico Rosberg. As you might expect many of the questions concentrate on their close racing. We would have loved it, though, if someone asked: “Your relationship seems close and friendly now, but if you keep wheel-to-wheel racing like that what happens if, or when, you guys make contact, how will that affect your relationship?”

Meanwhile, with perhaps another lap or two Daniel Ricciardo may have been able to get his Red Bull onto the podium. Instead we’ll have to make do with his comments from the team’s press release.

“It was an awesome race; it was exciting,” Daniel said. “I think the first stint was a bit follow-the-leader, but from the second stint onwards, the race really started to turn up the heat and there were more battles going on in front and behind—it was good to be a part of them.

“We got close to the podium today, I think within half a second, so I was doing all I could. The car came to me as the race went on and I was happy with how I moved up through the pack, so a good day.

“It was good fun to race Sebastian, it was hard but fair and we left each other room. That’s what we want from each other and we discussed it beforehand, we’re racers and that’s what we enjoy doing.”

It’s also worth hearing Sebastian’s words, given he was overtaken for position by his younger and more inexperienced teammate.

“Daniel proved that there was a little bit more to get from the car today,” Vettel explained. “I couldn’t really get to that bit, so I’m not so happy with my day.

“It was straight forward with Daniel today, we worked well together as a team and we raced well, but surely I would like to have finished higher up.”

The transcript of the post-race press conference featuring the first three drivers is available in full after the break.

Continue reading “2014 Bahrain GP: Post-race press conference”
Categories
Caterham F1 in pictures Ferrari Lotus McLaren Mercedes-Benz Red Bull Racing Toro Rosso

2014 Malaysian Grand Prix in pictures

2014 Malaysian Grand Prix

Can you believe it’s over 58 years since we saw a Mercedes driver on steps one and two of a Formula 1 podium, that was at the final race of the 1955 season, the Italian Grand Prix.

Back in 1955 Mercedes won 70% of the races in the season and Juan Manuel Fangio won the third of his five world championships. The mighty W196 silver arrow was powered by 2.5 litre straight eight producing 220kW at 8500rpm.

Now, some 21,386 days after the last Mercedes 1-2, the podium feat has been repeated. Not at a legendary racetrack in Europe, but in Malaysia. Using a 1.6 litre turbocharged V6 engine mated to an arsenal of energy recovery systems that would make Fangio’s head spin. That’s if he knew what the hell it all meant in the first place.

At least we know Juan Manuel would have loved logging into AUSmotive to relive the race in pictorial form. And that’s what you can do after the break as well.

“What’s that Juan; how can you see all these photos?”

“It’s called the internet.”

Continue reading “2014 Malaysian Grand Prix in pictures”
Categories
Caterham Ferrari Formula 1 Lotus McLaren Mercedes-Benz Red Bull Racing Toro Rosso

Quick reference guide to the 2014 F1 season

We’re just a couple of sleeps away from the start to the most unpredictable Formula 1 season in recent memory. Is anyone else excited?!

Judging by pre-season testing form we’ll be lucky if half of the 22 cars entered in Melbourne finish the race. Remember, too, there’s just five complete power units available per driver all year, so we suspect reliability will have a big say in the outcome of both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships.

After the break you’ll find a full calendar with start Australian Eastern start times, a list of all the drivers and their new permanent numbers along with links to all of the new cars for 2104.

Right now it looks like the Mercedes power unit is the weapon of choice, with Renault proving the least reliable. Let’s see what happens between now and 23 November when double points are up for grabs at the final race in Abu Dhabi.

For easy reference be sure to save this link: ausm.tv/f1guide2014

Continue reading “Quick reference guide to the 2014 F1 season”
Categories
Formula 1

F1 winter testing: Bahrain II day 2

Sergio Perez, Force India VJM07

Sergio Perez (1:35.570) has once again showed the field a clean pair of heels in F1 testing at Bahrain overnight. The Force India driver covered 108 laps in another productive day where several teams had problems of varying degrees.

“It feels very good to have another full day and to do so many laps,” the 24-year-old Mexican said. “It’s my last time in the car until we arrive in Melbourne and I’m feeling positive about how things are going.

“The set-up work today was very useful because we tried some different things to have a better direction for the first race. Everything went to plan and we managed to complete all the long runs in the afternoon.”

Fernando Alonso (1:35.634) got close to Sergio’s fastest lap and was the busiest man of the day, completing 122 laps. In very promising signs for struggling Red Bull, Daniel Ricciardo (1:35.743) was third fastest and managed 66 laps, easily his best return this pre-season on his last day in the RB10 before the Australian Grand Prix.

Daniel was late out in the morning as the team fixed some issues from the day before and his early session was spent doing pit stop practice. In the afternoon things picked up for the young Aussie.

“It went a lot better today,” said Daniel. “In the afternoon we did some good stuff. We had a go on the soft tyre, which was nice, to see how the car responds with a bit more grip. We also did one long run at the end, which was very important, just to see how the car is behaving with the tyres.

“A big improvement everywhere over yesterday and a much more optimistic outlook now I think. We still have a lot to learn and understand, but we’re making progress and the past two days have been a big step in the right direction.”

Felipe Massa (1:36.507) went fourth fastest and valued every one of his 103 laps. On paper a return of 52 laps and the fifth quickest lap for Jenson Button (1:36.901) seems like a good day, but his schedule was interrupted with gearbox issues.

Jules Bianchi (1:38.092) put in a solid showing for Marussia, going sixth fastest and notching up a very respectable 75 laps.

Similar to Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton (1:39.041) had transmission problems and his day ended early, although the Mercedes driver still managed 89 laps.

Jean Eric-Vergne (1:39.636) and Esteban Gutierrez (1:39.976) were eighth and ninth fastest for Torro Rosso and Sauber respectively.

The Renault-powered cars of Pastor Maldonado (Lotus, 1:41.613) and Marcus Ericsson (Caterham, 1:42.516) were not only the slowest of the day, both drivers had early showers after their cars caught fire.

There’s now only two days of testing before the year’s first grand prix and you sense that no team is 100% confident at this stage. It’s going to be interesting reading between the lines of the teams’ reactions over the last days of winter testing.

Continue reading “F1 winter testing: Bahrain II day 2”
Categories
Formula 1

F1 winter testing: Bahrain II day 1

Sergio Perez, Force India VJM07

Just like last week a Force India VJM07 has topped the timesheets on the opening day of testing in Bahrain. This time it was Sergio Perez (1:35.290) who went fastest, managing a healthy 105 laps as well.

“We really needed a good day to start this week and today we had it,” Perez said. “We managed to do a lot of laps, try several different compounds and mappings, and it’s been a fantastic day in terms of learning about the car.

“Tomorrow is my last day in the car before the season starts so hopefully we can have another solid day to be in good shape for Melbourne.”

It’s often said you can never read too much into pre-season form, but after nine days of testing the form line is pretty clear. Mercedes power is best, followed by Ferrari and you’re in strife if you have a Renault V6 power unit.

Reliability is clearly going to be an issue this year and Perez aside most teams came away from testing overnight with a few grumbles.

Valtteri Bottas (1:36.184) went second quickest in the Mercedes-powered Williams FW36, with Kimi Raikkonen (1:36.432) a couple of tenths behind in the Ferrari.

All Mercedes-powered cars completed at least 89 laps, with Bottas racking up 128, more than anyone else. Adrian Sutil covered the most miles in a Ferrari-powered car, doing 89 laps in the Sauber C33; even Max Chilton in the hitherto troublesome Marussia MR03 managed 44 laps.

An upbeat Daniel Ricciardo (1:37.908) was the fastest of the Renault-powered runners, but was only seventh best on the day. He was able to finish 39 laps, although exhaust problems interrupted his afternoon session which consisted of only seven laps.

“Behind the wheel, that’s the best I’ve felt so far,” Daniel said. “The package seems to be coming together better. We still had a few issues today, but at least when the car was on track it was much more useful running and we made progress in the morning.

“It’s getting there. I’d love to keep going, but at least Seb has two days after me in the car, so I think we’ll be looking pretty good for the next three days.”

The slowest three cars on the day were the Renault-powered cars of Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso), Pastor Maldonado (Lotus) and Kamui Kobayashi (Caterham).

Continue reading “F1 winter testing: Bahrain II day 1”
Categories
Formula 1

F1 winter testing: Bahrain I day 1

Nico Hulkenberg, Force India VJM07

Nico Hulkenberg set the fastest time on the opening day of F1 pre-season testing in Bahrain overnight. It’s the first of two four-day blocks of testing at the Sakhir circuit and Mercedes-powered cars continued to dominate proceedings, following on from last month’s testing in Jerez.

Hulkenberg registered 78 timed laps in the Force India VJM07, his fastest was 1:36.880. That was one second quicker than Fernando Alonso (1:37.879) who completed 64 laps in the Ferrari F14 T. Lewis Hamilton (1:37.908) did 74 laps in the Mercedes AMG W05, while new boy Kevin Magnussen (1:38.295) racked up 81 laps in the McLaren MP4-29.

Sebastian Vettel (1:40.224) was fifth fastest overnight and will be elated that he managed to complete a timed lap in the Red Bull RB10. Yet the world champion team has new struggles after its woeful performance in Jerez. Vettel only managed 14 laps and said shared his thoughts afterwards.

“We sorted out the issues from Jerez and we were able to do some laps today,” Vettel said. “However, very often you fix one problem and another pops up, which is what happened. That’s testing. We all knew this year was a massive challenge and we knew it would be difficult. We obviously didn’t want this, but it is what it is and we are working flat out to solve the problems.”

Andy Damerum, Red Bull’s Race Engineering Co-ordinator tried to remain positive. “It’s been a very long two weeks for everyone back at the factory and I have to say that while it might not appear so on the surface there has been a big improvement since Jerez,” he explained. “We are obviously playing catch-up and for us this was very much like a first test, so we were sending the car out to do one lap, then two and trying to build from there.

“In that regard the laps completed were good. However, we were sidelined by a mechanical gremlin but one unrelated to the issues in Jerez.”

Sixth fastest was Adrian Sutil (1:40.443), who ran for 82 laps in the Ferrari-powered Sauber C33. The most laps completed by a Renault-powered driver was Robert Frijns (1:42.534) in the Caterham CT05 who notched up 64 laps.

However, the other Renault-powered cars didn’t fare quite so well. Daniil Kvyat (1:44.346) could only manage five laps in the Toro Rosso STR9, while Romain Grosjean (1:44.832) did just eight laps in the first outing for the Lotus E22.

Meanwhile, the Williams FW36 could not repeat its strong form from Jerez with Felipe Massa failing to record a lap time in any of his five laps. Similarly, Marussia driver Jules Bianchi completed only three laps and failed to record a time.

Continue reading “F1 winter testing: Bahrain I day 1”
Categories
Caterham Ferrari Formula 1 McLaren Mercedes-Benz Red Bull Racing Toro Rosso

F1 winter testing: Jerez days 1 and 2

Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel

After two days of winter testing in Jerez what have we learned about the Formula 1 class of 2014, specifically these horrid looking new cars? Well, not a lot to be honest.

On day 1 most teams struggled and only 93 laps were completed by the teams in attendance, and none at all by McLaren. Kimi Raikkonen (1:27.104) was fastest in his return for Ferrari and ran the most number laps on the day at just 31. Lewis Hamilton (1:27.820) sent his Mercedes towards the top of the lap charts in his 18 laps before sending it into the wall after a front wing failure.

“We had a lot of new things to learn today,” Raikkonen said afterwards. “Even if we would have liked to do more laps, I think that for a first day it was alright. Towards the end, when the track was damp, we chose not to take any risks. Now we have a lot of work ahead of us, but all in all, we are pleased with our first day.”

After the leading two drivers times spread out with not much insight to be gained, other than there’s a lot of work to do. Sebastian Vettel and Marcus Ericsson, for example, only ran installation laps and didn’t set any times at all.

Things have become a little clearer on day 2, with all Renault powered teams experiencing problems while Ferrari and Mercedes powered cars gained an early advantage. Overnight rain saw Pirelli bring forward their designated wet weather session and trucks were sent out to ensure the track had sufficient water for testing purposes.

Jenson Button and McLaren had a good day, registering the fastest time in the morning’s wet session and also in the afternoon (1:24.165) when the track was dry.

The 2009 world champion spoke enthusiastically about the MP4-29 afterwards, too. “Of course, it’s still early days, and there’s a lot of work ahead of us,” Button said. “We need to work on both braking and traction; but that excites me, because there’s a lot of potential to adjust those parameters.

“The new braking system is very complicated, and getting it right will be tough. But these are all things we can work on: there’s nothing about the car that unsettles me, and there’s plenty of scope to explore the set-up. It will just take time.”

Kimi Raikkonen (1:24.812) was on the pace again during his 47 laps, cutting more than 2 seconds from his day 1 best. Valtteri Bottas (1:25.344) has had limited running during his two days, just 12 laps in all, but he has been third quickest on both days.

While only fourth fastest on day 2, Nico Rosberg (1:25.588) and Mercedes were happy with their lot. Rosberg racked up an impressive 97 laps, 44 more than his nearest rival, including some beneficial long runs.

“Every lap is important to get used to the new systems and it helped a lot that I have worked on this already in the simulator,” explained Rosberg. “We don’t know yet where we are compared to the other teams, but we can be quite happy after the first two days of testing here in Spain. Now I look forward to getting back in the car on Friday.”

Meanwhile the Renault powered cars managed just 19 laps between them (11 for Caterham, 8 for Red Bull and 0 for Toro Rosso). On day 1 only 19 laps were registered for the Renault runners as well (15 for Toro Rosso, 3 for Red Bull, 1 for Caterham), which will be cause for early concern.

Lotus isn’t an attendance at all for the Jerez test, choosing to wait until testing moves to Bahrain. Marussia is hoping to run its car tonight.

Photos and lap times are available after the break.

UPDATE: Pics from day 2 have now been added below.

Continue reading “F1 winter testing: Jerez days 1 and 2”
Categories
Formula 1

2014 Force India VJM07 revealed

2014 Force India VJM07

Force India has given its 2014 F1 car, the VJM07, its first public showing prior to taking to the track at Jerez tonight. The VJM07 was one of the first F1 cars we saw for the year and at the time the full horror of the front nose designs was yet to be revealed. And that is certainly the case for the Force India challenger.

As they say, once you go black, you can’t go back. And while the official Force India pics don’t yet show the full scale of its front nose we’ve added another pic below to show you what is actually quite a comical solution.

You have to laugh, really. There’s not much else you can do.

Continue reading “2014 Force India VJM07 revealed”
Categories
Formula 1

2014 Force India VJM07 previewed

2014 Force India VJM07

Force India has given us the first look yet at Formula 1’s new world order by releasing this image of its 2014 F1 car, the VJM07.

On this evidence fears that the new regulations would result in yet another round of ugly duckling cars seem unfounded. Although, full judgement will need to wait until we have more than a simple side profile shot.

You’ve probably also noticed the change in livery for Force India with what was a predominantly white car in 2013 now having a black base. There’s a bunch of new sponsors too and you can read about them in the official statement after the break.

For now, though, we’re giving the 2014 F1 car a qualified tick of approval. There’s more big reveals scheduled for the coming days, including McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull. We can’t wait to see more.

UPDATE 28 January: See more pics of the VJM07 here.

Continue reading “2014 Force India VJM07 previewed”
Categories
Formula 1

Sergio Perez joins Force India for 2014 and beyond

Sergio Perez and Vijay Mallya

Force India has confirmed the signing of former McLaren driver Sergio Perez on the now seemingly ubiquitous “multi-year deal”. Checo will join Force India’s other new signing Nico Hulkenberg.

Today’s news leaves both of Force India’s drivers from 2013, Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil, looking for work.

Perez has already worked out it’s nice to play up to his new boss Vijay Mallya. “It’s great to announce my new team as Sahara Force India,” he said. “Coming here was always my first choice and I’m really happy everything has now been confirmed.

“I want to say thank you to Vijay and the whole team for giving me the opportunity. This is a young team with a lot of determination and they’ve produced competitive cars for the last few years. It’s all change for next season with the new regulations, but I already have a good feeling about 2014.”

Continue reading “Sergio Perez joins Force India for 2014 and beyond”
Categories
Formula 1

Nico Hulkenberg returns to Force India for 2014

Vijay Mallya and Nico Hulkenberg

It looks like 2014 is the year of the return. Kimi Raikkonen is returning to the scene of his 2007 world championship at Ferrari, while Nico Hulkenberg is returning to the scene of his, erm, fourth place with Force India.

Of coruse, the arrival of Hulkenberg to Force India means at least one of Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil will be looking for work next year. Force India says their full driver line up will be announced in the fullness of time, or something.

Hulkenberg spent a year as a test driver with Force India in 2011 after his debut season with Williams. He managed to land full driver status with the team in 2012 before switching to Sauber this year.

Being described as a “multi-year deal” Hulkenberg will be hoping his second stint with Force India will bear fruit.

“The team is aiming high for next year and I believe that the experience I have gained over the years will help us achieve those goals,” he said. “I genuinely believe we can have a competitive package in 2014. I’ve heard a lot of positive things about the Mercedes engine as well, so I think there is a lot to be excited about for next year.”

Full statements and video from Force India can be found below. You know it’s funny, Formula 1 is all about massive budgets, innovation and total precision, so you’d think they’d be able to turn a mobile phone around…

Continue reading “Nico Hulkenberg returns to Force India for 2014”