McLaren MP4-28 + Various News

Lotus may have started off the car launches with the E21, but Woking based team McLaren hold the honour of starting off six consecutive days of car launches, a truly wonderful time for Formula 1 fans! I covered the launch live this morning and published a full report on Let's Talk F1. To see the new MP4-28 take a read by clicking here.



2014 Comeback For HRT (sort of)?

As the FIA published the 2013 season entries last November, Spanish outfit HRT were not included due to their financial instability and insecure future, thus only 11 teams will be appearing on the grid this season. 





However, an American/Canadian company called Scorpion have been attempting a buyout bid in order to salvage an entry onto the grid. Bernie Ecclestone even gave a nod to the bid but the FIA ruled out any possibility this year as the deadline is long gone, stating they will not accept any specialist circumstances. 

They shouldn't worry about pushing hard to get a 2013 slot because the regulations are more or less the same, meaning they would still be hopelessly uncompetitive. The best thing to do would be to develop a monster of a machine for the 2014 seismic shift in performance. They might even catch up with the rest of the pack!


Nurburgring Gastgeber 2013 Großen Preis (Nurburgring To Host 2013 Grand Prix).

Finally we have been guaranteed a German Grand Prix and will be returning to the wonderful Nurburgring!






Bernie Ecclestone has cast doubt over both the event and venue after the group who owns the circuit failed to raise the funds necessary. This means that we will most certainly have 19 races next season with the European venue still to be decided. Hopefully if anybody had any sense they'd be straight back to Hockenheim for both German tracks. That would be the definition of epic.

Time is Slowly Running Out

This is a message to Force India, Caterham and Marussia. It is time to get your finger out of your arses and get us a full driver line up. I'm sick to the death speculating, my #HireHeikki campaign has been working flat out (like 2 tweets every month, whatever), testing starts very soon and it's ridiculous how we don't know who's driving. I can't remember it every being this late!


The closest rumour I've heard yet is that Luiz Razia (pictured) has been linked to the Marussia seat but these are unconfirmed rumours and to be honest, I'd take Vitaly Petrov or dare I say it, Bruno Senna before another rookie. 

Force India launch their car tomorrow, I would like to think they would have the common courtesy for us the fans and Paul di Resta to name a second driver. I even think I'd take back Adrian Sutil at this late stage. 

Both Caterham and Marussia launch on the morning of the Jerez test on the 5th of February so at the end of the day, they have no choice but to name drivers soon.

This is however great for Max Chilton, Paul di Resta and Charles Pic as their team mates will be nothing more than a second thought, meaning the team will focus on them first.

Lotus E21

It's the day I have been waiting for since Brazil had ended! It's the time of year when teams start unveiling their brand new machinery for the season ahead. Lotus F1 opened the honour for us, live on YouTube and Sky Sports News. 

I provided live coverage on Twitter and now I'm going to review the Lotus E21. The 'E' stands for Enstone which is where the team is based, and the number is the amount of years the team and their previous incarnations have lived there. I watched the launch live on YouTube and the photos used are all screen shots from my laptop. The fact that teams are now unleashing their new beasts to the public is great and I loved seeing Kimi again, however it's not all highs as I'm about to explain. Here's my review of the Lotus E21 through live pictures.

The screen to the live feed on YouTube. The music was SO annoying!

The ceremony was supposed to be outside in a marquee, however due to heavy winds the event was moved in doors. It took the team only 90 minutes to do so. Well done to them!

Gerard Lopez, chairman of Lotus Formula 1 Team. He was discussing the success of last year and the ambitions for the upcoming season, including challenging both championships and placing 3rd overall.

Eric Boullier, Lotus F1 Team Principle. When discussing Kimi, he noted how he proved the doubters wrong, stating his motivation was nothing but well driven all season. When questioned about Romain Grosjean, he noted how great his qualifying results were but he also mentioned that he "raced well." Now correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the team principle sits at the side of the track and views both drivers performances live. Did he miss all of Grosjean's mishaps?! Particularly the one that nearly killed Fernando Alonso?! There were better drivers Eric, but making sure Romain knows he is without doubt a number 2 driver like Massa and Webber before him is a well thought through move.

James Allison, Lotus F1  Technical Director. More from him later.

Romain Grosjean. 3 podiums in 2012 including a second place in Canada.

Kimi Raikkonen 2007 Drivers World Champion. 7 podiums in 2012 including winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Notice the new Alpine Star race suit and the extra red.

Both drivers taking the cover off the brand new E21. For being the worlds fastest drivers, they took their time taking it off!

The first glimpse of the E21. Right after last season ended, Lotus announced a sponsorship deal with Coca-Cola owned energy drink Burn. The logo also appears on the drivers suits.

Continuing the iconic black and gold colours, we see the first hint of red on the side pod, but my worst fear had come true, the stepped nose is still there. More on that later.

The first full picture of the Lotus E21. What first struck me is the addition of the colour red. For me this is straying too far from the classic livery. 

A great angle. Notice Kimi's name above the drivers cockpit. Kimi is displayed on both sides, as is the number 7 (Grosjean is therefore number 8 as displayed on his cap).

Another shot of the rear.

Lotus were very coy in letting the camera men view the car, notice there are no shots of the diffuser . Hiding something are we team? Back to the stepped nose; Allison stated that the team had chosen to keep the stepped nose as the cosmetic cover they had trialled weighed several grams.  He noted until they find a material that won't affect the cars performance, they will run the stepped nose all season. I find this extremely disappointing, I was looking forward to seeing the return of our beautiful shaped cars but if it's not beneficial to run a cover, then most teams will follow suit. McLaren didn't have a stepped nose last year and their car was by far the best looking in terms of chassis. If I was Bernie or Jean Todt, I'd force both Sauber and Caterham to cover their cars. They were by far the most extreme and disgusting looking. 

A close up of Kimi's name on the side, I think it is a terrific touch, really impressed.

Kimi made a series of very important comments tonight. When asked about why he stayed, he simply replied "because of a contract." From the outside this sounds like he had no choice. However at the end he went on to say he was happy overall. Lopez made a very good comment early on when he stated Kimi was not "relaxed", rather he was in his perfect environment, and I believe this is why he's happy and proved every doubter wrong. You know who you are and I simply say: "ha." 

E21

Overall I'm not really impressed. When I think about Lotus, I think about Senna making his bones, Graham Hill winning the World Championship, 7 constructors championships and all in a black and gold livery. There is far too much red and I suspect it has something to do with Burn being named as a major sponsor. It doesn't affect the performance of the car but because it's my favourite team, I have a fancy for the body work.

As for the technical side of proceedings, I'm not one for spotting it from afar whenever it's not written on paper for me to make sense of. I've been told they are running double DRS this season after last seasons failed development.

Kimi Raikkonen in the 2013 attire.

I was quite negative about the event after it. The amount of red had me feeling blue and then I wanted to step through the TV to cover up the stepped nose but the aspect that ruined my night was the coverage. I hate Rupert Murdoch, he is a fascist and neo-Nazi in disguise. Murdoch owns Sky, bought all F1 rights off BBC meaning I can't watch all races live. You can probably tell, I do not like Sky. Essentially Sky F1 consists of Georgie Thompson wearing literally NOTHING, Ted Kavitz being the team's bitch and Martin Brundle taking centre stage, often leading the programmed to be called "The Martin Brundle Show." Damon Hill also dropped in my estimations with his association with the show. Simply put, I hate Sky.

Romain Grosjean in the 2013 attire,

Now you know why I hate sky, I'll tell you why tonight was a huge disappointment. The arrogance and ignorance of the presenter tonight was appalling. In true Sky spirit, he was rude enough to take the spotlight away from Lotus to ask everyone (INCLUDING MY KIMI) about Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes. Who does he think he is? How dare he actually be that despicable and try to cover a big issue because it's the only live time they'll get with a team. His ethics were horrible but what can you expect from a man employed by some of the worst men and women in history. Criminals in suits.

E21

I hope the rest of the launches go down better than this one, you can find the dates here for the rest of the launches.

E21

Don't forget, I am also a writer for Let's Talk F1 who are providing reviews similar to this one for every car launch. On the 31st of January I will be reviewing the McLaren MP4-28, so be sure to keep up to date with the site throughout the season as our talented group bring you awesome articles through a passion for the sport like none other. You can follow us @LetsTalkF1 on Twitter.

Same Story, Different Rubber

"The goal is to continuously set new challenges for the drivers and to ensure that all the teams start the season with a level playing field when it comes to the tyres." Paul Hembery, Pirelli Motorsport director.

On Wednesday, Formula 1's exclusive tyre manufacturers Pirelli unveiled their new range of 2013 tyres. For those of you who recall the Brazillian Grand Prix last year, the teams got a taste of the brand new orange wall tyre to test in free practice, with most teams noticing higher degradation. 

Pirelli made the start of last season unique, producing 7 different winners in the first 7 races. However the teams eventually cracked the code to unlocking less tyre wear and as a result we ended up with Sebastian Vettel boring us all again like he did in 2011. 

This years tyres ensure more pitstops with at least 2 per race. I'm not sure I like this too much. Yes it's all well and good bringing in more pit time to shake up the race, but I don't necessarily like the fact that there's more of a chance to lose a grand prix or position in the pits as opposed to seeing great overtaking on track. Kimi Raikkonen (last season) scored at least a point in every race except China because his tyres wore away on him unexpectedly  Granted this was not entirely Pirelli's fault and I'm no blaming them, but this is an example of how unpredictable they were and how they changed races. Raikkonen dropped from 2nd to 13th.

All tyres now have softer compounds, this means softer sidewalls and stronger shoulders, producing faster thermal degradation. For those who struggle with the technical aspects, this means tyres will reach their peak performance much sooner with Pirelli even quoting they will be half a second quicker than last years.

According to the Formula 1 Official Website the colours still represent the same compounds, with orange replacing silver as the hard wall tyre. I think it was absolutely ridiculous to have both white and silver markings, you couldn't tell the damn things apart!

A lot of fans have a real disdain for Pirelli and I can see why. Even God himself (Michael Schumacher) stated he had a hard time figuring them out. I had no issue with the tyres until Monza last year. What IDIOT decided to use the hard and medium only at the fastest track on the calendar. If you're going to have hard braking points which you do at Monza, for the love of all that is holy, bring compounds that'll wear quicker. Not the hardest you can find. There really is no excuse I don't care how technical or fancy anyone puts it.

I also found it interesting that each tyre has it's own individual bar code which acts as its 'identification' so the FIA can keep track and note who's using which tyre. Teams get 6 sets of the harder compound and 5 sets of the softer compound to use during a racing weekend.

Let's Talk F1

I am pleased to announce that as of last night I got accepted to write for a wonderful young Formula 1 website called Let's Talk F1!

I've now joined the ranks of a tremendously talented group of writers who share the passion for Formula 1 as I love to do through this blog.

My first story; Absentee Alonso is now up and live just click on the link and after that check out the rest of the site and the wonderful posts that have been made.

First post

If you're on Twitter you can follow us @LetsTalkF1. Say hello and chat to the lovely team.

It's a great pleasure of mine to be writing for a bigger audience through a bigger site. Don't worry, for those who regularly read this blog; I'll still be operating here and keeping it running providing opinion blogs, in depth race reviews and other features that I currently have planned.

Please check out and subscribe or favourite the sit to your desktop, you don't want to miss any great future articles from the team! 

Thank you for your continued support and I look forward to my new post!

Nathan Houston

Wishing Robert Kubica The Best Of Luck

I want to wish Robert Kubica the very best of luck in his new motorsport venture.

If you're unaware, read this great article from ESPN.

I hope to see him race in the DTM because he really was a future champion in the making, I can't help but wonder about a Raikkonen-Kubica partnership at Lotus. Kimi doesn't agree with many people, Robert may have been one of the only ones.

Maybe somebody single seater racing will be on the agenda, right now I'm just glad he's getting back on his feet.

Glock's Gone!

UPDATE: 

It appears Glock has turned towards the DTM driving for old F1 outfit BMW (ESPN). For those who are unaware, the DTM is the German version of touring cars and has had a number of former F1 stars such as David Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher.

I will personally miss him but since I have access to the DTM I am still excited to see him race and I'd like to wish him the best of luck!

Toto Weird Turn Of Events

"I just dread to think that a Motorsport lover will be replaced with somebody with money in their eyes" - My words from my blog on Norbert Haug's exit

I have to say, it doesn't take very much to confuse me but one of the biggest mind boggles I have ever come across is the world of business. So it's safe to say when the news about Toto Wolff apparently leaving his Williams post for Mercedes emerged, I scratched a hole in my head.

I'm not entirely sure about how confirmed it is, but my rule is if Autosport report it, it's probably right. To read their report, click here. 

It was to my understanding that he was going to become Sir Frank Williams successor, a move which I believe would have ushered in a new era of success at the team but it's not likely to be.

The more and more I learn about him, the more and more I start to like him. If he takes up the role, he'll effectively be replacing Nobert Haug who left Mercedes via mutual consent in December 2012. If you have been reading my blog you'll recall I wrote a piece on Haug's departure. If not, click here to read it.

It seems as though my fear has come true. At the end of the day, Wolff's a business man at heart ironically owning shares in Haug's DTM. How much will this affect the racing? My prediction, a lot.

Mercedes seem to be building a monopoly of total dominance: Once Schumacher was out of the way they started reshuffling the pack. They get rid of Haug and replaced him with Wolff, that covered the business end of things. It's a widely known fact that Niki Lauda is associated with the team, this covers the face and voice of Mercedes as he's a well known and respected character (I personally am a Hunt man but that's another story). And of course the biggest aspect to me and to the fans is the racing. Who did the team get to cover that? A man who many consider the quickest and best in Formula 1 at this current time. Lewis Hamilton has the racing covered.

Mercedes certainly have a hand to go all in with, but my guess is we won't see it this year. I think they'll break everyone in to their roles and quietly develop the revolutionary new engine for the season after. Then they spring their trap and complete a power shift, and as a factory team they, along with Ferrari and Lotus (Renault previously but they still have the factory relationship) will become the real power houses in the game. 

A new era is dawning and whatever anybodies opinion, there's no denying that Mercedes are certainly looking towards the future.

Heikki Kovalainen to stay at Caterham?

Could this tweet from Formula 1 driver Heikki Kovalainen mean that he is flying over to the UK to negotiate a new deal with Caterham?

Kovalainen has been expected to lose his seat to better funded former team mate Vitaly Petrov, following the appointment of Charles Pic for the other seat at minnow team Caterham.

However as ESPN F1 have reported Petrov's talks have stalled and have appeared to reach a brick wall.

After reading this tweet in the early hours of this morning I have become hopeful that Caterham have seen sense in that, yes funding brings greater boosts for development, but those developments will mean nothing if you have an inexperienced Pic and a below average Petrov driving for your team.

I hope Heikki keeps his seat because Caterham will lose the race to get the first point to Marussia.

Let The Games Begin

"In comparison with Seb [Vettel's] rising form, it seems to me that Mark's form somehow flattens out." - Helmut Marko on his own driver, Mark Webber

Yes you read correctly, in an interview with autosport, Red Bull's Motorsport advisor Helmut Marko actually criticised his own drivers form calling him inconsistent and says Webber fails under pressure. More on this later but I'd like to start off with his first interview when this story went live on Tuesday.

The blog title basically says it all, the games have indeed begun, the mind games. Pre Season testing hasn't even finished yet and we're already at each other with Mark accusing Fernando Alonso and Ferrari of being too political in their approaches. Click here to read the interview.

I have no hesitation in admitting that Ferrari are all about the politics, and I dare say it has won them a number of world championships, but that is all part of the Ferrari philosophy, anything to get a win! Was that not Enzo Ferrari's message to the team? But that's the team for you. I don't think there's any question that Fernando Alonso has the politics game bestowed upon him. Therefore I don't think it's fair to call him a political tactician just because he's been inducted to a team with this kind of ethos.

If he's looking for people who play the mind games I'll tell him directly; "Helmut! LOOK IN THE MIRROR." He's basing all his comments, all his insults on last season. If he had these issues last season then why didn't we hear from him last season? If Alonso and Ferrari were so keen on a little bit of mind warfare then why did't he join in then? The answer to these questions are because now he can start the mind games nice and early.

Ferrari had a dreadful pre season test last year and we all know the cause of it to be a fault in their wind tunnel giving out "up the left" data. Marko is probably thinking if they serve up the sneaky mind games now, Ferrari will be put on the back burner early on. They are very cheap words from a man who let's be honest, is more or less Dietrich Mateschitz's bitch. Harsh I will admit but true. He's being an absolute hypocrite and in this industry that will come back to bite him.

I also love the way he's hiding behind Red Bull's own magazine. Yeah Helmut, as if the rest of the world can't read it. He's almost like a highly paid idiot  And when I say almost, I mean he certainly is a highly paid idiot. His comments certainly didn't get by Fernando Alonso who hit back on twitter. I saw the tweet live from Fernando, but Eurosport have the whole scenario summed up nicely.

Back to the introduction, to start off with the final set of paragraphs is unorthodox I'll admit, but I genuinely couldn't believe what I was reading. To criticise your own driver by calling him inconsistent is beyond me.

I stood and watched Webber's Silverstone win and I seen his overtake on Fernando Alonso to win the race and I'll say this now, Webber is no lazy driver who falls under pressure.

That being said, it's no surprise he is what's known as a number 2 driver and when you've got a puppet like Sebastian Vettel, Mark is really only there to fill up numbers. But if you take a handful of number 2 drivers, Massa, Grosjean, Perez (at McLaren), Webber is by far the most talented out of the lot. In 2011 where Adrian Newey (for newer readers this is what I call Vettel) had his dominant year in the Red Bull who was the only driver keeping up with him? Webber in the sister Red Bull. He's also been better this year than in seasons gone by so I have no doubt or fear in saying that Marko has pulled these comments from his own backside.

If you take Williams, they supported Maldonado through ALL of his crashes and still maintain he is a good driver, they're wrong but they still support their driver.Lotus, after Grosjean nearly took out half the grid at Spa and after serving a one race ban, what did they do to show their support? They gave him a seat for 2013. Webber who won 2 races this season (one being Monte Carlo), didn't cause any major accidents, without his points tally Red Bull would not have won the constructors championship, bit his tongue yet again when Newey got all the attention and backing to win the drivers championship and he gets told by one of his superiors that he crumbles under pressure. What a joke. To top it all off there were even unconfirmed rumours that Red Bull are looking to replace Webber in 2014 with Nico Hulkenberg what these are unconfirmed, I have no proof to back this up so I can't comment too much but these rumours are getting louder.

Marko really needs to remind himself of who he is, he's the smaller devil that sits on the bigger devil's shoulders whispering him what the technicalities of Formula 1 mean. If he honestly thinks his games are going to impact the season in Red Bull's favour then he is sadly mistaken. This is the year Red Bull get toppled. You read it here first.

Sono Toro Rosso Pazzo?

Are Toro Rosso Crazy?

This blog comes before most of the Formula 1 teams launch their 2013 cars and it got me thinking about the Red Bull feeder team Toro Rosso. Don't ask me how, my mind works in mysterious ways.

Toro Rosso entered Formula 1 in 2006 when the Minardi team sold it's last stock over to Dietrich Mateschitz who owns the Red Bull beverage company and Toro Rosso's parent team Red Bull Racing (now Infiniti Red Bull Racing). The concept behind the team was to provide talent for the championship running team Red Bull. This is known as a "feeder team." Running V10 Cosworth engines in the 2006 season was a slight hiccup because the rest of the field were using V8 engines. However Toro Rosso managed to get out of it by using their poor financial situation as an excuse but this did not give them an advantage. Instead, the rest of the grid had developed the V8 engines to the point where they were more effective. However for 2007 the team ditched Cosworth and bought  Ferrari engines. After this they were known as Scuderia Toro Rosso, or STR for short.

Vitantonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed were the first two drivers after Liuzzi had a brief stint at Red Bull and Scott Speed was the selected driver from Red Bulls American Driver search. Neither driver made much of an impact and eventually Speed was replaced by none other than Sebastian Vettel. Vettel went on to get Toro Rosso's first and only race win in 2008 at Monza. His future success is objectional depending on how fickle you are.

The point of this blog is aimed at how Toro Rosso back their drivers. I feel sometimes it's unfair and often biased. It always seems to me that one driver is given a bigger back than the other. Take 2012 for example. Going back to 2011 before that, Daniel Ricciardo was given a break from being Toro Rosso test driver in 2010 and was handed a short spell driving for Hispania. He was dubbed the future Sebastian Vettel and there was a lot of hype surrounding him so no surprise he got a seat for Toro Rosso for the 2012 season. His partner was Jean-Éric Vergne, who had been the test driver in 2011. There was almost no mention of any future prospects for JEV, but presumably there shouldn't have to be any if you've been selected for Toro Rosso.

Yet despite the hype and media coverage surrounded his supposed future success, Ricciardo scored less points than his team mate. Granted he finished more races then Vergne and his scoring was more consistent, but Vergne scored higher points and in my opinion provide far more exciting moments. Ricciardo just appears cardboard in his driving, he's boring. Red Bull and Toro Rosso definately got it wrong when backing their drivers. It's also not the first time.

Despite scoring less points than his team mate, Jaime Alguersuari was a far more exciting driver than Sebastian Buemi (who was again supposed to be another Sebastian Vettel, although why anybody would want to be Sebastian Vettel is absolutely beyond me). Granted Buemi is now Red Bull test and reserve driver, Alguersuari is getting more running time when he tests for Pirelli, thus keeping him updated in a Formula 1 car. Had he got more of a backing from Toro Rosso he might even be in a full time drive now. These two drivers are also an example of how harsh and rash Toro Rosso can be. They both had decent seasons in 2011, but they were both discarded straight after whenever team principal Franz Tost decided that Toro Rosso were to become a young driver school. Does this mean that JEV and Ricciardo can be disposed of just as quickly? Only time can tell.

A possible solution to this is to adopt and operate an equal drivers policy. If you have no ambition to win world championships (Toro Rosso as a team overall) then why not say to both drivers "right, you're here to showcase your driving talents, show me what you've got," and then give each driver an equal playing field by giving them the same car parts, the same updates and development paths and parts and by telling them they are racing each other. Make it as even as is humanly possible for each of the drivers to see who really can be a future champion. That way there's no bias, no control and more importantly it'll provide real racing between two young stars. I think that can provide Toro Rosso with a platform to really prove their existence worth while.

You only need to go to the Toro Rosso website to see who has the bigger push. Ricciardo's photo is always on the site, and it's always him in interviews. But I understand some decisions may not ultimately rest in the hands of Toro Rosso and Franz Tost. Dietrich Mateschitz is a ruthless sports and Motorsport enthusiast, and more importantly a real winner at heart. There could be unbelievable pressure from him after the money he's invested in one driver over another and therefore he'd like to give him an advantage. But honestly I believe he'd like to see who's the best in an even playing field.