Adrian Newey

RB9 launch – politics and a big mystery

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Lack of effort

The Red Bull launch has been received in a number of different ways. The preview video, ‘The rhythm of the factory’ (check it out in F1 Forensic) seems to have gone down quite well. This was the pre-cursor to the big live unveil. I have spoken to Christian, and he accepts the reveal of the car in the video could have been better – more like in the TJ13 video – with some more effort from the RB graphics team, and the matter has been duly noted for 2014.

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Stewards back slapping, Vettel suit sells for $18,000, Gascoyne enters the danger zone, 2013-14 rules and who this helps, Austin want a new date, Turkey 2013 agreed

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Win 2 hospitality passes to Silverstone 2013 and vote for thejudge13 at the Silverstone Media Awards: “Best F1 Blogger” category. Here’s where to vote, Facebook users www.facebook.com/SilverstoneCircuits. Non-Facebook users (Link). Voting closes 12:00 hrs on 11 December, 2012.

FIA Stewarding: It appears that Charlie and the Stewards are feeling rather pleased with themselves with regard to the rather narrow topic of penalties. I hope we hear a little more on race management as a whole. Anyway here is the FIA release.

At a meeting chaired by F1 Race Director Charlie Whiting, the stewards praised the recent introduction of readily available real-time telemetry and added that the presence of former and current racing drivers on the stewarding panels has been a benefit. 

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Interlagos: Race review

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Predictable unpredictability

I have no intention of producing a detailed lap by lap, stop by stop report – the BBC and others have the resources to do that better than I do. Yet what has happened to F1 in the past few years? 6 of the last 8 WDC’s have been decided on the last race of the season.

This is the antithesis of what preceded when I almost stopped watching the sport after the borefest of Ferrari dominance from 1999-2005. Madmax Moseley changed something, and it was definitely for the better. My guess it was the beginning of engine restrictions in 2005 and then everything flowed from there.

@F1photographer was mocking those of us who have spent all week checking out weather forecast reports – because 1 hour before the race it was sunny. Having searched for and studied websites I didn’t know existed like some saddo trying to glean 3-4 day forecasts for the weekend, I didn’t take kindly to the picture man’s sneers. For example, The Brazilian ‘National Institute for space research’ is a most interesting proposition and a great read for those who suffer the ignominy of insomnia.

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Mallya on cash hunt, Storms now set for Interlagos decider, Austin 2013 now a double clash, Cash machines answer to Korea GP losses, Coca-Cola & Lotus for 2013

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Editor’s note: Many sites run driver polls after each race and we have done a couple. I’m not sure if it’s what thejudge13 readers want though. Let me know your thoughts. I am going to run 3 driver of the year polls – I’m thinking of splitting it into 1 poll for the bottom 4, 1 for the middle 4 and 1 for the top 4 teams.

Further, the end of season is swiftly upon us, and it may be there are not articles every day from thejudge13 after next week. So to save you from visiting the site unnecessarily – why not sign up for email notification (right hand side bar – top) and you will get an email when a new article is uploaded. I have no access to the email addresses submitted as in the software there is a ‘widget’ handles this.

Just in 17:18 GMT: Red Bull maybe using some fancy rear wing end plates, that have a ruffle sticking out of the back plate. Could be a defensive aero part to create dirty air behind the car making overtaking more difficult for the car behind.

This wouldn’t be an aero compromise because the cars normally in Interlagos run a lot of wing due to the altitude and thin air. Usually at sea level this would create more drag and affect the performance of the RB car too.

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What now for Lauda? Ecclestone fraud charges still loom, Kart won’t listed to Vettel’s s*^t, Alguersuari suggests Vettel will be spooked, RB will use new spec alternator in Brazil

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The end of Lauda Watch? This could be it folks, maybe Lauda watch will be no more. Today Reuters report that Damiler-Benz has severed all ties with Aabar investments who sponsor Lauda’s cap at $500,000 a year. Not only have they acquired Aabar’s 40% of the F1 team but also the 9% holding the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund had invested in Damiler-Benz the global car manufacturer.

Aabar have lost over $2bn by trying to be clever and underpin the Daimler-Benz acquisition with a derivatives deal which went wrong. They have in effect lost their shirt and the banks that funded the deal have retained the stock, which by the way is worth double the price Aabar paid for it.

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Austin GP Review

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In no particular order, here are the post race threads to be gathered together…

The track and the race: Hat’s off to Mr. Tilke, it seems like he’s finally getting to grips with how to design a track. The topography makes the circuit visually really interesting and the combination of the 3 sectors made for an excellent race. “Turn 2 to turn 9 is probably the best sector I’ve driven in F1”, commented Jenson.

The race itself was tremendous with battles up and down the grid. There were concerns about overtaking but this was clearly not a problem, in fact at times we were back to the same old problem of the FOM TV director not really sure what to show.

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Just one more year: Why Red Bull are obsessed with controlling engine spend

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Todt reforms require unanimous consensus

As we know, the old structure of Technical and Sporting Working Groups proposing rules through a 70 per cent majority for ratification by a 26-man F1 Commission is being revamped.

Autosport reports that instead, a 18-strong ‘Strategy Working Group’ is being created – which will be made up of six team representatives (Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes, Williams and the next best in the constructors’), six FIA representatives and six representatives from Formula One Management.

This group will vote on rule changes that will be decided through a simple majority, and these will then be passed on to a trimmed 18-man F1 Commission.

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Why Red Bull volunteer for extra start penalty

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Vettel’s car fails scrutineering

Where to start. Probably at the end perversely. As reported here on thejudge13, Milton Keynes knew there was a fuel issue some 90 minutes before the stewards decision and expected to have Vettel’s car relegated to the back of the grid.

Admittedly I’ve been to the pub for 4 hours since the FIA announcement, and the journalists were pushing midnight in Abu Dhabi when the official announcement was made. This explains why I can find nowhere the questions I’m about to address, because this is not simply another example of what happened to Hamilton in Barcelona.

Short fueling cars in qualifying is an age old trick when a team is under pressure to deliver an extra 0.1s or so. Lewis qualifying time in Spain was nearly half a second faster than anyone else so under fueling his car was just clearly a mistake and not a necessary strategic decision by the team to gain a very small advantage.

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Resource Restriction ‘Agreement’ – You’ve got to be joking

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Try and find the RRA?

What is the Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA)? Try Googling it, try searching the mainstream F1 media sites, try Wikipedia, try even asking senior team F1 personnel. There’s plenty of articles to be found where F1 people are for it, against it and mostly there is an agreement that costs should be controlled. Yet there is nothing out there that defines the scope of the RRA.

Formula 1 has in the past been most profligate in the area of spending. Rumours have it that Ferrari in their dominant era were spending $100m a year on tyres that were bullet proof. Honda allegedly spent $1bn during 2008 on the present car and the design of the 2009 car. Ironically following Honda’s last minute withdrawal from the sport at the end of 2008, the car they had designed for 2009 won both WDC and WCC titles under the badge of Brawn GP.

At the other end of the spectrum teams have regularly run out of money and ceased to exist and even more that sell out and change their names due to funding problems. In the last 10 years alone, these teams have gone from the Sport: Jordan, BAR, Renault, Jaguar, Arrows, Minardi, Toyota, Honda, BMW-Sauber, Midland, Super Aguri, Spyker, Brawn and Virgin. So the casualty rate is high, and its mostly to do with a lack of funding.

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Monday Post Korea Blues: Mercedes woeful slide continues, BBC story panics Red Bull and more…

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Funny how from week to week the Monday morning feeling following and F1 weekend can be quite different. With Japan and Korea being back to back the contrast is stark. Last Monday, I was still buzzing from the Japanese GP. not that the battle for the win was great, but there was a lot of good racing down the pack, the fans were amazing, Kamui getting his podium at last before he loses his F1 seat, Grosjean’s latest incident…lots of stuff to think about and write about.

Today…Zzz…I’m struggling. Part of the reason is I think my post race thoughts posted yesterday for Korea was more comprehensive than the one from Japan, so there are fewer loose ends to tie up today. Another the reason is that the F1 circus is battling its way back from the remote part of S. Korea and today is a quiet news days. Any way let’s see what’s going on.

BBC – Old News and Wrong News

You can spot quiet news days, for example, today the BBC F1 story is a re-hash of something we have known about for months – Vettel/Ferrari possibly/maybe 2014. Even so, someone at Red Bull just told me the team have been forced into action and brought forward their post race debrief from Tuesday to today 3:30pm – to quash the rumours.

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