Cosworth

The tale of the mythical magic F1 motor

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  Tuesday November 24th, 2015 will be a big day in F1 history. Tuesday morning, the infamous “F1 our-only-Strategy-is-self-preservation-Group” will meet in the morning, and then the F1 Commission will convene after lunch. According to Autosport, topics to be discussed include: Manor/Marussia changing their name, Lotus changing their name, 2017 tyre and Aero regulations, and … Read more

Daily #F1 News and Comment: Friday 11th April 2014

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This page will be updated throughout the day. Please if you are on Twitter press the tweet button below. If you re-write and tweet individual story headlines don’t forget to include #F1. You may not realise how hugely important this is and has helped grow our community significantly. Previously on TheJudge13 On This Day in … Read more

Renault do a huge U-turn

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A bizarre mentality

thejudge13 reported on October 9th what I considered a rather strange story emanating from Renault. Here’s an excerpt from that day;

“Apparently Renault has said it will not provide any more teams with engines as it has 3 customers already. So Marussia and HRT needn’t bother knocking on the door of the Renault Chateau huh? The reason given by Jean-Francois Caubet, Managing Director of Renault Sport is that – (paraphrased) these 2 teams are rubbish and its bad for Renault’s image.

He tells Ferrari and Mercedes they need to do their fair share and supply 4 teams like Renault does now. This Gallic thinking is seriously flawed, because one would imagine the research and development costs are so high, building a few extra units for a couple more teams would share the cost around better for everyone”.

I then made a few disparaging comments about Jean-Francois and his possible drinking habits. Of course on November 6th, we then reported the ‘retirement’ of Jean-Francois Caubet and the appointment of his successor, Renault Sport’s president Jean-Michel Jalinier. However, Jean-Francois’ departure was overshadowed by the same day appointment of Renault Sport protoge Cyril Abiteboul as Tony Fernandes replacement at Caterham.

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Schumacher says he may leave Switzerland, Vijay ducks Indian GP press conference, Hungarian GP in negotiations, Honda no chance for 2014

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Indian GP, Race Strategy: For a full track characteristics overview and Indian GP race strategy report, no one does it better than James Allen on his F1 News site (http://connect.jamesallenonf1.com). Includes: form guide, weather forecast, likely tyre perfomance, pit stop strategy, chance of safety car, start performance table and pit stop table plus comment from one of F1’s most experienced specialist observers.

Press Conference Lists for Indian GP: Friday lineup looks more exciting than Thursday. Kimi the only top driver – and to say he’s concise would be an understatement. Vijay Mallya is conspicuous by his absence as fears over mass Kingfisher staff demonstrations have grown. (Force India: How the tower of cards will collapse)

DATE TIME GUEST
Thursday, October 25 1500 hrs Nico Hulkenberg (Force India)
Narain Karthikeyan (HRT)
Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)
Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus)
Bruno Senna (Williams)
Jean–Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso)
Friday, October 26 1600 hrs Cyril Abiteboul (Caterham)
Eric Boullier (Lotus)
Stefano Domenicali (Ferrari)
Christian Horner (Red Bull)
Monisha Kaltenborn (Sauber)
Martin Whitmarsh (McLaren)
Saturday, October 27 Post Qualifying * Three fastest Drivers from Qualifying
Sunday, October 28 Post Race * First three finishing Drivers

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McLaren-Mercedes divorce and Cosworth need a new partner.

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Even though the driver line up’s are mostly sorted for next year, I suspect there are a few exciting news stories yet to break. One of which I believe will be the split between Mercedes and McLaren.

History of the partnership

Having been out of F1 since 1954, Mercedes returned as an engine supplier in 1994, partnering with Sauber and then a year later began their 17 year relationship with McLaren. Since parting company with Honda in 1992, McLaren tried working with both Ford and Peugeot for 2 years with limited success. The 5 year relationship with Honda had delivered both WDC and WCC championships in 4 of those years – 8 titles in all and in just 5 years – 52 pole positions and 44 wins. In stark contrast Mercedes partnership with McLaren has delivered a mere 1 WCC (1998) and 3 WDC titles (Hakkinen 98,99 – Hamilton 08).

In 1999 Daimler-Chrysler (owner of Mercedes-Benz) bought 40% of the McLaren F1 team with Ron Dennis and Mansour Ojjeh each retaining 30% and there was a shareholders agreements which locked Dennis and Ojjeh’s holding together so they could not be sold independently of one another. The arrangement followed a decision by DaimlerChrysler and McLaren Cars to jointly develop and produce the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren super sports car which was launched at the Frankfurt Motorshow in 2003 and was manufactured at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking and at the company’s second production factory in Portsmouth, where the SLR carbon fibre bodyshells are built. The programme was planned for 7 years and around 3500 cars and the last cars were completed by December 2009, although McLaren produced 25 limited edition run of cars in 2011 called the ‘McLaren Edition’.

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Mallya charges dropped, but problems just beginning, Sir Jack Stewart talks sexy (Ugh), F1 opportunity for Porsche, F1 News and Links…

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Mallya: Boss of stricken Kingfisher Airlines – has bounced cheque charges dropped (business today), and has paid off his arrears on the airport fees – presumably because he has raised some cash from selling a chunk of United Spirits to Diageo  (Mallya forced to sell). Before the champagne (Crystal we think) is cracked this may just be the beginning of Vijay’s problems, because everyone else who is owed money should have realised the way to get paid is to issue legal proceedings. Indian tax authorities who have not received the deducted tax deducted Kingfisher Airlines from their employees are beginning action – it may be some employees are technically liable themselves even thought the Mallya company has taken the money from them. (Economic Times). The Indian courts may find themselves very busy soon particularly if the author of “Is Vijay Mallya India’s worst businessman” is correct. (firstpost.com)

Mercedes: After being heavily criticised by Helmut Marco for recruiting 3 former team technical directors to head up sub-divisions of Mercedes F1 (link), it appears Ross Brawn has decided that he has enough his search for “art directors” and is looking for some “Indians” – less expensive candidates. Here is a link if you are an undergraduate and interested in taking a 1 year placement with the team. (Merc Grad Recruit). To be fair, an amazing opportunity.

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Lauda to sack Brackley personnel, Nascar mother of all pile ups, Lola closes doors, Tooned will be ‘racey’

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After battling with F1 and global finance until gone midnight on “Ecclestone to load a mountain of debt on F1“, then the day so far has been spent with lawyers – so we’ll start with a News Links post and see if I’ve got enough time and energy for an in depth article later. (Anything in wite on this page is a URL link to the original or pic or video).

Quick thanks to someone on German site MotorsportTotal.com who posted a link to thejudge13 and we’ve had over 50 new German visitors today from their site. Great work.

  1. Last week I did a couple of articles on Niki Lauda, suggesting there may be fireworks at Merceds F1 now he’s the big boss (a position he couldn’t help refering to on TV at the weekend I noticed). Niki’s inability to “suffer fools gladly” is legendary. So today, our favourite German publication Bilde has the following, “Schumi’s car builders are fired”. (I always put the link to prove the source, but be careful with any translation software – particularly verb tenses). Anyway Christian Danner RTL expert pundit and ex F1 driver of note (I’ll come back to this) says today that Niki Lauda needs to fire the designers of this years car. He suggests that after 9 months the car is performing like a Torro Rosso and heads must roll. He urges Niki the hatchetman on, “He is responsible to make the next decision. And the next decisions will be primarily personnel decisions”. RTL commentator Danner, a little bit like Mr. J Herbert for SKY, drove in Formula 1 over 4 years. 2 of those he was not classified with any points and had a career best P4 in USA 1989 when he also had his best season scoring a total of 4 points. WATCH OUT ROSS

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