formula e rome

Red Bull and Lotus F1 Engine Mapping Problems, Renault’s 2014 F1 engine is revealed, Dallara design Formula E chassis

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Renault and Newey may have been caught napping

So Williams and Caterham appear to have had their clever exhaust solutions ruled illegal, and you may remember last year all the teams and Renault customers particularly were instructed by the FIA to stop changing their engine mapping for each race. This was believed to be benefiting Red Bull particularly.

The ruling was to tidy up the banning of ‘off throttle blowing’. In simple terms ”off throttle exhaust blowing’ could be described as; when you are driving your car along and you lift your foot off the accelerator to ease through a corner – the engine would scream up to full revs with no gear engaged – and blow a load of hot gases onto something that would increase the traction of your car.

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Ecclestone – “Senile & Incompetant”, McLaren profits are up, FIA annual conference Istanbul, Support Kamui, Alonso – “Sore Loser”, Formula E – 20% the way there, Luca threatens F1,

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The weekend: I’m afraid this weekend will be typical of a number of others to come over the next 9 weeks or so until Jerez testing (or possibly the unveiling of cars a few days before).

Ecclestone: The paddock is a strange place. There are times when you hear conflicting stories from different sources. At other times there is just a range of stories from different people, and then there are rare occasions where in unison akin to a great Welsh Male voice choir – everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

I heard during the Brazilian weekend from a friend that Bernie was in fact retiring. This would be no surprise as we have been reporting the imminent court cases in Munich and New York he is facing, together with the fact that CVC have instructed headhunters to produce a shortlist for Bernie’s successor.

What was surprising, is that I heard the same story several times – and then the story became the fact that everyone was saying the same thing. Then a well known journalist referred to an incident after returning to Europe where he encountered Bernie in Brazil, and apparently the F1 supremo jested he was retiring.

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