Mercedes F1

F1 Forensics: Jenson claims he would have led in Sepang ~ True or False?

by

I’m really excited to announce a TJ13 partnership with someone who has a brain the size of the planet and is a real life rocket scientist. Dr. James Beck will be collaborating with TJ13 to provide you with a technical analysis that I don’t believe can be found anywhere else. He has a model that … Read more

Should Horner just chuck the race in China?

by

Red Bull Racing have a massive problem on their hands. Those who thought the whole Sepang thing would result in another uneasy truce between the team’s drivers could not have been further from the truth. Sebastian Vettel faced a fiery media today and to be fair gave as good as he got. However, Vettel’s confused … Read more

F1 Forensics: Slats and Vortex Generators

by

F1 Forensics is brought to thejudge13 readers in partnership with SomersF1, Like most of us, Matthew Somerfield has a day job and his is being the manager of a car & van rental company in the Isle of Wight.

His passion is to try and bring us non-techies closer to F1 by bridging the gap between the full blown engineering publications and the simplicity of much that is provided by TV.

Ask Somers anything you want in the comments section. He’s part of the crew now and hang’s out here regularly.

And now over to Somers…

Read more

Drivers to suffer points penalty, Massa criticises Pirelli, Protest planned for race day, A shame for Scumacher,

by

I’ve published an extra news page today, because a lot of what is occurring is US time zone sensitive to add it to the one published UK time 2am. To add to that page would make it enormous and difficult for those who visit a few times to find the updates.

I had a good chat with a thejudge13 reader from Mauritius yesterday – there is no TV feed there so they have to watch on the internet. Anyway today here’s a shout out to those of you in Singapore. Say Hi if you wish.

FIA to bring in points system for drivers: Charlie Whiting, head of all things technical at the FIA (allegedly) has said today, “We would like a system that is at that similar to the one experienced by many holders of public road driving licenses. We will discuss this issue next Wednesday in Brazil with the teams”, says Charlie.

Read more

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

by

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.

Read more

How Alonso could win the title and Red Bull should change fundamental car setup: Gary Anderson

by

Money isn’t everything

Ferrari are a big spending team, yet we don’t know quite how much they spend because as an Italian company their figures are not registered at Company’s House, England, where the numbers are relatively transparent. Red Bull F1 group spent 245m euro’s in 2011 and based on history it is not likely Ferrari spent less.

In fact Horner has regularly asserted that Red Bull are the 2nd or 3rd largest spending team in F1. The problem with a culture that throws money at problems, is this is not always the most efficient way to solve them.

Businesses with a tight budgetary restraint are regularly capable of getting more ‘bang for the buck’ as they have to focus on where to spend the money more than one with huge resources.

The Ferrari problem

It must be therefore highly embarrassing for Ferrari that they have been messing around with 2 wind tunnels and clearly have internal disputes over who is to blame for the fact the car has hardly developed from an aero perspective since May (Alonso – India).

Read more

Stewards “fiddle while Rome burns”, Mercedes up budget for 2013 by 50m euros, Alonso ‘perfect’ qualifying, Ecclestone calls for F1 personnel to snitch on their own teams, Murdoch wants to own F1

by

Red Bull mislead FIA: It appears from the statement released by the FIA, that Red Bull may have initially tried to mislead the stewards. The statement says, “The stewards heard from the team representatives and the driver and studied the telemetry evidence that showed the reason why the car was stopped. The stewards accepted the explanation and considered the incident as being a case of force majeure.”

“However a report was received from the technical delegate that showed during post qualifying scrutineering an insufficient quantity of fuel for sampling purposes.”

Naughty naughty

Read more

Lauda poking around Brackley, Expect double overtakes with 2 DRS zones, Alosno persists with denials, Marrusia in finaicial crisis, Alguesuari gets desperate, Sunsets Stats & Kimi too

by

Lauda – what exactly is his job?: In a Q&A with Auto Motor und Sport, Niki explains his contribution to Mercedes. When asked how Mercedes can find 1.5s to match Red Bull when the drinks company spends 100m euro more he tells us, “We now have to analyze carefully whether the money factor plays a role, and if so what. I can say it but not yet, because I still go to school. This is part of the inventory.”

Remember Lauda said a couple of weeks ago that money had been wasted so far at Mercedes F1, and they needed to deliver more for less. Mmm.

Niki was asked how he could bring Mercedes to success. “The first part of this task is to take stock. I find myself just in the learning phase. That’s why I’m already some time been in the factory in Brackley and I will continue to do so regularly. It is important for me, along with Ross Brawn introduced to every aspect of the team, the car and the tools in the factory to be. Every time I go to Brackley, I get it. I need to understand the context of the processes, and then with my logic, direct access, which I, in common with Ross find a solution.”

Read more

Hulkenberg refuses contract extension, Webber walks out of FIA conference, Sutil to return to Force India, Ecclestone refutes he’s being replaced,

by

Indian GP attendance down 1/3rd: The drivers gave a thumbs-up to the 5.14 kilometre track enjoying the challenge of the layout and the teams and media hailed the clean paddock and the facilities sported a completed look that was not the case last year. However, no one could avoid the dip in the numbers of fans, the most important constituent of any sport, as 65,000 of them turned up for Sunday’s race down from last year’s 95,000.

Mr. E is of course not worried, “First races are always high and the second year goes down. If the third year isn’t going up, then it’s something to worry about”, he jocularly observed “We have a [another] competitor here. What’s the name of that game? Cricket?”, suggesting F1 has a way to go to make an impression on the Indian sporting psyche.

Indian motor sports federation chief Vicky Chandhok reiterated the same three-year cycle and predicted a bigger turnout in 2013. “Formula One is like this only. This is the trend everywhere. From third race onwards, you’d see some kind of stability. Overall, it has been a huge improvement from last year”.

Read more