Monthly Archives: February 2012

Crash Test Dummies Or Crash Testing For Dummies

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For the third season running, HRT have faced a battle to get their car ready for the first race, let alone for the start of pre-season testing.

With technical directors being replaced faster than their driver line up and a seemingly endless hunt for a permanent quest to find headquarters in Spain all contributing to the state chaos on planet HRT.

Joining them on this battle to make the grid for Australia is Marussia. Some may be surprised by their rather late scramble but their 2011 woes have mirrored that of their Spanish rivals.

From the Monaco Grand Prix, Marussia Virgin as they were then known, parted company with technical director, Nick Writh and his design company that designed the car. This meant that mid season, they had to start the long process of recruiting a whole design department ahead of starting work on the 2012 car.

The difficult situation was exacerbated by the teams move from Manor Competitions home in Dinnginton, South Yorkshire, to new premises in Brackly (AKA motorsport valley).

When you take these factors into account with the miniscule time frame between the end of the season and the start of pre-season testing, 13 weeks. You can start to get a picture of how tight the schedule is. With somewhere in the region of 4000 components to design and manufacture, even championship winning teams like Red Bull have missed the first test to fully develop the car. As did AMG Mercedes this year.

If established teams like Red Bull and Mercedes can choose to delay the unveiling of their new cars in order to have the right before hitting the track, you can see what trials and tribulations the smaller teams are going through to fight for their very existence.

 

What Is A Pay Driver?

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I’m sure that I will be in the minority with my view on this subject (as I am on DRS) but I feel that some of the current ‘pay drivers’ are unfairly labelled with this tag.

Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna have all been vilified by the fact that they come with corporate backing.

The two South Americans will drive for Williams in 2012, Maldonado, racing for the Grove based squad for the second season. The negative press surrounding Venezuelan’s rise to F1 were exacerbated by the fact that he was replacing the highly rated, Nico Hulkenburg after one season.

Many saw this as a move dictated by money over talent. Williams had lost several sponsors over the winter at the end of the 2010 season and basic book keeping dictated they needed to find more income. When the two were team mates in GP2, it was the young German who came out on top with Pastor taking two more seasons to clinch the title.

The deal with PDVSA didn’t come with the signature of Maldonado as many people think. In reality, the deal with the state owned oil company stipulates that as part of the contract, a Venezuelan driver will drive one of the cars. Williams obviously did their home work and with Maldonado being crowned as GP2 champion in 2010, he was the obvious choice to offer the race seat to.

Bruno Senna, twelve months later replaces his compatriot Rubens Barrichello for the second seat at Williams. The nephew of three times world champion, Ayrton comes with significant backing and a race winning pedigree of his own and finishing runner up in the GP2 championship in 2008.

With CVs like this, both Pastor and Bruno aren’t like the pay drivers of old, both are race and title winning drivers. Both are hugely marketable in their homeland and beyond. Realistically, they are more like (but not exactly like) Fernando Alonso. The two time champion brings with him a significant amount of sponsorship from the Spanish banking giants, Santander.

Yes, Williams have both Bruno and Pastor behind the wheel of the FW34 this year by enlarge thanks to the sponsors they bring. But if they wasn’t there, perhaps Williams wouldn’t be around for very much longer! That is something no racing fan wants to see.

Sky Sports F1 – F1 5.1

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There are very few things in life that will force me out of my bed in the middle of the night. My daughter is regularly one of those things, the great quake of ’08 is another and anything F1 related is sure to get me to set my alarm for an ungodly hour. As I’m sure many of you know through my countless excited tweets that I set off from Sheffield at 3.45am to spend the morning with the Sky Sports F1 team for a Q&A.

With just three short weeks before the launch of the UKs first dedicated F1 channel, we were invited to the Grovesnor House Hotel to find out what is in store for F1 fans on Sky Sports in 2012. On hand to answer our questions were, David Croft, Martin Brundle, Anthony Davidson, Ted Kraviz, Damon Hill, Natalie Pinkham alongside sky’s presenters, Simon Lazenby and Georgie Thompson.

Whether you like it or not, the only way to watch all the races live in 2012 is on Sky, so what will you get for your £30 a month? The answer is a hell of a lot. After being treated to a behind the scenes look at what Sky have in store for us this coming season, I’m certain we will get value for money after F1 has had ‘the treatment’ from Sky Sports.

Martin Brundle talked about some of the technical features that were scheduled this year, including two days filming with Ferrari which will be shown in 5 parts, the first of which will be on the Friday of the Australian Grand Prix. Martin went on to explain that the production budget for the Sky F1 channel was triple that of the BBCs budget last year. The first of Martins technical pieces will be shown on the weekly F1 magazine shown hosted by Georgie Thomson and Ted Kraviz which will be aired every Friday. When asked about the show, Ted assured us that “It’s a good show”.

With all three practice sessions now getting full programme formatting, as opposed to the (very good) red button coverage from the BBC. Sky will offer the same level of interviews and features we have become accustomed to in the qualifying and race shows of late.

After (a very quick) hour with the team, we were ushered next door where, Sky Sports’ executive producer, Martin Turner. was waiting. Sky’s latest addition to their F1 coverage, Dolby surround sound 5.1. We were shown footage from last year’s Australian GP with David Croft’s and Martin Brundle’s sound test. The footage started in normal surround sound, which did sound very good. Half way through however, they switched to Dolby 5.1. The difference was staggering, we were told in the Q&A that the sound from onboard cameras was quite brilliant and it didn’t disappoint! The one thing that was more impressive than the 5.1 sound was the eagerly anticipated partnership of Croft and Brundle. To say that it was entertaining would be a massive understatement. Crofty, When describing the advantage of the soft Pirelli’s over the hard compound said, “It’s like throwing the Christians to the lions and giving them spoons”.

If you are like me and you have to see every race live. Sky’s F1 coverage won’t disappoint. I asked Martin Turner if he felt under any pressure to win the hearts and minds of F1 fans given the initial negative response to them becoming the UK broadcaster? “I feel under pressure every time I produce a programme.

“We will show F1 from the inside looking out, instead of the outside looking in”.

Martin was keen to elaborate on what he called ‘the treatment’,  “The race is only part of the story” talking on the vast array of team and driver features planned over the race weekend,” We’ll give it [F1], we care about it”.

Thank you to James Mortley from Sky sports for inviting me today, images to follow tomorrow.

Sky Sports F1 Media Day

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This morning, I had a very pleasant surprise waiting for me in my inbox. It was am email from Sky Sports, inviting me to meet their 2012 team in London next Monday.

Normally these type of events are reserved for main stream media outlets but Sky are allocating time for me and my fellow blogger’s to come along and  put our questions to the team.

In attendance will be the commentary team of David Croft and Martin Bundle. Also we will have the chance to talk to the 1996 World Champion, Damon Hill, who is signed up to Sky Sports as a pundit for 10 races this year.

As a F1 blogger/writer, access like this is very hard to come by and I want to open it up to all the readers of this site by asking you to submit questions for Martin, David and Damon in the comment box below. I will pick one question to ask on the day.

Throughout the event I will be tweeting live to keep you up-to-date with everything the team have to say.

Don’t forget to follow me @marshallgp and leave your questions for the team below.