Category Archives: F1 News

Jenson Button was upbeat the form of the new McLaren MP4-29 in Jerez today as the silver car finally got out on track.

Button topped the times as the team embarked on a steep learning curve with its new machine, having lost the whole of Tuesday to system gremlins.

“There’s no horrible issues with the car itself, no big issues with the power unit in terms of how it delivers,” said Button. “So the basic car itself is where we want it to be. We always aim to have a good base. The way it’s going to improve throughout the year in how much we’re going to add to this car aerodynamically, and also in development in terms of the engine, is massive, So having a good base is important.

“We did lots of different runs today. We weren’t able to to any long runs just because we had a few little issues. The good thing is that we were able to solve them pretty quickly and get out and put some laps in. I enjoy driving this car.

Regarding the Mercedes V6, he said: “The power unit doesn’t sound as good – it’s a fact. It’s not as exciting to hear from the outside, but when you’re driving it, it sounds good, we’ve got the turbo noise, we’ve got the wastegate noise. It’s actually quite a nice change.

“And the power of the engine is also nice. It’s very torquey. It feels the most powerful engine I’ve driven. It obviously isn’t in terms of outright power, but as a racing driver you feel the torque, you feel the power at low speed. At high speed you don’t feel the difference. It’s coming out of the corners when you have so much torque that it’s exciting. There’s a lot to improve with the car in that area. We have some many tools at our disposal and I know exactly what they are and how we can improve the car. So I’m happy with our pretend day one, if you forget yesterday.”

Mercedes recovered from yesterday’s front wing failure to log the highest mileage of any of the teams in action at Jerez today.

Using a revised wing Nico Rosberg went out on track at 11.35am and he went on to record 97 laps by the end of the day, compared with the 53 of the next most travelled car.

“That was a great team effort today,” said Rosberg. “We had to fix a problem on our car overnight. The guys worked through the night back at the factories and flew in the parts just in time this morning, so we were able to do a lot of mileage today which is great for our learning process. It was a great feeling to put some good miles on the new Silver Arrow, and there’s a lot of new stuff to clear, because it’s very different to the old car.

“It’s heavier, you have less downforce and the steering wheel is completely different; it’s almost like a smartphone with all the information on it! Every lap is important to get used to the new systems and it helped a lot that I have worked on this already in the simulator. We don’t know yet where we are compared to the other teams, but we can be quite happy after the first two days of testing here in Spain.”

Technical boss Paddy Lowe explained: “The team worked very hard overnight, both at the circuit and in the UK, to recover from yesterday’s wing failure. We had a slow start to the day, waiting for components to arrive from base, but we are happy with the solution that we found. The car left the garage just before midday and after resolving some minor issues, we began our planned programme at 1pm.

“Our objective was to put mileage on the car and we achieved a total of 97 laps without any major issues, which is a great credit to the teams at both factories and those trackside here at Jerez. We have a lot of data to analyse overnight and look forward to continuing our learning tomorrow.”

McLaren has announced that Eric Boullier will take up the job of racing director on February 3.

The Frenchman will report to a new chief executive officer, who has yet to be appointed, and who will in turn report to Ron Dennis. In the interim Jonathan Neale will hold that position.

The big question now is who will take that CEO role. Although his name has fallen out of the equation of late it could yet turn out to be Ross Brawn.

“First of all, I regard this appointment as an honour, a privilege and a wonderful opportunity,” said Boullier. “The McLaren Racing workforce and the facilities at the McLaren Technology Centre are world-class, and I’m hugely excited about the prospect of joining such an outstanding team. I’m both eager and determined to play an active part, working alongside McLaren Racing’s other senior managers and directors, within a new operational structure, to bring about the changes that will deliver success. Last, I want to take this opportunity to assure the McLaren Racing workforce that I’m utterly determined to match their famous passion and commitment to win.”

Ron Dennis said: “Eric’s appointment is an integral part of a senior management restructure within McLaren Racing. I’ve already personally conveyed to the entire workforce of the McLaren Group, which includes McLaren Racing, the values, principles and mindset that I intend us all to adopt, going forward. My intention is that from now on everyone at McLaren Racing will understand their responsibilities and accountabilities, focusing on their specific areas of expertise, in keeping with those values, principles and mindset.

“In due course we’ll announce the identity of McLaren Racing’s new Chief Executive Officer, who’ll report to me, and to whom Eric will report.

“I’m firmly of the belief that, once McLaren Racing’s restructured senior management team has been assembled, together we’ll begin the march back to full competitiveness, quickly and professionally, harnessing the fantastic depth of talent that exists within our organisation.”

Jenson Button gives the McLaren its first run. Photo: AC

Jenson Button gave the McLaren MP4-29 its first run today, completing a slow installation lap before returning to the garage.

The car didn’t run yesterday after the team struggled throughout the day with electrical problems.

Pirelli has nominated today as its wet tyre running day, and has used a tanker to wet the track, although there is also a light sprinkle of rain.

Mercedes is revising the W05 front wing for Wednesday’s testing in Jerez following Lewis Hamilton’s failure today.

Hamilton hit the tyre wall at Turn One after the wing fell under his front wheels.

“We had a rather dramatic failure of the front wing,” said Paddy Lowe. “The front wing went underneath the car, and a fair few parts disintegrated in a cloud. Lewis hit the barrier. He’s absolutely fine. He’s not driving tomorrow, the plan was always to put Nico in the car for tomorrow. Lewis will be back in on Thursday.

“It’s not a great way to go through our first testing, but we’re working hard to recover. It’s also difficult to recover on Day One when there are not a lot of spare parts around us, but we intend to be out there tomorrow morning, so we’re working hard through the night to do that, both here and in the UK.

“We know where it failed, and we’re just trying to understand exactly why the margin wasn’t sufficient in that area. These are things that we test extensively and model, there’s a lot of work in a laboratory, so it is a confusing situation for us. But we’re working hard this afternoon and through the night to come up with a solution for tomorrow.”

Meanwhile Lowe said it had been a good day for Mercedes prior to the problem.

“It was going very well. We had the advantage of having been to Silverstone on Friday, so we were well placed to get out this morning right on time. We had a few issues which we hadn’t expected, but in general it was going well, we were building up to longer runs, and it was just at that point that we unfortunately had the failure. It was shaping up to be a very good day. And as it was we achieved a lot in the half day we ran.”

Kimi Raikkonen was happy with his first day back with Ferrari at Jerez today, the Finn running more laps than any other driver and topping the times.

He said that the job of the driver wasn’t any different in 2014, despite the huge changes to the cars.

“I think the biggest challenge is getting all the new stuff working as we want,” said Raikkonen, “and working together with the electric motor and the engine, and all those small details. It’s much more tricky than what we are used to.

“From the driving side point of view I don’t think it’s an awful lot different. It’s just the first day with all new stuff, so it takes time to get stuff as we basically want. There’s a long way to go, and lot of work to do, we know that. Obviously in the morning we wanted to do a little more running, but things ran then pretty OK, so not too bad.

“I still think we’re pretty OK where we are start now, and we know which direction we want to go and what we want to do. There still quite a bit of work to do, but this is normal in this position at this time of the year.

“It’s a normal first day. The most tricky thing is the first day, the challenges, what it brings. There’s a big work load for the whole team, all the people who have been working very hard to get the car ready and make everything working as well as we can right now.”

Regarding the controversy over ugly noses and the sound of the new engines, he said: “The rules are what they are, and everybody is building the cars how the rules says, so there’s no point to complain on the sound and other things. It’s not up to us, we don’t make the rules.”

Lewis Hamilton was not discouraged by his accident on the first day of running in Jerez, noting that the Mercedes had done more running than any of its rivals.

Hamilton crashed at Turn One when his front wing fell off, which ended running for the day.

“For me it’s an incredibly positive start to be the first car out on track and completing a good number of laps,” said Hamilton. “Other teams have been going out for single-lap runs, starting a few hours after we had first hit the track, so to have started running through our test programme was very encouraging. The car feels quite good, especially considering it’s so early in our programme, so overall it’s been a positive day.

“Of course, it’s unfortunate to end the day early when everyone has worked so hard and we had looked like easily completing the most mileage of anyone here today, but we’ll make that track time back and it’s better to have these things happen now than in Melbourne. I’m really proud of the team for what they’ve achieved in getting us here and we’ll keep pushing.”

“To conclude our day’s running with a front wing failure was an unfortunate end to what had, to that point, been a very positive start to our winter,” said technical boss Paddy Lowe. “We were the first team to send a car out on track, on the dot at 0900 this morning, and were gradually extending the length of the runs when the incident occurred. Lewis’ initial feedback was positive once he was able to complete some timed laps, which is a promising indicator for the basic package.

“Concerning the failure itself, we are still analysing its cause, and this process, coupled with the repairs to the car, have brought an end to our running today. The teams at Brackley and Brixworth did a fantastic job to prepare the car for running this morning and tomorrow we hope to start adding to what is already a useful number of laps completed. There is a lot of data for us to analyse overnight and the learning curve this winter will be very steep.”

Marcus Ericsson takes to the track in the CT05. Photo: AC

The new Caterham CT05 took to the track in Jerez today in the hands of Marcus Ericsson. Inevitably the car’s unusual nose has already attracted a lot of comment.

“Despite the major rule changes introduced this season, our design philosophy was actually only slightly different to usual for a totally new car,” said technical director Mark Smith. “We have still sought to maximise aero and mechanical performance within the regulations but there has been more emphasis than usual placed upon weight reduction and, bearing in mind how critical reliability will be this year, we have been slightly more conservative in the areas around the new power unit – cooling systems, exhausts, heat management etc.

“At the front of the car, the area that will obviously inspire most debate, we have focused a lot of effort on optimising flow structures around the nose, the front of the chassis and the reduced width front wing area, all in response to the 2014 regulation changes. However, the package we start testing with is by no means our definitive answer and we fully expect to evaluate alternative solutions throughout the course of 2014, particularly now our 60% scale work has started in the TMG wind-tunnel in Cologne and our improved Dell / Intel HPC (High Performance Cluster) is coming on stream, significantly stepping up our CFD resource.

“Overall there were a number of other major areas the design team focused on – the front chassis height led us to opt for pullrod suspension which gives us the best solution from both a mechanical and aerodynamic perspective. Another focus area was cooling – charge air cooler packaging has driven the cooling architecture and consequently the sidepod and rear-deck bodywork and, at the rear end of the car, our development has been driven by the removal of the beam wing, again as per 2014 regulations, and the exhaust ‘blowing’ effect we’ve seen in recent years – this has created a challenge all teams will face, how to recover the rear load generated by those areas in previous seasons, and, again, something that will continue to develop throughout the season ahead.”

Interesting nose treatment… Photo: AC