Category Archives: F1 News

The FIA has issued a 2014 World Championship entry list, giving us a first proper look at the numbers chosen by the drivers.

The list also confirms Max Chilton at Marussia, although the team has yet to make a formal announcement. No names are listed as yet for Caterham.

Sebastian Vettel has chosen 5, but has opted to use 1 as reigning World Champion, while perhaps the most unusual choice is that of 13 by Pastor Maldonado. The lowest numbers still available are 2, 4, 9, 10 and 12.

For clarity The drivers are listed below in number order – on the official entry they are still in team order.

1 Sebastian VETTEL (RBR)
3 Daniel RICCIARDO (RBR)
(5 – Reserved by Vettel)
6 Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)
7 Kimi RAIKKONEN (Ferrari)
8 Romain GROSJEAN (Lotus)
11 Sergio PEREZ (Force India)
13 Pastor MALDONADO (Lotus)
14 Fernando ALONSO (Ferrari)
17 Jules BIANCHI (Marussia)
19 Felipe MASSA (Williams)
20 Kevin MAGNUSSEN (McLaren)
21 Esteban GUTIERREZ (Sauber)
22 Jenson BUTTON (McLaren)
25 Jean Eric VERGNE (STR)
26 Daniil KVYAT (STR)
27 Nico HULKENBERG (Force India)
44 Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
77 Valtteri BOTTAS (Williams)
99 Adrian SUTIL (Sauber)
TBA Max CHILTON (Marussia)

French authorities held a press conference in Albertville this morning in order to give more details of their investigation into Michael Schumacher’s accident.

Although relatively little emerged, prosecutor Patrick Quincy did clarify a few points.

Quincy said: “Every winter season we have about 50 accidents of this nature, and we always use the same methods and we give the same attention to detail to everything we do.”

He confirmed that a video from Schumacher’s GoPro helmet camera has played a big part in the investigation. He said it was “perfectly clear,” and had been used to help with reconstructing the accident. Michael was 8m off the piste when he struck a rock.

Quincy said: “He followed the red piste and he went off piste. He is evidently an extremely good skier, but one of his skis hit a rock that was sticking out of the piste, and it caused him to fall and he hit his head on a rock. The rock that he hit is eight metres from the piste. His position after he fell was nine metres from the piste.

“We examined the film that was realised from his helmet. This film is perfectly clear and gives us a lot of information, and it confirms all the information that we already had. We used this film to do a reconstruction of the accident.”

Quincy added that the video lasted two minutes and that there was no sign of Michael stopping to help anyone who had fallen over. It was said earlier this week that Michael had assisted the daughter of a friend, and had crashed just after restarting.

There has been no sign of a phone video reportedly taken by a bystander and showing the accident in the background, and Quincy said he doubted that it existed.

It was also confirmed that Michael’s skis were in “perfect condition,” and had not contributed to the accident, but had been damaged by contact with the rock.

It was said that Michael’s exact speed was not yet clear, but he had slowed when he began to turn. Speed was not regarded as an important factor.

Quincy stressed that the marking of the piste was a significant part of the investigation, and added that it was too early to say whether there was an fault on the part of the resort. He would not comment on whether Schumacher had been careless when he went off-piste.

However, asked about the possibility of legal proceedings, he said he “cannot see that at the moment.”

Rush has received four British Academy Film Awards nominations, including one for Outstanding British Film.

Only six other films have received a higher number of nominations this year.

Already nominated for a Golden Globe, Daniel Bruhl has once again been named in the Best Supporting Actor category. The other nominations are for Editing (Ron Howard’s long time team of Dan Hanley and Mike Hill), and Sound.

The British film category is a tough one, as it includes Gravity, Mandela: Long Walk to Fredom, Philomena, Saving Mr Banks and The Selfish Giant. The nomination is a good reminder that despite all the talk about ‘Hollywood goes F1’ Rush was a British production, albeit with an American director and some German technical input.

Bruhl’s opposition includes Matt Damon (Behind the Candelabra), Bradley Cooper (American Hustle), Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave) and Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips).

The ceremony takes place in London on February 16.

Lotus is the first team to confirm that it is skipping the Jerez test at the end of this month, and the Enstone outfit will instead debut its 2014 car at the second test in Bahrain.

Teams have had to make the choice between missing the test and opting for extra R&D time, or attending it and spending the interval before Bahrain reacting to what was learned.

Lotus technical director Nick Chester said: “We’re going to keep our car under wraps a little longer than some other teams. We’ve decided that attending the Jerez test isn’t ideal for our build and development programme. We are likely to unveil the car before attending the Bahrain tests, and in Bahrain we should really be able to put the car through its paces in representative conditions.”

Despite the delay, Chester insists that all is going well with the new car.

“From our perspective the figures look promising and development has been positive. That said, we are very much working with very little idea of what the other teams are doing. This is the first year of radically different regulations which means that all teams are developing their cars along potentially quite different avenues. It’s fascinating for us engineers and I hope it is fascinating for the fans too. We think we have a very good solution to the challenge and hopefully this will be seen when the E22 turns its wheels in anger.

“We’ve made very good progress with the various homologation tests which took place before Christmas including chassis squeeze and side impact loading tests as well as the rear crash structure, meaning we just have the nose test to complete the car’s homologation. We’ve undertaken chassis fits for Romain and Pastor. Certainly, our partners who have seen the car have reported themselves to be very impressed with the layout and various solutions to the new technical challenges.”

The Grenoble hospital issued a statement today confirming that Michael Schumacher remains in a stable but critical condition, and underlined that there will be no more information for the time being.

The statement read: “The clinical state of Michael Schumacher is considered as stable and is constantly monitored by the medical treatments that are administered to him. However the medical team responsible underlines that they will not stop to consider Michael’s condition as critical.

“The privacy of the patient demands that we are not going into details of his treatment, and this is why we do not plan any press conferences, nor [to] give out any press releases, for the time being.

“We again insistently ask you to respect the medical secret [sic] and to stick to the information given by the medical team in charge of the patient, or his management, as this is the only valid information.”

Meanwhile the French authorities are still looking into the circumstances of Schumacher’s accident.

Former F1 engine supplier Brian Hart died on Sunday at the age of 77 after a long illness.

A brilliant engineer who worked miracles with limited funding, he was also a great character who was never afraid to speak his mind.

Trained as an aeronuatical engineer, Hart was a successful driver himself in Formula Junior, F3 and latterly F2, where he was a regular for many years. He won at Enna in 1964, and finished 9th in the first European Championship in 1967 and 12th in 1968. He scored a famous non-championship win at Hockenheim in 1969.

He also made one Grand Prix start at the Nurburgring in 1967, with an F2 Protos. He finished 12th overall and fourth in the F2 class.

After making his last F2 start in 1971 Hart retired from racing to concentrate on his engine business, which he had started in 1969. He initially developed Ford and Cosworth engines, finding huge success in F2, before his own 420R unit became a mainstay of the category. In 1980 it powered Brian Henton to the European title with Toleman.

In 1981 Hart moved into F1 with Toleman and a 4-cylinder turbo engine. Taking on the likes of Renault, BMW and Ferrari on a shoestring budget was never going to be easy, but after a difficult start the partnership made progress, and in 1984 rookie Ayrton Senna scored his first podium finishes with the team. In 1985 Teo Fabi earned the Hart name its first pole at the Nurburgring, before the team switched to BMW the following year. Hart also supplied the Beatrice/Haas team in 1985 and early 1986, before the works Ford was ready, as well as RAM and Spirit.

After the turbo era ended Hart developed a normally aspirated V10, while servicing Cosworths for a variety of teams. He returned to F1 in his own right with Jordan in 1993, and the following season Rubens Barrichello earned pole at Spa. Later he supplied a V8 to Arrows and Minardi before his company was absorbed by Tom Walkinshaw Racing in 1997, and the Hart name disappeared.

Michael Schumacher’s condition remained stable over Tuesday night, and there are no developments to report.

His manager and spokesperson Sabine Kehm made a brief statement outside the Grenoble hospital this morning, and stressed that there will be no formal press conferences until there is some further news.

“Michael has been carefully supervised overnight, and his condition at the moment is stable and has been stable all over the night,” she said. “That’s why we don’t feel to have the need to do a press conference, because as we told all of you we would only hold a press conference if there’s something to report.”

At a press briefing at the Grenoble hospital this morning surgeons confirmed that Michael Schumacher remains in a critical condition and is “fighting for his life”.

They confirmed that he has had only one operation thus far, to relieve pressure in his head, and that a second one is not planned as yet. He is in an artificially induced coma.

They noted that he had suffered an impact on the right hand side of his head, and that without a helmet, “he would not be here.”

The surgical team said: “He is still in a coma and he will be kept in a coma. Everything that needed to be done has been done and is being done. At the moment we can’t really say what is going to happen, and when he will recover. We cannot answer this yet.

“He’s undergoing some treatments which are limiting the damage to his brain. We are trying to release pressure in his head. His situation is critical, it definitely is crticial. We are working hour-by-hour, we cannot say anything more, we cannot speculate.

“He is in a critical situation, and we can say he is fighting for his life.”

They added: “Despite the helmet we observes some very serious head injuries, so it was quite a big trauma to the head. What we observed initially was an impact on the right hand side of the head. He was agitated when he came in, he had some spontaneous movements, and he wasn’t in a normal state when he came in.”

The role of the helmet was stressed: “We think that with the violence with which his head hit the ground, the helmet did help. Without the helmet, he wouldn’t be here now.

“The helmet obviously wasn’t enough to protect him completely, but it really did help.”

Meanwhile Paris surgeon Prof Gerard Saillant, a close friend of Schumacher, said: “Honestly I came here not really as a doctor but as a friend, so I can’t really answer any technical questions.

“I am very worried just like any of his family, his children, his wife, we’re all very worried about his condition. The doctors won’t tell you more because they can’t tell you more. They are working hour-by-hour and it’s only at this level that you can take decisions.”