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Virgin is already running, but when will we see US F1, Campos - or Stefan?

Today is Thursday February 11, and the significance is that in exactly four weeks the cars will be undergoing scrutineering checks in Bahrain.

It’s a scary statistic, and not just because I haven’t booked my flight yet. More importantly we still really don’t know how many teams we will see there. The saga over whether Campos Meta and US F1 will make it, or whether one of them will somehow be usurped by Stefan GP, continues to rumble on.

It took another curious twist yesterday afternoon when the FIA put out a statement reminding us that teams are obliged to take part in all events. Well, that’s what we’ve always thought, but in recent days both Bernie Ecclestone and Jean Todt have been quoted as saying that teams could miss three races. That gave Campos and US F1 some extra breathing space, even if physically getting to cars to China for the fourth race in April was going to be an expensive exercise in itself.

But then all of a sudden the FIA came up with this: “Following recent reports on the interpretation of clauses in the Concorde Agreement concerning the concept of a Team’s ‘participation’ in the FIA Formula One World Championship, the FIA wishes to make the following clarification: From a sporting and regulatory point of view, each Team that has registered for the Championship is obliged to take part in every event of the season. Any failure to take part, even for just one Championship event, would constitute an infringement both of the Concorde Agreement and the FIA Regulations.”

Well that’s pretty clear, and it’s how we’ve always understood things to be. But why did Bernie and Todt, the guys who should know, say something different? And where does it leave the two struggling teams, who one assumes, have (for who knows how long) been under the impression that they would be able to skip those races? Has there been a change of tactics to put pressure on those teams, and perhaps force an opening for Stefan GP?

Attempt to rescue Campos are ongoing – more on that in a later story – but the problem is that as I understand it, work on the car has pretty much been on hold in recent weeks, so Bahrain remains a distant target. Interesting times…

Gamesmanship or brilliant tactics? The RB6 was revealed at the last possible moment

Adrian Newey’s decision to wait until the second 2010 test in Jerez may prove to be a wise if those extra nine days of wind tunnel and development work on the RB6 prove to have made the difference, but if nothing else, he kept everybody guessing. And by not showing the car until just before it first ventured into the pit lane, he has given everyone else even less time to analyse and copy it! 

The car certainly looks the part, full of the little details and nuances you expect from Newey. Crucially of course this year he has been able to design it around the double diffuser concept from the start, and given how close the team came to taking last year’s title without that advantage, the opposition must be worried.

Newey isn’t giving much away for the moment, and he insists that it’s evolution, and not the revolution that some might have expected. But that is probably the best way to go about winning the 2010 title, given that there are some pretty major rules changes to deal with.

“The RB6 is very much an evolution of the 2009 car,” he says. “We tried to refine and evolve it rather than go to new concepts. As a result, the car looks similar with elements such as the chassis and pull-rod rear suspension retained. 

 “The two main challenges were the larger fuel tank and the smaller front tyre. With the fuel tank, there was more to it than simply putting a bigger tank in the car – it puts more load on the brakes, so the brake cooling has to cope with that and you also have to consider what effect that extra fuel will have on the tyre degradation early in the race and if there’s anything we should change mechanically to cope with that. The narrower front tyre changes weight distribution and the balance of the car. I think it’s a sensible evolution of the 2009 car. 

 “One obvious difference is that the 2009 car was not designed to suit a double diffuser and we had to try to put one on as best we could around the existing rear suspension and gearbox. With this car we’ve been able to design that part of the car from scratch.” 

The key thing now is that Webber and Vettel get in as many dry miles as possible during a test that has already been compromised by rain. Only 11 days of testing left… 

The top of the chassis is even more dramatically sculpted than before

For a team that doesn’t quite exist yet, Stefan GP has attracted a lot of comment in recent weeks. It’s also been attracting a lot of drivers, as people wake up to the fact that the 2010 Toyota – even run by someone else – might not be such a bad car.

Kazuki Nakajima is already set for a race drive, and has been busy on the simulator in Cologne. There are obviously commercial considerations in taking him, and it wins Toyota some much needed positive PR in Japan.

Others in the mix include Romain Grosjean, Christian Klien and most interestingly, Bruno Senna. Grosjean apparently has some money, while the last named has a contract with Campos. However sources suggest that he has already been in touch, and if he has, it’s because he knows better than most which way the wind is blowing in Spain.

In fact the Brazilian would be an ideal choice, because he would create a certain amount of goodwill around the team. Any move to replace Campos with Stefan on the entry list, whatever form it takes, is bound to be complicated, and there may be objections from some quarters. But everyone, not least Bernie Ecclestone, can appreciate the boost to the sport that Senna’s name will provide if he jumps ship. If Stefan ends up buying Campos out, then keeping Bruno would be a no brainer anyway.

Ralf Schumacher has talked to the Stefan guys – it’s said he’s even been to Belgrade to meet them – but inevitably he told them he has no intention of bringing any money. It’s hard to see that his name on its own will attract any, or even why he’d want to come back in a team that, even with a decent base car and a few familiar faces around him, is not going to be challenging for podiums.

There have been questions about where the money is coming from, and Ecclestone raised a few eyebrows when he mentioned in the Sunday Express last weekend that there was government backing, and that he’d ‘met the prime minister.’

Since the former Mrs E is from neighbouring Croatia, and Bernie has strong links in the region, we have no reason to doubt him. In fact the funding is from an agency called SIEPA, or the Serbia Investment and Export Promotion Agency, whose role is to promote business in the country. It describes itself as “a government organisation dedicated to effectively helping foreign investors and buyers, while raising Serbia’s profile in the minds of international business decision-makers. Created in 2001 by the Government of the Republic of Serbia, SIEPA’s mission is to support foreign companies seeking to set up or expand in Serbia and Serbian companies when doing business worldwide.”

So that sounds pretty solid, but it seems unlikely that SIEPA is underwriting the whole thing, which is why Nakajima is on board and drivers with funding are of interest.

 Zoran Stefanovich is clearly a very clever and well-connected guy, and Bernie would not be backing him if he hadn’t been convinced. But from the outside, it all looks a bit messy, not least the stories about Stefan buying Dallara’s IP from under the nose of Campos. If true, it’s an amusing bit of gamesmanship – worthy of instant membership of the Piranha Club for Mr Stefanovich – but probably not very funny for Adrian Campos.

Whether Stefan finally gets in by formally taking over the Campos entry, or just by barging it out of the way, remains to be seen. Certainly Stefan’s attempt to show it means business by sending its sea freight to the opening races is a little presumptuous.

Matters have been further complicated by the ‘amnesty’ that will allow the new teams to miss the first three races. Not that it helps much, other than in terms of time, because the cost of just getting to race four in China on its own will not be insignificant. But when does a struggling team finally have to admit defeat – Thursday scrutineering in Shanghai?

Even with Ecclestone’s support you can’t talk you way onto the grid just because you have a car, and the FIA will have to make sure that everything is done by the book. I’d still love to see Jean Todt’s face if and when he signs off on a team whose technical director is Mike Coughlan…

There is a bigger picture, however. F1 would be silly to let the former Toyota team slip away, because in a year or two we might be desperate to find some serious candidates for the grid. The frustrating thing is that the Toyota board’s handling of its withdrawal was as heavy handed as BMW’s. Having saved its decision until after the last race, making a rescue almost impossible,Tokyo then refused to sanction a management buyout or allow a third party to buy its entry. 

That in effect would have meant selling a Toyota subsidiary, but clearly the paperwork could have been juggled to allow it to happen, and the team’s future would have been secured in November/December. Although that in turn would have made life complicated for Peter Sauber, who at that time was on the outside, looking in, as the ‘14th’ entry. Sorting that conundrum out would have been a big headache for his old pal Jean…

The Force India VJM03 will be in action at Jerez this week

Force India has unveiled the VJM03, the successor to the car that caused the biggest upset of 2009 when Giancarlo Fisichella took pole and finished second at Spa. The new car will get its first proper mileage at Jerez on Wednesday, when the Red Bull and Virgin will also join the teams seen in Valencia last week.

Fisichella has slipped into a testing role at Ferrari, and Adrian Sutil and Tonio Liuzzi are the guys who are hoping that the team can keep up its momentum. Both will be kept on their toes by new test driver, Paul di Resta, who will do some Friday driving.

This year the team has enjoyed the benefits of continuity with both Mercedes and gearbox supplier McLaren, after last year’s late decision to switch caused a few compromises as the some elements of the car had to be redesigned. In other words the team has been able to focus on building on last year’s performance and dealing with the increased fuel tank size. 

“Some of it looks quite different, and some of it will look quite familiar,” says technical director James Key explains. “It’s a natural progression in areas which seemed to have strong trends at the end of 2009, and in other areas it’s really quite different. Obviously everyone has had a year of experience with these aero rules now, and the double diffusers. So we’ve all gone into 2010 much wiser to what we might want to do in the future, and what sort of things we’ve got to make sure the car can cope with.

“I guess you could say the back of the car is the area that has evolved most. The packaging with the engine and everything else has been better. We had quite sweeping bodywork last year, which had a certain function. We’ve had more time to think about it, and that looks quite different.”

Last year Force India was one of the first teams to switch to a double diffuser, helped by the fact that the gearbox happened to lend itself to the change. This year’s car has of course been designed with a double diffuser in mind, and McLaren has further honed the gearbox to extract the maximum potential.

“It’s formed part of the make-up of the car this time around, rather than being added very quickly, as happened at the beginning of last year! It’s natural now to design the car to take these devices. The gearbox is now a little bit easier to work around, and there are tweaks to make the diffuser potential bigger. We’ve tried to make use of that. So there are some notable differences.”

Finding home for that 170kgs plus fuel cell has been the biggest challenge of the winter: “I’m sure like every other team we’ve just tried to make the best compromise we can. You are quite restricted by the regulations in how far you can push the fuel forward, for example. The side of the chassis, in pure performance terms, is really defined by your aerodynamics – what you want to do with your sidepods, and how big your radiators need to be, and so on. Then you’ve got vehicle dynamic wheelbase implications and aerodynamic wheelbase implications that you’ve got to consider. You’ve got to weigh all those things, and hope you choose the best compromise.”

New tester Paul di Resta will keep Sutil and Liuzzi on their toes

The MasterCard Lola F1 team failed after just one race weekend

“You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past,” wrote Bob Dylan in his 1970 novel Tarantula. No, I haven’t ploughed through that infamously impenetrable tome, I just borrowed the line from a Dictionary of Modern Quotations!

I thought it might be fun to use this blog not just to gossip about what’s going on now, but to take a look at history, via retro features and snippets of stories and features as they appeared at the time. So let’s go back to the days of Windows 3.1 and floppy discs – and yes, I did have to use one to dig the original interview below out of an ancient PC – and see what we can learn from the incredible past of the sport we all love.

And there was rarely a less credible attempt at starting an F1 team than the unfortunate MasterCard Lola effort of 1997. The return of a great name from the sport’s history, a Cosworth engine, a programme rushed through in a matter of months, lots of stickers on the car, and a flashy launch at a major London venue – who says history doesn’t repeat itself? I don’t wish to imply that the current Lotus team has not been built on sturdy foundations, but certainly Campos Meta and US F1 have yet to convince us that they can back up the bold promises of a few months ago.  

As you may recall, Lola boss Eric Broadley had grown tired of supplying other teams, most recently Scuderia Italia, and at 68 he thought it was time to go it alone. He even had plans to build a Lola-branded V10 engine. The great coup was to attract a massive blue chip name in the form of MasterCard. However, there was less to the deal that met the eye. It wasn’t about hard cash – the theory was that the team would eventually get a percentage of revenue raised from card holders who joined an ‘F1 Club.’

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but the sums didn’t add up. After just one outing in Australia – where the hapless Vincenzo Sospiri and Ricardo Rosset were miles away from qualifying – the whole thing collapsed like, well, a house of MasterCards, as Broadley wisely decided to cut his losses. The title sponsor later resurfaced at Jordan.

The aborted F1 project nearly finished off Lola, but the company was saved by Martin Birrane, and it is thriving today. Last summer it was ’97 all over again as Lola launched an F1 project, but its pitch didn’t impress the FIA sufficiently (it didn’t help that one of the two key speakers was stuck in traffic), and no entry was granted. Whether that rejection was ultimately a lucky escape or not for Birrane and co, we’ll never know.

Meanwhile back on the day of the MasterCard team launch, held in a ballroom at the London Hilton hotel, Broadley was full of optimism…

Eric Broadley Interview – February 1997

Q: Are you looking forward to the challenge of this season?

“Personally I enjoy a challenge. If not motor racing, I enjoy sailing, but I don’t get the time!”

Q: What do you think you can achieve this year?

“A lot of people have asked me that, and I have great difficulty in answering. We’re coming in with a strong attempt to win the World Championship. Not this year though, and not next. There’s a lot of learning to do this year, but I hope we’ll win a few points. We’ll be very happy if we do. After that, I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait and see.”

Q: Is it true that you’ve only had since November to get things running?

“Yes. The finance is so huge in F1, you can’t get on with it until you have the whole thing in place. But we manufactured the transmission a couple of years ago, and we’ve done a lot of detail work on it since then, rig-testing and electronic development. We didn’t start with nothing in November. Which we wouldn’t have done anyway, since we’re just bringing in a whole lot of knowledge from Indy and everything else we’ve done. There’s actually a lot of carryover from Indy. There are a lot of differences, because of differences in rules, engines, and types of tracks. But in a way, F1 is simpler. CART runs from street circuits to 200mph speedways. You have a broad range of departments, that the car has to answer with some changes. It’s very complicated. In F1 the circuits are much more similar. But the actual competitiveness is just that little bit extra in F1.”

Q: Are you happy with the driver line-up?

“I think it’s good. We all get on very well, and they’re both bright young guys with a lot of potential. It’s going to work very nicely. One of the things that has become pretty obvious is that a good driver in a good chassis will do a very good job. There’s a whole load of drivers across the board who are very good. It takes someone like Schumacher to take a chassis which isn’t very good and make it look good, But there are very, very few of those guys. The rest are good guys with good talent, with the right attitude, and with enough experience, they’ll do a very good job for you.”

Q: What are the important factors in finding success?

“There’s a lot of factors. You can put them into a list of priorities of you like; the aerodynamics and the engine are evenly matched, then there’s team organisation and attitude, and the engineering attitude. Don’t forget that we have a situation now where the downforce on the cars is pretty drastically reduced. It won’t mask problems in the car any more. You used to have so much downforce that it didn’t matter what you did. You still have to have the best aerodynamics that you can, but it’s not enough in itself. The mechanical aspect of the car is much more important than it was.”

Q: Is there a scenario where if MasterCard does not get enough club members, you won’t get the funding you’ve been promised? Is there a risk involved?

“There is a risk. But I think the deal is self-generating. If we show potential, that will be good for the club, and the club will grow, the finance will increase. There’s no guarantee.”

Q: Have you got back-up plans if you don’t get enough money?

“Yes. We have back-up plans. If we get more than we planned for, we’ll do more testing and development, and we’ll throw it into the engine programme. We’ll just get there quicker.”

Q: Are you worried that another team might try to steal MasterCard from you?

“Well of course they get approached all the time, like everybody else. We have a four year deal with MasterCard. They’re attitude to this thing is that it’s a long term deal. They know what they’re after, world markets, and they see the potential of F1. They are saying quite specifically that if they can’t make it work with us, they will pull out and do something else. They will not shuffle around (to other teams). They want a fresh team, and they don’t want to come in as a secondary sponsor. It worked in very well with us. It’s basically an American company, and Lola is very well known in America.”

Q: Are you officially the chief designer?

“I did lay out the design of this car. In Lola we try and avoid the sort of ‘chief designer’ title. The problem with that, is that because you’ve got a really good guy, it can work really well. But only to the point of his specialties. In motor racing there’s a great deal of ‘Not invented here’ syndrome. We try to avoid that. Years of experience have indicated that we must use a group of experts. So what we tend to do is have specialists in various area, like transmissions, aerodynamics, chassis dynamics, carbon technology. We have all these experts and they all work together. The first thing is you have to do is lay out the car, you define all the areas, and then you get all the guys going. That’s how we do all the projects. Now, my input in this case was on the initial layout and the initial direction that the project should go. Then, everybody else took off from there.”

Q: What are the plans for the Lola engine?

“We really need that, as soon as we can, but there’s a lot of work to do yet. The first engine is almost complete. We don’t know how long the testing will take, and we’re not going to run it (in a car) until it’s reliable. We’re not fixing a date on that yet. We would like to run it this season. Everyone else says ‘How you can you build your own engine?’ Everybody says its costs $100m to design and build one. I don’t think that’s true. If you find the right people, the technology is available, and you can make anything on modern machinery with a bit of organisation.”

Q: How big is your engine building team?

“It’s Al Melling and three or four designers, and we’re manufacturing the engine.”

Q: Do your Indy engineers work on both projects?

“That’s right. We think of it as a machine at Lola which produces race cars. We can do it in three months, regularly. So we use the same machine, the same people. The Indy project was completed, and we took those people and people off everything else and put them on F1.”

Q: Do you think that you’re too gentlemanly in the way you do business? People like Reynard are very pushy.

“They are very aggressive. I don’t know why, but I guess we just do business in the way we do. It’s difficult to change the animal. We’ve been in business longer than anyone else, and we always survive. These things happen from time to time, but we always overcome it.”

Q: Are you looking forward to living out of a suitcase, travelling to all the races?

“Well, I’m quite looking forward to the challenge. I’m not looking forward to the travelling, and all the wasted time at race meetings. It takes three days, and another couple of days for travelling.”

Q: What was the highlight of your years supplying other F1 teams?

“Well I suppose the first one we did with John Surtees in 1962 was amazingly good, and the thing we did with Honda in 1967 was amazing too. We did a pretty good job for Larrousse really, but that was very frustrating, because we were very isolated and we weren’t able to advance and consolidate that programme. That was the start of the realisation that it wasn’t the way to go. We got led into the Scuderia Italia deal, which was a mistake, a big mistake.”

Q: Do you regret not starting your own team 20 years ago?

 “I suppose so, yes. We probably should have done it, I guess. We could have grabbed a Cosworth DFV and been in the same ballpark as everyone else. But we’ve done a lot of other things instead, and here we are, still in business, unlike most other people. That can’t be bad!”

Do let me know via comments if you’d like see more historical stuff on here, and I’ll see what I can find!

Everyone will be watching Bridgstone's fronts. Especially this guy...

In theory 2010 is Bridgestone’s last year in the sport, although there’s been very little in the way of public discussion about potential replacements. There are certainly ongoing efforts behind the scenes to persuade the Tokyo management to change its mind, although it’s not yet clear how likely that will be. 

The irony is that in PR terms tyres will very much be in the spotlight this year, perhaps to a greater extent than any season since 2005, when both Bridgestone and Michelin had to make a single set of tyres last a whole race distance. 

This year there’s a different set of challenges. The first is that the fronts are 20mm narrower, for the simple reason that when the change was made from grooves to slicks, Bridgestone wanted to keep a check on the amount of rubber in contact with the track. 

However they couldn’t downsize the fronts last year because the teams had already begun designing their cars around the standard size front. That’s no longer an issue this year, as designers have had plenty of lead time, so the fronts have duly shrunk. 

The other big novelty for 2010 of course is the ban on refuelling. That has two effects. Firstly the huge extra weight that the cars carry at the start puts extra stress on tyres, and secondly fuel no longer plays any role in determining strategy. It’s now all about managing tyres and making the best use of the rule that forces everyone to use option and prime at some stage during the race. 

In addition, only last week we got confirmation that those who make it through to Q3 now have to start the race on the set of tyres on which they qualified. That’s going to have a massive impact. Tyres are the new fuel load, you might say. Last year it was all about how much fuel the Q3 runners would put into the tank as they balanced out the requirement to qualify at the front against the need for a good race strategy. Those outside the top 10 could look at the shape of the grid, and then make a call on fuel loads. 

Now, exactly the same will happen with tyres. And as with fuel loads we’ll probably see those who just scrape into Q3 making conservative choices, qualifying on the harder tyre and accepting ninth or 10^th place in the basis that it will be a better choice for the start. 

The teams had their first experience of the 2010 soft and supersoft tyres at Valencia last week, but the real test will come at Jerez, where they will try the softs, mediums and hards at a track which is much more punishing on the rears. 

In a press release from Bridgestone last week its technical manager Tetsuro Kobayashi made some interesting observations: “Of course, being a new sized front, the front construction has been slightly modified but the other main change this year has been a change to the rear tyre construction in order to increase its durability. There has also been some modification of the tyre compounds in order to manage the expected longer stint lengths and to provide quicker warm up times in comparison to our 2009 compound range.” 

Bridgestone has done its homework but then, but he also said that 2010 downforce levels are already higher than anticpated, hinting that the tyres may be more marginal than had been thought. 

Kobayashi-san also gave an insight into the testing programme: “Valencia is a less severe track compared to some, and although it has a slightly rough surface, we are able to use our softer compounds. One interesting factor at Valencia however is the front tyre graining caused by the lateral forces, which makes it a good track for us to evaluate the graining resistance of our front tyres. This is in contrast to the Jerez track, where teams will next test, which is much more severe, especially on the rear tyres. So we will be able to check our rear tyre performance more thoroughly next week.” 

In other words the teams will get their first proper taste of how the rears will stand up when running those 170kgs plus fuel loads. Clearly, some may struggle more than others to keep the tyres alive. Depending on how much leeway they have to dial such problems out of their car before the season starts, that critical comparison between teams may ultimately have more relevance than any outright lap times at Jerez. Should be an interesting week… 

For more thoughts on the Bridgestone situation check out: http://formula-one.speedtv.com/article/cooper-tires-will-be-the-key-in-2010/

Rarely has Daytona’s ARCA 200 support event attracted as much attention as this year, and having found a slightly dodgy broadcast of it on the net last night, I settled down to watch.

It probably should have been renamed the Danica 200, since so much coverage went to the lady in car number seven, but to be fair she was the one we all wanted to see in action.

And she did a great job, highlighted when she rubbed doors with none other than Nelson Piquet on the pit straight, went for a wild sideways ride across the tri-oval grass, and somehow managed to keep it out of the wall. Veteran commentator Darrell Waltrip was full of admiration for the skills she displayed as she twirled the wheel around and got going again…

After some yellows helped her out she fought her way back to as high as fifth, and what really impressed was the way she showed that clearly wasn’t enough. She eventually got shuffled around in a tight lead pack and crossed the line sixth. Even those sceptical about her ultimate ability and the hype that surrounds her would have to admit that she provides entertainment.

“I was pretty excited to go from last back to the top five I think again,” she said with some understatement to the Speed TV interviewer. “The car felt pretty good, and it was really fun, side-by-side with people. The Go-Daddy car doesn’t look very pretty…”

The NASCAR world has finally had a taste of Danicamania, and I am sure they are not going to let her go. Those who thought they might one day like to see her at US F1 – or anywhere else on the Grand Prix grid – can probably forget it…

Nelson meanwhile had something of a wild baptism. He ran a strong fifth in the early laps (he’d had no practice whatsoever at drafting), but endless crashes meant he couldn’t get any momentum going. At one point a red flag came out so they could mend a debris fence, and the field parked on the back straight. Afterwards Nelson couldn’t restart and was pushed back to the pits by a tow truck, which dropped him to last.

He got going again and was subsequently involved in at least three incidents that we saw – aside from triggering Danica’s moment, he also helped nine-times ARCA champion Frank Kimmel into a spin! Next Friday he’ll be racing in the NASCAR Truck series. And those guys don’t take any nonsense…

Nelson Piquet Jr’s stock car racing career will kick off at Daytona on Saturday when he takes part in the ARCA event, the support race that traditionally serves as a sort of baptism of fire for those making the transition from road racing.

Even in the insular world of NASCAR the arrival of a contemporary F1 driver – and son of a triple World Champion – is something of an attention grabber, but Nelson will be happy to stay out of the spotlight since his debut coincides with that of Danica Patrick, and the IRL star has naturally been hogging the headlines all week.

Qualifying doesn’t mean much on ovals but Nelson will start a respectable seventh for this race, and judging by his Twitter messages over the last 24 hours, he’s having a great time.

When I spoke to him last week for an Autosport feature there was no doubt in his mind that he’d made the right decision.

“In America they were offering a lot of good things,” he said. “I just decided to take this path. I started to balance a lot of things, career decisions, challenge, life quality, all kinds of things. It was a tough choice, but I think it was an interesting choice in the end.”

He’s more than happy to be starting on the lower rungs of the ladder – ARCA and the truck series – so that he can learn the ropes.

“That’s why I’m taking it easy, and not stepping straight into Nationwide or Sprint Cup. I’m going into trucks and trying to learn as much as I can, starting from the Formula Ford or F3 equivalent. I could have gone straight to Cup if I’d wanted, but the risk that I would burn myself there would be very big. If I’m going to do it, I want to do it properly, really take my time and have a long term thing over here.”

Intriguingly he said he’d been in contact with Stefan GP as recently as early January, before deciding it was not worth pursuing. Since I talked to him we’ve all learned that the project is rather more advanced that we (or perhaps Nelson) thought, and Kazuki Nakajima and Ralf Schumacher are being lined up to drive. Nelson just might have missed out on his only chance to resume his F1 career, but for now, he has no regrets.

“If I’m really happy here, I won’t even look back. So far everything’s going well. It can be such a cruel world sometimes, F1. Obviously if you make the right step and move on in the right way, everything’s OK. But there’s maybe half a dozen drivers that are really happy, half a dozen that are satisfied, and another six that are miserable!

“I prefer to try something new, and jeez, if it works, I’m going to be much happier. That’s all I’m going to want, to be happy in something I’m doing.”

It remains to be seen how he will fare in the USA. On the face of it he’s one of the last F1 drivers you’d expect to fit in there – brought up in Monaco, silver spoon in his mouth, all that sort of thing – but once you get to know him he’s a decent guy, and his reputation for arrogance is a little unjustified.

You could also argue that the unfortunate event that has completely trashed his reputation in Europe will not have the same effect in the USA. The F1 driver who crashed to bring out the pace car and help his team mate win – right on!

There’s every chance that he’ll get a taste of a Daytona wall, if not in the ARCA event, then when he makes the move to the rough and tumble of the truck series next weekend. He knows it’s going to happen, and he knows too that some of his rivals will be happy to help him with his education. “I’d rather it happened sooner than later,” he jokes…

For a full interview with Nelson, check out the February 4 issue of Autosport.

Nelson Piquet has qualified seventh for his stock car debut

After the car first turned a wheel late on Thursday Timo Glock put some more laps on the Virgin VR-01 at Silverstone on Friday, before handing it over to team mate Lucas di Grassi. It was the first outing as a fulltime F1 driver for the Brazilian, who tested for Renault as recently as December in Barcelona.

Virgin were using the short 1.8kms Stowe circuit, so the day was more about checking that everything worked rather than exploring any performance limits. Glock ran 42 laps, and di Grassi another 36. “It feels good,” said Lucas in a team statement. “It feels like home! I’m really happy and our first impressions of the car are very positive. It’s amazing what the team has achieved in such a short space of time. I think we have a strong car and a great team to get things started in Jerez. It was important for me to learn as much as possible here so I can start to put some real mileage on the car next week.”

The true potential of the first car to be completely ‘digitally designed,’ without recourse to the wind tunnel, is yet to be determined. But thus far it seems to have gone well, and it certainly looks the part. “I am delighted that we have successfully shaken down the VR-01,” said technical director Nick Wirth. “To achieve 100kms of running out of the box is a great achievement with only a few minor issues along the way. We have acquired some good information to feed straight back into design for the development of new parts, which we may even be testing next week. All in all this is a very pleasing conclusion to a memorable week for Virgin Racing.”

The test was as much about the team gelling as running the car, as boss John Booth explained: “Our shakedown provided our very first opportunity to work together as a trackside operation and it couldn’t have gone any better. The way the team has come together to achieve such a successful shakedown has been commendable. I’m very proud of what we have achieved and we’re looking forward to taking our place alongside the other F1 teams in the pitlane next week.”

There have been a few sceptics along the way, but full marks to Virgin and Manor for getting out there and getting the job done. Meanwhile the world waits for firm news from Campos and US F1. And waits…

Lucas di Grassi had his first go in the Virgin on Friday

These days Snetterton doesn’t often play host to contemporary Grand Prix drivers, but on Thursday next week Jarno Trulli will have a go in the new Lotus Evora Cup car at the unglamorous Norfolk circuit. It’s a great PR stunt for Lotus, and it reinforces the links between the new F1 team and the road car company, both of which of course have Malaysian owners.

The following day Jarno will join new team mate Heikki Kovalainen for the launch of the new team at a rather more upmarket venue in London. Lotus is keen to remind us that in the past its F1 drivers have played a role in developing its sporty road cars, with Jim Clark and Nigel Mansell among those to have undertaken the task.

Jarno Trulli will drive a Lotus Evora Cup car at Snetterton