Alvin's Formula One Blog

It seems that the weird McLaren shark fin engine cover with a connecting part to the rear wing has been copied by Ferrari. Alonso was seen sporting one today at the Barcelona test. Have a look courtesy of picture from F1Fanatic and photography by Julien Leroy. Now, compare this to the McLaren MP4-25 below. Something about this design works I suspect. In fact, Alonso recorded the fastest time ever for this test today at Barcelona, beating Webber by about 3 tenths. His best time was 1:21.183 done somewhere in a 14 lap run . We'll have to see what the analysis by James Allen of todays' test first to make a more educated guess of the pace of the Ferrari. Whatever it is, the Ferrari F10 looks good this year so far and Alonso looks good so it's a scary prospect. I've always admitted Alonso is a good driver even though I don't like him. And Alonso in a Ferrari is scary, what more a performing Ferrari.

Most if not all F1 fans know who is Charlie Whiting . He's the guy with the white hair that gets involved when something goes wrong on the track or during a race. But who is he really and what does he do (and how he does it so well)? Well, to answer that question, read here a re-production of the roots of Charlie and how he is absolutely qualified to do his job. Who on earth is ... Charlie Whiting? Laurence Edmondson February 25, 2010 When the lights go out in Bahrain , the fate of the teams' multi-million pound cars, and all the months of painstaking development that has been put into them, will be put in the hands of 20 plus adrenaline junkies. Worrying, isn't it. Formula One isn't like football or rugby where a referee can step in and calm things down a bit. In fact, the last man who tried to get between an F1 car and its intended destination was an Irish priest at Silverstone in 2003 and he was, quite rightly, arrested. So officiating a grand prix is a n...

Re-published from Planet F1 Mark Webber set a blistering pace on Friday where, thanks to a day of sunshine, he posted this year's fastest lap time at the Jerez circuit. After finishing top of the timesheets with a lap of 1:19.299, the Aussie reported: "We're certainly showing some good form in terms of reliability, but we always need to work on performance - you never know what the other teams are doing. "But we're in a good position at the moment to build up to the first race. "It's close, but there's also quite a way to go, as other teams have no doubt planned developments for Bahrain. "We're doing the work we need to do in order to understand the car more." Report: After two days of rain and interruptions, Friday's running at the Spanish circuit kicked off under blue skies and with the track almost completely dry. However, even the dry surface didn't stop the red flags from being waved as the action was halt...

A bit of news on Lotus F1 or for those patriotic of you out there, the 1Malaysia F1 team. The good news is that the car ran..yeah, I know. It ran for 63 laps yesterday driven by Fairuz at Jerez without any problems. Well, it had a problem, there was no power steering at all. And Fairuz managed to drive it properly for 63 laps! Hands up to the man, he should be driving the car in races. Not so good news today, day 2 at Jerez. Heikki Kovalainnen took the car for a drive today in rainy Jerez and crashed it . That's the end of testing for today. The best part is that there was no spare parts. The part ordered was supposed to arrive at 2am tomorrow, so hopefully they'll get some more running then. If this is how Tony runs the show, I can't wait to see Kamaruddin and Nasarudin giving their input as well.

James Allen gives a great insight into the possible scenarios and plans that teams might use in practice, qualifying and races this year based on the changes to the rules and cars/tyres. It seems that the restrictions will make thinking forward much more important this year as you don't want to go out with the wrong tyres. An example: If this is the character of 2010 tyre on some tracks it will be very hard to find out during practice sessions whether stopping earlier than your rival is going to be the better option, as some people have been suggesting. So much will depend on track characteristics and how the tyres degrade on those tracks. It's also interesting to see that because of the limitations imposed on teams, perhaps teammates will be forced to work together and trust each other. I'm just no so sure which one will take the right task as they might be thinking that they are better at setup or something else as James said: So you might see teams split with one dr...

It seems that the old playhouse rules still apply. You know the one where I appoint you and you appoint me so that we both control everything, so we can have it our way, have our cake and eat it too. Even if we both have no idea what we're doing. Not only is Tony Fernandes the team principal at a F1 team, he is a team principal with no prior training or experience in F1. And now, to add icing to the cake, he has appointed his 2 partners in the venture to the position of deputy team principals. This is highly unusual having deputy team principal, what more 2. Having a team principal with no F1 experience is mad enough, appointing 2 deputies with no F1 experience also is just dumb. I thought before that Mike Gascoyne would be advising Tony on the pitlane during races but now Mike is even further removed. I wonder how Tony will make split second decisions during races when the message is being passed from Mike to Nasaruddin to Kamarudin and then to Tony and vice-versa. Lotus, oh Lotu...

Here is an excellent article on the technical analysis and some explanation of the design decisions used on the new McLaren MP4-25 car. The article was published by F1Technical.net and there are various other articles and interesting bits of information for you F1 tech heads. McLaren MP4/25 Mercedes

Finally after all the talk and work, Lotus has launched their brand new car in London. It has a lot of historical weight to carry as Lotus has been successful in the past and Tony Fernandes better not screw up that history because then the whole of Malaysia will be blamed by motorpsort nuts worldwide. A first look at the car makes me feel nervous. Why? Because it doesn't really look like a F1 car. The nose is too thick, it looks like an F3 car. The rest of it is pretty simple and the sidepods are very big. Keith from F1Fanatic has had some articles lately with explanations about the new diffucers and how a slimmed down sidepod helps airflow to the diffusers. The Lotus' sidepods looks huge. The only part of the car that is interesting is the front wing. It is pretty complicated on an otherwise dull car. The funny thing is the wing is devoid of any sponsors, which is weird. I also noticed that Naza has only 1 sticker on the whole car. We'll have to wait for the car to hit th...

There is a very good technical analysis of the 2010 F1 cars so far revealed done by F1Fanatic's guest writer John Beamer on F1Fanatic. It offers quite an in-depth analysis on the designs of the cars as well as the effects that teams want to achieve this year within the rgulations and gives a good guess who should do well. The explanation about the rear diffuser is really interesting and insightful. You can read it here .

Well, let me apologise for this delay to post my opinions on the cars that were launched recently by the F1 teams for this season. My mind has been quite busy lately dealing with some personal stresses. So, getting to the point. The first test of the season is already underway at Valencia (not the street track but the permanent one, I must say that track is pretty short and not so demanding) but I have not even given my 2 cents of the current crop of cars. So here it goes. FERRARI The Ferrari F10 looks good. The overall shape is different than last years' car and the nose is similar but seems higher and longer. The front wing is complicated, the rear wing is still too small but there is a nice touch of white to the livery. The sidepods are weird though and I seem to notice the exhaust coming out halfway down them, is that right or even legal? MCLAREN So far the most beautiful car in the pack. McLaren have this knack for good design, they did it last year with the MP4-24 when the ne...

This was written by Duncan Stephen, based in Kirkcaldy, Fife on his great blog DoctorVee . I'm a regular visitor and reader of his articles. I wanted to share his lighthearted look at the new 2010 season so I've re-posted this here. For more in-depth and critical analysis of F1 please visit his blog at http://doctorvee.co.uk/. Following on from the revelation that Michael Schumacher has a mad superstition for odd numbers , the German will reveal a litany of hitherto unknown superstitions. Among these will be an insistence that his team mate runs with an inferior set-up because “it makes me feel a bit better about my car”. He will also reveal that he has a special form of OCD that means he just has to brake-test any drivers that are behind him, and cannot stop himself from driving straight into anyone who has just overtaken him. He also has a strong superstition for getting to choose his own parking space, and will park his Mercedes car in Race Control, where he can lit...

Re-produced from ESPN . With testing in Formula One now strictly limited, much of the preparation for the new season is done behind the wheel of multi-million pound simulators. A computer game so advanced that it can actually replicate every movement of the car, the only snag is it costs £125,000. These state-of-the-art machines are not only used to develop driver skills but also allow the engineers to achieve the perfect set-up. The simulator can run full race distances, allowing the teams to tweak every tiny variable. Most of us mere mortals have to settle for arcade or home computer games to feed our need for speed. The trouble is they simply don't get close to a real race experience. But now there are is new breed of simulators, although still too expensive for home use, can offer the ultimate race experience. You can feel the wheel vibrate as you try and ride the curbs, the G-forces as you brake, and the back end slip away as you accelerate too quickly out o...