Alvin's Formula One Blog

The good news is that Red Bull are having loads of problems and won't be stamping all over the championship come Melbourne. Hopefully, with all of Renault's problems, we'll see a more level playing field this year. Of course, they won't be behind forever, F1 teams have a knack for solving problems fast and getting back on performance. But personally, I'm grinning from ear to ear. After a whole year of boring-ness. So how bad are Renault teams anyway? Not that bad according to Rob White, Renault Sport F1 Deputy Managing Director. But then he would say that, wouldn't he? From what we can glean of this interview, they are a few weeks behind and that is bad in F1. The last 2 tests showed that when you are behind, when you can't use the time to test for speed and you waste time fixing problems here and there, you will be quite behind in terms of development. What were the key steps taken between Jerez and Bahrain ? We made a number of specification c...

The teams have been able to complete more testing distance with Pirelli's new 2014 range of tyres in Bahrain, as they begin to get a better picture of how the latest tyres interact with the radically different new cars. A number of teams were able to complete race simulations, as well as qualifying and pit stop practice, assessing every aspect of tyre usage. Weather conditions remained dry and warm, in the region of 20 degrees centigrade or higher: temperatures that are much more representative of the season as a whole. In accordance with the nominations they had made in advance, the teams were able to try out the entire 2014 range of P Zero tyres in Bahrain, as well as a special 'winter' hard compound, with a faster warm-up. Paul Hembery comments: The teams were able to learn more about tyres over the four days in Bahrain than they could in Jerez two weeks ago, thanks to increased running time and optimal weather conditions. Although the teams are still at a compa...

This is something worth sharing. A 360 degree view of an on-board camera on an F1 car. Nice! It is an  interactive 360-degree view of the Mercedes W05 in action. The video is of Nico Rosberg driving the car during a filming day at Silverstone can be rotated through 360 degrees while it is playing. Click on image to be taken to the video Although the car did not go flat out as it was a filming day, we can still hear the engine. I like the turbo hiss almost every time the revs change or when it changes gears but the overall sound is more like a superbike engine. It is not high pitched as the V8s, but that maybe due to it was not going flat out. Looking forward to hearing the engine flat out in the races. If you enjoyed this posting, please do share it with your network so more people can enjoy it as well. Also, check out my t-shirt design for Nico Rosberg fans below (designs for other teams and drivers also available), click on image.

Image from F1Technical.net Sorry there's not much to write about still these days as there is just a lot of news around and I don't report on news. There's a million websites out there taht do that, re-hashing news all day long. Since I don't have much to write about nor do I have the time as well, I do want to share interesting and important information about our beloved sport whenever I can. John Beamer is one of my favorite technical F1 writers. He always is able to explain the technicalities of F1 in as simple a language as possible. Although his simple is still very technical to me. He also always has good illustrations to show the point. I love the way he presents his ideas and explanations. Here you will find him explaining some of the early innovations in F1 this year in glorious detail and with clear illustrations. I hope this will whet your appetite for the looming battle between the teams. Can't wait for Bahrain. Read the full article HERE . T...

Ok it's hard (pun intended) not to think of something else when looking at some of these new F1 noses. So the cars have been launched and shaken down at a cold Jerez. But how will they really work in the heat? bahrain will tell us more of they will work in the dry heat and long runs. There have been many launch stories and since I don't want to rehash any of the stories, here I present available launch analysis of the current crop of F1 cars as done by Matt Sommerfield of Pitpass, who is excellent at making the technical not so technical for the rest of us. Although technical is as technical as it gets. Sauber C33 The Swiss team, based in Hinwil, are one of the teams earmarked to be struggling financially. Although they have some fantastic infrastructure in place most of this came from their time under BMW ownership. That's not to say they haven't been investing but without major investment like BMW offered everything suffers. Ferrari F14T Ferrari is to For...

As usual, James Allen has with the help of his buddy Mark Gillan to explain to us F1 technologies in a way that is simple to understand. Felipe Massa’s quote at the weekend about the new ‘brake-by-wire’ systems on the 2014 F1 cars taking some getting used to has sparked a lot of discussion on the JA on F1 site, with readers wanting to know more about what it is and how it works. Let’s start with an explanation from the Sauber F1 team, “The braking system concept is totally new, taking the form of a brake-by-wire system for the first time at the rear wheels. This has become necessary due to the significantly increased performance of the ERS, which requires much greater variations in rear wheel braking torque than previously. With brake-by-wire, an electronic system measures how hard the driver presses the brake pedal and then – using the additional information from energy recuperation – determines in a split-second the amount of braking pressure that should be fed through to the r...