Motorsport Update

Pedro del la Rosa gave the new Sauber a shakedown at the Ricardo Tormo circuit (a bit of a naff track named after an excellent world champion bike rider who plied his trade on ‘real’ circuits). The new car was third fastest behind the two Ferrari’s during the first F1 test of the year. The C29 is probably only car seen so far that looks a little different (apart from the Renault and it’s super retro paint work), featuring a broader looking nose and sidepods. Of course, we don’t know if the Sauber will be competitive yet, due to the differing fuel loads carried by the cars during the tests. It looks like we’ll have to wait until the first qualifying session of the year for that.

The Doctor finished the second day of testing at the Malaysian Sepang circuit on top of the timesheets, registering a 2m00.925s lap. Casey Stoner was hot on his heels in second and Rossi’s team mate Jorge Lorenzo third. Dani Pedrosa took fourth with 2009 World Superbike champ Ben Spies finishing an impressive fifth.

The proposed change of the MotoGP formula to 1000cc may keep Mr Rossi in Grand Prix racing for another few years, according to Autosport. He was talking about racing rally cars or vans etc, but it seems the two wheel pull is a little too much…

Full results of the test below (results courtesy of Autosport):

Pos  Rider             Bike               Time       Gap
1.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha             2m00.925s
2.  Casey Stoner      Ducati             2m01.320s  + 0.395s
3.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha             2m01.680s  + 0.755s
4.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda              2m01.822s  + 0.897s
5.  Ben Spies         Yamaha             2m02.266s  + 1.341s
6.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              2m02.272s  + 1.347s
7.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha             2m02.479s  + 1.554s
8.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati             2m02.493s  + 1.568s
9.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati      2m02.647s  + 1.722s
10.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki             2m02.763s  + 1.838s
11.  Marco Melandri    Gresini Honda      2m02.810s  + 1.885s
12.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati       2m03.032s  + 2.107s
13.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda          2m03.043s  + 2.118s
14.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Interwetten Honda  2m03.195s  + 2.270s
15.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda      2m03.245s  + 2.320s
16.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki             2m03.274s  + 2.349s
17.  Mika Kallio       Pramac Ducati      2m03.359s  + 2.434s

The new Mercedes was unveiled in the pit lane in Valencia yesterday after the team launch a few days ago. The car on display that day was a repainted Brawn from last year, but this piece of cutting edge automotive technology is this years actual competitor. It appears to be following the vague trend of the new cars we have seen so far, with a high, curved nose. It’s this season’s ‘in’ thing, daaarling.

Toro Rosso have also launched their new model for the coming year, complete with obligatory high nose and back fin. Interestingly, this is the first time since their Minardi days that they have produced a car of their own, due to rule changes disallowing them to be a customer of Red Bull.

Renault have hauled their asses up for a final season in the bear-pit with their 70’s retro coloured effort and a new driver line-up. Robert Kubica has been joined by Russian Vitaly Petrov, who will be the first Russian to drive in F1. The car currently has only one sponsor on it, fuel supplier Total, so maybe the eastern European line up may attract some investors from their respective countries?

With a month still to go before Bahrain, we should see the unveiling of more cars, with teams eager to see if their investments pay off. I’m interested to see what the new teams are going to come up with, particularly Peter Windsor’s USF1 effort. But, as ever, it’s a waiting game at the moment.

The Scuderia  launched their new car yesterday with Mclaren following suit today. The new Williams has also been sighted at a sponsors event, looking rather sponsorship light. I also noticed that despite the naysayers, the cars don’t look much bigger, even though they have a larger fuel tank. There has been lots of talk of hoped success this year and that their cars are a logical development from last year etc. I wish that a team would just say, for once, “We’ve started from scratch; Derek had a great idea down the pub and we’ve built something completely different for a change.”

But they won’t, of course.

Anyway, all the bluster and optimism is irrelevant as ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’ as they say. Whether or not a car is good all depends on it’s performance once it hits the tracks of Belgium, France , Spain, the assorted middle east countries and of course, our own Silverstone. I for one, can’t wait to see the first race without refuelling for 16 years (has it been that long?). I think I may put some money on Jensen…

Here’s a couple of things that grabbed my attention this week:

Formula 1

Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg were unveiled as silver arrows drivers to the public as part of the Mercedes GP launch. It all looked rather efficent and germanic with plenty flashes from photographers and ordinary nerks with their pay as you go mobiles. Even though there is no official number one, Rosberg is probably peeved as he is now practically number two. On the other hand, I have a slightly ominous feeling that ze ‘Greatest living German’ will be quite good this year…

Moto 2

Whether or not you agree with the class, 39 entries for the new Moto2 championship seems very healthy indeed. Last year, the final 250cc campaign only attracted 25 entries, so it will be good to see such a full field lining up in Qatar. Compare this with the 17 confirmed in the MotoGP class, a result of the 800cc formula making bikes so expensive to produce and run.

Podcasts

Head on over to the Motorsport magazine’s website and enjoy their monthly podcast. It’s a real treat for anyone even with a passing interest in F1.

No British rider has won a premier class Motorcycle Grand Prix since 1981. That is a surprising fact, isn’t it? People in the street would probably think that Carl Fogerty had won several, but the self styled King of British Motorcycle racing only made a handful of appearances in Grand Prix racing. His first was a wildcard entry for the 1986 250cc British Grand Prix and the last, finishing fourth in the 1993 500cc British Grand Prix. For some reason, he never made the crossover from World Superbikes (which he won four times).

No, the shadow that hangs long over every British GP rider is that of Londoner Barry Sheene. The double 500cc World Championship winner took his final victory in Sweden twenty nine years ago, the last before serious injury and a lack of competitive machinery curtailed his career. Sheene took over from multiple world champion Phil Read as the number one British rider from the mid 70’s onwards and was arguably the first rider to maximise his marketing potential as a modern professional sportsman.

125cc

Barry Sheene first came to prominence on the British racing scene when won the national 125cc championship at the age of 20 in 1970 (weirdly old by today’s standards, but young back in ‘70). This success saw him stepping up to the 125cc world championship in 1971, riding for Suzuki and taking on the Spanish motorcycle king, Angel Nieto. The Englishman had already shown what he was capable of the previous year, when he finished 2nd in his début Grand Prix at Montjuich Park in Barcelona, the last race of the season.

Sheene ran Nieto close that year, winning in Belgium, Sweden and Finland. He also took podiums in every other race, with the exception of the Isle of Man. In 1971, the island was the British round of the world championship and all the major players in every class took part. Crashing out at Quarter Bridge, Sheene refused to race there again, as he felt the risks were not worth the championship points. His vocal opposition to the race did not make him popular amongst sections of the British motorcycling community, even more so after the TT lost it’s championship status in 1977. In the end, the Englishman finished second to Nieto and decided to move up to the 250cc class with Yamaha.

More next time…

Autosport’s International exhibition has been showing some excellent clips of the interviews they have been conducting on their Youtube channel. There are some excellent bits of film on there, including Allan McNish, Johnny Herbert and Martin Brundle answering the well informed audience’s questions. Jensen Button was also interviewed and took questions from those assembled as well. All were well worth watching, with some interesting views (when is Mr Brundle not able to hold an audiences attention?).

Button has lost the designer stubble (I imagine Ron was waiting in reception with a shaving kit for him on his first day) and was wearing some rather natty, smart attire. He answered the now usual questions about his new team mate smoothly and gave an insight into how he sees the new season shaping up. See it here.

Donington Park is still in a state of disrepair after Simon Gillett’s disastrous bid for the British Grand Prix fell through. There has been no news yet of whether the Wheatcroft family are going to appoint a new leaseholder or get things sorted themselves. The circuit is currently in an unusable state, with parts of the track dug up and even the famous Dunlop bridge removed from its perch on the back straight.

Autosport have run an interesting article on the remarks Jonathan Palmer has made on the current state of the track at the Autosport International event yesterday. You can read them here. Mr Palmer, an ex-F1 driver himself, is the boss of Motorsport Vision who own Brands Hatch, Cadwell Park and Oulton Park race circuits. If anyone was a good candidate to resuscitate Donington, then surely it would be MSV. As a regular visitor to Brand Hatch, I’m always impressed at how well run the track is and what good value for money a race meeting is there. The quality of the support races are always impressive, I’ve seen classic cars, vans, sidecars and Formula 3 there. The food and seating is also a very good standard too.

Let’s hope that we see Donington up and running soon.

Carrying on from the last weeks post, I thought I’d write a little more on what happened to some of the tracks on the 1990 calendar.

Imola

This superb Italian race track will always now be associated with the death of Ayrton Senna in 1994. The great Brazilian died after crashing against the dreaded wall on the outside of the Tamburello. However, this is not how I wish to remember it. Imola had a great flow to it, with a challenging mixture of fast, medium and slow corners, punctuated by some tricky chicanes. The high speed chase from the startline, through Tamburello and Villeneuve, finishing at the Tosa hairpin was a classic stretch; as was the charge up from the Acque Minerale to the Rivazza. The track in a heavily chicaned form, held the San Marino race until 2006 and has recently been redeveloped with new pits and some chicanes eased.

The 1990 race was won by Williams driver Riccardo Patrese, and featured a spectacular spin by Nigel Mansell coming out of Tamburello, chasing down Gerhard Berger. How he got that car back on the road at the speed, I don’t know.

Estoril

The Estoril circuit last held the Portuguese Grand Prix in 1996, with a layout that wouldn’t pass muster now. A fast outer section followed by a tight infield, then finished off with a sequence of quick corners and 180 degree right hander on to the start/finish straight. Unfortunately, these corners had very little in the way of run-off and although there were few accidents at the track, it did not survive the post-94 clampdown in the end. The track still hosts the MotoGP Grand Prix, but with most of the fast corners removed.

The 1990 race was won by Nigel Mansell for Ferrari in a shortened race, stopped due to Alex Caffi crashing his Arrows into the barriers on lap 61.

Paul Ricard

When opened in the early 70’s, the Paul Ricard circuit was seen as a state of the art facility. It was characterised by the long Mistral back straight, which ended in the ultra fast Signes curve. The track was shortened for GP use in 1986 after Brabham driver Elio De Angelis’s fatal crash that year in testing. The circuit was replaced by the awful Magny-Cours in 1991 for political reasons. In recent years, Ricard has been converted into a dedicated test track for all types of racing (cars, vans, bikes etc).

The 1990 race was won by Alain Prost, after Ivan Cappelli led a large part of the race in the Leyton House due to not stopping for tyres. Prost’s win was the 100th for Ferrari.

As part of my ‘Look back to 1990′, I’m going to take a quick look at the venues the season used. Several tracks have long stopped being used (Paul Ricard hosted the French Grand Prix for the last time that year) and some are still on the calendar in neutered form.

In 1990 the F1 calendar looked like this:

R1: USA Grand Prix, Phoenix street circuit.

R2: Brazilian Grand Prix, Interlagos.

R3: San Marino Grand Prix, Imola.

R4: Monaco Grand Prix, Monte Carlo.

R5: Canadian Grand Prix, Gilles Villeneuve Circuit, Montreal.

R6: Mexican Grand Prix, Mexico City.

R7: French Grand Prix, Paul Ricard circuit.

R8: British Grand Prix, Silverstone.

R9: German Grand Prix, Hockenheim.

R10: Hungarian Grand Prix, Budapest.

R11: Belgian Grand Prix, Spa-Franchorchamps.

R12: Italian Grand Prix, Monza.

R13: Portuguese Grand Prix, Estoril.

R14: Spanish Grand Prix, Jerez.

R15: Japanese Grand Prix, Suzuka.

R16: Australian Grand Prix, Adelaide.

It was not all good, the Phoenix street circuit was a naff 90 degree corner affair, the Budapest track was just as rubbish as it is now and despite being a decent bike circuit, Jerez was always boring for cars. However, the vast majority of the tracks were pretty decent. The demanding Adelaide street circuit is still superior to Melbourne, and Hockenheim in those days was a 210mph blast through the forests. Imola was used for the San Marino Grand Prix in it’s fast and dangerous form, with the Tamburello causing one large accident a year (If only they could have moved back that wall).

My lasting memory of the 1990 season is not Senna taking Prost off the track at Suzuka, but of Nigel Mansell overtaking Gerhard Berger at 180mph around the Peralta at the Mexico City circuit. As schoolboy, I remember being enthralled by the wheel-to-wheel fight they’d been having for a few laps before, only to see Mansell trying to sell Berger a dummy down the back straight, before launching himself around the outside of the banked 180 degree corner. Pure white knuckle racing that you don’t see often now. Instead, you get the rich and famous taking flights to Dubai to see cars trying to race around the Abu Dhabi track with no exciting corners or challenge. And they call it progress…