Motorsport News!

last SG · 2004-12-21T01:28:01+00:00

*wonders what the Pope will do with his newly acquired toy car*

EvilDead SG

Good for Heidfeld!!!! Hope he does well this year.

Kuali Baba SG

The Renault R25.

Kuali Baba SG

More pictures:

Kuali Baba SG

The front wing looks like the FW27’s and the ridge on the engine cover is MP4-18, but the most interesting feature is the V-shaped keel.

[email protected] SG

hmmm

[email protected] SG

Narain Karthikeyan looks set to be confirmed as a Jordan driver in the near future.

The Indian's manager Sanjay Sharma told Reuters: Narain has been offered a full drive by Jordan as their number one driver. He has accepted it.

However, Midland sporting director Trevor Carlin denied that everything was signed, sealed and delivered.

He told BBC Sport: He's still got to find some funds, but it's very close. The sponsorship package seems strong.

Karthikeyan has been linked to a Jordan drive since Midland's takeover of the Silverstone-based outfit, having achieved considerable success with Carlin Motorsport in the junior formulae.

Carlin added: Narains pretty quick, but he's a bit wild as well. Hell be quite exciting.

If the deal comes to fruition, the 28-year-old will become the first Indian driver in F1 history. He is expected to hold a news conference in Bombay later today to confirm that he has been offered the drive.

Carlin put Karthikeyans chances of sealing the drive at about 90 per cent.

EvilDead SG

Indian F1 driver.....hmm he will probably stop half way through a race to open up a corner shop. Confused

[email protected] SG

Laughing

Kuali Baba SG

He can roast the kebabs with the flames from his expired Toyota engine. Mr. Green

Kuali Baba SG

UPDATE: Karthikeyan explained his situation in more detail at a news conference in Bombay on Tuesday afternoon.

He said: In principle, Ive agreed to drive for the Jordan F1 team for the 2005 season. Well be signing the agreement in the next couple of days.

A Jordan spokesman would not confirm that a deal has been finalised but said an announcement was expected some time this week.

Karthikeyan's main backers, the Tata Group (India's second largest company) and the state-run Bharat Petroleum, have already pledged their support.

As well as bridging the remaining sponsorship gap, the 28-year-old will need to secure his superlicence before the opening race in Melbourne on March 6.

"That is the most important thing right now," he said. "I've done well in other races but I still have to do about 300 kilometres over the next few weeks to get it. It won't be a problem though."

EvilDead SG

Just imagine every race will be smelling of Indian food - Lamb Bhuna for example . All the drivers mouths will be watering Laughing

Nirian will win every race! you know how? before every GP he will eat extra hot Chicken Jalfrezi , jump in the car and half way during the race he will get the runs, so he will drive extra fast so he can get to the finish and hopefully to the toilet!!!

EvilDead SG

lol that would be cool. and he and Mark Webber can sit by the race track and eat kebabs

EvilDead SG

Jordan laid to rest three days of feverish speculation by confirming their 2005 driver line-up on Thursday afternoon.

Narain Karthikeyan and Tiago Monteiro were named as the Silverstone-based squads new drivers, while the man who has been associated with the drive for months (at least by his manager), Mario Dominguez, has been left in the cold.

Karthikeyan becomes Indias first ever grand prix driver, opening up potentially lucrative commercial opportunities for both Jordan and the sport as a whole. Monteiro, meanwhile, will be Portugals first F1 representative since Pedro Lamy in 1996.

The takeover of Jordan by Alex Shnaiders Midland Group clearly had a decisive influence on the revamped teams choice of drivers. Both Karthikeyan and Monteiro are well known to Midland sporting director Trevor Carlin, having driven for his Carlin Motorsport outfit on the sports junior slopes.

Neither has any F1 race experience, although both have tested grand prix cars on a number of occasions over the last few years.

Karthikeyan has had outings with Jaguar and Jordan in 2001 and came close to landing a race seat with Minardi in 2003 only to be unable to raise the necessary funds. Monteiro dovetailed his Nissan World Series duties with a Minardi test programme last season.

[email protected] SG

who is this tiago person? never even heard of him b4

[email protected] SG

Minardi have signed Israeli Chanoch Nissany as an official test driver for the 2005 season.

The announcement creates a piece of motorsport history for the Middle Eastern country, just 24 hours after the news that Narain Karthikeyan is on the verge of becoming Indias first ever F1 driver.

Nissany does not fit the profile of a typical F1 aspirant. The Budapest resident is 41 years old and, instead of cutting his teeth pounding around karting tracks, only took up motorsport competitively three years ago.

He launched his driving career in the Hungarian Formula 2000 National Championship and Central European Zone Circuit Trophy in 2002 before graduating to the World Series Light by Nissan championship the following year, where his best result was an underwhelming seventh place at the Lausitzring.

He also served as a test driver for the Coloni F3000 team in 2004, competing in the last three races of the season, and has conducted several F1 tests for Jordan and Minardi.

Nissany will participate in Minardis (limited) testing programme away from races, but will not be pressed into service as a third driver on the Fridays of grand prix weekends.

Minardi boss Paul Stoddart hailed the signing as a groundbreaking development for Israeli motorsport. He said: Were very pleased to be able to announce here in Israel that we have signed Chanoch as a test driver.

In the course of the two recent test sessions in which he has participated, he has impressed us with his enthusiasm, his willingness to learn and his fitness.

Although Chanoch has not competed in single-seater racing for that long, he nonetheless has experience of a wide range of machinery. As a result, we feel he could be of real assistance with the teams test programme this year.

On a personal note, I derive considerable satisfaction from the fact that, once again, Minardi is able to contribute in a practical way to the very worthwhile goal of raising the awareness of Formula 1 in an area of the world where the sport has not previously had a significant profile. That can only be a good thing.

[email protected] SG

McLarens Alex Wurz topped the times for the second day running at Valencia on Wednesday, but the big story was the pace of the Renaults.

While Wurz ripped off a lap of 1m09.201s in a 2004-spec MP4-19B, Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella were comfortably quickest of those running new cars conforming to the more restrictive 2005 aero rules.

Both Renault drivers suffered mechanical problems but there was no denying the speed and consistency of the V-keel R25, which was officially unveiled in Monaco yesterday.

Alonso posted a best time of 1m09.992s, around one second shy of the outright track record set by Kimi Raikkonens McLaren last February (with the benefit of much more downforce, of course).

The Spaniards running was interrupted by an engine failure directly in front of the pits, but he still completed some 129 laps of the twisty 2.5-mile circuit.

Team-mate Fisichella was a hair slower on a 1m10.135s and was delighted with the behaviour and performance of the car, despite losing time with a clutch-related problem.

He singled out the engine as being a major improvement over last years unit, combining its predecessors user-friendly tractability with more power further up the rev range.

Nick Heidfeld appears to be settling nicely into his new environment at Williams and was a strong fourth quickest, 0.3s faster than team-mate Mark Webber.

Heidfeld confessed that his life has been in such a whirlwind over the last 48 hours that his promotion to one of the most coveted drives in F1 hasnt really sunk in yet.

BAR were the busiest team on Wednesday, with no fewer than four drivers on hand race driver Takuma Sato, tester Anthony Davidson, plus Young Driver Programme hopefuls James Rossiter and Alan van der Merwe, whose evaluation runs with the team before Christmas had to be aborted due to bad weather.

Ferrari had a low-key start to the test with Rubens Barrichello setting the 10th fastest time in the hybrid car and Marc Gene two places behind aboard the F2004.

The prize for candid quote of the day goes to Davidson. When asked by autosport.com about his impression of the flying Renaults, the Brit replied: Bloody hell, they are so fast... I couldnt keep up with them. I thought they were in the low fuel zone but in fact they were doing 25-lap runs!
Laughing

Kuali Baba SG

Problems Here, There And Everywhere!

Sauber

Sauber are investigating the possibility that their new C24 chassis may have a fundamental design flaw.

Team boss Peter Sauber has admitted that he is concerned about the cars pace following the recent Barcelona test, in which Jacques Villeneuve and Felipe Massa were giving away a whopping three seconds per lap to the new interim Ferrari F2004M.

The tardy lap times alarmed the Swiss outfit, especially because initial indications about the cars performance had been encouraging. In its first runs at Valencia the C24 had been on a par with the BAR concept car and the initial feedback from the drivers was positive.

An explanation for the mixed signals may lie in the very different characteristics of the two circuits. Valencia is a twisty track comprising mostly slow corners, and tends to disguise weaknesses in a cars aerodynamic department, whereas Barcelona has a number of long, fast sweepers that put a premium on downforce.

Teams have been led astray by promising results from Valencia in previous years notably McLaren last year, when the ill-fated MP4-19 set lap records in winter testing and then proved woefully uncompetitive once the season got underway on more aerodynamically-demanding circuits.

Reflecting on the Barcelona test, Sauber said: Contrary to what we experienced at Valencia, we do not seem able to find a good balance on the Barcelona track. We lack speed and we presume there must be a hiccup somewhere. We will have to work even harder to find out whats wrong.

Saubers problems are surprising because the C24 is the first chassis to have gained the full benefits of the new $55 million state-of-the-art wind tunnel at their Hinwil factory.

Kuali Baba SG

Toyota

Jarno Trulli has admitted to the Italian press that he is worried about tyre wear on the Toyota TF105 a potentially major problem given the new-for-2005 rule that requires the same set of rubber to be used over a whole race distance.

During this weeks intensive Valencia test, the first in which the majority of 2005 cars took part, the new Toyota proved reasonably quick in low-fuel trim but suffered a big performance drop-off within a handful of laps.

Trulli says the TF105s main problem is rear tyre degradation, but admits that the team havent yet pinpointed the cause.

He told Saturdays Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper: The car seems quick and competitive, but not over the distance. The problem is excessive rear tyre wear; we have three weeks left and we hope to resolve it.

Its definitely not due to the weight distribution. But we still havent worked out whether it is an aerodynamic problem or mechanical.

Inauspiciously for his new employers, Trulli compared the Toyotas characteristics with the Jordans he campaigned in 2000-01.

After three laps the car becomes difficult to drive, and in that it reminds me of my old Jordan, he said. Its a shame because the car is easy to handle and the problems of engine reliability have been resolved.

Toyota are under huge pressure to perform this year from their Japanese paymasters. The Cologne-based team have one of the biggest budgets in F1 but have delivered little in the way of tangible results during their first three seasons in the sport.

They were the first team to launch their new car early in the New Year and much is expected of it as it is the first chassis to have been overseen from beginning to end by highly-rated technical director Mike Gascoyne.

The team have said that they will bring a revised aerodynamic package to the season-opening Australian GP on March 6.

Kuali Baba SG

BAR

BAR have joined a growing list of teams admitting to concerns about the performance of their 2005 cars.

The BAR engineers were left scratching their heads after an inconclusive weeks testing at Valencia.

The outright pace of the 007 was reasonable but it was outclassed by McLaren, Ferrari and especially Renault, whose R25 was impressively quick and consistent over long runs.

Moreover, no fewer than five engine failures have sparked serious reliability concerns over the latest Honda power unit, which has yet to clear the 1300km target equating to two grand prix weekends (as per the 2005 rules on engine life).

The team press release following the Valencia test downplayed the problems, but an insider admitted to autosport.com: The car is lacking in downforce and there is a basic lack of aerodynamic grip.

Jenson Button was an encouraging second quickest on the final day of the test, sandwiched between Ferraris 2004 and hybrid cars, but by then Renault and McLaren had already packed up and gone home and his time was still 1.5s off Kimi Raikkonens Thursday benchmark.

Team-mate Takuma Sato believes that the problem is not with the balance of the car, but rather a lack of overall grip.

I have had no problems with the balance of the car, the handling is okay but some of the other cars are quicker, he told autosport.com. When I saw the Renault time my jaw dropped and when I saw the McLaren it dropped even further.

I know we have got a rev-limit on the engine and we have not made the best use of the tyres we have been given, but it is true to say that there is some grip missing there is much less than we had hoped for.

The team is hoping that a significantly revised aerodynamic package scheduled for introduction later this month will address the speed deficit, while Honda are building new engine parts which they hope will be ready in time for this weeks Jerez test.

Kuali Baba SG

This is the new Red Bull RB01.

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