F1 Fanatic round-up: 14/2/2010

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Apologies for the very late appearance of today’s F1 Fanatic round-up. I had a bit of a nightmare journey back from Jerez (or, rather, from Stansted Airport) and only made it home in the very small hours of the morning.

There will be a few more updates from the test on the site later today. Here’s the belated Valentine’s Day round-up, with 0% romantic content:

Links

Schumacher: Four teams are out front (Autosport)

“We have four that I think are the major teams, and others that look very interesting such as Sauber, the car is quite quick, and the Renault – there is a question mark how quick it is.”

Comment of the day

Thanks to BBT who managed to capture some data on the car’s stint lengths at Jerez. Here’s his times for Lucas di Grassi and Lewis Hamilton.

Site updates

Today we’re doing some work on the redesign hopefully in order to get it live before the start of the new season.

Happy birthday!

No F1 Fanatic birthdays today. If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

Ricardo Rodriguez was born on this day in 1942. He was the first Mexican driver to start a round of the world championship, at the Italian Grand Prix in 1961.

Ricardo was killed during practice for the first non-championship Mexican Grand Prix in 1962. The circuit in Mexico City was eventually named after Ricardo and his brother Pedro, who won races for BRM and Cooper in F1 in the sixties.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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32 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 14/2/2010”

  1. Kimi Raikonen finished 30th in the Sweish roumd of WRC.

    1. What’s that got to do with F1?

      1. It’s sort off relevant because he is an ex-driver, and he did have quite a few fans on this site- who I am sure will want to know how he got on.

  2. Keith, what is your first impression about the Virgin car from the testing this week?

    Also, I would be interested in seeing the comparison between 2009 and 2010 Red Bull Cars (Which you have done for the other cars).

    Happy Valentines Day to all :)

  3. I know exactly what you´re feeling Keith as i was in Jerez for this 4 days os tests and arrived late as well!
    Not to mention my very wet clothes as well.
    Well, i have my own opinions about the test and i had the opportunity to see the drivers and cars by myself.
    I think Ferrari and McLaren are the teams to beat, first the Ferrari, they have made very long stints followed by McLaren (interrupted by a red flag), it seens that these 2 teams are more advanced in the development of the car and reliabity seens to be there.
    The RB6 looks great and i think they will be fast as well, but i think reliability is not there with the Renault motor.
    Mercedes seen to be playing and trying to catch up, first i am sure they were running very light and secondly, saying that the car stopped intentionaly is just a bad excuse.
    In general i am happy that these year cars are more balanced and fast, Force India have surprised me as well.
    I guess the next test will bring us some more answers!

    1. Barcalona will be the best observation in terms of true pace. The track has everything!

  4. Romance has no place in F1 anyway…

    1. i love f1 and f1fanatic :D

      1. Max Moseley loves a good spanking ;)

    2. Well yeah…. but…

      If Felipe Massa won WDC after what happened to him last year and the events at Interlagos in 2008, I reckon we all might just see some true F1 romance in that mate !

      Not that I favour ANY F1 driver, by the way.

  5. I love you all… in the biblical, ‘love thy neighbour’ sense of the word!

    Not much going on in the world of F1 today… I hate these boring, non race Sundays

  6. Ooh, ooh hang on a minute… it’s less than four weeks until the first race! This time on three Sunday’s time we’ll be frantically discussing the various points of the first race of the 2010 Championship. That’s like almost soon. (Can you tell I’m excited?!?) :)

    1. Check Channel 5’s listings during the night- they’ve always got loads of obscure motorsports on through the night. That’s how I followed Indy Cars last season

      1. ah I hope they have it on this year too, I had the sky package but got rid of it as couldnt justify the cost of sports when all i watched was IRL and self-edited Nascar races by fast forwarding until it looked interesting :o)

      2. Oops just noticed I replied to the wrong person, this was meant to go below ajokay’s comment

  7. Out of interest, does anyone know where one might be able to watch or download or stream or anything, Super GT races? I just think all the cars look really cool, no idea what the racing’s like though.

    1. search around the racing section of Justin.tv

    2. Have you tried searching google?

      There seems to be options out there. Apparently it’s on Tokyo TV so if you can find a streaming service that streams that channel you’ll be good, Keyhole apparently.

  8. Does anyone know what dates usf1 will be testing at barber? The season is just a few weeks away. They might want to get on it.

    Nelson piquet had a nice 7th place finish in the NASCAR trucks. Wrecked Max Papis in the process. Juan Montoya goes for the Daytona 500 today.

    Finally racing is back.

    1. Piquet got 6th Steve, did well.

      I’m supporting Montoya today aswell.

      1. yes good on him, that is a pretty special result for stock car racing, I think anything top 20 would of been thought of as a great result.

  9. I think there may be a bit more between Lotus (road cars) and Lotus F1 Racing than most people seem to think.
    Lotus (road cars) have recently taken on half the Ferrari motorsport and design dept too. I also wonder where Lotus F1 Racing got the funds to pay for Jarno and Heikki, Proton (Malaysian government) maybe???
    Trulli testing Evora cup and in Lotus (road cars) overalls http://www.lotus-central.com/en/news/356-lotus-evora-cup-testmedia-day.html

    1. I think its a bit like FIAT and Ferrari
      The team is Ferrari but FIAT own them hence M. Schumacher doin those FIAT ads a while back.
      If Proton are funding the team then there much more likely to get more from using the Lotus name than Proton
      But I maybe wrong

      1. Spot on chap, but everyone seems to be saying Lotus F1 racing not ‘ the real Lotus’, Proton emblem on the top of the T127 nose quite significant i think. The car maybe underdeveloped, they did get it all together in a very short space of time, i expect much improvement in the car as the season progresses. Interesting comment from head of motorsport at Lotus, Mr Berro (nicked from Ferrari), something along the lines of ‘ the aim is to get Lotus up there with the likes of Ferrari’, he could just mean road cars……but i doubt it.

        1. Yep..just like the very prominent FIAT badges on the Ferrari F1 nose…..

          … ‘them as pays the piper not only calls the tune but also gets their name in lights’ …. to coin a variation on that well known phrase…

        2. But do they mean the old F1 team lotus or the car manufacturer?

          because the way I see it is they are related to the manufacturer, but only by name to the old F1 team

        3. Yes, many people (some with Lotus connections) are saying “the real Lotus died with Colin Chapman” (in 1982) – I bet they weren’t complaining in the mid 80s when Senna was winning.

          Despite the manufacturer teams pulling out, I think we’ll see a lot more this year of F1 drivers promoting road cars.

  10. Were you on the 20.55 RyanAir flight from Jerez last night, then ? I was at the back so missed the drunk woman throwing up around the front, but the landing was certainly awfull !
    Can’t really complain about the journey from Stansted after that, though, I didn’t have to drive.

    1. Yep I was – my problems started when I landed though. Lousy London tube :-(

  11. watching daytona 500 on justin.tv atm. keeps stopping because the track is breaking up big time. what a sham! imagine the uproar if pot holes apppeared during an F1 race.

    1. They have, and on numerous occasions.

      1. ok i meant during a recent F1 race. canada 08 was the closest we’ve got so far.

Comments are closed.