GP3 champion Esteban Gutierrez, Sauber’s test driver for 2011, joins GP2 team ART.
Links
Red Bull RB6 origami (Modellboard)
Terrific piece of work!
Esteban Gutierrez in GP2 with Lotus Team ART in 2011
Sauber test and reserve driver for 2011 Esteban Gutierrez will move up to GP2 next year having won the GP3 championship this year. He will drive for ART who are now backed by Lotus Cars – i.e., not the same people who run the Lotus F1 team.
Incidentally, ART also announced yesterday that they are closing their F3 team. They won the F3 Euroseries every year from 2004 to 2009 with Jamie Green, Lewis Hamilton, Paul di Resta, Romain Grosjean, Nico Hulkenberg and Jules Bianchi (as ASM until 2008).
Cosworth provides engineering edge to the fastest car on earth (Cosworth)
“Cosworth Group is also supplying the auxiliary power unit for Bloodhound SSC in the shape of its latest Formula One engine – the CA2010, which has proved to be the most reliable in sport today. This 95kg, 750+bhp unit will provide not only essential services to the car but will also drive the rocket oxidizer pump which will supply 800 litres of High Test Peroxide (HTP) to the rocket in just 20 seconds – equivalent to 75 pints every second. The rocket is a hybrid, specially developed for Bloodhound SSC and the largest ever designed in Europe.”
McLaren team made big profit in 2009 (Speed)
“In addition to the leap in profits, turnover – which includes sponsorship and ‘Bernie money’ related to the Concorde Agreement – rose from £139m to £175m.”
Gascoyne explains RBR gearbox decision (Red Bull)
On pull-rod suspension: “That’s what we’ve been working on in the wind tunnel for a while now. Any of the other solutions on offer would have required us to compromise that, potentially for the whole year but probably for the first few months of the season – and there are huge cost and design implications attached to that. We want to get to [the first race in] Bahrain next year and hit the ground running. As I say, it made the Red Bull decision very straightforward. ”
Comment of the day
DaveW assesses McLaren’s loss of performance
Even with the new tyres, [Hamilton] could not catch Alonso, who was on ancient tyres at that point. In fact, this example is the most devastating reflection of the car’s race-performance right now.
The car’s race pace situation is desperate. Look at Korea and how Hamilton disappeared in the late stages, and Button burned his tires immediately and had no pace on the primes either. Look at Singapore where both cars gobbled up their tires immediately and began to fall back sometimes three seconds per lap. Look at Suzuka and how Button toasted his prime tires so fast his long stint strategy fell apart immediately.
Hamilton flatters the car on Saturday, but neither he nor Button can do much with it now on Sunday now.
DaveW
From the forum
Here’s a great thread from Ned Flanders. Made a bad F1 prediction? Confess all here in the Humble Pie Caf?â?®. Here’s my slice.
From the archive
F1’s never had a proper four-way last-round championship decider before, although it technically happened in 1982. There have been several three-way title-deciding finales, though. Read about them in this article from 2007:
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Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Brendan and Catalina!
On this day in F1
Sebastien Bourdais won the last Champ Car race of his career on this day in 2007 before entering F1 with Toro Rosso.
Fittingly, he signed off with a win, his 31st in 73 starts in the series, this one coming at the brilliant old F1 venue of Mexico City.
Although it wasn’t known at the time, this was also the last race for Champ Car as series in its own right. Over the winter of 2007/2008 the championship folded and the teams either disappeared or joined the IndyCar championship, ending the split between the two that had begun over a decade earlier.
One final Champ Car race was held at Long Beach at the beginning of 2008, which counted towards that year’s IndyCar championship.
Here’s how the race in Mexico got started. For a while, at least.
Read more: Sebastien Bourdais ends Champ Car career with victory
Image © GP3 Media Service / Drew Gibson
US_Peter (@us_peter)
11th November 2010, 1:02
I was looking at that paper RB6 earlier after you tweeted the link. Absolutely nuts. Newey should hire that guy in their modeling department. I bookmarked the page to keep track of the progress and see what the finished product looks like.
BasCB
11th November 2010, 8:10
Really astonishing work, isn’t it. Sure, he did not catch all of the latest wing developments, and his wing will probably not flex the way the original does, but wow.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
11th November 2010, 1:04
Incredibly origamy there :O!
A friend of mine did a F2002 not long ago… it looked rubbish, so we ended up playing football with it… :D
those things are so hard to do!
theTTshark
11th November 2010, 3:53
It’s disappointing that Sebastian Bourdais didn’t get to stay in Formula 1. He’s a fantastic driver…Also, that Champ Car race was what finally got me started watching racing(mind you I was 16) as much as possible, as well as it’s what led me to start racing. Good memories.
Prisoner Monkeys
11th November 2010, 6:33
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20101111/161281966.html
Marussia annouce Virgin buy-in, with the team to be known as “Marussia Virgin Racing” as of 2011.
US_Peter (@us_peter)
11th November 2010, 7:03
Wow, that came out of nowhere.
Wonder if that means there could be a Glock for Petrov trade in the works… I’m still holding out hope that Timo will end up in a faster car.
Prisoner Monkeys
11th November 2010, 8:10
Actually, it’s been floating around for a while. Marussia have sponsored Virgin all season, and Fomenko said he wants to have a team on the grid in 2012 so that they can be strong in time for the 2014 Russian Grand Prix.
BasCB
11th November 2010, 8:20
Just think about how easy it is for the not too well known Marussia car brand to become known.
They just give some money to support the team (would it be more than 10-15 million EUR a year?), and can happily contest with Ferrari and McLaren and Mercedes for a part of the supersportscar market.
Now compare that with Lotus cars devaluating their own brand by fighting with Tony instead of being glad for him to build up their brand almost for free.
BasCB
11th November 2010, 8:14
Not really unexpected, Keith informed us that Virgin are planning a announcement this week in Abu Dhabi and there were rumours of Russian involvement as well.
Thanks for that link MP.
It would be a pretty good move from both Renault and from Virgin to exchange drivers. Renault would keep an option on Petrov, while also getting a driver to really support a championship fight in Glock.
Only those poor guys ‘d Ambrosio, vd Garde etc. would be gutted there is no place for them, as Virgin would badly need DiGrassi to stay and help develop the car with his test driver prowess.
Prisoner Monkeys
11th November 2010, 8:26
Actually, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see Petrov go to Virgin alongside Glock, with d’Ambrosio joining Renault.
BasCB
11th November 2010, 8:17
How refresing is this Gascoyne honesty, really:
Although he goes on to say, that in this case they were really truthfull.
This part really sounds like the Williams / Cosworth partnership will be a longstanding with Cosworth doing the engine and Williams supplying gearbox and hydraulics.
wasiF1 (@wasif1)
11th November 2010, 8:28
Good for Sauber that Esteban Gutierrez will be racing in GP so that if the team needs a replacement then they can have him. I think all teams should have their reserve driver if small age in GP2 or big age then in other forms of racing.
SamS
11th November 2010, 10:41
Congrats to Keith for getting included in the BBCs gossip round up again, it is about time that F1F got more mentions on there seeing as your site is far more credible than some of their other “sources”!
Congrats Keith!
Steph (@)
11th November 2010, 15:16
https://twitter.com/IamLewis4real Lewis is apparently on Twitter. Cooper tweeted and said that Mclaren PR dept. confirmed it was really him. Great that he’s on Twitter but he really needs to stop tweeting “wasss up” :P
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
11th November 2010, 15:26
Already added to the Twitter directory.
Catalina ;)
16th November 2010, 3:14
aw, thanks for remembering the bday :D