Ricciardo to drive in pre-season testing

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Daniel Ricciardo says he will drive for the Toro Rosso in pre-season testing as well as in the first practice session in Bahrain.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Ricciardo ‘will have F1 car by 2012’ (The West Australian)

“They’ve told me, the Toro Rosso guys, that I’ll be in the car for testing before Bahrain. I’m definitely driving in Bahrain on the Friday.

Time to kiss the Melbourne Grand Prix goodbye, says Lord Mayor Robert Doyle (Herald Sun)

“In the end, it will be a government decision and one of the tough ones that Ted Baillieu faces in his first term. Does he undo the legacy of Jeff Kennett, his mentor, in his very first term and, ironically, through the same minister to first get the event, Louise Asher? My judgement would be: Get ready. Time’s up.”

Thanks to Hamish for the tip

Sundance 2011: Tears and thrills from the Formula One track in ‘Senna’ (Los Angeles Times)

“[Writer Manish] Pandey talked about showing the film to Ron Dennis, the head of the McLaren racing team, a man known for being unemotional and so conscious of not wasting a minute of time that he has a car and driver waiting for him everywhere he goes. ‘After the film ended, Ron Dennis cried for 10 minutes,’ Pandey said. ‘Then he sat and talked about Senna for two hours.’ Such is the power of this man, and this film.”

Sundance review: Senna (HitFix)

“The Angel of Death hangs over “Senna” from the opening frames and the driver’s spirituality and worries about his long-term legacy only build as we head toward the inevitable conclusion. What’s more impressive, though, is when Kapadia can introduce a piece of vintage interview footage with a seemingly superfluous bit of information from 1988 and then provide a payoff 15 or 20 minutes later. There’s almost no fat in the entire film.”

Bruno Senna Discusses His 2011 Plans With Peter Windsor (The Race Driver)

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Comment of the day

Some useful tips on going to the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix from Joe Tanto:

Either Tribune 11 or 12 will definitely let you see all of [the] Senna [hairpin]. If you want to see up the pit straight towards the start/finish and beyond right the way to champions wall then you need to be able to look past the trees. […]
The problem with sitting in the sections 1, 2, etc are the large covered grandstands blocking your view of the start / finish straight.

If you are high enough in Tribune 12 and over to the right hand side you will see up the straight.

Remember that at Montreal, unlike most circuits the ground level seat rows begin AA with the highest seat rows being A upwards, not the other way around.
Joe Tanto

From the forum

Will adjustable rear wings cause more aerial crashes?

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On this day in F1

The last time the F1 season started in January was on this day in 1982, when the season began at Kyalami in South Africa.

This was the race that was famously disrupted by a drivers’ strike, which you can read more about here:

Image © Red Bull/Getty images

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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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50 comments on “Ricciardo to drive in pre-season testing”

  1. If Melbourne decides it doesn’t want the GP, it needs to go back to Adelaide.

    I lived in both cities, during their GP eras and it was definitely more of an ‘event’ in Adelaide.

    Melbourne has so much going for it, that it doesn’t need to blow $40million a year on F1. Adelaide on the other hand…

    1. I agree. That would be the only solution other than a contract extension/renewal I’d be happy to see. I absolutely love the Melbourne Grand Prix. In the UK, all you see is the race, but here in Australia, the event itself puts me on a high for a whole weekend. It has, over the last 10 years, become my favourite weekend of the year, even if I don’t go to it. To see it go would really, really upset me, but if it were in Adelaide, I’d feel a lot better than if it went to Sydney or left Australia altogether. I am too young to have ever witnessed a Grand Prix in Adelaide, so, as unlikely as it is, it could be our only hope of holding an F1 race in Australia, but it not being an embarrassment. (As it would be in Sydney)

      1. Why would a race in Sydney be ‘an embarrassment’? I’d have thought a nice little street circuit around the harbour would be very nice! (Although I’m prerared to submit to your Aussie judgement on this one)

        1. @Ned http://bit.ly/h3Y30B Reminds me of that awful Phoenix track. Not only embarrassing to Australia, but to F1.

          1. I’ve been to Sydney, and it’s not actually that bad. It might be a very basic design, but it’s loaded with all manner of difficult sections, the the multiple surface changes going down to Novotel that make braking tricky and unpredictable. Or the hyper-narrow run around Edwin Flack Avenue that is barely wide enough to get two cars abreast. Or the uphill, off-camber double-apex turn eight where the road falls away on the outside of the corner and it’s virtually impossible to recover a car once you go off.

        2. Why would a race in Sydney be ‘an embarrassment’? I’d have thought a nice little street circuit around the harbour would be very nice! (Although I’m prerared to submit to your Aussie judgement on this one)

          There’s not too many places you could hold it. This is the best I could do – http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=4248417 – and a lot of those roads in and aroun The Rocks are very narrow.

          But the bigger problem is state politics. It’s a mess right now. Ever since Bob Carr left office, the Labor party has been in a downward spiral; we’ve gone through three premiers in about as many years, and there seems to be nothing any of them can do to reverse their flagging unpopularity. It’s widely expected that Labor will be voted out at the next election in a month or two, and that the Liberals will take power. But Barry O’Farrell – the leader of the Liberals – is little more than hot air; all he does is talk about what Labor is doing wrong and he never says what he’ll do right. If he takes power, he won’t spend a cent more than he absolutely has to, which means the state government won’t underwrite a Grand Prix. If the race was already in Sydney, it would be one of the first things he’d cut. A high-profile international event – like Oprah’s visit – might boost the city’s profile, but there are bigger problems at the moment, like the sale of state power assets that are going to net two billion dollars less income (almost half) of what they were originally expecting. And then there’s the intangible problems, like Sydneysiders voting the city Australia’s least-livable city. Both Sydney and New South Wales have a long way to go before it can host a race, unless a private enterprise can manage it.

          1. But as opposed to the brilliant Albert Park circuit, nothing measures up. And it is a real shame that the 70 million dollar figure keeps popping up, but they never release what sort of money the GP attracts both directly and indirectly. I doubt the gap would be very high, but if they told us, they wouldn’t have an excuse to drop it. Let the people moan, but if they keep displaying this sort of logic, we should get rid of AFL, the boxing day test, Australian Open Tennis, Golf and the NYE fireworks. I’m sure they’d save a huge amount of money if they did so, but where’s the fun it that. You can’t take the Grand Prix away, which is easily Australia’s biggest annual drawcard and most-viewed event, and justify the validity of the extremely overrated and internationally unpopular AFL games. I think the government is keeping a lot from us. I wonder how much they pay the Williams sisters, Nadal and Federer to visit Melbourne each year? We’ll never know, but mention the Grand Prix and everyone is an expert.

          2. PM did you do that track around The Rocks with NO prior knowledge of Project Gotham Racing 2? Because I think pretty much that EXACT layout is on there :)

          3. Yea well realistically we are always going to have these issues with money when the sport is owned by a hedge fund.

            Adelaide – yes the idea is correct but I think the track we saw up until 1995 and the one that would have Mr Tilkes ugly stick waved over it would be completely different.

          4. Can I please encourage everyone to go to the “Time to kiss the Melbourne Grand Prix goodbye” link and vote no in the poll to try and save this great event.

            Thankyou.

          5. O’Farrell won’t spend a cent more than he has to because there’s too much other stuff that needs to be fixed up in NSW first.

            I’m going down to Melbourne for the first time this year, was too young to go to Adelaide (although we did drive around as much of the circuit as possible in the family car during a holiday stopover there).

            I’ll be very happy if the race is anywhere in Australia BUT with plenty of other countries building new circuits and teams baulking at the number of races on the calendar, some of the existing races will have to go. I don’t like it but I think our race will be one of them :(

            Australia is a well developed, smaller market – other places like Russia & India have sponsor’s eyes lighting with the potential for new customers, and without sponsors the whole “show” grinds to a halt

        3. Going to Sydney would be a massive bitch slap for Melbourne*

          *Melbourne and Sydney have a massive rivalry that has been on for ages. Melbourne I believe is the sport capital of the world for something like the 4th time in 6 year or close to that. Losing any major event especially a sporting one to Sydney would be horrible. Sydneysiders on the other hand think Melbourne is overrated and see Sydney as the capital of Australia. Canberra the actual capital is a dump somewhere in the middle where no one lives bar politicians and their aids.

          Why can’t we just skip all this and stick it in Bathurst? I’m sure it is safer than Monaco and has the run offs to prove it. Only problem is then you are linking v8’s with F1 which is bad.

          While Austrlaia has quite a few great tracks including PP where motogp currently races along with the adelaide street circuit, albert park circuit, bathurt and gold coast to name a few, none are really up to F1 standard for saftey.

          Possibly the best solution would be to make a new track just outside of Melbourne, perferably north eastish area, or maybe down near port phillip bay. The track can be up to proper international standards and be used for other events too.

          Downsides though…
          1) Tilke would design it so it would be horrible
          2) Tilke would deisgn it so it would be boring
          3) Tilke would design it so it might as well in be in the middle of the desert in the middle east
          4) We’d probably lose most of the melbourne centeredness about it given that it wouldn’t be basically in Melbourne (you can hear it easily from the CBD of Melbourne)
          5) Tilke would design it so it would be absolute trash, be overhyped and dropped from the calender.
          6) Tilke would design it

          All coming from a Melbournian

          1. Tilke’s latest designs – New Delhi, Austin, Sochi, Kiev – all speak to his latest philosophy of having a more aggressive approach. It would appear that he has convinced Bernie Ecclestone to let him be more involved in the securing of land for a circuit, or to at least have Bernie do it.

      2. As an adelaide boy myself, I’ve always thought that the best thing for F1 in Aus. would be to have it the same time as the clipsal. V8’s in the day and F1 at night. The clipsal is already australia’s biggest motorsport event and with the F1 it will be amazing

        Pity this will never happen tho. For starters we still don’t even have a permanent grandstand on the main straight. Will cost too much money to set up what with all the lighting that will be involved. And the noise complaints would be of a horrendous proportion.

        Still, one can only hope :)

        1. I don’t think having a temp grandstand would be an issue. Bar the pit complex at Albert Park everything else is a temp structure.

        2. Clipsal 500 the biggest motorsport event in Australia? May I ask what kind of gum tree your smoking?

          Your saying it’s bigger than
          – MotoGP where we have Casey stoner pretty much winning for australia every year
          – F1 Australian GP or is this aside from this
          – Bathurst 1000 It takes a bloody big race to disturb the footy in Melbourne. We see F1 quali late despite it being on One and footy already on Ten simply to fit in an extra half an hour of talking heads after the end of the match rap up has already happened before we can watch f1 quali. Yet Bathurst will cause Channel 7 to change the footy broadcast around for it!!!!

          V8’s =/= F1. Mixing them is a bad idea. Yes that is the case in Melbourne, but it isn’t a proper round and so you don’t get the yobos of v8 running around with VB’s and skulling slabs while F1 is on.

          If F1 wants to improve it image in Australia and that will greatly help it stay (more peoplewill be more leaniant when it comes and bills come) then it should stay away from the V8’s.

          V8’s are Ford and Holden, they are Commordore vs Falcon, the image it has of it being the working class boys with VB and nicknames like GT driving Aussie own with haystalls in the background. It is very linked with those against it with the hoon culture (Hamilton is generally ignored), whenever a P plate driver crashes its 99% of the time in a Holden Commodore or a Ford Falcon… maybe also a skyline. But its always the 19year old or 22 year old I think VB, smoke and have a a Japanese character tattoed on my back and I don’t give a f**k culture.

          This is just what people tend to think of. F1 doesn’t have these links yet and I like many other F1 fans would greatly wish for it to remain this way. Not only is F1 treated better, but it is watched by a much broader demographic and thats what F1 needs.

          It would be like F1 teaming up and joining NASCAR at daytona. It wouldn’t work.

          1. Based on the statistics Julian is correct, The Clipsal 500 is the highest attended motorsporting event in Australia at the moment.

          2. Highest attended doesn’t always make the biggest motorsport event on the Australian Calender.

            The final match of the FIFA World Cup 2010 had less people in attendance than the AFL Championship 2010. Yet most people would argue and that the FIFA World Cup Final match in itself is a much bigger event than the AFL championship. Unless your an Aussie (or expat) then you probably don’t even know who won the match or how its played yet more people attended than the final match at the FIFA World Cup.

            Point is, attendance isn’t everything. Especially in F1 (ticket = $$$$ for ticket + tirp there unless you in live in one of 20 cities) VS watching it on TV with Brundle (some electricity, and unless you live in the Communist states of Britian you don’t have to pay any stupid license fees for something that is paid for by your taxes).

          3. As Macca has said: it is the highest attended motorsport event in Australia. That makes it the biggest.
            Formula one isn’t as big as the V8’s in Australia. It’s a shame, but its true. What you have said in the second paragraph is proof enough of this.

            Melbourne will be dropping the F1, its only a matter of time. They are losing more and more money each year (if you were paying attention to the recent Victorian elections, you’d be aware that its become political ammunition) It wont be staying in melbourne for much longer.

            So why not hold it at the same time and location as Australia’s biggest motorsport event?? It makes sense, bigger audience, bigger following. Its’s better for F1 than an elitist “we dont need V8 fans watching our sport” mentality which you seem to have.

            I would rather have grandstand upon grandstand full of your stereotypical (yet almost non existent) ‘yobos’ at the australian GP compared to no GP at all.

    2. I really hope Melbourne remains as it hosts one of the most entertaining GPs every year, always full of twists. But if it had to go, I would like it to go back to Adelaide.

      1. I live in Victoria and voted at the Election. So yes I did follow it. And no, the GP wasn’t really ammunition. THe 1.3 billion spent on a 100million dollar Myki system was. THe failing public transport system including blackspots and bad trains was. THe labor government being in for 4 terms was. The general waste was. The GP was barely mentioned. Yes it was probably in some list, but I never heard a leader questioned about it that much, it was always only ever in a list.

        And 2ndly, as I said in my above post. ATTENDANCE DOES NOT MAKE AN EVENT THE BIGGEST!!!!

        THe FIFA world cup final match had less than 100000 people at the stadium. The AFL Premiership had more than 100000 people in attendance. Does that make the AFL Premieship match a bigger than the FIFA world cup match? NO. It makes the afl more attended. More people watched the fifa via TV or internet compared with AFL.

        Bathurst is a bigger event than Clipsal simply because of the numbers, the reception is gets amongst Australians who don’t follow motorsport etc…

        And finally, when you compare, you have to remember that people will see V8’s with F1 and that is bad for F1. F1 is about glamour and high end tech, hundreds of millions spent by each of the teams (mostly), it is an international circus. V8’s is not glamour, not high end tech, not money. It’s about promoting aussie cars. It’s Holden vs Ford. It’s a working mans sport.

        I don’t have anything against that. If the V8’s find a niche there (and they have) then that’s good for them and the people who buy ute’s and commodores and falcons are well suited and that is what they want. F1 doesn’t want that. If the V8’s are target then F1 is Myer or DJ. They are different products. One isn’t better because it plays to different people, but just as Target has found its crowd and works well for them, Myer and DJ have found there crowd and that works well for them. Target can’t play the high end game, DJ and Myer can’t play the lower end game.

        nb, I just realised that makes not so much sense for me as I shop at Target.. but hey it was a good analogy.

  2. I’d love to go to the Canadian GP. In fact, I’d love to go to Montreal even if the race wasn’t on, it sounds like a great city.

    I wonder how much my perception of Montreal (and Melbourne, Singapore and Valencia for that matter) are influenced by them having a race? Quite a lot, I imagine.

    So perhaps Ted Baillieu ought to consider how many millions of people might, like me, think more highly of these cities because of F1 before he pulls the plug on the event

    1. Very good and very interesting point Ned! When I think of the cities and countries I’d love to see one day, most of them do or have hosted a Grand Prix! Basically, when I was young, F1 got me into geography, and since then, I’ve discovered a lot of beautiful places. And Ned, do come to Melbourne!

    2. Don’t! I kick myself for not going last year when I was close as I’ll ever be!

  3. I’m hearing rumours that there are four drivers in contention for the second Hispania seat: Davide Valsecchi, Mikhail Aleshin, Christian Klien and a new contender, Formula 2 driver Ricardo Teixeira, who comes with backing from Sonangol, the Angolan oil producer. He’d be absolute rubbish, but at least Hispania would have a funky black, red and yellow livery.

    1. it’s all very nice… but do they even have a car? or are we seeing USF1 Mk2?

      1. They say they will run a modified version of the F110 they used last year. Although the deal with Toyota fell through, Geoff Willis got a look at the technical plans before Toyota backed out, and is said to have adapted some of the ideas in it into the 2011 car.

    2. Well the first three should be better than the drivers they had at the beginning of last year at least.

    3. Please, please, please tell me Ricardo Teixeria won’t be getting the Hispania drive. The only non-monetary advantage I can see to hiring him is that he has previous experience of missing the 107% qualifying rule – something to which any Hispania driver will probably soon need to be accustomed. All the weight will therefore fall on Narain Karthikeyan – with whom Colin Kolles has already fallen out in the past.

      I’m not convinced Hispania has a car yet, so maybe I should worry less about its drivers…

  4. Hitfix review link above seems to be broken.
    Here it is.
    Hope this attention means we get to see the movie in the US soon.

  5. The increase in the money the government has to stump up has to be bernies insistence on ramping up the fee every year – just because he can. He keeps it relatively low for the major european races, as I think he does realise to kill them is to kill the sport and his money – and he kept the price low to race at the IMS, mainly for its prestige, the manufaturers behest and the presence on NASCAR.

    Its a shame that the IndyCar race at Surfer’s Paradise is dead, and that IndyCar is a husk – fear of being overtaken is the only way Bernie would keep prices down and save F1.

  6. Really don’t want to see the last of Melbourne as this is a good circuit with a good atmosphere.

  7. Firstly, I’m from Melbourne . If the gp leaves Melbourne it’s unlikely another Australian city would pick it up, for mostly political reasons, which would be a shame. So it would go o/s. Having said that, seeing Ted beulieu on the news tonight suggests it won’t going anywhere after 2015. This issue comes up almost every year, so getting s bit tired of hearing whether it will
    Stay or go

  8. I think f1 would do good in Sydney. If your not convinced watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx4Vu-y1wQ4&feature=related

  9. F1 in Sydney? That’s not a track that’s just a series of laneways. Bottom line Melbourne F1 is getting tired, it’s costing too much money and crowds are declining. Adelaide was always a better spectacle and I live in Melbourne. Give another Aussie city a chance to show some ideas and pass it to the best one I say.

  10. for those who don’t live in Australia here is a clip of what the Adelaide street circuit is like now days. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH7dZe01Rfw

  11. maybe Ricciardo will drive in first practice session because he will be official driver, so he will drive also in second practice, in third, in qualify, in race and so on :-D

  12. Toro Rosso is good way for young drivers to peove their worth.

  13. The only person who can convince Australia not to ditch Albert Park is Mark Webber. Had he not had such a dire weekend in Abu Dhabi I think all this talk would be a distant memory by now.

    1. I don’t you know how the average Aussie views Mark Webber….unfortunately not very well.

  14. Doyle’s comments probably have something to do with the floods. While not as bad as the Queensland floods, large parts of Victoria are currently underwater. The damage bill for the two states has been so high that Julia Gillard has floated the possibility of a one-off tax to help rebuild both states. As such, any spending – particularly in those states affected by the floods – is going to come under scruitiny. Especially if it’s large and has no direct public benefit … like the $70 million bill to underwrite the Australian Grand Prix.

    1. Doyles comments have more to do with having a dig at the Premier, Ballieu than anything else. He is still dirty on the Liberal party, after he was forced to resign as opposition leader back in 2006. The city of Melb signed a sponsorship deal with the GPA a few days before, but now he has come out against it. He is just a politician playing politics.

      1. Doyles comments have more to do with having a dig at the Premier, Ballieu than anything else. He is still dirty on the Liberal party, after he was forced to resign as opposition leader back in 2006.

        And who replaced him as leader? Ted Baillieu….

        Robert Doyle has no say in whether the Grand Prix stays or goes. It’s a State issue, plus even if it weren’t, it still doesn’t fall under his municipal jurisdiction. Just fluff for the front pages, but unfortunately the masses believe what they read in the newspapers. Let’s hope Rupert Murdoch likes F1. :D

  15. I hope we don’t lose Melbourne as it is one of my favourite Grand Prix and for me it should still be the season opener.

    The main reason seems to be the money the taxpayer has to pay to host it. While it is argued that in the long term the investment is made back for Melbourne, it still comes back to the way the F1 finances are.

    Personally I don’t think any race should be subsidised so much by a government as most races are at the moment, and if Ecclestone didn’t charge the circuits so much it wouldn’t be an issue.

    But while so much of the money FOM makes leaves the sport completely and goes to CVC to service their loans then I suppose that is the situation we are stuck with.

  16. Wow all the Australians pop out when there’s news concerning us!

    I wouldn’t mind trying to organise a group who can meet up to talk F1 after the races…

    How many are from Melbourne here?

    Actually I’ll go to the forums to start something up.

    Oh an yes I’d rather the F1 either stay in Melbourne or move back to Adelaide, but definately not Sydney. I grew up there but moved here about 10 years ago.

  17. Next year, in 2012, I am attending the Australian Grand Prix. I will be going all out in terms of expenses, to make it something I really can look back on. I want to get a package where I can walk through the pits on the Thursday. To see the teams setting up, I understand this is possible. I want to meet fellow F1 fanatics who are there. And lastly, and for me the most special part is…..
    I want to see Schumacher race live in F1 once in my life…

    … Don’t ruin this Mr. politician. Don’t you ******* dare.

    1. There’s a contract for the race to be held until 2014. ;)

      If you want to see Schuey race, you may be one year too late if the tyres don’t suit his driving style this year….

  18. As an Aussie I like the Melbourne race, although I’m not a Victorian and therefore don’t foot the bill or the inconvenience.

    However, in recent years, it’s become a bit stale. The novelty has worn off and it isn’t as big an event as it once was. A change in scenery would be nice, so long as it isn’t a Tilkedrome built in the middle of nowhere.

  19. Mike Mapperson
    24th January 2011, 22:52

    I am a Kiwi. 2002 in Adelaide is the only OZ GP I have been able to attend – mainly due to finances. Given enough money I would attend 3 or 4 GPs per year. I sympathise with the other Mike (who wants to go in 2012) but here in Auckland we have had the Rugby World Cup foisted upon ratepayers already groaning under multiple rate increases. I dislike politicians who promote events and bask in the glory thereof but leave their constituents to foot the bills. We can’t criticise any politician for wanting to save ratepayers’ money for a change. The mounting losses in Melbourne are unsustainable. The man to blame is (endless greed personified) Bernie E. PS Can UK – facing widespread Government spending cuts – really afford the next Olympics?

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