Newey not about to make America’s Cup switch

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: America’s Cup star Ben Ainslie denies he is about to lure Adrian Newey away from Formula One.

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Sir Ben Ainslie wants F1’s Adrian Newey to help America’s Cup bid (BBC)

Ben Ainslie: “We had a great catch-up but Adrian is committed to F1 for the foreseeable future.”

Test absence will hurt Lotus, says Sutil (Reuters)

“This is a very important test and we don’t have much so I think it’s clear that it will be a disadvantage for Lotus.”

F1’s Bernie Ecclestone may be sued again once bribery case ends (The Independent)

“Mr Ecclestone told The Independent that he thinks the new claim will get thrown out if he wins the ongoing case. But he vowed to fight the new suit if it goes ahead.”

Analysis: F1 braced for chaotic winter (Autosport)

Martin Whitmarsh: “The reliability is so good now, that I don’t spend the race worrying about finishing in the way that we used to. Teams have got better.”

Film in 2014 (BAFTA)

Rush has been nominated in the categories for Outstanding British Film, Best Editing, Best Sound and Best Supporting Actor for Daniel Bruhl, who played Niki Lauda.

Tweets

https://twitter.com/KevinMagnussen/status/420880479194083328

Comment of the day

@Caci99 discovered Formula One in 1994 after the death of Ayrton Senna made international news:

That year I was 20 and I wasn’t yet into F1. My country (Albania) had only a couple of years that came out of one of the most extreme communist regime. We were struggling for every day bread (literally), and the most common discussions among youth that time was how to get to European countries. Anyway, as mentioned in the article, the death of Senna made it to the news and that wasn’t the best way to get to F1. The first thought was why would people put themselves in such death to next corner situations. I had seen before, in Italian news TV, glimpses of cars going around but never got interested in that.

It took some years and a close relationship with one patient Italian friend, who never grew tired of explaining it to me until I started watching races in 1997 and from 1998 I started following full seasons as local TV stations started to broadcast them as well. It is not easy to become a F1 fan here were there is no information at all, mostly myths going around, big lack of history knowledge and technical information which is vital to understand it.

So yes, there is not much for me to remember from that year from F1, except the sad memory of that room of a neighbour where we were all gathered and listening to the tragic death of Senna.
@Caci99

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On this day in F1

Happy birthday to Pascal Fabre who is 54 today. Fabre spent a single season in Formula One in 1987, driving for AGS, who he previously raced for in Formula Two.

His best result was ninth in the French and British Grand Prix, the latter also saw him claim place in the Jim Clark Cup for non-turbo drivers. He failed to qualify for three of his last four appearances and was replaced by Roberto Moreno for the final rounds.

Fabre went on to race sports cars and was a regular at the Le Mans 24 Hours, making his last start at the endurance classic in 2001 when he also scored his best ever finish with fifth alongside fellow ex-F1 driver Jean-Denis Deletraz and Jordi Gene, brother of Marc.

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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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20 comments on “Newey not about to make America’s Cup switch”

  1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    9th January 2014, 0:11

    Not surprised to see that people are trying to woo Newey over to the Americas Cup boats (planes really, I mean, they’re in the air more than the water). They’re pretty incredible, and I can imagine Newey getting into it at some stage, considering he’s dominated the F1 scene for a rather long time, and may just need a new challenge.

    1. I don’t think he will retire from F1 before Ross Brawn does!

    2. Newey has been talking about this at least since Jag were trying to snatch him from McLaren. It would be interesting to see what he would bring to the AC though. With F1 so restricted I’m sure Newey would like the relative freedom of AC. Unless of course his ability to find ways around strict rules is what keeps him interested in F1.

      1. W (@yesyesyesandyesagain)
        9th January 2014, 14:49

        I think someone of Newey’s ability relishes the opportunity to peel apart of F1’s strict rule set and come up with creative solutions that are well ahead of anything other teams are developing. In F1 you can plainly see where the engineering talent lies and the paddock’s widespread admiration of Newey’s abilities really place him in a league of his own. I wonder if Alonso would be the one with four straight titles if Newey were at Ferrari this whole time.

  2. Oh Lotus Lotus…..please change owners soon!

  3. OmarR-Pepper (@)
    9th January 2014, 0:23

    Is there a full list with the driver’s numbers?

    1. +1 for this question please and thanks

    2. The official list is suppuso to be published today, read it some where.

  4. Not worrying about finishing is one of the reasons some people find it boring when the leading driver has an insurmountable lead, tyres that only work for 8-12 laps are no substitute for the possibility of an engine losing power or failing totally.

    On another subject, now that I see Lotus have commissioned some carbonfiber mouldings I am totally confident they will be just as strong this year. Not.

    1. The tyres do work. We have seen plenty of instances where teams and drivers have gotten it right and enjoyed success because of it. But they have a very narrow operating window, and they do not tolerate much abuse. So when teams and drivers complain about the tyres not working, they are really complaining that the tyres are not working the way they want them to, and they are not as far up the grid as they feel they should be. Challenging tyres may be a valid criticism, but some teams are entirely too quick to blame tyres. They should be looking inwards, looking what they are doing wrong.

      1. @prisoner-monkeys I both agree and disagree. I agree that if one team can indeed extend the life of the tyres, the surely it is entirely possible for all teams to do so – so some of the onus must go on them.

        I disagree in the sense that Red Bull were winning but utterly destroying them at times. So what they appeared to act as was a device to make the inherently faster cars pit more, which to me looks like unfair scripting of the competition. Or indeed if no teams could pit less that three times, then it is most certainly the fault of the tyres being too extreme.

        Two stops maximum would be fine by me.

      2. @prisoner-monkeys, I see it more as the teams/drivers complaining about the tyres rapid degradation forcing them to drive slower than the car is capable of being driven, just as in an economy trial the best engineer teamed with the best or most disciplined driver should be the winners but it is not exciting for the competitors or the spectators.

  5. Am I the only one who sees an immense amount of irony in the fact that Whithmarsh is talking about not worrying about reliability? 2012 is barely one whole year behind us, and that year McLaren had quite a fragile car, who’s reliability cost them a lot.

  6. Interesting that you mention Fabre with all of the talk of reliability going on this off-season, Keith. I recall him being introduced, somewhat bemused and blinking, on the BBC by Murray Walker at some point mid-season (the AGS was rarely on-camera that year). He was the only driver in the entire field to have completed every lap raced up to that stage in the calendar. Makes it all the more surprising to see that they gave him the boot before the year was out, considering!

    Sad to see Brian Hart passed, a truly remarkable bloke.

  7. The reliability is so good now . . .

    I *do* hope that Martin Whitmarsh’s comment about reliability doesn’t come around and bite him in the bottom. New car, new engine, new suspension, new tyres, new ERS, (one) new driver . . . What could possibly go wrong?

    1. What Whitmarsh is talking about is that, by historical standards, the cars in recent years have been significantly more reliable for a number of factors (such as major improvements in production standards). By contemporary standards McLaren’s reliability in 2012 was poor, but compared with a decade ago (or even just five years ago) it was still pretty high.

      It’s true that the increased complexity of the 2014 power trains means that reliability is likely to drop for a while but, as Keith Collantine pointed out, the long term trend over the past two decades has been that reliability drops for a short time after major rule changes only to recover and continue improving after a year or two. It’s likely to be an issue for all of the teams, but by historical standards it is still likely to be a relatively low.

  8. Jack (@jackisthestig)
    9th January 2014, 9:13

    I imagine the recovery marshals at Jerez are going to be dead on their feet by the end of the first test.

  9. A bit off topic, but in yesterday article about Schumacher accident investigation, it was said that the video was not released to the public, which is fair in my opinion.
    But when I got home, I saw at the news of the most important TV station in my country, a video which was clearly shot from a camera mounted on a helmet and than the person falls. I hope these guys have not gone that far as setting it up, otherwise they managed to put the hands on that video which is a shame. They even putted it on youtube, but I don’t feel comfortable on posting it (unless Keith agrees as the moderator of this blog).
    By the way, thank you for the COTD, never expecting it.

  10. This season will probably be very interesting.

Comments are closed.