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Thursday 21 January 2016

'Discount engines' - By Chris Rathbone

Weekly Formula 1 cartoons by Chris Rathbone... Get your hands on prints, mugs and t-shirts of your favourite drivers from the world of Motorsport.
Twitter - @R4THBONE
Website - http://rathbonecreative.com

Monday 18 January 2016

'Cruising' - By Jake Davis

This fantastic weekly F1 Toon was designed and created by Jake Davis Creative. Prints are available in sizes A4, A3 and A2. Commissions are also available. If you would like to order a PRINT of this fantastic F1 Toon feel free to contact him via:
E-mail - davisjake@hotmail.co.uk
Twitter - @JakeDDCreative

Thursday 14 January 2016

'Money vs Talent'?? - By Jake Davis

Wednesday 30 December 2015

'Bye bye BBC' - By Jake Davis

Wednesday 16 December 2015

'Alonso looks back on the 2015 season' - By Jake Davis

Tuesday 8 December 2015

'The 'TOTONATOR' has spoken'

Wednesday 2 December 2015

The WMSC announces the 2016 calendar and regulations for the forthcoming season

The World Motor Sport Council approved, by a near unanimous number (just one vote against), a mandate for the FIA President, Jean Todt and the Representative of the Commercial Rights Holder, Bernie Ecclestone to make recommendations and decisions regarding a number of pressing issues in Formula One such as governance, Power Units and cost reduction. Mr Todt and Mr Ecclestone expressed their intention to establish conclusions on these matters by 31 January, 2016.

The World Motor Sport Council also approved a number of changes to the F1 Technical and Sporting Regulations.

Technical

The number of power unit tokens allowed for in-season development will be allocated as follows over the coming seasons:

- 2016 – 32

- 2017 – 25

- 2018 – 20

- 2019 – 15

Any new Power Unit manufacturer will be allocated 15 tokens in their first year, and 32 in their second.

The padded areas around the driver’s head have been increased in thickness for improved safety.

Sporting

Changes have been approved by the World Motor Sport Council in regard to the way that tyres are used by teams in order to encourage differing race strategies in 2016. These include:

- The tyre supplier will now provide three dry-weather compounds instead of two

- Of the 13 sets of dry tyres available to each driver, the tyre supplier will choose two for the race (only one of which must be used in the race), and one set (the softest available) that may only be used in Q3. Each driver may then choose their remaining ten sets from the three available compounds

- Unless intermediate or wet-weather tyres have been used, a driver must use at least two different specifications of dry-weather tyres – at least one of these must be the one chosen by the tyre supplier.

In the event of a Virtual Safety Car (VSC), DRS will now be re-enabled immediately after the VSC period. Furthermore, the VSC may also be used in practice sessions to reduce the amount of time lost during a stoppage.

Power Units homologated in previous seasons may now be re-homologated. Previously no manufacturer could supply more than one specification of PU. The World Motor Sport Council was also advised that the FIA had agreed for Ferrari to supply a fourth customer team with a 2015-specification Power Unit in 2016.

The maximum number of Championship events in a season has been increased to 21 (from 20). The calendar for the 2016 FIA Formula One World Championship has been confirmed:

*race start to be scheduled to avoid conflict with the conclusion of the 24 Hours of Le Mans

**subject to agreement with the promoter and the ASN

Monday 30 November 2015

'The Distracted Champ' - BY Jake Davis

Sunday 29 November 2015

FIA Post-Race Press Conference - TRANSCRIPT

DRIVERS

1 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

3 – Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN (Ferrari)

PODIUM INTERVIEWS

(Conducted by David Coulthard)

Q: Nico, that must taste good?

Nico ROSBERG: Delicious! The best ever!

Q: It’s been an incredible end to the season. This was, to me, your most dominant win of the season, so tell us a little bit about the race and the hunger you took into this final race of the season.

NR: No, I mean, yeah, Austin was sort of the low point of the season. It was a tough weekend and since then I’ve just come back a lot stronger and I’m very happy about that. I’m excited about how the end of the season went. Next year can come any moment. It could start tomorrow if it were for me, no problem, I don’t need any holidays! But, no, it’s great to end the season like this, go on holiday like this and thank you so much, you’ve been awesome again this weekend, for all your support and everything, thanks to my team, absolutely stunning car you’ve all given me again today – just unbelievable. Ecstatic.

Q: You mentioned Austin there. We could see the disappointment as the realisation the championship had slipped away at that race. Can you tell us a little bit, give the fans at home an insight. You’ve got the enemy within the team, you work together to develop this great product but your success is Lewis’ failure and his success is your failure. Can you give us an insight into how you manage that? Because you guys have known each other since you were kids.

NR: Yeah, it’s always tough to race Lewis, he’s doing an awesome job and he’s one of the best out there, so an even better feeling to win, definitely against such opposition. It’s a great battle internally all the time. That’s what I race for, such battles, and I look forwards to more next year.

Q: Does that mean you guys can go and have dinner together now and reflect on what was an amazing season for the team?

NR: Let’s skip that part – maybe we’ll catch up in the Amber Lounge later on.

Q: Lewis, an amazing season for you – your World Champion Ladies and Gentleman – it’s been a great season for you, I couldn’t help but notice it doesn’t seem to have finished quite as strong as it started. We heard you mention that there have been some changed to the car and it hasn’t quite suited you but is it as simple as that or is there something else we need to know now the season’s over?

Lewis HAMILTON: Well, firstly it’s been an amazing – an amazing – year, and happy 44th UAE National Day. So happy to be here and celebrating it with the UAE, they’ve done an amazing job for this show – and what a great crowd we’ve had today. No man, it’s been a good year. I’m happy. I’m happy it’s over, for sure. So now we can really enjoy. I really have to take my hat off to this team who once again did an amazing job in building this car. The pitstops today, the performance through the whole year, they’ve surpassed their own expectations, our expectations, and so we’ve truly shown that Mercedes-Benz is the best team in the world. I’m proud to be a part of it.

Q: Just to touch on strategy, we heard you again on the radio, asking the team “can I go the distance on these tyres?” We know the team have to deliver the one-two result. Nico earned the pole, he was leading the race – is that just the inner racer in you? Even though you probably know ahead of time that there’s nothing that can be done, that’s why you’re pushing your engineers, pushing the team.

LH: No, I think in hindsight once Nico pitted I would probably have backed off a little bit and I would have made those tyres go a lot longer. The tyres were still fine at the end so I honestly felt that I could potentially have taken them to the end. But as that didn’t work out, going too long was probably not the right thing to do – but y’know, we gave it a try and did the best job I could with it.

Q: I’ll just come around to Kimi Räikkönen. Ladies and Gentlemen, statistically this is the most popular man in Formula One. You probably say less than any of the other drivers, so welcome back to the podium. It’s not been a great season for you but that was a World Champion’s drive today – so why has it taken so long in the season to deliver this great performance?

Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN: I think we started better this season but obviously not been ideal this year. That’s how it goes sometimes. And y’know, the speed has been there but mistakes and problems and stuff like that. So the end result hasn’t been great many times but today, or this weekend, was a bit better. Everything was working well and things were running smoothly, car handling well, so, it was good – but obviously not enough still to beat these two but, y’know we did our best.

Q: Nico, finally with yourself, the smile says it all. The World Championship is the one thing… this is your 14th victory. You can take pole positions, you can win grands prix – how are you going to attack the winter and come back next year and try and beat this man?

NR: Well I look forward to it as I’m sure it’s going to be another great season next year. I’m sure the team is going to give us an awesome car again. Of course we’re aware of the threat from the red guys and we don’t them to come too close and we’ll give it everything over the winter. I’ll try to keep it going, the current form, starting next year.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: You knew what Lewis was doing, obviously, in terms of strategy in the final part of the Grand Prix, the offset on the tyres etc, and you responded. Are you pleased with the way you drove today?

NR: Yeah, for sure, ecstatic with the way it went, because really master-managed... controlled the pace through the race and managed my tyres and used them optimally and pushed all the way through to the end, so had good pace there with tyres that’s for sure and had a lot more laps on them than Lewis’s so very pleased with that, definitely.

Q: I wonder which of the two of you goes into the winter feeling the happier?

NR: I’m feeling very happy.

Q: Lewis, you’re a three time World Champion, it’s been a record-breaking year, which of the two of you goes into the winter feeling the happier?

LH: I think being World Champion sounds a lot better than winning the race, so that’s good.

Q: Tell us a little bit about your race because we were let in on quite a lot of radio, partly, as David Coulthard just referred to there, your question whether or not there was an argument for staying out, but also in the final stages there to do with the engine modes and some quite firm instructions from your engineer, what they wanted you to do. Maybe you could just let us into that a little bit and also from a strategy point of view, you pitted after Vettel who went onto supersofts and you put softs on, so maybe you could just explain that?

LH: Well, I just did what I was told pretty much, most of the time and then yeah, I tried as hard as I could in the first stint, I tried to keep a relatively decent gap to Nico, looking after my tyres and then my right front... or both fronts went off quite early and Nico was able to... in the clean air, was able to look after them. In the second stint I was quicker and getting close and then... I could make the tyres last longer, yeah, of course, but after that it was really down to the team, whether or not we went to the option or the other tyre. I’m not sure which one was better but the prime tyre was quite good. I’m not sure whether or not I could have taken it to the end but some part of me just wishes I’d just given it a go. But no, the engine modes were going up and down throughout the race, not really sure they were like that because they had lots of life left in my engine but I’ll ask when I get back to the debrief.

Q: Kimi, your third podium of this championship, you finished eleven seconds behind Lewis which is about 0.2s per lap over the Grand Prix distance here. Do you take encouragement from the way that Ferrari’s finished the last couple of races going into the winter and next year?

KR: I think the whole year, as a team, has been quite good comparing last year and obviously not so good for myself but the speed has been there and it’s just not been able to produce the results and having some issues and mistakes but this weekend has been pretty OK, the car’s been handling well. I think in the race we could have been quite a bit closer but we had some issues at both pit stops so we lost some time and then I slowed down a bit. But I think we had a reasonably good speed, they didn’t really pull away a lot from us. At certain points, I think we were catching them and then they were pulling out but not an awful lot in it. It’s never nice to finish third but I’ll take it after previous races. I guess it always could have been a better finish but OK, I think it was more or less what we expected to get.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Lennart Bernke – Bild) Nico, Lewis, will you get each other a Christmas present?

NR: Hmm, maybe a Christmas card.

LH: I don’t think we’ve ever done either so there’s no reason to change.

Q: (Rami Akhawi – Car on Web) Nico, about next year, are we going to see you as a World Champion, because already you entered the season with great victories, so is it the same way to start 2016?

NR: Well, unfortunately 2016 is so far away. At the moment I’m just enjoying now, enjoying the wins. I’m going to party tonight, I’m enjoying the fun, enjoying that I progressed also a lot in the end of the season, too late for the championship of course, but so great now to have it and that’s it. I can’t tell you about next year unfortunately, but I’ll give it everything

Q: (Fadi Kallassina – Arab Shift) Lewis, what’s your feeling for not getting the first position with the 44 celebration national day?

LH: I’m really grateful to have been associated with the UAE with the 44th national day. Yeah, I’m still going for that 44th win. I’m quite happy with the amount of wins I’ve had in my career. Of course, I always want more but I have to be grateful for the ones I do have. Hopefully we’ve got another three years with this team so I’m looking forward to next year, to come back fit and healthy and let’s see what we can do next year.

Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Kimi, does it now, afterwards, feel any better to finish the season fourth (in the Drivers’ championship) instead of being fifth and especially after being 12th last season?

KR: Not really. You guys have been asking between me and Valtteri for a long time and still it doesn’t make much difference to me. It’s not what you think, a Finnish championship, it’s a World Championship and there are winners it goes from there. If you don’t win, it doesn’t make an awful lot of difference if you’re second, wherever you finish. I’m happy to have had a kind of OK race in the last one but it doesn’t change anything really of how our season went, what to expect for next year. One of the better weekends but we’ll take it and go from here.

Saturday 28 November 2015

FIA Post-Qualifying Press Conference

DRIVERS

1 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

3 – Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN (Ferrari)

TV UNILATERAL

Nico, six poles in a row at the end of the season – how have you done it?

Nico ROSBERG: Well, before it was close in the other direction and now its close in this direction. I’m quicker in the moment. I’m very pleased about that and enjoying the moment and happy to be in pole again.

Lewis, coming to you, obviously very string all weekend, strong in Q1, strong in Q2 but then in Q3 it sort of slipped away. Was there a reason for that in particular?

Lewis HAMILTON: Not really, I’ve generally been struggling with the car a bit all weekend. But we’ve been working really hard to make some changes; we’ve had to take something off the car but no, Nico was just really quick today and he did a great job in Q3.

OK, coming to you Kimi, close battle obviously with the Force India of Sergio Perez for the third place on the grid. You’ll start alongside him in the grand prix tomorrow. Your final lap, though, was the one that did it. You’ve been quick all weekend but did you feel the pressure from Perez and what was the secret in the end, particularly with your team-mate down in 16th?

Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN: No real secret. Obviously the car has been handling pretty well all weekend. The laps haven’t been ideal many times. Even the first run, it was OK the lap, but nothing like… I knew there was quite a lot of room to improve so I just tried to make one a bit better lap and it was enough. Obviously still a bit of a way off from what these guys can do but we did our best today.

Coming back to you Nico, a disappointing race last here in Abu Dhabi. The race tomorrow, though, a chance to end the season with a hat-trick of victories. How important is it to carry that kind of momentum into the winter.

NR: Primarily I would just like to win the race, because it’s a great feeling to win and it would also give my whole crew and the team a great end to the season and a good reason to party then tomorrow night. That would be awesome, to all have a good time together. So that’s primarily on my mind. Of course, though, whatever we learn this year as well helps going into next year, so it would be great finishing on a high.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Nico, once again strategy starting to come into play during Saturday afternoon, noticeably that you saved new soft tyres for the race tomorrow, going out on supersofts in Q1. We’ve seen that a few times from your team, so fairly clear what you’re thinking about, but how important do you think strategy will be tomorrow in terms of the outcome of the grand prix?

NR: Strategy is always important. I think we’ve done our homework really well here, practicing well on Friday for the race, so we pretty much know exactly what to expect and the soft tyre will definitely be the better race tyre, so that’s why we saved one of those for the race.

Lewis, coming to you, obviously you’ve been fairly relaxed about the situation at the end of this season in terms of qualifying and the pendulum as it has swung. Over the balance of the year then it’s 12-7 to you in qualifying in the battle with Nico. Maybe you could just give us your thoughts on the Saturday, how the year has gone for you and your thoughts on that over the course of the season?

LH: It’s been good. It doesn’t really matter what that number is at the end of the day, what matters is the wins and obviously the championship, but you know, I’m happy because it has obviously been more in my favour. I’ve enjoyed it and in the last six Nico has done a great job. Areas to improve with the car, for me, on my side, but I’m sure we’ll get there.

Q: And for you Kimi, this is your fourth top three qualifying of the season. Do you feel going into 2016, with all you’ve said this weekend about hopes and aspirations for next year, that qualifying in particular is an area to work on?

KR: I don’t think it’s going to be as simple as that and if you qualify well you’re going to have a good finish. We have had good speed but many times a problem or mistakes here and there. Obviously it makes qualifying more difficult and hurts your end result easily but today, this weekend, everything’s been running smoothly and obviously it’s a bit better starting grid tomorrow but we have to still make a good race out of it. It doesn’t change what we do this year for next year anything. We start from zero in January and try to do a good year next.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Samomat) Nico, how tempting is it to try to get your seventh successive pole in the beginning of next season as Lewis did this year and to charge yourself for the whole winter.

NR: With all the respect, that’s not really a target of mine. Of course it’s great to finish the season on a high now and then yeah, I’ll be motivated to start next year in a way that this year has finished. That would be great. Unfortunately it’s not as simple as that but, as always, I’ll push and try and begin strongly next year.

Q: (Agris Lauzinieks - Kapitals Latvia) The question is what is the secret of your revival this season Nico? I mean two last races. Perhaps Mercedes is experimenting with new parts meant for 2016 and they are more suitable for your driving style. I mean new parts of the car.

NR: It’s not a revival, I haven’t reinvented anything. It’s just progress and that’s it. Before it was always very, very close but Lewis had that one-tenth edge and at the moment it’s me that has the one-tenth edge. Today a bit more but it was very close lately in the last two races. That’s it. At the moment I’m just quicker.

Q: (Dan Knutson – Honorary) Lewis, you said you’ve been struggling with the car all weekend. What has been the problem and will it be worse in the race?

LH: Generally it gets a little bit better in the race but it’s been for a while now. Generally just struggling on the edge with the car. It was a lot more comfortable at the beginning of the year for me and as I said, coming into this weekend I tried to make some changes. It disadvantaged myself a little bit maybe with one of the things I took off the car which was of benefit. I tried to get around it but at the end of the day it wasn’t good enough.

Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Samomat) Kimi, you seem to be quicker with the soft tyre in the practice. Does that mean the race is easier for you compared to qualifying.

KR: I don’t think it’s going to be any easier. I mean, in qualifying the supersofts were working well and obviously yesterday and this morning wasn’t ideal. Couldn’t get the lap with those. Couldn’t get the lap with those but again in qualifying they were fine. Obviously conditions changed from daytime to this evening but no, both tyres seem to be working pretty well for me and we’ll see what we’re going to do tomorrow – which one we’re going to run and how it’s going to plan out in the first few laps.

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