Marussia Winter – F1 Car Building Tilt Shift Time-Lapse from Kai Clear on Vimeo.
Constructing a Formula 1 car is not an easy task. It takes hundreds of man-hours to construct and deliver two cars to races at around the world. Marussia F1 team provided this awesome time-lapse video building one of their cars prior to winter testing. It’s a bit long, but still very interesting.
I always love these time lapse videos though. Pretty crazy to see all of these people running around.
The world has been missing a good racing movie. I mean, an actual good racing movie that shows the thrills and possible horrors of the sport. Ron Howard has brought together some amazing talent to make a film that’s less in a lesser talked about era of Grand Prix racing.
Lauda vs Hunt. I mean, Thor is now James Hunt! I cannot wait to see this movie. This is going to be amazing. What about you guys? Let us know in the comments.
As most of us know, driving position is massively critical when it comes to providing a solid performance in any car or kart.
Although none of us are driving Formula 1 cars, take a look at this video and think about what your own racing position is like. Can it be more comfortable? Your body remembers a lot of the feedback that you’re getting from the seat. So the more comfortable you are, the better your performance will be.
* I’ve always loved Mercedes’ Formula 1 videos, as they explain a lot of the inner details about driving a Formula 1 car. As an added highlight, I really like seeing Lewis Hamilton in these videos now. He seems much more relaxed than during his time at Mclaren, which shows in this video and also in his driving.
I’ve had some friends who wanted to know more about the history of Formula 1. This is an a detailed documentary of the history of the sport, that I wanted to post up, just for people who ask in the future.
Take a watch, if you have some time.
This is a brilliant little video, done by Pirelli. They prove to entertain fans just as much with their advertisements, as they do with their Formula 1 tires.
I guess, love comes in all shapes and sizes.
I feel that Sauber F1 create some of the best Formula 1 demonstration videos around. The team does a stellar job providing awesome drama around the build-up to the 2013 season and to the new Sauber C32.
I think that Sauber is going to be one of the surprise dark horses in the 2013 season. Just look at those sidepods! (#nerdgasm) I cannot wait for the racing to start this weekend!
Williams F1 have finally launched the FW35 at the Barcelona test today. I posted launch videos of all of the other 11 teams earlier in the month, so it wouldn’t be fair to exclude Williams. Check it out.
Lewis Hamilton’s opening days with Mercedes have not been the smoothest. Due to a brake failure, Hamilton crashed his W04 after only 15 laps of testing. Between the two days, the Mercedes has only achieved 29 laps in the pre-season test, compared to the hundred plus of some of their immediate competitors.
It’s better to have these problems now, than during the season, but it doesn’t help the team.
Check out the video after the jump.
This post will only have just pictures with launch videos today, as I don’t have too much time. Plus there are giga-quads of Formula 1 videos to go through that I’m still trying to find some cool stuff for this blog. 
Check out the launch videos for the CT03 and the MR02 after the jump.
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After a frustrating server crash foiled the teaser launch promotion on the Mercedes website this weekend, it’s nice to finally see real pictures of the car. Again this is just my opinion, but if looks could win races then the Mercedes W04 would be miles ahead of everyone else.
As always, you can find pictures of the car all over the web, but click to see the launch video after the jump.
Last season, Sauber had their most competitive season in Formula 1. Scoring four podiums, the team is hoping that the team’s new contender will be able to do one better.
What I personally love about the new car has nothing to do with the performance changes of the car. It’s the new livery. I’m loving the grey throwback, which reminds me a bit of the older Sauber cars from ’93 and 94′.
Will this be the car that brings Nico Hulkenburg closer to a Ferrari drive? Will this be the first Sauber car to score a Formula 1 victory? I hope so, on both fronts. I’m probably more excited about this car, than any other car this year.
Of course, check out the launch presentation after the jump.
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Today, Sahara Force India and Ferrari both launched their cars for the 2013 Season. Force India launched their car at Silverstone, combined with a private demonstration of the car. Ferrari launched their car via an online webcast.
As always, anyone can find pictures of the new cars all over the web, but I like to provide videos of the car launches. Check them both out after the jump.
Well keeping with my interest in Formula 1 new car launches, today Mclaren released the MP4-28 as the Woking team’s contender for the 2013 season.
Although it looks much like the MP4-27 from 2012, there are some key differences that really stand out. The easiest to point out off the cuff is the higher nose, new pull-rod suspension (see video) and redesigned side-pods to emulate Ferrari’s 2012 design.
I’m keeping this post short as you can find pictures of the new car all over the net. Plus this is the launch version of the car, so things will always changes before the first test and race. Anyway, see the launch video for the MP4-28 after the jump.
It’s not often that a Formula 1 chief designer gets to drive the same cars that he’s designed. Aerodynamic genius for Red Bull Racing’s Formula 1 team, Adrian Newey got a change to experience two of them. The 1990 Leyton House March, and the 2010 Red Bull RB6.
It’s awesome to see how these cars have evolved over the years. If you want to see an infographic of Formula 1 car design, check this out.
This video is a rare-chance to get more detail about how different Formula 1 drivers handle their machines. I wanted to put this under the driving technique section, only because this video highlights how there are several different ways to get around a corner.
The commonality in all of the different driving techniques is that the driver is constantly looking ahead, (see related post on that here) and anticipating what is coming to him, rather than attempting to react after the steering inputs have already been made.
Thoughts? Think about how you approach your own driving style and let me know.
Even though Caterham F1 have not scored a point yet in their three years in Formula 1, they are one of my favorite teams because how they provide these social media nuggets to their fans.
One of the benefits to us fans is, because Caterham is running at the back of the field, they aren’t as concerned that rival teams will be trying to steal their technical ideas so they can share these things with us.
This one is a great technical video, which explains how a Formula 1 suspension system basically works. Take a look at the Caterham F1 Youtube Playlist when you get a chance. It’s filled with awesome videos like this.
A few days ago, I was watching a replay of the 2004 Italian Grand Prix on YouTube. The race was long enough that the video needed to be broken into six parts. I was moving through the parts, minding my own business when suddenly I encountered this…
WTF! This race happened EIGHT years ago!
Seriously Youtube? Seriously, Formula One Management Group? What could you possibly be thinking? This race happened eight years ago, yet Formula 1 lawyers still won’t let me watch it. This constriction of online media is the exact reason, in my opinion, that Formula 1 is having trouble adopting younger fans.
You can see this problem in our ‘Formula 1′ section on the blog. Since FOM sweep through YouTube and continue to block videos we have alot of articles with dead multimedia associated. So yet another reason for me to gripe…
It seems that Formula One in general is continuously losing touch with the fans that are trying to support the sport. Ticket prices are higher than ever before, preventing fans to attend the races in person. Buying a Red Bull hoodie can cost over 150 dollars, and you can’t watch races online without paying more egregious fees. Meanwhile the FOM are wondering why people have decided to watch other sports?
Seriously?! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot by basically shoving new fans out the door, before they even get there.
In the last ten years, media had started to evolve into the digital format. Social media interaction have exploded. Users are demanding higher levels of engagement and interaction with content and the players involved. The fans want more. Yet here is Formula 1, going out of their way to block users from seeing the sport and making supporting it prohibitively expensive while complaining that they’re watching their user base decrease and remain older.
Well, no duh! If you go out of your way to block me from watching the races, why would I keep trying to watch it? Why would I advocate that other people watch it? People don’t watch as much on television. The internet is the new primary source of media consumption, and Formula One just seems to ignore it as if it doesn’t exist. I’m sure if a new person was searching on Formula 1, and got the blocker prompt that I did on Youtube, most would simply just search on something else and turn away.
In the modern era, how are you expected to teach new fans about the history of Formula 1 when the sport itself goes out of it way to make sure that young people can’t view it easily?(In an era where more young people don’t even find CARS to be as interesting we used to, this is a worry.)
Ironically I can watch full feeder series races like GP2, because the sport doesn’t market itself well and therefore is generally ignored by the sporting community. (Lucky for me? ) However unless I’m willing to pay for it, or pirate the feed illegally, I’m not allowed to watch the top flight of motorsport. I’m not even allowed to watch the recent race edit without logging into the Formula 1 website.
When I brought the situation to my friend David, (whose not even a Formula 1 fan) he instantly brought up the idea of how easy would it be to create an official channel on YouTube which showed replays of Grand Prix? It’s not like it wouldn’t be popular! FOM has to go out of it’s way to block users from uploading content already! If FOM offered content themselves, then it would make sense to ACTUALLY block people so you went to their channel instead! (It also counts as free advertising for related merchandise. which is probably worth much more than Youtube.)
Seriously FOM. This isn’t rocket science. Get your act together. Loosen up your wallets. Offer free online feeds. Offer new ways to entice engagement via online media. The money that you’ll gain finding new adopters into the sport will far supersede the money that you think that you’re losing through copyright infringements via Youtube. In a sport where racing teams are spending hundreds of millions of dollar to find tenth of a second, you’re just leaving money on the floor by being stingy and not letting people enjoy the experience.
Maybe I should just watch more IndyCar. They offer full race feeds on Youtube. I can never miss a race.
…and that’s ok. (smiles) Really it is!
As much as I want professional racing drivers to put their full attention on driving the wheels of a race car, it is important for them to let their hair down and have some fun. At least Sebastian chose to involve himself with a video with a bit more class than some of his recent exploits.
Also we don’t have to hear Sebastian sing…(unlike a certain seven-time world champion doing karaoke.)
A few days ago, I was speaking to a friend about a video when Jaime Alguersuari was caught ‘drifting’ an F1 car in 2010.
I figured that this video was awesome enough to share with everyone, because it’s not something that you see very often in Formula 1.
As a motor-racing fan, it’s always good to know that our grand-prix racing role models are always providing examples of sportsmanship and class.
Oh wait… Well at least they show the top-flight driving standards of true pros, right?
Really?! Sigh…
If you could start over, what would the perfect life be? I’d say the BBC have pretty close to captured it.
In recent years in Formula 1, the tactics of the sport have transformed into a tire conservation formula.
With these temperature-sensitive Pirelli tires, teams now elect to sit out certain sessions of practice and/or qualifying in order to have the best potential chances to score points during the Grand Prix on Sunday.
Now that all makes perfect sense, but as a fan it can be unbelievably BORING if nothing is happening. It can be down-right distressing to discover that your favorite driver has decided to sit out the final qualifying shootout, ‘just’ in order to have a better tire selection… (Especially if you’re up at 1 in the morning to watch it on your local time zone.)
What I miss are qualifying sessions like these… It may be a pointless dog-fight, but it was at least exciting.
Maybe we need to return to having a ‘qualifying tire’?
Seeing that most of us who watch Formula 1 are armchair pundits, myself included, it makes it really easy to poke fun at a team like HRT. Even though they are one of the slowest teams in Formula 1, the team is working extremely hard to develop from such a limited budget.
It made me think about how much effort is going into developing this team. They may not have made a complete fan out of me, but I’ll think twice before I shoot another jaded remark toward them when I see them on the grid. You can see that they are working hard.
Will HRT remain in Formula 1 in five years time? We’ll see, but it will be interesting to see how this team develops.
Later this year, Formula 1 will be coming to Austin, Texas to race on the newly constructed Circuit of the Americas. Now I’m super excited about this, but I haven’t seen many ‘track-level’ shots of what the circuit will look like.
Fortunately, Codemasters has come to the rescue, by previewing the track on the latest version of F1 2012. The first sector alone just looks mega!
I love this new Formula 1 helmet camera view, almost as much as I love the racing itself this year!
I won’t talk about whose won the Grand Prix, since I know that the Speed Channel re-airing hasn’t aired in the states yet. (Update: Go Web-ster!)
However, check out this camera view from Sebastian Vettel during practice, as he takes on the Monte-Carlo street circuit.
Awesome!
Today, the new short-film featuring Sebastian Vettel and Infiniti was just released. It was a martial arts film, called ‘Drive of the Dragon’ featuring Celina Jade.
Funny short, if nothing else. I swear that he’s just training to develop his ‘finger poke of death!’ move for during race weekends, and definitely more exciting than Mark’s Canberra Milk commercials…
Piotr Buczkowski has created some drawings of Formula 1 World Champions that are absolutely stunning. Click on the link to his gallery to view more of his work.
For the last few days, I’ve had a few friends ask me to explain how the Mercedes GP DRS system is more unique than other F1 cars. I found a video which details it.
The key point to note that isn’t brought up in the video that followers should be paying attention to:
For those who enjoy reading text, ScarbsF1 has a great explanation as well here.
We all know that Rubens Barrichello was not retained by Williams F1 to race in 2012. For the experienced racer with 19 seasons of Formula 1 experience, this would seem like the end of an era for the Brazilian.
However, that does not mean that Rubens has to stop racing cars. IndyCar is just one example where Rubens’ experience and popularity would serve him well.
In my opinion, this would be a great time for the Brazilian to jump into the American open-wheel arena. He does have a few things going for him that would make him an attractive prospect in 2012.
I found this video a few weeks ago, but Youtube decided to take it away from me. I wanted to share it with all of you, because I thought that did a good job summarizing the 2011 F1 season.
Also, it’s playing one of my favorite songs at the moment, so that’s no bad thing.
I honestly didn’t know that Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton were battling back in Formula 3! Finding this video puts the battles between Hamilton and Vettel in the beginning of the Formula 1 2011 season in more perspective.
I wonder how much history do the two have together through the years?…
A little known fact was that Nigel Mansell wasn’t the only Formula 1 driver who considered making the switch to IndyCar. In December of 1992, Aryton Senna came to the United States and tested for Penske Racing. This was a huge deal, even though it created little discussion in Europe.
They have Formula 1, so what would Europeans care about IndyCar? Wrong!
For those who don’t know Penske for IndyCar is much like Mclaren for Formula 1, so we are talking about testing for one of the top teams of the era. The test for more out of interest in the IndyCar for Senna, than a full time commitment to the series, but still important nonetheless.
Apologies that the video is not in English, but take a moment to view a little know piece of motorsport history. Thanks to MotorsportRetro for the find, and follow the link for a more detailed article.
Listening to David Coulthard talk through a turn-by-turn what a driver needs to do on the opening lap of the Monaco Grand Prix, just reminds you how intense having to drive a Formula One car actually is!
Part 2 of the 2 part documentary that we started to feature yesterday. Enjoy! The exciting bit comes here, when we get to see the new engine under testing conditions!
Also, we get to see a cameo from a Formula 1 legend, Ross Brawn! He looks so young, and it shows how much experience he has in Formula 1.
I found this video during my lunch break, and found it to be too funny not to share.
Try and see if you can figure out what Mark Webber is attempting to signal before the end of the video!
Imagine if we could watch a Grand Prix from the view of the driver, in the comfort of our own living rooms.
Being able to analyze steward decisions from the point-of-view of the driver would be much more interesting, than a replay camera from 200ft away.
Pirelli has released a video of their official test driver, Lucas di Grassi, mounted with a eye level POV camera as he laps around the Barcelona GP track.
Could this be a sneak-peek of open-wheel racing broadcasting in the future?
Now we just need to get an HD version!
Credit given to Jacek Kolodziejczyk @iacoski.com for the design.
I wouldn’t feel comfortable having A-Pillars on a closed cockpit formula car, in case of a crash.
Regardless of that, I’m loving this! This reminds me of something out of F-Zero.
If formula cars went this direction in the future, I’d support it.
What are your thoughts? Love it or hate it?
For readers of Autosport, you know this question. But it’s not the whole story. You might say that Lola had some of the worst F1 cars to date, but when did you ever decide to build a racing car on a £2 million budget?
Lola did, and it was okay. I will go into every bit of detail regarding the Lola Formula One Team that applied for entry in the 2010 FiA Formula One World Championship – an offer that the FiA refused.
Mark Webber has been one of those drivers that I’ve followed intently since I first became interested in Formula 1. I’ve always found myself inspired by drivers who have been rated as ‘underdogs’, but clearly have massive talent and work ethic.
Webber reminds me of a modern Nigel Mansell, in the way that his career has developed through motorsport. Throughout his career, he has not always had the most competitive car. However, his ‘never-say-die’ attitude really has helped to keep his head above the water.
Now racing for Red-Bull Racing, he has his hands on one of the most competitive cars on the grid. If not for the efforts of Sebastian Vettel last year, I’m sure that Mark would have won the driver’s championship in 2010. He’s one of my favorite drivers, and regardless of his results, I’ll always like him.
For those who don’t know much about Webber, I’ve found a short documentary about him.
Mark Webber- Always punching above his weight
Give it a watch.
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I’ve featured the last few Scuderia Ferrari Racing news videos, as I’ve been keeping a close eye on Ferrari this season. As usual, Ferrari F1 found itself struggling at the beginning of the year, as they built an overly-conservative machine for 2011.
Ferrari say that next year’s car will be more ‘aggressive’ and ‘competitive’ than this years car. (They always say that though, so we’ll see if Pat Fry can actually contribute to developing a better car)
RedBull is doing a stellar job at promoting Formula 1 in the United States, as the sport is returning to racing in Austin, Texas in 2012. They provided Tom Cruise, who has SCCA track racing experience, an afternoon with a Formula 1 car (RB5, I believe). David Coulthard, who does alot of Red Bull’s Formula 1 promotional activities was consulting Cruise in how to drive the car.
It’s a good marketing move, as it’s a strong way to get some additional brand exposure for Red Bull Racing’s F1 program in the United States.
Maybe this will be involved in Mission Impossible 4? Kidding…kidding.
You can tell that I’m looking forward for this game, so it’s nice to see that another developer diary has come out to address two of the areas that I find to be the most important in a racing simulator. Car handling physics and AI interaction. I really like these developer diaries, not only with the content that they feature, but also the way that they deliver it.
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My thoughts on In-Game Handling: The handling in F1-2010 was one of my key complaints with game. I felt like some of the cars were a bit too twitchy, especially when at the limit, so it was hard to stay into a rhythm when taking laps. Also some of the aerodynamic handling with the cars sometimes were a bit annoying when you got in the draft of a pursuing car, and the way that the car handled when attacking kerbs. (Let’s not even mention how the game would invalidate laps when a wheel would slightly touch some curbs.)
My thoughts with In-Game AI: I thought some of the AI was pretty annoying, when the cars around you would go for gaps trying to overtake, etc. It was also easy to influence the AI into crashing into other cars or walls, when decreases from the realism when you’re playing. Overall I found that the time-attacks were more fun than actually battling out full Grand Prix, because the AI wouldn’t just get in the way as you were lapping the track.
Have any of you played F1-2010, and are any of you looking forward to F1-2011? Let me know your comments. Also if you have some free time, take a search through YouTube and view some of the F1-2010 developer diaries for fun.
Few people know about this, but Michael Schumacher’s entrance into Formula 1 was supported by Mercedes Benz. In 1990, along with Karl Wendlinger and Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Schumacher joined the World Sports-Prototype Championship. (Basically, he was racing Group C cars).
This was designed to be a strategy, much like Paul Di-Resta’s DTM career, to gain Michael more exposure on an international racing scene. When Michael was provided the opportunity to move into Formula 1 with Jordan, Mercedes help to support that transition.
This year in Formula 1, we’ve been introduced to a new aerodynamic system which has been developed to improve overtaking. The Drag Reduction System, labeled as DRS is a moveable rear wing which reduces the rear drag on the car when activated. This provides the added benefit of making the car more slippery down the straightaways, and improving the overall top speed of the car.
That itself isn’t a bad thing. However, my problem with DRS is how it is employed by the FIA for Formula 1. During free practices and qualifying, the DRS can be used anywhere on the lap. This allows the drivers to go out for maximum laptime, straight from the word ‘Go’.
The real failure of DRS, in my opinion, is how it is used during the actual race.
Apparently, I’ve been caught up in watching reviews from Jackie Stewart on Formula 1. Watching them, make me think about how to modify my own road car.
Is that odd? I don’t tend to think so.
