Pat W

Launch Season: McLaren MP4-24

McLaren-Mercedes MP4-24
The 2009 McLaren was unveiled at the Woking factory earlier today, along with the announcement that Ron Dennis was moving out of his F1 role to concentrate on McLaren’s ever growing portfolio in other areas.

The McLaren group of companies is active in electronics, engineering and is currently designing and building it’s own road car, as well as many other things which I’m not quite sure about…

Martin Whitmarsh, Ron’s long-time Lieutenant, will take over the day-to-day running of the race team as well as being the Top Dog at the racetrack. Dennis will remain as Chief Exec and will still oversee the general running of the F1 operation.
This has been coming for a while and was maybe due a 12-18 months ago, but the whole Stepneygate affair seemed to galvanise Ron into staying longer than maybe he’d originally planned. Still, it wasn’t expected that he’d announce it at the ’09 car launch.

The car itself looks absolutely gorgeous, save for the stupid-ass rear wing. On the other hand, now that we’re seeing true designs the front wings are growing on me, and they are sure to become further refined before we reach Melbourne. The rear wings definitely do need more work. The MP4-24 overall though looks absolutely fantastic in this colour-scheme without all of the aerodynamic and cooling devices on the main bodywork. This is the third car which looks better than the ’08 cars, discounting the main wings, so I’m very quickly becoming a fan of this particular new regulation!

By the way, is anyone else absolutely loving the return of slick tyres? They look brilliant on these cars. Racing cars should always run on slick tyres except when it is raining.

Here’s a pic from McLaren.com:

This chassis is actually the second ’24 constructed, the first car is already at the Algarve circuit in Portimao for a shakedown on Saturday, where McLaren have booked an exclusive test day. Other teams will join McLaren at the same venue next week. Check the news sites for on-track photos!

Previous launches (now with photos):
Toyota
Ferrari

I will return on Sunday. I’m thinking of doing something on British coverage of motorsport now that some announcements are coming through, although I may hold it for a while. In the meantime it looks like A1GP is falling to pieces so that could be an interesting talking point. The Furious Wedge is keeping tabs on things and I tend to agree with his assessments when it comes to A1GP.
(I’m developing a habit of ending my blog posts on a tangent, maybe I should reign that in a bit..)

Weekend Preview: 18-Jan-09

Weekend Preview: 17th & 18th January 2009

Two posts in one day! I think that’s the first time I’ve done that.. On to this weekend’s preview, which is pretty light but I decided to go ahead and write it just for the hell of it. Look out for next week’s post which will be much more interesting.

Dakar Rally
The 2009 Dakar enters its final stages and concludes on Sunday. Shock today as the runaway leader crashed out! Who’s going to win the first Dakar outside of Africa?

Andros Trophy (Rnd 5 of 7)
Isola 2000 / Alpes-Martimes, France
Slip sliding away.

New Zealand V8 Supercar (Rnd 5 of 7)
Teretonga, New Zealand
Yeah I really know nothing about this series..

Blog Notes
– These listings primarily come from Autosport magazine, so thanks to them for compiling the original list. I will supplement this with info from other sources when we get nearer the time.

– I’ve decided to not annotate some listings for the sake of brevity and not at all to disguise my lack of knowledge in some areas.

– I have a new email address for the blog: toomuchracing at gmail dot com
I thought it best to split blog traffic out of my main personal account. Actually it is registered with the UK version ‘googlemail.com’ but ‘gmail.com’ also reaches me. Our version has a different name due to a copyright dispute. Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow when I’ll be hoping McLaren release some decent photos of the new car!

Launch Season: Toyota TF109

Toyota TF109

Today the 2009 Toyota F1 car was unveiled in a special ‘virtual launch’ online. This means the press have only seen what we’ve seen, they’ve not seen it ‘in the flesh’.

The car looks somewhat different to previous Toyota F1 cars, which always seemed a little bulkier than the competition. It has a higher and shorter nosecone section than both previous cars and those of other teams. I hope they’ve tested it and it won’t pierce sidepods of other cars in a crash.. It looks like a much improved car on the previous efforts, but we really can’t tell too much yet as Toyota have only released a small selection of photos.

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EDIT – here’s a pic:

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Motorsport.com and Autosport.com have the pics – although they are identical on all sites.

Unfortunately the recent trend among all teams is to ban photographers from these events in favour of a strictly controlled PR environment where they supply studio shots of the cars, where journalists are only allowed to ask banal questions and they only receive banal answers. This is the reason you will not find any team or driver quotes from the launches on this blog. There isn’t any point, you know what they are going to say before you read it. How things have changed since the late 90s! No dry ice and elaborate presentations these days.

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Tomorrow sees the launch of the new McLaren, with Williams and Renault both launching on Monday, then BMW on Tuesday. This is followed immediately by the first ‘group test’ of the season, to be held at the new Portimao circuit in the Algarve, Portugal (although it seems BMW will be at Valencia). The F1 press will get some good photos next week. I really must investigate the rights and wrongs of posting other people’s photos here..

Launch Season: Ferrari F60 (w/video)

Ferrari F60
Today saw the first official new car of the 2009 Launch Season, which in the current economy is a little muted compared to normal. Even so, this year has the excitement of the new rules changing the look of the cars, making it much more interesting than any January/February for several years!

The first car to be unveiled was the Ferrari F60, the team breaking with recent naming tradition to mark the occasion of their 60th season of competition within Formula One.

Interestingly the car looks much like the F2008 but with the aero devices chopped off, the ugly new wings fitted, and the whole thing generally shrinkwrapped a bit. I’m pleasantly surprised because I was expecting something as ugly as the BMW test hack that has been running around since autumn.

The new rules make for a much cleaner car along the chassis, and you can really see how tightly packaged the rear bodywork is. (insert joke about team PR girl here) Still, that doesn’t mean the extended front wings and compressed rear wings are any easier to look at.

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EDIT – here’s a pic from the official Ferrari website www.ferrariworld.com:

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Here is an onboard from today’s installation lap at Mugello:

YouTube link found on the DigitalSpy F1 Broadcasting forum (posted by Fergie1).

For official videos and photos go to: http://f60.ferrariworld.com/ Also check out the galleries at the usual suspects.

Other Cars
Expect the remaining teams to launch their cars in this order:

Jan 15 – Toyota
Jan 16 – McLaren
Jan 19 – Renault & Williams
Jan 20 – BMW Sauber
Feb 6 – Red Bull
March – Toro Rosso & Force India
Will they make it?? – The Team Formerly Known As Honda

Entry List
In other news, the FIA has released the official entry list as it presently stands:

1. L.Hamilton – Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
2. H.Kovalainen – Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
3. K.Raikkonen – Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro
4. F.Massa – Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro
5. R.Kubica – BMW Sauber F1 Team
6. N.Heidfeld – BMW Sauber F1 Team
7. F.Alonso – ING Renault F1 Team
8. N.Piquet – ING Renault F1 Team
9. J.Trulli – Panasonic Toyota Racing
10. T.Glock – Panasonic Toyota Racing
11. S.Buemi – Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari
12. ?? TBA ?? – Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari
14. M.Webber – Red Bull Racing Renault
15. S.Vettel – Red Bull Racing Renault
16. N.Rosberg – AT&T Williams Toyota
17. K.Nakajima – AT&T Williams Toyota
18. ?? TBA ?? – Honda Racing F1 *
19. ?? TBA ?? – Honda Racing F1 *
20. A.Sutil – Force India F1 Mercedes
21. G.Fisichella – Force India F1 Mercedes

* To quote the FIA:

The Honda Motor Company announced their withdrawal from Formula One on December 5th, 2008. The Honda Racing team has not withdrawn its entry from the 2009 Formula One World Championship. The FIA understands the team is now for sale.

Car numbers are assigned by Driver’s Champion and team-mate first, followed by teams in Constructors’ Championship order, excluding #13 because these guys are superstitious!

Blog Note: I’ve ditched my planned entry about the FIA / FOTA goings on of last week because I got bored of it, as well as the entry about the Autosport International summary because you can find all that on Autosport.com. I should be back on Thursday for the Toyota launch!