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Launch Season: BMW Sauber F1.09

BMW Sauber F1.09

Earlier this week the new BMW Sauber was launched at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia, Spain.

Like the other ’09 cars it is a much cleaner design than the ’08 car, although that wasn’t difficult in the case of the 2008 BMW! Also in common with other teams there are fewer sponsor logos on this car. Long-time backer Credit Suisse, who supported the team long before BMW supplied Williams let alone Sauber, have withdrawn their backing. Given the present condition of the banking sector globally this isn’t a huge surprise, it is maybe more surprising that RBS remains with Williams. It also looks like the Intel sponsorship has disappeared. Again in common with most other teams, BMW Sauber insist they remain on a solid financial footing.

On the whole this looks like a fairly ordinary car compared to the more radical designs of the McLaren and Renault, say. The nose is conventional albeit higher than in previous years, there is no engine cover fin, and the front wing is one of the most basic we’ve seen – particularly the endplates.

This team is widely tipped to continual their steady rise in performance and become contenders for race wins rather than picking up when McLaren and Ferrari falter. They need to be wary of Renault who had a resurgence of form towards the end of last year.

BMW are believed to be the most advanced in their development of the KERS system yet are still claiming they may not use it for the first race or two. I’m not sure I believe that.

Here’s a comparison to the 2008 car, kindly set up by BMW:

Sorry if the pics appear slightly fuzzy, I think I buggered up the upload and resizing and I’m not messing around with it any more, it is Friday night…

There are further details at www.bmw-sauber-f1.com/ – though be warned the site doesn’t work well in Firefox.

Weekend Preview: 24-25 January 2009

Weekend Preview: 24 & 25 January 2009

Welcome to the first proper weekend of racing in 2009!


Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series [website]
Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona [website]
Round 1 of 12
Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, Florida, USA
A field of 52 cars and a huge cast of drivers take to the ‘roval’ (horrible word) course at Daytona for the annual sportscar classic. Will Ganassi triumph again, will arch rivals Penske’s entry spoil their party, or will it be a team ‘native’ to Grand-Am rather than one of America’s big racing powerhouses?
It gets under way at 3.30pm local time, 8.30pm UK. Coverage is live in the US on Speed (with the start on Fox). It looks like you guys get lots of hours of coverage. Here in Europe we’ll get 5 hours live on Eurosport 2 with a highlights show some time later. Note these are not a continuous five hours, and we don’t get the start. We should get from 9.30-11pm Saturday, then 6.30-7pm and 8-9pm on Sunday. I say ‘we’, I don’t actually have Eurosport 1 or 2…

A1GP [website]
4 of 10 (or thereabouts)
Taupo, New Zealand
The World Cup of Motorsport arrives down under. Marco Andretti, Robert Doornbos and Dan Clarke do battle with A1 regulars Adam Carroll and Neel Jani in the new Ferrari cars. The race is live on Sky Sports 1 at 00.30 on Sunday morning (okay, Saturday night). There are replays throughout the day on Sunday on both Sky Sports 1 and 2, the same is true for qualifying.

GP2 Asia Series [website]
3 of 6
Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain
The revolving cast of drivers arrives in Bahrain for what should be an entertaining couple of races, not that anybody will see them. Bahrain attracts zero spectators. This one is for schmoozing the sponsors. These races are on Eurosport. They were due to be delayed but because women’s skiiing got cancelled, should actually be live. Note these races are on Friday and Saturday.

Speedcar Series [website]
2 of 6
Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain
Speedcar returns on the double-bill with GP2 Asia as part of the ‘Grand Weekend’ which I think is a translation error.. I don’t believe live coverage exists outside of Asia but I could be wrong.

Intercontinental Rally Challenge [website]
Monte Carlo Rally
1 of 12
Valence, France; Monaco
This former World Championship rally switches to the IRC this year and has actually got under way already, the organisers taking the opportunity to extend the rally away from the constraints of the WRC.
There is coverage on Eurosport – some of it live – because the network part-owns the series! I believe live coverage is on Friday evening.

Andros Trophy [website]
6 of 7
Serre Chevalier, France
The penultimate round of the French ice racing series.

***
I’d planned to put logos up for most of these but ran out of time.

Before you complain, yeah I know I’ve not done the BMW F1 launch post yet. I’m getting around to it. Tomorrow. Promise.

Mike Conway to IndyCar

In a surprise announcement about 24 hours ago, Dreyer & Reinbold announced Mike Conway as their first race driver of 2009. I’m guessing that wording means one or two drivers will be added to the programme, and that one of those is probably Milka Duno. It’ll be interesting to see if she does the full year this time.

I’d just like to say hi to anyone coming over here as a result of Jeff’s kind link at MyNameIsIRL.com. I commented over there about Mike Conway’s race history. MyNameIsIRL.com has been the source of most of my visitors for some time now, so thanks for coming!

Mike Conway is a fast driver who doesn’t seem to pull a decent year together. He’s one of those guys who you always think it’ll only be a matter of time before he does pull a good year together. A bit like Vitor Meira, he runs quickly but always seems to have a backmarker take him out or a little bit of mechanicals go wrong at just the wrong time. There’s never a right time, but mid-race when you’re running in the top three or four is particularly galling.

I commented on his test with Panther at the time and noted how that story seemed to come from nowhere – and this new announcement certainly did as well.
I wrote at the time:

Conway won a race at the Monte Carlo round of the GP2 Series, supporting the Monaco GP, and currently sits 11th in points. Not stellar, but respectable given the competitiveness of the midfield in GP2, and a win at Monaco is nothing to be disregarded. I saw that race and he was dominant, it was not a fluke.

Since then he put in some good performances but still only wound up 12th in points. Given his speed this is a bizarre finishing position to find himself and I struggle to explain it because he was a top 5 driver all season. Okay so his team did fade a little toward the end of the year, but not THAT badly!

I also noted how only autosport.com had the story. Clearly the ‘name’ US journos we all know and love (Miller, Cavin) must have known about the test – the guy was fastest – but I assume they didn’t take the prospect of him driving in 2009 too seriously. I didn’t either, I expected him to go for a full GP2 title assault with a top team!

I wish him well for 2009, it’ll be fascinating to see how he adapts. I have a feeling he’ll turn out to be a good oval racer but it might take him most of the year to get into it.

Launch Season: Renault R29

Renault R29

As mentioned in my previous post, the second launch in the Portimao pitlane on Monday was the colourful Renault R29.

Sporting a livery not unlike the Spanish flag (hmmm.. wonder why..!), noticeably larger branding from ING and new sponsorship from Elf’s sister (parent?) company Total, the 2009 Renault is certainly eye-catching. Last year’s livery design was a bit of a mish mash and didn’t really stick out, so although I’m not keen on these colours, at least they are distinctive!

The most noticeable feature of the car itself is the very wide nose, even wider than the widest seen so far on the Williams, yet the Renault version is much more blunt, more of a wedge-shape. Is this to punch a hole in the air? Is this to stow more ballast in the nose to counteract the weight of the KERS at the back? We’re not really sure at this stage but it is certainly a departure from their ultra-narrow noses of three and four years ago.

The front wing is relatively basic compared to the opposition, but you can expect developments before Melbourne. Remember that the front wing flaps are now adjustable by the driver, but only twice per lap. It seems Renault and Toyota have preferred to make this area uncomplicated aerodynamically for the time being.

Here is a launch pic:

This is a head-on view of the car in testing later on Monday, it really shows both the extent of the nose design and also just how far the new front wing regulations make the endplates stick out. There is a lot of potential for damaged wings this season, and you can imagine it’ll take a race or two for the guys to get used to how close they can race – they don’t run wheel-to-wheel in testing.

If I have time tomorrow I’ll post something on the BMW launched today, but I’ve a lot of college homework to get done first. I really shouldn’t have spent so long tonight watching Obama’s parade on the BBC News website stream!

By the way: Dreyer & Reinbold signing Mike Conway – excellent move for all concerned. My only regret is that they don’t appear to be replacing Milka Duno, instead Mike will take the car vacated by Buddy Rice. Let me tell you now, a Rice/Conway combination would be a great driver line-up. Don’t let his 12th place in ’08 GP2 points fool you into thinking he’s midfield, Conway is a good driver, he’s won in GP2 at Monaco and in F3 at Macau. He can push, he can overtake.