A blog for Formula 1 news, recaps, and opinions.
This story comes by way of one of our readers. What if Audi had purchased Midland last year when Colin Kolles was having his fire sale? Kim Stapleton, a Audi fan and apparently an auto-cad wiz kid, wondered the same thing. Kim recreated last year’s Renault R26 and skined it using a livery similar to the one found on Audi’s Le Mans racers. Check out the write up and pictures over at fourtitude.com.
Just as we predicted, Scott Speed will drive the 2nd STR2 for Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2007 according to GPupdate.net. Soon after our original post, Vitantonio Liuzzi was confirmed as the team’s number one driver. During that time hints were made that some details were still being worked out on Scott’s contract. Looks like everything has been worked out and the contract has been signed.
In order to keep from burning out before the season starts, you may have noticed that we took a pretty decent vacation there during Feburary. Since our dissapearing act we’ve let other outlets have been keeping you up to date with all the pre-season testing times and results. And we’ve been looking the other way. Why you ask? I’ll tell you…
Its in our opinion that pre-season testing times simply don’t matter. Very rarely are all the teams running on the same track, on the same day, in the same weather, with the same testing agenda. That is especially true this year as a majority of the teams make the switch over to Bridgestone tyres. We also see a bunch of other changes this year as drivers play musical chairs and customer teams are playing a fun game called, “stick your engine in our rear.”
But with that being said, we’re now only 17 days away from the first race of the year. The teams get one more pre-season practice run tomorrow as Williams and Spyker finish up at Circuit de Catalunya, Spain and everyone else will run at Bahrain. After that, its time to pack up the trucks and head down-under mate! Hope you all are getting excited, its going to be a hell of a year.
Brett and Corey have finally got back on the mic to record another podcast. Head over to formulapod.com and give it a listen.
Dutchman Robert Doornbos may be giving us a clue as to the fate of American Scott Speed’s race seat with STR. According to Autosport.com, Doornbos has confirmed that he will be joining a Champ Car team in the “very near future”.
I tried to race at Toro Rosso but there were some uncertainties there, so I decided to go for certain for the third driver role. And I am going to race in the States for sure.
Sounds like Robert isn’t all that excited about being demoted to a test driver roll again after getting to race the RB2 in the last 3 races of the 2006 season when Klien lost his Red Bull race seat.
It is implied that Robert will be combining the rolls of both the Red Bull test driver and a race driver in the Champ Car series. Just last week he was at Sebring International in Florida testing with Minardi Team USA. MTU is owned by former Minardi F1 team owner/boss, Paul Stoddart. In 2005 Doornbos raced 8 Grand Prix for Minardi F1.
So, you ask, “how does this affect Scott Speed?” Well, I’ll tell you… If Doornbos, unlike Klien, is happy racing in Champ Car, that means that he won’t continue to pursue the STR race seat. With Doornbos out of the picture, that leaves one less FIA Superlicensed driver competing to drive the Ferrari-powered and Newey-designed (?) car.
Williamsf1.com has an awesome timer up on their site counting down to FW29 launch day on Feb. 2nd. Up until then, they are virtually building the car online. Each day a component is added. Head that way and move the slider at the bottom to watch the car built from the ground up.
Blah, blah, blah, Adrian Newey. Blah, blah, Renault engines. Blah, blah, Mark Webber and David Coulthard. (yawn) That’s about how exciting the Red Bull launch was in Barcelona last week. The team known for large parties quietly rolled its new car onto the track for a couple laps and a few photos.
I am surprised that they don’t have the McLaren “Viking horns” on the side of the air intake. I am glad that they have not incorporated the bi-plane front wing element though.
For those curious, Metro (a new sponsor this year), bills themselves as, the world’s largest newspaper. Speaking of newspapers, don’t forget to check out the Red Bulletin online this year during the season.
Every year I try harder and harder to cheer for Honda. But they just make it so difficult. This year is proving follow that trend. All pre-season, Nick Fry and company have been teasing us with tidbits of information about their new “revolutionary” livery. And how do they launch their car? Completely black:
What a bunch of crap. For as long as they are making us wait for this livery, the damn thing better be holographic!
I think what makes it worse is that Jenson Button only managed three turns at Barcelona’s Catalunya circuit in the new car before it decided to take a little nap out on the track. According to itv:
Within seconds the car stopped and had to be towed back to the pits – but the delay was only a minor inconvenience and Button was back out again soon afterwards to begin a series of short shakedown runs.
Not that big of a deal, but still not what you are wanting to happen on launch day.
We’re playing catch-up here this week at GP junkie. Last week we missed a couple of launches while helping out one of our sister sites, UFCjunkie.com prepare for the Spike TV event and for this week’s UFC pay-per-view event. Check the site out for all the UFC news you could possibly need.
While we were away, Renault had one of the most “successful” launches to date. The R27 looks to be a remarkable progression from last year’s championship winning car. If you remember, we managed to get a sneak peek at the car a couple of weeks ago. Though it kept an all blue and yellow paint job. Renault was keeping us guessing as to how the new title sponsor’s, ING, colors would be incorporated into the car.
Continue reading ‘Renault R27 Launch’
Its good to be the king. And its good to drive for McLaren. Ron Dennis’ newly adopted son was gifted a special edition McLaren SLR acording to the guys over at Motor Authority:
He’s taken delivery of the ultra-rare Mercedes-McLaren 722, describing it as the “prettiest car in the world.”
Now keep in mind this isn’t just a run-of-the-mill McLaren SLR, with a sticker price of $450,000, this is a special edition that is limited to 150 cars. And as if the 626 hp or the regular SLR wasn’t enough, the 722 gets bumped up to 650 bhp. He’s to hoping Fernando doesn’t ‘pull a Paris’ and go drinking and SLRing.
