Red Bull have announced that they will miss the first test and release their 2010 challenger on 10 February at Jerez.
Designer Adrian Newey said that because the RB6 is an evolutionary design following on from last year’s radical RB5 he didn’t feel they needed to be at the first test to “establish the basic concept of the car.”
Instead, the team will save their engines and tyres while they further research the car in the wind tunnel back at Milton Keynes.
For now, here’s some hot RB5 on ice action. They obviously can’t wait to get back to Montreal…
After a long three week break the season continues with the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. It is the home Grand Prix for fully one quarter of the drivers on the grid but realistically there is only one German with a chance of standing on the top step on Sunday.
Sebastian Vettel comes to the Nürburgring fresh from his victory at Silverstone and he will be hoping to maintain that momentum in front of his home crowd and further narrow the gap to Championship leader Jenson Button. It will be Vettel’s first time around the Ring in an F1 car but he has raced (and won) there before in everything from karts to F3 and Renault World Series.
Timo Glock is another German yet to experience the Nürburgring in Formula One but, like Vettel, he has won there before in other classes. After making it through to Q3 in Britain Glock just missed out on points in the race but he is hopeful of a strong finish in Germany:
I’ve had some good races so far and it has been nice to be battling at the front quite often. This weekend is another chance to do that and I can’t wait.
Despite having a famous Finnish father, Nico Rosberg is actually a German citizen. He set the third fastest lap at Silverstone and ended the race in fifth which boosted him to seventh in the Drivers’ Championship and Williams to fifth in the Constructors’ Championship – ahead of McLaren.
Rosberg is obviously at home on the circuit. In this video he talks us through a lap of the Ring – blindfolded.
Nick Heidfeld will be sporting a special helmet design for his home race but it will take more than a fresh coat of paint to turn the BMW Sauber F1.09 into a race winning machine. Two years ago Heidfeld became the first driver in 30 years to pilot an F1 car around the old Nordschleife circuit, christened The Green Hell by Jackie Stewart.
Heidfeld is in real danger of being beaten by compatriot Adrian Sutil on Sunday. Force India have been steadily improving all season and if Sutil hadn’t gone off in a big way in qualifying he may have finished in the points in the British Grand Prix. There is a chance of rain on Sunday and if that happens then it is quite possible Adrian Sutil could score Force India’s first points.
To make your predictions in round 9 of the F1 Buzz prediction game (and be in with a chance to win some nice prizes), just leave a comment on this post with your driver predictions for the race in the following format:
Pole:
First:
Second:
Third:
Fastest lap:
Remember, the deadline for entries is start of qualifying on Saturday, that’s 12:00 GMT.
Tag Heuer have been running a competition where if you guess who will win a race between Steve McQueen and Lewis Hamilton you can win some really nice prizes.
First prize is a limited edition Tag Heuer Monaco watch. Second prize is a (presumably replica) Lewis Hamilton helmet and third prize is a ‘private driving day in F1′, whatever that is.
The competition closed on 10th June and unfortunately I didn’t win. But at least we now know who won ‘The Duel’.
We featured the teaser video in an earlier post about Formula One adverts, and now here is the final cut of Duel, ‘the cinematic road race between Steve McQueen and Lewis Hamilton’.
To be honest, you probably won’t be surprised who wins…
New York artist David Macaluso has painted a portrait of Lewis Hamilton using oil taken from the McLaren MP4-23 Formula One car Hamilton used to win the 2008 World Championship.
Commissioned by McLaren partner Mobil 1, the painting will be unveiled at the British Grand Prix next weekend.
Apparently next week is National Oil Check Week and Mobil will be running a competition where you can win one of 50 limited edition prints of the portrait.
Apparently the Mobil 1 oil was ‘extremely smooth and very particle-rich’, making for a ‘great painting medium’:
I’ve been recycling used motor oil into paintings since 2005, so it was exciting to do a portrait of Lewis, and it was a privilege. When people look at my portrait of Lewis Hamilton, I want them to know it contains the Mobil 1 that circulated inside his Mercedes-Benz engine.
Lewis Hamilton liked the results, too:
I’ve always known that the Mobil 1 in my race car is an important component that can give us an edge over our rivals in some circumstances, but I’d never have guessed you could use it to paint with; the oil gives this picture a unique look and feel.
Another McLaren partner has also been busy making automotive art.
Ever wondered what would happen if Lewis Hamilton’s Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 car was driven through 1,200 liters of paint? AkzoNobel has.
After months of planning, Hamilton’s MP4-24 was driven through pools of red and silver paint. Unsurprisingly this resulted in paint being sprayed everywhere with the splashes captured on two 50 square metre canvases.
I’m not sure the results are as impressive as Macaluso’s portrait but take a look at the making of video below and see what you think.
Formula One and ads don’t really go together any more now that the BBC has taken over from ITV (at least in the UK.)
No longer do we need to worry about missing something vital just as the producer cuts to an ad break – although for those without the ability to pause live TV this has been replaced with the new problem of when to go for a ‘comfort break’.
But just because we hate ads interrupting races doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate a good commercial on our own time. So with that in mind, here are five of the best F1-themed adverts, ever.
Sky – Monsters: The awesome Sky ad on the right is by Italian advertising agency 1861. It is worth having a browse around their site just to see some of their other print and video work.
Tag Heuer – The Duel: In 1969, Tag Heuer introduced the world’s first automatic chronograph. The ‘Monaco’ was radical for its time in also being the first square-cased, water resitant watch in history. A year later Steve McQueen wore a blue Monaco in the classic motor racing film Le Mans. Now, forty years later, Lewis Hamilton stars alongside Steve McQueen in a video promoting the Monaco. If you guess who will win you can win some nice prizes including a limited edition Monaco watch.
Honda – Impossible Dream: At the end of 2004 Honda were on a high. Their engines had driven BAR to second place in the Constructors’ Championship in a season dominated by Schumacher and Ferrari. In September of 2005 Honda purchased the remaining 55% of BAR to become an F1 constructor in their own right for the first time in nearly forty years. Over the next few years Honda would slip further and further down the results before selling the team to Ross Brawn in 2009.
But in December of 2005 the future still looked bright for Honda and they released the ‘Impossible Dream’ commercial, featuring British actor Simon Day riding and driving various Hondas through the New Zealand countryside. Starting on a monkey bike, he progresses from a Super Cub scooter to an ATV, an S500 sports car to a huge Gold Wing motor cycle to a FireBlade superbike. He blasts an S2000 down a gravel road and a TT bike up through a forest. An NSX, the supercar designed with Ayrton Senna’s help, makes an appearance before the beautiful 1965 RA272 F1 car morphs into the BAR 007. Finally, Day drives a powerboat off the edge of a waterfall only to emerge in a hot-air ballon.
Unfortunately for Honda, it really was an impossible dream.
Shell – Refuelling: In 1997 Shell took an airplane, a Formula One car and some cameras deep into the Mojave Desert. What they came out with was pure, unrefined awesomeness.
Shell – Circuit: We finish with another Ferrari/Shell ad that could possibly be the greatest motoring advert of all time. ‘Circuit’ features a stunning array of Ferraris from the last 60 years driving the ultimate street circuit through Rome, New York, Rio, Hong Kong and Monaco. The cars are beautiful but the sounds they make are sublime. Turn it up.
After a long three week break the season continues with the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. It is the home Grand Prix for fully 
Tag Heuer have been running a 
But at least we now know who won ‘The Duel’.
Bahrain | Sakhir
Jenson Button
Sebastian Vettel
Rubens Barrichello
Mark Webber
Kimi Räikkönen
Jarno Trulli
Fernando Alonso
Robert Kubica
Sebastien Buemi
Kamui Kobayashi
Sebastien Bourdais
Red Bull-Renault
Force India-Mercedes