BlogF1

The second day of running in the second test session at Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit saw Felipe Massa again dominate the proceedings by going fastest and beating Lewis Hamilton of McLaren by a whopping 0.5s. A country mile in Formula One terms. Felipe was running with a new aerodynamic package on his F2007, and Massa convincingly charged ahead of his team mate Kimi Raikkonen who ended the day in third. The Ferrari duo clocked up 192 laps between them, compared McLaren’s 107 with Hamilton and test driver Pedro De La Rosa, who finished in fifth. Continue Reading…

Ferrari ruled day one of the final pre-season test at Bahrain today, with Felipe Massa going fastest and beating his team mate Kimi Raikkonen by 0.3s. Raikkonen ended his day in second going a further 0.3s faster than reigning champion Fernando Alonso in the McLaren. The Ferrari’s completed 197 laps between them, each completing a race distance and further developing the F2007. Alonso’s 2007 team mate Lewis Hamilton only lapped the Sakhir circuit 54 times, but managed fifth fastest in this time. Continue Reading…

Honda launched their new livery this morning at London’s Natural History Museum (something that caused a bit of humour among the paddock last week), and as suggested yesterday, the car will be adorned with an Earth graphic. The team have chosen to move away from the now traditional trend of flooding the car with sponsors and the new look is more minimal, and thus certainly more striking. Continue Reading…

Honda’s 2007 livery is due to be unveiled at London’s Natural History Museum on Monday, but a sharp-eyed person has discovered this photo in Honda’s gallery on their website - it is apparently yet to be published. It shows the RA107 painted in imagery from Google Earth, and aside from Honda and Bridestone logos, the car is void of all other sponsorship. On the rear wing is a website address - myearthdream.com - which is registered to 19Entertainment (and currently unavailable), the company that deal with Honda’s F1 PR. Continue Reading…

The Sakhir circuit in Bahrain again saw action yesterday as the majority of Formula One teams tested again. McLaren returned their cars to the top of the list as Fernando Alonso posted the fastest lap of the day, 0.1s faster than his 2007 team mate Lewis Hamilton. Alonso managed 73 laps on his way to the top of the timing sheet, and once again outshone Ferrari by some margin. Felipe Massa was placed third, although he was 0.7s down on pace setter Alonso. Kimi Raikkonen was a further 0.1s down on his team mate, and the drivers completed 152 between them. Continue Reading…

Scuderia Toro Rosso have ended months of speculation regarding its 2007 driver lieup by announcing the re-signing of 2006 racer and American-born Scott Speed. The news comes after team boss Gerhard Berger said that Speed was in the lead for the seat, but minor complications arose while negotiating his new contract with the Red Bull owned squad. The team will run both drivers from last year, with Italy’s Vitantonio Liuzzi having signed a new contract earlier in the year. Continue Reading…

The second day of testing at Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit saw Nick Heidfeld climb to the top of the time sheets, beating reigning champion Fernando Alonso by 0.8s. This is the second time Heidfeld has ended a testing day this year at the top, and the BMW is certainly looking like a strong car for the 2007 season, due to start in Australia on March 16th. Heidfeld’s pace was compounded by fellow BMW driver Robert Kubica, who posted the fifth fastest lap of the day, finishing just behind Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton. Continue Reading…

As the teams descended on the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain for the first time during the off-season, it was Felipe Massa in the Ferrari who dominated, followed by his team mate Kimi Raikkonen in the sister car. Massa completed 86 laps of the circuit while Kimi managed 41 to finish just 0.2s shy of his Brazilian counterpart. This was no surprise as Ferrari have been generally keeping themselves in the top half of the time sheets all winter, but what did shock a few people was Jenson Button’s inclusion in the top three. The Honda had been woefully down up until this first day in Bahrain, and a lap time of 1m32.087s - just 0.2s down on Kimi’s Ferrari - should certainly be considered as an improvement. Rubens Barrichello in the sister Honda managed just ninth by the end of the day, completing 100 laps. Continue Reading…

On the final day of testing at Valencia for Williams and Spyker, German driver Nico Rosberg led the time sheets lapping 0.5s faster than his nearest rival, Adrian Sutil of Spyker. Despite the Heavens opening and disrupting the session, Nico still managed to complete 99 laps of the Spanish circuit, while he worked on set up configurations and assisted test driver Narain Karthikeyan on some aero work. Narain could only muster a 1m14.166s, almost three seconds shy of Rosberg’s lap, but Narain was pleased with progress, as was Test Team Manager Dickie Stanford. Continue Reading…

Williams and Spyker have continued testing at the Valencia circuit this week, all in preparation for the season opener in Australia next month. Williams have unsurprisingly led the way over their Dutch rivals, and Spyker have been running in their new challenger utilising both race drivers and their extensive test driver portfolio.
Continue Reading…