Archive for Motorsports

Brazilian news agencies have started reporting that a deal has been sealed between Lotus Racing’s F1 team and Brazilian oil company Petrobras. A nice match in terms of aesthetics at least since both Lotus and Petrobras colours are green and yellow.

Petrobras does not confirm this, saying that the deal is still in negotiations, but I think there won’t be smoke without fire! The deal is said to be worth US$9 million and Petrobras logos are expected to debut at the Spanish GP. Petrobras is not new to F1 sponsorship – they were a sponsor of Williams in the past.

Being the only new team that finished the race with both cars, I suppose the team’s Bahrain results has worked in the Malaysian-backed team’s favor in terms of potential sponsor confidence!

The Lexus LFA is heading back to Nürburgring this May, the place where it clocked plenty of testing miles in pre-production form. This time, the mission is to challenge for glory in the famed 24 hours endurance race.

It will be the first time the production LFA enters a competition. However, the car isn’t a stranger to the Nürburgring 24 Hours as development versions of Lexus’ supercar were entered in two previous occasions to help hone performance and handling. Toyota president Akio Toyoda took his turn behind the wheel in those outings.

Gazoo Racing will prepare two LFAs for the race. Led by top Toyota test driver Hiromu Naruse, the team will include four Japanese and three German drivers who between them have outstanding GT and endurance racing experience.

Takayuki Kinoshita is a six-time winner of the Super Taikyu Endurance Series and is the most experienced Japanese driver in the Nürburgring 24 Hours. Akira Ida was overall winner of the Tokachi 24 Hours in 1995 and 2007, and both Juichi Wakisaka and Kazuya Oshima race in Super GT.

The Germans are Armin Hahne, winner of the Spa 24 Hours in 1982 and 1983; Jochen Krumbach, who finished second overall in the 2008 Nürburgring 24 Hours; and Andre Lotterer, reigning Super GT 500 champion. Sepang Super GT regulars will recognise Lotterer as the man who drives for championship winning Team Petronas Tom’s.

The Lexus LFA is powered by a 552 bhp mid-mounted V10 engine, and is capable of 0-100 km/h in 3.7 seconds and a top speed beyond 320 km/h. More images after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Lexus LFA to compete in Nürburgring 24 Hours

We have managed to get hold of some high-res images of yesterday’s Bahrain Grand Prix which served as the 2010 season opener. Fernando Alonso was the first driver to cross the finish line in his scarlet Ferrari followed by his Brazilian teammte Felipe Massa making it a 1-2 victory for Ferrari. Lewis Hamilton of McLaren was the other driver who made it onto the podium as Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel suffered from a spark plug problem which forced the pole-sitter to finish in fourth place.

Apart from familiar faces, the Grand Prix also featured new faces on the grid including Virgin, Hispania and Lotus Racing. Among these three teams, Lotus emerged on top as both of its drivers managed to finish the 49-lap race. Virgin and Hispania did not enjoy the same as they were part of a retirement sandstorm.

The race also marked the return of 7-times World Champion Michael Schumacher to the sport since 2006 with the Mercedes GP Petronas outfit. Although I was looking forward to the race, I am disspointed with the lack of entertainment as overtaking was very minimal. Despite having more teams the race was quite boring. I believe the race would have been better off without the mid-race refueling ban.

Nevertheless continue reading to view the image gallery.

Click here to read the rest of 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix – Image gallery!

Lotus and Cosworth will partner established IndyCar competitors KV Racing Technology to run in the 2010 IndyCar Series. Behind this deal is the “real Lotus”, unlike Formula 1’s Malaysian owned Lotus Racing, which has little to do with Lotus Cars or Lotus Engineering. The American based series is where hottie Danica Patrick races in.

The Lotus-Cosworth IndyCar will use the classic green and yellow livery used on the firm’s race cars in the 50s and 60s. The man behind the wheel will be former F1 driver Takuma Sato, and the car will make its debut at St. Petersburg, Florida, the second race of the 2010 season. We suspect that, for this season at least, the Lotus-Cosworth will be a reskin of KV Racing’s existing car. All IndyCars run on Honda V8s, and so will this.

Lotus competed in the IndyCar Series in the 1960s, winning the Indianapolis 500 race outright in 1965 with the pioneering Lotus Type 38 driven by Jim Clark, and narrowly missing victory to come second in 1963. The return to the IndyCar Series follows the recent announcement by Lotus and Cosworth to form a strategic partnership to develop engines for Lotus cars.

“Racing has always defined Lotus and on many occasions in motorsports history Lotus’ numerous innovations have re-defined racing. It’s only fitting that as the Lotus Racing name re-enters Formula 1, we will also race and innovate again in IndyCar. The Lotus name will, once again compete in the top two open-wheel racing series for the passion and enthusiasm of car fans around the globe,” said Dany Bahar, CEO of Group Lotus.

Ferrari is officially the team to beat as the Prancing Horse scored a 1-2 victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix. Double World Champion Fernando Alonso was the leading Ferrari as he crossed the line about 16 seconds ahead of his teammate Felipe Massa. Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel who started from pole and who was leading halfway through the race suffered from a mechanical issue which forced him to let go of his lead. He managed to keep on racing but had to settle for fourth.

Third place was taken up by Lewis Hamilton of McLaren. Fifth and sixth spots were filled by both the Mercedes GP Petronas cars led by Nico Rosberg. Michael Schumacher showed that he still has what it takes to race in Formula 1 as at times the German was pressured by reigning World Champion Jenson Button in his McLaren and Mark Webber in the other Red Bull.

Button and Webber finished in seventh and eight positions respectively. Force India managed to make it into the top ten as Vitantonio Liuzzi finished in ninth. His teammate who started from tenth was part of an incident on Lap 1 which pushed him out of the top ten. The final point paying position was taken up Rubens Barrichello in his Cosworth-powered Williams.

Lotus Racing was definitely the top team among the rookies. Both Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli made clean starts and Kovailanen finished the team’s first ever Grand Prix in 15th place. Both Virgin and Hispania failed to finish the race as all four cars went into retirement due to mechanical issues. Karun Chandhok of HRT was the first to retire followed by Lucas Di Grassi of Virgin. The Timo Glock and Bruno Senna joined the list later on. However before Glock retired he was exchanging positions with Kovalainan which was quite interesting to look at.

Jarno Trulli almost crossed the finish line but his car came to a stop at the final moments, most probably due to lack of fuel. Nevertheless he was classified in the finish list and took 17th position. A total of seven drivers retired today.

Lap 1 wasn’t really incident free as Mark Webber’s Red Bull produced a cloud of smoke and Adrian Sutil along with Robert Kubica in his Renault spun after Turn 1. Vettel led Alonso, Massa Rosberg, Hamilton, Schumacher, Webber, Button, Liuzzi and Barrichello at the beginning part of the event. Refueling mid-way through the race is banned this year and all cars ran on a one-stop strategy strictly for changing tires.

There were only few incidents and highlights were made up by Nico Hulkenberg’s spin at the beginning part of the race and Vettel’s mechanical problem that cost him the victory. Unfortunately, there weren’t many overtaking moves despite the FIA’s actions to make Formula 1 more entertaining.

Schumacher spent the entire day behind his younger teammate but as mentioned he managed to keep his nose clean and crossed the line about 4 seconds behind Rosberg. Under the new points system, Alonso scored 25 points and Massa bagged 18. Hamilton scored 15, Vettel with 12, Rosberg with 10, Schumacher with 7, Webber with 4, Liuzzi with 2 and Barrichello with 1. Next stop: The Australian Grand Prix on March 28th!

Please click here to view the full results.

Red Bull, the team that gave Brawn GP a good fight last year has started the 2010 Formula 1 World Championship with a bang! The team clinched pole position for the season-opening race in Bahrain with a lap time of 1:54.101 set by Sebastian Vettel.

The German will start tomorrow’s Middle Eastern event ahead of Ferrari’s Felipe Massa who makes his return after a horrific crash last year. Massa was just about 0.1 seconds slower.

Although losing the pole position battle, the Prancing Horse is set to go head to head with Vettel’s Red Bull as Fernando Alonso secured third place. The double World Champion who wears red overalls this year was about 0.5 seconds behind Vettel’s lap time.

2008 Champion Lewis Hamilton will start from fourth place ahead of Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg. The other Red Bull settled for sixth place with Mark Webber behind the wheel. 7 times World Champion Michael Schumacher who makes a sensational return with the “Shining Silver Star” outfit will start in seventh in front of reigning World Champion Jenson Button of McLaren and Robert Kubica of Renault. Force India is set to impress the paddock again this year with Adrian Sutil’s tenth place.

All rookie teams managed to qualify their cars for the Bahrain Grand Prix. However as most of us expected all three teams filled up the final six spots. Both Lotus Racing drivers Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen were sandwiched by the Virgin Racing drivers. Virgin’s Timo Glock secured 19th place with Trulli and Kovalainen in 20th and 21st positions respectively.

Lucas Di Grassi in the other Virgin positioned himself in 22nd place. Hispania Racing also known as HRT will start the Grand Prix from the very back. This is not surprising as the team which was formerly known as Campos missed crucial pre-season tests. As a result, Bruno Senna who brings back the legendary Senna surname to Formula 1 only managed 23rd. His Indian teammate Karun Chandhok was about 1.7 seconds slower putting him in the final grid position.

Both Virgin and Lotus were about 6 seconds slower than the pole sitter’s lap time. HRT is further down with a gap of about 10 seconds behind Vettel’s time. With such a gap the front running teams should be able to lap these slower cars after about 20 laps. These Cosworth-powered cars are clearly much behind in terms of pace which is probably due to the lack of preparation compared to other teams. Williams is also using Cosworth engines but the team’s lead driver Rubens Barrichello finished in 11th and his team mate Nico Hulkenberg managed 13th. As always tomorrow should be an interesting 49-lap race at the Sakhir race track and dry weather is predicted.

To view the full results please click here.

Mitsubishi’s Ralliart is one of the more famous performance divisions, thanks to the brand’s rally winning exploits and the Lancer Evolution series’ cult following.

So it’s sad news to hear that Ralliart is the latest to succumb to the changed environment the automotive world had to face ever since the global financial crisis hit. It is winding down operations.

Mitsubishi’s quit the WRC in 2005, and more recently abandoned its Dakar Rally exploits last year, including all rally raid events. Mitsubishi is the most successful manufacturer in the Dakar, with 12 wins in 26 appearances, including a record seven back-to-back victories from 2001 to 2007. With this latest development, Ralliart will no longer lend support to motorsport customers and privateers. Also put to a stop is the planning, development and selling of Ralliart products.

“The business circumstance surrounding our company radically became worse and so, this time we have reached the conclusion that we Ralliart Inc, would scale down our business activities as of the end of March 2010,” according to Ralliart Inc’s president Masao Taguchi, in a “farewell letter” to customers, which you can read for yourself after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Mitsubishi’s Ralliart division winds down operations

Italian Jarno Trulli took over testing duties from Lotus Racing’s test and reserve driver Fairuz Fauzy for the team’s second test day at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona. Trulli who is best known for his one-lap wonders finished the session after completing 70 laps. A best time of 1:25.524 was set and it was the 10th quickest time. It was also almost half a second quicker than the time set by Timo Glock in his Virgin Racing contender.

“It was a productive day in terms of set up direction with Jarno. We were able to identify some problems with the set up in the car and establish clear direction to improve it. We still have a long way to go, and a lot of time to come from the car,” said chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne. “We had a couple of minor hydraulics issues which stopped the car on track, but nothing major so all in all it was a productive day and we’re aiming to continue in the same vein tomorrow,” he added.

The fastest driver of the day was Williams’ Nico Hulkenberg with a 1:20.614 lap time closely followed by Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari with 1:20.637. The Spaniard clocked in a total of 134 laps. Pedro de la Rosa and his Sauber racer was third with 1:20.973.

7-times World Champion Michael Schumacher who makes a sensational come back with the Mercedes GP Petronas team was seventh fastest with a time of 1:21.689. The German also expressed that he does not believe the team will be able to score victories at the beginning of the season. He said the team’s main aim is not to be too far off from the top-running teams. However lets wait for the season-opening race in Bahrain.

Fairuz Fauzy has added more laps to his Formula 1 portfolio this time at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. Fauzy was part 11 drivers from 11 different teams. Both USF1 and Campos have yet to be part of the test list as the former is negotiating with the FIA to enable it to miss the first few races of the season.

Fauzy managed to register a total of 76 laps and his personal best time was 1:28.002 putting him in the final position. The team revealed that it was a very productive day as the team managed to conduct some engine Lambda running tests as well as evaluated various control systems on the car.

The fastest time was set by Red Bull’s Mark Webber with 1:21.487. The Australian was ahead of Williams’ Nico Hulkenberg and Mercedes GP Petronas’ Nico Rosberg. Virgin Racing’s Lucas di Grassi finished ahead of Fauzy by almost a second. Jarno Trulli will take over the driver’s seat for the next test session later today. Continue reading to view some high-res images of the test session.

Click here to read the rest of Fairuz Fauzy clocks 76 laps in Barcelona

Volkswagen has announced that its one-make Scirocco R Cup series will be joining the DTM touring car championship as a support series. This is the maiden season for the Scirocco R Cup, which consists of nine races over seven weekends on famous circuits such as the Nürburgring and UK’s Brands Hatch. The season kicks off at the Hockenheimring in April.

The grid will be made up of 30 racers including motorsport rookies and seasoned campaigners. Their machine will be a racing version of the recently-launched Scirocco R, powered by an innovative biogas engine that achieves an 80 per cent reduction of CO2 emissions compared with conventional engines. VW doesn’t quote any figures but says that the Scirocco R Cup is “the most eco-conscious one-make racing series in the world.”

The road going Scirocco R is powered by a boosted up version of VW’s 2.0-litre TSI engine, with 261 bhp and 350Nm of torque. Power goes to the front wheels via an XDS differential lock. Click here if you’ve forgotten how hot it looks!

The Formula 1 circus has just wrapped its official test sessions at the Jerez circuit in Spain. On Lotus Racing’s first official outing reserve driver Fairuz Fauzy settled for 11th place with 1:31.848. The only driver who was slower than that time was Virgin Racing’s Timo Glock. The next day the steering wheel was handed over to Heikki Kovalainen. The Finn only managed to complete 30 laps before crashing out after exiting Turn 2 and 3.

No parts where available at the time so the team had to concentrate on other aspects of the car which did not require driving. Luckily for the team parts arrived in time for the team’s third official test day. Kovalainen managed 1:33.554 which put him in 12th, slowest of all. The former McLaren driver also revealed that the Lotus Cosworth T127 car is suffering from downforce issues.

“I think the main issue is the downforce. We have not been able to develop the aero package as we should have. We had five months to build the car and everything’s been a bit conservative. Before they started to design the car, they had no information about the engine, so cooling and everything is quite conservative,” said Kovalainen. He also added that the team should be able to rectify the issue.

On the final day of testing in Spain Jarno Trulli stepped in. The Italian clocked in a total of 141 laps, the most Lotus Racing has accomplished since it started the tests in Jerez. The lap time dropped to 1:23.470 but that was the slowest time of the day and it was almost five seconds behind the fastest time set by Jenson Button in his McLaren.

All Formula 1 teams (the ones that have launched their cars that is) are still in the testing phase and cars should be improved further. The teams will now head to the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona to continue testing on February 25th.

American team USF1 was missing at the Jerez test this week and rumors are saying that they are pretty much on the verge of just quitting F1. If this happens, it would hopefully give Serbian team Stefan GP an entry in the grid. They are ready as they bought Toyota’s car and renamed it the Stefan S-01.

There have been plenty of word being exchanged about USF1 – including a rumor that YouTube would be backing out of their sponsorship and moving the money to another team. “The bottom line is really simple: sponsor money didn’t come through the way it was supposed to and it has grinded down the company to a halt. They’re having trouble making payroll, they’re having trouble paying suppliers and that’s the situation they find themselves in,” said an anonymous source in news reports. USF1 Team Principal Ken Anderson admitted with a rather ‘glass half full’ view that “a couple of sponsors have let us down a little but, but we’re on track.”

In fact, yesterday the US F1 Team website went down, and many took it as a signal that the team had finally folded. But the team’s Twitter account posted a message saying “The US F1 Team web server is down and is being repaired as this is written. We are not gone, as many have reported. More news soon.” We’re definitely waiting for more news!

Formula 1 is the pinnacle of motorsport. Its the most expensive and technical of them all. Only few are lucky enough to race in Formula 1 and most of the time these drivers are the crème de la crème, although some circumstances have proved us otherwise. Now what is Formula 1 without a strict license requirement that is the ‘king’ of motor racing licenses? The answer is: Superlicense.

Anyone who wishes to race in Formula 1 needs a Superlicense from the FIA. To qualify for the license one needs a ‘decorated’ experience in motor sport. On top of that one has to cover 300 kilometers with a current Formula 1 car. Following yesterday’s official test session in Jerez, Fairuz Fauzy has qualified for a Superlicense as he clocked in about 334 kilometers.

This means that if Kovalainen or Trulli is unable to race anytime during the season, Fauzy can step in. The test session in Jerez continues later today with Heikki Kovalainen behind the wheel of the Lotus Cosworth T127. Force India’s Paul di Resta also qualified for the license as well.

Today the 2010 Formula 1 circus had its busiest official test session at the Jerez circuit. A total of 12 drivers from 11 teams clocked crucial laps at the Spanish race track. All teams were present except for USF1 and Campos, the only two teams that have yet to launch their 2010 contenders.

Today was also Lotus Racing’s first official test session and the team’s third and reserve driver Fairuz Fauzy was behind the wheel. He completed a total of 76 laps and managed to set a personal best lap time of 1:31.848. That lap time put him in 11th place but he was more than 2 seconds quicker than Virgin Racing’s Timo Glock who set a lap time of 1:34.453.

The fastest driver was Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull who set 1:22.593. The German was quicker than Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa from McLaren and Ferrari respectively while Michael Schumacher from Mercedes GP Petronas completed 111 laps and managed to set 1:23.803 which put him in sixth.

However its very hard to use these lap times as an accurate performance indicator. During such tests sessions, different cars may run on different fuel levels, tires and other settings such as aerodynamics. Teams are still developing their cars hence a more accurate indicator will be the performance during the season-opening race in Bahrain which will happen next month.

At the same time Virgin Racing has been spending a lot of time at the bottom end of the time sheets for the past five test sessions. This may be a sign that Lotus Racing’s ‘rival’ is struggling with its car. Nevertheless lets catch the first race on March 14th and find out!

This is an interesting piece of news. When a driver wins a Formula 1 race, the national anthem of the country his team represents will be played during the podium ceremony along with the national anthem of the driver’s home country. So which anthem will be played if Lotus Racing wins a race in 2010? As the title suggests its Negaraku, according to our source that is.

You see Lotus is based in the UK so one might assume that it will represent the country hence God Save The Queen will be played. But Lotus is first of all owned by Malaysian auto maker Proton and the Formula 1 team is also backed by Malaysian companies so it only makes sense for the team to represent Malaysia and the Negaraku to be played.

Source