The 2013 F1 season kicks off this weekend with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. Testing indicates that it will be close, but also that managing tyre degradation will be of paramount importance. So here is our guide to the considerations the teams will make when deciding the all important strategy for qualifying and the race. Track characteristics Albert Park Circuit; 5.303 kilometres. Race distance: 58 laps = 307.574 kilometres; 16 corners in total, none particularly fast. Aerodynamic setup – Medium/high downforce. Top speed 318km/h (with Drag Reduction System on rear wing) – 308km/h without. Full throttle – 65% of More…

Welcome to the first JA on F1 podcast of 2013. As last year, we will be coming out every month throughout the F1 season, going behind the scenes of this fascinating sport, providing in depth analysis and behind the scenes insight, talking to the big names and introducing a wide cast of characters. In this season build-up edition we have a packed podcast, as we head towards Melbourne: * Mercedes set the pace as testing came to a close. But are they genuine contenders? And who is looking good? Former Williams chief engineer Mark Gillan, now JA on F1 Technical More…

The promoters of the new Formula E series have released details of eight city centre races that will form the basis of the new zero emission motor sport championship next season. And we want to hear your thoughts on the initial designs for the new car. The host cities are London, Rome, Los Angeles, Miami, Beijing, Putrajaya (Malaysia), Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. The London event will be particularly exciting as it is believed to be based around the Olympic Park in Stratford. Two more venues are expected to join the calendar before it is finalised in September. The More…

Lady Virginia Williams, wife of Williams F1 Team founder Sir Frank, has died at the age of 66 after a battle with cancer. According to a statement from the team, “Lady Virginia, or ‘Ginny’ as she was better known, died peacefully at the family home last night surrounded by Frank and the rest of the Williams family. Ginny had been bravely battling cancer for the past two and a half years. Ginny will always be an integral part of Williams’ history and success, and today we pay tribute to a much loved member of the Williams family who will be More…

There has been a lot of speculation in recent days about Honda and McLaren reviving the famous partnership, which brought domination of F1 in the later 1980s and early 1990s. It began towards the end of last season, but has grown in intensity recently. This is probably due to the fact that attention is now focussing on the major engine changes in 2014 and McLaren has every reason to want to move away from Mercedes, despite having an option to use their new generation hybrid engines in 2014 and 2015. In the last few years Mercedes has withdrawn as a More…

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso has told his rivals that he is better prepared ahead of the new season than last year – and he believes this year will be stronger. The double world champion led the championship for much of 2012, despite having an inferior car to the Red Bull and McLaren, but missed out to Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel by three points. But after training hard during the winter and showing good pace in winter testing, setting the second fastest time on the final day in Barcelona, Alonso has high hopes for this season. “Last year was the best year More…

Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel says the Pirelli tyres lack consistency and admits his disappointment with his Red Bull team’s final days of testing. The Milton-Keynes based team managed 158 laps over the weekend, compared to the 248 Mercedes managed. High degradation with Pirelli’s new 2013-spec tyres has been an issue for all the teams so far this year and Vettel, who has won the title for the last three years, said the lack of mileage has meant the team didn’t quite gather all the data they had hoped for with regards the tyres. “We haven’t been able to tick More…

Caterham have strengthened their technical team by appointing Hari Roberts as the team’s head of aerodynamics. Roberts, who has worked for Jordan, Renault and Lotus, has aerodynamics, trackside and simulation experience. Caterham have finished 10th in the constructors’ championship each year since joining the sport in 2010, and have failed to score a point, however, Roberts’ recruitment is a sign of a continued push to close the gap to the midfield. Roberts will work closely with technical director Mark Smith, who he worked with at Jordan and Renault, and performance director John Iley. Smith said: “He gives us more senior More…

Now that the testing is finally over and the teams are back at base preparing their cars for departure to Melbourne later this week, we can look more closely at what happened in Barcelona last week and what it tells us about the relative pace of the cars. We’ll do it in two separate posts: * Analysis of lap times and long runs, looking for further trends and indicators * A look at some of the Technical innovations which indicated what we might see in season With the help of JA on F1 Technical Adviser Mark Gillan, formerly the top More…

Pre-season testing is over – in two weeks time the first Grand Prix of 2013 will take place in Melbourne and Nico Rosberg signed off today with the fastest time recorded this year in Barcelona, ahead of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button. As with Lewis Hamilton yesterday, Rosberg used a set of the soft Pirelli tyres to set the fastest time we have seen in the eight days of testing at Barcelona as well as going 4/10ths of a second faster than Hamilton managed yesterday and 1.5 seconds faster than the 2012 pole time. He set the time in the More…