Tomorrow (Thursday June 20) at 9-30am local time Ross Brawn of Mercedes and Paul Hembery of Pirelli will appear before the first ever FIA International Tribunal in Paris. This is the conclusion of a process started by Red Bull and Ferrari when they protested Mercedes’ 1,000 km test at Barcelona in the week following the Spanish Grand Prix. The FIA Sporting Regulations explicitly prohibit the testing of current cars once the F1 season has started. The hearing is set to last into the early afternoon and the FIA has indicated that a judgement will be made public as soon as More…

Lotus F1 boss Gerard Lopez has sold a 35% stake in the team to Infinity Racing, a consortium of investors with US and Middle Eastern backgrounds. The team hopes that this investment will give the team the financial boost it needs to challenge current top dogs Red Bull and Ferrari for wins and championships. Lopez’ Genii Capital concern will continue to hold a controlling stake of 65% in the team and Lopez remains as Chairman and his partner Eric Lux as a director. Infinity’s chairman is Mansoor Ijaz and the deputy chairman is Suhail Al Dhaheri, CEO of the Abu More…

It has been reported this evening that my old broadcasting colleague Murray Walker is fighting cancer. Approaching his 90th birthday, Murray was already dealing with a fractured pelvis from a fall; blood tests during his treatment revealed a form of cancer in the lymphatic system. Fortunately it has been found early in its development, so there is a degree of optimism about the treatment of it. “They’ve caught it incredibly early. It’s treatable, the doctors say my condition is mild and I’m very hopeful,” said Murray. His mother lived to over 100 and the veteran commentator always used to say More…

The Canadian Grand Prix at Montreal is in discussions with Bernie Ecclestone’s company about a new contract to retain the race for 10 years, according to a Reuters report today. And the news highlights the push by F1′s commercial rights holder, backed by CVC Capital Partners to secure long term contracts with host venues. Although CVC’s senior partner Donald McKenzie said recently that the proposed floatation of F1 may need to be postponed once again to 2014, getting a full calendar of events on long term contracts is a key component of the sale; circuit hosting fees are at around More…

BRDC president Derek Warwick says that the nightmare of last year’s British Grand Prix still hangs over this year’s event, but hopes that fans will turn out this year and support the event for the long term. Tickets sales are down this year in a season which has yet to see a British race winner. There are also bad memories from last year’s event where torrential rain caused chaos. Many fans were asked not to attend on Saturday so the organisers could get the car parks ready for race day. Around 400 public events were cancelled in the UK that More…

Williams are to provide the battery system that will be used in the FIA Formula E championship which is set to debut in Autumn 2014. Williams Advanced Engineering, a division of the Williams group which commercialises Formula 1-based technologies, will partner Spark Racing Technology to design and assemble the units. The single seater fully-electric championship is set to start in September 2014 with 10 city centre races – eight of which have already been announced in the form of London, Rome, Los Angeles, Miami, Beijing, Putrajaya (Malaysia), Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. Bangkok is under consideration for one of More…

A frustrated Pirelli has today issued a statement with the tyre specifications for the next three Grands Prix, noting that it has not be able to introduce its revised 2013 tyres, due to a lack of testing and a failure of the F1 teams to agree to the change. The revised tyres, aimed at solving the delamination issue, which some teams suffered in Bahrain and Spain, were brought to Canada last weekend, but only received scant testing due to adverse weather conditions. Pirelli was keen to substitute them for the old construction, claiming that the old ones were not unsafe, More…

The sponsorship marketplace in Formula 1 is looking “pretty good” at the moment with several new brands coming into the sport, according to Formula 1 business expert Zak Brown, however he adds that there remains a big pressure on teams to continue to find ways to raise money. Teams are facing soaring costs heading into next year, with the new 1.6-litre V6 engines set to be introduced to the sport. As a result, the price of the powerplants will rise from around £6-10 million per year to around £18 million. That sizeable increase will put pressure on the midfield and back More…

Three times world champion Sebastian Vettel has signed an extension to his Red Bull contract, taking it to the end of 2015. The German, who is 25 now and will be 28 at the end of the new agreement, has been linked with long term moves to Ferrari and Mercedes in recent months, but Red Bull has been able to secure his signature on a fresh deal, albeit only another year. There have been rumours that Vettel had some kind of understanding with Ferrari. Italian sources say that Alonso has been working behind the scenes to ensure that the team More…

What made the Canadian Grand Prix unusual was the fact that after a wet qualifying session, where no dry running was done at all, teams had all new Pirelli slick tyres to race on. This meant that potentially less stops would be possible as the tyres had more life. Against that the track was green because of the rain, so no-one knew what the tyre life would be like in the first stint. The result was a fascinating strategy battle with lots of different approaches taken by the various teams. Although it was a runaway win for Sebastian Vettel, the More…

The Montreal weekend was a positive one for Jean Eric Vergne, Toro Rosso’s young driver, who secured sixth place in the race, a personal best for him and the team’s best result since Sebastian Vettel’s win in Italy 2008. What is most pleasing for Vergne is that it was the result of a complete weekend, where he put it all together from start to finish, including qualifying, starting seventh on the grid. It is surprising how rarely that happens, the complete weekend. “We shouldn’t get carried away with sixth place,” said the Parisian, “The road is still long. But I’m More…

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel became the first driver to win three times in 2013 with victory in the Canadian Grand Prix to extend his lead in the drivers’ championship. Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso limited his losses in Vettel, finishing second after starting sixth on the grid, while Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton took his third podium of the season in third. Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne scored his best ever finish in sixth while Force India’s Paul di Resta and Ferrari’s Felipe Massa produced an impressive recovery drives from the rear of the grid to finish in the points – but who was your More…

Next season will be the busiest on record for the F1 teams; a 21 race calendar is taking shape for 2014 while on Saturday in Montreal the Sporting Working Group approved a package of test days and aerodynamic reductions which are set to save money, while bringing back four test sessions. The package agreed by the SWC will now be put forward to the FIA World Motor Sport Council taking place on 28 June at Goodwood House, England. The package envisages the end of the Young Drivers test session, a reduction in straight line aerodynamic test days from eight to More…

Sebastian Vettel was able to master the difficult conditions at an overcast and wet Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, taking pole position for the Canadian Grand Prix, beating Lewis Hamilton by a tenth of a second. But the undoubted star of qualifying was 23 year old Finn Valtteri Bottas. Bottas was among the front runners throughout all three parts of qualifying, but saved his best for last with a stunning performance in Q3 to leave some big names trailing in his wake. Meanwhile McLaren, which has owned this Montreal circuit for the past three seasons, had a poor session with Sergio Perez More…

Fernando Alonso has bounced back from a below par performance at the Monaco Grand Prix to head the Formula One field in Free Practice around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Romain Grosjean. The Ferrari driver set the fastest lap in a qualifying simulation on the supersoft tyre and also put in a strong long run performance with fast, consistent laps. But Red Bull also looked consistent on the long runs and Mercedes looked strong on single lap pace again. Following heavy rain overnight much of Free Practice 1 was run in wet conditions, with More…

Lewis Hamilton has never been outqualified by a team mate four races in succession. Here in Montreal, arguably his most successful track, where he has won three times, he knows he has to regain the upper hand over Nico Rosberg, author of pole at the last three events. And it is going to be in the braking that he will do it. Montreal is all about the brakes. And a lot of Hamilton’s speed has always come from his ability on the brakes. “The braking has been a bit of a killer for me this year,” Hamilton admits in his More…

Caterham has launched a racing academy aimed at providing a path for young motorsport talent from junior formulae right up to Formula 1. The Caterham Racing Academy is an evolution of its driver development programme which started in 2010. It aims to provide a bespoke development plan for each driver that will cover every aspect of a modern day racing driver’s life. They will work on racecraft and engineering feedback, mental and physical training and media and sponsor relations. Crucially, the drivers will also receive financial support providing they meet their performance-based targets. The prize fund will make a contribution More…

[Updated] The FIA has decided that Mercedes and Pirelli have a case to answer over the test which took place last month in Barcelona with a 2013 car and the current race drivers and they will be required to appear before an International Tribunal to defend themselves against a charge of breaching the rules. Ferrari has been exonerated for the test it carried out using a 2011 car. The FIA statutes suggest that it can take up to 45 days to convene an International Tribunal, but the process can be fast tracked. Mercedes has acknowledged the summons and said that More…

Welcome to the JA on F1 podcast for June. This month we have a great mix of personalities, intrigue and insights into the money flow in F1. We talk to a Hollywood legend, the world champion team boss, a former F1 driver and we get right to the heart of the stories of the moment, with analysis of the secret Mercedes Pirelli test and JA on F1 technical adviser and former Williams chief engineer Mark Gillan tells us what potential benefit Mercedes may have got from the test. F1 Business expert Zak Brown CEO of Just Marketing looks at where More…

Montreal is always one of the most interesting races of the season from a strategy point of view. With a very high likelihood of safety cars, a low grip surface and very easy overtaking, it is always an entertaining race and hard to predict. Red Bull leads both championships at the moment, but has never won in Montreal. McLaren has ruled for the last three years but has an uncompetitive car this year. And will this be the race where three-times winner Lewis Hamilton gets the upper hand over his resurgent team mate Nico Rosberg? After the extreme of Monaco, More…

Three times world champion Sebastian Vettel has said in an interview with the German Welt am Sonntag newspaper, one of the more serious papers in Germany, that he may quit F1 in five years time. The 25 year old has won the world championship for the past three seasons and enjoys a strong lead in this year’s points table after six of 19 rounds. There has always been speculation that he might leave Red Bull and join Ferrari, part of a destabilising process which is common in F1 when a team and driver combination is winning. But he has always More…

A statement was issued by the FIA on Friday night which takes the story of the secret tyre tests conducted in May by Ferrari (with a two year old car) and Mercedes (with a current car) to the next level, in calling them to co-operate with a disciplinary inquiry. Ferrari being drawn in is an interesting development, given that they were one of two teams, along with Red Bull, to protest against Mercedes over its test. On the face of it Ferrari’s test with a two year old car was within the rules. At the same time Pirelli has issued More…

Williams has confirmed the recent speculation that it will switch from Renault to Mercedes engines next season when the new 1.6 litre hybrid turbo engines come in. Mercedes believe that they have a class leading engine and powertrain and Williams believe that this will set them up well for improving their long term competitiveness. The Mercedes is believed to also be slightly cheaper than the Renault unit. There is a lot of unhappiness among the teams outside the top four about the cost of the new hybrid turbo engines. The manufacturers have committed vast sums to develop them and want More…

It has emerged that the new specification Pirelli tyres which were promised for the Canadian Grand Prix will now only be tested there during practice and will be used for competition only from Silverstone onwards. The move means that teams will have two sets of the tyres which will feature a new construction, aimed at reducing the risk of delaminations, to try out before Pirelli make the harder compound versions for use in competition at Silverstone. This means that there is a risk during the Canadian Grand Prix of a repeat of the delaminations seen in Spain and Bahrain, but More…

Sergio Perez’s style of driving was once again brought into question in the Monaco Grand Prix with the McLaren driver attempting a series of aggressive and late-braking overtaking moves, including one on Kimi Raikkonen which effectively ended his own race and damaged the Lotus driver’s title ambitions. The Mexican, 23, tried to pass Raikkonen, 33, up the inside of the Nouvelle Chicane for fifth, but both ended up cutting the corner. Later in the race, Perez tried a similar move but this time the pair collided with Perez hitting the barriers and Raikkonen suffering a puncture. Perez later retired while More…

The F1 paddock in Monaco was in ferment on Sunday over the story of Mercedes’ secret Pirelli tyre test in Barcelona the week following the recent Grand Prix. Mercedes and Pirelli say that they got approval from the FIA for the test. The FIA disputes some aspects of this, while Ferrari and Red Bull launched a protest and on Sunday morning were seeking allies among other teams. But some bad blood over previous protests in which those teams did not support others meant that some other teams did not join them, despite wanting clarification too. So what is this all More…

Nico Rosberg gave Mercedes their first win of the season with victory in a chaotic Monaco Grand Prix, 30 years after his father Keke triumphed on the streets of Monte Carlo. Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel drove a sensible race to take second and increase his championship lead while his team-mate Mark Webber took his second podium of the season with third. Force India’s Adrian Sutil proved overtaking is possible in Monaco by battling to fifth and his team-mate Paul di Resta produced a strong recovery drive to rise from 17th to ninth, but who was your Driver of the Day? Nico Rosberg More…

It was thirty years ago that Keke Rosberg claimed his second career win around his hometown of Monaco. And today for the first time in Formula One history a son was able to emulate his father and he too collected his second career win around the streets on which he spent his childhood. Nico Rosberg delivered a masterclass in poise in a race full of chaos and incident to win a heavily disrupted Monaco Grand Prix, ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. The race saw two safety car periods and a red flag stoppage due to three heavy incidents, More…

As a boy Nico Rosberg was driven through the Monaco tunnel on his way to school. Today as he clinched his first Monaco pole position and Mercedes’ fourth straight pole of 2013, pipping team mate Lewis Hamilton in Monaco qualifying on a drying track. World champion Sebastian Vettel completed the top three ahead of Mark Webber, with Kimi Raikkonen fifth and Fernando Alonso a surprised and disappointed sixth. It was a tough day for Ferrari, with team mate Felipe Massa crashing heavily in Free Practice three and taking no part in qualifying. Tomorrow Rosberg will attempt to become the first More…

Friday in Monaco is a day off, but there are still quite a few people wandering around the paddock. There was a summit meeting of team principals with Bernie Ecclestone in his motorhome this morning, while the drivers are on promotional duties and the mechanics are up in the garages, tinkering with the cars. There’s no doubt which team has the most confident staff: Mercedes. Thursday’s free practice was everything the team could have wanted; fastest on a green track in FP1, fastest again in the second session with Rosberg and Hamilton ahead of the rest. The Mercedes single lap More…

Nico Rosberg underlined Mercedes’ claim as pole position favourites for this weekend’s Grand Prix by topping both practice sessions on an eventful Thursday in Monaco. In the faster second session he was the only man to break under the 1m 15s barrier, ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. But it looks very close at the front with Ferrari, Lotus and Red Bull all competitive in different ways. The Lotus has exceptional speed at the end of long runs, the Ferrari looks good in all conditions and might challenge the Mercedes for pole, while the Red Bull also looked pretty More…

This year’s tyres remained a big talking point in the Monaco paddock on Wednesday, with Fernando Alonso suggesting Red Bull’s criticism of Pirelli was a result of them not being able to handle defeat. Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel defended his team, insisting that the reigning world champions were not the only ones to be unhappy about the aggressive tyres while his team-mate Mark Webber said Formula 1 needs to have a think about where it’s headed. Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton said that it’s wrong for a driver to be able to start second but drop back and end up getting lapped More…

Fans will get a special insight into the world of Formula 1 when Canadian Grand Prix organisers host an “Open House” at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve next month. The free initiative, which takes place on Thursday June 6, will allow fans to spend up time exploring the pit lane and getting a good view of the teams working on the cars before the race on Sunday June 9. Fans will also get the chance to speak to team members. While at the venue, visitors will gets to see the trophies – designed locally by the BRP Innovation and Design team More…

The long running saga of Paddy Lowe’s move from McLaren to Mercedes was resolved today when the technical director was released early from his contract to begin work on June 3rd. Originally Lowe was being held to his contract and was set to be blocked from starting work in Brackley before the end of 2013. But the announcement that McLaren is to move from Mercedes to Honda engines meant that Mercedes had a bargaining chip to negotiate his early release. Which means he will be able to play an active role in preparations for 2014, a year which Mercedes has More…

There has been a raft of activity recently around the new FIA Formula E series, set to debut in 2014 and JA on F1 has recently interviewed Alejandro Agag, promoter of Formula E. Agag says the new zero emission motor sport championship is targeting a reverse calendar to F1, which will see the series start in September and end in June. Also recently the series announced that Bangkok, Thailand is a candidate for one of the two remaining slots on the 2014 calendar. The city is close to a Formula 1 night race and Formula E is dealing with the More…

[Updated]In the aftermath of the decision by Pirelli to make some changes to the 2013 tyres from round 7 in Canada onwards, there has been a backlash from those teams whose cars were working well on the tyres. Lotus boss Eric Boullier and now Ferrari’s Horse Whisperer column have attacked the change and Red Bull in particular for lobbying behind the scenes and in the media for a change in tyres. Pirelli is caught in the middle and whatever changes it makes from here onwards it will be perceived by some fans as having affected the outcome of the championship. More…

Honda will return to Formula 1 as an engine supplier with McLaren in 2015 to revive their famous partnership which brought domination of the sport in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Japanese company had its own team between 2006 and 2008, but during that time, it managed just one win – the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix with Jenson Button – and the manufacturer ended the project at the end of 2008, as the global economic crisis struck. However, Honda has been lured back to the sport by a change in the engine regulations from 2014, with 1.6 litre More…

Ferrari won the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday without the majority of the new parts that the technicians had brought to Barcelona to update the car and only some of them were tried on Friday in practice. Alonso and Massa found a good balance on Friday and felt that they had a good chance for the race and didn’t want to upset that. According to Gazzetta dello Sport, the issue wasn’t that the new pieces failed to match expectations, it was rather that the rain in the morning limited the opportunities to evaluate them properly and the priority was to More…

This race may come to be viewed as a tipping point in the ongoing debate about whether the high degradation Pirelli tyres are good for F1 or not, as two of the three drivers on the podium did a four stop strategy. Pirelli has indicated that they have been “too aggressive” with the construction of the 2013 tyres and will make changes from the seventh round, Montreal, onwards. However against this backdrop, the strategy battle at the heart of this race was fascinating. And it showed that the teams who came out on top were the ones who had the More…

The sudden announcement by Pirelli that they are to change the tyre specifications from the seventh round of the world championship onwards will inevitably raise many questions: who will it favour, what are the implications for the racing? With no testing available – a significant part of the reason why Pirelli has struggled to get the tyres right this year – they will have to use a construction solution that has been proven to work in the past, rather than try something new. JA on F1 technical adviser Mark Gillan was chief operations engineer at Williams until the end of More…

[Updated] The chorus of disapproval from affected teams, as well as calls from media and fans to do something about the high degradation tyres has led Pirelli to announce today that it is to make construction changes to its tyres from the Canadian Grand Prix in June onwards. The Italian company blamed the lack of adequate winter testing in suitable climates for producing products this year that have fallen short of the standard required. They admitted in a statement this afternoon that they underestimated the demands of the current F1 cars on the tyres. Pirelli is conducting meetings at its More…

The Spanish Grand Prix threw up a few interesting comparisons from last year to this, not least in the relative pace of the cars and the improvement in speed of the pit stops. At one end of the spectrum the Mercedes was 2.3 seconds faster in qualifying than in 2012, while the Williams was a second slower than Pastor Maldonado’s pole time from last year. But in the pits there has also been progress; Ferrari set the fastest stop on Sunday, a clear second faster than its best time last year (when it was again fastest) thanks to the many More…

Britain’s Jenson Button has described McLaren’s current form as “embarrassing” following the Spanish Grand Prix where he finished eighth, one place ahead of team mate Sergio Perez. McLaren, who won the final race of last season with what was considered to be the fastest car on the grid, made major changes to their machine for 2013, while their rivals took an evolutionary approach. As a result, they have dropped down the grid and currently lie sixth in the constructors’ championship, 102 points behind leaders Red Bull while Button is best placed in the drivers’ standings 64 behind leader Sebastian Vettel. More…

All 22 Formula 1 drivers came together on the grid ahead of Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix to support the United Nations’ Global Road Safety Week, which aims to draw attention to the need to protect pedestrians on the world’s roads. More than 5,000 pedestrians are killed on roads across the world every week, according to the World Health Organisation. These fatalities make up a large percentage of the 1.3m killed on the roads every year. The aim of the campaign is to give pedestrians a voice when traffic safety is concerned so the UN launched “Long, Short Walk”, an initiative More…

Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz says Formula 1 is “no longer about the racing” after tyre management played a huge role in the outcome of Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix. A remarkable 77 pit stops were made during the 66-lap race with several drivers being told to lift off in certain corners to protect the high-degrading Pirelli tyres. In an interview with Autosport, Mateschitz said his two drivers – Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber – were not able to push their Red Bull to the limit without ruining the tyres. Mateschitz said: “Everyone knows what happens here. This has nothing to More…

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel says he does not like the plan to give drivers penalty points, which could see them being handed a one race ban. Under the new proposed system, stewards would hand out penalty points – similar to road users getting points on their driving licence – in addition to existing punishments, such as drive-through penalties, for misdemeanours on track. Stewards will be free to choose the number of points handed out, although they will be given an advisory level to work from. Should a driver accumulate 12 points over a 12-month period, they would received a one More…

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso delighted his home fans and got his title challenge back on track with an impressive victory in a Spanish Grand Prix which saw battles all the way down the field. Kimi Raikkonen scored his fourth podium in five races for Lotus to close the gap on Red Bull’s championship leader Sebastian Vettel while Felipe Massa made it onto the rostrum for the first time this season with an accomplished drive in his Ferrari. Paul di Resta produced another strong drive to finish seventh for Force India while McLaren’s Jenson Button made up for a bad start to More…

Mercedes shareholder and executive director of Mercedes F1 Toto Wolff says team principal Ross Brawn is in charge of his own destiny and will decide his own future at the Brackley-based team. The management structure of the team, which tasted World Championship success in the form of Brawn GP in 2009 and oversaw the early years of the team’s reincarnation as Mercedes, is going through a transition. Following the arrival of Wolff and also Niki Lauda as non-executive chairman of the team, Nick Fry stepped down from his role as CEO in March, while there is much speculation that Paddy More…

Caterham has made a film entitled “Access All Areas” which gives a behind the scenes look at a day in the life of a Formula 1 team as well as revealing their upgraded 2013 car for the first time. Tony Fernandes’ team headed to France’s Magny Cours circuit to shoot the film, with race drivers Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde on hand to drive the car. It follows the team from waking up in the morning and heading to the venue to the drivers suiting up and heading out on track to test the car. Caterham has raced More…

Lotus F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen said today in Barcelona that the sudden departure of technical director James Allison would not affect the team’s performance. Allison quit the team yesterday to be replaced by Nick Chester. There are no firm indications of where he is heading, but there is a strong suspicion that it is Ferrari, as they seek to build a brains trust at Maranello to mount a sustained challenge for the championships over the coming years. Fernando Alonso was cagey in the FIA press conference today when the subject of Allison came up; his body language suggesting that it More…

The Formula 1 teams have voted against bringing back in-season testing, after a meeting of the Sporting Working Group yesterday. Ferrari, which owns a test track on its doorstep at Maranello as well as the circuit of Mugello in Tuscany, which hosted a test last summer, was keen to see a return of testing and proposed various ideas including some aimed at opportunities to bring new drivers on. But in a vote yesterday, only the Ferrari engined teams for 2014 supported the return of testing, the majority were against it, these did not include Toro Rosso but did include Marussia, More…

Ferrari has decided to cut production of its high-performance road cars by at least 4% this year, despite an increase in sales, as the Italian luxury car manufacturer seeks to preserve the exclusivity of its brand. In 2012, Ferrari sold 7,318 cars but chairman Luca di Montezemolo said the company would look to reduce that figure to below 7,000 vehicles while still aiming to increase profits. Despite the global economic outlook remaining uncertain, Ferrari has seen a growth in revenue of 4% to 551m euros (£433m) in the first quarter of this year. Net profit was 54.7m euros (£46.3m). Ferrari More…

The Lotus F1 team has today announced that technical director James Allison is to leave the team and that Nick Chester has succeeded him as technical director. While Chester’s credentials for the role are unquestionably strong, the loss of an innovator like James Allison is a blow to the team, which has made great progress in the last two years on a significantly lower budget than the other front running teams. Allison is much in demand among the top F1 teams in an engineering arms race as F1 heads to a new formula from 2014 onwards. Under Allison Lotus has More…

The Formula 1 engineers have a love/hate relationship with Circuit de Catalunya; it is the track they know the best from the pre-season testing that has been held there for many years, but it is an enigmatic circuit, always changing with temperature and wind conditions. A car, which flies in the morning, can be uncompetitive in the afternoon, without anything being changed on the car itself. As the first European race of the season it is also a track where teams bring their first major technical update package to the car, which will have taken 10-12 weeks of wind tunnel More…

It has been interesting to note the comments from readers in response to Jenson Button’s point that the team radio extracts of conversations between drivers and teams can lead to a skewed view of what is really happening within a team. Team radio in the live broadcast coverage has been around for a while, but its’s noticeable as a commentator how much more frequently it is employed this season. And without it the drama of Button’s tussle with team mate Sergio Perez in Bahrain or the Red Bull driver’s clash in Malaysia would have been a lesser experience for the More…

JA on F1 technical adviser and former Williams chief engineer Mark Gillan thinks that Mercedes will be hurt by Pirelli’s decision to make a small tweak to the hard tyre compound. Last week the Italian tyre manufacturer said it will change the hard tyre, rather than the soft as expected, to be closer in specification to the 2012 tyre, which would make it more durable. It will likely have a larger working range, so will be more versatile, and Gillan adds that the move will help every other team on the grid except for Mercedes. “Pirelli specified at beginning of season More…

Caterham reserve driver Alexander Rossi will get his first taste of the team’s 2013 Formula 1 challenger when he takes to the wheel in Friday’s first practice for the Canadian Grand Prix. The American was expected to drive the car on Friday morning in Bahrain, but a combination of Heikki Kovalainen returning to the team in a reserve role and Rossi getting a drive for the team’s GP2 outfit meant it didn’t happen. “Obviously the weekends that I’m not doing GP2 I’ll be looking to be drive the F1 car in Friday practice sessions and that will start in Montreal,” More…

The lack of on-track testing in modern Formula 1 means teams rely more heavily on one particular tool – their simulator. It’s essentially a super-advanced computer game and a hydraulically controlled F1 chassis which replicates the experience of driving on-track. And thanks to Red Bull, you could be one of the few people in the world to have the opportunity to have a session in one with guidance from a team expert. It’s part of an initiative to support the reigning world champion’s charity Wings for Life, which funds worldwide research into spinal injury. The charity wants companies and groups More…

Ticket sales for this year’s British Grand Prix are down on this time last year, according to the circuit’s managing director Richard Phillips. There are a number of factors to blame for the slow take up of tickets this year, including lack of British winners in 2013 as well as bad memories and bad publicity hanging over from last year’s event, where torrential rain led to chaos; many fans were asked not to attend on Saturday in order that the operators could repair the circuit’s car parks for race day. Around 400 public events were cancelled in the UK that More…

Rising star James Calado’s chances of making the move up to Formula 1 have been boosted by a deal to be managed by Nicolas Todt, whose All Road Management group manages Felipe Massa, Pastor Maldonado and Jules Bianchi. Nicolas is the son of FIA president Jean Todt and also a shareholder in ART Grand Prix, a front running team in GP2 and other categories. Calado is currently driving for ART GP in the GP2 series. Calado, 23, competed with current Williams F1 driver Valterri Bottas for the GP3 title two seasons ago and last year won two races in his More…

This month we ran a competition called “Performance Reinvented”, in conjunction with Shell, giving three lucky winners the chance to do some performance driving with former F1 racer Gimmi Bruni, get into a proper F1 Simulator and to get a ride with Ferrari test driver Giancarlo Fisichella at the launch event of the new Shell V Power Nitro + fuel at London’s Battersea Power Station. We’ve already heard from Rich Gibbons. Here are the other two guest blogs, from long time JA on F1 poster “Hero was Senna” (Carlo Carluccio) and Robin Middleton. Guest Blog by “Hero was Senna” When More…

F1 promoter Bernie Ecclestone has confirmed to the Daily Telegraph that the automatic $10m prizemoney payments made to the “new” teams which entered F1 in 2010 are to end. From now on only the top ten teams will receive money each season. This makes the battle for 10th place in the constructors’ championship more intense than ever, with Caterham and Marussia vying for the final position. Currently Marussia holds 10th place due to Jules Bianchi’s 13th place in Malaysia. When former FIA president Max Mosley pressed for the new teams to enter the sport, Ecclestone agreed to pay them each More…

Former Marussia F1 aero test driver Maria de Villota has been speaking this weekend of her new life, following her life threatening accident at Duxford almost a year ago. De Villota was doing straight line aero tests on the runway at the former WWII airbase when she crashed into the open tailgate of a truck which was parked near the team’s temporary pit awning. Formula 1 held its breath as she underwent a series of vital operations at Adenbrokes Hospital in nearby Cambridge. She suffered a severe head injury, lost her right eye and required 104 stitches in her face. More…

After weeks of speculation, Pirelli has today announced that it is changing one of the F1 tyres in its range from the Spanish Grand Prix onwards. The hard tyre will be changed to be closer in specification to the 2012 tyre, which would make it more durable. It will likely have a larger working range, so will be more versatile. It was the preferred race tyre in Bahrain at the weekend for most teams. This is a surprise change in some ways, as there was speculation that the soft tyre would be the one to face changes. It proved troublesome More…

While they work behind the scenes on their car ahead of the start of the European season, Mercedes is aiming to be three times faster than the opposition when it comes to the increasingly important area of transferring data from the car at the race track to the factory and back again. And a new deal announced today could ultimately lead to F1 teams taking smaller numbers of staff to the race track in future. Mercedes has become the first F1 team to follow the lead of Formula One Management, which signed a deal last year with Tata Communications, for More…

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh is confident Jenson Button and Sergio Perez will be able to move on after the team mates clashed several times in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix. Perez, who joined McLaren from Sauber this season, has had a lacklustre start to the season, prompting Whitmarsh to tell him earlier this week that he needs to “toughen up” and “use his elbows” – and in Bahrain, the Mexican did just that. The 23-year-old boldly overtook Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso to show signs of the spark which attracted McLaren to him in the first place. More…

Paul di Resta has sent out a message to his Force India team: “Give me a faster car and I’ll get a podium. The Scot drove an impressive race in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix, leading at one point and spending much of the grand prix in the top three. However Di Resta was passed by the Lotus of Romain Grosjean, who was on fresher option tyres, in the closing stages and had to settle for fourth. Despite just missing out on the first podium finish of his career, Di Resta told JA on F1 after the race that the team More…

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel became the first driver to win two races this season with an impressive victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix – but behind him, there were countless battles all the way down the field. Kimi Raikkonen bounced back from a disappointing qualifying, which saw him start eighth, to finish second ahead of Lotus team mate Romain Grosjean who secured his first podium of the season. Paul di Resta produced one of the best drives of his career, running in third place in the Force India and on course for his first F1 podium before losing out to More…

Sebastian Vettel pulled off two key overtakes and managed his tyres to perfection to get early control of the Bahrain Grand Prix and take an easy victory, ahead of impressive drives through the field from Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean. It was the same podium as last year’s race, with Vettel again starting on the front row and the Lotus cars being forced to come through the field. After losing his second place to Fernando Alonso at the start of the race, the World Championship leader scythed past the Ferrari in the midfield esses section and promptly set about taking More…

One of the biggest surprises in Saturday’s qualifying session for the Bahrain Grand Prix was the performance of the Lotus cars, with Kimi Raikkonen 9th fastest and Romain Grosjean 11th. They were the pace setters on Friday, set the fourth fastest time in Saturday morning practice and Raikkonen set a competitive Q2 time in 1m 33.146, the third fastest time in that session. So what happened? According to Lotus’ Trackside Operations Director, Alan Permane, the result is something of a mystery. They believed – and many other teams agreed with the view – that Raikkonen could win this race, based More…

Nico Rosberg made it two Mercedes pole positions in as many weeks as he produced a sensational final lap to take the spoils in Bahrain, ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso. It was the second pole position of his career and means that Mercedes and Red Bull have both taken half the pole positions this season. But the race could be a different story. After being off the ultimate pace throughout the weekend’s practice sessions Rosberg showed his speed from the outset of qualifying, although he only topped the times in Q3. And after coming close already this year More…

There has been something of a phoney war going on this week with Fernando Alonso mischievously tweeting a photo of himself having dinner with Red Bull’s Mark Webber in Dubai. In the light of the climate of antagonism between Webber and team mate Sebastian Vettel after the team orders debacle in Malaysia, the photo assumed a different significance and that was exacerbated when it was mysteriously taken down. There is nothing unusual about them having dinner together; they do it regularly. However, both drivers are celebrating 200 Grands Prix and on Thursday and ahead of this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix, More…

Lewis Hamilton says that Mercedes’ positive start to the season, with a pole and two podiums, is much better than he expected, but believes there is a lot more to come from the Brackley team. Pre-season Hamilton had managed expectations carefully, not wanting to over promise and under deliver given how poor Mercedes were in the second half of 2012. However he is right there in the championship with the group of title contenders, Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso, on 40 points. On the eve of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Hamilton has been speaking extensively about the work More…

The organiser of the Bahrain Grand Prix said today that the F1 personnel attending the race this weekend will be safe and claimed that 77% of the Bahraini people wanted the race to go ahead. I had a chance to interview Zayed Al-Zayani, Chairman of Bahrain International Circuit this afternoon for BBC Radio 5 Live and asked him if he could guarantee the safety of F1 people,” Absolutely,” he said, “They have always been safe here and I think this year won’t be any different.” Last year four Force India staff members were caught in a firebomb incident on the More…

This weekend’s Bahrain promises to be another tense race and is likely to be decided on race strategy, if last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix and last year’s Bahrain Grand Prix are anything to go by. And one important detail to note is that Pirelli has changed the tyre specification for this weekend from the soft compound tyres which proved short-lived in China, to mediums, which have been used in every race so far. Alongside this tyre is the hard compound, which was used in Malaysia. Due to lead times and logistics, this decision will have been made before the Chinese More…

Caterham F1 Team has announced a restructuring of its drivers with former racer Heikki Kovalainen coming back into the team, initially to drive in Friday morning practices at Grands Prix and to give technical feedback on Caterham’s new technical package due in Barcelona. Reserve driver Alexander Rossi will move over to race in GP2 for Caterham Racing, taking the seat of Ma Qing Hua. Kovalainen raced for Caterham for three seasons, but left the team at the end of 2012 as it took on two young drivers with budgets, Charles Pic and Guido van der Garde. Kovalainen’s presence will increase More…

The UBS Chinese Grand Prix was another tense race and the outcome was once again decided by race strategy. What made it particularly interesting was that there were different approaches among the leading teams, forced by the disparate performance levels of the soft and medium Pirelli tyres. Team strategists had to find a way to do the fastest race, which meant spending the least amount of time on the weaker tyre and running in clear air as much as possible. Here, with the help and input of several team strategists as well as JA on F1 technical adviser Mark Gillan, More…

Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel is targeting a return to the podium after narrowly missing out in the Chinese Grand Prix. And a glance at the drivers’ championship table shows that, without the extra seven points he gained controversially by taking the win in Malaysia despite team orders not to, he would now by second behind Kimi Raikkonen with arch rival Fernando Alonso just two points behind him, having recovered from his retirement in the Sepang. Knowing that they didn’t have the pace in Shanghai, the Red Bull driver chose a different strategy to the Ferraris, Lotus and Mercedes which More…

Thanks to everyone who took part in our first major competition of 2013: the Shell “Performance Reinvented” competition. The prize was a big day out at a spectacular venue in London on April 18th, which three lucky JA on F1 readers will attend; with a variety of activities including performance driving with none other than Ferrari reserve driver Giancarlo Fisichella and attending a major event hosted by former BBC F1 frontman Jake Humphrey. Entrants were asked to define what “Performance Reinvented” means to them in 150 words. The winners are listed below, together with their entries. They will be contacted More…

It’s tough times for McLaren at the moment: Sergio Perez has yet to get his season started while Jenson Button says his team still lack the pace to compete with the likes of Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes and Lotus despite scoring his best result of the season in China. The 2009 world champion battled to ninth place in Australia and then failed to finish in Malaysia, after earlier being on target for a top six finish. But in China, buoyed by some new upgrades and a brave strategy, he finished fifth. In each case McLaren has gambled on strategy, because More…

Tyres were once again the talk of the Formula 1 paddock in China as teams chose to sit out much of qualifying to save rubber while in the race, those who started on the soft tyre were forced to pit as early as lap six because their rubber fell off the cliff. Jenson Button had to ask whether to fight another driver mid race as lap time consistency was more of a priority. The performance difference between the two compounds also prompted a mix of strategies, with the front seven cars starting the race on the soft tyres, while the More…

The 2013 Chinese Grand Prix delivered an entertaining race which saw a third different winner in three races this season and plenty of impressive performances all the way down the field. Ferrari’s double world champion Fernando Alonso took an impressive victory, building on a fantastic start to take his 31st career win. Kimi Raikkonen felt he could have challenged for the win in the Lotus had it not been for a glitch at the start and damage to his nose following a collision with McLaren’s Sergio Perez. Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton couldn’t match his scintillating qualifying pace in the race but did his More…

Fernando Alonso won the Chinese Grand Prix for Ferrari, the third different race winning driver and car combination in three races this season, with Kimi Raikkonen finishing second, where he started and Lewis Hamilton holding off a hard charging Sebastian Vettel for third. It was Alonso’s 31st career victory, equalling Nigel Mansell for fourth in the all-time winners list and his second in China. Vettel retained the drivers’ championship lead, three points ahead of Raikkonen, Alonso and Hamilton, but it tightened up; just 12 points separate the top four drivers, all World Champions. Ferrari closed to within five points of More…

Lewis Hamilton took the first pole position of his Mercedes career in China with Kimi Raikkonen throwing down the gauntlet in second place and Fernando Alonso third. Mark Webber stopped on track in Q2 with a fuel shortage issue and was sent to the back of the grid by stewards. Given the tyre management abilities of Lotus, Raikkonen is in a strong position, although he has questioned whether the Lotus has the pace to win tomorrow. Whether he can make one less stop than his rivals and turn it to his advantage, time will tell. More likely it will mean More…

Ferrari finished the Friday practice session in first and third places with Felipe Massa setting the fastest time and team mate Alonso third. The pair were split by the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen, with Nico Rosberg fourth ahead of Mark Webber. It looks like it could be a competitive race, with qualifying certain to be important, but race strategy likely to be the decisive factor, with managing the difference between the soft and medium tyre the key to it. Mercedes had been the clear pace setters on the medium tyres in the morning and at the start of the second More…

Double world champion Fernando Alonso says he does not regret the decision not to pit for a new front wing which ultimately caused his retirement in the Malaysian Grand Prix. The Ferrari driver, 31, broke his front wing when he made contact with Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel at turn two at Sepang. With the track drying out after a rain shower, the team took the decision not to pit after the first lap in the hope they could keep going and change the wing when they changed tyres. However, the wing gave way and became trapped underneath the car on More…

Nico Rosberg says he is confident that there is no number one and no number two at Mercedes despite being asked to hold position behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton in Malaysia. Rosberg, 27, was quicker than Hamilton, 28, in the closing stages in Sepang and asked if he could overtake the 2008 world champion. However team principal Ross Brawn refused his request citing that Hamilton had been asked to back off due to concerns over fuel consumption. Hamilton went on to finish third, scoring his first podium for the team and saying after the race that Rosberg deserved to be on More…

Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel says Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber did not “deserve” to win the Malaysian Grand Prix and that his decision to ignore team orders was “indirectly” paying Webber back for a lack of support in the past. Webber, 36, was leading Vettel, 25, last time out in Sepang when the team ordered both drivers to hold position after the final pit stops. However, Vettel chose to ignore the order and past his team-mate with 13 laps to go to take victory. Vettel was quoted on Wednesday as saying he will never apologise for winning but it’s More…

The teams are gathering for the Chinese Grand Prix and inevitably the focus of attention at the start of this weekend will be the Red Bull drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. But it could move on pretty quickly. In the run up to the event there have been some messages placed in the media setting out a few markers; there will no longer be team orders as in Malaysia, Red Bull mechanics are celebrating their record 2.05 second pit stop in Sepang and Helmut Marko says he never meant to criticise Mark Webber before the season. The Sepang incident More…

After the dramas of the first two Grands Prix, the tenth running of the Chinese Grand Prix should provide another very open contest, with strategic decisions likely to be the deciding factor once again. After the high temperatures and high tyre degradation of Malaysia, Shanghai will see a less extreme picture, as far as tyre wear is concerned. Whereas Sepang was all about managing the rear tyres, Shanghai is all about getting the front tyres at the optimum temperature for qualifying and then managing them in the race. The first sector of the lap features a series of slow corners; More…

Today we announce the first major JA on F1 competition of 2013. We’ve done some pretty cool ones over the years, giving many fans the chance to get closer to the sport. This one is particularly intriguing. In conjunction with our friends at Shell, it’s your chance to take part in a very special event in Central London on April 18th, hosted by former BBC F1 frontman Jake Humphrey and featuring a chance for you to do some driving in high performance cars in a dramatic setting, with Ferrari test drivers, including Giancarlo Fisichella. You will also get a chance More…

JA on F1 technical adviser and former Williams chief engineer Mark Gillan believes it will take McLaren quite some time to fix problems with their 2013 car. The Woking-based team ended last year with the fastest car, but decided to go for a significant change, rather than evolve the 2012 design. They have been well off the pace in the first two races of the season, with ride issues among their problems. The team has just four points, 62 less than championship leaders Red Bull, with Jenson Button and Sergio Perez scoring a ninth place each. However Button was on More…

Lotus technical director James Allison believes the team’s car has genuine pace in the dry and will continue to race at the front of the field in the upcoming races. Kimi Raikkonen produced a scintillating drive to take victory, his second for the team, in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. Raikkonen was seventh last time out in the rain-hit Malaysian Grand Prix, one place behind team-mate Romain Grosjean, but Allison told the latest edition of the JA on F1 podcast that the car still showed front-running pace in dry conditions. “We didn’t have a great race at Sepang More…

This season I have been working with a new producer on BBC Radio 5 Live, who comes to the sport for the first time. She has worked extensively on athletics, football and other sports, but sees F1 through fresh eyes. Likewise in my work with Australian TV Network 10, the 27 hour live spectacular they put on for their home race was staffed by people for whom Melbourne is a once a year touch point with F1. The result is that I’ve come to see the sport anew, particularly the way that the key players communicate with the media. F1 More…

Welcome to the second JA on F1 podcast, perfectly timed for you to download and enjoy over the Easter Holiday period. In a packed edition we hear from the ever-popular Kimi Raikkonen, winner of the first race of the season, on what he thinks of his fans, what he does on his days off and that infamous radio call to “leave me alone” in Abu Dhabi. We get the inside track on Lotus’s sensational start to the season from to the man behind that famous win in Melbourne, Lotus technical director James Allison. He also explains what it is like More…

At the distance of a week and with plenty of reaction from the key players to sift through, it is a good moment now to consider what human motives lay behind the two dramas we saw at the end of the Malaysian Grand Prix, involving the observation and non-observation of team orders within the Mercedes and Red Bull teams. There have been all sorts of speculative stories about what happens next and the long term consequences, especially with regards to the Webber/Vettel relationship; the German paper Bild ran a story saying that Webber would leave the team at the end More…

Williams F1 has today confirmed the recent paddock speculation that Claire Williams has become Deputy Team Principal, with the objective of succeeding her father one day. Claire has worked within the F1 team for over ten years, starting out as a junior in the media department, rising to become head of communications and more recently a director and head of the commercial side of the team and of Investor Relations. She is the third person to be lined up as Sir Frank’s successor in the last few years; Adam Parr was anointed heir, but Williams realised his fractious relationship with More…

The Malaysian Grand Prix provided some extraordinary talking points with the dispute between Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber the main focus. Although this was primarily a dispute over trust and team orders, some curious race strategy decisions created the circumstances for the Red Bull drama and the Mercedes team orders, as we shall see. Pre-race considerations After the practice sessions the feeling among team strategists was that tyre degradation would be very high, while wear was expected to mean that medium tyres would last 15 laps with the hard lasting 18 laps. But the decisive data would be the degradation More…

It is clear that the Malaysian Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel’s 103rd F1 race, will prove a turning point in his career. Vettel admitted on Sunday night in the post race press conference that he will be looked upon as the “black sheep” after he ignored team orders and passed Mark Webber in the closing stages of Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix, when the Australian thought the race had been called off by the Red Bull team. Interestingly, had they finished with Webber ahead, they would now be level on 33 points in the drivers’ table. And the way Red Bull works, More…

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso blamed “extremely bad luck” for his second lap retirement in the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang. The double world champion, who was competing in his 200th race, moved up a place to second at the start but broke his front wing when he tapped leader Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull at turn two. With conditions still a few laps away from being suitable for dry weather tyres, the team decided to keep Alonso, 31, out on track to avoid having to make two stops in four laps. It was a mistake; the loads on the wing were too More…