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…

Mercedes rolled out its new car today, the F1 W04. A lot of work has gone into this car, especially around the cockpit area and on thermal management. We are yet to see what they have in mind on the front and rear wings, but it looks like a lot of careful detailed work has been carried out by Aldo Costa and his team, so here is our analysis of what’s been done and what it will mean for Mercedes’ chances this year. Background Mercedes went down a high tech route last year with the double DRS and paid a More…

Ferrari launched its car, the F138 in Maranello today. The team made it very clear that it intended to start the season strongly, unlike last year, where it played catch up to the McLaren and Red Bull cars in particular. In overview, the Ferrari F138, as presented at the launch, is similar in concept to last year’s model and does not show as many detailed changes as the McLaren, released yesterday. The stepped nose has gone, which is eye catching, but not hugely significant. The main work appears to have gone into the rear of the car and there is More…

McLaren launched its new 2013 challenger today, an evolution of the 2012 model, which was the fastest car for significant parts of the season, including the beginning and end. On the face of it, the new MP4/28 looks similar to the 2012 car, but there are several very significant changes and it takes what was good car and makes it, in all probability, even faster. They have made changes which give them a lot of scope for development as the year goes on. It is a strong gauntlet thrown down by the Woking team to its rivals Red Bull and More…

More spectacular racing, with F1 cars having more power than grip on corner exits and an opportunity to showcase technology and innovation, putting F1 back at the cutting edge – these are the likely hallmarks of Formula 1 as it will be under the new formula in 2014, according to experts who are building the new engines. A visit to AMG Mercedes High Performance Powertrains (HPP) in Brixworth today yielded some fascinating insights into how F1 is set to change and what fans will see next season. And we got the chance to see one of the new generation V6 More…

The FIA’s new Formula E electric vehicle racing series moved a step closer to reality yesterday with a launch in Rome, which will become the second world city – and the first in Europe – to host a round after Rio de Janeiero. FIA president Jean Todt and Formula E’s CEO Alejandro Agag attended the event hosted by the Mayor of Rome. The inaugural series in 2014 will feature ten races, so there are eight more slots to be filled by host cities in the coming months. There will be ten teams entered, with 20 drivers and 40 cars between More…

F1 fans will be familiar with the way that aerodynamicists explore air flow lines over a car, working with wind tunnels but also at circuits with flo-viz paint, to see how the air passes over a car. But here is something which takes the exploration of aerodynamic lines to a new – almost artistic – level. It’s a ‘light painting’, done on the McLaren P1 and I have to say I’d love to see this treatment done on an F1 car. Here is what the artists who did the light painting, MarshmallowLaserFeast, and James Medcraft, had to say about it. More…

There will be disappointment at Ferrari this morning on two levels; first that they were unable to take any more advantage of Sebastian Vettel’s grid penalty in Abu Dhabi than a mere three points. And second that the raft of updates on the car at this race didn’t produce the jump in performance they were looking for. Vettel had a bad day on Saturday and then a very good day, with some lucky breaks on the Safety Car, on Sunday, when the points were handed out. But the problem for Ferrari is clear: Alonso qualified 7th, 0.952s behind the pole More…

There was an interesting story in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday about an innovative new use in the medical world for the F1 electronic control unit, the “brain” of an F1 car. As a result of a chance conversation between a McLaren engineer and a paediatrician, Birmingham Children’s Hospital has been trialling the ECU in a children’s intensive care ward; the idea is that the F1-derived unit can measure all the key signs from the child, sense trends and detect developing problems earlier than the electronics previously used by the NHS. The unit normally measures oil pressures, brake temperatures and the More…