| By Ben Anderson | Friday, February 28th 2014, 10:19 GMT |
Sergio Perez again set the pace for Force India, as the second day of the final pre-season Formula 1 test got underway in Bahrain
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| By Dieter Rencken and Jonathan Noble | Friday, February 28th 2014, 10:50 GMT |
FIA president Jean Todt believes that too much time has been wasted with arguments over Formula 1's controversial double points rule
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| By Jonathan Noble | Friday, February 28th 2014, 11:33 GMT |
The Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) has been disbanded.
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| By Glenn Freeman | Wednesday, February 26th 2014, 17:25 GMT |
Ferrari plans to bring the main upgrades to its 2014 Formula 1 car during the final pre-season test in Bahrain.
The Italian team has run its F14 T in relatively conservative specification so far during testing, as its focus has been on achieving enough reliability to carry out long runs.
However, pre-Australian Grand Prix developments are planned to be introduced throughout the final test, which starts at the Sakhir circuit on Thursday.
Speaking about the new parts Ferrari ran in last week's Bahrain test, engineering director Pat Fry said: "We've got a few bits that we're testing to check correlation, but I wouldn't really call them upgrades.
"The main upgrades we will be bringing through at various stages of next week."
Gary Anderson assesses the current F1 pecking order
Fry admitted that the telemetry issues that cost Kimi Raikkonen some running last Friday were a setback, but he added that the team will simply try to ramp up its mileage in the remaining days to make up for it.
"We've got a bit of catching up to do, yes," he said when asked by AUTOSPORT if the delays had affected Ferrari's plans.
"We're always trying to do as much mileage as we can and we obviously got set back.
"It would have been nice to have a 100 lap day but we're a little bit short."
Ferrari completed 287 laps across the four days in Bahrain last week, with Mercedes, McLaren and Williams all marginally ahead of it on the lap chart.
Follow the final pre-season F1 test on AUTOSPORT Live from 6am UK time on Thursday February 27
| By Craig Scarborough | Thursday, February 27th 2014, 08:13 GMT |
Craig Scarborough explains the five most popular forms of sensor that will be in use during this week's final Formula 1 pre-season test in Bahrain
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| By Ben Anderson | Thursday, February 27th 2014, 10:10 GMT |
Sergio Perez set the early pace for Force India as the final pre-season test of Formula 1 2014 kicked off in Bahrain.
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| By Ben Anderson | Tuesday, February 25th 2014, 16:33 GMT |
Tyre management will be a crucial part of Formula 1 races in 2014, according to some drivers.
The sport has undergone a massive regulation overhaul for this season, replacing normally aspirated V8 engines with smaller capacity, turbocharged V6s, and the rules include a more stringent fuel limit of 100 litres - down from 150l in 2013 - for each race.
Pirelli has also introduced harder compounds of tyres for this year, and much of the focus is expected to shift from drivers carefully managing tyre wear to saving fuel efficiently across a race distance.
Ten things we learned from Bahrain F1 test
But Williams driver Valtteri Bottas, who completed more than 170 laps of running during the recent pre-season test in Bahrain, reckons tyre management will be more important than in recent seasons.
"I think this year is going to be more difficult to manage the tyres, even though they are a little bit harder," said Bottas.
"I think with more torque you need to be more careful with the throttle pedal. It's quite easy to break the traction and that way put temperature through the surface of the tyre.
"That is going to be a bit more tricky, and still the conditions are quite cool, so I think managing tyres will be more critical than last year."
Force India returnee Nico Hulkenberg, who set the fastest time on the opening day of the Bahrain test, agrees the torque of the new engines will make it difficult to protect the rear tyres.
"It's certainly very easy to achieve [wheelspin]," he said.
"You can do it quite easily and I've had instances of that on the straights, or doing double wheelspin and pulling black marks for 100 metres out of slow corners, which is quite fun but not exactly good for performance.
"The tyres are pretty tricky to handle in terms of degradation. It's easy to spin up the rear and degrade them, so I can see that being a bit of a challenge."
Gary Anderson predicts 2014 F1 pecking order
Bottas says the combination of needing to protect the tyres and save enough fuel to make it to the end of the race, all while battling for track position, will make F1 a real challenge for drivers this year.
"For keeping within the fuel limit Bahrain is actually one of the more difficult," he added.
"I feel I've improved a lot with the different fuel saving techniques to be as efficient as possible.
"From the driver's point of view, saving fuel without losing too much lap time will be very important this year. It's not only going to be the tyres to manage.
"Of course we have some computers to help us, but it in the end it's up to the driver to save the fuel without losing the lap time."
| By Glenn Freeman | Wednesday, February 26th 2014, 09:23 GMT |
Renault believes that it can be ready for the Australian Grand Prix based on the progress it has made so far during Formula 1 pre-season testing.
The French engine manufacturer has had a tough first two tests, with all four of its teams hitting trouble on a regular basis.
But the firm's head of track operations Remi Taffin believes that the ground Renault has made up so far proves that it can make a lot more progress between now and the first race.
Light at the end of the tunnel for Renault
"There is still room to play with and we hope to have everything working together at maximum performance when we get to Melbourne," said Taffin.
"I think we will be ready to run [at the Australian GP], but it depends what performance we will get there.
"We have a programme to do [before then] and if we do it maybe we have a chance to do well over there.
"If you look where we were three weeks ago and where we are now; if we make the same step to Melbourne I will be happy."
Taffin believes that, despite the problems encountered by Red Bull, Lotus, Toro Rosso and Caterham in Bahrain last week, the worst of Renault's issues are now behind it.
"We are now far from having all the issues we had before," he said. "Many are fixed, but we still see a few.
Gary Anderson predicts 2014 F1 pecking order
"The major ones are now behind us, so we can start building up programmes and try many items.
"We are making progress. We are now in a position to tick every box on the list. "We have good support from our factory and our teams, and we are all working together.
"When the problems are fixed - and we are close to fixing them - then we can move on."
| By Glenn Freeman | Wednesday, February 26th 2014, 11:25 GMT |
Toro Rosso racers Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniil Kvyat have urged their team to keep calm following a troubled Formula 1 pre-season so far.
The Red Bull-owned team has been plagued by issues so far with its STR9, as have all of the Renault-powered squads.
But with four days of testing in Bahrain still to come, its drivers believe that the situation is bound to improve.
"Of course we need to keep calm," said Vergne. "It's pretty easy, because the first race is not here yet.
"I think there are enough other people getting stressed, so I keep positive.
"We have good people, and with Renault I believe they have the best people to fix it so I'm sure we will have something good really soon."
Light at the end of the tunnel for Renault
Russian rookie Kvyat added: "We shouldn't panic and I know that we will not. It should all be OK.
"I can't say a particular day or race where we are going to be good enough, we just have to work hard.
"We are in the catch-up phase but I am pretty sure we are going to make it."
Vergne added that he was buoyed by the feeling of the Toro Rosso, and he believes that the team's pace is stronger than it has looked in testing so far.
"[In Bahrain last week] I did two good laps when the car was working but I had to pit because of red flags," he said.
"They would have been really good lap times considering our lack of running, and comparing to our direct competitors it was looking really good.
"So we need to take this into account, and we have to stay positive.
"The first race is not here yet and there is still four days to come. I have big faith in all the people working hard to fix things at the moment."
| By Jonathan Noble | Friday, January 31st 2014, 18:42 GMT |
Caterham's Kamui Kobayashi is not concerned that Renault's problems could last until the start of the 2014 Formula 1 season, despite its troubled week at Jerez.
Renault encountered a difficult first pre-season test in Spain, with a host of different issues limiting the running of its Caterham, Toro Rosso and Red Bull teams.
But despite it having failed to conquer the issues by the end of the test, Kobayashi reckons Renault has the resources and skills to get on top of the situation.
"I am not worried," explained the Caterham driver. "They did the best job for the last couple of years so I am not really, really worried.
"They mentioned before coming here that they were quite a lot on the back [foot] with the programme. I said [to them], are you surprised by this result? They said no because we are missing a lot of schedules and are late.
"We have to see how much they work in these two weeks with this data, and we will see how much they improve in Bahrain. And if at the Bahrain test everything is well I will be pretty happy.
"It is very important everyone works in these two weeks, especially for the Renault engine, for us, and for Red Bull. Everyone is the same. We are missing a lot of mileage."
Caterham emerged from the Jerez test with the highest mileage completed of any of the Renault teams.
It managed 76 laps over the four days, with Toro Rosso completing 54 laps and Red Bull doing just 21 laps.
RENAULT WORKING ON SOLUTIONS
Renault's engine chief Rob White has reiterated his belief that there is enough time for improvements to be made to its sub-systems controls to allow it to get some meaningful running done at the next tests.
"Of course we now have a large job list for Bahrain as a lot of the items we wanted to test in Jerez we have not been able to cover," he said.
"The next stage is to identify the root causes for the problems we experienced, to develop the solutions to strengthen our validation process so we can be more confident to tackle Bahrain in a more normal way."
| By Edd Straw | Friday, January 31st 2014, 17:09 GMT |
Lewis Hamilton hailed his Mercedes team's progress during the opening pre-season Formula 1 test at Jerez as fantastic.
Mercedes completed 309 laps of running over four days at the Spanish track, 58 more than second-best Ferrari, with Hamilton setting the third fastest time overall.
But even though Red Bull, which beat Mercedes to the constructors' championship last year, had a disastrous test, Hamilton is not taking for granted that things will continue to be so positive.
Asked to sum up the team's week of testing, he replied: "It has been fantastic; really fantastic.
"[Mileage] is that biggest positive we can take from here. The car is reliable.
"We are not focused on anyone else at the moment, we are just trying to focus on ourselves and trying to improve and get as much data as we can, as many miles as we can and really try to take it one step at a time."
Contrary to the team's original plan, Hamilton returned to drive at Jerez this afternoon, completing 41 laps after taking over from team-mate Nico Rosberg.
This is because the 2008 world champion managed only 18 laps on the opening day after suffering a front wing failure.
TOO EARLY TO JUDGE PACE
Rosberg, who logged 91 laps, refused to make any judgements on the relative pace of the new Mercedes F1 W05, but was pleased with the reliability of the car.
"We just don't know where we are on pace; no idea," he said.
"With reliability and everything, it's been a decent mark up to now.
"I'm very pleased with that because that was the most important thing for this test.
"It did start quite tough for us, but the team did a really good job to turn it around and now we've really got the kilometres going with lots of laps."
Rosberg added that the full potential of the Mercedes has yet to be seen given the focus on mileage and understanding the new engine package.
"Nothing is at potential, not even the driver because it's just important to do a lot of kilometres and then we'll push in Melbourne.
"Well we're always pushing for performance as well but the focus at the moment is on reliability, and then slowly but surely it needs to shift.
"But when, I don't know yet, it just depends on how the reliability goes."
Jerez test mileage
Driver Laps Km Nico Rosberg 188 832 Fernando Alonso 173 766 Kevin Magnussen 162 717 Felipe Massa 133 588 Lewis Hamilton 121 535 Adrian Sutil 103 456 Jenson Button 83 367 Daniel Juncadella 81 358 Kimi Raikkonen 78 345 Esteban Gutierrez 60 265 Kamui Kobayashi 54 239 Sergio Perez 48 212 Jean-Eric Vergne 45 199 Valtteri Bottas 42 185 Jules Bianchi 25 110 Nico Hulkenberg 17 75 Marcus Ericsson 12 53 Sebastian Vettel 11 48 Robin Frijns 10 44 Daniel Ricciardo 10 44 Daniil Kvyat 9 39 Max Chilton 5 22 Team Laps Km Mercedes 309 1368 Ferrari 251 1111 McLaren 245 1084 Williams 175 774 Sauber 163 721 Force India 146 646 Caterham 76 336 Toro Rosso 54 239 Marussia 30 132 Red Bull 21 92 Engine Laps Km Mercedes 875 3874 Ferrari 444 1966 Renault 151 668
| By Gerhard Kuntschik and Matt Beer | Saturday, February 1st 2014, 09:22 GMT |
Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has denied that the exit of some leading technical personnel to rival Formula 1 teams is a factor in his squad's worrying start to 2014.
The champion team was at the foot of both the timesheets and the lap count at the end of the first week of 2014 testing at Jerez.
An assembly error that delayed Sebastian Vettel's emergence on the opening day, and myriad issues with both the Renault engine, its control systems and its installation in the RB10 meant Red Bull had to stop running early on the other three days, completing just 21 laps over the week.
Alarm bells ringing at Red Bull
Red Bull's chief aerodynamicist Peter Prodromou agreed to join McLaren last year, with former head of vehicle dynamics Mark Ellis and chief simulation engineer Giles Wood then leaving for Mercedes.
But Mateschitz was adamant the staff changes have nothing to do with Red Bull's current plight.
"The current problems arose from the engine side and not from our team, which still has the high-level know-how it needs," he said.
The 69-year-old has traditionally spent a day watching winter testing since first joining F1 as Sauber's main backer in 1995.
His arrival in the Jerez paddock on Thursday coincided with Daniel Ricciardo stopping on track on his first lap as a Red Bull race driver.
"These teething problems came as no big surprise," said Mateschitz.
"We had expected a difficult first test and now the problems have to be fixed for the Bahrain test."
He added that technical chief Adrian Newey had assured him that the RB10 "is more than just state-of-the-art".
Red Bull RB10 technical analysis
'NO REASON TO WORRY'
"However, the truth arrives when we are all on the grid in Melbourne," Mateschitz said.
"It is up to us and Renault to solve the problems and get ready.
"There is no reason to be worried yet."
Mateschitz believes Red Bull could afford a potential bad start to the season and still come out on top in the title race.
"To be behind at the season's start does not necessarily mean you lost the championship already," he said.
"You still have a chance after a few bad races in the beginning."
