Week in Review. Williams looks set revive one of motorsports classic liveries this year as part of a new sponsorship deal with Martini. The Martini brand has sponsored various teams in different forms of motorsport over the years, including a deal with Brabham in Formula One during the 1970s. The team was not willing to comment on speculation surrounding its future sponsorship deals when contacted this week, but confirmed a new livery would be revealed for Australia. At the Jerez test the team ran an all-blue livery, but a Martini deal could see the famous blue and red stripes of the drinks brand on the car in time for Melbourne. Earlier this week a merchandise website promoted an image of a white Williams Martini team shirt on its homepage, which was quickly removed once it started appearing on social media. Williams recently announced a new sponsorship deal with US insurance company Genworth and it is rumoured to be close to a deal with Brazilian oil company Petrobras. F1 looks set to introduce an eleventh-hour change to the qualifying rules for 2014, according to media reports. Just five weeks ahead of the Melbourne season opener, team bosses, Bernie Ecclestone and the governing FIA will meet in Bahrain on February 21, coinciding with official testing in the island Kingdom, to discuss the issue. Britains Mirror newspaper said the changes would be to ensure drivers cannot sit out the decisive Q3 segment of qualifying, in order to save tyres and for other tactical and reliability reasons. Some believe a return to the free-for-all hour long sessions of the past is the answer because the current three-part formula has added nothing to the Saturday spectacle, said correspondent Byron Young. The Telegraphs new F1 correspondent Daniel Johnson added: To try and maintain the spectacle, (the) strategy group has asked the teams and the FIA to come up with ways of forcing drivers to go for the best grid positions in Q3. Plans likely to be discussed are believed to include supplying drivers with an extra set of qualifying tyres, specifically for the final part of the session, he added. Not likely to get voted through in Bahrain, meanwhile, is an extension of Bernie Ecclestones highly unpopular new double points concept. To keep the title alive until the end, drivers will score twice as many points at the season finale in Abu Dhabi this year, but F1s chief executive has written to the teams asking they vote for the concept to also include the preceeding two races. Red Bulls Christian Horner, no fan of the concept initially, indicated he would support extending the scheme to three races because that would take away an element of lottery over that last race. But because the proposed change is occurring so late, it would require an unanimous vote, and there are reports the Mercedes-powered teams have no mind to support it. Other teams are reportedly also not keen, a mischievous Lotus spokesman telling the BBC: The best thing would be to make all the races double points. The British media report added: More than one top team believes it would be wrong to change the rules a month before the start of the season. Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali has urged Formula One to give the sports new regulations a chance before heaping criticism on them. Following a number of teething problems during the first week of testing in Jerez, Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone labelled the new turbo era of the sport a farce. But Domenicali has urged fans and F1 decision makers to reserve judgement until the new regulations bed in. In this situation, its best not to rush to draw any conclusions, and play into the hands of those scaremongers, as a propensity for self-destruction serves no purpose, Domenicali told the Ferrari website. Every time there are changes, there are discussions, which is natural. We have only had one test so far when there were never more than four or five cars on track at the same time. Lets wait until we see all 22 together before saying that everythings gone wrong. Once a path has been chosen, one has to move forward in a constructive manner. If after a certain period of time we see that an element of excitement is really missing, such as engine noise, then we can see how best to react. Personally, I dont think this aspect will keep people away from the racetracks. We should be more concerned with the grand prix event as a whole and we need to find a strategy to attract youngsters to our sport, which today has a hardcore of fans aged between 35 and 50. We need to get back to having the car seen as an inspirational theme and not just as a means of transport, which adds nothing to our existence. For those that watched the testing video’s supplied by Josh last week would have noted, the biggest obvious change since the end of the 2013 season has been F1s new, milder engine note. For the drivers, however, the major talking point is torque. The V8 engines of last year, and the radical new generation of ERS-bolstered turbo V6s, are actually producing similar overall power. But the torque of the 2014 power unit is significantly higher. When I went out of the garage for the first time, I thought Wow! Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton is quoted by Germanys Sport Bild. Force Indias Adrian Sutil had an even starker experience. When I accelerated out of the corner, I was surprised, said the German, recalling his first moments with the Mercedes-Benz V6. I changed from third to fourth gear, lost the rear and I spun. Works Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg agrees: The driveability with the turbo is a little bit of an adventure! Olivier Quesnel is Lotus new team principal, according to the authoritative Italian publication Autosprint. 64-year-old Quesnel, best known for his world rally success at the helm of Citroen, this week admitted he had been in contact with team owner Gerard Lopez about replacing departed fellow Frenchman Eric Boullier. I will not pretend that I am not interested, said Quesnel. Another candidate reportedly also under consideration by Lopez was Martin Whitmarsh, who appears to be out of a job at McLaren. We need to make a decision quickly, admitted Lopez, because we have things to prepare. It will be at the latest within a week, ten days. According to F1 correspondent Roberto Chinchero, Quesnel has secured the job, and will start work next week. Quiet week this week. Expect a lot more coming through next week when the cars are back on track in Bahrain.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Feb 2014 02:20:42 +0000
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