I just finished watching the webcast from the Force India car launch. Mr. Mallya had some difficulties pronouncing the names of his F1 drivers right but the event was more about the car.

From what I could see from the small screen web video on the excellent Force India website, the colour scheme is different from the interim livery the team has been using so far this winter. In Vijay Mallya’s words the 2008 car, VJM01, is white and tungsten (gold) with touches of red. The Kingfisher logo can’t be missed. I will post the photos here once they become available.

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Eight teams have finished their weekend of testing in Barcelona. Three days and three different cars on the top. Hamilton (McLaren) on Friday, Vettel (Toro Rosso) on Saturday and Mark Webber (Red Bull) on Sunday.

In absence of Ferrari it was expected that the McLarens will be topping or be very very close to the top. Hamilton topped the sheets on Friday. On Saturday however Toro Rosso’s were both quicker than both McLarens and on Sunday Mark Webber managed to beat the silver cars. Overall the McLarens look good.

Toro Rosso team will not introduce their new car until few races into the 2008 season, so what they test now is an updated version of their 2007 car. Their Saturday impressive run might a bit misleading, as they an the car very light. However they did not do too bad also on Friday and Sunday. This definitelly was an encouraging weekend for the team.

Red Bull came up with a revolutionary design - implementing an ugly fin on the engine cover. And unfortunatelly it seems to be working Mark Webber’s fastest time on Sunday shows. If other teams get the hint, we may see more cars getting ugly.

BMW seem to have overcome the problems they experienced last week and they seem to be around 0.3 off the McLaren pace now. Renault is also clawing back, either the car has seen quite an improvement from last year or Fernando Alonso brought his famous 0.6 second with him. They do not seem to be 1 second behind McLaren any more. It looks pretty even between them and BMW Sauber.

Giancarlo Fisichella impressed o Friday with the 4th fastest time. Force India only tested with 1 car and neither Liuzzi nor Sutil were able to get anywhere near the time Fisi posted on Friday.

Williams did not do much in Barcelona. After Kazuki Nakajima’s crash the team did not continue on Friday. And when they realized the problems with their front wing mounting need more thorough fix, they decided to abandon the Barcelona test completely. A bit of a turn in their fortunes after the excelent form in Valencia. But one of the purposes of the tests is also to find out what does not work.

Photo: HondaRacingF1

And this leaves the poor Honda. The car simply is not good enough yet and the team has lots of job ahead to move up from the back of the field to midfield at least. According to Jenson Button the car “lacks the driveability” and the new ECU and the fact that the car is brand new are mentioned as the main reasons. The gap between Honda and the top is 1 and half second at the moment. If I was to bet on who will copy the ugly fin from Red Bull first, Honda would be my candidate.

On Sunday there were 7 teams within 1 second and if ad the impresive run of Fisi in Force India on Friday we can say the field is very tight at the moment. The only team visibly lagging behind right now is Honda. We have no comparison with Ferrari and Toyota this time, these 2 will be testing this week in Bahrain. The lack of news (other than takeover and driver rumours) from Super Aguri is a bit worrying.

Unfortunatelly it will not be the racing that will be making the headlines after the Barcelona test but the racist behaviour of some Spanish fans towards Lewis Hamilton …

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I will summarize the Barcelona test when it is over after the weekend. Here comes only brief summary of what was new on Friday.

All teams showed up, except Ferrari and Toyota (heading to Bahrain instead) and Super Aguri (who knows where they are going).

- Red Bull came up with a radical engine cover. The purpose of this ugly fin is to provide more balance to compensate for TC and engine breaking ban. How this will affect the car if the wind blows from the wrong side, that we will see. It is hard to blame Adrian Newey now that the new Red Bull is not radical enough

Here is the finned Bull:

And this is the usual Red Bull look for comparison:

- Lewis Hamilton was the fastets guy on track.

- Fisichella was flying in his Force India car. Fourth fastest and less than a second slower than Hamilton.

- Nakajima hit the barriers hard. Williams cut their first test day short to work on the problem with the wrong wing mounting that apparently cause the crash.

- Hondas are still at the bottom but not sounding too worried, yet…

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The teams keep rolling out their new cars and the F1 drivers are coming up with their 2008 helmet design. Here they are:

Raikkonen, Massa

Hamilton, Kovalainen

Heidfeld, Kubica

Alonso, Piquet

Rosberg, Nakajima

Webber, Coulthard

Glock, Trulli

Barrichello, Button

Bourdais, Vettel

Sutil, Fisichella

Sato, Davidson

Fernando Alonso seems to be getting away from McLaren days and returning to Renault even with his helmet design. Jarno Trulli reduced the shiny silver surface with more red colour over it. Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica keep the designs very close to their 2007 styles.

Kimi Raikkonen’s new 2008 helmet (click here) is very similar to his 2007 one, but the white front has been replaced with some sort of “tribal” drawing. Anyone knows what it means ?

Lewis Hamilton keeps his yellow helmet pretty much unchanged. Heikki Kovalainen had to make changes to accomodate new sponsors the result is Alonso 2007 like helmet. Bourdais keeps his Champ Car yellow and blue with the addition of Red Bull brand.

Both Honda and Red Bull drivers keep the same designs as in 2007. Sutil’s helmet does not look too different from his 2007 one as well. Fisichella is another guy sticking with his traditional colours.

Please check back for updates to this post with more on 2008 F1 driver helmets. It happened before that drivers used different design for the winter testing and came up with brand new one when the season started, so these may not yet be the definite 2008 helmets.

If you come across good pictures of new 2008 F1 driver helmets that are not yet displayed here, let me know. I will add them here !

To see what the drivers were wearing in 2007, check here

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The Force India confirmed today the expected drivers line up for the 2008 season. Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil will lead the team for its debut 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship campaign. Vitantonio Liuzzi will fulfill a test and reserve driver role for Force India.

Giancarlo Fisichella:

“I am looking forward to joining Force India for the coming season. At the test in Jerez, I was very impressed with the team’s professionalism and commitment to move forward and I hope that my experience will help them achieve these goals. Contrary to what people may think, this was not my only opportunity, it was the best one: with new owners and a competitive budget, I really think we can shake things up next year. I feel motivated and ready to help Force India get points on a regular basis.”

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The latest media buzz suggest that the scenario that appeared here at F1Wolf earlier may materialize.

It is rumoured that as expected Giancarlo Fisichella will be announced as a Force India race drivers alongside Adrian Sutil. Vitantonio Liuzzi is set to join the team as a 3rd driver. Liuzzi said earlier that he would be happy with test driver role in Force India for 2008, unlike Christian Klien. This Liuzzi’s attitude may be what may save his F1 career…

We may not have to wait for too long to find out what the selection really will be. Force India announcement is expected this week, perhaps on January 11.

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Vijay Mallya said he will make his decision on the drivers before Christmas, there were even suggestions that the announcement may come this week. And AutoMoto365.com already came up with an exclusive one:

“Automoto365.com can exclusively reveal to its loyal readers this morning that the second seat at Force India has finally been secured by none other than former Renault racer, Giancarlo Fisichella.”

According to GrandPrix dot Com owner of the AutoMoto356 is NTZC, company founded by Nicholas Todt. There is an obvious connection to Ferrari - the engine supplier of Force India F1 team. So it looks like there may be some credibility to the story. While this move for Fisichella would not surprise me, the way the information got out does. Why would this news be published first by a French website and not by Force India team ? Let’s see what Force India will have to say about this.

The last news item on Force India official website is “Force India progress review with Dr. Vijay Mallya”, published on December 13, 2007.

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The contest for the Force India race drive is getting hotter. Not that drivers can now do much about the selection (or do they ?) but nevertheless they all talk a lot. Here is the summary of what the leading contenders for the Force India seat Ralf Schumacher, Giancarlo Fisichella, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Christian Klien and Roldan Rodriguez had to say:

Ralf Schumacher:

“I’m testing today because Vijay Mallya asked me to try the car. This way I can give the team some feedback and tell them what might need to be changed. I don’t see myself as a candidate though to race with the team next season. To be honest, I don’t exactly know what I will be doing next season. Maybe I will quit racing, or maybe I will just join another racing series. I just want to do what’s best for me. This week might have been the final outing for me in a Formula 1 car.”

Giancarlo Fisichella

“I can bring a lot of experience and ideas of how we can go in the right direction. I think I did a good job with the team in the couple of days testing. We were working in a few areas and we made a step forward, especially in the car balance and the set up. The team was quite impressed with the job I did so far. I am impressed about the team, which is still a small one, but they have a good potential. I still know a few mechanics from when I drove here in 1997, 2002 and 2003 (as Jordan). I feel a good atmosphere and it was good to be back with them. Force India is working on a nice project, with a better budget then last year and they can go up very quickly, so we’ll see. We’ll see if we’re both happy to work together in the future.”

and…

“My objective is to race with Force India. I wouldn’t have gone through a shoot-out otherwise, because it’s always something very tense. All the drivers at Jerez were there for that, let’s not kid ourselves. Even Ralf Schumacher arrived two days earlier, went often around the track to see the trajectories and he was in contact with the pits. He never did that at Toyota. No one came to Jerez to be a tourist of for a stroll in F1.”

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Finally the confirmation of the expected came - Fernando Alonso is returning to Renault from next season.

Nelson Piquet Jr. will be promoted from testing duties to race driver. Romain Grosjean will be Renault’s 3rd pilot.

This means both 2007 Renault drivers - Heikki Kovalainen and Giancarlo Fisichella have to look for his drive elsewhere. Kovalainen has been connected with the McLaren, Fisichella targets Force India.

Flavio Briatore’s words:

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After Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari and McLaren the next in the series of 2007 F1 screensavers is Renault. Enjoy the pictures of Giancarlo Fisichella and Heikki Kovalainen, they may not be racing for Renault in the next season…

2007 Renault F1 Screensaver

More 2007 F1 screensavers with other 2007 F1 teams will follow. If you do not want to miss out on the new stuff subscribe to F1Wolf. To subscribe to F1Wolf in RSS reader, click here, to get F1Wolf delivered by email click here.

Related:
2007 Kimi Raikkonen Screensaver
2007 Ferrari Screensaver
2007 McLaren Screensaver

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