What do Nico Rosberg, Kazuki Nakajima, Jarno Trulli and F1Wolf have in common ? Well all these important Formula 1 figures feature in the same show on Sidepodcast.tv

Thanks to Sidepodcast for nice review !

After you finish watching the great show about planes, wine, Formula 1 and F1Wolf see the rest of the post for few more photos of the Air Asia Airbus painted in Williams colours with Nico Rosberg’s helmet all over the nose of the plane. (all photos courtesy of AT&T Williams Team):

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Here are the results from the mad race in Melbourne, with only 7 cars finishing the race, and even one of those (Rubens Barrichello) later disqualified for exiting the pitlane under red light:

1. Lewis Hamilton – McLaren Mercedes– 1:34:50.616
2. Nick Heidfeld – BMW Sauber + 5.478
3. Nico Rosberg - Williams + 8.163
4. Fernando Alonso – Renault +17.181
5. Heikki Kovalainen – McLaren Mercedes +18.014
6. Kazuki Nakajima – Williams + 1 lap
7. Sebastien Bourdais – Toro Rosso + 2 laps
8. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari + 3 laps

Race report will follow later today.

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The strong showing of Williams cars during the tests were for me the highlight of the F1 winter. And then they revealed the classy livery Williams style … I am becoming Williams fan . Let’s look at their drivers Rosberg and Nakajima, both of them sons of former Formula 1 drivers (Keke Rosberg and Satoru Nakajima):

Nico Rosberg - Germany
Born: 27 Jun 1985
In F1 since 2006 - Williams (testing with Williams since 2003)
Best Result: 9th in 2007
Career wins: 0
Pole positions: 0
Podium Finishes: 0
Fastest Laps: 1 (on his race debut)

Nico Rosberg started his F1 career with impressive fastest lap and 2 points on his race debut in 2006. He only went on to score 2 more for the rest of the season, season that was one of the worst ever for the Williams team. Last year was very different. Impressive in qualifying, regular in Q3, string of point finishes. And all in a car that probably should not be that high. No wonder he became the prime target for McLaren as replacement for Fernando Alonso. He however decided to stick with Williams for next 2 years. With what looks like a decent car in hand he can realisticaly think about few podiums this year. One of the things I am really looking forward to in 2008 is seeing Rosberg and Alonso in pretty much equal cars fighting it out on the track …

Kazuki Nakajima - Japan
Born: 11 January 1985
In F1 since 2007 - Williams - 1 race only Brazilian GP
Best Result: 10th place in his only race so far
Career wins: 0
Pole positions: 0
Podium Finishes: 0

Kazuki Nakajima jumped into the Williams F1 race seat after Alex Wurz decided to retire with one race to go last year. The team probably knew about this earlier. Perhaps because of that they placed Nakajima in one of Williams cars for the the free practice in China already (check my Shanghai 2007 photo gallery). Nakajima did pretty well on his race debut in Brazil. After qualifying on P17 only he climbed up the grid and finished the race 10th. Unfortunatelly for him, most people will remember his first F1 race for the famous pitlane incident (see the video below the post). He definitely has something in common with Sato . The fact that Williams selected him as race driver for 2008 season took many by surprise. The Toyota connection is thought to be the main reason and Williams are not exactly denying that. His winter form however shows that he is not that much slower than Rosberg. Whether he can keep his cool during the race that is another question.

F1Wolf’s prediction for Williams drivers in 2008:
No. 1 - Nico Rosberg, natural leader of the team with a chance of a podium finish
No. 2 - Kazuki Nakajima - will eventually emerge as number 2 driver, but he will give Rosberg run for his money. If he keeps cool head and has a bit of luck, who knows, we may see him on the podium. Alex Wurz made it last year in less competitive car …

2008 F1 Season - Team Mates - Ferrari
2008 F1 Season - Team Mates - McLaren
2008 F1 Season - Team Mates - BMW Sauber
2008 F1 Season Team Mates - Renault

Check the rest of this post for Nakajima’s pit lane incident video

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AT&T Williams F1 team finally revealed their 2008 livery and released a pre-season interview with Frank Williams. The blue white livery is similar to the 2007 one but somehow it does look better . The biggest looser is Lenovo, their logo has been relegated from the prominent position on the sidepods to the rear wing. Still more visible than AT&T logo though …

Here are few answers from Frank Williams on his drivers and prediction for 2008 season:

Nico returns for his third season this year. How important is he to the team?

He’s fundamental. We have the highest regards for him and we have great confidence that, given the right equipment, he will win races.

Kazuki has been promoted from test to race driver, how has he been doing over winter testing and what are your expectations of him in a race seat?

We knew we were taking a bit of a gamble when we signed him, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised by his testing pace. It’s really only a question I’ll be able to answer properly after the first few races of the season.

And lastly, what are your predictions for the season ahead?

I think the first four places are most likely to be occupied by the same people as last year, sadly. But I do think it will be a brilliant racing season.

More photos of new 2008 Williams livery inside the article (all photos courtesy of AT&T Williams).

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Some teams will continue testing in private tests next week. Barcelona however was the last major test involving most of the teams. The results and times do not tell much. Few would conclude that Toyota is the fastest car just because Trulli clocked the the fastest lap yesterday . So what Formula 1 drivers and team bosses think after the last test of the season:

Ferrari:
Jean Todt:

“We have two excellent drivers and it looks like the car is good too. We are satisfied and the situation is encouraging. But we need to wait for the races, let’s hope for the best.”

Kimi Raikkonen:

“I think we have a strong package, but we don’t know how fast the others are. We will only see that in the race. We are quite happy with what we have done over the winter so we will see in Melbourne. I think we have good reliability. We had some small things last year that unfortunately stopped the car in the race but it can always happen. We have done everything we can and it will be nice to get back racing again. In Melbourne we will see who is fast or not, because you cannot say from the tests. The times look close. Somebody goes fast one day and another guy another day. We will wait for a couple of weeks and we will know in qualifying. But I think McLaren are for sure strong, so we need to see how good they are in the race.”

Felipe Massa:

“I feel really powerful this year. If we are lucky, we will have a stronger start of the season than last year’s. This year we aim for the same situation we had in 2007, Ferrari was the best team and both drivers were in equal positive conditions. I feel strong to fight for the championship.”

Sam Michael (Williams):

“Ferrari are about three of four tenths ahead of them (McLaren), and seven or eight tenths before the group including BMW, Renault, Red Bull and us.”

Fernando Alonso (Renault) on Kimi Raikkonen

“He has the self confidence and he is obviously very quick, so he has put himself in a very strong position.”

McLaren:
Lewis Hamilton:

“Winter testing has gone really smoothly. We have had steady reliability and the car is feeling good. We have had some great testing days, easily covering the mileage and getting confidence in the car. It has been a good week, in addition to the test development programme we have been working with the race team on getting back up to speed with activities such as pitstops. As I just said, the car is feeling good, but as always we still have work to do. A Formula One car is under continuous evolution, and when you look back at how far we have come since the MP4-23 first hit the track in January, it is encouraging. The work doesn’t stop for anyone just because testing has concluded.”

Heikki Kovalainen:

“We have improved the car, I have improved myself and I have gotten to know the team better. Everything has just very positive; there haven’t been any negative moments. Of course some days are more difficult than others but we are making progress all the time. So overall a very good winter and we have the pace to have a strong year.”

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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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Williams decided against the official 2008 car launch. With their sponsors and drivers long in place they do not see much reason for official launch event. So here is something to remember their 2007 challenger.

After the disastrous 2006 season came a big step forward in 2007 for AT&T Williams team. Several new backers, Toyota engines, Nico Rosberg with a year of experience under his belt that was what Williams was entering the season with. They finished it with a podium, regular points finishes and 20 points ahead of Toyota (their engine supplier) team in the constructors table. Here is the screensaver to remember 2007 Williams in F1.

You can download it here: 2007 Williams F1 Screensaver

Please check the screensaver tag for more F1 screensavers.

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While the “big” announcement on Fernando Alonso is now after the Renault ruling expected anytime soon, there were some other interesting developments elsewhere over the past few days.

The Jerez tests were kind of a shoot out for the Force India seat. There are no clear winners yet, but there is one obvious looser - Ralf Schumacher. Even he himself now admits, the Jerez outing might have been his last appearance in Formula 1 car…

Unlike Ralf, the other serious candidates - Fisichella, Liuzzi and Klien - did not do themselves too much harm.

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During the past month I published series of posts with the high resolution photos of all the teams and all the drivers (well almost, one driver is missing) of 2007 Formula 1 season for download.

For those who missed it, here are all the links:

Kimi Raikkonen
Lewis Hamilton
Fernando Alonso
Felipe Massa
Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica
Giancarlo Fisichella and Heikki Kovalainen
Nico Rosberg, Alex Wurz, Kazuki Nakajima
Mark Webber, David Coulthard
Jarno Trulli, Ralf Schumacher
Sebastian Vettel, Scott Speed, Vitantonio Liuzzi
Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello
Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson
Adrian Sutil, Christijan Albers, Sakon Yamamoto

Screensavers are also on the way. If you do not want to miss out, subscribe to F1 Wolf via RSS Feed or E-mail

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48 hours passed and Flavio still has no news to announce. According to Alonso’s manager Luis Garcia Abad, Alonso will take time before he makes up his time and “will decide when he knows the best option for his future”.

The rumours coming out of Renault suggest that the talks have stalled. While Briatore would be willing to accept 1 year contract with Alonso, Carlos Ghosn, the Renault CEO allegedly says firmly “It is 3 years of nothing.”

In the meantime the Toyota and Red Bull rumours are still alive and kicking and Alonso seems to be acting like he has lots of options to choose from.

The other piece of information that appeared is that Nico Rosberg still may find himself racing for McLaren next year. German press reports that Frank Williams would be willing to accept around US$22 million from McLaren for Rosberg’s release. At the same time, Willy Weber, Michael Schumacher’s manager, advises Rosberg not to do it. He warns “McLaren could very quickly destroy his career, Hamilton is their number one, even if officially they will not say it.”

F1Wolf

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