All the teams except Toyota and Ferrari, but finally including Super Aguri, tested in Jerez last week. Williams and Red Bull tested for 4 days, the rest for 3 days only.

As usual it is hard to read into the times. But there are few things that are becoming obvious:

McLarens did look like the fastest cars out of the Jerez pack, although on Wednesday Mark Webber, Nico Rosberg, Kazuki Nakajima, Fernando Alonso and Robert Kubica all managed better times than quickest of McLaren’s - Lewis Hamilton. A day later however it was Heikki Kovalainen on top, and around 1.5 second faster than Lewis Hamilton. This big difference suggests that each driver was on different program… They also tried out some weird looking wheel covers.

How close to or ahead of Ferrari they are is everybody’s guess…

Red Bull and Williams did very well. The ugly fin on Red Bull seems to be working and looks set to stay … Nakajima is quite impressive in Williams and I would lie if I say I expected him to be pretty much on par with Nico Rosberg. The races may be different story, but so far so good for Williams and for Nakajima. BMW and Renault are 2 other teams that form the very strong upper midfield group. These four may be a bit behind McLaren at the moment, but it looks like the days of top 6 pre-booked for Ferrari, McLaren and BMW drivers are over. The Q2s are going to be very intense with 12 cars at least fighting it out for 10 places in Q3 …

Then there is Toro Rosso somehow standing alone between the top and the bottom. Vettel seems to be a tenth or two faster than Bourdais. They are still running the old car, the new one not expected before the beginning of the European F1 season. But judging from their current form, starting the season with an old car is not going to hurt them.

Force India car, despite getting a facelift, remains firmly among the backmarkers. There however seems to be quite a difference between performances of Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil (and Tonio Liuzzi). Looks like Fisi is out to prove his critics wrong …

Honda still lacks the speed and the three second gap between Button and Kovalainen on Thursday looks scary. But the guys at Honda seem to be happy and quite upbeat after the Jerez test. Clearly clocking quick times was not why they went to Jerez. The updates expected for the final test in Barcelona are supposed to address all the issues with the car the team has identified, so let’s wait and see …

Super Aguri made it clear to the world they still exist. Both Sato and Davidson (although still without contract for 2008) took the car around the Jerez track. They were slower than Honda proper, but the gaps were just around a tenth of a second. Unfortunately these days being a tenth slower than Honda is not a exactly good news.

F1Wolf

labels: plugin code here

After raking up some mileage for Honda back in 2007 part of this winter, not exactly perfect test in Jerez in Januray and then missing out on several previous F1 tests, the financially troubled Super Aguri finally made it to the track again. Takuma Sato did 90 laps in Jerez yesterday in SA07B interim car and the team seems to be satisfied with the way the test went. The SA07B was less than 3 tenths slower than Barrichello’s new Honda RA108.

On the same day however the team also announced postponing their new car launch (originally planned for February 19, 2008). Instead the team boss Aguri Suzuki and technical director Mark Preston will be at the circuit to answer media questions. Their new car is still due to run for the first time in Barcelona next week but withoit the official launch. That means no confirmation on the drivers line up, no new livery yet. It looks like we may have to wait perhaps until he season opener in Australia to see how the Super Aguri new car, the SA08, will look like and who will be driving it.

Now this may mean bad news (no deal in sight) or good news (ongoing talks looking good) for the team. One thing is obvious - no sponsorship or investment deals have been finalized yet.

F1Wolf

labels: plugin code here

It is just about a month to go and I am going to be silly enough to predict the team’s pecking order for 2008 season . The prediction comes with a preview of all 2008 liveries, as we know them now. Super Aguri is yet to display anything on or off the track…

1) Ferrari - Kimi is having a blast

2) McLaren - They are up there, but they do not have Kimi

3) Renault - The six tenths guy will make a difference

4) BMW - May be closer to Ferrari and McLaren on performance but Renault will re-enter the picture

5) Williams - More competitive than in 2007 but so will be others

Above is the winter livery. Williams will only reveal their racing one before the Aussie GP, but here is a sneak peak.

6) Red Bull - Solid midfielders with a shot at the podium once or twice

7) Toyota - The best of the Japanese brands on the grid (Bridgestone does not count )

8 ) Honda - Will start a further down but will gain few places during the season

9) Toro Rosso - They may have few decent finishes, but their points will not be good for better than 9th

10) Force India - They will be much more competitive than Spyker last year, but 10th will about as much as they can hope for. They would however score some points.

11) Super Aguri - They will probably survive the season despite Mosley’s worries, but at the back of the order and likely without any points.

Feel free to disagree and leave your order in the comments . And do not forget to join the 2008 Prediction Game !

F1Wolf

labels: plugin code here

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 …

F1Wolf

labels: plugin code here

It was crazy enough idea 2 or so years back when Superi Aguri got conceived in order to keep Taku Sato in F1. I am a fan of Sato and I am glad he is still around and his move on Alonso last year was awesome. But still, the idea to create a multimillion dollar company for the sake of keeping one driver in F1 does sound crazy, right ?

This madness has proven to be contaigeous ! It has spread to India and another consortium around the Spice Group has openly admitted that the only purpose of their possible purchase of or investment to Super Aguri is to provide a race drive for Narain Karthikeyan …

Neha Rastogi, spokesman for the Spice Group:

“The discussions right now are centred on commercial feasibility. But our main mission is to support Indian drivers and give Narain the opportunity to drive in F1 again. So you can say the deal is contingent on this condition.”

People, please get real … Throw your money into F1 if that is what makes you feel good. But please choose the drivers based their skills …

F1Wolf

labels: plugin code here

This week has been mostly about Honda, thanks to their car launch. Super Aguri also made it to the news thanks to Max Mosley’s doubts about their future. Now the strong words from Honda, namely from Nick Fry (to Reuters) only add to Super Aguri woes:

“The intent for 2008 is that Aguri will be on the grid but clearly what Ross (Brawn) and I need to do, and are doing, is ensure that doesn’t detract from our primary job. At this stage, the intent is that they will be on the grid with Honda engines and support. Exactly how much of that support comes from here is being worked on at the moment. I would not personally be convinced that the driver you mentioned would be of an acceptable standard for us.”

Nick Fry went on to point out that Anthony Davidson is the driver of the appropriate standard.

The driver Reuters mentioned is Narain Karthikeyan. His name came up in connection with Indian telecom company Spice Group. Spice Group is said to be one of the parties in talks with Super Aguri over funding or investment.

Now this is not an easy situation for Super Aguri. Paid drivers have been source of funds for the cash strapped teams for years. And the race seat may be the only thing thatSuper Aguri has to offer at the moment. On the other hand, while they may struggle without new funds coming in, they would surely go down and under and out of business should Honda pull the plug. Super Aguri simply can’t afford to go against Honda’s wishes…

Read the rest of this entry »

F1Wolf

labels: plugin code here

With Prodrive expected to enter the F1 from coming season, it looked that finally F1 can have a full grid of 12 teams and 24 cars. The last time F1 was close to having 12 teams was in 2002, the year when Toyota entered. However Prost went out of business during the winter and Arrows cars were last seen in Germany 2002. With 5 races to go in 2002, the grid that promised to have 24 cars has shrunk to 20.

Now Max Mosley is not convinced there will still be 11 teams in Formula 1 by the end of the 2008 season. When asked whether Super Aguri will appear on the start of Australian GP in Melbourne in little over 6 weeks, he said:

“I wouldn’t like to stake my life on that. I think so, but you can’t be certain.”

But when asked if he is confident that all eleven teams will contest the entire 2008 F1 championship, he allegedly said to PA Sport:

“Not very.”

The team in question is no doubt Super Aguri.
Read the rest of this entry »

F1Wolf

labels: plugin code here

The German magazine AutoBild reports that Aguri Suzuki has sold 50% stake in the Super Aguri F1 team to Spanish billionaire Alejandro Agag. The GP2 team owner Agag has been linked with purchase of Super Aguri shares for quite some time.

Super Aguri run into financial difficulties after their sponsor SS United defaulted on the sponsorship payments during the 2007 season. They managed to secure few smaller sponsors before the 2007 Japanese GP at Fuji but still had to rely on massive support from Honda to keep on going.

The entry of Alejandro Agag into the Super Aguri would definitelly be good news for the Japanese team. Whether it is also good news for Super Aguri drivers Sato and Davidson is a different story. Sato is probably safe but not so Anthony Davidson. Super Aguri repeatedly stated they would prefer both their 2007 drivers to continue, but haven’t confirmed them yet mainly because of the uncertainties about team’s future. Now when Agag may be on board I would not be surprised if his own favourite (whoever it may be) enters the picture.

What puzzles me a bit is that why would a deal like this be done before the customer car arbitration is over and the issue what cars can and can’t race in 2008 is settled. Fifty percent stake in F1 team does not come cheap. Why would someone splash out the cash before knowing if the team actualy has a legitimate car to race with ? Or do Agag and Suzuki already know something we don’t ?

Update: Audetto, Managing Director of Super Aguri has denied the sale report:

“We have had no recent dialogue or an ongoing relationship with Agag.”

F1Wolf

labels: plugin code here

Friday, April 28, 2006 - FIA president Max Mosley:

“Prodrive have the best combination of financial backing, technical capability and motorsport experience. The team are well known to the FIA through their participation in the World Rally Championship and Richards has experience as a Formula One team principal.”

Fast forward to January 10, 2008 - Dave Richards:

“F1’s new commercial agreement means that Prodrive will not enter the sport in the near future.”

Two years ago there were 22 subjects bidding for the presence on Formula 1 grid. Eleven came from then existing Formula 1 teams, another eleven from F1 wannabies that included among others Prodrive, Direxiv, Eddie Jordan, Paul Stoddart, Carlin Motorsport, Craig Pollock. All the existing teams, including Super Aguri that was yet to make their own F1 debut were granted the entry to 2008 season. The only spot for a new team went to Prodrive.

There is no doubt that such an overwhelming interest in F1 entry was a result of new customer car rules advertised by FIA at that time. The new rules did not materialize, Prodrive had no plan B and so 2001 is still the last season we had full 12 teams / 24 cars F1 grid.

Read the rest of this entry »

F1Wolf

labels: plugin code here

The Super Aguri team announced on Tuesday they are to launch their new car next month at the Barcelona circuit. They will unveil their car on February 19, 2008.

It will be interesting to see what car they will actually unveil. Will it be carbon copy of new Honda or will it be re-painted 2007 Honda ? Or will the outcome of the customer car arbitration force Super Aguri to revert to their Arrows 2002 based car …

F1Wolf

labels: plugin code here