Renault F1 Team
Welcome to www.renaultf1.com!The website is now closed until the official presentation of the 2006 Season and the new R26 on Tuesday, 31 January.
Who in their right mind “closes” a website until the car release date? It’s not like it costs you much to keep it open, and websites live and die on repeat traffic.
1 comment January 24th, 2006
Ferrari have announced a deal with drinks company Martini and Rossi to have the cars carry Martini branding for the next three years.
Add comment January 23rd, 2006
Germans are not supposed to have a sense of humour, so what smart alec at BMW-Sauber decided to headline an interview with the Technical Chassis director “A compact rear increases efficiency”?
Add comment January 23rd, 2006
The MP4-21, McLaren’s new car made its track debut today.
Motorsport.com has the details from the test
Circuit de Catalunya, Monday 23rd January 2006: The Team McLaren Mercedes 2006 Formula One car, the MP4-21, made its track debut today at the Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. The MP4-21 is fundamentally a new car, however the basic concept is an evolution of the 2005 challenger, the MP4-20, which won ten out of the season’s 19 Grands Prix.
Test driver, Pedro de la Rosa, was at the wheel of the MP4-21 as it left the garage for the first time at 09:15 local time to complete its installation lap. Juan Pablo Montoya will take over driving duties for tomorrow, Tuesday 24th, and Wednesday 25th, with Kimi Raikkonen having his debut runs on Thursday 26th and Friday 27th January. Pedro and fellow test driver Gary Paffett will test alongside the team’s race drivers in an interim MP4-20, continuing the Michelin tyre development programme, until chassis two of the new car is scheduled to hit the test track in Valencia sometime during the week commencing 13th February.
“I am really pleased to have been at the wheel of MP4-21 today” said Pedro. “The car feels good initially, but it is of course too early to really understand it’s potential and we need to put a lot more laps on it. We have around 20 days of on track running before the cars leave for Bahrain on Friday 3rd March. As today is the initial shakedown, our focus will be to familiarise ourselves with the MP4-21 and the Mercedes-Benz FO 108S V8 engine, and to run the various systems checks that are required with a new car.”
Add comment January 23rd, 2006
For those of you who like all your news on a single, easy to glance through page, you might be interested to know that we’ve added a NASCAR startpage. There’ll be more pages like this in the future.
If you’ve any suggestions for new sites or new topics, email us or leave a comment.
Add comment January 23rd, 2006
Eight teams will be testing at Catalunya. On Monday 23rd McLaren-Mercedes and BMW-Sauber will start. On Tuesday 24th Ferrari, Honda and Red Bull Racing will join them. Renault will arrive on Wednesday 25th, as well as Toyota. Toro Rosso will test only on Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th.
Add comment January 22nd, 2006
According to Belgian reports Bernie Ecclestone will be organising the Belgian Grand Prix himself starting from 2007. It more and more looks like it that there will not have a race this year at the famous and loved Spa-Francorchamps track.
f1racing.net
Discuss in linksheaven forums
Add comment January 22nd, 2006
MF1 Racing completed a four-day test at Silverstone Saturday running the Toyota-V8 engine along with the 2006 gearbox, electronics and rear suspension package in the interim EJ15B chassis, prior to launching the MF1 Toyota M16 on 3rd February.
As is often the case in the UK, the team faced varying weather conditions. Tiago Monteiro recorded a best of 1:26.71s in dry conditions while Christijan Albers set a 1:26.71s on a wet track.
Add comment January 22nd, 2006
2006 is a big year for Jenson but no matter what the young Brit goes onto achieve, Murray Walker believes that, while he is a ‘nice bloke’, Button will never be able to rival British great, Nigel Mansell.
The veteran commentator says Button does have the potential to win races but 2006 will be the year when we see just how good he is.
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“Hopefully, this year, with all the backing Honda are putting into the team, he will have the car to win… provided he can beat his team-mate Barrichello this season.”
Button has been, and will forever be, compared with Mansell, and while Walker acknowledges that Button is extremely popular he doesn’t believe he will rival the great entertainer, and former World Champion, that is Mansell.
“But I don’t see Button replacing Mansell in the British’s public’s affections because of the sort of personality Nigel has,” he said.
“He’s a tremendous showman who knows the importance of the fans and does everything he can in the way of talking to them, autographs.”
Add comment January 22nd, 2006
Following on from the spectacular success of the inaugural Grand Prix Masters race in Kyalami (South Africa) just over eight weeks ago, the series organisers are today delighted to announce the 2006 race calendar. The series will kick-off at the Losail International Raceway Circuit in Qatar – the first time ever a racing car event has ever been held in the country! Hosting the Grand Prix Masters series alongside the state-of-the-art Losail circuit are a collection of motor racing’s more traditional and classic circuits including Monza (Italy), Silverstone (UK), Kyalami (South Africa) plus a fifth venue which will be announced very shortly.
Losail, (Qatar) 29th April
Monza, (Italy) 18th June
Silverstone, (UK) 13th August
To be announced, 1st October
Kyalami (South Africa) 12th November
From the official site
Add comment January 21st, 2006
Canadian website TSN is reporting that the Imola track may be modifed in time for the 2007 Forumula 1 season, including elimination of the Variante Bassa chicane.
The modifications are necessary in order to accomodate an updated pit paddock and facilities which the circuit needs in order to keep its spot on the Formula One calendar.
By straightening the chicane, drivers will now face a sweeping straightaway which will take them from the final turn at Rivazza right through to the Tamburello chicane.
The chicane was initially built following the tragic death of Ayrton Senna in 1994.
Add comment January 21st, 2006
Nico Rosberg topped the timesheets at Jerez in testing for WilliamsF1.
Just two teams were participating at the Jerez test, WilliamsF1 (with Nico Rosberg and Alexander Wurz) and Honda (Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello).
All four drivers were within .51 seconds of each other in a session shortened due to fog. Rosberg was fastest followed by Barrichello, Button and Wurz.
Complete statistics at pitpass.com
Add comment January 20th, 2006
F1Racing.net and F1Central are both reporting that Spa has been dropped from the calendar for the coming season. There is upgrade work that needs to be done on the paddock area (to make more space for the important people) and the track organisers say it can’t be done in time. So Bernie is refusing to hold the race this year, but it’ll return in 2007 when the work has been done.
A great pity if the race is ditched over something so petty, when it’s been held in the face of it’s many more serious problems.
Update: Pitpass.com says that these are only unconfirmed rumours, and the FIA knows nothing about it.
1 comment January 20th, 2006
From this thread :The New Wing - Linksheaven Forums
The question from pgale was “Is there a logical reason why the new wing can’t race in 07″
From Weltmeister
there are a lot of little things to iron out before just going into something this major, and on top of the structural analysis and even further aerodynamic testing, and on top of ironing out the loopholes in the rules which takes over a year of thought in it’s own right, there are a few other major things that also need to be dealt with and given consideration.
As far as the teams go, not all of them are 100% convinced that this is the way to go, and I think thier using the time factor as a bit of a playing card to get more data presented to them and make up thier minds about how they want to approach the situation. There needs to be more real world data outside of the simulations, to really prove this wing is the way to go and honestly improve things, too many times F1 has rushed into a knee jerk reaction to try and fix a problem, and with such a critical part of the car’s overall package being discussed here, it’s critical to make sure it’s safety, and also it’s performance are as developed and well thought out as possible before saying, yes this is what we need.
Numbers are all fine and good, but what they mean in the real world are sometimes two different things. When the FIA and thier partners and Bernie’s simulation gurus come up with ideas like this, and especially with this new wing, they use a stock FIA rules number value for thier data, which means they create a virtual car based on the regulations and what data they collect from thier own studies of thier build up test sleds, so the aerodynamic data they have and use to determine how well this wing works and what kind of initial side effects it has, its all based on a theoretical value.
Now what that means, is that in the people that created it’s minds, this thing is reasonably well hammered out, and could probably be more than ready to go by 2007 in that perfect world of a computational fluid dynamics system. However, we live in a real world, and serious issues may arise when the real variables come into play, and that is where the teams come in and need to evaluate the data for themselves, because the critical things, are finding out how well the wing works when a Ferrari follows a Mclaren, with thier each quite different aerodynamic systems and air flow across the back wing, or when a Renault goes into say the 130R curve and has a 35 kph sidewind fecking with the air flow on high loading, not what happens in thier perfect world variables with car B following Car A, and a 15 kph wind blowing straight and true across a wing that has not been bounced ever so lightly off a wall by JPM or Michael Schumacher 20 laps earlier in the race and is now suffering some structural damage.
These things are what take time, but they are also what is most important in a development stage and in finding out the true potential of a major new ruling. Launching things early may end up fine, but it only takes one mistake to cause untold havoc.
I think it also needs to be considered, that this season, the teams are dealing with some major changes on several fronts of the car, and even the new V8s will cause for different rear body work and probably a significant change to the air flow across the back half of the car especially. It would be wise to get some real world data on that for a season or so, and let the teams find thier way a bit before throwing in an even more major change, especially since we are not even sure this wing is gonna be the ticket just yet.
Add comment January 20th, 2006
From Bluenose on the thread Testing agreement close to collapse
Ferrari’s basis for ignoring the old testing agreement last year is no longer valid and yet they’re putting up new objections this year. It seems that Ferrari are simply uninterested in testing limits. If Ferrari were interested in testing limits, I can hardly believe an agreement wouldn’t be forthcoming.
That’s fine by me, but Ferrari should simply say as much.
I think engaging the other teams in (sham) discussions on limits serves as a way of Ferrari gaining an even greater advantage over its rivals, since the other teams may continue to obey the old agreement.
I have singled out Ferrari here based on the info Don provides from the autosport.com article, which suggests that Ferrari is the one hold out in the negotations.
Add comment January 19th, 2006
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