The cracks in the unity of the formula one teams association FOTA are continuing to show.
After talks broke down in Japan just over a week ago, the next round of meetings will take place in Abu Dhabi next month.

The main bone of contention is the cost-limiting resource restriction agreement, with some teams – but primarily Red Bull – suspected of swerving around the gentleman’s pact.

A recent audit by a company called Capgemini involved visits to the Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes, Sauber and Williams factories.

Auto Motor und Sport reports that after the visit to the unnamed ‘Team 4′, the auditors had to write the words “no information” in almost every column.

“The allegations will only stop when all the teams agree to any inspection,” Mercedes’ Ross Brawn is quoted as saying.

The concern is that FOTA will have to abandon the resource restriction agreement amid turbulent economic times, or even fold the Geneva-based organisation altogether.

Red Bull chiefs last week dismissed the allegations as “gamesmanship”.

“This year it has moved away from the car to the RRA (agreement) which gets a little bit boring after a while,” team boss Christian Horner is quoted by the Guardian.

“It is almost inevitable within the sport that there are those areas of gamesmanship.”

F1 teams will not police their rivals’ adherence to the August factory shutdown.
In the rare month-long gap between the Hungarian and Belgian grands prix, teams have agreed a mandatory two-week break period in which factories are strictly closed.

Staff are not even allowed to email one another, but Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn admitted that the shutdown is not really policed.

“We trust each other and are quite sure that everyone will abide by the agreements,” he is quoted by DPA news agency.

But Brazilian journalist Livio Oricchio said he doubts the agreement will be strictly adhered to, arguing that it would make “no sense” in the midst of a F1 season.

Red Bull designer Adrian Newey however said he intends to take a break.

“I think you have to be able to stop working and thinking, otherwise it would be completely all-consuming and probably not healthy,” he said.

Another journalist, Stefano Mancini, wrote in La Stampa newspaper that “nobody in his right mind” thinks the likes of Newey will really “turn off the light in his office and says to his staff ‘See you in fifteen days’.

“The factories will stop but the brains will not,” he added.

Brawn agreed: “We can’t escape from it completely because that’s our nature, but of course it’s better to be reflecting on the beach than in the office!”

The decision to tie-up with McLaren and enter a wind tunnel might have convinced Timo Glock to stay at Virgin in 2012.
The German driver has had a frustrating season and a half with the struggling 2010 start-up outfit, but Virgin recently split with designer Nick Wirth and ended the policy of building its cars exclusively with computer modelling.

Glock, 29, happily told Auto Motor und Sport that a scale model of the Virgin car will soon enter the McLaren wind tunnel.

He also said he will try McLaren’s state-of-the-art driver simulator “as soon as possible”.

Asked if the developments could affect his plans for 2012, Glock smiled: “It is quite possible.”

As for any hope of a dramatic improvement when the McLaren tunnel programme begins, he explained: “Unfortunately we have the two week summer break coming up, where the factories are closed.”

And Wirth’s scheduled Silverstone development has been called off.

“Maybe we’ll do something for Singapore,” said Glock. “This is still not decided.

“Only if we find something in the straight line testing or the wind tunnel that can be a big step forward without much effort, we will act now. Otherwise, I do not expect any big jumps (this year).

“Our direct competition, unfortunately, is already far ahead.”

The annual formula one calendar should be shifted in order to give team staff a more suitable period of holidays at year’s end.

That is the opinion of Otmar Szafnauer, chief operating officer at the independent Silverstone based team, Force India.

Traditionally, the F1 calendar kicks off in March, ending some time in November.

Szafnauer said that, as a consequence, team staff take an initial end-of-season break before the pressure ramps up around Christmas to prepare the following season’s car.

“If we started a month later and the season then finished a bit later, we (the season) would be finished for Christmas.

“We could then shut the factories so that everyone comes back in the new year at full speed,” Szafnauer explained to the Dutch language formule1.nl.

He said his proposal has been discussed within the FOTA group, but admitted he is not confident the shape of the calendar will change dramatically any time soon.

“It’s not going to happen from one day to the next, because of the contracts with many of the circuits,” added Szafnauer.

Formula one factories began to re-open this week after serving mandatory closures.

Within the one-month gap between the Hungarian and Belgian grands prix, teams agreed to close their doors for two full weeks as a cost-cutting measure.

The first teams to shut down at the stroke of midnight after the Hungaroring race were McLaren, Mercedes, Williams and Sauber, so those teams were eligible to re-open on Monday.

McLaren test driver Gary Paffett marked the end of the shutdown by working in the Woking based team’s simulator, and he will be back in action on Tuesday.

And Williams said the first tasks when its Grove headquarters got back up and running was stripping the Budapest-spec cars “in prep for Spa”.

Cosworth’s F1 division re-opens on Tuesday, and HRT on Wednesday.

Ferrari and Toro Rosso will remain closed until next Monday, and a day later Red Bull, Renault and Force India will re-open.

“We will be on holiday, but that does not mean our brains will stop working,” said Ferrari’s Stefano Domenicali recently.

“Maybe one can even find fresh inspiration when outside the normal working environment and I expect this time to be a fertile one for ideas, which when all is said and done, are what make the difference,” he added.

Formula one teams must close their factories for a mandatory two-week period between last Sunday’s Hungarian grand prix and the next race in Belgium.

The shutdown – commenced at the stroke of midnight after the Hungaroring race by McLaren, Mercedes, Williams and Sauber – is a cost-cutting measure agreed between the teams.

“It still seems odd to me to have a shutdown but it’s probably good for people,” said McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh.

It had been reported that Ferrari also closed its doors on Sunday, but the Maranello based outfit will in fact commence its shutdown next Sunday, as will F1′s other Italian team Toro Rosso.

Engine supplier Cosworth’s F1 unit closed on Tuesday.  “I think the staff all deserve a break,” said Mark Gallagher.

On Wednesday, HRT will begin its two week closed period, followed by Virgin on Saturday.

And on Monday, Red Bull, Renault and Force India will close their doors.

The competition between the development departments of the Grand Prix teams will be played with the same intensity as the position of duels on the track. Indeed, the pressure to succeed, under the working Formula 1 specialists in recent years grown more and more: Who wants to stay competitive and at the top, must evolve continuously. The cars are compared to the season opener in Bahrain has become consistently faster by about one second.

“The racing teams have realized that the incessant development is during the season just as important as the conceptual design of the next car,” said James Allison, Technical Director at Renault. “Today we hold for our R30 to each Grand Prix, a new package ready parts, whose size is roughly equivalent to those improvements we have introduced in the past, every third or fourth race.”
“We are there but no exception. Every team that wants to stay at the top, must rise to this challenge. This means for our colleagues in the workshops that they have to work so hard, and at such a high time pressure than ever before . The new front wing, which will celebrate its debut in Valencia, provides an ideal example of this: He is already the eighth variant, which comes this year for use – in the ninth race of the season! ”

But where does this escalation? A major factor provided by the new technical regulations, which came at the beginning of last year in force, so is still relatively young, always – and therefore much room for improvement, provides the enabling virtually every week important development steps. This applies in particular to the aerodynamics. Furthermore: Since modifications of the engine are not allowed to search for possibilities for improvement focused almost exclusively on the chassis of the cars.
“As further develop all vehicles on the grid with incredibly high speed, always, we need to bring any improvement found immediately able to use in order to remain competitive,” says Allison. “Previously, we have combined the optimization of a package, which is then flowed into a stage of evolution of the car. This we can not allow today. Each Grand Prix that you wait means lost performance.”

“The heavy workload meets each individual,” said Allison. “The workshop is constantly under the high pressure, constantly develop and produce new parts and need. We are therefore constantly faced with the difficult task of finding a healthy balance between major stages of development and reasonable workload.”

It seems almost an irony of fate that this once again increased rates of development associated with the prohibition of testing during the season goes. But while earlier, thousands of miles on the Grand Prix circuit in Barcelona have been scrubbed to run the team today in the central simulation computer at full speed to check for new parts and votes for their usefulness.
“Thanks to this advanced tools we can use the advantage that we bring some modifications on the track, set with an accuracy that is different from the real output by less than 0.5 percent,” said Allison. “For mechanical parts, we rely on computer simulations, whose results are then verified on test stands. With special durability testing arrangements, we can expose those individual components of loads and forces that occur in the context of a Grand Prix.”

Besides the incessant improvement of the current Grand Prix racer to run the latest from the beginning of summer and work on for next year seater. “We stand every time a difficult compromise on how much we already want to invest in the future without losing its competitiveness in the current season,” says Allison.

A written plea by McLaren did not convince the British team’s rivals that controversial ‘F-duct’ innovations should be allowed to stay in F1 in 2011.

During a team meeting last weekend in Barcelona, a majority of the bosses voted for a rule tweak that will outlaw the controversial downforce-stalling solutions for next year.

After McLaren invented the straightline speed boosting concept this season, teams including Sauber, Ferrari, Williams and Mercedes have experimented with their own versions.

It is also believed that Red Bull, Renault and Force India are working on the concept at their respective factories.

But Red Bull’s Christian Horner indicated that the vote against F-ducts for 2011 was influenced by the marginal safety of the systems seen in Spain last weekend.

Both the Sauber and Ferrari drivers were activating the airflow with one of their hands, often out of high speed corners like Barcelona’s turn 3, while simultaneously fidgeting with other controls including brake balance.

“It’s a clever piece of engineering and hats off to the guys who invented it, but some of the solutions this weekend look a little bit marginal when you see drivers driving with no hands basically,” Horner is quoted as saying by the BBC.

“So I think there is a safety issue and a cost issue to take into account,” he added.

(GMM)

Apr.19 (GMM) Bernie Ecclestone has dismissed claims that next month’s Spanish grand prix could be cancelled.

It was confirmed on Monday that this weekend’s Japanese round of the MotoGP series has been called off due to the travel disruptions caused by the volcanic ash above Europe.

And football games on Thursday between Atletico Madrid and Liverpool, and Hamburg and Fulham, could also be scratched, with UEFA to make a decision “in the coming days”.

Mercifully for F1, there is now a rare three-week break between Sunday’s Shanghai round and the opening of the European season in Spain.

But with the hundreds of tonnes of freight, including the cars, stranded at Shanghai airport – while F1′s six 747 jets are grounded in Europe – it is currently impossible to predict when the team factories will be reunited with their equipment.

“The main concern is getting the engines back because they have to be worked on,” F1 chief executive Ecclestone told the Times.

“But I am sure everything will be all right,” said the 79-year-old, who despite having a private plane in Shanghai is currently unable to return to Europe.

“We know there will be a Spanish grand prix, we just don’t know where yet,” he joked to another reporter in China, adding that his plan-B is “suicide”.

“There is no question of cancelling the Spanish grand prix,” he insisted. “Of course, it is causing everybody problems, but we will find a way to get everyone home.”

The movement of F1′s actual people is less problematic, albeit expensive: several teams – including Ferrari and McLaren – are organising private charters on Tuesday or Wednesday into Spain, where some major airports are still landing planes.

The personnel will then return to their respective team headquarters by bus.

Other F1 people have diverted to Dubai or even as far afield as the US, in the hope of finding another air route back to Europe.

As for the freight, the end of the air chaos could even be nigh, after British Airways, Air France and KLM tested planes in European skies without problems, and Niki Lauda’s airline conducted a test with an Airbus A320 from Vienna to Salzburg.

“The flight was the best ever, with blue skies. I don’t understand what all the fuss is about,” said the triple world champion.

(GMM) After finished last GP, Back at Maranello, Ferrari is hard at work to emulate the success of McLaren’s so-called ‘F-duct’ downforce-spoiling innovation.

On the British team’s 2010 car, the once-controversial solution – with the drivers controlling a flow of air through to the rear wing with their left knee – passed scrutineering at the Bahrain season opener.

At the next race in Melbourne, Sauber’s similar system made its first appearance, amid reports that Red Bull, Force India, Williams and Mercedes were also working on F-ducts at their respective factories.

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali said after Sunday’s Malaysian grand prix that Ferrari is also working on a version for the F10.

“We have seen that the advantage (of the system) is very, very big,” said the Italian, referring to the straightline speed advantage enjoyed by McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

“We will bring it to the races as soon as possible, once we are sure that it is 100 per cent,” added Domenicali.

With March’s season about to begin and the first official test of the year scheduled to start in just a week, the teams are locked up at the factories busily preparing their single-seated cars.

This week may be decisive and surely enough, the teams will begin to unveil their cars to their expectant audience.

After months of waiting, this is always an exciting moment and with four new motor-racing teams, great surprises are guaranteed.

First with Ferrari, which will show its single-seated on January 28^th, with pilots Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa; an appointment one must not miss.

The MP4 McLaren with 25 engine, that will be driven by the current World Champion, Jenson Button and the also British, Lewis Hamilton, will be launched next Friday(January 29th) at Vodafone in Newbury, the sponsor’s British headquarters.

On the other hand, BMW Sauber, Williams and Renault will introduce their single-seaters directly in the Valencia racetrack on January 31^st, one day previous to the year’s first official test.  By the way, they have both refused to take place in the traditional show in the factory.

Mercedes has been the first one to officially introduce its team, but with the Brawn GP painted with the colors they will be using this year.

Red Bull and Force India will present their single-seaters in the second official test of the year, at the Spanish circuit of Jerez in February 10th.  Likewise, Lotus will wait until that second test to launch its single-seated car.  Mike Gascoyne has revealed he plans to start out his car’s engine for the first time in February 5^th, before introducing it in February 12th.

The mystery comes from the other side of the “ocean”, from the new USA team.  USF1 has decided to break conventionalism and its car will make its debut on the Barber Motorsport Park’s tests in Alabama, at the beginning of February.

The thing that is worrying most is the lack of information concerning the newcomers: Virgin Racing and Campos Meta which have not specified any date.

Presentations of single-seated cars and teams

28 January – Ferrari, Maranello, Italy.

29 January – McLaren, Newbury, Great Britain.

31 January – BMW Sauber / Renault, Valencia, Spain.

1 February – Mercedes GP / Williams, Valencia, Spain

10 February – Red Bull / Force India, Jerez, Spain

Beginnings of February – Barber Motorsport Park, Alabama, USA.

12 February – Lotus