McLaren looks set to run a higher nose this weekend in Spain.

Last week, at the very end of the Mugello test, test driver Oliver Turvey debuted a new front wing that featured a conspicuously higher nose tip.

McLaren, the early 2012 frontrunner but having struggled recently in Bahrain, was the only notable team this year to ignore the new design trend for ugly ‘stepped’ front noses, introduced as arguably the best solution to new nose-height safety regulations.

The MP4-27′s new nose does not feature a step element, but the tip is notably higher than its predecessor.

“Nowadays it is quite a critical part of the car, you’re looking to find very small improvements,” team boss Martin Whitmarsh said on Wednesday.

As for whether the new nose will be seen in Barcelona, he confirmed: “You may well see it again, yes.

“There’s a reasonable chance you’ll see it on Sunday.”

 Toro Rosso has told its new drivers to push hard rather than fear a crash, Daniel Ricciardo revealed ahead of his first home grand prix in Australia.
The Red Bull rookie team has replaced Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi with Australian Ricciardo and newcomer Jean-Eric Vergne.

They are lined up as potential replacements for senior team Red Bull’s Mark Webber in 2013, but at the same time must fear succumbing to the same fate as their instantly-axed predecessors.

“We’re going to be on the edge,” Ricciardo insisted in Melbourne.

“They (his bosses) have said ‘if you make a mistake, it happens. At least we know you’re pushing it’.

“Obviously we’re not going out there trying to crash the car, but sometimes a team needs to see you go off – whether it’s a crash or you run across the grass – to know that you’re trying to find that limit.

“I’m not going to hold back,” he promised.

When ruling out Lewis Hamilton for Webber’s seat earlier this week, Christian Horner said Red Bull was more likely to look “inwardly than outwardly” should the team need to find a new teammate for Sebastian Vettel.

At the same time, Ricciardo feels the pressure to keep his place at Toro Rosso.

“It could be my one and only (year) if it’s not good enough so I’ve definitely got to step up and do as good as I can,” he said.

Marussia Racing’s new MR01 finally made its first on-track appearance during a promotional ‘filming’ day at Silverstone, just a few miles from is Banbury base.

The Anglo-Russian team endured a torrid time in its attempts to get the car ready for the third and final group test at Barcelona last week, having skipped the opening session in Jerez to prepare the MR01 for early March, only to fail the mandatory FIA crash tests. Although both Timo Glock and rookie Charles Pic got some miles under their belts in Barcelona last month, it was at the wheel of the 2011-spec car, leaving them preciously short of time in the new machine ahead of its race debut in Melbourne next weekend.

The Silverstone shakedown, part of a promotional event ahead of the car’s departure for the Australian Grand Prix, will provide both team and driver with vital information on the new machine, which has been conceived after a ground-up re-evaluation of the way Marussia designs its racing cars. As such, the car is almost entirely new, with very few carry-over components from last year’s Marussia Virgin MVR-02.

The desire to make a clean break from the previous CFD-only creations presented the design team, led by technical consultant Pat Symonds, with the challenge of going back to basics to produce a solid mechanical package, whilst maintaining an eye towards achieving the incremental performance steps required to move the team forward.

The starting point for the design programme was a consideration of the people and resources available to the Banbury-based team. The former three-base operation has been consolidated into one site, the Marussia Technical Centre in Banbury, bringing the various elements of the business together to form ‘one team’. In particular, the design department and practices now benefit from far greater integration and collaboration. Furthermore, the aerodynamic department has been completely restructured and the aero methodology reinforced, blurring the boundaries between CFD and experimental work in the wind tunnel, as well as enhancing the fidelity of the team’s aero approach.

The technical partnership forged with McLaren Applied Technologies in July of last year has also been influential in the design process and the relationship is starting to yield benefit as the advanced facilities that the Marussia team has access to have been used to prove the correlation process with the MVR-02. It is however early in the relationship and the MR01 will become a beneficiary of the relationship in due course.

The key design priorities were to address previous aerodynamic deficiencies and, mechanically, achieve greater weight saving. At the same time, a lot of the detail of the car has been refined and the design team have been a little more adventurous than before, stepping closer to the engineering boundaries. The car can best be described as a significant evolution of its predecessors. The relationship with McLaren is also evident, as the MR01 is only the second car launched this season, after the Woking giant’s MP4-27, to eschew the stepped nose concept favoured by the rest of the field.

“We are very pleased to be running the new MR01 for the first time this morning,” team principal John Booth admitted, “It has been a long and frustrating wait for everyone in the team, but we can now get back on track – literally – and start working towards the first race of the season in Australia next weekend.

“Today is the first of two promotional events, so while the drivers will be able to get a feel for the car, they won’t be able to draw any real conclusions until we start running in anger in Melbourne. Nevertheless, this is an important day for us and we’ll enjoy every minute on track with the new car.”

Glock turned the first laps with the MR01, beginning his third season with the team and providing the all-important element of continuity required to keep moving the package forward. He is joined in 2012 by Frenchman Pic, who embarks on his rookie year in F1, having made the step up from GP2 to replace Belgium’s Jerome d’Ambrosio. Both drivers will get track time with the new car over the next two days, albeit running on demonstration tyres as opposed to the Pirelli P-Zeros that they will use once competition starts in Melbourne.

 The recently revealed ‘W-duct’ aside, another technical secret has been discovered aboard Mercedes’ newly launched W03.
Rumours insist the German squad was the last to reveal and test its 2012 car because it boasts a few highly innovative ideas that could drive Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg to the middle of the podium.

Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport reports that mechanics working for the Brackley based team are making more efforts than usual to hide the front and rear of the car, and erecting huge screens in front of the pits between test runs in Barcelona.

But a big secret is now out of the bag, and it’s located beneath the rear rain light and being described by insiders as “like a double diffuser”.

Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport said the feature is believed to produce an effect similar to the one pioneered by Mercedes’ predecessor Brawn GP in 2009, which resulted in the championship for Jenson Button.

And according to Auto Motor und Sport, the concept differs to the banned double diffuser because the air is channelled through holes at the rear of the engine cover.

The concept, despite complying with the FIA’s blown diffuser clampdown, also reportedly involves the clever redirection of exhaust gases.

And yet another innovation on the Mercedes could be a passive ‘F-duct’-style addition to the car’s new rear wing, working alongside the ‘DRS’ system.

When asked about the ‘ducts’, Rosberg and Schumacher played it coy: “What’s that?” Rosberg answered, while Schumacher joked that it sounds like something that should go “quack!”

“They are a good team,” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner told Sky when asked about Mercedes.

“They have some good people so it would be foolish to underestimate them.”

Meanwhile, TZ newspaper in Germany reports that the FIA could be set to clamp down even harder in the area of exhaust blowing.

There are rumours Renault and Mercedes-powered teams are still using clever engine mapping techniques for aerodynamic effect.

Jarno Trulli has revealed he was offered a seat at Ferrari some years ago.
After fifteen consecutive seasons in formula one, the 37-year-old Italian has lost his Caterham race seat to the well-backed Russian Vitaly Petrov.

2004 Monaco grand prix winner Trulli, 37, drove since 1997 for Minardi, Prost, Jordan, Renault and Caterham’s former guise Lotus.

Writing in his New York Times blog, correspondent Brad Spurgeon said Trulli was made the Ferrari offer while he was racing for Toyota between 2005 and 2009.

Trulli reportedly told Italy’s Autosprint magazine that Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali’s predecessor, the now FIA president Jean Todt, made him the offer.

“Nobody knows this, but at this point I think I can publicly thank Jean Todt for having been one of the few top team managers to consider me during my career,” he said.

“I won’t tell you when exactly — I was racing for Toyota and I was doing very well. But I had signed a rather long contract with the Japanese, and in my career I’ve always honoured my commitments.

“In 15 years of F1 I’ve never needed lawyers,” added Trulli.

Trulli left Renault for Toyota at the end of the 2004 season, driving for the carmaker until it pulled out of formula one at the end of 2009.

Rubens Barrichello left Ferrari at the end of 2005, replaced by Felipe Massa. Michael Schumacher retired a year later, replaced by Kimi Raikkonen.

At Ferrari, Frenchman Todt handed over to Domenicali at the end of 2007.

Red Bull’s 2012 car will once again be an evolution of its successful predecessor, designer Adrian Newey revealed on Friday.
It was reported this week that, with Ferrari taking a radical approach to its new car, Newey’s RB8 would also surprise the paddock when it is launched early next year.

Newey confirmed to reporters in Japan that, despite Sebastian Vettel’s dominance with the 2011 car, his technical team has pushed hard with its successor.

“Our approach is certainly not complacency, so we’re not thinking ‘We don’t have to do anything, we’ll still be quick enough next year’. That would be enormous folly.”

A fundamental change for 2012 is the banning of the exhaust blown diffusers, but otherwise the rules are staying fairly stable.

“So, in that sense, the car will be an evolution, it will bear a family resemblance to the RB5, RB6, RB7 lineage. It’s just a matter of pushing on, as always,” said Newey.

Rumours about the health of the team currently known as Renault refused to disappear at Silverstone.
Boss Eric Boullier recently dismissed the rumours, hinting that they were triggered mischievously at Monaco by his predecessor Flavio Briatore.

But six weeks later, there was once again similar talk in the paddock of the British grand prix, not long after Williams was announced as engine supplier Renault Sport’s newest partner team for 2012 and beyond.

Apart from the continuing naming connection, a customer engine contract and their historical links, the French marque is no longer involved with the Lotus-sponsored Renault team.

And Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport reports that the team might even be powered by Cosworth engines next year.

“This is fiercely denied by those in charge,” the magazine acknowledged.

However, the Williams situation is perhaps relevant, particularly with the fanfare of the Renault engine announcement involving former works champions Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve at the team’s Grove headquarters last week.

As for Lotus Renault, “poor results and apparently still pending payments for the engines do not make things any better”, Auto Motor und Sport added.

Eric Boullier has hit back at reports the Renault team is not in good financial health.
The rumours began to emerge during the Monaco grand prix weekend, with team boss Boullier suspecting they might have been maliciously spread by his predecessor Flavio Briatore who was conspicuously present in the Principality.

Some media sources claim that Frenchman Boullier is so unhappy about the possibility Briatore could be behind the rumours, including reports of alleged debts to team engine supplier Renault, that he is considering defamation action against the flamboyant Italian.

“The future is very clear and bright,” Boullier insisted to BBC Radio Oxford.

“We have solid sponsors, we have solid owners with a good financial background, we have some good plans.”

As for the source of the rumours, he said: “I understand there is some jealousy around in the paddock and some people who want to tease us.

“Affecting the morale of the people obviously was their target which was a bit naughty.”

Pedro de la Rosa’s last-minute Sauber race drive in Canada raised more than one set of eyebrows.
The team’s official reserve driver Esteban Gutierrez was in Mexico when his countryman Sergio Perez reported ill in Montreal, disapprovingly revealing that he followed the saga of de la Rosa’s move from McLaren on Twitter.

But another driver wondering why he wasn’t given the call was Nico Hulkenberg, the highly rated Force India reserve who lost his Williams seat for 2011 to Pastor Maldonado.

“Did Herr Sauber not have my phone number?” the German is quoted as saying by Swiss newspaper Blick.

Auto Motor und Sport, however, claims that Hulkenberg is too tall for the C30 cockpit, while de la Rosa was an obvious choice because Sauber still has his seat mould.

Agrees Hulkenberg: “You don’t just jump into a formula one car these days and drive it.”

Peter Sauber confirmed: “He (Hulkenberg) is too tall for our car. He is also employed by our direct competition. Between us and Pedro’s McLaren, on the other hand, there is no conflict of interest.”

And de la Rosa, 40, is familiar with Sauber, having raced the C30′s predecessor for much of 2010.

“It’s a totally different car, but it speaks a similar language,” agreed Sauber.

Even so, the Perez substitution came as a complete surprise to de la Rosa.

“I was just finishing lunch with ten minutes until practice and they told me to get in the car,” he revealed to El Pais newspaper.

“I ran to get my gear and helmet and got in the car and they tried to adjust my seat. They also tried to move the pedals but couldn’t.

“I feel bad for Sergio but this is a gift that I will enjoy,” he insisted.

Boss Sauber admitted that he was grateful Perez alerted the team about his sickness rather than risk his safety by trying to drive through it.

“It’s one thing to train, exercise or drive a kart and quite another to drive in formula one,” said Perez’s assistant Sallares Jaume.

“It shows his maturity. It’s not just about him but also about the danger of injuring someone else,” he added.

The Force India VJM04 is the first car created by the team under its new technical director Andrew Green, who exactly 20 years ago was one of the men behind the original Jordan 191.

Green and rest of the Silverstone-based teamForce India on Tuesday brought up by the rear by becoming the last formula one team to reveal its 2011 car.

After some website glitches, the VJM04 was launched online by the Silverstone based team.

“Everything is different, but visually a lot of it is subtle,” insisted the team’s new technical director Andy Green.

The most obvious change to the car compared with its predecessor is the switch from a conventional roll-hoop to a Team Lotus-style ‘blade’ solution.

“But there are a lot of (other) differences under the skin that people won’t necessarily notice,” added Green.

The Mercedes-powered car will debut at Jerez on Thursday.

faced major challenges created by the changes in the 2011 FIA Technical Regulations, with a cut in downforce and the movable rear wing chief among them. In addition Pirelli has become the new tyre supplier, and the teams have agreed to allow the use of KERS again. The result is a car that is very different from its predecessor.

‘Everything is different, but visually a lot of it is subtle,’ says Green, who re-joined the team in July 2010. ‘The most obvious visual change is that we’ve gone away from a conventional roll-hoop to a blade. This gives us a small packaging improvement compared to a more conventional style. The engine cover is different, in-line with the abolition of the F-duct system. But there are a lot of differences under the skin that people won’t necessarily notice.’
Force India VJM04

The ban on double diffusers and other changes in the rules created a drastic cut in downforce at the rear of the car. Getting it back has been one of the major challenges of the winter.

‘We’ve recovered a lot of the aerodynamic performance, we believe. We still have a little bit to go, but we are still in the process of the realignment after the end of last season, because it does take a long time to move aerodynamically from one position to another. The movable wing is a whole new game, and we’ll be trying to exploit its performance to the max.

‘We’ve also put in a lot of work trying to maximise the potential performance of the new Pirelli tyre compounds. To this end we’ve recruited a new senior tyre engineer, Jun Matsusaki, to guide us through the development process. The test we recently conducted in Valencia was a good learning exercise.

‘Exhaust management will also be a big area of development this year. There will be an upgrade for the first race, so there are some changes that will come into effect at the Bahrain test. Further down the line there are some big updates for the front of the car coming in for the first European race.’
Force India VJM04

Significantly the team has done far more than simply address the new rules. It has also gone back to basics by taking a close look at the fundamentals of last year’s package, and attempted to address key areas of concern.

‘Towards the end of last season there was a drop-off in our relative performance,’ says Green. ‘In theory we were adding performance to the car, but it wasn’t getting translated to the track. We decided to have a very close look at what was happening on the car, and what could be causing this. The bottom line is we didn’t extract the most from the blown diffuser, thus over the winter we’ve taken a reasonable philosophy chance on the aerodynamics of the car in order to try and prevent the sort of drop-off in performance that we saw at the end of last year.’

In addition the team has focussed on improving its performance in high downforce spec.

‘Looking back over the years the cars we have produced here have always struggled at the high downforce tracks – they always been ‘slippery’ cars. We’ve identified a problem, and now we have to fix it, and it means that potentially there’s another strategic aero change coming as well.’

Underlining the team’s renewed focus on aerodynamic development, there will extra emphasis on gathering data on the Fridays of race weekends.

‘We are going to be using the real car at the track as a validation tool for the aerodynamics, which is something that we haven’t done effectively before. There’s a lot more focus on what’s actually happening on the car aerodynamically. To measure it at the fidelity that we need to measure it at is a huge task.

‘We understand how important it is, and we’re in that game now as well. That will start to feed back into the aerodynamic development of the car. When we get positive results it backs up our development tools, and when we don’t, we’ll investigate why. Fridays will be a lot more about understanding the car we have as well as understanding the track at the time and the tyres you’re running.’

The change requires more accurate sensors and different procedures for gathering data, better analysis tools, and dedicated people at the trackside focussing on the aerodynamic performance.

Force India is not entirely new to KERS. The 2009 car was designed to utilise the Mercedes system and the team ran it in testing, although it was never raced.

‘The Mercedes KERS system looks very strong, and we’re really happy with it. We’ve done a lot of running in the simulator, so the drivers are well up to speed with how to use it. We’re well developed with what we have to do for harvesting and deployment. It’s smaller and lighter than in 2009, and packaging required very few vehicle compromises.’

Summing up, Green says the intention is to build momentum over the course of the year as developments come on stream, and the aero work pays dividends.

‘There are some big developments in the pipeline, probably bigger than this team has seen for quite a while. I think we’re looking for a much stronger finish to the season, and we do recognise the fact that there’s an Indian GP on the calendar, and we are an Indian team. The plan is to be putting stronger performance on the car through the year that will lift us up the ranks.’

Team Lotus will have its 2011 car at the opening test in Valencia but is not planning a traditional “launch”, a spokesperson said on Monday.
After a visit to the team’s Hingham (UK) headquarters last week, owner and boss Tony Fernandes said the new car “is looking great” and “much slicker” than its predecessor but warned that Lotus “won’t do (a) conventional launch”.

But a spokesman clarified to Dutch website f1today.nl that, as per the plans of many rival teams, Team Lotus will be giving the new car its debut at Valencia early next month.

“We will present the car there,” he said, referring to the permanent Ricardo Tormo circuit in Cheste, on the outskirts of the Spanish port city.

Meanwhile, after an HRT spokeswoman confirmed that the Spanish team elected to leave FOTA due to “politics”, Fernandes said on his Twitter account on Monday that Team Lotus will not be following suit.

“We think Fota is very good and very important,” he said.

Nick Heidfeld on Monday said he is losing out on the straights compared with his teammate Kamui Kobayashi.

The pair are driving identical Sauber cars, but the speed traps usually show Japanese Kobayashi with better ultimate speed in a straight line.

Heidfeld, 33, joined the Swiss team after serving test driving roles with Mercedes and Pirelli this year, and he is currently on the lookout for a full-time job for 2011.

In his three races alongside rookie Kobayashi so far, the German has been out-qualified two times, and is yet to finish a race higher than the Japanese.

Heidfeld said on his official website nickheidfeld.com that his speed deficit compared with Kobayashi is due to his “engine situation”.

He took over ousted predecessor Pedro de la Rosa’s allocation of eight engines for 2010, after the Spaniard suffered several problems with his Ferrari units.

“Therefore the remaining engines have to cover a lot of extra miles,” said Heidfeld.

“This unfortunately leads to an engine power loss due to having ‘older’ engines, which is the reason for losing out on acceleration and top speeds,” he added.

Bernie Ecclestone and Jean Todt met in Korea last weekend and, according to a German report, “smoked the peace pipe”.

There had been speculation that F1 chief executive Ecclestone was supporting a possible power coup organised by Todt’s predecessor as FIA president, Max Mosley.

But Frenchman Todt and Ecclestone had a “long conversation” at the Yeongam circuit, Auto Motor und Sport reports.

“We want to work well together into the future,” Ecclestone, who turns 80 on Thursday, is quoted as saying afterwards.

Todt, meanwhile, said the rumours about the coup had been exaggerated.

“This season has shown that I am interfering as little as possible,” he said. “And If Mosley offers me his advice, this will also be welcome.”

The design of Mercedes’ 2011 car is already in the wind tunnel and “more innovative” that its disappointing predecessor.

That is the claim of the German marque’s Norbert Haug, one day after team boss Ross Brawn admitted the W01 was designed too conservatively amid Brawn GP’s 2009 title challenge.

“The prototype of the new car is in the wind tunnel,” Haug told Bild am Sonntag newspaper. “It will be more innovative, the result of taking more risks.

“The development of the current car is finished, so our engineers have more time to perhaps pursue some ideas that initially might seen outlandish.

“At the same time, our competitors are designing their new cars for 2011 whilst still fighting hard for this world championship,” added Haug.

In the same interview, the German also scotched reports he is at loggerheads with Brawn.

Working in the same office as his British colleague in the team’s offices at Yeongam, Haug insisted: “Does it look as though we cannot work with one another?”

However, much more pressing is the speculation that – at the end of another disappointing season next year – the team’s parent Daimler might pull the plug.

“Absolutely not,” Haug insists. “We certainly do not intend to be in the midfield, but no one at Mercedes is talking about quitting.”

Two German drivers on Thursday rued a lack of sponsorship that is hurting their chances of being on the formula one grid in 2011.

Although both highly regarded, Nick Heidfeld and Nico Hulkenberg are both struggling to stay as race drivers for next season.

At Sauber, Heidfeld’s seat for 2011 has already been taken for 2011 by the Telmex-backed rookie Sergio Perez, while it is believed Williams is close to securing the Venezuelan dollars brought by new GP2 champion Pastor Maldonado.

The latter transaction would see Hulkenberg looking for a job.

“For me what counts is talent, I hope it’s (that way) for the team too,” he said in Korea.

“If it really is going to end, that would be very disappointing,” Hulkenberg is quoted by the SID news agency.

Heidfeld’s predecessor at Sauber, Pedro de la Rosa, said this week that he “absolutely” would still be in the C29 if he was heavily backed.

“Unfortunately at the moment in F1,” Heidfeld said on Thursday, “it’s not solely about how you drive the car and what you can bring in terms of talent, speed and engineering skills.

“I don’t have backing like some others,” he lamented.