Lotus-Renault have shown their livery on last year's R30
Lotus-Renault have given the world an indication of the livery they will be using for the 2011 season, by applying it to last year’s Renault R30.
As we already know, it is mainly black and gold, based off the JPS Lotus livery from the 1970′s and 1980′s. However, this new livery features no sponsors on the main chassis of the car, instead moving the logos to the nosecone, turning vanes, and the rear wing.
How the livery would look without red endplates (copyright unknown)
It was launched earlier today at the Autosport International show, by Vitaly Petrov, Eric Boullier, Jean Alesi (the team’s new racing ambassador) and Clive Chapman, the son of the legendary Colin Chapman. The Chapman family have recently pushed their support behind the Lotus-Renault group, rather than Tony Fernandes’ outfit, despite the fact that the 2010 Lotus team own the rights to the Lotus name.
Personally, the idea of the livery is good, but unfortunately the Total colours on the endplates and mirrors completely ruin the design.
As we all know, this morning’s Japanese Grand Prix qualifying session did not go ahead, after torrential rain flooded the track and pit lane.
Even before qualifying, conditions were still torrential
With this in mind, I thought I’d put up a few pictures of Saturday in Suzuka, to have a look at what the teams and drivers got up to during the postponed session…
First of all, several teams, such as Red Bull, Sauber and Lotus decided to make boats and race them down the pit lane. Apparently Heikki Kovalainen stole a fire exit sign to use for his, but I can’t find any photos to prove it!
Red Bulls' attempt at boat racing down the pit lane
The best boat in the paddock in my opinion - the S.S Sauber
Meanwhile, Virgin decided they would use their slick tyres to good use – by using them as seats for a few rounds of poker:
Lucas di Grassi seems to have the edge over Timo Glock..
Sebastian Vettel borrowed one of Sutton Images’ SLR cameras, and apparently wasn’t too bad at it:
Sebastian Vettel tries his hand at photography
It might have been fun for them, but I’m just looking forward to the racing tomorrow. I’ll just leave you with a reminder that a wet pit lane is slippier than some would have thought…
As Rubens Barrichello stars his 300th Grand Prix this weekend, the Williams team decided to commemorate his achievement. At an event in Spa-Francorchamps today, he was presented with a medal from Bernie Ecclestone, a poster showing his years in Formula 1, and a specially made Williams bike.
He was later shown a video of his career to date, and burst into tears.
Here are just a few stats from his amazing career, starting way back in 1993:
To date, he has scored 637 Formula 1 points.
At the 1994 Belgian Grand Prix, he became the youngest ever pole position driver, at 22 years and 97 days.
Earlier that year, he had became the second youngest driver on the podium, at the Pacific Grand Prix, at 21 years and 329 days, only a week older than the former record holder, Bruce McLaren.
It took him 123 races to take his first victory, at Hockenheim in 2000. At that same race, he went to 3rd in the ranking of “Wins from farthest back on the grid”, as he started 18th.
In the 2004 season, he took 14 podiums out of 18 races. The only drivers who have ever beaten this are Michael Schumacher (2001,2002,2004), Fernando Alonso (2005) and Alain Prost (1988).
He has finished 134 races in the points, a record only beaten by Michael Schumacher.
He has led at least 1 lap of 51 different Grands Prix.
He currently holds the record for longest time between first and last podium positions. His first podium was in the 1994 Pacific GP, and his last (to date) was Italy last year.
Here are some photos from today’s event:
Rubens Barrichello receives a medal from Bernie Ecclestone
He later bursts into tears after watching a video of his career
Yesterday Nick Heidfeld began a 4-day test at the Mugello circuit to test out the Pirelli tyres that they will be using for the 2011 Formula 1 season. He was driving a Toyota TF109, which had been painted all-white, seeing as Toyota don’t seem to own the car any more.
If it wasn’t for a fault with the blog, I would have been the first blog or website to have it up. Here are the first pictures of the test at Mugello:
Nick Heidfeld testing Pirelli F1 tyres in a Toyota TF109
Nick Heidfeld testing Pirelli F1 tyres in a Toyota TF109
Nick Heidfeld testing Pirelli F1 tyres in a Toyota TF109
Nick Heidfeld testing Pirelli F1 tyres in a Toyota TF109
Nick Heidfeld testing Pirelli F1 tyres in a Toyota TF109
Red Bull, especially Sebastian Vettel, completely stamped their authority on the rest of the field today. Here are the pictures from Friday Practice 1 and 2:
Normally I would just embed it on here, but WordPress won’t allow Flickr embeds, so unfortunately for today I had to settle for this, after many hours of trying to get it to work. Apologies for the inconvenience, this will be sorted out for tomorrow.
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