Nascar; The Best Weekend Of Your Life!
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Valencia
On a cold January morning in Valencia it was hard for Red Bull to bask in their glories of last season's double championship success as they unveiled their 2011 challenger.
World champion Sebastian Vettel wisely wore a woolly hat and a blond beard as he and team-mate Mark Webber shiveringly unsheathed the RB7.
There was even an early attempt to burst Red Bull's bubble when a plucky journalist asked in the team's first media conference of the new season, "Have you thought that this car could be complete junk?"
Webber stared into the middle distance, designer Adrian Newey fashioned a face of indifference and it was left to Vettel to answer in shock, "No!"
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By the end of the first day, Vettel had emphatically answered the question on the track by holding sway at the top of the timesheets.
The world champion was more than 0.7 seconds ahead of the next 2011 car, which happened to belong to the man he beat to the 2010 crown, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.
Times don't count for much on the first day of winter testing as the teams are furiously tinkering with the cars, running with unknown amounts of fuel on board and learning how to adapt to the Pirelli tyres, which will be used instead of Bridgestone this season.
But Vettel's marker was undeniably a statement of intent - Red Bull are out to defend both titles.
"It's a good sign," Vettel commented after his first day back in the cockpit. "Generally it's better to be on top of the ranking than being at the other end.
"What we achieved [in 2010] made us all very proud and no-one can take it away from us.
"But we have to develop on how good we were last year or the others will pass us. We have to stay focused, keep learning and keep trying to get better. If we just have the same approach as last year then we won't move forward."
Red Bull were cagey about the specific design changes and upgrades to the 2011 car.
Perhaps you cannot blame them when some of the other teams were hovering amid the media throng at the Red Bull launch trying to get a glimpse of Newey's latest creation. One rival team representative was even spotted unsubtly snapping away with a long-range zoom lens.
Red Bull simply say that the car is an evolution of its 2010 championship-winning vehicle and that a lot of the changes are "beneath the skin".
The principal tasks for all teams is in incorporating 2011's regulation changes which include the addition of a movable rear wing to aid overtaking, the return of 2009's Kers energy recovery and power boost system and the removal of the double diffuser, as well as gaining an understanding of the new Pirelli tyres.
Unlike last season, when they skipped the first test to spend more time honing the car at their Milton Keynes factory, Red Bull arrived at the opening test determined to take full advantage of the 15 days of testing before the first race of the season next month.
"We felt that the car was ready to be released," explained Newey. "It's always a balance of research time versus development time in terms of performance and reliability. I was keen to get the car out for the first test.
"It's difficult to design the car for the Pirelli tyres. Packaging for Kers is a challenge and no doubt McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes will have Kers and will be competitive and so for no other reason we need to get it to work for performance off the line.
"In terms of performance we are all struggling to recover the downforce we lost through the double diffuser.
"It is a period of nervousness for us but also a period of excitement."
While Newey grapples with the nuances of designing another peerless car, team boss Christian Horner is tasked with avoiding a repeat of the tensions within his team that threatened to derail last season's championships.
Friction between Vettel and Webber memorably spilled over onto the track at the Turkish Grand Prix when Vettel crashed out in an attempt to pass his team-mate for the lead.
"They'll push each other hard but I don't think they'll push each other too hard as they did in Istanbul," Horner commented.
"They have number one and number two on their cars but that is in many ways irrelevant. We give both drivers equal priority and that's the way we will treat them in 2011."
In their first appearance ahead of the new season, Red Bull presented a united front as a team hungry for more success. With the world champion leading the field, the fastest car on the track and the largest motorhome in the paddock, they already look every inch like being the team to beat when racing resumes next month in Bahrain.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sarahholt/2011/02/champions_red_bull_the_centre.html
The first race of the 2011 season is still two months away, but the fight for a competitive advantage in Formula 1 is still raging away behind the scenes.
As their engineers put the finishing touches to their new cars in time for the start of pre-season testing next month, team bosses are trying to thrash out a new cost-saving agreement. And it's getting a bit nasty.
Rivals - almost without exception, I'm told - believe Red Bull exceeded en route to winning the world title last year the limitations laid out in the document that defines how teams commit their budgets. They also claim that Red Bull are blocking a new version of the so-called Resource Restriction Agreement to take the sport through to 2017, where the current one runs only to 2012.
One insider at a rival team said Red Bull had been "flouting" the RRA. This is quite a serious accusation, as it effectively claims Red Bull either spent longer developing the aerodynamics of their car, employed more staff, or spent more money - or all three - than they were allowed to. In other words, they had an unfair advantage.
Red Bull deny outright that they overspent in 2010, and insist they are objecting to the revised agreement only because it is flawed in its current form and they want to ensure it is "fair and equitable". More of which in a moment.
"We've worked in accordance with the RRA limits since they were introduced," Red Bull team principal Christian Horner told BBC Sport. "With tremendous hard work and internal efficiencies, we believe we've absolutely adhered to it.
"Red Bull has committed its budgets wisely and it's obviously surprising that people will feel that way, but it's inevitable, I guess, when you're at the front and winning races."
No one will go on the record to confirm their suspicions about Red Bull, but Virgin Racing chief executive officer Graeme Lowdon, while making it clear he does not know about Red Bull's budget, says: "On something as fundamental as this, on something that's there to make the whole business you're in sustainable, if someone was to even breach the spirit of that, then that's extremely disappointing.
"I cannot see how anyone can level a criticism at an RRA. If it made a worse show, or watered it down, then there would be a case to answer. But it doesn't so it's very disappointing if teams ignore something as fundamental as this."
In many ways, this financial dispute echoes the technical rows that enveloped Red Bull in 2010.
Unable to explain or understand how the RB6 car was so fast, rivals first accused Red Bull of having an illegal ride-height control system, and then of an overly flexible front wing. Red Bull insisted the car was completely legal, and the FIA, F1's governing body, never found otherwise.

Horner finds Red Bull in the middle of another controversy about 2010. Photo: Getty
"We expect other teams to potentially challenge [whether we have over-spent]," Horner says, "as they have done on front wings and ride heights and everything else in the course of last year. But we don't have any issue.
"Red Bull probably has the third or fourth biggest budget in F1. We spent prudently and have achieved great efficiency within the factory, and we have to top that in 2011."
This row has come up in the context of negotiations over revising ways of controlling F1's costs. Keeping a lid on budgets is, along with ensuring the racing remains as good as possible, one of the central themes for F1 stake-holders at the moment, as the sport's bosses seek to ensure it remains both compelling for its audience and affordable for its competitors in a difficult economic climate.
The RRA is the document the teams drew up in 2009 to control costs in F1. It defines a series of limitations on resources, getting stricter through 2010, 2011 and 2012, and the penalties for exceeding them. But it was always meant as a stepping-stone to a longer agreement.In the current agreement, there is a sliding scale of penalties covering the following main areas of resource commitment:
The penalties were based on a sliding scale. For example, a breach of up to 5% is punished by having that same amount taken off your resource allocation for the next year; a breach of 5-10% means having 1.1 times that amount taken off; and so on.
The new document - the fundamentals of which were largely agreed at a meeting at the Singapore Grand Prix last September - changes that.
One team principal, who did not wish to be identified, said that the new RRA relaxes the restrictions on resources - teams can spend a bit more money and employ a few more staff - and in return the policing is stricter, both in terms of how teams' spending is analysed and the penalties for exceeding the limits.
But the detail is proving problematic, with Red Bull in particular unhappy about the new document as it stands.
Horner says his objections are rooted in ensuring the new RRA, which would run until 2017, does what it is intended to do.
"The RRA is a positive thing for F1," he says. "I think a solution can be found for the outstanding issues, it just needs some sensible discussion between the teams, because the thought of an unrestricted spend in F1 is unpalatable for all the teams.
"So it is a matter of achieving transparency and a fair and equitable system between all independent and manufacturer-owned teams so that no party is at an advantage or disadvantage."
"The resource restriction needs to be sorted quite quickly because at the moment it is unclear what rules we are working to in 2011 in many respects, so it's important a solution is found and I think one will be found."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/01/f1_teams_battle_over_cost-cutt.html
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I'll make this as simple as possible.
There will be two teams bearing the Lotus name in Formula 1 next year.
One, following Wednesday's announcement of Lotus Cars' decision to sponsor and eventually buy into what was the Renault team, will be called Lotus Renault. That team will be part-owned by Lotus Cars but their F1 cars will be called Renaults and will use Renault engines.
The other will be called Team Lotus. This one has nothing to do with Lotus Cars (any more - but we'll come back to that in a moment) but their F1 car will be called a Lotus. They will also use, er, Renault engines.
Both teams, it transpires, plan to run their cars in variations of a black and gold livery. This is an attempt to hark back to the historic John Player Special livery made famous by the original Team Lotus in the 1970s and 1980s through great drivers such as Emerson Fittipaldi, Mario Andretti, Ronnie Peterson, Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna, and era-defining cars like the Lotus 72 and 79.
It's a commentator's - and journalist's - nightmare and one can only begin to imagine the confusion it will create for those watching.
So what on earth is going on?
The story starts in 2009, when Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes obtained a multi-year licence from Lotus Cars to use the Lotus name in F1, having persuaded the Malaysian-owned company that an involvement in grand prix racing would be a valuable promotional tool.
Lotus Racing were one of three new teams in F1 in 2010, the others being Virgin and Hispania. All three spent the year close to the back of the grid, but Lotus did establish themselves as convincingly the most competitive.
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In the course of the year, though, Group Lotus's approach to F1 changed, as part of a hugely ambitious refocusing of the company's future plans by chief executive officer Dany Bahar, who formerly worked in the commercial arms of Red Bull F1 and Ferrari.
Bahar, it transpires, was never keen on Lotus granting the licence to Fernandes, and it has become clear through 2010 why - he wanted to take the brand into F1 himself, but in a different way, through an involvement with an established team.
At the Paris Motor Show in October, Bahar announced plans for five new road-car models, expanding Lotus's range by nearly 200%, and has since said Lotus will enter IndyCar racing in the US and race at Le Mans. And now comes a major sponsorship deal with what used to be the Renault F1 team which will, at an undefined point in the future, morph into Lotus part-owning that team.
Fernandes, meanwhile, struck a deal in September to buy the rights to the Team Lotus name from David Hunt, brother of 1976 world champion James. Hunt had bought them when the original Team Lotus collapsed in 1994 after racing in F1 since 1958, during which time it had established itself as one of the sport's most iconic names.
Fernandes' success in buying the name - exclusively revealed by BBC Sport - marked the point at which what had until then been a private dispute between him and Lotus Cars - which is owned by the Malaysian company Proton - broke out into the open.
Following Fernandes's acquisition of the Team Lotus name, Group Lotus claimed that it owned all the rights to the Lotus name - a point of view robustly disputed by Hunt, who points out that Proton have several times tried to buy the Team Lotus name from him without ever being able to conclude a deal.
The dispute got so heated that former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahatir bin Mohamad stepped in to mediate, but he succeeded only in stopping the ping-pong of press releases. The dispute is now going to the High Court - and it is unlikely to be resolved until next year.

Bahar (left) launches a new Lotus car with the help of actress Sharon Stone. Photo: Getty
But the disagreement over the ownership of Team Lotus is only one of two ongoing legal cases between Lotus Cars and Fernandes. In the other, Fernandes is suing Lotus Cars for breach of contract over its withdrawal of the licence to use the Lotus name in F1.
That, too, is not expected to be resolved until some time next year.
Both sides, then, have got themselves into a bit of a pickle.
Lotus Cars has struck a deal to promote its brand in F1 through a team that is knocking on the door of breaking into the top three - and which, in Robert Kubica, has one of the finest drivers on the grid.
But it is doing so with a car that is called a Renault - and there is no way out of that one.
Lotus and the team's majority shareholder, the private investment group Genii Capital, cannot change the constructor name assigned to their team because if they do so without the permission of all the other teams they will lose the millions the team earns through Renault's historic achievements in F1, which date back to their entry in 1977.
And guess which team would not agree?
Fernandes, meanwhile, faces the prospect of his team giving free publicity to a company with which he is in two separate legal disputes. And even if he changed the name of the team to something else, his cars would still be called Lotuses.
It is an unsatisfactory situation for all involved - the efforts of both parties will be diluted by a dispute that, for those watching, will create only confusion.
Fernandes is understood to be increasingly confident that he will win the court case over the Team Lotus name. Lotus Cars, for its part, appears not to be overly concerned about the existence of a second team diluting its brand. Their view is that only one of the teams is affiliated with Lotus, and the other one is providing free advertising for it.
In the meantime, questions hang in the air.
Is the end game for Fernandes to sell the Team Lotus brand to Lotus Cars if he succeeds in establishing that he owns it? Can Lotus - and its parent company Proton - sustain such an ambitious programme? And so on.
In the murk, only one thing seems clear - this is only the latest stage in a story that will rumble on for some time to come.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2010/12/lotus_v_lotus.html
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Paul di Resta has bumped up the British numbers racing in Formula 1 this year by finally signing for Force India.
But unlike his compatriots, McLaren drivers and world champions Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, Di Resta is out to prove he deserves his place on the grid.
The likeable 24-year-old Scot, whose promotion has been expected for some time, has plenty of reasons to feel confident about his first season in F1.
Over the course of 12 months as Force India reserve in 2010, Di Resta has already managed to galvanise the team's support.
His manager Anthony Hamilton, father of Lewis, revealed: "There hasn't been anything negative from the team. Paul has done a great job and they love him."
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The team were so smitten by Di Resta that his seat does not depend on sponsorship - in stark contrast to 2011's other rookies, Pastor Maldonado of Williams, Virgin's Jerome D'Ambrosio and Sauber's Sergio Perez.
In fact, to partner Di Resta with German Adrian Sutil, Force India will have to pay a financial settlement to Sutil's 2010 team-mate Vitantonio Liuzzi for breaking the firm contract the Italian had for this season.
Force India must be certain Di Resta has something worth paying for.
The son of racer-turned-businessman Louis di Resta and cousin of three-time IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti, Di Resta has described having racing "in his blood".
After winning the 2010 German touring car championship (DTM) for Mercedes on his weekends off from F1 duties, Di Resta arrives as a proven champion.
In his junior career, the Scot raced against future F1 world champions Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, notably beating the German to the Formula Three Euroseries crown.
Di Resta recalled in a 2008 interview: "Sebastian was my team-mate in 2006. I definitely beat him on far more occasions than he ever beat me.
"I'm not saying that I'm a faster or better driver than him but you'd have to say there's at least parity between us.
"As for Lewis, when we had the same machinery we were equally good."
In terms of raw talent Di Resta may well be a match for two of F1's fastest men but it will be difficult for him to prove it when he rejoins them on track.
The laidback Scot's first task will be to adapt his racing mindset from DTM's slower 'tin-top' cars to F1's open, single-seater speed machines.
The difference between driving a touring car with 500bhp and an F1 car charged with 750bhp and tonnes of downforce can be compared to handling a family estate car and a supercar.
"It requires a different style to drive both [cars] on the limit; it's not easy," explains McLaren reserve and driver Gary Paffett, who was one of Di Resta's Mercedes team-mates in the DTM last year.
"But if you can win in DTM it puts you in a good position to do a good job in F1. Paul will do a good job - but how good?
"If you're used to winning you might have to get over the fact that you're not going to be beating the McLarens and Ferraris week in, week out or beating your team-mate 100% of the time. That's something you have to learn."
In eight first practice sessions over grand prix weekends for Force India last season, Di Resta was only able to out-pace either Sutil or Liuzzi, who alternated in the other car, once.
Improving that niggling statistic will be a target for the Scot when the season begins with free practice in Bahrain on 11 March.
Beyond that, barring a major surprise Di Resta will not have the machinery capable of reigniting his teenage rivalry with Hamilton and Vettel, Red Bull's reigning champion.
Force India finished seventh in the constructors' championship last season with Sutil collecting best-place finishes of fifth in Malaysia and Spa. In terms of pace, both drivers failed to qualify inside the top 10 in the final six races of 2010.
The development of Force India's 2011 car has had to absorb some unsettling changes at the team's Silverstone factory, with two technical directors, James Key and Mark Smith, as well as chief designer Lewis Butler leaving for rival teams in the space of a year.
Force India intend to fine-tune the new VJM04 car in the wind tunnel before introducing it at the second pre-season test in Jerez - a policy also adopted by McLaren, but not by Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault and Williams, who will all have new cars ready for the first test in Valencia next week.
After the flashbulbs and fanfare of being unveiled as an F1 driver have died down, Di Resta will start the process of making his opportunity count in Valencia driving a modified 2010 car.
Di Resta may still have everything to prove in F1 but like the rest of 2011's rookies he also has nothing to lose.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sarahholt/2011/01/paul_di_resta_has_bumped.html
Paul di Resta has bumped up the British numbers racing in Formula 1 this year by finally signing for Force India.
But unlike his compatriots, McLaren drivers and world champions Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, Di Resta is out to prove he deserves his place on the grid.
The likeable 24-year-old Scot, whose promotion has been expected for some time, has plenty of reasons to feel confident about his first season in F1.
Over the course of 12 months as Force India reserve in 2010, Di Resta has already managed to galvanise the team's support.
His manager Anthony Hamilton, father of Lewis, revealed: "There hasn't been anything negative from the team. Paul has done a great job and they love him."
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions
The team were so smitten by Di Resta that his seat does not depend on sponsorship - in stark contrast to 2011's other rookies, Pastor Maldonado of Williams, Virgin's Jerome D'Ambrosio and Sauber's Sergio Perez.
In fact, to partner Di Resta with German Adrian Sutil, Force India will have to pay a financial settlement to Sutil's 2010 team-mate Vitantonio Liuzzi for breaking the firm contract the Italian had for this season.
Force India must be certain Di Resta has something worth paying for.
The son of racer-turned-businessman Louis di Resta and cousin of three-time IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti, Di Resta has described having racing "in his blood".
After winning the 2010 German touring car championship (DTM) for Mercedes on his weekends off from F1 duties, Di Resta arrives as a proven champion.
In his junior career, the Scot raced against future F1 world champions Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, notably beating the German to the Formula Three Euroseries crown.
Di Resta recalled in a 2008 interview: "Sebastian was my team-mate in 2006. I definitely beat him on far more occasions than he ever beat me.
"I'm not saying that I'm a faster or better driver than him but you'd have to say there's at least parity between us.
"As for Lewis, when we had the same machinery we were equally good."
In terms of raw talent Di Resta may well be a match for two of F1's fastest men but it will be difficult for him to prove it when he rejoins them on track.
The laidback Scot's first task will be to adapt his racing mindset from DTM's slower 'tin-top' cars to F1's open, single-seater speed machines.
The difference between driving a touring car with 500bhp and an F1 car charged with 750bhp and tonnes of downforce can be compared to handling a family estate car and a supercar.
"It requires a different style to drive both [cars] on the limit; it's not easy," explains McLaren reserve and driver Gary Paffett, who was one of Di Resta's Mercedes team-mates in the DTM last year.
"But if you can win in DTM it puts you in a good position to do a good job in F1. Paul will do a good job - but how good?
"If you're used to winning you might have to get over the fact that you're not going to be beating the McLarens and Ferraris week in, week out or beating your team-mate 100% of the time. That's something you have to learn."
In eight first practice sessions over grand prix weekends for Force India last season, Di Resta was only able to out-pace either Sutil or Liuzzi, who alternated in the other car, once.
Improving that niggling statistic will be a target for the Scot when the season begins with free practice in Bahrain on 11 March.
Beyond that, barring a major surprise Di Resta will not have the machinery capable of reigniting his teenage rivalry with Hamilton and Vettel, Red Bull's reigning champion.
Force India finished seventh in the constructors' championship last season with Sutil collecting best-place finishes of fifth in Malaysia and Spa. In terms of pace, both drivers failed to qualify inside the top 10 in the final six races of 2010.
The development of Force India's 2011 car has had to absorb some unsettling changes at the team's Silverstone factory, with two technical directors, James Key and Mark Smith, as well as chief designer Lewis Butler leaving for rival teams in the space of a year.
Force India intend to fine-tune the new VJM04 car in the wind tunnel before introducing it at the second pre-season test in Jerez - a policy also adopted by McLaren, but not by Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault and Williams, who will all have new cars ready for the first test in Valencia next week.
After the flashbulbs and fanfare of being unveiled as an F1 driver have died down, Di Resta will start the process of making his opportunity count in Valencia driving a modified 2010 car.
Di Resta may still have everything to prove in F1 but like the rest of 2011's rookies he also has nothing to lose.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sarahholt/2011/01/paul_di_resta_has_bumped.html