F1-Blog

The first GP Masters took place Saturday from Qatar.

The race was won by 1992 world champion Nigel Mansell in a close fight with Christian Danner and the only just 45 years old Eric Van de Poele.

The 'old boys' showed great talent and resilience as the heat at Qatar was up to 77 degrees Celsius in the cockpit, and track temperatures of 58 degrees Celsius.

This is the second GP Masters grand prix with the inaugural South African GP last year which Nigel Mansell also won. The race had a number of incidents which brought out the safety car and bunched the grid back up again. Driver comments after the click through.

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Toyota allowed Jarno Trulli to test the new TF106B car at Paul Ricard on Wednesday. The new design incorporated the fixes that have been seen on the TF106, as well as allowing the team to optimize it's 'zero keel' nose design, and hopefully allow the team to make better use of the tyres.

"This is the first day with the B-car and although we had some small issues which caused delays, these were not directly related to the new car," says Dieter Gass, Chief Race and Test Team Engineer. "This new package is a consequent realisation of the change we had with the front suspension" he added. "With this being the major new item, this allows up to fully exploit the aerodynamic and mechanical side of the front suspension."

"We had a difficult morning with the track conditions and then we had some delays with my car," Trulli said. "The day was very promising, especially with the new car and in general, the testing we got through was good. Tomorrow I hope to put in even more laps to gain a feeling for the new package and to be able to make a better judgement."

Former F1 world champion Damon Hill has been elected the British Racing Drivers Club (BRDC) President at a meeting on Friday, replacing the previous president Jackie Stewart.

The BRDC is the owner of the Silverstone Circuit so Hill will have to steer the re-development of the race circuit to allow it to compete for a place in the calender after the 2009 season.

He faces a tuff job as Jackie struggled to get all the parties to agree on any of the proposals put forward to them.

As we expected, Prodrive have been given the 12th F1 slot it was announced on Friday.

The Warwickshire based team will enter the championship in the 2008 season, the other 11 teams are the ones from the current F1 lineup.

Prodrive better get a move on and build the new F1 facility then, we do not want them based out of the Banbury WRC garages, as they are not doing very well in WRC this year.

Richards has said "We have won World Rally Championships, British Touring Car titles and the GT1 class at Le Mans, and have been saying for some time that we would also like to be in Formula 1 with our own Prodrive team.æ We are now one step closer. We are confident that the new regulations will not only allow Prodrive to be competitive on an affordable budget, but will also make Formula 1 more exciting and, ultimately, even more entertaining for spectators and TV audiences around the world. "

"An entry is just the beginning," Richards said "We now have less than two years to build a team and put two competitive cars on the starting grid for the first race of the 2008 championship.The task is enormous and the expertise and experience of the established teams (is) well recognised. However, Prodrive has more than 20 years of motorsport experience and all of us relish a challenge."

The Renault team showed their pace for the Wednesday and Thursday sessions.

Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella set the pace for the sessions with Fisi recording a 1:18.506 on the Thursday. The team have commented on the new tyre compound, saying it gets to temperature a lot more quickly than the previous version (that should help the Honda team).

Rubens Barrichello set the second best time, with Kimi Raikkonen getting the third fastest time with the new Mercedes-Ilmore engine.

The Red Bull team added to the beliefs that they will be looking for a new engine supplier after the Ferrari V8 proved un-reliable at the test. The BMW team did not do much better, with an engine failure for them as well.

My Curious Bystander this week takes a look at the VAGroup. It seems that few people can understand why they are not in some way tied into F1. Yes the old argument that they are in Rally (with Skoda) touring cars (with Seat) and Le Mans (with Audi) goes some way to using the companies competition budget up. However can it stay that way for much longer?

Both BWM and Mercedes have got 'big' teams in F1 now, and if VW want to compete at the same level selling cars surely they need to compete at the same level in racing.

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As mentioned earlier the Silverstone test started Tuesday. I've just had a chance to go over the times, and details.

Montoya was the fastest driver on track, he set a 1m21.076s towards the end of the session. The Columbian was trying out the latest evolution of the Mercedes-Ilmor engine.

Next fastest was the Local boy Jenson Button. The Honda team were concentrating on chassis work, trying to understand their low temperature issues. He set a 1m21.131s.

The two Renault's were next up, with Kovalainen beating his team leader Alonso to the third place spot. They set 1m21.241s and 1m21.311s respectively. However Alonso suffered mechanical issues.

Davidson (who also had issues) was the first person outside the 1m21's he set a 1m22.085s.

Nico Rosberg got a good session in for the Williams team driving a total of 108 laps during the day, that bodes well for the Cosworth reliability.

The MF1 team where there in the afternoon, however they did not do an awful lot of running and ended up the only team in the 1m24s

1 -  MONTOYA    McLaren     1m21.076s
2 -  BUTTON      Honda       1m21.131s
3 -  KOVALAINEN  Renault     1m21.241s
4 -  ALONSO      Renault     1m21.311s
5 -  DAVIDSON    Honda       1m22.085s
6 -  WURZ        Williams    1m22.216s
7 -  KLIEN       Red Bull    1m22.228s
8 -  ROSBERG     Williams    1m22.256s
9 -  VILLENEUVE  BMW Sauber  1m22.258s
10 - KUBICA      BMW Sauber  1m22.712s
11 - JANI        Toro Rosso  1m23.350s
12 - DE LA ROSA  McLaren     1m23.527s
13 - COULTHARD   Red Bull    1m23.770s
14 - MONDINI     MF1         1m24.471s

The thing to notice from the times is the obvious different programs some of the team mates where on. De La Rossa was significantly slower than Montoya. Coulthard was either way of Klien's pace or doing different work as well.

One of the most significant things I will take away from the day is the noise. The V8's do sound good, but the Toro Rosso V10 was significantly 'nicer', I will miss the V10's. 

I headed along to the Silverstone test today to get some shot's and video of the event and to see what I could learn if anything about the running. Most of the teams have deemed it a 'Tyre' test session so I was not expecting much.

What surprised me was the openness that Renault had with their pits. Unlike the other teams that covered the area up with boards every time a car came in or out. Renault did not really bother, having the pit garage open for anyone to see as some of the shot's show.

I could not really see anything glaringly obvious from the different teams running to show that perhaps they where trying new parts, however the Honda's did seem to be running at least one new engine (as Anthony Davidson stopped out on the track at one point, so that must be replaced or repaired)

There was a fair few stoppages today, unfortunately for the spectators, most of these happened on the closed side of the track, so details of the issues and pictures are missing (at least from my set).

Pop over to the Flickr Feed for the images if you want to have a look.

Just a quick reminder of the Silverstone F1 test that is taking place this week. The test will run over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and will include some big names.

Renault, McLaren, Williams, Red Bull Racing, BMW Sauber and Midland F1 have all said they will be there, wit McLaren saying that Montoya will be on track Tuesday and Wednsday, and Kimi will be on track Wednesday and Thursday.

I'll bring you all the news from Tuesday and Wednesday along with any decent photo's or video I take. Let me know if you are planning on going.

For those that do not know how to get there then click here for the google map.

Michael Schumacher has boosted Ferrari's 2006 hopes by winning the San Marino GP at Imola. It however was not all good new for Ferrari, Michaels car struggled after the first pit stop with what looks like troubles with his Bridgestones.

The Ferrari team chose to run more new tyres in qualifying than Renault and it seems they have suffered due to that decision. The Ferrari number 1 driver seemed to be 2 seconds of the pace during his second stint, and at least 1 second a lap off the pace in the third run.

He did however win due to a tactical mistake made by the Renault team. Renault called Alonso in for a fuel and tyre change while he was stuck behind Michael. However this proved a mistake as Alonso was then held up on his out lap by traffic and Ferrari were fortunate enough to bring Michael in on the following lap after a decent in lap. This allowed the Ferrari to just get out in front of the Renault basically sealing the race due to the difficulty of overtaking.

The race was not good for another driver, Jenson Button. He had a small glitch on his first pit stop when a rear wheel was stuck, then during his last stop the 'lolly pop' man let Button go before the fuel rig had been disengaged from the car, this caused the fuel rig to snap away from the piping and meant that Jenson had to stop part way down the pit lane for it to be removed from the car. Jenson ended seventh.

The under paced McLaren cars finished in relatively good positions, with JPM getting his first podium of the year in third, and Kimi managed to claw his way to fifth.

Massa seemed to not be in the same race as his team leader, and ended the race in fourth.

The drive of the day (in my opinion) came from Mark Webber who ended up in sixth place after starting outside the top 10. His performance was put into place when you look at the difference between Webber and Rosberg who finished nearly 40 seconds behind.

All in all a decent race, and it was kind of strange thinking it was good that Ferrari won. Let's hope that Honda can get their pit crew sorted out, as that was what stopped Button being on the podium, and with some luck McLaren, Ferrari, Williams, Toyota and BMW can get up to the performance levels of the Renault.

For those that did not get to see it, and have an EasyNews account then click here to download the SpeedTV version of the GP. I really must look into getting an ITV version of the GP's up for download, Blundel and Brundle are so much better commentators.