F1-Blog

McLaren MP4-23 Launch event pictures

Following the Ferrari shakedown picture’s, here are the McLaren launch pictures from today (Quick warning, some of the images are quite large 2+Mb when opened).

More pics after the jump.

F1 to move from Sony to EA?

I t seems that the young Brit Lewis Hamilton has signed a $10 Million deal with gaming Giant Electronic Arts (EA Sports).

This has lead to speculation that if the EA brand has invested so heavily in an F1 heavyweight for marketing of a game, then they are also in talks to purchase the F1 right’s, currently held by Sony.

If this is true, it’s excellent news in one way, and not so good in another. It would mean that the F1 games would be multi platform (XBox 360, PS3 at least) and people who are not on the Sony platform would again be able to play F1 games.

However it’s possibly not all good news, the current F1 game available on the PS3 is decidedly arcade’y and very easy. If EA bring the F1 franchise in house, then perhaps they are also looking to purchase the Sony Liverpool Studio’s (the current developers of F1), and if so the game would stay in it’s arcade form. It is possible though that the game would be taken over by one of EA’s plethora of in house development studio’s and get the treatment it deserves, and with a little luck, we could get back to something resembling Geoff Crammond’s greats (F1GP 1/2/3/4 from MicroProse).

Season 2008

Let’s leave the 2007 season behind us, let’s rather look forward at what may be the highlights of the 2008 season.

First lets speak about the new team next year. After a battle for the last team place on the grid, Pro Drive won, and the rumor has been that they will run McLaren cars, and use the McLaren test drivers for their lineup.

This has however come to question, as Pedro de la Rossa has publicly stated that he will be with the McLaren team again next year.

So if the Pro Drive team don’t take the grid, will they sell their place? and if so who too?

There is also all the driver lineup that will without a shadow of a doubt change. Who will be at McLaren next year? will Alonso stay with the team? will the rumors of Heikki moving to McLaren with Alonso to Renault come to fruition? Will the 2005/2006 world champion not want to go back to Renault now that Flavio will not be as focused on the team? and hey they have not been the world title team that they were just a year ago this season.

Kimi takes both top spots

Kimi Raikkonen is tonight crowned as the new world champion of the F1 world. He takes the title that Fernando Alonso held last year.

The race was not all that interesting from the Ferrari point of view, the two Ferrari’s where by and away the fastest cars on the track.

No all of the interesting things that happened, happened behind the two scarlet machines. First Alonso managed to get past Lewis in the Senna S’s, Lewis obviously did not like that, and tried to get back passed in the next corner, however he ran wide and lost a lot of time.

Then on lap 7, Lewis’s McLaren decided to select neutral in his gearbox, and it took him and his engineers over 30 seconds to get the car to select a gear. Eventually the car did find a gear and Lewis was on his way again, however he was now in 18th position.

Chinese GP Results

At the end of the Chinese GP, we have the following results.

1. Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari
2. Fernando Alonso - McLaren
3. Filipe Massa - Ferrari (Fastest Lap)
4. Sebastien Vettel - Scuderia Toro Rosso (F1-Blog driver of the day)
5. Jenson Button - Honda
6. Vitantonio Liuzzi - Scuderia Toro Rosso
7. Nick Heidfeld - BMW
8. David Coulthard - Red Bull
9. Heikki Kovalainen - Renault
10. Mark Webber - Red Bull
11. Giancarlo Fisichella - Renault
12. Alex Wurz - Williams
13. Jarno Trulli - Toyota
14. Takuma Sato - Super Aguri
15. Rubens Barrichello - Honda
16. Nico Rosberg - Williams
17. Sakon Yamamoto - Spyker
18. DNF - Robert Kubica - BMW
19. DNF - Lewis Hamilton - McLaren
20. DNF - Ralf Schumacher - Toyota
21. DNF - Adrian Sutil - Spyker
22. DNF - Anthiny Davidson - Super Aguri

Also a well done to Ferrari on their 200th race victory.

Full race report soon.