Formula One 2012

[benm]

they load fine for me in ie9, ff9 and chrome16

maybe a shift-refresh or private browsing will fix it for you.

[N1GTR]

Just reloaded the page and now it works. Weird!

[ctjet]

lotus due today

cant wait to see kimi at the launch

[benm]

Im uploading another 220 images to the link I provided earlier (will be finished by 10pm).

They are from a private torrent site so don't go spreading them around because if it gets back to me my account may be deleted. Happy to post up race weekend images too (usually about 1500-2000 images per weekend).

[N1GTR]

Yes please do Ben, the more the merrier - if you mention when they're down by then thats all good

Edit: The race weekend ones would be AWESOME!

[Kinks]

maybe the ferrari engineers are fans of phineas and ferb....

Either way, someone at Ferrari nose what's going on.

[N1GTR]

Either way, someone at Ferrari nose what's going on.

[N1GTR]

Lotus launched

Warning; big sideburn alert

[tweety bird]

q&a with kimi.

Q.Why F1?

Kimi Raikkonen: Formula 1 is something very special in my racing career, and you always want to race at the toughest level, so Formula 1 is where you want to race if you have a choice.

Q. How quickly did the deal come about with the Lotus F1 Team?

KR: Everything came together quite quickly. We shared a common goal and everyone was happy. This was the only way to do it and everything went pretty well from there.

Q. What do you think of the team now you've completed two days testing?

KR: I'm happy with the team, they are very nice people, very easy going and it was nice to work with them for the two days I did in the R30. I think we'll have a lot of fun in the season ahead and hopefully we will

get some good results. I want a strong enough car to challenge for good results.

Q. When did you decide to finish rallying and to go back to Formula 1?

KR: When I did the NASCAR races, I enjoyed the racing and I want to do more racing. I still want to do rally and if I could I'd do them both at the same time - but this isn't possible. For sure I will do rallying again in the

future. I want to do racing as I had a really good time in NASCAR racing against other people and I realised that I was missing this – that's when I decided that if there was a good chance to return properly that I would do it.

Q. If you'd been in rallying with sufficient time could you have been as good as Sebastien Loeb?

KR: I don't know! I don't think anyone is as good as him right now! For sure I could have improved, but I don't know how far. I'd improved last year from where I was in 2010. I went to rallying to see how well I could

do and I still think that it's one of the most difficult sports that I have ever tried. It's not easy! The guys at the front are very fast, but equally if you put them in a Formula 1 car they would probably have a similar story to

me in rallying. I think I would need another couple of years with testing. With rallying there are so many different surfaces and it's completely different from Formula 1.

Q. What are your thoughts on how F1 has changed since you last competed?

KR: In 2010 I didn't really follow Formula 1 but I saw more races last year. It doesn't really look different, but there is overtaking in some different places where people can just drive past by opening the rear

wing and the driver in front has no chance to defend himself – so is this really overtaking? I don't think it counts all the time. But for sure the show is better.

The tyres make a difference too, as there is a big speed difference between when the tyres are new and when the tyres are old. In the old Formula 1, you had to be so much faster than the guy in front of you to

have any chance to overtake, but now with the tyres and the DRS, it's different.

Q. Do you have anything to prove with your return?

KR: I think people expect things from me, but as long as I know that I'm giving 100% and I'm happy with my driving then I'm happy. If those aspects are true and it's not enough, then it's not enough.

Q. How's your motivation?

KR: There's always talk about my motivation, written by people who don't know me and couldn't have an idea on how strong my motivation is. If I didn't feel I had the motivation, I would stop. My feeling is that I

probably drove some of my best races in my last season in Formula 1 and I was very happy with my performance. I've never had any issues with motivation.

Q. What are your thoughts on KERS and DRS – you didn't have them when you tested the R30.

KR: I've driven with KERS before and DRS is just a button. Once you've done it a few times it will become automatic.

Q. How well do you know your new team-mate, Romain Grosjean?

KR: I think we will have a good relationship. I met him before Christmas and I raced against him in 2009. He seems a very nice and normal guy, so I don't see any problems there.

Q. How is your fitness for Formula 1's challenges after two years rallying?

KR: For sure, the G forces are different, but you get pretty good G forces in some tarmac rallies. The steering is probably a bit heavier in rallying too. You sit in different position and you use different muscles.

Rallying overall is probably not as physically tough in short bursts like Formula 1 but it's pretty mentally tough as you spend the whole week for about 12 hours a day in a car driving. In this way rallying is much

more tiring than Formula 1. The driving itself is more physical in Formula 1, but I'm looking forward to getting more sleep.

Q. Lotus F1 Team is fighting to be back at the front, how can you help in this battle?

KR: In my last year at Ferrari we weren't always at the front but I'm a good racer and I want to get to the front. Lotus started well last year and we hope that the new car will be strong.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97325

Lotus launched their E20 online on Sunday evening, taking the covers off a car that features - like three of its rivals - the stepped nose design.

Out of the five teams that have launched their 2012 challengers to date, including Lotus, four have opted for a distinct stepped nose. In fact the only team not using the step to lower the tip of the nose

has been McLaren. Explaining the reason for the stepped nose, which together with the blunt tip has not gone down well with many fans, Lotus's technical director James Allison said it is because of a new regulation

that has its roots in driver safety.

"Up at the front of the car, there is a very obvious changes, there is a distinctive slope to the nose. The reason for this is for years you will gradually notice that the height of the nose has been coming up

and up," Allison said during Sunday's online launch. "The reason for that is that there is more downforce if you raise the bodywork at the front of the car.

"But the problem with that high nose is that eventually the nose can get to a height that if there were to be a T-bone crash the tip of the nose could be so high that it exceeds the height of the cockpit of the

other car and clearly that's a very poor situation as you don't want the driver's head having a nose slamming into it from the side.

"And so for this year we agreed that the tips of the noses all had to be lowered by a considerable amount. But the rule itself doesn't require the front of the car to be lower, it only requires the tip of the nose to be lowered."

The tech director also explained Lotus's new exhaust layout with the team having dropped the side exhaust and switched to a more conventional design in light of other new rules.

"Last year, all of the cars cottoned onto the fact that there was a lot of downforce to be extracted from using the energy that was available in the exhaust pipes. We ran a particular novel system where we exited

out exhaust right up at the front of the car.

"So as a sport we decided that we would try to calm things down a bit for the following season and a new set of exhaust regulations were conceived where instead of being allowed the freedom to blow

that exhaust to the underside of the car we are constrained now to exit the exhaust in a part of the car where it's much harder to generate downforce."

http://www.planetf1.com/driver/18227/7490234/Allison-explains-that-stepped-nose

[sh@un]

Lotus joins the step-nose brigade

Ok Team Energy Drink, let's see whatchu got...

[MattR]

^^atleast the stepped nose isnt as sharp as the ferraris, car looks like a nice design

[JAS-25T]

I think the paint scheme adds or subtracts from the physical designs in both cars.

[ctjet]

true

red does seem to be the colour of imbeciles

[ctjet]

[ctjet]

schui has the right idea

[sh@un]

[ctjet]

that last one kills me

[Owgasm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tEHQJn_hxo&feature=player_embedded#!

[Roy]

Interesting that Unilever are onboard with Rexona at Lotus

[benm]

Lotus pics are up...