Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/formula-f1/~3/RBJWIX-d9BU/
Christian Goethals Paul Goldsmith Jose Froilán González Oscar González
Source: http://f1fanatics.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/ferrari-reshuffle-top-staff-following-abu-dhabi-failure/
Sebastian Vettel was crowned the youngest world champion in history after a memorable final twist at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but was he the best driver of the year?
It's a subjective question, and so difficult after such a momentous season that I have been wrestling with it for some weeks.
Does Vettel's pace in the dominant Red Bull mean he was Formula 1's top driver? How does that rank alongside the performances of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso in inferior cars?
What about Robert Kubica's ability to mix it with the title contenders in the Renault? Or Kamui Kobayashi's attacking verve in the Sauber?
Vettel is centre-stage among the class of 2010 - but is he number one in our list? Photo: AFP
Here is my list of the top 10 drivers of 2010:
10) After battling for the title with Brawn in 2009, it cannot have been easy for Rubens Barrichello, at 37 going on 38, to drum up the enthusiasm for a season battling to make the top 10 in qualifying with once-great Williams.
But drum it up he did, impressing the team with his technical feedback and producing some excellent drives that resulted in strong points positions when Williams had something of a purple patch mid-season.
The veteran Brazilian was outshone by rookie team-mate Nico Hulkenberg at times as the German found his feet late in the season.
Nevertheless, as he heads into an astonishing 19th F1 season in 2011, Barrichello clearly still has a lot to offer.
9) Kamui Kobayashi emerged as one of F1's most exciting talents with some all-action performances in 2010.
Overtaking is notoriously difficult but the Japanese simply went for it, finding unconventional passing places to liven up such races as Valencia and Japan.
There remain doubts about his ultimate potential, with Sauber drafting in the reliable Nick Heidfeld for the final five races of the season to give Kobayashi a benchmark to measure himself against.
But Kobayashi responded perfectly and gives all the signs of having a great future.
8) It all started so well for Felipe Massa, who out-qualified new team-mate Alonso at the first race of the season. But when Alonso passed the Brazilian around the outside of the first corner, it set the tone for the entire year.
Alonso trounced Massa in 2010, proving faster than him at virtually every race, and there is no doubt the Spaniard's relentless excellence got to the man in the second Ferrari.
There were some good drives from Massa - particularly his third places at Monza and Korea. But he will have to pull something very special out of the bag, not to mention rediscover his mental equilibrium, to reverse this trend in 2011.
7) Nico Rosberg convincingly beat Mercedes team-mate Michael Schumacher this year and, had he achieved that feat 10 years ago, there would have been no doubt he had emerged as a truly great F1 driver.
But the Schumacher of this year was not the same driver as before, as even the seven-time champion himself effectively admitted.
Rosberg drove a strong season, and some good races, and there are an increasing number of people in F1 who believe he is emerging as a top-class contender.
But until he goes up against - and beats - a driver of the highest calibre, it will be hard to tell whether he deserves to be considered as that himself, or whether he is nearly there, but not quite.
6) Not even Jenson Button probably expected to be leading the championship after winning two of the opening four races of 2010 and out-qualifying McLaren team-mate Hamilton 3-1.
Button's two victories in the wet in Australia and China owed a lot to clever strategic calls but that was not all. The sight of Button pulling away from Hamilton in China on a wet track and on tyres of comparable age proved once and for all that this is a driver of the very highest calibre.
After that, Hamilton got on top and stayed there but Button, who was rarely very far away in qualifying and often more or less matched his team-mate on race pace, provided a convincing answer to those who said he had gained his 2009 triumph more by luck than ability.
5) Mark Webber chose the name Aussie Grit for his Twitter account, and 2010 proved why. Expected to fulfil the role of an obedient number two at Red Bull, Webber went toe-to-toe with team-mate Vettel throughout the season and led him in the championship for most of it.
After a shaky first couple of races, Webber came on song when the season came back to Europe with dominant wins in Spain and Monaco that left Vettel bemused at where his team-mate had found such electrifying pace.
By mid-summer, Vettel had got his edge back, but Webber remained large in his mirrors, ready to take advantage of any mistakes. That he was able to do this despite suspicions that Red Bull were not perhaps being quite as even-handed in their treatment of their drivers as they insisted was all the more impressive.
But his challenge faded in the end, crashing in Korea and failing to make any real impact in the final two races of the campaign.
4) Did Renault's Robert Kubica perform better than any other driver on the grid when you consider the equipment he had at his disposal?
You can certainly make that case. No-one else can claim to have made so few mistakes while extracting what appeared to be the maximum from his machinery.
The Renault was not fast enough for Kubica to regularly mix it with the title contenders but on three occasions he transcended the car's limitations in a way only the truly great can - at Monaco, Spa and Suzuka, F1's three great drivers' circuits.
To qualify second in Monaco, third in Spa and fourth in Suzuka was a momentous achievement - and he backed that up by taking podium places in both Monaco and Belgium before being robbed of another when his wheel came loose in Japan.
There is still a slight question mark over a man who, in 2009, was not able to comprehensively overshadow Heidfeld at BMW. And let's not forget that Kubica was not burdened with the kind of pressure that the likes of Alonso, Vettel, Button and Hamilton were.
But put Kubica in a competitive car and all his rivals would fear him.
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
3) Sebastian Vettel is a great talent and a deserving world champion but, considering the stunning pace of the Red Bull car, he should have won many more races and clinched the title much sooner.
The car's fragility did not help - failures in Bahrain, Australia, Spain and Korea cost him a lot of points - but the German also made a number of high-profile errors. He crashed into rivals in Turkey and Belgium, suffered a puncture following a red-mist moment at Silverstone and was penalised for misjudging the safety car in Hungary.
Ten pole positions and five wins speak for themselves to an extent but, as the (slightly) faster driver in comfortably the fastest car, they are to be expected.
Some of those pole laps were stunning, though, with Vettel possessing an Ayrton Senna-esque ability to pull that little bit extra out on his very final lap, no matter what the circumstances, while each one of his wins was a masterpiece of domination.
However, there have to be fewer mistakes, more wins dragged out of adversity and more convincing performances when he is back in the pack for him to be ranked above the next names on the list.
2) Had this article been written after the Belgian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton would have occupied the number one spot.
Up to that point, Hamilton had made not a single mistake worth the name and he was leading the championship in what had from the mid-point of the season been the third fastest car.
Hamilton had maintained his exuberant, attacking style and stunning natural pace and had mated it to a consistency that was making him a formidable competitor.
His fantastic victory at Spa - not forgetting the qualifying lap that earned him second on the grid on slicks in a shower of rain - confirmed him as the outstanding driver of the season to that point, notwithstanding the canny Button's two wet wins.
Suddenly, though, it all went wrong. Hamilton crashed out of the next two races in Monza and Singapore and when he crashed again in Friday practice at the next race in Japan his season appeared to be coming apart at the seams.
But then came one of the laps of the season - third on the grid at Suzuka in a car in which he had done just six flying laps before qualifying. It was a reminder of Hamilton's amazing talent. By then, though, as far as the championship was concerned, the damage had been done.
1) Fernando Alonso's first year with Ferrari started with a few shaky races and finished with a strategic mistake that cost him the title. In between the Spaniard did just enough to earn the right to call himself the best driver of 2010.
Early-season errors were born of trying too hard in a car that was not quite on the pace. Combine that with Ferrari losing their way for a while and Alonso was 47 points off the lead at the midpoint of the season.
But in a car that established itself as the second fastest behind the Red Bull, he recovered that margin by driving with a consistent, relentless brilliance that his rivals were not able to match. His victories at Monza and Singapore were stunning. Only Hamilton at Spa and perhaps Webber at Monaco can claim a performance of comparable quality.
That ultimately Alonso did not win a third title was only because of his team's error in Abu Dhabi. For the 2005 and 2006 champion, as he said himself, it was still a great year.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2010/11/who_were_the_top_10_f1_drivers.html
Petrov buoyed by job security By Jonathan Noble and Matt Beer Monday, January 31st 2011, 14:09 GMT Vitaly Petrov says the security of his new two-year deal leaves him feeling 'free' going into his second Formula 1 season with Renault. The team waited until the end of 2010 before re-signing Petrov, having been concerned that he could not consistently deliver his best form. Related posts:Tom Walkinshaw, who has died of cancer aged 64, was one of the most powerful personalities in motorsport for nearly 30 years and, latterly, an influential figure in English rugby.
Walkinshaw's famous TWR racing team won championships in touring cars and sportscars, as well as claiming the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1988, giving Jaguar its first win in the race for more than 30 years in the process.
But Formula 1, motorsport's pinnacle, proved a tougher challenge. Although the Scot was instrumental in the success of the Benetton team with Michael Schumacher from 1992-4, his attempts to conquer it with his own team eventually led to his downfall and exit from top-level motor racing.
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
When Walkinshaw joined Benetton in 1991, after nearly two decades of often controversial successes in touring cars and sportscars, his reputation preceded him.
He was known as an uncompromising and controversial character whose granite jaw reflected his determination - he pushed things to the limit, didn't mind who he upset to get his way and used his imposing physical presence to its full effect.
Walkinshaw was not a tall man but he was immensely broad and stocky, and he was not afraid to employ his physical strength to his own ends.
At a sportscar race once, he sought out a journalist to whose reporting he had taken exception, dragged him across the pit lane and hung him over the pit wall as cars passed by at nearly 200mph while he verbally harangued him.
But Walkinshaw had brains as well as brawn. He was a very competent racing driver in touring cars in the 1970s but he was a far better team boss.
One of the people he employed at Jaguar was Ross Brawn, later to transform Ferrari into the most efficient winning machine in F1 history, but then an ambitious young designer.
Walkinshaw took him on to apply F1 expertise to sportscars and the result was a game-changing car that won the world sportscar championship.
With that conquered, only F1 remained and the flamboyant new Benetton team boss Flavio Briatore, an intimidating character himself, decided that Walkinshaw and Brawn were the men he needed to turn Benetton from also-rans to winners. Walkinshaw was installed as engineering director, Brawn as technical director.
It didn't take long for Walkinshaw's ruthlessness to emerge.
He had witnessed Schumacher's talents driving for Mercedes in sportscars and when the 22-year-old German made an electrifying F1 debut for Jordan at the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix, Walkinshaw told Briatore this was the driver they needed. By the next race in Italy Schumacher was in the cockpit of a Benetton, the fact that he had binding contract with Jordan a minor inconvenience.
Together, Benetton and Schumacher made a formidable team and success was not long coming - by 1994 they were world champions. But, just as in the other categories in which Walkinshaw had competed, the whiff of controversy followed him to F1.
Benetton were accused of cheating. They were found to have illegal driver-aid software in their cars, but were not punished because the sport's governing body, the FIA, could not prove it had been used. Then, after a refuelling fire during the German Grand Prix, Benetton were found guilty of taking a filter out of their fuel hose without authorisation.
Benetton's 1994 pit fire led to the end of Walkinshaw's career with the team
They blamed it on a "junior member of staff", but the rumour was that Walkinshaw had authorised it.
Benetton agreed with the FIA to part company with certain unidentified staff as an act of good faith. It was an open secret that a deal had been brokered behind closed doors that Walkinshaw would leave the company at the end of the year.
He moved first to run Benetton-linked Ligier, before in early 1996 taking over Arrows.
Such was the regard in which Walkinshaw was held that he was expected to make a success of a team that had never won a race in its 20-year history.
He pulled off a coup by convincing world champion Damon Hill to join the team for 1997 but the car was uncompetitive. Hill took a somewhat freak second place in Hungary but left the team at the end of the year.
From then on, it was largely all downhill, despite a few flashes of hope, namely when investment bank Morgan Grenfell bought into the team in 1998 and Walkinshaw signed a high-profile sponsorship deal with mobile phone network Orange in 2000.
Generally, his Arrows years were a struggle against the odds, and they ended in 2002 with the ignominy of a High Court battle with Morgan Grenfell and a damning judgement, in which Mr Justice Lightman described proposals Walkinshaw had made trying to ensure the survival of the team as "underhand and improper, indeed downright dishonest".
Why did it go wrong for him in F1?
Some said Walkinshaw too often had his eye off the ball, concentrating on his other business interests, such as his TWR engineering group and Gloucester Rugby Club, to the detriment of his F1 team.
Walkinshaw found money and new partners hard to come by, despite his long history in the car and motorsport industries - or perhaps because of it, some believed.
Walkinshaw was a hard-nosed businessman and sportsman, always viewed as the ultimate survivor, the man who could be guaranteed to pull off the last-minute saving deal.
But his failure with Arrows spelt the end of his association with top-level motorsport, although he did continue to run a touring car team in Australia.
He turned his business acumen and tough negotiating skills to a new role in rugby.
Related or not, the collapse of Arrows coincided with Walkinshaw's tenure as chairman of Premier Rugby, the top-flight clubs' umbrella body, from 1998-2002.
Later, he led the clubs' team negotiating with the Rugby Football Union over the release of England players, the details of which are now enshrined in an eight-year agreement that has largely ended what for a while were very bitter wrangles over the management of the men playing for the national side.
As chairman of Gloucester, he is remembered fondly for pumping in lots of money and keeping the team at the forefront of the game, even if he never quite achieved his ambitions either domestically or in Europe.
Walkinshaw was a complex figure who aroused mixed emotions but, although he had a dark side, plenty of people will remember him as a warm-hearted and generous man.
BBC F1 analyst Martin Brundle, whose long relationship with Walkinshaw included winning Le Mans and the world sportscar title, says: "He was a mentor to me.
"I wrote to him and asked him for a drive when he didn't know me from Adam and he gave me a chance. If he hadn't done that, I'd still be selling Toyotas in West Norfolk, for sure. He was an entrepreneurial racer and a great tactician."
And Hill, now president of the British Racing Drivers' Club that owns Silverstone, adds: "He was a very big-hearted guy who put everything he had into motor racing in all its forms. He loved motorsport and he liked business, too.
"Tom had competitive spirit and there were a lot of good things about him. He genuinely wanted to compete. He wanted things to turn out right.
"I certainly believed in Tom and his sincere desire to build a team. But it didn't work out.
"He was a major player in motorsport for a long time and that will be his testimony."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2010/12/tom_walkinshaw_who_has_died.html
For those of you who know me, lately, I have taken to adding a short story to some of my WIPs. My new project comes with a new storyline featuring a new character and not related to any of my previous storylines. This WIP is focused more on the build than the story. The story is only to show what is influencing my WIP.
The Build
The kit is the Tamiya Aston Martin DBS.
The paint is Tamiya TS-30 Silver Leaf. The interior will be shades of dark gray.
If I have any disappointments about this kit, it has to be the body. The mold lines are quite noticable. It is unfortunate since the body is molded in a nice shade of metallic gray that would look fantastic if polished.
The Story
Mr. Allen is a long time spy who has worked for just about every letter agency in the government and for some agencies that don't officially exist. His last mission, though technically a success, nearly cost him his life and after a considerable amount of time recuperating from his wounds, he is given an office job for the Department. But, coping with the cold winter in Washington, DC is difficult for him and he retires from the Department to a warmer climate in the Florida Keys. Getting there will require one last "job". Finding the double agent in the Department who almost got him killed.
More to come.....
Source: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/thread/934250.aspx
Peter Monteverdi Robin MontgomerieCharrington Juan Pablo Montoya Gianni Morbidelli
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/formula-f1/~3/OKam64yy4iA/
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2011/01/29/ferrari-shows-its-movable-rear-wing/
Kurt Ahrens Jr Christijan Albers Michele Alboreto Jean Alesi
Source: http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/photos-2011-rolex-24-race-gallery/
At launch, engine options are expected to include a 2.0-liter TFSI and a 2.0-liter TDI with 170 PS (125 kW / 168 hp).Source: http://feeds.worldcarfans.com/~r/worldcarfans/Jxfz/~3/hYxoKeP5pjM/2012-audi-q3-spied-on-the-road
 Fernando Alonso is the new favourite for the title |
?He is the man with the momentum and, on the same basis that I backed Mark Webber to win the title before Korea, is now my favourite to claim the world title in Abu Dhabi on Nov 14. ?When the cars are so evenly-matched you have to back the man in possession. Especially when that man is a two-time world champion and arguably the finest driver of his generation.?The Mirror?s Byron Young drew comparisons between Alonso and seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher as the Spaniard bids to become the sport?s youngest ever triple world champion.
?Like Schumacher, Alonso accepts no opposition within his team. Ultimately he fell out with McLaren over their refusal in 2007 to bring Lewis Hamilton to heel. ?He returned to Renault on condition he was No.1, only to be at the centre of the Singapore cheat scandal - engineered to hand him victory. ?The Spaniard has always denied involvement but at the German GP in July he was brazen enough to radio Ferrari to rein in team-mate Felipe Massa so he could start the winning streak that has taken him to the brink of history.?
Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/10/alonso_the_new_favourite_1.php
Ernst Klodwig Kamui Kobayashi Helmuth Koinigg Heikki Kovalainen
Source: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/happy-times/
Stephane Sarrazin Takuma Sato Carl Scarborough Ludovico Scarfiotti
On the styling front, the updated model features a revised grille, modified bumpers and new lighting units.Well, here we go then, my first blog of a new year - and it will take me a while to type it. I've just returned from a skiing trip to France and used so many muscles that even my fingers ache. Mind you, I've promised my wife Harriet a six-pack as a New Year's resolution for the past few years so maybe it's actually the perfect start to 2011!
It may only be January but another F1 season will be upon us before we know it - and judging by the tweets I've been receiving it can't come soon enough for lots of you! There's a lot going on and you might have read about changes to the BBC team - I'll come onto those in a bit.
But there is no doubt that since taking this job it feels as though my life has has entered a warp-speed stage. I look at the calendar ahead of the season and feel rather daunted by the travel, the hours of live television, the garish Eddie Jordan outfits and the drama that awaits us... but before I know it, we'll be at the final race of the year with the champion crowned.
The winter break is the same. Knowing when the season starts meant that even before we signed off in Abu Dhabi we had already announced how many weeks it was until the 2011 season. So I've spent most of the winter (in between sore throats/colds/flu) ticking off the weeks until we're back in Bahrain.
I can't believe it's time to turn our attention towards Sebastian Vettel's defence of his crown already.
Coulthard (right) will dove-tail his pundit's role with his new commentating duties. Photo: Getty
I vividly remember coming off air in November, having signed off from the final F1 Forum of 2010, and immediately feeling really down. I mentioned it to Martin Brundle, who told me that it's par for the course. After giving so much both mentally and physically to a gruelling nine-month schedule, it's natural that you experience a dip the moment the adrenalin leaves your body and the slog is over.
Mind you, my dip wasn't quite as big as Ferrari's, was it? I'm sure over the winter you've read the revelations that team principal Stefano Domenicali considered walking away after the Scuderia's strategy calls contributed to Red Bull's double success. Well, to understand what Domenicali must have been feeling, you need to realise how much emotion is involved in a sport more famed for its technical element.
Many of the Red Bull engineers and mechanics have worked for that team throughout all the name changes, back-of-the-field struggles and double retirements they have experienced in less successful years, so you can imagine the outpouring of joy that greeted Vettel's title in Abu Dhabi. And from men who spend their days in the macho world of racing there were plenty of tears as the best partiers in the paddock lived up to their reputation of working hard and playing hard, too.
As I left them to their celebrations, I walked into the pit lane and looked along the garages, where I was met with the clearest example of what suspect calls on the pit wall can lead to.
Right next door to the loud music and joy emanating from the Red Bull garage, there was just one lonely mechanic standing and talking on the phone in a still, silent Ferrari garage.
The money they'd spent, the car they'd devoted thousands of hours to, the flights they'd taken and the dreams they'd had eventually came to nothing. The car was now obsolete, the season over and all because of one split-second decision on the pit wall. That is what makes this such a fascinating sport.
I think we all felt a bit odd at the end of the season. Imagine how it was for our own former Red Bull driver David Coulthard, seeing the team you raced for achieving the ultimate success. He must have had all sorts of emotions.
You'll get the chance to hear for yourself next season just how emotional grand prix racing makes David because, as well as chasing around the paddock with Eddie and me, he is stepping up into the commentary box.
I'm really excited about a 13-time winner sharing his knowledge in the race with you. Remember, David has raced most of the guys on the grid, has first-hand experience of the inner workings of current champions Red Bull and, most importantly, has driven contemporary F1 machinery.
There is no doubt that it is a daunting prospect for him but I think he will fly once he settles in. I always tell him that the pre- and post-race "waffle", as I jokingly refer to it, is important and an interesting way of adding depth to a race weekend. However, we don't directly affect people's enjoyment of the actual racing.
In my mind, the commentary is a somewhat more responsible role for that reason and is also the trickiest job going. I wouldn't swap the pit lane for the commentary box for all the sand in Bahrain!
Although David is moving to the commentary box, the 'three-o' of myself, DC and EJ will remain. We love working together and, when you get an on-screen chemistry that people seem to enjoy, it would be foolish to break it up.
However, David will need to hustle his white jeans to the commentary box a little earlier so immediately pre- and post-race will be a chance for EJ to get on his soap box and share his views at a time when the audience is joining us in their droves for the racing.
The most fascinating part of any race weekend for me has always been settling down to watch the grand prix with Eddie and David as they discuss the race unfolding while regaling me with anecdotes of their first-hand experience. Well, I won't get that anymore but my loss is certainly your gain and I think we've a really strong team in place for 2011.
And who will be alongside David in the box? His long-time friend, one-time business partner and full-time expert on the sport - Martin Brundle.
Martin has had more races behind the microphone than behind the wheel - and what better qualifications can you have than to have taken part in the sport for so long, commentating on almost every race for the past 14 years? I thought in 2010 his instincts, ability to read the race and general enthusiasm for the sport he has dedicated his life to were as prevalent as ever.
I don't envy the work that lies ahead for Martin, though. It might seem like a small change on paper but, in reality, while DC will be sharing his views on drivers, strategy and taking us as close to the cockpit as possible, Martin will need to be aware of every little story, political development and technical development as he calls the action. Racing drivers only exist to be the best, so expect to see him giving it his all to make it a huge success.
Clearly, however, the changes I've talked about mean that Jonathan Legard will no longer be part of our team - I know I'm going to really miss him.
I first met 'Ledgy', as we affectionately call him, at Craven Cottage, where we were both covering football. It was November 2008 and we had both been lined up for the new F1 season. We got talking and were both brimming with excitement and anticipation about the adventure ahead.
I remember before the 2009 season started and we were both incredibly nervous about taking on something as important and prestigious as F1 and I told him how worried I was about the challenge ahead. His instant reply was: "We can both either have an easy life or an exciting life and I know which one I want!"
That is typical Jonathan - always encouraging, incredibly enthusiastic, a good friend to us all, and without doubt the hardest working member of the BBC's F1 team, doing an incredibly difficult job. I know I speak for every member of the production when I say we're all going to miss his entertaining company and his absolute dedication to the job. All the best for the future Jonathan!
One thing you may well also miss is standard-definition coverage. Finally, we are delighted to bring you F1 in high definition, which I think will make the sport even more dramatic and addictive than ever.
So why will you miss SD? Well, mainly because in HD I think Eddie's shirts might be un-viewable. I've warned him, but I'm still expecting something outrageous come March!
So, the clock is ticking for the new season and March will be here in a flash. We have a new Indian driver, a new Indian Grand Prix, the prospect of three British drivers battling it out if Scottish DTM champ Paul di Resta gets the nod at Force India, six world champions on the grid... and once again the whole season will be live and uninterrupted of the BBC.
I can't wait to share the 2011 season with you all. Feel free to leave comments below about the kind of stuff you would like to see in our coverage this year and remember that throughout the season I post plenty of exclusive pictures and other juicy stuff on my Twitter page.
Eight weeks and counting...
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jakehumphrey/2011/01/ringing_the_changes_for_2011.html
Pressure comes with the job when you work for Ferrari, and there was no hiding from expectation on Friday when they became the first Formula 1 team to unveil their 2011 car.
Asked if he felt an "obligation" to win, technical director Aldo Costa replied simply: "Yes."
Chief designer Nikolas Tombazis said he was "quite optimistic about this car and how it will go during the season".
And team principal Stefano Domenicali, always cautious about his public proclamations, said: "F150 was created with a simple aim. Our goal is to win the championships. We know it won't be easy, but that is definitely what we are aiming for."
It is normal for F1 teams to sound optimistic when they launch their new cars. One gets used to a seemingly endless series of wildly confident predictions about what each team will achieve in the coming year, to the point that at the first race of each season you can almost hear the whistling of air from a series of burst balloons.
Ferrari are different, though. Such a fixture are they at the top of F1, so successful have they been over the last decade, that the big surprise is if they do not turn out to be title contenders.
They certainly were last year, only to lose out in the most agonising fashion at the final race of the season when a catastrophic decision to call in Fernando Alonso for an early pit stop left him stuck behind Vitaly Petrov's Renault and let in Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel to win the race and snatch the title from under the Spaniard's nose.
However, while Alonso went into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix leading the championship and hot favourite to win it, Ferrari know they were somewhat fortunate to be in that position.
Ferrari have worked hard to make the rear of their new car as low and narrow as possible. Photo: AP
The Red Bull was comfortably the fastest car last season and it was only a series of mistakes and failures by that car and its drivers that allowed Alonso to capitalise on a quite superb run of form in the second half of the season and take the championship lead.
In many ways, 2010 was a success for Ferrari. Their decision to drop Kimi Raikkonen in favour of Alonso paid off in spades, and they proved that a poor 2009, when they won only one race, was an aberration not the start of a trend.
But second place is not good enough for this team that carries the hopes of an entire nation, and millions of other fans around the world. And the pressure is on to at least match Red Bull for pace in 2011.
Ferrari are the only team to have been in F1 since the world championship started in 1950. And while they have been through their ups and downs, they exist to win.
When they do not, questions are asked, and Ferrari are painfully aware of how they let the championship slip through their fingers.
Yes, there was the error in Abu Dhabi - for which chief engineer Chris Dyer has paid by being relieved of his position and moved to a factory-based role.
But there was also the slow decline in competitiveness from winning the first race to a dreadful Turkish Grand Prix in May, when Alonso finished eighth having not even made the top-10 qualifying shoot-out.
This period coincided with a series of uncharacteristic mistakes made by Alonso himself that cost him a hatful of points in the first few races of the season.
In that context, their rise back to competitiveness in the second half of the season, and Alonso's near-miss in the championship, served only to remind them what might have been.
The frustration of lost opportunity, and the determination to make amends, ran through the Ferrari launch on Friday.
As Domenicali put it: "Last season we had difficult and beautiful moments, and we want to build on those beautiful moments."
So expectation is high, both within Ferrari and without, and a lot rests on the sleek new F150 that Alonso and team-mate Felipe Massa unveiled in Maranello.
To the untrained eye, the car looks similar to the F10 with which Alonso came close in 2010. But the detail hides some significant changes - and some surprising revelations.
Chief among these is the decision to retain push-rod rear suspension, rather than the pull-rod that has been used by Red Bull since 2009 and which is expected to feature on the majority of the grid in 2011.
Pull-rods had been out of fashion since the late 1980s, but were brought back by Red Bull's design head Adrian Newey - widely regarded in F1 as a genius - as a response to the major technical changes that were introduced for 2009.
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
These included severe restrictions on the design of diffuser, the part of the car where the floor sweeps upwards under the rear wing and which is so important in creating downforce.
Newey's pull-rod design actually proved a handicap in 2009 following the controversial adoption by some teams of the so-called double-diffuser, around which a pull-rod was difficult to package.
But with the ban on this item, 2011 effectively marks a return to the intended diffuser regulations of 2009, and Newey's design is expected to come into its own as a way of lowering the centre of gravity and improving airflow.
Most teams are expected to follow Red Bull's lead, so it is interesting that Ferrari have chosen not to.
My sources in Italy tell me that instead they have come up with a clever repackaging of the dampers, bringing them forward in the car. This allows them to have a much lower back to the gearbox without the penalties inherent in a pull-rod design, which is very difficult to work on - the mechanics have to take the floor off to adjust the dampers.
Fascinating as these things are, no F1 car's performance is defined by one single aspect of its design - it is about how a complex package works together.
And it is clear that a lot of thought has gone into this car in the context of the rule changes for 2011 - most notably the debut of movable rear wings to aid overtaking and the re-introduction of the Kers energy recovery and power-boost systems, which come with heavy batteries that create a packaging headache.
"We had to rethink quite a lot on the car from the aerodynamic point of view," Costa said.
"The ban on the double diffuser, the introduction of the new rear wing concept and a lot of other detailed clarifications around the back end of the car pushed us to have a complete re-think about the rear of the car.
"(There's) a completely new layout with a completely new concept. Also the introduction of Kers has pushed us to review the central part of the car. Because of all these changes, Kers and then develop the car around new tyres, changes related to the safety of the chassis, it has been quite a different project."
Have they succeeded? Ferrari will begin to get the first indication next Tuesday, when their new car runs against those of Red Bull and Mercedes on the first day of the first pre-season test.
Between then and the first race in Bahrain on 13 March there are a further 15 days of testing for teams to hone their designs. And it is clear where Ferrari's ambitions lie.
"I'm feeling very motivated," Alonso says. "2010 was an interesting year for me. It was my first with Ferrari and I enjoyed the atmosphere. 2011 will be an important year with a new challenge after changes to the rules. We have to commit to everything we do and I think we are up to the challenge."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/01/ferrari_feel_pressure_to_unsea.html
A a new report is indicating the MINI Paceman will go into production in late 2012, ahead of its launch in 2013.Gastón Mazzacane Kenneth McAlpine Perry McCarthy Ernie McCoy
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2011/01/28/domenicali-qa-the-competition-will-be-even-harder/
32-5 Window (Revell). Rat Rod, Custom frame, Louvered Trunk, Open Roof with 3" Chop and welds.
I have only done a couple of these because of the realism of weathering I like to achieve. To me making plastic look rusty is an art and I'm no artist. I do think this looks convincing enough for a scale model.
Hope you enjoy as well.
Thank you for looking...
Source: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/thread/936618.aspx
Insider says image is close to what a 1-Series Gran Turismo based on the next-generation 1er will look like.Jimmy Stewart Siegfried Stohr Rolf Stommelen Philippe Streiff
Back in the days when crossovers were just something ghosts did, there was the Subaru Outback, a vehicle that looked like a wagon, but was superb off-road. Established in 1995, the Outback became the synonym for durability, ease of use, and excellent all around ability.
The styling on the other hand, was always a bit low end. That really didn?t seem to matter at the time to buyers, but in today?s world, styling goes hand in hand with all weather ability so Subaru had to make a change. Luckily, they did and for 2011, the new Outback is better than ever.
Subaru has been one of the lesser-known Japanese companies for some time now. In fact, some people think they came from Australia, but that?s beside the point. While they might not have much influence on the American industry, they are resilient and during the economic recession, the company only declined by 0.8%.
With the new Outback, Subaru looks to continue their success, but this time things are a tad different. Before, it seemed that styling was about as important as the location of the light in the glove box, but now, exterior styling has taken a front row seat. The new 2011 Outback look pretty good, words that would never have been uttered about previous generation Outbacks.
Hit the jump to get all of the details on the new 201 Subaru Outback 3.6.
Subaru Outback 3.6 originally appeared on topspeed.com on Friday, 28 January 2011 18:00 EST.
Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/subaru/2011-subaru-outback-36-ar104168.html
Thomas Monarch Franck Montagny Tiago Monteiro Andrea Montermini
Source: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/happy-times/
Ernesto Brambilla Vittorio Brambilla Toni Branca Gianfranco Brancatelli
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2011/01/28/domenicali-qa-the-competition-will-be-even-harder/
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/formula-f1/~3/F75cOQhYomI/
Few details available on the upcoming Alfa Romeo concept. The 4C GTA will be based on the KTM X-Bow.
Available as a coupe or convertible, the Halloween-inspired model features orange metallic paint, a black tridion safety cell, and black 15-inch alloy wheels.Michael Andretti Keith Andrews Elio de Angelis Marco Apicella
