2012 FIA Formula 1 World Championship

Di Resta and Hulkenberg confirmed at Force India for 2012.

I'm glad they canned Sutil. Hulkenberg/Di Resta should be an interesting team to watch.

Kubica has injured himself again. Hope his luck changes soon, his talent deserves more than his soletary win.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/96958

That's really too bad, the guy deserves better, but his F1 career has to be over now.

Going by a leaked Driver profile on the team's website, Bruno Senna has secured the second seat at Williams! Yes!!!!!

I see Damon Hill is now with Sky.

Yup. He's going to be on half the races as an expert. He's always been good on TV. I'm amazed no one snapped him up long term before. I know he did a Comms role in the ITV days at one race (think it may have been Monaco)

virgin have sky f1 so im happy

Senna Confirmed at Williams

Oh dear... That's just going to feed the current trend of sensationalising Ayrton Senna's career isn't it?

Poor Bruno.

It's absolutely brilliant that Bruno Senna has signed for Williams. He really impressed during his short stint at Renault so I'm pleased for him!
At the same time, you've got to feel for Rubens as well! It'll be strange & really sad not to see him on the F1 grid anymore!

Very sad for Barrichello

He's been in F1 for a fair few years. Every driver has an expiry date, whether they like it or not.

I could see him racing Brazilian Stock Cars or something, he is good friends with a few people involved with that.

Charles Pic new 3rd driver @ Lotus

FranchittiFan wrote:Charles Pic new 3rd driver @ Lotus

Charles Pic is Virgin's 2nd driver, do you mean Jerome D'Ambrosio as Lotus's 3rd driver?

...............yes

Catherham jump their own gun and unveil their car a day early!

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97174

God, that nose. Words fail to describe..... I really hope that some of the other teams have come up with a more aesthetically pleasing way of meeting the 2012 regs for a lower nose.

It's function over form, so I'm fine with this sort of nose.


F1 cars are finally recovering from how they looked five years ago. Nice simple slicks and wings look.

I think the bulges for the suspension mounts are a little exaggerated, but then we're talking about a team that thought it was ok to still use the 'blade' roll structure a year after it was effectively banned
Nose is too flat and too high, I can see they're trying to copy the Mercedes design from last year but it really doesn't flow from that angle. Fron side on she's ok though.
STR copied that idea from Spa onwards last year and it actually improved the look of their car.

The nose is actually smooth and curved if you take away the suspension strut supports. They are trying to get the suspension as high as possible to get more air to the splitter, hence the large flat lumps that give off the appearance of lego bricks!

Ferrari seem to have went for a continuous parabolic type nose that swoops down. They've also went for McLaren style side-pod ''canals'' (that's what I'm calling them)

From Here - http://www.auto.it/images/auto/13/C_3_Media_1408713_immagine_fullw.jpg

f1 is going back to the mid 90s look i think

What I don't understand is if they want lower noses, why don't they make all the cars look like the Brawn did or go all the way back to the Senna era low noses.

I'm interested as to what the bi-plane wings ahead of the sidepods are doing. Well, I can have an educated guess, but seems to make getting in and out of the car harder lol.
The canals seem to be more sculpted than McLarens version last year. Though a simulated picture of the MP4-27 under a sheet seems to indicate a MUCH lower nose than on the last couple of cars.

narboza22 wrote:What I don't understand is if they want lower noses, why don't they make all the cars look like the Brawn did or go all the way back to the Senna era low noses.

It's the rules. The nose height has been lowered by quite a bit, but the tub height remains where it was.

Scarbs explaining 2012 design trends: http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/f1-2012-rules-designs-and-trends/

Caterham Analysis: http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/first-analysis-caterham-ct-01/