Last week of January will bring the new F1 cars

We are right at the middle of January now, and still no new drivers or cars in F1. With testing starting in two weeks time, all of this is going to have to be sorted quickly. For now, a couple teams have already revealed when they will present their new cars to the press, and/or when the car will run for the first time:

Launches
25th January – Mercedes
28th January – Ferrari
29th January – McLaren
31st January – Renault, Sauber
12th February – Lotus
(please notice that the Mercedes team launch will only feature the new livery on the old Brawn GP 2009 car, and will not unveil their new car)

First tests for each team
1-3 February at Valencia – Renault, Sauber, Mercedes, McLaren, Ferrari
10-13 February at Jerez – Force India, Red Bull, Virgin
17-20 February at Jerez – Lotus
25-28 February at Barcelona – ?
??? February at Barber Motorsports Park – USF1

So this means an hectic last week of January where a lot of pictures of cars will appear and will be over-analysed, then another interesting day at Valencia the 1st of February. That doesn’t sit very well with me, as I predict that week to be a very busy week at work since I have to deliver a project on that same day…

It’s interesting to note that Red Bull will skip the first week at Valencia, which doesn’t seem very much like what a top team should do, but they did it last year and it’s not like it worked wrong for them. The lack of news about Campos remains worrying, but then again the respected Williams haven’t announced anything yet, and neither did Toro Rosso, a team which has been often forgotten this off-season – they have a very big task in fully developing their own car, something that italian factory hasn’t done for about the past 5 years!

Meanwhile, news about McLaren have given yet another hint about the Sauber seat – Pedro de la Rosa is confirmed to be going to test the Mac in the 1st of February, so that must mean he’s not joining the swiss squad then? Like I said friday, this week’s favourite man for the job has been Giancarlo Fisichella, who does also have a Ferrari contract, but, unlike Pedro, has been given the go-ahead to race for another team.

Alonso’s new helmet

In Italy this week there was this sponsors event called Wrooom where the Ferrari drivers and Ducati riders compete in all sorts of ridiculous things, like Fiat Pandas in the snow, and skiing. This was one of the first official appearances of Fernando Alonso in Ferrari gear, and it just happened to reveal his helmet design, as they used helmets in several of the mini-games:

I’m not sure I like the light blue, but it sure is distinctive. The aces in the back remain from last year’s helmet in Renault and represent his two world championship titles, in 2005 and 2006.

Funny pic there with Bernie as flagman and Felipe, Fernando and Giancarlo in an… awkward pose. Speaking of Giancarlo Fisichella, the word around is that he surprisingly beat de la Rosa to the Sauber seat, after all. But it’s not officially confirmed yet.

More developments about Sauber

There are some noises today about Pedro de la Rosa having denied he’s moving to Sauber. This seems to be a matter of interpretation, as there’s also some spanish guys in the forums saying the only thing he told to a spanish newspaper is that “he hasn’t signed yet”. The name of Giancarlo Fisichella also keeps on appearing related to Sauber as their other alternative, which would make some sense as they’re racing with Ferrari engines this season and Ferrari would prefer their 3rd driver to race for another team this year, to avoid another Badoer-like fiasco. Whichever way it goes, Pedro, Giancarlo or anyone else, Peter Sauber made it clear that Nick Heidfeld isn’t going there and that still makes most of the stuff I wrote yesterday valid.

Sauber's only win in F1 came in Canada 2008, with Robert Kubica driving and BMW as the team owners.

Meanwhile, there’s another interesting story about Sauber that popped up in Autosport today. The team still hasn’t asked for an official name change and has no intention of doing it soon, which is a little weird. This might be for one of two reasons:

a) Recent history shows that F1 isn’t very consistent when it comes to giving money to new teams. Unless my memory is failing, I believe last year when Honda changed to Brawn, they lost all of their TV/prize money achieved during the previous season. Last month, Brawn changed to Mercedes and apparently there was a special deal to allow them to keep the cash. Sauber might be waiting to see which of these scenarios will apply to him, and trying to get a special deal like Mercedes.

b) They might be delaying it to see if they can sell the naming rights of the team to a sponsor. With Petronas having recently moved to Mercedes, I’m not sure they have sponsorship lined up and they might be forced into more desperate tactics like this to attract some.

At the moment they are still officially “BMW Sauber”, and, while their rivals Renault have sold the team and kept the name, it’s pretty much certain they will change it before Bahrain.