F1 - Season 2013 *Spoilers*

[1nsane]

F1 - The series where the teams' budget over one race is bigger than Europe's annual budget. And the drivers' salaries could feed a whole country in Africa. But we don't care!

It's been just under two months since the last season ended, but within a few weeks the first teams are ready to show their new cars. With the big rule changes already blinking in the horizon and this year having practically no rule changes, this year will be more about recycling the old parts and aiming for the future.

And it ended up being mostly the same in the drivers' front. 3 of the top 5 teams will have the same lineup as last year. The biggest move of the year was obviously Hamilton moving to Mercedes. And I tell you what, what ever the others say, he didn't leave because of the money. He left because he got bored of the gray colour of the car. So he switched to Mercedes where the cars are... Oh...

To fill the gap, McLaren hired Crashez... No wait, Perez who had, until the signing, performed very well. But from that point onwards it was more of a downhill slide for him. So it's going to be interesting to see what's going to happen.

Massa got an overtime pass after what seemed like a mid season kick. Helping him in the fight for the championship is Alonso. Also Red Bull and Renault keep their old drivers. From the rear of the grid, Toro Rosso does the same thing.

Next year we'll see only 22 cars on the grid as HRT's struggle for existence is now over. And Bernie said it was good.

Thanks to the contract roulette spinning so quickly during last year, we're left with just one to three seats to be confirmed.

Lineup of 2013

Code: Select all

Constructor || Engine
Drivers

Red Bull || Renault
Sebastian Vettel || Mark Webber

Ferrari || Ferrari     
Fernando Alonso || Felipe Massa

McLaren || Mercedes
Jenson Button || Sergio Perez

Lotus || Renault
Kimi Räikkönen || Romain Grosjean

Mercedes || Mercedes
Nico Rosberg || Lewis Hamilton

Sauber || Ferrari
Nico Hülkenberg || Esteban Gutierrez

Force India || Mercedes
Paul di Resta || Sutil

Williams || Renault
Pastor Maldonado || Valtteri Bottas

STR || Ferrari
Daniel Ricciardo || Jean-Éric Vergne

Caterham || Renault     
Charcles Pic || Giedo Van Der Garde

Marussia F1 || Cosworth
Jules Bianchi || Max Chilton

As said earlier, no big rule changes were made for this year.

DRS rules will be changed so that it can only be used in the designated spots during practice and qualifying, as opposed to the free use last year.
No mid season testing.
No Double DRS.
The teams have also been given a chance to hide the stepped nose by putting a plate in front of it. Apparently most of the teams won't use it though, so get prepared for some more duck faces this year.

Also, on the technical front, Pirelli has said they would be modifying the tyres again. I have to admit I don't remember what the changes were, but it was most likely to remove a bit of the sudden drop this year's tyres had. And to increase the gap between different compounds.

Because of the small changes, most of the cars will be just updates from last year. The biggest change we see will be from Mercedes, who dropped the last year's failed car completely and went on a copy Red Bull route. Also, expect Ferrari to make some changes to get the car drivable from the beginning of the season.


This year has seen the struggle to scrape up a schedule. The race in New Jersey was delayed by a year because of politics. There were talks about France or Turkey replacing the race, but no money was found to keep the event. Valencia was dropped and will start switching with Catalunya because of the lack of spectators. German GP is supposed to be kept in Nürburgring this year, but the owners have financial troubles, so it might be replaced with Hockenheim. The Korean GP hosts also were crying about the race not profiting, but ended up renewing the contract.

As for the upcoming new GPs, at least the Russian GP seems to still be in schedule and should be on the calendar in 2014 or 2015. There have also been talks about a race in Thailand next year.

Code: Select all

Race   Grand Prix    Date

1   Australian GP    17 March
2   Malaysian GP    24 March
3   Chinese GP    14 April
4   Bahrain GP    21 April
5   Spanish GP    12 May
6   Monaco GP    26 May
7   Canadian GP    9 June
8   British GP   30 June
9   German GP    7 July
10   --Empty--    21 July
11   Hungarian GP    28 July
12   Belgian GP    25 August
13   Italian GP    8 September
14   Singapore GP    22 September
16   Korean GP    6 October
15   Japanese GP   13 October
17   Indian GP    27 October
18   Abu Dhabi GP    3 November
19.  United States GP    17 November
20   Brazilian GP    24 November

The first car reveals are expected on first days February.

On last year's poll 11 people voted for Vettel winning the championship. So the poll is up there again! Let's see how many gets it right this year! (The poll closes one day before the first practice in Australia)

F1 2013 is GOOOOOOO

[XYY]

Something seems to be wrong here

As for the upcoming new GPs, at least the Russian GP seems to still be in schedule and should be on the calendar in 2014 or 2014.

[1nsane]

Something seems to be wrong here

As for the upcoming new GPs, at least the Russian GP seems to still be in schedule and should be on the calendar in 2014 or 2014.

Ah, fixed, thanks.

[DuklaLiberec]

Speaking of the new circuit in Sochi, which hosts the Russian GP in the future, the organizers expect over 45,000 spectators. Well, the Olympics and F1 possibly in the same year, that sounds promising.

There is a Twitter page of the project as well: https://twitter.com/FormulaSochi

[FRUKIScze]

There is a Twitter page of the project as well: https://twitter.com/FormulaSochi

Oh, thanks DuklaLiberec. I must follow this tw page.

[Yusei Fudo]

Yay for Bottas!
No yay for no mid season testing Seriously, that needs to be brought back.

[Bouncebackability]

The schedule you've written says European GP, but no German GP

[Joey Zyla]

I'm thrilled that most teams won't be using those plates to 'hide' the stepped noses!

[1nsane]

The schedule you've written says European GP, but no German GP

Ah, I still tend to associate Nürburgring with European GP since it had the title for such a long time. Fixed it too.

As for the voting for the champion of 2013... I have to go with Alonso once again, although I'm a bit afraid the year might end up being a Red Bull domination again. They got their act together on the second half of the season and they can easily just continue from there. Meanwhile Ferrari has to do some more drastic updates which might just not work at all. Or then they can't gain back any ground. Meanwhile McLaren doesn't really have the driver capable of getting it and the other teams just simply can't keep it up for the whole season. Unless we get a Brawn style surprise in the beginning.

[Lukeno94]

People really should get off Jenson's case. 2004 and 2011 are perfect examples of how Jenson can perform even without the best car on the grid... And no one can call Perez as he's never had a top-team's car before.

[1nsane]

But at the same time Button can just be completely nowhere. Just last year he practically disappeared for some of the races, which essentially dropped him off the fight. That's why I really doubt he could get another title unless the car and the tires are a 100% fit for him. And being a master in wet conditions doesn't really help when there are only a few wet races a year.

As for Perez.. True, But still I see the best car + driver combo is in Red Bull.

[Trigger Happy]

..... still I see the best car + driver combo is in Red Bull.

Except fact, that the car even haven't touched the ground (noone of them).

[1nsane]

Wow, well... Seems like the drivers' market wasn't that complete after all. Timo Glock is expected to leave Marussia and tomorrow (or today, as most of you are reading it by then) it should be confirmed. So it seems like Marussia's running out of money too.

Which is also the case for Force India. They're trying to find a way to keep the team running, apparently that Indian guy's (whose name I managed to forget just now) money situation is in a really bad state. The airline had it's problems last year, but they were supposed to be dealt with by selling some stocks of the brewery company. Looks like that wasn't the case.
Anyways, if the team gets to run normally, the lineup for them should be DiResta and Sutil/Bianchi. But if they have to go on a real money saving programme, I wouldn't be that surprised if they dropped DiResta and Sutil from the images and went with Bianchi and some driver who brings a lot of money. Bianchi should bring some benefits from Ferrari, so that should help them atleast a bit...
And then there's Caterham who has been completely silent since the year changed.

I can hear some guys begging for money on the streets. Oh wait, it's just the F1 drivers...

[Lukeno94]

Caterham will be fine - they've got Pic bringing in money, and if it gets a bit tight, they'll bin Kovaleinen and keep Petrov for his money. Feel sorry for Glock though - he's been screwed over throughout his career, despite clearly having lots of talent, if only he'd gotten a proper shot!

EDIT: Glock has left Marussia
EDIT 2: Caterham announce their new car

[1nsane]

Yeah, Caterham will be fine. Although they will propably drop both of the drivers. Kovalainen and Petrov are both in a similar situation that they won't be bringing enough of money. Kovalainen isn't even looking and Petrov's backers have faded away during the years. Although yes, Petrov is the more likely one to continue.
But with Glock leaving, Caterham might also go for a pay+pay route, getting two drivers who give a big sum of money for this year so they can develop the 2014 car more. So they would essentially just ditch this year, only trying to ensure the 10th spot stays with them. If a freak race comes and they get some points, they are just bonus. Then they can drop one of the pay drivers for 2014 and get a skilled old driver back in. And the same could go with Marussia.

And yeah, too bad for Glock, hopefully he gets to perform properly where ever he goes next year. His injury in 2009 couldn't have happened in worse time. Just as the season is ending and after some decent points it happens, dropping him completely off the fight for better seats. And although both Kovalainen and Glock said they went to the slow teams to "get some new momentum for the career" it was quite clear they wouldn't be coming back up.

Also, interestingly Force India has said they won't reveal their drivers even during the revealing of the car on February 1st. They are supposed to do it "before the first test", which is 5th of February. They are literally leaving the decision until last minute.

[Lukeno94]

Force India have almost certainly decided already, it would be madness not to. Either the contract isn't finalized, or they just want to keep everyone guessing.

[1nsane]

Di Resta should be, yeah. The other one might not be even close. And they might not even want to sign them before they know what their funding situation really is.

As was somewhat expected around the internets, Glock joined BMW and will race in DTM next year.

[1nsane]

Lotus being unveiled, live! http://www.youtube.com/user/lrgptv?v=P6 ... g-subs-lsb

Edit: Aaaaaand, it's done. The car looks nice, not too many changes on the body design as such. The bump in the nose has been smoothened a bit and the rear wing seemed to have some more curves in it. I can't remember if the sidepods were designed like they are now, but they look neat. Especially since the red seems to bring the shapes out more. It's also cool to see they have put the driver's name on the roll hoop, making it at least a bit easier for the spectators to figure out which one is which. Although the Williams way of doing it is still propably better. Anyways, check out the Rendered version.

31.1 edit

And the McLaren was just revealed. It was shown live through youtube (It's cool to see more teams going to youtube.). The exterior of the car haven't really changed from last year. They still have the old nose, so no duckface there. Although it is the heightened version they showed during last season, not the one they started out with in 2012. The rear wing had some more drastic angles but those will likely change for every race anyway. Apparently the inside should be revamped, though, so let's hope for some more reliability next year.

Tomorrow it's time for Ferrari... That's going to be an interesting one regarding the nose. They could be one of the teams to hide the drop. Or at least they should have reworked it so it is a bit more efficient instead of a wall they had last year. I also wonder if they changed the nose design so it is a bit pointier instead of the strange design they had last year..

1.2 edit

So Ferrari was just unveiled. And man it looks good. I guess they are using the covering plate on the nose since it is so high, but there's no drop. (Actually, apparently McLaren uses a drop nose too with the plate). The tip of the nose is also a bit more rounded, although it still looks a bit strange. There's some interesting designing around the roll hoop. Picture

[The Noose]

Actually McLaren is the first team to cover the drop on the nose. As you can see from this picture. EDIT: And apparently 1nsane did manage the mention it JUST before I did.



And the new Ferrari's nose is very high from the ground. And the nose looks like it's taken from the 2009 Renault.

Ferrari F138

[1nsane]

And suddenly a rush of news happens.

Force India was also revealed. They also have the covering plate on. Apparently they are the worst in hiding it, though. McLaren has made a good job with it, looks like there isn't one. Anyways, Force India. This one seems to be an exact replica of last year's car...

Also, drivers. Kovalainen is out as Giedo Van Der Garde takes the second Caterham seat. According to Luis Razia's own homepage, he is driving for Marussia next year. (A bit of a surprise to me, but things change rapidly..). Also, As the presentation picture of Force India shows, Di-Resta should be 100% sure to drive there now.

Edit: And yeah the front of the Ferrari looks pretty high. I guess it's got a lot to do with how they painted it, making it look higher than it is. And looking at the livery of Ferrari again, it looks rather good actually. It's a fresh change from the full red, although it is just a minor change.

[Bouncebackability]

I think the Ferrari looks fantastic this year, they've certainly made up for last years monstrosity.

[DuklaLiberec]

Also, drivers. Kovalainen is out as Giedo Van Der Garde takes the second Caterham seat. According to Luis Razia's own homepage, he is driving for Marussia next year. (A bit of a surprise to me, but things change rapidly..). Also, As the presentation picture of Force India shows, Di-Resta should be 100% sure to drive there now.

Pity for Kovalainen. Welp, Razia is indeed a surprise to me as well, but he finished the GP2 championship last season as runner-up, that should explain why he got Marussia's second seat.

[1nsane]

Gahh, the new Sauber livery looks so nice! Sauber.

They've also taken some creative freedom with the covering plate apparently. The side looks "normal" but they still have the drop in the middle. It's going to be interesting to see if we get some fights regarding the covering plate during the season, since it shouldn't be "aerodynamically effective", but now it seems they have been designed freely.

But the livery, very nice!

[Joey Zyla]

I'm disappointed that most teams have chosen the 'modesty panel'.

But I'm still looking forward to the new season! Testing begins very, very soon.

[Bouncebackability]

Wait, you liked the step nose?