Well, Ferrari have stuck to the spirit of the new rules regarding their nose but, erm, Lordy, I'm not sure about the result.

If the McLaren looks like an anteater, the Ferrari looks like a platypus!

Thing is, you can't just tell F1 teams to build cars with low noses and expect them to forget all the stuff they've learned which made them start building cars with high noses to begin with.
The importance of getting air into and around the underside of the car remains the same so it'd be kinda naive to expect the teams to just abandon the idea.

That being the case, I don't really think the McLaren is too bad TBH.
It looks like they've tried to create an elegant solution to an awkward problem.
At least it doesn't look like they've just bodged a low nose onto the end of a high-nose chassis.

I don't mind the new noses that we've seen so far. Most of them look OK. As mentioned above though the Lotus one is probably the one stands out. It isn't a good look.

What really does look good is the new liveries. Think every team that has revealed their car so far has an improved colour scheme. Force India's is a lot better as are the McClaren and Ferrari colour schemes.

Maybe I'm really late to this party but, the new Ferrari is called the F14 - T

Surely somebody's got away with a huge joke there?

Think "leetspeek"

Can anyone explain if this new end of year points will actually make a difference? I still think even if there was quadruple points at the last race Vettel would have won it. Besides, if Vettel wins the last race, or if a non-descript wins it, it'll render the whole thing pointless.

If you really want other teams apart from Red Bull to win, they have to be better than Red Bull, the same goes for tennis or many other sports, you have to beat the best.

Maybe I'm paranoid but it seems like whenever the scoring gets changed, it's as if somebody's thinking "ZOMG! We don't want another championship getting won the way Hamilton did it!" and is changing the rules with that sort of scenario in mind.

So, with that in mind, I guess a change in the rules would have meant Massa would have won the championship in 2008 and Alonso would have won in 2012.
Obviously it's just a complete coincidence that these changes are things that would have helped Ferrari to a WDC.

Personally, the thing that bothers me most is that it is, effectively, giving an unfair advantage to a team which happens to have a car that's suited to the Brazil circuit.
We all know some cars are better on some tracks so why should a car that's suited to, say, Monaco or Spa get a smaller reward than a car that's suited to Brazil?

It might not have an effect on the championship but I can see smaller teams, who've been scraping odd points here and there throughout the season, getting shafted if a rival lucks into a decent finish at Brazil.

The final race is in Abu Dhabi this season.

Fair comment.

Same thing applies though. A car that's particularly suited to the final circuit gets a bigger reward compared with a car that's equally suited to some other circuit.

Sauber have unveiled their 2014 car, the C33.

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12...2014-f1-season

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/25902622

Again, like the look of it. The nose looks nice as does the colour scheme.

Meh, Sauber "launch" their new car today with ONE pokey picture which seems to be taken at a rather flattering angle.

Seems like they've gone for a similar solution to McLaren though.

Speaking of which, I was looking at the 360° view of the McLaren and it looked as though it had regular suspension and further investigation seems to confirm that they've ditched the pullrod front suspension.

Surprised they gave up on it so quickly.
After all, getting the springs and dampers lower down will lower the CoG so you'd think it'd be worth persevering with, unless there's some fundamental reason why it won't work as well as a pushrod set-up.
In which case, you'd think Ferrari might have given up with it too.

If you think the current cars are ugly, have a look at these cars

Awww, I think it's kind of a cheap shot to poke fun at some of the older, erm, eccentric cars.
In those days, all they had was a vivid imagination and a pencil to work with so it's hardly surprising that people tried some wacky ideas.
Course, I suppose there isn't much of an excuse for the newer fuglies, such as the McLaren or Renault.

Also, while I'm at it, am I going to hell for wishing THIS had turned out to be real, or thinking it actually looks pretty good?

The new Merc
http://www.formula1.com/news/headlin...4/1/15424.html

Talk of Whitmarsh speaking with Lotus to join them as Boullier replacement - if that goes through, it's a straight swap of Team Principals between Lotus and McLaren. Although it does say Whitmarsh is one of possibly three candidates for the post.

And Alan McNish joins the BBC 5 Live commentary team following his retirement from driving at the end of last year.

Think the Merc has the "nicest" nose so far, with the RedBull second. Having seen the first few launches, I thought the nose had to extend further than the front edge of the wing but I see that's not the case (esp with the Lotus).

Sorry but the truly hideous Ferarri nose looks like an upended Dirt Devil. And as for that Toro Rosso dildo....

Hehe...

Missus isn't really an F1 fan but she has some interest of her own and she's used to me raving over pullrods and diffusers and energy recovery systems so she's aware that F1 is full of all sorts technical wizardry which isn't always obvious.

Ive been showing her the various cars as they were launched and the comments have ranged from "Oh, it's not bad" (McLaren) to "Hmmm, it looks a bit squashed" (FIAT... Erm, I mean F14T).

So, I showed her the Toro Rosso and her reaction was... uncontrollable laughter.
I mean proper, convulsive, uncontrollable laughter.
She genuinely couldn't speak for about 30 seconds but, once she'd regained the power of speech, her first word was "Shlong-mobile!"

Seriously, if that's the sort of response that these new cars are going to elicit from the casual onlooker, that can't be good for F1.

*EDIT*

The Merc' looks okay, as does the RBR. Looks like they've adopted the same philosophy as Ferrari. Just a bit more elegantly.

*EDIT2*

Just seen the Caterham. Blimey!

The Caterham is an abomination. None of them are particularly good but the Caterham is the stand out, narrowly beating the Ferrari (urgh) and the Torro Roso (What were they thinking?)

Looking at the noses of this year's cars, it's a little worrying that RBR seems to have done something that nobody else has.

Seems like Merc' and Ferrari have tried to form the nose and wing supports into a sort of "duct" to catch air, most of the other teams seem to have just attached some kind of "shlong" to the front of a high-nose car but RBR have extended the nose downward to make it into a sort of vertical wing-form.

When one team does something that nobody else has it often means they're either going to be much better or much worse... And this is a Newey car.


More generally, you gotta love the contrary nature of F1.
Teams have been bleating about the lack of testing over the last couple of years and then, with spangly new cars to test at Jerez, most of 'em spent the majority of their time in the garages yesterday.

By the time we get to Monza, Alonso will be moaning about the lack of development again while, at the same time, barely ever running in the FP sessions.

For me the most interesting news today is not what is happening at Jerez but McLaren's news that Eric Boullier is confirmed as their racing director with no mention of that nice Mr. Whitmarsh. Boullier will be responsible to a "yet to be appointed" CEO of McLaren Racing.
And herein lies the wonderful world of speculation!
Ross Brawn is still staying schtum on the subject of return, would he be interested? Has Martin Whitmarsh been kicked upstairs? Or is there someone else in the running?

I suppose it all comes down to the job description, At this level players have a great deal of freedom to accept or reject whichever funtion they are offered. I don't think any of them has to worry about the pennies.

On another subject, the BBC News are reporting that Sainsbury's CEO, Justin King has resigned and amongst their speculations is that he could take over dear Bernie's position!

Jerez is interesting, but I am inclined to cut them all some slack, they will race, and that's the important bit. The same goes for the annual condemnation of the new ugly cars.

Interesting to note how RBR seems to be having problems with electrical gubbins.
KERS never was their strong suite and this year the various ERS systems are much more integrated (spinning up turbo's out of corners electrically etc) so it's not just a case of losing the boost for 6 seconds a lap. Dodgy ERS will probably screw up your whole lap, out of every corner.
Hope for the competition there?

Incidentally, on that note, does anybody know if there'll actually be a "KERS" button on the cars this year or will all the ERS just be managed internally?

Kinda ironic that McLaren have been suffering with engine electronics problems too, given that they supply the EMS to the entire field.
Doh!

How are the EMS units allocated to the teams? By ballot?

Having just had quick google moment I see that F1.com have said:
"Unlike the current KERS - which give drivers an extra 80bhp for six seconds per lap - the 2014 ERS will give drivers around 160bhp for 33 seconds per lap."
It would not seem to be useful having the boost available for 33 contiguous seconds and therefor it will have to be made available at preferred moments. Whether this is done by clever software, i.e. on straights and/or at fierce acceleration moments, or simply under a button at the driver's discretion is to me, as yet unknown. We will have to wait for the answer to that one albeit from a future announcement or from a better informed than we poster.
It's this sort of minutiae that interests me, and another reason for missing Gary Anderson.

The current KERS system was deployed by the driving via a button on the steering wheel. I would have thought the ERS will be the system, where the driver chooses when to use it. The team may well advise him when best to use it as they currently do on occasions.

33 seconds to me seems a hell of a long time to have 'a boost'. You can have it on in both DRS zones, to ensure no one overtakes you. Thus making the DRS system somewhat redundant. You will then have some available for other parts of the track as well. Would have been better just to have left it at 6 seconds.

Here's an interesting article in which they say "With the new ERS system for 2014, drivers will not only have access to longer power bursts of 33 seconds, but double the power to the tune of 120 kW (160 bhp)."
If this is accurate, and I have no reason to doubt it's voracity, then it would seem more than likely that there is a button.

Well worth a read.