Formula One 2013

[Lineker]

A group of Canadian and American investors are pushing to try and secure HRT's entry slot in Formula 1, AUTOSPORT can reveal, but they may have to wait until 2014 before being allowed to join the grid.

Sources have revealed that negotiations to purchase the HRT company and secure an entry are at an advanced stage, and the plan for a team known as Scorpion Racing appears to have the blessing of F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

However, AUTOSPORT understands that the FIA believes the 12th entry slot for 2013 was closed off when it was informed at the end of last season that HRT had been liquidated.

Although the governing body is aware of the plans for Scorpion Racing, it does not appear to have any intention of making a special case to allow another team in for 2013 because the entry deadline closed last November.

The investors behind Scorpion Racing are hoping to complete due diligence of the buy-out plans in the next few days.

That means the viability of their plans should become clearer by the end of the week.

Scorpion is hoping to run its effort from a facility at Silverstone, using updated HRT F112 cars that will be powered by Cosworth engines and use a Williams gearbox.

AUTOSPORT has learned that discussions have taken place with Ecclestone about the idea, and he indicated to the outfit in a letter last weekend that if its takeover of the HRT assets was complete then it should get an entry to F1.

Ecclestone wrote to the Scorpion Racing investors saying: "Have you bought the HRT company? Because if you have, they [the FIA] would be accepting you."

It is not clear if there is any mechanism for Scorpion to secure a place on the grid if it can convince the FIA that it has the funding and technical capability to compete in 2013.

Lotus technical director James Allison will remain with the team in 2013 despite being linked with a move to McLaren, according to team principal Eric Boullier.

AUTOSPORT understands that Allison was approached by McLaren as a potential replacement for Paddy Lowe, were he to move to Mercedes, and that the highly-rated Lotus man has also been sounded out by Mercedes and Ferrari.

But regardless of what moves happen elsewhere, Boullier is sure Allison is committed to Lotus.

"It's up to him, but my understanding is that definitely in 2013 he will be with us," Boullier told AUTOSPORT.

"He has a management style that maybe some other teams would like to copy and has obviously brought a lot to the team.

"A lot of people here trust him, me first of them because I was very actively working on making his job position secure within this team.

"I have a lot of trust in him and everybody does because he's a good communicator, a good co-ordinator, has very good technical skills and a good vision. He is very important in the organisation."

Sources indicate that Allison was happy to remain at Lotus provided he was certain that the team would have the development budget needed to challenge for the top three.

"I see no reason why it shouldn't be," Allison told AUTOSPORT when asked if he was confident that the resource he had was sufficient for the team to achieve its goals.

"The agreed budgets for this year are technically greater than last year so as long as we deliver a good car, there's no reason why not."

[Lineker]

Christian Horner will remain as team principal of the Red Bull team after extending his contract with the outfit.

Red Bull said Horner had signed a new, multi-year contract.

The 39-year-old Briton joined the Milton Keynes-based team in 2005 after Red Bull bought out Jaguar.

The previous year he successfully led the Arden team he founded to the final F3000 title.

Red Bull has won the drivers' and constructors' championships three years in a row since 2010, and has also secured 34 grand prix wins and 46 pole positions.

Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has played down the chances of HRT suitors Scorpion Racing winning an entry for the 2013 championship.

As AUTOSPORT reported on Tuesday, a group of Canadian and American investors are pushing to try and secure HRT's entry for the forthcoming F1 campaign.

AUTOSPORT understands that the FIA believes the 12th entry slot for 2013 was closed off when it was informed at the end of last season that HRT had been liquidated.

Ecclestone has been in contact with the Scorpion Racing group, and wrote to investors saying: "Have you bought the HRT company? Because if you have, they [the FIA] would be accepting you."

He told the UK's Press Association, however, that an entry for 2013 was unlikely.

"I've spoken to them and told them to get in touch with the FIA and ask for an entry," Ecclestone explained.

"They want to buy all the bits from HRT, then form a company and ask for an entry, but I personally don't think it will happen.

"It's all a bit too late. Maybe they could do it for next year."

The due diligence on Scorpion Racing's buyout plans could be completed this week. A Silverstone base, rather than HRT's Madrid headquarters, has been mentioned.

[Katsuya]

Yes, Scorpion. After all, Scarab did such a good job, how much worse can another anthropod do?

EDIT: Also, damn, that Lotus looks nice.

[Lineker]

A deal has been agreed for the Nurburgring to host the 2013 German Grand Prix, according to Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

The future of the event had been in doubt for several months as financial difficulties threatened the Nurburgring ability to host a grand prix.

Ecclestone said on Monday that talks had 'regrettably' broken down because terms being offered by the track were 'not financially acceptable'.

Ecclestone has however confirmed to Reuters that a deal has been agreed and that a race will take place on July 7.

"I treasure the Nurburgring and its history," Ecclestone said in a statement on Thursday.

"In view of its long tradition, I was glad to support choosing the Nurburgring as the venue for the Formula 1."

The deal means 19 races have been confirmed for the 2013 calendar.

The vacant July 21 slot is yet to be filled, despite reported interest from Turkey, Austria and Portugal.

2013 Formula 1 calendar

17/03 Australian Grand Prix
24/03 Malaysian Grand Prix
14/04 Chinese Grand Prix
21/04 Bahrain Grand Prix
12/05 Spainish Grand Prix
26/05 Monaco Grand Prix
09/06 Canadian Grand Prix
30/06 British Grand Prix
07/07 German Grand Prix
21/07 TBA
28/07 Hungarian Grand Prix
25/08 Belgian Grand Prix
08/09 Italian Grand Prix
22/09 Singapore Grand Prix
06/10 Korean Grand Prix
13/10 Japanese Grand Prix
27/10 Indian Grand Prix
03/11 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
17/11 United States Grand Prix
24/11 Brazilian Grand Prix

[Katsuya]

Martin Brundle seems to think that Jules Bianchi has the Force India spot, Giedo van der Garde is Caterham and Luis Razia at Marussia.

[Lineker]

van der Garde has now been confirmed by Caterham but Force India say that they will not reveal who their second driver is until the second test at Barcelona in mid-February.

[Lineker]

The McLaren team became the second Formula 1 squad to unveil its 2013 challenger with the public launch of the Mercedes-powered MP4-28 on Thursday morning.

McLaren finished the 2012 season in third place in the constructors' championship behind Red Bull and Ferrari, despite scoring as many victories as the world champion squad with seven.

Although the Woking-based squad had one of the quickest cars during most of the season, the MP4-27's reliability did not prove strong enough and both Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button were out of the championship fight in the latter part of the year.

McLaren's driver line-up features a major change, as Hamilton departs for Mercedes after six seasons racing for the Woking squad.

The Briton has been replaced by Mexican Sergio Perez, who will partner Button as the former world champion enters his fourth season with McLaren.

Button acknowledged that the new car had superficial similarities to last year's model, but said there had been enormous changes in the design.

"It is exactly the same colour scheme and I think it looks similar to last year, but it is completely different to last year under the skin," he said.

"We know the regulations haven't changed much since 2012 but it's enough to make a difference."

The new MP4-28 will take to the track for the first time next week at Jerez.

McLaren's MP4-28 is an 'ambitious' concept with great development potential, according to the team's managing director Jonathan Neale.

The new car was unveiled at the team's headquarters on Thursday morning.

Neale said McLaren had deliberately chosen to try new avenues with its suspension and exhaust even though an evolutionary design was an option with the regulations broadly unchanged for 2013.

"When you have small regulation changes, do you do something conservative or do something more ambitious?" he said.

"On this occasion we have chosen to be more ambitious.

"We believe that rather than run out of gas in the middle of the season it gives us more development potential."

Team boss Martin Whitmarsh is confident that McLaren will start 2013 in even stronger shape than it ended last year, when it won the final two grands prix in America and Brazil.

"We finished last year with undoubtedly the quickest car," he said.

"We could have continued to develop that car and found some performance.

"In changing things you inevitably step back, but this car is already quicker than the car we finished last year with. In all that we are looking at, this car is responding very well.

"We had a detailed technical review yesterday and you cannot help coming out of this thinking we have a competitive car.

"Our competitors are off the radar screen and you cannot rule out them having a Eureka moment, but we are pleased with where we are with this car today and this car will look different before the season."

McLaren has ruled out racing a passive double DRS for the time being, because it believes bigger performance gains can be made elsewhere on the car.

With Lotus having confirmed earlier this week that it hopes to race its passivedouble DRS this season, it had been expected that a majority of frontrunning outfits would pursue the concept for 2013.

But speaking at the launch of the new McLaren MP4-28 at Woking on Thursday, McLaren technical staff reckoned that difficulties in getting a passive double DRS to work effectively had left it reluctant to devote much time to it.

When asked by AUTOSPORT if McLaren was pursuing it, director of engineering Tim Goss said: "We've been looking at such systems for a couple of seasons now and, as you have seen, we haven't run one yet - so heavily pursuing it would not be the right description.

"It is not straightforward to get them to work effectively such that they give you a net performance gain.

"There are parasitic losses in doing such systems and, as you will notice, there are three teams that tested them last season and no one actually raced one."

McLaren sporting director Sam Michael said it was the difficulty in getting the system to operate reliably, especially the speed at which the fluidic switches are turned on and off to change airflow to help stall the rear wing, that was the key factor in his team steering clear for now.

"They are extremely sensitive and difficult to make work," he said. "It is definitely an area that will, in time, become more and more exploited. But we are right at the beginning of it - and there are other bigger gains and bigger fish to fry before that one."

As well as pursuing a different path from Lotus on the passive double DRS, McLaren has elected to race with a 'vanity panel' covering a stepped nose on its 2013 car.

Goss was adamant that smoothing the airflow in that area of the car was more of an advantage than the disadvantage of extra weight on the car, which is why Lotus has opted not to race it.

"Aerodynamically you would not put a step on the top surface of the nose through choice, it is an artifact of the regulations," said Goss. "So we don't...

"It is a lightweight structural cover. There is no structural significance at all, so it weighs very little.

"I think James [Allison, Lotus technical director] left it quite open as to whether they would do something.

"If we look aerodynamically at the step on the nose then, to be honest, it is not very significant but you will pull a few minor losses off it. You would not do it [have a stepped nose] out of choice, so we don't."

McLaren may have raised some eyebrows with the step change in its car design for this season, but technical chiefs are adamant it was an essential move if it is to gun for Formula 1 title glory this year.

With the rules not changing dramatically for 2013, and teams already devoting much resource to the radical 2014 overhaul, it had been widely expected that the new cars would be mere evolutions of last year's designs.

McLaren has gone much further than that, however. It was reworked its concept in a wide range of areas, including switching to pull-rod suspension, increasing the height of its chassis so it now needs a 'vanity' panel' for a stepped nose, and being ultra-aggressive with the bodywork around the rear.

Although such work may be a bold move with 2014 on the horizon, the team has said that such an effort was vital if the team was to be able to keep up a good enough development rate throughout the forthcoming campaign.

When asked by AUTOSPORT about the thinking behind such an aggressive pushwith its car, McLaren engineering director Tim Goss said that there was a fear last year's MP4-27 concept was reaching a development ceiling.

"We looked at our performance during last season, in the stages where we were laying down the foundations of this car, and looked at where we thought we would get to in terms of our development rate if we just kept continuing with developing the same car," he said. "We realised we actually needed to make a larger step.

"So in defining the architecture of this car, the philosophy was very much to give ourselves the scope to further exploit the area of the cars that we knew would generate performance.

"We understand how to get the most out of these rules, and we demonstrated that last season under these rules with the quickest car at the beginning of the year and the end of the year.

"But, we decided that we need to give ourselves a bit more freedom and, as a result of that, we have reworked the car from front to back. That has allowed us that bit more freedom to push the areas of the car that we know respond."

Pull-rod front suspension

One of the boldest departures for McLaren is in switching from a push-rod to pull-rod layout with its front suspension, a route that Ferrari went down last season.

Goss insisted that its change was not simply the result of it copying Ferrari's lead, but of doing a lot of work into evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of such a design.

"What convinced us was actually a lot of research," he said. "When you see something new on a car, you always think, why have they done that?

"In F1, it is possible to copy someone else's concept, but invariably they don't work. What you have to do is get a fundamental understanding of why.

"So we looked at it and initially we thought exactly that - why? But after some time and some work we understood how it could benefit our car and certainly what we are trying to achieve with the car.

"We found benefits in terms of aerodynamics, which overcome the kinematic and structural negatives of doing more extreme anhedral suspension."

Exhaust concept

One area where McLaren has stuck to its guns, however, is in its exhaust concept, which is a different solution to the Red Bull style.

This year, McLaren has pushed things much further, dramatically cutting away the bodywork at the rear of the car to try and optimise airflow for both car performance and exhausts.

"It is playing the tunes on the aerodynamics," said Goss. "While trying to achieve one thing with the exhaust, you have to make sure when the exhaust gases are not flowing that the rear end of the car is still performing properly.

"So we have pushed things further. That is our philosophy on this car - to take the things where we know the car responds, push them further and make them more extreme. For us, it was a natural evolution of last year."

[Lineker]

Ferrari has presented its F138, the car with which the Italian squad hopes to return to championship glory in the 2013 Formula 1 season.

The car, whose name is a combination of the current year and a tribute to the V8 engines that will be used for the last time this season, is the 59th grand prix single-seater produced by the Maranello-based squad.

The F138 has been developed in the Toyota windtunnel in Cologne following Ferrari's decision to shut down its own unit in order to upgrade it.

Ferrari described the F138 as an 'evolution' of the F2012, with pullrod suspension retained at the front and rear.

It has however made changes at the rear of the car to allow the exhaust layout to be changed. The air intake above the cockpit and the sidepod intakes have also been revised to boost the car's aerodynamics.

The car is the product of two distinct design groups: one group working on the F138, the other on the team's 2014 car.

Ferrari is seeking to hit the ground running with its new car after a dismal performance by its predecessor when it made its testing debut last year.

Despite that, the historic Italian outfit managed to stay in the championship fight until the end of the year, with Spaniard Fernando Alonso losing out to Red Bull rival Sebastian Vettel in the final race of the season in Brazil.

"The key objective that we must have is of immediately delivering a competitive car to our drivers," team boss Stefano Domenicali acknowledged.

"Unfortunately in recent years we have at the beginning of the winter not been able to be right on top of what we are doing.

"We have tried to look at our organisation to be much more effective in the preparations over the coming week."

Two-time world champion Alonso will be partnered by Felipe Massa again this year after the Brazilian secured a one-year contract extension thanks to his resurgence in the second half of the season.

Massa will be tasked with driving the F138 for the first time next Tuesday at Jerez.

Ferrari believes the priority for its 2013 car must be to match its rivals at the front of the field, rather than surpass them.

Fernando Alonso narrowly missed out on the world championship to Sebastian Vettel last year, but the team's 2012 car was rarely on the pace of the other frontrunning teams.

Speaking at the launch of Ferrari's F138, team boss Stefano Domenicali said the Italian outfit had to be realistic with how much progress it could make over the winter.

"The main thing is to make available to Fernando and Felipe [Massa] a competitive car," he said.

"I don't think we can expect a car that is much faster than the others - this would be fantastic.

"We have to keep our feet on the ground and have a car that is equal to our competition."

Domenicali described some of the changes from the 2012 car as "extreme", and Alonso added that it would be impossible to judge the team's hopes for this year until the car hits the track in testing.

"The difference at the front is just tenths," said Alonso, "tenths you cannot see by looking at the car.

"Sometimes you don't know why a particular car holds sway. We need to get on track and really see how competitive it is."

Domenicali also pointed out that the decision to cover up the step in the car's nose with a new-for-2013 'vanity panel' was for performance reasons.

"We wanted to go in that direction because the whole project is to improve performance in that area," he said. "And it is more beautiful!"

[Lineker]

Force India launched its 2013 car on Friday morning, becoming the fourth Formula 1 team to unveil its single-seater for the upcoming season.

The Silverstone-based squad finished the 2012 season seventh in the constructors' championship, but was one of the strongest teams towards the end of the year, with Nico Hulkenberg fighting for victory in the Brazilian Grand Prix.

"I've pushed the guys quite hard in areas that's outside their comfort zone," said technical director Andrew Green. "It is under the skin, you can't see it from here: rear suspension, front suspension, aerodynamics have all been pushed hard.

"I think the guys have done a really good job over the winter and the car is a step improvement from last year. The car should be a lot more consistent, should be a lot easier to drive. We're looking forward to Jerez to see whether it does what it says on the tin."

Hulkenberg has moved to Sauber for 2013, and Force India is yet to announce who will partner Scot Paul di Resta during the upcoming season.

Frenchman Jules Bianchi had been strongly linked with the drive, but the Frenchman was in Maranello during the launch of the new Ferrari F138.

The new VJM06 car will be powered by Mercedes engines for the fifth consecutive season and it will take to the track today at Silverstone before it starts testing at Jerez next week.

"I'm eager to feel what the car is all about. We're giving it a short test today to get a bit of an idea," said di Resta, who admitted it was hard to make predictions for 2013.

"I think it's difficult to set yourself targets, especially at this point. It's consistency and working the momentum to carry over from last year.

"That's the focus, to have a car that gets into Q3 and put ourselves into strong positions."

Force India has opted for a complete redesign of its car for the 2013 Formula 1 season, according to technical director Andrew Green.

The VJM06 was unveiled at Silverstone on Friday morning.

While the team enjoyed a strong run-in to its 2012 campaign, scoring points in the last eight straight races and leading 30 laps of the Brazilian finale, Green said increasingly marginal performance gains had prompted a complete redesign over the winter.

"It's a new car, we didn't hold back," he said.

"Performance gains are getting harder and harder to find given the regulations stability, so we couldn't hold back.

"We had to redesign basically everything to maximise the potential of the car.

"The time we took to understand the car at the end of the year actually helped us tremendously with the design of this one."

Green said the need to optimise Pirelli's 2013 compounds had also been a major influence in the VJM06's formation.

"We've done a lot of work analysing how we use the tyres, so we have incorporated a lot of detail into this year's design," he explained.

"On top of that we have bolted on extra downforce on, that's always the case.

"Keeping the tyres working in their sweet spot is the key to the current car, so we gave ourselves more options with this design [in order] to look after the tyres.

"[The 2013 compounds] are the one thing we don't really understand at the moment, and we won't until we start running them.

"That will drive our winter test programme massively. Our focus in testing will be all around the new tyres, [although] even then it's going to be tough to get the complete picture running around Barcelona in five degree ambient [temperatures]."

[Katsuya]

The new Sauber looks like a Williams :/

[Adam]

Does it? I think it looks good, we've not had a team with an all black livery for quite a while, not since the days of Minardi I don't think.

[Katsuya]

It's got white in a lot of the same places as the Williams did when it was mostly dark blue/white (I wanna say in 2011?)

[Jimmy]

Gonna make an attempt to get into F1 this year, in a trade for getting my friend into football. What are the main things I need to know from the last few years so I can get involved with who's racing and such?

[Gazz]

Kimi is your favourite driver because he bleeds awesome.

[Katsuya]

Red Bull have dominated since the end of 2009, winning both the drivers and constructors titles in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Sebastian Vettel has won the drivers title all three of those years, with Mark Webber in the other Red Bull winning a few races here and there, but generally not able to keep up with Vettel.

Fernando Alonso tends to be the one who pushes Vettel the most, even though Ferrari haven't had the fastest car in a long time. Felipe Massa has struggled massively since he returned from injury in 2010, but probably matched and even bettered Alonso at points in the second half of 2012. Two of the past three championships, Alonso has been in the title hunt until the final race.

McLaren have had Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton as drivers since 2010; Hamilton's generally good if a bit of a dick, Button is consistently good or consistently underwhelming at various points. Button was the closest challenger to Vettel in 2011. Hamilton's now buggered off to Mercedes, who have been disappointing since they came back to the sport, only winning one race with Nico Rosberg earlier in the year. General consensus is that Hamilton's made the move solely for money, though Mercedes are supposedly going to be the "team to beat" in 2014.

Lotus were midfield for much of the past few years, then in 2012 Kimi Raikkonen returned to F1 after a couple of years out and joined them. Lotus promptly stepped up to be awesome and possibly the second best car by the end of the year. Kimi is awesome, end of. Romain Grosjean is his teammate, who is probably a really good driver but keeps fucking up at every opportunity and was given a one race ban during the last season for dangerous driving (first ban in over a decade).

Then there's a whole group of cars in the midfield; Sauber are probably next best and are sort of the constant underdog team, who somehow can preserve their tyres longer than anyone else. Sergio Perez nearly won three races for them in 2012 and has replaced Hamilton at McLaren this year. Sauber have now got Nico Hulkenburg, who's probably the best young driver out there (and arguably should have won the Brazilian Grand Prix) and Esteban Gutierrez, who's there for his money.

Williams won their first race in nearly a decade in 2012 with Pastor Maldonado, another "probably good but crashes way too often" driver. They've signed a Finn called Vallteri Bottas this year, who is meant to be really good. Force India pop up every now and again to have a good race but never really shine, and have Paul di Resta who's good but not great and an as yet unknown second driver this year. Toro Rosso are Red Bull's feeder team and have two alright drivers, Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne. Neither of them really do anything great.

Then there's the "new teams", who all joined in 2010 and have pretty much sucked the entire time. They were Caterham, Marussia and HRT, but HRT are now out of business. Caterham have been the best of them and were looking pretty good by the end of 2011, but still are consistently about 1-2 seconds behind Toro Rosso. They've got Charles Pic this year, who was driving for Marussia in 2012. Marussia finally caught up to Caterham by the end of 2012 and have another Brit, Max Chilton, as one of their drivers for 2013.

Generally: Red Bull dominate, Ferrari/McLaren/Lotus challenge, Mercedes and Sauber scrap behind them, Force India/Williams behind them, Toro Rosso on their own ahead of Caterham/Marussia.

[Lineker]

Red Bull unveiled on Sunday the car with which it is aiming to secure its fourth consecutive Formula 1 championship double, the RB9.

The Milton Keynes-based squad took its third drivers' and constructors' championship in 2012, with Sebastian Vettel becoming the youngest ever triple champion after a close fight with Ferrari rival Fernando Alonso.

"It's obviously one thing to look back on what we have achieved as a team, but I feel it all starts again from zero," said Vettel. "It will be a long year again, a very tough challenge waiting for all of us.

"I'm looking forward to that and not thinking about what happened in the last year. People expect something of us, but more than that we expect ourselves to do well."

The Renault-powered RB9 is the ninth Formula 1 single-seater created by Red Bull since taking over the Jaguar team for the start of the 2005 season.

Red Bull's new challenger has again been designed by a team led by Adrian Newey, who said at the end of last year that it was getting harder and harder to find gains for the 2013 car given the rules stability.

"It is increasingly difficult because there are no real regulations changes compared to this year and it will be the fifth season since the 2009 rule changes," Newey told AUTOSPORT.

"The field is converging and you can see how competitive it is in the fact that we had eight different winners this year."

The new Red Bull will take to the track on Tuesday at Jerez, with Vettel's team-mate Mark Webber doing the driving.

Red Bull's technical chief Adrian Newey says the new RB9 is an evolution of the championship-winning car of last year.

Newey admitted the lack of regulation changes for the upcoming season meant there was no big reason to go for a revolutionary design.

"It's an evolutionary car," said Newey during the launch of Red Bull's ninth Formula 1 single-seater.

"There were no big regulation changes over the winter. The most significant change is not the regulations, it's the new Pirelli tyres. We had a quick test in P1 in Brazil but it was very hot and on a green track and in truth we didn't learn a lot."

He added: "It's really been a case of refining the RB8. There are no huge changes. It's very much an evolutionary car. All the principles the same as last year.

"The devil has very much been in the detail with this car. We've tidied up some bits that we felt could be improved on. Development is now the key through the year."

Newey said understanding the new Pirelli tyres will be as key as it was last year, with the Italian manufacturer having altered its products for 2013.

"We need to continue to understand the tyres," he said. "Every time we thought we understood them last year, some fresh surprise would come in and we'd realise it wasn't complete. And they've changed the tyre anyway this year.

"Past experience is that it's only when we get out testing that we really find out about the tyres."

Newey acknowledged that having the car ready in time for the first test of the year was a great effort by Red Bull given how long the 2012 championship battled extended.

"We obviously had a very tight championship battle last year and it was difficult trying to develop last year's car and do the research into this year's car," he said.

"It gave us a very tight timeframe to manufacture this car. To have it here today, two days before the first test, is a remarkable effort."

Red Bull technical chief Adrian Newey is open to the Formula 1 champion team using a passive DRS-style device during the 2013 season, but admitted it was tough to make such a system effective.

Newey acknowledged that devices such as that used by Lotus had great potential, if their challenges could be conquered.

"It's for sure an interesting area," he said at the launch of the RB9.

"It's also very tricky to have a system that's reliable, that withstands following another car without being triggered at moments that would be embarrassing, and to make it a positive gain on balance over the weekend.

"None of those things are straightforward."

He would not be drawn on how far Red Bull had progressed with its own DRS addition.

"We have certainly investigated it," said Newey.

"I wouldn't like to give away what we may or may not do during the season.

"It's a very interesting area, and it's there to be explored.

"Deriving lap time benefit, or more importantly points benefit, out of it, is more difficult."

You couldn't say that Red Bull technical genius Adrian Newey resented being at the launch of RB9 - his demeanour was plenty breezy enough - but he did seem somewhat bemused at the whole concept of a pre-season unveiling.

To him, the idea of revealing a brand new car in February has become as anachronistic as grooved tyres and profligate testing.

"What's really changed Formula 1 over the last 10 or more years is the rate of development through the year.

"It used to be that if you came out with a dominant car at the start of the year, as long as you were reliable it would win the championship," explained Newey, a man with plenty of experience of delivering winter bombshells to rivals.

"That's not the case anymore. It really is a case of continual development. Where you've got stable regulations, you can almost picture a new car as another evolution for another race.

"It just happens that this time we've had two months between races rather than two weeks."

The glitz of Red Bull's pre-launch hospitality was certainly at odds with the coyness of its actual unveiling.

From between-the-lines scouring and facial expression monitoring, you could deduce that Newey found the benefit/drawbacks quandary of DRS-boosting devices fascinatingly irksome, that Christian Horner could've done without Helmut Marko's latest verbal grenade in the direction of Mark Webber, that team status questions still niggled Webber, that Sebastian Vettel didn't fancy a Fernando Alonso-esque winter lie-in but didn't think his arch-rival would miss much at Jerez, and that the late-2012 development push really had taken so much out of Red Bull that it feared a lacklustre start to 2013.

Dynamite revelations were few and far apart, unless you counted Sebastian Vettel responding to a curiously worded question about his "plans for world domination" with "I know I'm German, but I didn't say I wanted that..." Three world titles have not dulled Vettel's talent for glint-eyed mischief...

Yet the centre of attention - the RB9 - kept a low profile.

Photography in the unveiling area was banned, and wi-fi limited to reporters' own intrepid dongles.

You could squint at the RB9 from a distance, but the covers were swiftly pulled back across as the press conference drew to a close. And Red Bull bucked the trend for online launch broadcasts too.

Infiniti's enhanced role as title sponsor got plenty of exposure, which was ultimately the point of the event from Red Bull's perspective.

But, Newey reckoned, it wasn't as if his team was being any more secretive than its peers.

"The other teams have only made limited-view pictures available - rather like we're presenting today," said Newey with a touch of his lead driver's impishness.

"It's easy to make big styling or feature changes, but whether that really brings much lap time benefit or not is another matter.

"Often it's the small details that aren't very clear to a faraway camera that are most significant."

And those details have to be spotted in the pitlanes of tests or grands prix. They certainly weren't going to be flaunted to the world at a mere car launch.

Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner insists that Helmut Marko's recent criticisms of Mark Webber should not be taken as a sign that the Formula 1 team itself has any doubts about the Australian's talent.

Marko, a motorsport advisor for Red Bull, told the company's own in-house magazine earlier this month that he felt Webber lacked the consistency and psychological strength to win a world championship.

At the launch of the Red Bull RB9, Horner distanced himself from Marko's opinions.

"We all know Helmut can be outspoken at times. His comments reflected his opinion, and these things can be misinterpreted," Horner said.

"If we weren't happy with Mark we would never have signed him for this year.

"We give both drivers equal opportunity and it's down to what they do on the circuit.

"Certainly in the team, that's the approach and we'll continue to do that.

"For us, it doesn't matter which driver wins as long as it's in one of these cars."

Webber added that he did not let Marko's comments have any effect on his self-belief, and that he would not be at Red Bull if he doubted the team had faith in him.

"I do believe I can have a crack at the championship again this year, as I have done in previous seasons," he said.

"That's what I'm getting up each day thinking.

"The team know I need 100 per cent support. You cannot win world championships with 90 per cent support.

"That's what I'm confident of."

[Lineker]

Sauber revealed its 2013 Formula 1 contender, the C32, in an event at its Hinwil headquarters in Switzerland on Saturday morning.

The team enjoyed one of the most successful seasons in its history in 2012, as it claimed four podium finishes and finished sixth in the constructors' championship.

Team boss Monisha Kaltenborn said that given last year's results, Sauber wanted to build on the previous car's strong points rather than starting afresh.

"I'm very excited, but also a little tense," she said. "The aim is very clear and simple: we want to continue to improve ourselves.

"The Sauber C32 is based on its predecessor, which was a very competitive car.

"It had a lot of strengths and some weaknesses, and our engineers have worked to build on those strengths and eliminate the weaknesses."

The car has an all-new, largely grey, livery and runs a smooth nose as well as notably small sidepods.

Sauber also has an all-new driver line-up for 2013, with ex-Force India man Nico Hulkenberg and promoted test driver Esteban Gutierrez replacing Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi.

The new Sauber C32's aggressive narrow sidepod packaging was inspired by Sergio Perez's accident in qualifying for the 2011 Monaco Grand Prix.

Chief designer Matt Morris revealed at Saturday's launch of Sauber's 2013 Formula 1 car that Perez's side-on impact with the wall at the chicane at just over 60mph made the team realise that it was possible to reduce the width of the sidepods by almost 50 per cent.

Despite such a drastic reduction in the size of the sidepods, Morris is certain the Sauber has not over-reached itself with the design, even though it took a long time to make the packaging possible.

"Checo had quite a bad accident in Monaco a few years ago and when we got the car back and we saw the sidepod all squashed in, we thought 'I wonder if we could do that?'" said Morris.

"The sidepods are a bold move, a bold design, but we are pretty confident.

"One of the huge challenges for us is in packaging all of the radiators and boxes. Like most things in Switzerland, we got it just in time!"

In addition to the aggressively-packaged sidepods, Sauber has also made some major changes to the braking system, which were tested but never raced last year, as well as lightening the chassis.

Other features, particularly at the front end of the car and the exhaust, are evolutions of the 2012 Sauber.

"We have a whole new braking system that we were developing last year," said Morris.

"In terms of the chassis, this is an area we've spent a lot of time and effort on to save weight. We've made some savings without compromising safety.

"The exhaust is not massively different to what we finished with last year, we just further enhanced it.

"The front wing is predominantly a carry-over from last year.

"One of the small regulation changes is an additional legality check on the front wing, so we've had to spend a lot of time changing the structure of the wing to be sure we pass that.

"That's something we spent a lot of time over the winter developing."

Morris added that Sauber planned to experiment with the passive DRS concept during pre-season testing.

"Passive DRS is allowed, so this is an area that we're looking at developing through the course of winter testing," he said.

Sauber is not talking to any manufacturers other than Ferrari about a 2014 engine supply, but admits it has not secured a deal for Formula 1's new technical era.

With some details of next year's turbocharged V6 engines still to be finalised, Sauber team boss Monisha Kaltenborn said her team was in limbo regarding its future power source.

"It's a very interesting situation for customer teams at the moment. There is so much, as we understand, that is not clear at the moment, so it's very difficult to engage into these kinds of talks," she said.

"For us, we have had a partnership with Ferrari for more than 10 years, so that's the natural link for us to go.

"But they also have difficulties, because nothing has been clarified down to the last detail.

"It's extremely challenging, and a fear we have as a private team is to make sure we don't have any disadvantage compared to the manufacturer teams.

"It comes down to finding the engine, knowing the technical details of it and knowing what impact it has on our design."

She dismissed suggestions that Sauber might be looking at a switch to Mercedes engines.

"Just to be very clear on this, we are not talking to anyone else, unlike what was reported," Kaltenborn insisted.

Mercedes and Toro Rosso are launching their 2013 cars later today.

[Jimmy]

Thanks Kats!

[Adam]

It's got white in a lot of the same places as the Williams did when it was mostly dark blue/white (I wanna say in 2011?)

Having looked at it again you're right, I do like the look of it though. Pretty sleek and not as generic as before.

[Katsuya]

Everyone's saying the Mercedes is practically the same car as last year bar a couple of what will probably be negligible differences. Good luck there then Lewis!