Formula One 2015

[Lineker]

It looks better tenfold. Even if Force India have nicked virtually all of their sponsors

[Lineker]

Ferrari says its target for 2015 is to win two Formula 1 races, after unveiling its new SF15-T on Friday.

With the team adamant that it needed a major overhaul after a disappointing 2014 campaign, it is also realistic its return to the front of the grid will not happen quickly.

However, new team principal Maurizio Arrivabene says that sights are set on at least ending its victory drought that extends back to the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix.

"I am just realistic," he said. "Nobody has the magic to change things, when things are unchangeable.

"We find the car, the car was ready December of [last] year, and we apply certain modifications that in our opinion, are quite interesting.

"I don't want to say that we are going to win the world championship but for sure we are committed at least to win two races."

Newly arrived Sebastian Vettel backed up his bosses' claim that modest targets had to be the aim for 2015 - but the team would not complain if more success came.

"I think we would be happy with that," he said about Arrivabene's ambition. "But of course we would be happy if we win more.

"We have to be realistic. There is a lot of change that's happened over the winter. So I think the most important thing is we start getting into the groove quickly in winter testing and then we start to make progress.

"If the situation is like last year, it will be very difficult to fight for victory. But that's our goal, we're not here to finish second."

Although too early to predict exactly how competitive the new chassis and engine will be, Arrivabene does at least believe that the SF15-T has at least got off to a better start in the visual stakes than its predecessor.

"Ferrari said a long time ago that the best car is a winning car," he said. "Last year was an ugly car and a non-winning on top of this.

"I like the car of this year in terms of aesthetics, I don't know about performance, but it is really sexy."

Sebastian Vettel thinks his relationship with Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari will be more "straightforward" than most Formula 1 team-mate partnerships.

Raikkonen said when Vettel was announced as his 2015 team-mate that he knew the German better than any of his other F1 rivals and expected it to be a "fun" partnership.

As Ferrari launched its new SF15-T on Friday, Vettel suggested the Finn would be particularly easy to work with by F1 standards.

"I don't expect any problems," said Vettel.

"He will be a difficult team-mate to beat on the track because he's very quick and very talented, but off the track we get on well.

"Usually there are not being words being exchanged, but it's very straightforward - which is something I appreciate in Kimi and it doesn't happen that often in Formula 1."

Team boss Mauricio Arrivabene underlined that he did not want driver dynamics to be hog the limelight this season.

Last year's match-up between Fernando Alonso and Raikkonen was the subject of much pre-season speculation, while in previous years Felipe Massa's number two status to Alonso had proved consistently topical.

"They have to work together as team-mates, they have to work with the team," Arrivabene said of his 2015 drivers.

"I want to be talking about the overall team and not only about the driver.

"Everybody is pushing and working together in the same direction and I am expecting the drivers to do the same."

Raikkonen agreed with Vettel that they should make a harmonious pairing.

"It's the first time working with him but I'm sure we'll have a good understanding of each other and to push the team forward," said the 2007 champion.

"Obviously we'll fight against each other, but in a good way, and we'll push each other to do better things."

Ferrari believes there will be a better balance between its Formula 1 qualifying and race performance in 2015 due the major design overhaul for the SF15-T.

Comprehensive engine changes have featured in Ferrari's winter efforts, and technical director James Allison believes a big step forward will be that its race form will no longer be compromised by its power unit being unable to recover as much energy as its rivals.

"We had a number of issues with last year's engine and power unit," explained Allison.

"Early on in the season the power delivery was not particularly sophisticated and quite tough for the drivers to get the type of throttle response that they wanted.

"It was improved a lot during the season and we take that a step further for the SF15-T.

"A definite weakness of last year's car was that the amount of electrical energy that we were able to recover from the turbo was not really good enough for producing competitive power levels during the race.

"It was one of the reasons Ferrari's qualifying performance was relatively stronger than race performance last year.

"We have tried to change the architecture of the engine to make it a better compromise between qualifying and racing performance."

The FIA agreed earlier this month that development tokens could be used at any point over the campaign, rather than all pre-season, and Allison thinks this will help too.

"When you are coming from a position like we are, of attempting to recover a gap in performance between our car and some of the opposition, it is quite galling to have an idea for how you might improve your car but to not be able to do so because the regulations freeze a certain part of the design for a whole season," he said.

"It is frustrating seeing something on the shelf that can deliver more performance.

"It is good to have the flexibility we enjoy in 2015 to keep that development programme going through the year.

"It will allow us, if we do a good job, to develop stronger and faster than we would otherwise."

After calling the pace difference between Ferrari and Mercedes "unacceptably large", Allison says a lot of effort has also gone into aerodynamics.

The rear of the car is much more tightly packaged, and there has been considerable work on improving cooling efficiency.

"The back of the car is something that is noticeably different to the 2014 car, where we have been successful in pulling the bodywork much tighter to everything under the skin," he said.

"That has been done through a lot of work, not just in the windtunnel, but also in the design part of the company to try to find radiator designs that were fundamentally more efficient.

"So for every square centimetre of radiator, we were able to extract more cooling than last year and therefore able to close the car down at the back as a consequence."

[MJB]

2015 Predictions?

- Mercedes win both titles, with Lewis becoming a three-time WDC.
- Hamilton fails to agree a new deal though and leaves the team.
- Bottas and Ricciardo win a race, Massa and Kvyat don't.
- Ferrari are nowhere, both Vettel and Kimi struggle. Raikkonen leaves at the end of his contract.
- McLaren start horribly with plenty of DNF's. But they get better as the season goes on.
- A few podiums after summer break, all for Alonso.
- Lotus' switch to Mercedes engines helps them. They get into Q3 a fair bit and take the fight to Ferrari.
- Force India will struggle with finances and fail to score many points. Hulkenberg leaves at the end of the year to race sports cars.
- Toro Rosso regret not keeping JEV for his experience. Sainz ends up beating Verstappen, but both stick around for 2016.
- Sauber are still nowhere. They end up switching to Honda for 2016, effectively becoming McLaren's 'B' team with a 2016 line-up of Magnussen and Vandoorne.

[Lineker]

Toro Rosso revealed its STR10 2015 Formula 1 car at Jerez on Saturday afternoon ahead of the start of winter testing.

The Renault-powered machine will be driven by all-rookie line-up Carlos Sainz Jr and Max Verstappen, following Daniil Kvyat's promotion to Red Bull and Toro Rosso's decision not to retain Jean-Eric Vergne.

Team boss Franz Tost declared the "unique" STR10 the best Toro Rosso yet.

"I am convinced it will be the best car we have ever built at Toro Rosso," he said.

"There has been a lot of hard work and a lot of investment in a unique design.

"The design looks clean. And if it looks clean and nice it should be fast."

The Toro Rosso unveiling means Red Bull is the only 2015 F1 team that has yet to either launch or release images of its latest design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAG_M0N9K3Y

Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost reckons finishing fifth in the Formula 1 constructors' championship is a realistic target for the 2015 season, because of aggressive developments over the winter.

The Faenza-based squad finished a distant seventh in the 2014 title race, a massive 125 points adrift of sixth-placed F1 rival Force India.

STR would need to defeat at least one of the four 'works' teams (Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren) or Williams to achieve its target, but Tost insisted ahead of Sunday's first pre-season test at Jerez that his team could do it.

"The target is clearly to finish fifth in the constructors' championship, which means the drivers must be permanently in the points," Tost said.

"The team is getting better and better - we are building up quite a big infrastructure in Faenza.

"In the last two or three years we've [also] built up a strong technical team under James [Key] and this year we will make a big jump forward.

"[With] the package we've got from the car side, the driver side and the financial side, we simply must be in a position for fifth in the championship. I am convinced we can achieve it."

Technical director James Key said Toro Rosso had been much closer to McLaren and Force India with last year's STR9 than the points table suggested.

He reckons this makes the target of fifth in the 2015 title race more realistic than might otherwise be expected.

"Last year we were distant in points but we weren't that distant in performance - we just didn't make the most of it," he said.

"If you look at McLaren and Force India, a lot of the year we qualified with them or ahead of them; we simply didn't make it work in the race, whether through reliability issues, a bit of bad luck, an accident, or something else.

"When you calculate the number of points we genuinely missed, the total is massive. It wouldn't have got us fifth place if you add them up, but it would have got us a hell of a lot closer than the 30 we got."

Key conceded Tost's target was ambitious, but said it would be good for the team to aim high.

"There is nothing wrong with having a bit of ambition; we don't want to be seventh," he added.

"There are no guarantees but you have to set yourself high targets.

"When you think about that sort of target of course you recognise you have to compete against teams that have won world championships in the past.

"Toro Rosso hasn't won a championship, so we have to build up to that."

[Lineker]

First test begins today at Jerez - follow the live commentary.

[Katsuya]

That Sauber is ugly as sin.

[Lineker]

On the other hand, Red Bull's Jerez testing livery is fucking badass...

[Adam]

I like that Sauber are back in blue at least.

[Lineker]

The Williams Formula 1 team officially unveiled its 2015 FW37 at Jerez ahead of the first day of pre-season testing. The British outfit had previously only shown computer renderings of its new car, which were revealed by F1 Racing magazine.

Red Bull's 2015 Formula 1 car emerged for the first time in a camouflage livery as Jerez testing began on Sunday morning.

The four-time champion team chose not to carry out any form of official launch or car unveiling for the Renault-powered RB11, instead heading straight out of the garage in the surprise colour scheme without ceremony.

Daniel Ricciardo is behind the wheel for the first day of running at Jerez. Toro Rosso graduate Daniil Kvyat replaces Ferari-bound Sebastian Vettel as his team-mate for 2015.

Red Bull's chief engineering officer Rob Marshall, who has stepped into the new role following Adrian Newey's change of emphasis, said that the majority of changes from the 2014 would be hard to spot, but that significant steps had been made.

"There are some changes that affect the shape of the front of the car but beyond that most of the changes are under the skin," he said.

"We've identified the areas where we can make improvements and we've worked hard on these.

"There won't be a lot that's visible to the naked eye but a lot of hard work has gone into the bits that are hidden."

There had been suggestions in the build-up to the test that Red Bull was struggling to be ready in time, but the team confirmed to AUTOSPORT on Saturday that the final crash tests had been passed, and it was among the first to hit the track on Sunday morning.

Team boss Christian Horner had previously admitted that Red Bull had opted for its tightest-ever car build programme in order to ensure that maximum developments were on the RB11.

Mercedes says that it will only decide on how to use its engine development tokens once Formula 1's pre-season testing is finished.

The FIA told teams in December that in-season upgrades were now allowed, following a challenge from Ferrari that the regulations had failed to specify an exact date for delivering them.

The clarification means that manufacturers no longer have to ensure they have done all their work by the season-opening Australian Grand Prix - as had been the original idea.

Despite the fact that there is now more time to bring upgrades, Mercedes says that its 2015 plan remains unchanged - and that it will only commit to its programme when it knows how pre-season running has gone.

Lotus expects its E23 2015 Formula 1 car to complete its first proper running on day three of the first pre-season test at Jerez this week.

The team missed the opening day's running on Sunday as its car was en route to Spain from its Enstone base.

While the E23 arrived during the afternoon on Sunday, the team now needs to work through its build programme before it can hit the track.

A press release issued by Lotus on Sunday evening said that the team did not expect to complete any "significant" running until Tuesday, but its technical director Nick Chester said it would be a case of getting the car ready as soon as possible.

"We have been pursuing a very tight and aggressive build programme with the E23 which is one of the most technically advanced cars to have come out of Enstone," he said.

"We will take to the track with this car as soon as we are ready from an engineering perspective.

"We've fired-up the car at Enstone and we're now putting everything together ahead of the first laps on track.

"Everyone at Enstone is very positive with what we've seen so far and we're looking forward to it turning its wheels in anger for the first time later this week."

New Ferrari signing Sebastian Vettel topped the first day of 2015 Formula 1 testing at Jerez on Sunday.

The four-time F1 world champion first moved to the top of the times in the afternoon with a short run, returning to the track after a long delay caused by telemetry problem on the SF15-T.

Sauber's Marcus Ericsson closed to within less than a tenth of a second of that benchmark on a soft-tyre run later in the afternoon, but Vettel went quicker still on a set of mediums in the final 20 minutes of the day.

Nico Rosberg had led the way for double 2014 world champion Mercedes for much of the day before Vettel's quick laps were set, and the F1 W06 comfortably completed the most laps on the first day.

By the end of the day Rosberg had notched up 157 laps - including several long runs - while the next highest total came from Ericsson and Williams's Valtteri Bottas with 73 laps each.

Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull spent the morning as Rosberg's closest challenger, but his morning running was brought to a smoky halt.

The Red Bull did return to action later in the day, but by the chequered flag the RB11 had only completed 35 laps - with his running curtailed by a battery problem that overheated the rear brakes.

That was not the lowest total on the day though, as the McLaren-Honda completed just six laps in the hands of Fernando Alonso.

Those were broken up into three installation laps, followed by a three-lap run that included the only timed lap set by the MP4-30 all day.

While Williams recovered from a late start to log 73 laps with Bottas, the Lotus E23 failed to appear on track at all as it spent the day in transit from the team's Enstone factory.

The day was only affected by two red flags - the first when Ericsson spun in the morning, and the second late in the afternoon when Carlos Sainz Jr stopped on the backstraight in the Toro Rosso.

[Lineker]

Marussia is edging closer to a surprise return to the Formula 1 grid - having paid its 2015 entry fee and revealed plans to exit administration later this month.

With an auction of the team's final assets having been called off at the 11th hour in January, talks to find the investment needed to race in 2015 have been ongoing.

AUTOSPORT has learned that the discussions have advanced enough for Marussia's investors to fund its entry fee for racing in 2015 with the FIA.

Furthermore, administrators for the team said on Wednesday that a long term plan to rescue the outfit is progressing well enough for it to enter a Company Voluntary Agreement on February 19.

A statement issued by FRP Advisory said: "Since the appointment of administrators, negotiations have taken place with a number of parties to try and secure a long term solution for the team.

"We can confirm that negotiations continue towards a longer term viable solution for the business and participation of a team in the 2015 season.

"It is envisaged that, prior to the commencement of the first race of the 2015 season, investment into the business will be made upon the company exiting from administration via a Company Voluntary Arrangement ('CVA'), which is planned for 19 February 2015.

"A CVA is a restructuring process agreed with the company's creditors which allows for a turnaround of the business and the creation of a longer term viable solution for the team."

Although the funding of the entry fee and the move out of administration will be a big step forward, there remain huge hurdles ahead before Marussia can make it on to the grid.

The first will need to be overcome on Thursday, when F1's Strategy Group is set to discuss whether or not Marussia would be allowed to run a 2014 car this season.

It is now too late for the team to create a bespoke 2015 contender, but rivals have previously suggested that they would be willing to consider allowing the team dispensation to run last year's car if it helps it back into F1.

However, some of F1's smaller outfits may not be so willing to support the move because it could cost them a share of Marussia's commercial rights income that they would get if the team disappeared.

It is unclear who the investors are willing to fund Marussia's F1 return, but suggestions that McLaren could be behind it are believed to be wide of the mark.

[Adam]

Surely, running last year's cars they're going to be even slower than before? Great if they are saved and people have jobs but I can't imagine it'll be a very productive year.

[Lineker]

Not convinced they will be getting too near the 107% rule too often, tbh. But nonetheless I'm thrilled to see them potentially surviving.

[Adam]

Oh, definitely. Seeing teams go under is not nice at all and I hope they survive. Just concerned about their place on the grid, competitively, for the new season.

[Katsuya]

Though the new Ferrari engine seems a beast if Ferrari and Sauber have been running setups relative to the Mercedes. That alone could help Marussia since the Renault engine doesn't seem to be a huge step change up...

EDIT: plus, given Kimi's comments, I'd say Ferrari are definitely up there as he'd probably be the first to admit if they were short-fuelling

[FestiveJack]

Is it Kimi or was it Mika Hakkinen who never says/said anything in his interviews?

[MJB]

Mika was first to basically answer with one word.

Kimi just followed on when Mika retired.

[JasonM]

In general Fin's are about as blunt as throwing a lead pipe into a china shop.

[Rich]

That would create lots of sharp edges, so what you're saying is not really that blunt?

[Lineker]

The assets of the Caterham Formula 1 team have been put up for sale by the company's administrator.

Auction firm Wyles Hardy & Co will sell Caterham's 2014 F1 chassis and show cars, plus the team's factory, race and simulator equipment in a series of auctions through March and April.

Caterham went into administration following last year's Russian Grand Prix, amid a dispute between founder Tony Fernandes and the group of investors he had sold the team to in the summer.

Administrator Smith & Williamson had attempted to secure the team's future and revived it for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, where Kamui Kobayashi and British rookie Will Stevens raced for a hastily-reassembled squad led by administrators' representative Finbarr O'Connell.

The team also took part in the post-season Abu Dhabi test, with O'Connell remaining optimistic that a new buyer could be found to take Caterham into 2015.

While Thursday's announcement of the asset sale appears to signal the end for Caterham, its long-time tail-end rival Marussia's administrator said earlier this week that investment had been secured that could get the team back on the grid for 2015.

[Katsuya]

Force India have vetoed Marussia's request to run their 2014 car, which is of course in no way linked to the extra £4 million they would receive if Marussia can't enter this year.