Grand Prix Rejects

i heard that they will be having toast at the usf1 launch

Talking about Lotus, 1988 had still few podiums and 4th in constructors, mainly thanks to Piquet with 22 points, Nakajima got only one. Next year they had couple of 4th places but 1990-1991 they were simply bad. 1990 bad Lambo engine and next year too heavy car since they felt the 1990 car wasn't strong enough remembering Donnelly's accident at Jerez.

Late 1992 was quite good, they were 5th in constructors and not too far away from Ferrari. 1993 was a little bit zigzag with high and low points. 1994 Mugen-Honda engine was extremely heavy and they couldn't get results. Then one promising sight at Monza but then Eddie Irvine destroyed it.

I'd love to see them competing against the Williams/Toro Rosso/Force Indias. Anyone else think that Virgin will turn up with just one car at the first race?

madcat wrote:

I'd love to see them competing against the Williams/Toro Rosso/Force Indias. Anyone else think that Virgin will turn up with just one car at the first race?

No. Why?

Only because they seem to be having trouble with getting parts, etc. Will they have enough in the next 20 odd days before the race? Shame really, I do hope they'll do well.

what you talking about? Lotus have called off their day after kovalainen put it in the gravel and destroyed the nose. Will they only have one car on the grid now too?

if they can put one car together, its not going to be much of an ask to make a copy of it is it?

madcat wrote:Only because they seem to be having trouble with getting parts, etc. Will they have enough in the next 20 odd days before the race? Shame really, I do hope they'll do well.

I wrote this somewhere else... but still, the debacle in Lotus today, when the car was stranded after Kovi broke its nose, just shows how the new teams are on the edge just to make it to the test. I believe they'll have 2 cars each, but I do agree the standard of the cars may be somewhat below the established teams'.

madcat wrote:Only because they seem to be having trouble with getting parts, etc. Will they have enough in the next 20 odd days before the race? Shame really, I do hope they'll do well.

They will have 2 cars in Bahrein. Another matter altogether is if they destroy a nosecone and have to retire for that.

Well they can always borrow parts from the Stefan truck load of bits.

To cancel a test due to a damaged nosecone is a farce, if they can't repair that then they have problems. Reminds me of the final days of Onyx, when to get more parts to repair the cars they took anything they could find from Peter Monteverdi's museum, and in one instance fitted gears back to front on JJ Lehto's car. I thought Lotus were a serious team who might be semi-competitive, but if they can't get enough parts then its very worrying.

Debaser wrote:To cancel a test due to a damaged nosecone is a farce, if they can't repair that then they have problems. Reminds me of the final days of Onyx, when to get more parts to repair the cars they took anything they could find from Peter Monteverdi's museum, and in one instance fitted gears back to front on JJ Lehto's car. I thought Lotus were a serious team who might be semi-competitive, but if they can't get enough parts then its very worrying.

I think they mentioned something about problems with a supplier (though that mighve been just the power steering)
Also, when you think about it, maybe they just haven't had the time to build spares, they did unveil the car very recently)

And Monteverdi was a farce. Luckily Andrea Moda came along two years later and Lola 7 years later to make sure they didn't go down in history as the worst farce in F1.

Admittably What Monteverdi did was worse as he ruined a promising and already (semi)succesfull team in Onyx.

Debaser wrote:To cancel a test due to a damaged nosecone is a farce, if they can't repair that then they have problems. Reminds me of the final days of Onyx, when to get more parts to repair the cars they took anything they could find from Peter Monteverdi's museum, and in one instance fitted gears back to front on JJ Lehto's car. I thought Lotus were a serious team who might be semi-competitive, but if they can't get enough parts then its very worrying.

Virgin had exactly the same problem last week, and it's not unheard of. There are carbon-fibre parts, built to spec manually on an individual basis. A nosecone suffers immense pressures at speed, that's what the wings do. You don't repair them, not unless you want something to go wrong at the end of the straight and your pilot to become suddenly airborne.

These new teams are doing a fantastic job just by being in the same track as the established outfits...

CarlosFerreira wrote:

Debaser wrote:To cancel a test due to a damaged nosecone is a farce, if they can't repair that then they have problems. Reminds me of the final days of Onyx, when to get more parts to repair the cars they took anything they could find from Peter Monteverdi's museum, and in one instance fitted gears back to front on JJ Lehto's car. I thought Lotus were a serious team who might be semi-competitive, but if they can't get enough parts then its very worrying.

Virgin had exactly the same problem last week, and it's not unheard of. There are carbon-fibre parts, built to spec manually on an individual basis. A nosecone suffers immense pressures at speed, that's what the wings do. You don't repair them, not unless you want something to go wrong at the end of the straight and your pilot to become suddenly airborne.

These new teams are doing a fantastic job just by being in the same track as the established outfits...

+1. I've been very impressed by both Fondmetal Team Malaysia and Simtek. Sure the wing failure from Simtek was worrying but how many times have we seen a wing failure from a leading team in the past? Plenty of times is the answer.

And with the Toyfan being fired up for the first time today, we could have the best of the new teams hitting the track very soon.

the dallara car:

They've made it! Now lets hope it goes faster than it looks ...

The car looks quite nice, but good lord, it's rather bare......

elho wrote:the dallara car:

ladies and Gentlemen; I give you...... the slowest car in 2010!!!

and it looks like they've painted it brown!

is that the real livery?

because it's an ugly shade of sick-mouse-grey

more pictures:




the nose look A LOT like virgin's

Good grief! a car with less sponsors than Sauber!!!

I'll give it 3 months..........

Congratulations to them for getting a car and what looks like a solid driver lineup. With Chandhok and Senna onboard they may have a better chance of securing additional funding, now that there is an actual car there - which I might ass looks rather swish even with that primer-grey colour.

Hallelluya! We have 24 cars on the grid! And it's quite beautiful.

dragonsteincole wrote:Congratulations to them for getting a car and what looks like a solid driver lineup. With Chandhok and Senna onboard they may have a better chance of securing additional funding, now that there is an actual car there - which I might ass looks rather swish even with that primer-grey colour.

Reminds one of the 1994 Pacific...

It is certainly lacking sponsors by the looks of things, which is a bad sign, although at least they have actually managed to get a car ready.
That said, although the car itself looks alright, it is also a case of spotting where they borrowed inspiration from other cars. For example, the front end of the sidepods look very similar to last year's Brawn (and the back end are similar to the R30), the turning vane and bargeboard have come right off the RB5/RB6 and the wing mirrors are off the Ferrari F10. The nose looks like most RB5/RB6 copy cats this year, and the air intake is off the RB6. Finally, the small fin off the back of the engine cover looks like it came off the Mercedes W01, and the rear wing off the Lotus T127.

Hardly anything on this car looks original (apart from the front wing - and even then, I'm not sure if it is actually legal as it stands) - probably the best thing that this team has is the driver line up.

Chewie wrote:
ladies and Gentlemen; I give you...... the slowest car in 2010!!!

and it looks like they've painted it brown!

Ugh... I bet even brown would have looked better than this! And I hate the useless, ugly, uncreative white-with-Spanish-flag-border stripes... I wasn't too keen when I read it might have been painted deep maroon and yellow, but I'd have preferred that over this many times... *sigh* If only Stefan would have gotten the entry, then we would now have more red cars.

Oh well. At least I must compliment Dallara for their work on the car, I do think it actually looks quite nice.

dragonsteincole wrote:Congratulations to them for getting a car and what looks like a solid driver lineup. With Chandhok and Senna onboard they may have a better chance of securing additional funding, now that there is an actual car there - which I might ass looks rather swish even with that primer-grey colour.

Please do not ass the cars.

That looks like it's made of foam and painted.

Also, i'd love to know what the small black and white decals say, my guess


This

space

for

rent

Región
de
Murcia

no-
typical

Promoting the Murcia region of Spain, that's my guess.

Where my guess comes from: A higher resolution version of the previous pictures and this:

Looks like Ryan Hunter-Reay's IRL car from last year.

Link

baddriving50 wrote:

Región
de
Murcia

no-
typical

Promoting the Murcia region of Spain, that's my guess.

Where my guess comes from: A higher resolution version of the previous pictures and this:

It seems you're right - it's backing from the regional authorities, who have loaned the team money to build a factory there.