In the round-up: Mike Coughlan’s former employer is unhappy with his Williams move.
Links
Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:
Waltrip sues Coughlan and Williams (Autosport)
“Michael Waltrip Racing has filed a lawsuit against Mike Coughlan and the Williams team over the former’s hiring as chief engineer, claiming breach of contract and interference from the Formula 1 team.”
Robert Kubica answers fan’s questions – Part 2 (Renault)
“It is difficult to predict the timing of a process that is also dependent to the ‘rules of nature’. But the good news is that my recovery is consistent and sooner or later I will feel sufficiently fit to be able to put a date on when I’ll be back.”
What F1 drivers eat before the race (James Allen)
“Dairy is to be avoided as is too much sugar, although Lewis Hamilton has a sweet tooth – I once observed him putting sugar on a bowl of Sugar Puffs!”
Lotus to run Red Bull KERS in F1 2012 (Crash)
“Lotus is estimated to be missing out on a fair degree of performance this season due to not having KERS on its Renault-powered T128.”
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Comment of the day
Martin Bell chimes in with Kevin’s view on Brooklands:
I used to live very close to Brooklands and would suggest that any motor racing fan should pay a visit. It’s a wonderfully evocative place, alive with the ghosts of the past that really gets under your skin. I would also recommend a visit to the Brooklands Society photo archive to get a feel for what racing was like there.
Martin Bell
From the forum
A spot of fun in this thread: Would you rather…?
Site updates
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On this day in F1
Jackie Stewart won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone 40 years ago today.
He was followed home by Ronnie Peterson (March) and Emerson Fittipaldi (Lotus).
The remaining points-scorers were Henri Pesarolo (March), Rolf Stommelen and John Surtees (both Surtees).
All six of them were powered by a Cosworth DFV engine.
Calum (@calum)
17th July 2011, 0:09
It was a relatively quiet day in the usually bustling world of F1.
Noelinho (@noelinho)
17th July 2011, 0:09
Lotus are missing out by not having KERS this year, so they’ll use the Red Bull KERS next year? How will that help them?!
TFLB
17th July 2011, 0:12
I’d imagine that the KERS problems are because of Newey being unwilling to compromise on car design. There’s probably nothing wrong with the KERS system iitself, and even if there is, it will have been sorted out by next year.
Noelinho (@noelinho)
17th July 2011, 0:15
To some degree – but the Red Bull KERS has smaller batteries and a smaller capacity, if I remember Adrian Newey saying as much a few races ago. I don’t think I dreamed that..?
Chris
17th July 2011, 0:33
Why would Lotus use Red Bull Kers? Lotus dont have a formula 1 car at present, they sponsor the Renault team who have Renault Kers.
Calum (@calum)
17th July 2011, 1:33
Remember the court case ruling?
In an F1 context Lotus refers to the Lotus F1 chassis builder Team Lotus.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
17th July 2011, 7:47
Let’s not confuse things. This is an F1 website, ‘Lotus’ refers to the Lotus F1 team and ‘Renault’ refers to the Renault F1 team:
https://www.racefans.net/2011/01/26/lotus-vs-lotus-time-to-stop-the-nonsense/
Hamish
17th July 2011, 8:04
Do like the fact that basically everyone bar the actual team still calls them Renault.
Baremans
18th July 2011, 19:44
Would Bahar have foreseen this and this be the reason why he pushed on with the law suit?
Fantastic marketing situation for Renault touhg: they get paid for the engines, and get free advertisement as a bonus!
James Williams
18th July 2011, 16:48
He knew that, he was just being awkward for the sake of being awkward ;)
Eggry (@eggry)
17th July 2011, 3:01
Red Bull’s KERS is based on same technology to Renault which is developed by Renalt and Magneti Marelli. But Red Bull version is much more compact and smaller capacity because Newey prefer aero efficiency rather than powerful KERS. For sure why Red Bull’s KERS is so much troublesome is its tight package. It doesn’t help cooling of Red Bull. Anyway Lotus is using Renault engine and Red Bull gearbox and KERS should be relevant to gearbox so using Red Bull KERS is no brainer. Just need more reliable package.
Eggry (@eggry)
17th July 2011, 3:03
It doesn’t help cooling of Red Bull -> it doesn’t help cooling of KERS lol
BasCB (@bascb)
17th July 2011, 14:07
I guess it was their only real option after comitting to the Red Bull gearbox to go with their Renault engine deal.
It does not sound like being the perfect Idea, on the other hand having a KERS system is already an improvement over not having it, and it does have the packaging advantage from its compactness.
And Red Bull will get their system working, even more so when they have a customer for it and can give it the engeneering it deserves.
Becken
17th July 2011, 0:34
It looks like Lewis is finally going to marry Nicole:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2015493/Nicole-Scherzinger-Lewis-Hamilton-engaged-claims-The-Pussycat-Dolls-father.html
Amazing pics from McLaren’s super garage:
http://mclaren.com/page/the-secret-world-of-unit-2–gallery
Eggry (@eggry)
17th July 2011, 3:05
Wow! So much of history!!
Hamish
17th July 2011, 4:06
Was shared on here a while ago, but for those that haven’t seen it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tQCXE7DDuc
Mike
17th July 2011, 6:35
Oh wow, thanks Hamish. Pretty awesome.
Tom
17th July 2011, 5:12
Normally, I prefer not to read about the personal life of F1 drivers, but I will make one small comment on this story: She is bad for him. She has diverted his focus from racing and made him obsessed with his “brand”.
BasCB (@bascb)
17th July 2011, 14:09
I don’t think that is really to blame on Scherzinger.
Rather its Hamilton liking that side of life and looking for Scherzinger and other friends of a certain style.
BasCB (@bascb)
17th July 2011, 14:27
Honestly, I am not all that much interested in musical stars interviews and backgrounds, but I read an article/interview not all that long ago about Scherzinger and she does not come over as being anything but a focussed and ambitious and pretty well balanced person.
This piece also shows here pretty positively (for Hamilton as well). If they marry, why not, but I get the idea it might be a while before they do.
mfDB
17th July 2011, 5:29
I’d love to see Kubica race again, but to be honest, just to see that he is going to recover quickly and likely have full use of his hand is enough for me to be happy and impressed. When he comes back and wins, he’ll be a legend…..
Fixy (@)
17th July 2011, 11:28
But let’s wait and see, it’s already a miracle he still has a hand.
BasCB (@bascb)
17th July 2011, 14:12
Yes, I think he will be racing again, but in what kind of car is too early to tell.
Good to see he is really determined to recover as soon as is reasonable.
Cyclops_PL (@cyclops_pl)
17th July 2011, 11:10
http://en.espnf1.com/lotus/motorsport/story/54371.html
Oh, PR veil going down at Lotus?
BasCB (@bascb)
17th July 2011, 14:14
Hm, not sure. They are now using Williams wind tunnel (while building their own), a clear sign they know not all is in place yet from a few weeks ago.
Gridlock
17th July 2011, 12:38
Wow nice find on the Unit 2 gallery, my mouth was hanging open at some of those shots :)
BasCB (@bascb)
17th July 2011, 14:32
Nice little bit of information in that James Allen link Keith! Thanks for putting that in the roundup.
TheBrav3
17th July 2011, 15:18
So no one has any opinion on williams getting sued? would love to hear a law wo/mans view on how that might turn out.
BasCB (@bascb)
17th July 2011, 18:31
I had a look at that yesterday evening already. Think it might be part of enforcing a confidentiality agreement without Waltrip paying for it.
But its likely Waltrip will have been unimpressed anyway to have to find a new technical director mid season.
Interesting move to get Williams into this as well, can anyone blame them for showing interest in someone already employed?
TheBrav3
17th July 2011, 23:32
“can anyone blame them for showing interest in someone already employed?”
I guess we’re going to find out!
bosyber (@bosyber)
18th July 2011, 15:29
It made me wonder what kind of termination clauses the contract had, seems unlikely that Coughlan would have just said goodbye on a friday afternoon, while leaving for his car. You could be right about confidentiality.
Calum (@calum)
17th July 2011, 15:44
If Kubica comes back and is able to get any where near his BMW form, then I think he will get the Button Mclaren seat in a few years time, as a strong Constructors Championship winning second driver – so he might get another chance to win…
But it’s all ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’
BasCB (@bascb)
17th July 2011, 18:33
Some news on Austin developments from the Statesman. Seems the track owners got themselves a tax break for having a large part of the property be a wildlife area!
TheBrav3
17th July 2011, 23:31
How does that work? wildlife area with a race track built on it? xD
bosyber (@bosyber)
18th July 2011, 15:31
Around the track, and on non-racing days, it will be a lot quieter than an urban setting.
Apart from that, I think the track doesn’t cover their whole plot, so maybe they have some water drainage/filtration area too to reduce operating costs and get some wildlife area for purposes of that tax break.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
17th July 2011, 22:09
Can’t help but think Crash are stating the obvious a little. I expect Red Bull would work with Lotus rather than expect them to use whatever Is thrown at them.
Nick
18th July 2011, 8:57
I hope Coughlan loses the case and ends up coughing up a lot of money for not honouring his contract. The guy is really an insult the the image of F1 IMO. Williams must be desperate. Sad.
bosyber (@bosyber)
18th July 2011, 15:33
They didn’t really have to get Coughlan to show us they were desperate though, didn’t they? It merely confirmed that finally (how many years?) they were realizing how far they got behind and that they needed to change a lot of things to claw back some of the success of the past.
Baremans
18th July 2011, 19:42
They guy made a mistake, got busted, served his punishment and moved on.
Now he gets back to F1.
Not a single person involved in F1 made any negative comment on it.
So I think that image thing isn’t so bad as you state it
Nick
19th July 2011, 22:27
Or maybe it reflects the fact that those involved in F1 don’t care about the image of the sport. He may have served his punishment but it now looks like he has screwed his former employer… has he learnt anything ?