Buemi joins Davidson at Toyota’s Le Mans team

F1 Fanatic round-up

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Toyota TS030 Hybrid Le Mans car

In the round-up: Red Bull reserve driver and ex-Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Buemi will join Anthony Davidson in Toyota’s Le Mans 24 Hours team.

From the forum

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Teams trust FIA can control exhausts (Autosport)

Williams engineering chief Mark Gillan: “Teams are obviously pushing things, and some teams are pushing things harder than others to the spirit of the regulations. But it is for Charlie and the FIA to police it. We are keeping a good eye on it and we will investigate any alternative solutions. But what works on one car will not automatically bolt onto another car.”

F1 pre-season testing provides poor guide to form (BBC)

Ferrari were clearly struggling to understand their new F2012 and spent most of the four days doing aerodynamic assessment tests. The car, they said, was behaving inconsistently in the corners, and so far fixing its behaviour at one stage – the entry, say – messes it up at either the mid-corner or exit, or both.”

Sebastian Vettel Q&A: Less grip, but a good feeling (F1)

“When you go out at the right time, with the right tyres and low fuel you can set a good time. My guess is that [at the next test] in Barcelona we will see what the other cars are made of. You cannot go into a season on staged test lap times. I think that teams that are able to do a lot of mileage without issues will be in good shape.”

Hembery Pleased With Pirelli Progress In Jerez (Speed)

Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery: “The tyres performed exactly in line with our expectations here in Jerez. We’ve had a very positive reaction from the drivers and teams so far, who have reported more grip at the rear, fewer ‘marbles’ and a reduced lap time difference between the compounds as well as faster overall performance – which is precisely what we wanted. We’re happy with the level of degradation and we had no issues, as was the case for all of last year.”

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Comment of the day

Randy shares some useful observations on yesterday’s testing times:

Alonso posted his time in first lap of six-lap stint, so he made the time having five more laps of fuel on board at least.

Compare that to Hamilton’s best stint (not the fastest lap of the day though) – 1’19.8 on the first lap of 13-lap stint, ended by the red flag. So at least 12 laps worth of fuel in the tank as he posted it.

Vettel did his best 1’19.6 in an eight-lap stint.

Interestingly, Senna in Williams posted 1’20.1 (not far off) in another 13-lap stint, so he also had at least 12 laps left doing a flying lap.

I know that this doesn’t mean anything, but there’s nothing better to do right now (in F1 world anyway), so we may as well continue to not draw conclusions from those times.
Randy

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On this day in F1

Happy birthday to 1964 world champion – and the only driver to win both F1 and motorcycle world championship titles – John Surtees, who is 78 today.

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Keith Collantine
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24 comments on “Buemi joins Davidson at Toyota’s Le Mans team”

  1. We are keeping a good eye on it and we will investigate any alternative solutions. But what works on one car will not automatically bolt onto another car

    Basically: “gosh, we missed that one!”

    1. Doesn’t work if they say, any alternative solution.

  2. Toyota likes F1 drivers like Peugeot did…

    1. They like japanese drivers more :P

      Seriously though I don’t know it’s a matter of “like” but commen sense, the reigning championship drivers have all just been let go since peugeot has left ilms/wec. Any team with a vacancy would be silly not to take on one of the only drivers to beat audi in the last decade.

      Well that’s davidsons case not sure what interest they have in buemi i must come clean when i read it i instantly assumed it was sebastian bordais who was also an x toro rosso driver and one of davidsons team m8s last year. That would have made slightly more sense than buemi.

      1. Make sense. I’m not sure why they choose Buemi over Bourdais either. Bourdais did great job in Peugeot along with Davison. I think two of them was Peugoet’s best drivers.

      2. Maybe Bourdais isn’t doing Le Mans this year? He has a full time IndyCar drive doesn’t he?

        1. FlyingLobster27
          11th February 2012, 9:40

          Bourdais will be doing LM with the Pescarolo Team. He’ll be driving a Dome-Judd with Nic Minassian and Seiji Ara.

  3. Not sure about Buemi, but I felt relieved when I heard they had taken Alex Wurz. He really is an amazing driver. Just like Anthony Davidson, but both of them couldn’t prove themselves.

    Good luck to Buemi, though. He’s fast and if he takes care, he could succeed.

  4. I know that this doesn’t mean anything, but there’s nothing better to do right now (in F1 world anyway), so we may as well continue to not draw conclusions from those times.

    I’m guessing that the reason for Randy’s observations is that the teams know the cars have to have a little bit of fuel left in them at the end of qualifying, enough to complete an in lap and provide a sample to the scrutineers. So it would be kind of pointless to build a car that was at its best with just enough fuel for an out-lap, a flying lap and an in-lap since you’d never get to show your full strength.

    1. Virgin tried that in 2010 with their small fuel tank :)

      1. When the cars set their respective headline times i’d be surprised if any of them had less than a quater tank of fuel probably more. Certainly alot more than needed for their stints or it would be to easy for engineers to count back the laps and work out the fuel adjusted best lap from that car/driver/setup combo.

        Like vettel said come barcelona we’ll see the gloves come off, probably during the last test because no one wants to go into qualy with out knowing what their car is capable of. Even when they do do that bare in mind they’ll probably be holding 5-10 laps back which is why all anyone will say pre season is wait till the first race then we’ll know.

      2. That’s not what I was suggesting.

        1. I guessed that, i’m saying it for the sake of anyone reading your comment because that’s what it seems like.

  5. Happy Birthday Willis and Mr. Surtees!

  6. So still no sign of Jaime Alguersuari.

    1. He said earlier this week that he’s on the verge of signing as reserve/test driver for a top team, and it’s rumored to be Mercedes, which makes sense as they’re the only top team without a reserve/test driver. Well, actually I guess you could argue Ferrari don’t have a reserve driver, but they have their stable of young drivers in Perez & Bianchi, and while Mercedes may unofficially have Di Resta & Hülkenberg in the wings, they’re not officially in any Merc driver development program.

      1. I expect Mercedes to sign either Bird or Vietoris.

      2. @US_Peter @Fixy Isn’t Sam Bird a Mercedes Test pilot for the last two season,I doubt that they will sign Alguersuari.

        1. @wasiF1, if you look at the driver list on Wikipedia it shows Mercedes reserve/test role as TBA

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Formula_One_season#Signed_teams_and_drivers

        2. @wasif1 Bird was their test driver in 2010 and their unofficial one last year, but I doubt he will be confirmed because of his not-so-great results. I heard last september they would have signed Vietoris and although there is no confirm I think it’s reasonable (he’s also German).

    2. Did you see his tweets right now (in general and some exchange with Rubens), looks like they are close to something now.

  7. I read also that McLaren was happy with Charly. So if Williams is also happy, I see a row dooming at the horizon…

  8. This has actually got me in tears, enjoy guys my favourite is petrovs.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vYV3tZFy3Y&feature=related

  9. Well I’ll be tuning into Le Mans this year so that’s quite fortuitous. Good luck to Buemi.

Comments are closed.