Don’t know about you, but I always get a bit twitchy about new season F1 car launches. It’s the first proper sign of what we can expect from the year ahead. Yes, they’llll change quite dramatically between launch and race, but it’ll be interesting to see how they compare visually with less aero and slicks.
This year, Ferrari will be first to take the covers off, launching what will undoubtedly be called the F2009 at their Maranello HQ this coming Monday, January 12th.
Toyota’s up next on Jan 15th, but in order to convey their ‘commitment to overall cost reduction’, studio shots will be released via something called ‘the internet’ rather than a huge glitzy launch.
Similarly, Lewis Hamilton’s title-defending machine, the McLaren MP4-24, will be unveiled the very next day at the modest Technology Centre in Woking, in contrast to the massive hoo-ha they made last year at the awesome-looking Mercedes heritage museum in Stuttgart.
Then it’s Renault with the R29 and Williams’ FW31, both at Portimão, Portugal and both on Jan 19th. BMW launch the F1.09 on Jan 20th at Valencia – in Spain – and the Red Bull RB5 unveils on February 9th at Jerez, also in Spain.
The STR4 and Force India VJM02 have yet to receive official launch dates, but they probably won’t be too long away either.
So are you getting twitchy too? And which car do you reckon will be the looker this year? Any of them?
The Renault and Wiliams presentation will be in Portimão and its in Algarve, Portugal
I want to see what Hamilton has to drive
with the new rules so strict about no flick ups and extra wings i wouldnt bet agaisnt them all looking relativly the same just with diferent sponsors and colours, although i hope i am wrong and at least one team trys something abit diferent in the hope of gaining an advantage!
come on,at least get the names right
,it is in portimão…
I can’t wait to see all of them. But especially the R29, I think with all these changes, Alonso could get back at the top. I hope they change the colours back to the classic Renault blue and yellow though. Those colours go so well together
sorale weisz agrees
Mr. Jamie Hibbard,
Partimao does not exist. The town name is Portimão and the country is Portugal.
Before writen such words, please do a little research about the name of the places.
Topgear is a world reference site for news about cars, and these kind of references is not appropriate.
I think all the new models will look different, they all did under the old rules. I’d also wager that if there is any possible way the cars can be made pretty within the new aero rules it will happen.
let see………………….
chill ur beans Luis…
Should be exciting…
However, all the cars are still gunna look like crap, thanks Bernie.
Can’t wait for the first race!
To be honest, I don’t think there will be any real “looker” so to speak this year. I’m gutted with the provisional appearances that BMW and McLaren have shown at recent tests.
F1 is meant to be a hugely glamourous sport! Very beautiful looking cars is surely an essentiality. And it seems they are trying to take that away.
I dont know who has been sniffing the paint thinners on that call but for the first time in 10 years, I’m am cringing rather than dreaming about the thought of the new F1 cars.
At the end of the day though, inevitably McLaren will come up top trumps on the style front.
Rayz said…
At the end of the day though, inevitably McLaren will come up top trumps on the style front.
of course! when i want to look my best, i put on my pewter and atomic vomit red suit. green, red, blue, white and silver have no place on a proper race car.
when compared to classic sponsor liveries like rothman’s, gulf, benetton, john player, marlboro and canon, mcvodafone is left in the dust. only the 50/50 hondas look worse.
people need to relax about the typing error, jesus! get a life….
im waiting to see how the teams incorperate KERS on the cars. and to see who bends the rules withe the aero.
P. is u edit my typing errors, get out out more
They look rubbish, this much we know. I wonder if we’ll get any new liveries however.
that the Ferrari betta look better than every other car. and BMW Sauber should have the front nose cone weird thing on their car too, that looked cool.
Jamie I’d love to be a motorsport or motoring journalist and I’d like to think I’d get my facts straight before publishing. Anyway, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and they’ll still be F1 cars which by default means they’ll look beautiful, just different.
Why is everyone getting so hung up on how the cars look? F1 cars have never been particularly pretty things. They are tools with a function and aesthetics have always taken a back seat to performance and aerodynamics.
What’s far more important is how the new rules will affect the sport. Does a move back towards mechanical rather than aerodynamic grip mean we will get closer racing with more overtaking moves and less of a procession, with the races being won on the driver’s skill rather than that of a tactician with a laptop on the pit wall? If it does then personally I couldn’t give a stuff about what the cars look like.
Always been looking forward to the reveal of the new cars except for this year, scared the new rules will jeopardise the cars badly. Let´s wait and c ..
Ooohhhh….a little bit of human error and everyone goes mental. Rodolfo, Luis and Graham Potter, I trust you’ve never got anything slightly wrong in your lives? Lighten up people!
Yeah, geography was never my strong point. I’ve changed it now so thanks for your guys’ help and hey, at least you got to feel smug about something which should’ve cheered you up on such a cold, nasty week (unless you’re in a nice warm country, in which case, go out and make the most of the sun!).
6/10 – must try harder.
I hate people that complain about typo’s.
Jamie, keep up the good work mate!
Duncan, if it was with your country and town how would you react?
Let’s imagine it was writen “in Nowcastle, Germany”. How the people from Newcastle, England would react? Would they think it was a little human error? I believe so, but that does not stop me to ask for a correction.
Of course, everyone (me included) made mistakes, but the though decision is to correct them.
And it is good to see that Mr Jamie Hilbard correct the article.
Now for the this new look for F1 cars. First point I don’t like.
But if it bring back emotion and the races are decided on the track and not on the pits, then these new rules are indeed efective.
If not, what a waste of time.
Those awful rear wings…
i hope that needing to use slicks forces them to have huge back tyres, like in the old days. that was when f1 cars looked good.
Duncan
Half the point of Jamie’s article was that several teams seemed to be launching their cars in Spain, suggesting some as yet unknown reason for this. So yes, Jamie was right to be picked up for his error and he has corrected himself. Of course I’ve got things wrong, the difference is I don’t post it for the whole world to see.
The rules for tyres do not allow huge back tyres.
In the past the cars also never had a front wing wider than the front tyres and a back wing this small.
I fear the rules will ruin the proportions, hence even the McLaren and the Ferrari, once so cool, will look ridiculous.
Wait and c…
The 08 cars looked horrible so I don’t think it is *quite* as bad as is being made out. Besides, surely if the racing improves no-one will care what they look like. That is the main reason for the changes, after all.
Not the FIA just trying to ruin things, they are actually trying to improve things for once.
The racing was never as close as the last few yrs, some ruined by stewards though.
Said it before, in soccer one does also not make the goals bigger to see higher scores.
But look at youtube and type mexico 1990 or barcelona 1991, these were great Mansell overtake manouvres with very good looking cars, what went wrong?
Can we let my geographical mistakes slide now and discuss this coming season’s cars please? Where the launches were happening was only supposed to be an amusing aside, not half the point of my piece.
Thanks.
I thought I was going to hate the look of the rear wing, but it’s turned out to be the front which looks awful. I think it’s the imbalance between the two, there is no symmetry – I like the high and wide wings front and rear, but why not go back to a wide track car and make the rear wing wider as well as high in order to balance the car out – then we would be back in the early 90’s, bliss!!!!!!!!
I hope Renault gets their classic blue-yellow colored car.
I hope Ferrari at least go back to the classic gold wheels they used to have last year’s looked rubbish.
perfect f1 recipe,cars fueled from start to end (bigger fuel tanks obviously.) proper manual gearboxes,v12s reintroduced,get goodyear tyres back,no more pointless asian races (apart from malaysia,singapore and japan,and australia if you count oceania.) no more stupid aero bits(apart from front and rear wings and exhausts from the rear and air sucking devices.) and force lotus,alfa romeo,maserati and audi to come back and never leave,also force ferrari,mclaren mercedes and bmw to never leave.
I Love F1
Glad that the BBC is broardcasting it NO MORE ADVERTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!
Good luck to Lewis this year
What’s the story with the Honda team’s car? Will they actually be building one and selling that on to the new owner or will they just not even start? Surely that would make it very difficult for any possible buyer to come in and start building a new car to the new spec in a short amount of time…
Red Bull,s cars are always interesting and i’m sad that Honda’s gone ’cause their cars where always weird looking. Bernie Ecclestone will find someway of letting Ferrari win this year by giving everyone else pointless penalties. And god knows what drug he was on when he thought of medals- GET IT SORTED MAN!!
“Anyway, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and they’ll still be F1 cars which by default means they’ll look beautiful, just different.”
No way we’ll see such thing as a looker. Not even the most glorious livery (JPS, please, or Rothmans) will make this year’s cars look better. They will be ludicrous, high, squared, F3-looking things that will go slow and won’t keep the track. Thanks mr.ee
Liam the 80’s are not back yet. Suits want asian races as cash cows, never mind european tracks are way way better, they won’t be back (Zeltweg and Estoril for instance)
The cars will look odd for a couple of races.
But by the end of the season they’ll look normal.
By the way I’ve decided not to criticise any spelling or gramatical errors this season.
Still normal sevice for stupid opinions & incorrect information though.
FIA ready to allow moveable wings
Ferrari will always win against whoever is in their way now….. and aparently ( read this on f1-live.com) ferrari will test their KERS system on the pug 908fap because they struggle with it… and they might eventually sell it to peugeot so they beat those germans with a v12 tdi with kers…..
Ugly! because their is a huge difference from 2008 cars. maybe will get use to it sooner or later.
car battery soon runs out .wont start yet next day its alive again the speed of these race at killer speeds when driven out from the garage
The wide car was also being banned to enable easier overtaking (1998). Worked out great… And how many race enthusiast were asking for KERS???
am the best
hi, im your mum.EAT ME”
Shag me
What is this blog – F1 FASHION and The Grammatical Group.
Who cares what they look like, they are always beautiful because of what they are…F1 cars.
Anyway, its the pit girls who add the glamour, not the styling of the cars, how about the 2009 reveal of the pit girls, that would be worth turning up for!!!
Why go to an F1 site to look at women?
I agree, with the chap who posted at no. 51.
Who care’s how the car’s look, I’m sure they’ll be visually striking, all I care about is a Ferrari driver ending the season as world champion, hopefully Massa.
Before anyway gets angry and posts about hatred for Ferrari and praise for Hamilton, he’s a great driver no question, I just happen to prefer Scuderia Ferrari as opposed to McLaren.
i like the new f1 car its a shame it is limited to 1bllion mles a hour
I’m looking forward to the launch from the team formerly known as Honda Racing F1. I think we can look forward to a good looking car painted in primer grey.
And, F1Yankee, so, according to you, the only colors allowed on a proper race car are orange, yellow, purple, and black? That is one ugly car.
The Ferrari`s are gonna win the championship easy this year!
Come on Kimi!!!
Nothing wrong with grey.
The rules for cars are so tight they’ll all end up looking the same.
Why can’t we have rules like “x wide, x high, x long, x engine size, wing @ front, wing @ back, no active aero, no abs, no auto, no launch”.
Then we might see cars that are actually seconds faster than others and it’ll force innovation, not the “the aero tweak gave us 0.003 secs / lap gain”.
Long live the Tyrel 6 wheeler !
i cant believe F1 is cumin bk to the bbc i will finally be able to watch it without gettin distracted
mclarens car in testibg looks very nice but theyve still got last seasons rear wing on it. no doubt it will look the best when all the cars are released as mclarens always do
Used to be Tifosi but lost some enthusiasm for the prancing horse over the last few years, especially when i heard about their financial advantage ..
Prefer true racers!
Loved the McLarens in orange testing colours!
Atleast NASCAR has more position changes during a race making it more exciting than F1. Enjoy your European FIA Ferrari circle jerk.
Im gona agree with NASCAR on that one, much more exciting races
and this year of F1 is going to be awful.
Thats all I’m saying.
Well i saw the the way that this year’s F1 cars tend to look like and it looks dorky.Hugely wide front spoilers an ridicoulously narrow back spoilers.
Nascar said…
Atleast NASCAR has more position changes during a race making it more exciting than F1. Enjoy your European FIA Ferrari circle jerk.
1. nascar teams run almost 100% spec cars
2. if a car is found to be faster than the pack, officials slow it down.
3. there’s about 50 drivers starting the race, most of which are related.
4. stock car, my balls. where can i get a tube framed, 427 c.i.d. carbureted pushrod v8 – powered, rear drive, manual transmission ford fusion?
5. way to post something relevant to the discussion!
6. last time i checked, it was nascar jerking in circular fashion.
how bout matt black finish. nice! maybe they will banned this one because it will look like a shadow and get accident prone. LOL
matt black for the former team honda
First pictures are out (on Autosport.com) and Ferrari have done it again, pulling a stunner out of the regulation changes.
I can stand to look at THAT on my television screen every other weekend for sure!
the new ferrari is ass ugly
the new Ferrari looks awesome, great job by them now lets hope it can will the championship and the constructors
New Ferrari looks amazing, I can’t wait to see Massa shove it right up Hamiltons’s ass.
I’ll put this on each new blog as it arrives, until we get a new Foreman blog.
This is a thank-you to all those who contributed to the Barack Obama (Foreman) blog back in November – especially Paul Horrell who wrote it, Tom Servo, Conor, Keith, Catersam, Morty, Tikka wrap, Evan, Carfan3, topgearmouse and Ash
Claverton Energy Research Group:
http://www.claverton-ener gy.com/download/289/
It’s also why both May and Clarkson have made a dreadful mistake regarding the immediate future of car fuels
Cheers
Amazing Ferrari! Looks super awesome, can’t wait till the end of march when we’re finally going to get some racing again! Let’s do it!!
euh…I expected worse to be honest;
of course last years’ was better.
But hey I expected really, really worse.
It’s…pretty ok. so shoot me, I don’t give a f***
can’t wait to see how Iceman will beat everyone’s ass.
Sorry to butt in here, and talk slightly off topic.
The fact that today the Ferrari F60 was released, I’m going to say that the 2009 season has started. So I think it is time the BBC step up to it. They promise red button goodiness. They promise so much.
Out of all BBC sites the topgear sunday blog is the best, and from my understanding it isn’t the official BBC F1 page.
If you look at the info that is shown of the BBC news f1 page. http://news.bbc.co.uk/spo rt1/hi/motorsport/formula _one/default.stm, It’s a bit ………same as it has been for the last god-knows how many years. Content is poor, and generally not exciting at all.
Check the amount of news that coming out on Planet f1 or ITVf1 (still) GP Update. It’s been constant, and the bbc has done nothing with it.
To be honest, I wish the topgear crew would take it on fully, and expand the F1 Sunday Blog to F1 (web) in full.
If the F1 has come home – I can see why it went.
Come on guys. Show that funky stuff!!!!!!!!!!
How long before those mirrors are banned – they look suspiciously like areo devices with mirrors on top to me! Have to agree with ‘jeroen’, I expected it to look much worse.
The new 2009 car is called the F60 and not F2009…something to do with Ferarri going on a nostalgia trip and being involved in the last 60 years of F1.
Nostalgia trip = Ferrari reminding the FIA just how long they have been in F1 and therefore they should win the title this year, as they deserve it for being the longest serving team in F1……………..
GR shut up and save the conspiracy as their is none. May the best team win and hopefully that will be with Massa at the helm.
New season now so forget about the last 2 seasons drama and await what comes this year. lets have a clean slate for this one and save us all the anguish of it pre season.
Moan when you feel you have a right to moan and not before.
Nothing to do with conspiracy theories, I’m just not a Ferrari fan, they have a certain arrogance about them – Just my opinion.
The new toyota TF1 09 is looking very good, perhaps even better than the new Ferrari F60!
I agree with ‘R8-BDE’ I think the Toyota TF109 is looking considerably more stlyish than the Ferrari, especially with it’s excellent paintjob. Whether it does well, however, remains to be seen.
I agree, good paintjob!
Luis
u are wrong because dont writen something you are writing it
plus mclaren and ferrari will defo have nice cars this year but now toyota and renault are in with a chance