All posts by Adam Tate

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor It began as a vision, a design for an entirely different series, an under powered, oddly shaped, overly hyped misfit. It’s team engulfed in legal issues, it’s engine changed, it’s series changed. It suffered failure after failure. It was punted off track by it’s rivals, it was laughed at and written off. But the team held the course, led by Don Panoz, they slowly evolved the aerodynamics, the chasis, the engine and finally the gearbox. Yesterday, Katherine Legge climbed behind the wheel of the much malignedRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor The U.S. Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas will know its fate by the end of February, according to circuit chairman Bobby Epstein. This follows news from early November that the future of the race is at stake due to issues with funding from the State of Texas. The original deal between the track and the state had annual contributions from the government coming in at $25,000,000 per year through 2022. However new leadership in the State comptroller’s office and a new formula applied toRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor With the Venezuelan economy in tatters and his reputation at an all time low, it was only a matter of time before oil giant PDVSA pulled the plug on Pastor Maldonado’s backing. It now appears the writing is on the wall and the F1 rumor mill is going full tilt, pointing directly to ex-McLaren man Kevin Magnussen. With PDVSA’s financial backing run dry, Maldonado’s options to remain in F1 for a sixth season seems slight at best. Meanwhile, Magnussen will be inheriting a lead driver roleRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel has topped the time sheets at the close of Pirelli’s pre-season wet weather tire test at Paul Ricard. His best lap of 1:06.750 was just shy of a tenth better than Danil Kvyat managed in the Red Bull. The circuit which hasn’t hosted a Grand Prix since 1990 has evolved into one of the premier test circuits in the world. Pirelli chose it for this and made use of the onsite sprinkler system to test multiple sets of unmarked prototype intermediate and fullRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor Formula One’s four engine manufacturer’s: Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Honda, have finally agreed to a season cost cap for their customer teams after months of speculation, argument and strife. The soon to be announced deal comes on the heels of two days of meeting in Geneva for the Strategy Group and the F1 Commission. The plan proposed by the engine manufacturer’s calls for a cost cap of €12,000,000 per season for each of their customer teams. It is a significant reduction compared to current costs which haveRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor With regulations regarding testing growing ever tighter, F1 will feature just two in season tests in 2016. The first will take place at Catalunya following the Spanish Grand Prix on May 17th and 18th. The second test will take place at Silverstone following the British Grand Prix and will be run on July 12th and 13th. As per the regulations, two of these four days must be dedicated to a young drivers test, meaning that the other two days will be of immense importance as theRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor The FIA World Motorsport Council has formally ratified the calendar for the 2016 Formula One World Championship. Only one change was made over the provisional calendar, the Mexican Grand Prix will be moved forward one week to October 30th, giving the teams back to back races with the U.S. race set to take place on October 23rd. There is still doubt over the U.S. race due to funding issues between Circuit of the Americas and the state of Texas. The season begins and ends in theRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor Coming off of its most successful year in Formula One to date, Force India, the little team that could is set to make a name change and become Aston Martin Racing from 2016 onward. Their Mercedes engine contract and strong finish of fifth in the Constructor’s championship has caught the eye of Aston Martin who is keen to be back racing in the public eye and is conveniently set to begin using Mercedes engine’s in its road cars in the near future. It will be theRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor An examination of the 2015 Formula One season clearly shows a noticeable dip in the performance of the Williams cars in the latter half of the season. According to Performance Chief Rob Smedley this is because the team stopped development of the FW37 early once they realized they would secure third place in the Constructors’ standings but couldn’t reach Ferrari for second. “We stopped development on this car quite a long time ago having projected we would have a comfortable third position in the championship andRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor McLaren-Honda protege Stoffel Vandoorne topped the time sheets today from Yas Marina in Pirelli’s 12 hour endurance test of its new ultra soft tire compounds. All ten teams tested several unmarked varieties of tire that may or may not become Pirelli’s go to pick for next years most agressive tire compound. The so called ultra softs will be used mainly on street circuits in a bid to decrease lap times, increase the number of pit stops and spice up the on track action. “Whether this willRead More