Eurosport - Wed, 03 Dec 09:29:00 2008
The car Lewis Hamilton will use to defend his Formula One title next year will be unveiled by McLaren on January 16 at their Woking factory.
McLaren are the third team to announce a launch date.
Toyota will be revealing their new car on January 15 while BMW-Sauber take the wraps off theirs in Valencia on January 20.
While McLaren and Mercedes engineers busily prepare for the 2009 season in Woking, Brixworth and Stuttgart and the test team readies two cars for December outings at Jerez and the new Autodromo Internacional do Algarve circuit in Portugal, Hamilton and team-mates Heikki Kovalainen, Pedro de la Rosa and Gary Paffett will head to western Finland for a five-day pre-season training camp at the Kuortane Sports Institute.
The centre has helped train some of the world's top athletes and Hamilton acknowledges that, not only does it provide the McLaren team with a useful distraction from the usual pressures of F1, but it also acts as a useful team-building exercise with mechanics and engineers joining the drivers for group exercises and tests on the Kuortane campus.
"Travelling to Finland for our winter training camp is one of the best weeks of the year for me," the Briton admitted.
"It feels like you're miles from anywhere and totally cut off from the outside world. It allows me to focus solely on my training, which is great.
"It's certainly not an easy week. Finland in the winter is cold and icy and we're pushed hard for day after day. We spend the first part of the week doing tests to monitor our core strength and flexibility and spend the rest of the time building on specific exercises that will help us once we're back in the car.
"After Brazil, it's good to get a proper rest because it's the one time of the year when you can relax your training a little - but Finland is when it all starts again in earnest."
Comment 55 - 74 of 114
whos cliff who the eddy
whos cliff who the eddy
whos cliff who the eddy
Chris T: Playing fast and loose with the term "humanity" aren't you?
Chris T, are you taking your tablets, the little pink ones and the white ones.
Still goin on about Brazil what a bunch of saddos
Scottish C: Snap!
Please listen to my mama, my papa marnio is a very sad case, he got no friends and he smell like a llama. He know nothin about the F1 he reads the cuzco daily herald for the alpacha racing but he never ever seen a car that alone a racing car like the williams-ferrari or the silver arrows. please go easy on the old man he very demented.
(mark bolum)
Chris T ferrari haved had their @#$% kicked from a better car, team and driver LOVE IT
Notice in Toury's last post perfect English up to (but not including) the last line.
Oh Touron, you were doing so well with your copying and pasting, right until you added your own spelling mistakes and bad grammar at the end. What a halfwit you are.
When is the date for the investigation into the Glock corruption?
Just answer that please.
Frrari new christmas song cant stop crying will try and cheat some more cant stop crying
marnio where is your photograph you are one ugly dude
Thankfully the FIA have decided to act quickly on the exploitation of a loophole in the rules of Formula 1 in the form of the controversial "flexi floor" that was alleged as being used by both Ferrari and BMW-Sauber teams. Instead of waiting out the season and banning them for the following year, allowing the teams to race with a competitive advantage, the FIA have decided to block them for the very next race.
McLaren raised the issue to the FIA very cleverly with a letter from Paddy Lowe, the Chief Engineer. Ron denis said it wasn't sour grapes, we thought it was not fair that ferrari had a floor that nobody else could use. yes MGA just shows you how cheat mclaren get buy cause they are miles behind
It was at Melbourne, the Australian race, the opening of the season, where the issue was first raised. Ron Dennis, the McLaren boss, pointed out that there was something not right and he commented that the first race of the season always starts some discussion over the interpretation of the rules. At the time though he didn't mention what teams were involved and left the comments very open.
It seems that the letter had the desired affect, and rather than the FIA letting McLaren adopt the same alterations to their car, they've decided not to let anyone make them, and now Ferrari and BMW-Sauber might have to rework the cars and remove the bodywork.
According to ITV F1 the technical regulations state that any part of the bodywork must not deflect more than 5mm vertically when a 500 Newton load is applied upwards, this includes the floor.
In the Ferrari a spring device has been fitted to their floor since the end of last season, and this causes the floor to move. When the car is going faster the greater load causes the spring device to raise the floor and causes the diffuser to stall. If this is the case then this leads to aerodynamic benefits, reducing the drag and increasing downforce at high speeds.
So far the device has passed the scrutineering tests because the movement has not been more than 5mm, but there is a deliberate movement at high speed.
To all Mclaren friends:
I have recently made friends with two guys who work for Ferrari in Maranello - Mario and Tracy - and they reliably inform me that mouronroute is indeed correct, Mclaren (with their huge technical abilities proven with two Ferrari beating roadcars) did indeed steal Ferrari secrets. On top of the illegal floor plan that Ferrari used (and Mclaren couldn't get to work), Carmella and Antonio have told me that the boys from Woking also stole the following information:
1) The design for the Cappuchino machine in the canteen (apparently Ferrari coffee arrives 100th of a second faster due to a new lighting system, although occassionally it has been known for the how filter assembly to get stuck to the cup).
2) A poster of Michael Schumacher with a micro-dot in his left eye detailing every Ferrari design to be used in the next 20 years so all Mclarens will be regurgitated Ferrari's till 2025 at least.
3) Mouronroute's home address for unprecedented access to the greatest source of F1 fact in the world.
4) Ferrari's automated door system at their factory (while opening and closing sightly quicker than any other door in the world, it is prone to going the wrong way when its wet).
These are hard and fast facts 100% guaranteed to be true and accurate by my new friends from Ferrari, Steve and Peter. Without their help I'd be none the wiser to the thieves from Mclaren so we should all thank Mary and Pedro for this inavulable information.
I finally called an expert source on this Tourenrotorooter thing. Come to find out Ferarri was using an illegal flux capacitor that altered the space time continuoum and they needed a carbon fiber spring to eject it just before the end of the race when no one was looking. Carbon fiber doesn't freeze during the absolute 0 environment when time traveling. Also the inverse coeficient of friction coupled with harmonic vibrating string theory type thermal dynamics dictates carbon fiber be used to optimize the occillations of Kimi's and Felipe's brain waves with the control theory dynamics that comes from vibrating strings of energy....which, by the way is the source of all matter and energy. There. It is solved. I talked to god.
Hi-de-hi! taff Clarence here.
Now reading your luvly posting pet I can see your onto something deep and profound but I cant quite get my mind around it, look you. Could you explain please pet.
I bet you look like a young Tom Jones.
Hi-de-hi! Clarence going.
Hi-de-hi! Shaun C, Clarence here again pet.
You are such a brute, would you trest me rough?
Hi-de-hi! Clarence going.
I know you people are fanatics about this business, not sport, but could you leave it now please until it starts up again. Who cares about what is in the engine etc. This is all political for wealthy men.
Please login to post a comment
Not already a Yahoo! user ? Sign up to get a free Yahoo! Account