Sauber unveils 2014 F1 car
The Sauber C33 (Image: Sauber Motorsport AG)
The latest 2014 Formula One car to be revealed is the Sauber C33. The first images were made available by Sauber on Sunday afternoon. The car is powered by a Ferrari 1.6 litre V6 turbocharged hybrid “power plant”. The C33 will be driven by Adrian Sutil and Esteban Gutierrez.
The car features the larger sidepods, lower nose and rear-exiting exhaust required by the 2014 regulations. The images released do not provide a clear picture of the exact design of the nose, although it appears that the nose is similar to that seen on the Williams and McLaren thus far.
Side view of the Sauber C33 (Image: Sauber Motorsport AG)
Of the teams to have unveiled their 2014 cars thus far, only Ferrari has provided an image of the rear of their car. Sauber have been just as secretive as the rest of the teams when it comes to their diffuser and have not released an image taken from behind the car.
The C33 will make its track debut tomorrow morning in Jerez, Spain.
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Ferrari unveils 2014 F1 car
Ferrari F14 T (Image: Ferrari)
The latest Formula One car to be unveiled in the 2014 pre-season is the Ferrari F14 T, the car that will be driven by Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen in this year’s World Championship.
As with all of the cars revealed thus far, the most striking feature of the F14 T is the nose, although Ferrari have gone with a different solution to that seen on the Williams, McLaren and Lotus cars. Whereas its rivals have generally gone with very thin ends to the nose, Ferrari have gone for a wider, flatter nose, which makes the car the most attractive (the word is used cautiously) to be unveiled yet.
Ferrari F14 T (Image: Ferrari)
Ferrari are the first team to show images of the rear-end of their 2014 car. However, it appears that they have fitted a dummy diffuser for the photographs. As the diffuser produces a significant amount of downforce, it is not unusual for the teams to keep their diffusers under wraps as far as possible before the season starts.
The rear-end image shows the rear-exiting exhaust well. The lower beam wing seen on F1 cars from previous years is conspicuous by its absence, as it has been outlawed by the regulations for this season.
In terms of other noticeable changes on the car, the sidepods are larger than on last year’s car, as required by the regulations, and the front wing is narrower.
The F14 T will make its testing debut in Jerez, Spain on Tuesday 28 January.
Click here for the full image gallery of the F14 T.
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First image of Lotus E22 released
Lotus E22 (Image: Lotus F1 Team)
Lotus have unveiled, at least partly, their 2014 F1 car, the E22, on Twitter. The image was released just moments after McLaren’s official unveiling of their car, the MP4-29.
The Lotus features a quite different front end to the McLaren. Where the MP4-29 has a single, centred, narrow nose, the E22 features an unusual-looking double-pronged nose. It remains to be seen whether or not any of the other teams have adopted a similar approach.
The Lotus features the longer sidepods and rear-exiting exhaust required by the 2014 regulations. The livery is an evolution of that seen on last year’s E21, with the front end seeing the major changes in terms of paint-work.
The E22 will not be present at the first pre-season test that starts in Jerez, Spain on Tuesday. Instead, the car will make its track debut on 19 February in Bahrain.
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Mercedes W05 to be unveiled on 28 Jan
Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg unveil the 2013 Mercedes W04 (Mercedes)
Mercedes have confirmed on Twitter that their 2014 F1 car, the W05, will be revealed on the morning of 28 January, the first day of pre-season testing in Jerez.
The W05 is one of the most hotly anticipated F1 cars of 2014, as Mercedes are expected to finally be in a position to challenge for the World Championship after four years of trailing behind Red Bull.
In 2013, Mercedes exceeded expectations by finishing second in the Constructors’ Championship and winning three races. For the first half of the 2012 season, the Mercedes W04 was the car to beat in qualifying, and the team ended up with eight pole positions – five for Lewis Hamilton and three for Nico Rosberg.
Hamilton and Rosberg have both been retained for 2014 and will race the W05 for Mercedes.
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2014 Lotus to skip Jerez test
Romain Grosjean tests the Lotus E21 at Jerez in 2013 (Andrew Ferraro/Lotus F1)
Lotus Technical Director Nick Chester has confirmed that the team’s 2014 car, the E22, will not be unveiled until after the first pre-season test. As a result, the car will not run in Jerez at all and will make its track debut in Bahrain on 19 February.
“We’re going to keep our car under wraps a little longer than some other teams”, said Chester. “We’ve decided that attending the Jerez test isn’t ideal for our build and development programme. We are likely to unveil the car before attending the Bahrain tests, and in Bahrain we should really be able to put the car through its paces in representative conditions.”
The decision to miss the Jerez test is a bit surprising, as there are just 12 days of track testing available to the teams before the season gets underway in Australia in mid-March. The major technical regulation changes that have been introduced for this season make every lap important as the teams learn about their new cars and work to make them quicker and more reliable.
It’s possible that Lotus simply need more time to prepare their car before putting it on the track. It’s also possible that they have come up with some interesting solutions to the technical challenges that all teams face in advance of this season. If that is the case, they might want to keep their secrets under wraps until the last possible moment, to prevent other teams from copying their ideas before the season starts.
The Lotus E22 will be raced in 2014 by Romain Grosjean, who has been retained by the team, and Pastor Maldonado, who has moved to Lotus from Williams.
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Caterham CT03 launch – gallery
This gallery contains 13 photos.
