Cast your mind back a year or so ago to when 1997 F1 world champ Jacques Villeneuve came to Oz and had a lash at driving a V8 Supercar. Once his Australian junket finished, he commented that driving a V8 Supercar was about the hardest thing he'd undertaken in all his years in motorsport. These Aussie fan favourite tin-tops require a specific set of skills to muscle them to the front of the grid. Therefore the current crop of V8 pilots must relish the odd chance to thrash the life out of a race car in a different category.
    The 2015 motorsport season is already looming large, commencing with the fantastic Bathurst 12-Hour event for GT cars at iconic Mt Panorama. This is truly an international event with teams coming from New Zealand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, USA, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and the UK accompanying Australian teams. A vast array of exotic marques including Ferrari, Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, Aston Martin, McLaren, Lamborghini and even Bentley are all vying for victory honours. The drivers also come from far and wide, including a number of V8 Supercar drivers.
    However, the Official V8 Supercar Test Day at Sydney Motorsport Park is scheduled for the same weekend. Will this deprive V8 Supercar drivers the opportunity to drive a gripped-up high-end race car, which they hardly ever get the chance to? Remember their local knowledge of Mt Panorama would be invaluable to the GT teams. What about the fans? Whilst the test day is a fan-friendly day with grid walks and the chance to get up close to the cars and have a chat and grab an autograph from the drivers, there would still be a big Sydney contingent heading up the Great Western Highway over the Blue Mountains to catch the 12-hour. Hate to be the one to tell Craig Lowndes or Shane Van Gisbergen they've got to test instead of competing at Mt Panorama.
    For us it's a no-brainer. We'll be heading up the Great Western.


    Many, many thanks to all our friends and surfers who frequent formulafrontrow.com. Your support is greatly appreciated and we wish all of you a happy new year. May the beer be cold and your glass be full. Roll on 2015. Cheers.... 
       
     

    Periodically, Formula One talks that it needs to rein in costs. With the demise of the Marussia F1 team and Caterham's administrator's desperately seeking a buyer to continue their campaign into 2015, we got to thinking how best to reduce burgeoning costs to the teams. Bear in mind only Ferrari have been around since F1's inception in 1950. Manufacturers have come and gone, and will come again when economics suit. Teams have come and gone. This will always happen. It might be motorsport, but business is business. However, if monetary pressures are reduced, then the teams' longevity will be enhanced. So how is this best achieved?
    The development cycle in F1 is unrelenting. Recent years saw teams operating their windtunnels 24/7 utilising staff on a shift basis. The governing body wisely decreed that they shutdown their factories for 8 hours a day in the name of costs. Despite this, the richer F1 teams still upgrade their cars on a race by race basis in the hope of gaining incremental advantages over their opposition. It's at the point of race team members carrying smaller parts in their personal luggage to alleviate freight costs for the flyaway races. Does the governing body need to put their foot down to rein in costs?
    2015 sees F1 embark on their longest championship to date with a potential 21 events. Why doesn't the governing body mandate when upgrades can be fitted to the cars? Instead of teams tweaking their cars on a race by race basis, why not allow them to fit upgrades say every 4 or 5 events? A homologation within a homologation if you will. This could be timed to coincide with the limited in season testing that's still available. The teams would still be free to develop their cars as aggressively as they wish through simulators, CFD and windtunnel testing within their factory enclaves, but only allowed to fit their upgrades for race meets at the mandated time. Sure they'd still be producing bespoke components for their factory models, but not all would end up on the race cars for each and every event, thus reducing their manufacturing costs. Not to mention they'd be manufacturing less spares of their new parts as there's no "racing incidents" in a windtunnel or simulator. 
    From a fan's perspective, this could also be an exciting prospect. What if teams introduce various upgrades on their factory models, but when they fit them to the race cars at the designated time, they find that it doesn't correlate to the actual race car? The time between race car upgrades could possibly cover the last 4 or 5 factory model upgrades.The richer teams may be a number of upgrades down the track on the factory model than when the last real upgrade was fitted to the race car forcing them to play catch up before the next upgrade is allowed. There's also the opposite scenario, whereas a team could make a substantial gain. This could also benefit a mid-field team who get their upgrade spot on. Food for thought isn't it? 
     
                                     Merry Christmas to all our loyal friends and supporters. Ciao....