Race Emissions

Joe Saward reports on Williams' environmental impact report from 2009:

It is interesting to note that emissions generated directly from race cars remain a fraction of the company’s total CO2 output at 0.46% for 2009.

Valencia Test 2010: Day 1

More launches:

• Mercedes W01: The descendant of last year's title winner gets extra length, a Red Bull style kinked nose, and a conservative shark fin.
• Williams FW32: Williams didn't seem to do a 'proper' unveiling, more of just turning up and running the car as if it was just another day so the photos are a bit lacking -- Autosport's spy-shot from yesterday shows a much more detailed profile. Another high nose, although this one has a little T-bar near the upper point. Less pronounced (as in practically absent) nose kink than some other offerings. There's something interesting going on at the bottom of the leading edge of the sidepods -- but I can't see if there are any barge-boards there.
• Toro Rosso STR5: Turns out that those manufacturing facilities put in last year were to validate Toro Rosso as a proper constructor. Still it is interesting that Toro Rosso broke cover before their parent team Red Bull. Pronounced nose-kink; weird front wing connectors similar to those we saw on the BMW-Sauber yesterday. Full shark fin. You can really see the extra bulk behind the cockpit in this car that is hidden in others.

Miscelanious meaningless notes for day one testing:

• Ferrari finishes the day with the fastest time, Massa behind the wheel.
• Schumacher was faster than Rosberg.

Diffusers Legal, For Now

BMW's protest of the diffuser design on the Williams, Toyota, and Brawn cars has been denied:

[...] the FIA issued a statement confirming that the stewards believe the cars are legal.

This decision will, of course, be appealed and there will be a formal hearing of the FIA's International Court of Appeal. Since that is not likely to happen for several weeks, the cars are likely to be protested again in Sepang.

There are two things that will happen from this: first, all the other teams will now prepare diffuser designs that are in line with Brawn etc's interpretation of the rules; however the teams which are on the record as protesting will not dare use them until after the hearing.

FIA still Kangaroos in search of a court

With the release of the '09 cars, the Toyota and Williams cars seem to have taken a "creative" approach to the diffusers, in that they appear to exceed the maximum height of 175 mm at their peak through clever aerodynamic shaping of the rear crash structure.

F1Fanatic claims this is the FIA's response to the controversy:

The current FIA view is that Williams and Toyota have been clever and have exploited the wording of the rules in a clever way. But somebody may challenge it and the stewards may take a different view - it could happen.

...in other words, "it's legal until we decide it isn't."

2009 Begins To Shape Up

More launches:

• McLaren (photos and technical analysis)
  
• Williams (photos and technical analysis)
  
• Renault (photos and technical analysis)
  
• BMW (photos and technical analysis)
  

So by my count that leaves us waiting on Force India, the Red Bull twins, and maybe whomever rescues Honda as the teams who have still not launched their 2009 cars.

Of the lot, the Renault features perhaps the ugliest nose revealed so far. However Williams and BMW seem to agree that the wider nose has its advantages.

Interesting: Canada's The Globe And Mail newspaper has covered the launch of the BMW F1 car, but has remained silent on its competitors.

F1 2009 -- Aero Preview

Seen here, a 2008 Williams wearing 2009-spec wings.

My god, that's an ugly car.

The nose wing is actually quite attractive, a throwback as it were to simpler times.

But the rear wing just make the car look so ugly.  It has a nice deep element which will provide a decent amount of downforce at a cost to increased drag, and there's obviously been a compromise to let designers put the wing back up into cleaner air rather than forcing it to languish low behind the airbox in the vortexes of all the other aero pieces.

I can't say I can envision a Ferrari wearing this kind of aero package...