Lotus launch E20 ahead of 2012 F1 season

The Lotus Renault GrandPrix team have unveiled their 2012 F1 car, the E20 was launched this afternoon at the team's factory in Enstone England. Lotus will be hoping that the new E20 will help them to score consistent points and challenge the top three team's during the 2012 season.

In 2012 Lotus have a number of big changes within the team the first is the fact that they have an all new driver line-up of 2007 World champion Kimi Raikkonen who returns to F1 after two years away from the sport. Kimi is joined at the team by Romain Grosjean.2012 also see's the team take to the grid with just the Lotus name.

The E20 will make it's track debut at Jerez in Spain on Monday morning for a shakedown run before Kimi Raikkonen takes to the track on Tuesday for the first day of pre season testing.

Karthikeyan completes the 2012 driver jigsaw puzzle

The HRT team announced this morning that Indian driver Narain Karthikeyan will drive alongside Pedro Dela Rosa for the 2012 F1 season. The Indian driver drove for HRT for the first eight races of the 2011 season but was replaced following the European GrandPrix by Australian rookie Daniel Ricciardo who has moved to Toro Rosso for the 2012 season.

The announcement that Narain Karthikeyan will drive for HRT this season means that with just seven week's to go until the first race of the 2012 season in Melbourne Australia all driver line-ups have been confirmed. And they are as follows

RedBull Racing: 1 Sebastien Vettel
                        2 Mark Webber

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes:3 Jenson Button
                                               4 Lewis Hamilton

Ferrari: 5 Fernando Alonso
            6 Felipe Massa

Petronas Mercedes GP AMG: 7 Michael Schumacher
                                                8 Nico Rosberg

Lotus F1 Team: 9 Kimi Raikkonen
                         10 Romain Grosjean

Sahara Force India F1: 11 Paul Di Resta
                                     12 Nico Hulkenborg

Sauber F1: 14 Kamui Kobayashi
                   15 Sergio Perez

Scuderia Toro Rosso: 16 Daniel Ricciardo
                                  17 Jean Eric Vergne

Williams Renault F1: 18 Pastor Maldonado
                                 19 Bruno Senna

Caterham F1: 20 Heikki Kovalainen
                      21 Vitaly Petrov*

HRT: 22 Pedro Dela Rosa
         23 Narain Karthikeyan

Mrussia: 24 Timo Glock
              25 Charles Pic


Driver's marked in Bold are new line-ups for 2012. And number 21 Vitaly Petrov replaces Jarno Trulli

Ferrari unveil F2012 in Marnello

Today has been an extremely busy day for Formula One so far because following Force India's car launch Ferrari launched their 2012 car the F2012. the car that they hope will help them win this year's championship. In my opinion compared to the Force India car the 2012 Ferrari looks very plain but we will have to wait until Monday morning to find out what the car is capable of when it comes to performance.

Ferrari had been due to run the F2012 for filming purposes on Friday morning but due to extremely heavy snow in Marnello the team was forced to cancel their launch ceremony and instead the otped for an online launch.

For 2012 Ferrari has retained the same driver line up Fernando Alonso will again be team mates with Felipe Massa, the Brazilian is under pressure to raise his game for the upcoming 2012 season.

Force India launch radical VJM05 at Silverstone

The Sahara Force India Formula One team launched thier 2012 car the VJM05 at the Silverstone circuit in England this morning. The Merceds powered car features a very radical slightly slopped front wing and nose cone assembly. The car was unveiled to the media by the team's driver's Paul Di Resta and Nico Hulkengerg who replaces Adrian Sutil at the team for the 2012 season.

The team will be hoping that their new car will help to challenge for the top five position'd in the Constructors Championship following from their fantastic 2011 campaign which saw the team finish in 6th place in the championship. the best result for the team since they entered the sport in 2008.

The team will get to assess the cras performance when it is put through it's paces at the opening preseason test in Jerez on Monday.

Barrichello runs KV car for third day

Former Williams F1 driver Ruben Barrichello has extended his IndyCar test debut with KV Racing Technology into a third day as he continues to evaluate a move to America's pinnacle open wheel racing series. The Brazilian has been testing for KVRacing at the Sebring International Speedway in America.

KVRacing currently employees IndyCar veteran and close friend of Barrichello's Tony Kanaan and EJ Viso who both linked up with Barrichello at Sebring to conduct testing of KVRacing's 2012 Cheverlot powered IndyCar Chassis.

If Barrichello teams up KVRaicng Technology for the 2012 season he would join a long list of former F1 driver's who have driven in IndyCar including 1992 F1 Champ Nigel Mansell, 1997 champion Jacques Villlenuve, Juan Paoblo Montoya, Mario and Michael Andretti,  Justin Wilson and Takuma Sato.

If Barrichello does not get the drive with KVRacing he has not ruled out competing at the 2012 Indianapolis 500. A decsion about KVRacing Technologies 2012 driver lineup will be made in thee coming day's. The 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series gets underway on Sunday March 25th at the Street's of St Petersburg 1.8 mile street circuit

Bad weather forces Ferrari to cancel launch

The Ferrari Formula One team has been forced to cancel the launch of their 2012 F1 challenger due to heavy snow in Fiorano where the team had planned to run the new car. The team was set to host a launch ceremony at it's Marnello HQ followed by a shakedown of the new car for promotional purposes next to the factory at the team's test track in Italy.

However with no sign of the poor weather clearing up any time soon the team have opted instead for an online unveiling of their new car. The new Ferrari will instead be unveiled by their driver's Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa on the team's offiical website www.ferrari.com on Friday Morning with interviews with the driver's and key team personnel appearing on the website later that day.

Ferrari are not the first team to opt for an online launch Vodafone McLaren Mercedes launched their 2012 car the MP4 27 online yesterday (Wednesday), their launch was also shown live on Sky Sports News and was presented by Sky F1 HD's lead commentator David Croft.

McLaren launch 2012 car

The McLaren Mercedes Formula One team became the first of the front running team's to launch their 2012 car when they took the wraps off the MP4-27, the car they hope will help them to close the gap to RedBull Racing and deliver the team both the 2012 Driver's and Constructors championships. McLaren last won the Driver's championship in 2008 with Lewis Hamilton, however the last time the team won the Constructor's championship was in 1998 wihen Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard drove for the team.

Towards the end of last season McLaren strengthed their technical department by bringing in Sam Michael from Williams.

2012 see's Mclaren stick with a familar line-up of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton for a third successive season. Button had a fantastic season in 2011 finishing second in the standing's.arguablly his best season to date despite winning the championship in 2009.

Lewis Hamilton will be hoping that the new MP4 27 will help him challenge for the 2012 drivers Championship after a difficult 2011 campaign which saw him out performed by his team mate.We will find out on Monday what the car is capable of when pre-season testing gets underway in Jerez.

the next car launches to take place will be on Friday when both Frrari and Force India take the wraps off their 2012 F1 challengers.