Tio Ellinas Joins Marussia Manor Racing For 2012

Marussia Manor Racing have completed their 2012 driver line-up with the announcement of Cypriot Tio Ellinas, as he joins Dmitry Suranovich and newly signed Brazilian Fabiano Machado for the coming season.

After testing for the team at Jerez and Valencia, the 20-year-old impressed greatly thus improving his chances with the team for the 2012 season. Ellinas began his motor sport career in karting, winning 101 of the 131 races between 2001 and 2009. 

In 2010, Ellinas began his career in single-seater racing in the British Formula Ford Championship. Throughout his debut year he won 3 races, ending the season 4th in the Championship as well as becoming the rookie of the year.

“I am very happy to join Marussia Manor Racing.” Explained Tio Ellinas, “It’s a winning team and I am really looking forward to building on the progress made during the two tests. I felt immediately at home in the team and now I can’t wait to get back in the car again and race in my first GP3 season.”

Last season, Ellinas moved up to the Formula Renault UK Championship. Throughout the season, he won 2 races for the Atech Reid GP team.

The 2012 GP3 Series gets underway in May as it supports the Spanish Grand Prix on the Circuit de Catalunya.

Picture Copyright © Jakob Ebrey Photography 

2012 FIA Formula 1 World Championship Entry List Announced

Today saw the Formula 1 governing body, the FIA, announce the official entry list for next year. This entry list sparked some question marks, with various seats left empty and initially some mistakes with team names, which were quickly corrected.

The entry list confirms that McLaren’s Jenson Button will carry the Number 3 on his car next season as he beat team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the season standings, the first team-mate of Hamilton’s to do so. It also stated returning World Champion, Kimi Raikkonen, as the only driver confirmed at Lotus (who have changed their name from Renault) with Vitaly Petrov apparently being issued a deadline of December 10th to sign a new contract with the team.

It has also left the Force India team driverless for the time being, although if current rumors are anything to go by Paul Di Resta and 2011 test drier Nico Hulkenberg are only days away from being confirmed as 2012 drivers. Toro Rosso are also driverless but once again rumors are that they will keep Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari for another season with the star of the Young Driver Test, Jean-Eric Vergne, as the test driver. Williams are another current driverless team, and the situation seems no clearer now than it was after the Brazilian Grand Prix. What with Kimi Raikkonen now completely out of the equation it is believed that GP3 Champion Valtteri Bottas is in with a chance to team-mate either Adrian Sutil or Pastor Maldonado however Rubens Barrichello is still adamant at returning in 2012.

Caterham (formerly Team Lotus) have officially become a Malaysian outfit and although speculation has arisen over Jarno Trulli’s place in the team he is currently listed as the No.2 to Finn Heikki Kovalainen, but once again things could well change with 2011 HRT rookie Daniel Ricciardo knocking on the door.

Probably the biggest surprise of the announcement is the current driverless line-up that the HRT team have, even though they apparently signed Pedro De La Rosa on a two-year deal a few weeks back. Could the Spaniards time at HRT be over before it has begun, or is it simply a case of miscommunication between HRT and the FIA? And last but not least is the Marussia Team (formerly Virgin Racing) who have become a Russian outfit after adopting their Russian sponsors name for 2012. Their team line-up features returning No.1 driver Timo Glock and French GP2 graduate Charles Pic, however what are the chances of the Russian team replacing Pic with Petrov if the only Russian driver on the grid is replaced at Lotus? Not likely, however having a Russian driver in a Russian team is a huge boost what with a Russian Grand Prix on the cards for 2014.

Whichever way you look at it, this announcement from the FIA seems highly likely to chop and change numerous times before winter testing gets underway. And even then, last minute changes could well happen. It’s going to be an interesting winter off season!

2012 Formula 1 Broadcasting Schedule Announced

After the announcement earlier today regarding the new Sky Sports F1 HD channel being launched in March, next seasons BBC/Sky broadcasting schedule has been announced. This comes after Sky and the BBC agreed to a new broadcasting deal from 2012 – 2018 that sees Sky show all 20 races live on their new channel whereas the BBC will show the full live broadcasts of only 10 races and delayed highlights of the others.

Today the BBC, who this weekend will broadcast their final race as the sole UK broadcasters of F1, announced which races they will broadcast live and in full next year. It is yet unknown who will commentate for the BBC or Sky however there are rumors that Sky have signed current BBC commentators’ Martin Brundle and David Croft for their coverage next season. 

The BBC will begin their live broadcasting of F1 next season with Round 3 of the Championship with the Chinese Grand Prix, followed by the Spanish, Monaco, European, British, Belgian, Singapore, Korean, Abu Dhabi and Brazilian Grands Prix. The BBC will also broadcast all the Qualifying and Practice sessions live from these particular events. When the BBC are not broadcasting live races, they will instead show delayed highlights of 90 minutes duration on BBC One and BBC One HD as well as 120 minutes worth of highlights for early morning races such as Japan and Australia. They will also broadcast a 75 minutes delayed highlights show of the Qualifying sessions with Practice sessions not receiving any form of highlights.

Sky Sports F1 HD, however, will broadcast all the Races, Qualifying sessions and Practice sessions live and will become the only channel in the UK where you will be able to watch every session of an F1 weekend live and in HD all year round. 

The 2012 Broadcasting Calendar in detail

Australian GP – Sky 
Malaysian GP – Sky 
Chinese GP – BBC & Sky
Bahrain GP – Sky 
Spanish GP – BBC & Sky
Monaco GP – BBC & Sky
Canadian GP – Sky 
European GP – BBC & Sky
British GP – BBC & Sky
German GP – Sky 
Hungarian GP – Sky 
Belgian GP – BBC & Sky
Italian GP – Sky
Singapore GP – BBC & Sky
Japanese GP – Sky
Korean GP – BBC & Sky
Indian GP – Sky 
Abu Dhabi GP – BBC & Sky
United States GP – Sky 
Brazilian GP – BBC & Sky