Caterham Show Good Pace Albeit Steering Issues

Although both Caterham’s failed to finish this weekends Australian Grand Prix, they can move on to Malaysia content with the knowledge that their cars were completing competitive lap times throughout the race. Both Heikki Kovalainen and Vitaly Petrov retired due to steering issues during Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix.

As the two cars’ dodged various incidents on the opening lap, Kovalainen lost the use of his KERs device as well as experiencing DRS issues early on. Regardless of this, the Finn continued setting competitive lap times which brought smiles to the Caterham mechanics. 

“I lost DRS until about lap six, and had to switch off KERS right at the start, so the sort of times we were doing were clearly competitive.” Explained Kovalainen, the Finn retiring on lap 38, “Both stops went well but then I felt the car starting to pull left under braking so we brought the car in to take a look and it seems like a front left suspension problem was causing the handling imbalance I’d felt for a few laps before we had to retire.”

In the opening stages of the race, the Caterham of Heikki Kovalainen was setting lap times roughly 4.5 seconds off Button’s pace, which he got down to 2.1 by lap 8. This was completed whilst the Finn was suffering from DRS and KERs issues, benefits which can offer a driver several tenths a lap when working.

The Malaysian owned team will be hoping they can continue this pace throughout next weekends Malaysian Grand Prix, and reach the checkered flag for the first time in 2012.

Picture Copyright © Caterham F1 Team

Sky Announce Full 2012 Line-Up

Sky have today announced their complete line-up of presenters, commentators and pit-lane reporters in preparation for their inaugural season covering Formula 1 in the UK. This comes after it was agreed earlier in the year that Sky and the BBC would share the rights to broadcast F1 in 2012 with Sky showing every track event throughout the season live with the BBC showing ten races live and the rest as a highlights show later in the day.

It was announced a few weeks back that Sky would be launching a standalone Formula 1 channel in the UK named Sky Sports F1 HD and that Martin Brundle would be joining the team from the BBC to commentate on next years proceedings. 

Today, however, Sky confirmed that David Croft would be joining the new team from BBC Radio 5 Live along with fellow commentator and ex-F1 driver Anthony Davidson to partner the already confirmed Martin Brundle. Davidson will commentate on the weekends Practice Sessions along with ‘Crofty’ recreating the famous commentary team that the BBC have used for the last three years on their Red Button Service.

  

It has also been announced that Sky have also acquired two more ex-BBC F1 staff in Natalie Pinkham and Ted Kravitz, who will continue their roles as pit-lane reporters with Sky. Ted Kravitz has also been announced as the co-presenter of the weekly magazine show which will be fronted by current Sky Sports News presenter Georgie Thompson. The presenter of the weekends F1 show will be Simon Lazenby, who has had experience in presenting Sky Sports Rugby coverage in the past.

  

Also announced as part of the new Sky Sports F1 HD team is the ex-BBC and ITV F1 presenter, Steve Rider, who has had experience presenting Formula 1 as part of the BBC’s Grandstand show in the 1990s and with ITV in the 2000s. His role within Sky will be to stage a series of interviews with some of Formula 1’s legends both past and present.

It is undeniable that Sky now have the most experienced team covering Formula 1 that has existed in the past. With three of the best commentators in the sport, two of the best pit-lane reporters and a superb presentation team, the new Sky Sports F1 HD channel looks well set for an impressive inaugural season!