The car was designed and built from scratch in just five months, half the time of Virgin Racing and, of course, was built very close by to me, so this is my local team!

Some thought, including me, that Malaysia would be very prominent on the car, hiding some of the heritage of the Lotus marque. However, it’s clear to see that the brand representation has been taken seriously, with the return of the classic colour scheme. I for one cannot wait to see the car on track with the other teams!

So, my question to you all, what do you think of the car? How well will it do this year? Answers in the comments, please!

Just a quick post to sort of inform you of what’s in the works for A Little Bit… Piquet at the moment as I haven’t had a lot of time to write a whole story recently.

So, first up, there will soon be a dedicated Twitter presence for the blog, posting updates from here and any little snippits I think you’ll enjoy. I shall reveal this Twitter account in a short while, but for now, keep looking at @TGtweets for updates on its appearance.

Also, the blog now has a new email address if you want to get in contact, you can email us here. I’d be more than happy to read your suggestions, ideas or general comments.

That’s all for now, I promise to be back very soon with another Piquet post soon!

Peter Windsor, also known as USF1 because he’s the only person to appear from the team, has come out again this week with more of his moaning. This time, it’s about the two week break during August that the teams now do instead of testing to save a few bob in these times of ‘cost cutting’ in F1. However, this is unacceptable to Peter Windsor, no idea why, his team hasn’t even competed yet. So, let’s look at the pros and cons of this break…

Pros

• Gives the hard-working engineers and staff of the teams a good rest before a long stretch to the end of the season.
• Saves everyone involved a bit of money on running costs.
• Enforces the testing ban a bit easier.

Cons

• Valuable development time gone.
• Keeps things pretty much the same for two races, unless teams planned ahead.
• Some teams may not think ahead and just let the two weeks be a rest.

Ok, I’m not feeling at my most thoughtful with those but there are good and bad points making the summer break hard to judge on from an outsider’s point of view, but I’ll briefly explain mine. In my opinion, I do think it’s a good idea. It saves the teams a bit of money, and that’s all we keep hearing about at the moment, cost-cutting. Also, I think it’s good that the hard-working men and women get a break. They spend a lot of time during the season to get two cars ready to compete every other week, and sometimes every weekend, so it’s only fair that they get a chance in the middle of the organised chaos to relax.

Overall Piquet Rating: At least actually make a car and race it before whining, please.

Anyway, in other news, the French courts have overturned Flavio Briatore’s lifetime ban from F1 and awarded him with compensation for all the bother. WHY? I thought he was a bad man for making Piquet Jr. crash so Alonso could win and so deserved punishing. And the point of punishing people is to make them realise that they did bad. So why are they taking it back and saying sorry with some nice money? That’s weak. If my parents gave me a punishment, then took it back a little while later, I would actually start to question the morals of my parents, and everyone else too, while I’m at it. And then to get paid compensation for it? Yes, ok, so it’s ruined his reputation, but surely that’s the point of exposing someone for what they truly are.

Overall Piquet Rating: I do not like this, it is the bad man who made Piquet crash.

Bernie Ecclestone, a week ago, expressed his concern that the new teams may not be ready, come March, paying particular concern towards USF1 and Campos. Naturally, we know quite a lot about Lotus and Virgin and the building rivalry between the associated airlines with them and people know they’re coming. Campos, on the other hand, have said nothing.

Does anyone remember the announcement that they had Bruno Senna on board? I certainly didn’t. That’s all that’s been said to the public. Are they actually trying to build a car? Do they have a second driver ready to announce? I’m not entirely sure that those questions can be answered in a definite yes, yet. Doing a quick search for ‘Campos’ on the F1 website, it’s hardly promising, the only announcement from them being the 11th November, a long time ago in F1 terms.

Campos don’t have two drivers, and certainly don’t have any major sponsors that I know of. Yes, Senna’s brought in a fair bit of cash with him but I doubt it’s enough. Mind you, they’re hardly trying to drum up funding. To play with the big boys in F1, you need to look big to get the big money in to start. So far, they’ve mentioned the name that everyone thinks will open doors, Senna. Nothing else. No ‘Hello, look at us, we’re gonna be in F1 and we need all your support.’

Quite frankly, having Bruno driving their car means nothing to me. He’s not Ayrton, and I think that puts a lot of other people off too. He has to make a mark before he will become attractive in F1, otherwise, he will be stuck with just being ‘Ayrton’s nephew’.

I have to say, even Campos makes the USF1 team look busy. They may not have drivers yet, but at least they have a video of them making a nosecone.

Overall Piquet Rating: At least Piquet did a season and a half before leaving F1…

But what is most confusing about the lack of info on USF1 is all they hype they had when they announced the project. They pushed hard on the fact they were going to be an ‘all American F1 team’.

I think this is the problem, it’s too American. The US isn’t exactly known for it’s love of F1 and neither for its ground breaking technology in its motorsport. Look at NASCAR, for example, they aren’t exactly overflowing with fancy design work and all that makes F1, well, F1.

As for the publicity, it seems to have narrowed down to Peter Windsor talking to a few people every so often, and just playing defensive with comparing to the other new teams. Where are the updates on the progress of the team?

Overall Piquet Rating: Well, at least they haven’t crashed, yet…

Anyway, if you don’t know me, I’m Tom, sort-of-known in Sidepodcast as the one who broke his ‘wotsit’ (coccyx) in December 2009. A few weeks into my addiction and I get the sudden idea to make an F1 blog and get in with all the cool kids. I didn’t think I’d do that well at it, so I’ve called it ‘A Little Bit… Piquet’, which in Sidepodland, means rubbish. Let’s hope I’m wrong.

So, that’s all I can think to say right now, so, hopefully, you’ll stick around when the content comes and enjoy… If you don’t enjoy, you may find a Renault hitting your wall soon.