Pops' Formula One Travel Guide, New Season

This week begins the new season of Formula One as testing begins on January 28th in Jerez, Spain. This will be an exciting season as new technology changes opens everything up for grabs. This year the cars are going from a V8 to a 1.6 Litre V6 Turbo model. Additional changes are --

• Two Energy Recovery Systems (ERS) instead of the one last year. Having two ERS will give the car an additional 160 BHP during certain times on the circuit. 
• Cars will be limited to 100 kg of fuel for a race. In F1 there is no refueling during the race.
• Introduction of an 8-speed fixed ratio gearbox.
• Narrower front wing. This is supposed to reduce the clipping of the front wing in tight spaces.
• Shallower rear wing. This will reduce the amount of down-force supplied by the rear wing. 
• Maximum weight of the car and driver has been increased by 48 kg. This is to compensate for the additional systems added to the car.
• Lower chassis and nose. This is to reduce the launching of cars due to nose to rear wheel collisions.

As you can see there has been a lot of changes made to the cars for this year. 

In Jerez the cars will be unveiled for the first time. This will be the first time we will be able to see how the cars stack up against each other. It should be an interesting testing period.

The first race in the 2014 calendar is March 14 - 16 in Australia. Every team will want to get off to a good start. There was a lot of churn this off season with a lot of drivers changing teams and some rookie drivers added. Mark Webber retired from Red Bull and Daniel Ricciardo moved up from Toro Rosso and Kimi Raikkonen moved from Lotus to Ferrari to name a few. 

At stake in Australia is Sebastian Vettel's streak of consecutive wins, currently at nine. One more win and he breaks the all-time record. Vettel is tied with Alberto Ascari who set the record across two seasons in 1952 and 1953.

If you have ever wanted to go to Australia and you are a fan of F1 why not combine your passions and attend the race this year. There will be a lot of excitement with the rule changes and Vettel's streak. It's not too late to get your tickets. You could see history being made.