News & Views - MVT

Motorsport update - the latest from the Bridgwater Racing Team sponsored by Nelson Thornes 



The Bridgwater College racing team have started the racing season on a high! Read this month's Sponsor Bulletin to find out the latest about the team.

Don't forget, the next race day (May 6th) will feature on Motors TV all day.

If you fancy seeing the team in motion in the meantime, you can view recent clips on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ7upthj83g  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84qkgEN98bc
 

Josh's Motorsport Blog - April 2013


Its April already and there is lots to talk about as the Motorsport season is now well underway in most formulas.

The MotoGP series testing has concluded with Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa looking like the early title favourites although Rossi and new boy Marquez will be expected to fight for race wins. They kick off in Qatar on April 7th and you can cheer on Brits, Cal Crutchlow, Bradley Smith and Michael Laverty on Eurosport.

The F1 season has had two quick fire races with Malaysia quickly following Australia. We now have to wait until April 14th for the next race in China. The first race in Australia threw up some interesting results with the Lotus taking a very strong win and no Red Bull domination. The McLarens had a disappointing start and perhaps at this early stage, shows that Lewis Hamilton wasn't wrong to leave them for a fresh start at Mercedes.

The second race of the year, held in Malaysia however was back to the usual form guide, with Red Bull dominating, although the inter-team fight that saw Vettel ignore team orders to pass Webber and take the win is sure to rumble on for a good while. The Mercedes looked to be in good form with a 3rd and 4th place whilst McLaren looked to have made a small step forward in pace.

The college race team have had our first race of the year at Castle Combe and after a successful engine dyno day and test day, we managed to put the car on pole position in freezing conditions, in which we had snow during the session. In the race we came 3rd overall and 2nd in class which is a great step forward from last season and the support from Nelson Thornes has been the biggest factor behind this. The new awning also did a fantastic job of hiding us from the elements during the day of which the students were very grateful for. We are looking forward to our next race on May 6th which will be live on Motors TV all day.

Josh's Motorsport Blog - May 2013 




Time for another blog, and it seems that the sun is arriving in May which is finally nice to see!

There's lots of news to discuss this month, the first being the new FIA Formula E championship starting in 2014. http://formula-e-news.com/
This exciting new championship is set to run in 10 cities, including London. There will be 40 cars with 10 teams. The cars themselves with run with Michelin tyres, Dallara chassis' and McLaren will be providing the motor, transmission and electronics. It will see a new step forward in sustainable engineering within motorsport and will help to test and develop electric vehicle technology for road cars.

In other motorsport news Marc Marquez picked up his first MotoGP win in Austin, USA. He was on pole for the race and sat behind team mate Dani Pedrosa before passing him with 6 laps to go to take a comfortable win. He is sure to be a world champion in the near future. http://www.motogp.com/en

In F1, we are nearly at the end of the 3 week break after a return from the first batch of fly-away races. Spain on the 12th May is the next race and it will be interesting to see what developments have occurred for each team during the break. (http://www.formula1.com/default.html)

In the WRC, the new VW Polo of Sebastien Ogier seems to be the title favourite with wins in 3 out of the 4 rallies so far. http://www.wrc.com/results/
A title fight between him and Loeb would have been nice to see, but he is only doing a small handful of races this year.

Back at college, we have now had our BSc(Hons) Motorsport Technology top-up year validated by Oxford Brookes University and this is set to start in September 2013. The college race team is also racing on May 6th and 27th at Castle Combe in the Radical. We will be hoping to continue the good start to the season and make it on to the podium in both race events. www.castlecombecircuit.co.uk. You can also follow us on Twitter @MotorsportBC

Last but not least, my book has been published and is now available from Nelson Thornes directly along with the usual likes of Waterstones and Amazon – hopefully it will be of use to some of you in providing an insight into all areas of motorsport engineering!

Read the latest sponsorship bulletin to catch up on the latest from Josh's racing team!

Josh's Motorsport Blog - March 2013

Welcome to my March Bog.

The motorsport season is fast approaching now and ties in with the end of the F1 pre-season testing. The Australian Grand Prix is only weeks away (17th March). Testing as usual was difficult to read into as the only indication of car set-up based on lap time, was tyre choice. This is indicated by the coloured band around the tyres circumference. It seemed that the usual trio of Ferrari, Mclaren and Red Bull were fast, but Mercedes also showed pace in the last few days of testing in Barcelona with both Hamilton and Rosberg.

The MotoGP is also soon to start and testing brings a more likely outcome as to outright pace. The usual protagonists of Lorenzo and Pedrosa were fast but the return of Rossi to the Yamaha showed he can still compete at the top after some poor showings on the Ducati. Newcomer Marquez, on the other factory Honda, showed he will be a podium contender. Brits Cal Crutchlow and Bradley Smith, on the Tech 3 Yamahas, showed good top 10 pace throughout the test days. The series kicks off in Qatar on April 7th.

More local to home is the sad news that Castle Combe circuit owner, Howard Strawford has passed away, aged 77. Howard saved the circuit in the 70s when he bought the circuit and developed it into the modern and successful venue that it is today.

Our awning (part sponsored by Nelson Thornes) has been delivered and looks great. The awning along with the race car, van, trailer and student clothing will give a great corporate feel at race events. As for our race team, we are testing at Castle Combe at the end of the month in the Radical and then racing on April 1st. Visit www.castlecombecircuit.co.uk for more details.

View the March Sponsor Bulletin here.