Formula 1: More Cars, Testing at Jerez, and the First Crash of the Year

Last Friday I brought up the first few Formula 1 cars to be unveiled this year, and the contenders were a drab lot to say the least. For this edition of The Right Wing, testing has started at Jerez, and with it more cars have seen the light of day for the first time.

Ferrari F14T

Ferrari unveiled the new F14T contender for the 2014 season and, when I saw it, my first thought was that someone sat on the nose before the carbon fiber had dried. The nose has been likened to a vacuum cleaner, and that seems an apt analogy, as it's possible this car will suck. Sorry, I had to take the cheap joke.

Ferrari has assembled a fantastic driver lineup for the upcoming season. Fernando Alonso was already the lead driver for the scuderia, but they pulled off a great coup in signing Kimi Raikkonen away from Lotus. If they can produce a car that fits only a portion of their driving talent, then Ferrari could be in for a good year.

Red Bull Renault RB10

For the last few years no one has been able to beat Red Bull and, more specifically, no one has been able to beat Sebastian Vettel. Red Bull master designer Adrian Newey has supplied the team with this year's contender, the RB10. Like the cars described last week, the RB10 has a rather unfortunate nose design.

If you haven't figured this out by now, the nose designs for the new cars are terrifying. We just thought 2012, with the insistence of Geoff, was bad. This is worse. At least some of the teams are innovating, like...

Caterham CT05

Caterham may have the most innovative design so far. The nose fits the bill of the other cars, with the tapered bluntness, but it appears that they like noses, so they gave their car two of them. The front wing is attached directly to the tapered nose. I'm wondering if the pylon of a blunted nose can be tweaked to  increase or decrease front-end downforce for clockwise and counterclockwise circuits.

For all the innovation that went into the nose, I'm beginning to think that the Caterham technical team poured all their budget into that, as the rest of the car is very plain. The sides of the cockpit are not formed at all, but just flat and seeminbly not aerodynamic in the least.

Force India VMJ07

The 2014 contender from Force India, the VMJ07, features one of the biggest depatures from norm we've seen so far this year in terms of liveries. For the first time in my memory, a Force India car will feature black as a key portion of the color scheme...and it looks fantastic.

Again, we have a car with the tapered bluntness that is the weird regulation nose. Force India avoided the awkward nose designs of Caterham and Ferrari, but instead went along the lines of Red Bull. Still, the livery looks good...

Scuderia Toro Rosso STR9

The Red Bull "B-Team" unveiled the STR9. I liked the STR cars better back when they said Toro Rosso. Lately, the biggest difference between the STR and the RBR has been the gold or yellow on the nose. This year's nose on the STR is very muppet-esque.

Yes, that's a joke, but the nose is curved far more than any other competitor in the field so far. Toro Rosso hasn't really cracked the sharp end of the grid since a young guy names Sebastian Vettel took the Scuderia to the top of the podium at Monza in 2008. I'm not sure this car will take them very far either.

Mercedes W05

Without a doubt this is the best looking car produced so far this year. Yes, the nose is very similar to the Ferrari F14T, but it feels like Mercedes got it right. The color scheme is similar to McLaren's MP4-29, but technically Mercedes was doing this first.  I would love to see the Mercedes driver roster of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg pilot the W05 to several wins and podiums, and I would love to see Hamilton win another Driver's Title.

Hopefully this is the car to do that for them. Of course...

The First Crash of the Year

Lewis Hamilton has already binned the W05 at Jerez. I'm not sure if that's a good sign or a bad omen.