Troy Kendall of team Redbull is proud to present his F103RS for the 07 season. This championship contender looks very serious and will be unbelievably quick in 2WD mode if he can put the power down!

This opens up some questions for President JFM. Low nose bodies acceptable in SLCF1... you would think so by this release from Team Redbull. Plus the run time factor of a 2wd versus the F201 should be considerable. Tire wear was never an issue with the F103 being so light but will that hurt the initial start on cold tires with a longer cycle to get the tires up to operating temperature? Things to ponder as change is coming to SLCF1. I would assume that several teams will have 2wd cars competing against the known quantity of the F201's. The F103's could push reliably with a hard front/soft rear combo but how will the F201 rubber compare.

Motor choices? I would assume that apart from the 23T TZ there would be room for the Black can Mabuchi and silver can as well. A Mabuchi motor might hit the sweet spot for drivability but wont have near the top end of the TZ... that much is known. But a drivable motor is sometimes worth it's weight in gold. Things are lining up for a very interesting season indeed.

In a lookey-likey contest the new Red Bull looks very much like the old MP4-21... still a beautiful car. Obviously with a new powerplant Red Bull might be a sleeper for the season with Adrian Newey at the helm. Funny that both drivers panned the lame "red tire" rule that CART has been running for more attention at every tire change. Should be plenty exciting for the season with so many changes...

Now what will happen at 1/10th scale? Who knows with Troy and Clete forming up at Red Bull with the #1 moving to a new team. Toyota is also strong again with Ryan and the Professor joining up for an assault on the championship. The sleeper in our series may definitely be the Fulkerson's with BMW. After a solid season of acclimation this neophyte team may be a podium poacher in 2007. Owen and Ben are teammates with Renault and you can bet on reliable finishes from this consistent duo. Left to their own guises are the solo runners, Tony with Williams, JFM with McLaren (? or another team), Anthony at Ferrari, and Billy at Honda. Now JFM and Tony joining could be a very serious effort for this upcoming season and should be watched out for by all parties concerned. There may be some new faces joining SLCF1 once the Porsche Cup series exposes the cool factor of F1... plus you can build a F1 from the GT with little effort if you follow Troy's excellent post on RC Tech.

The Championship is wide open from my tiny vantage point. With a tightened schedule every performance on race day could make or break a run at the coveted titles... It all starts in less than two months time...

Ferrari's new Formula One car will have to be built like a tank to withstand the treatment Kimi Raikkonen dishes out, according to former Mercedes-McLaren engine expert Mario Illien.

"No one drives the machine harder, no one bangs it so hard lap after lap into the kerb," the Swiss, who left Formula One in 2005 and now has an Ilmor MotoGP team, told Sport Bild on Thursday.

"Ferrari will have to build Kimi a tank if they want to win the title with him."

Raikkonen has moved from McLaren, who won no races last year for the first time in a decade, to replace retired seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher at Ferrari this season.

The 27-year-old Finn, twice an overall runner-up in the drivers' championship, suffered repeated engine failures in his time at McLaren. In 2003, he lost out to Schumacher by just two points.

Illien's Ilmor engines powered Finland's Mika Hakkinen to the 1998 and 1999 Formula One titles with McLaren while they have also won the Indy 500 on 11 occasions.

All those DNF's were McLaren's fault... I don't think so...

The 2007 F1 cars are rolling out. Ferrari, Renault, BMW Sauber, Williams have all been on the track or spotted. Interesting integration of the mirrors in the bodywork on the new R27. 60 days until F1 starts!

Woohoo!

Nice looking 2WD ride Troy. Complete pictures on the RCTech thread.

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