breno
13th March 2010, 11:08 AM
Finally! its back, been stoked about this season for awhile now.
So many things to cover i dont even know where to start.
Qualifying is on a 9pm tonight on channel one.
I'll let other people do the talking for me at the moment.
"Heidfelds analysis of the Barecelona test. He looked at the cars in fast corners, slow corners, over the kerbs, etc."
Ferrari:
- Ferrari impressed more during the Jerez test.
- In Jerez the balance of the car was neutral, while in Barcelona the car had a slight tendency to understeer (this could be explained by the nature of the Barcelona track, which provokes understeer, while Jerez provokes oversteer.)
- The car has a lot of downforce.
- The car is stable in fast corners, which gives the drivers confidence.
- Sudden over- or understeer can be correctly easily by the drivers, even on high fuel.
Red Bull:
- Without looking at the lap times, the Red Bull looked to be the best car after its updates.
- It is almost frightening how good the Red Bull is.
- Red Bull has "sandbagged" in Barcelona; they haven't shown their full potential.
- He has seldom seen a car that is so well balanced, both is fast and slow corners.
- No other car has as much downforce in fast corners than the Red Bull.
- No other car brake as late and as long into the corners as the Red Bull.
- No other car is as good over the kerbs as the Red Bull.
- The Red Bull swinged the less on/after a bumpy track.
- They have worked a lot on the suspension and damping.
- The car has very little over- and understeer.
- Vettel and Webber can very easily drive the car on the limit.
McLaren:
- Before the updates the car was very nervous when driving over bumps.
- The car was very "pitch senstive"; it had extreme reactions under breaking and acceleration (tail stepping out and such).
- After the updates, the car was transformed in terms of handling.
- It over- and understeers a bit too much still.
- The car is tuned very stiff also in slow corners.
Sauber:
- The most stiffly tuned car.
- It jumps very much on uneven ground.
- Looks like a car that is difficult to drive.
- For Kobayashi, he always worries that he just flies of.
- But the car seems to be fast.
- Much will depend on whether Sauber can maintain that level.
Toro Rosso:
- Suprisingly good.
- The car oversteers a bit too much, but still driveable, due to which the tyres won't be destroyed.
Williams:
- Almsot in all aspects average; nowhere it is particularly good or particularly bad.
- Tuned very soft, which makes it good to drive in slow corners and over the kerbs, but slows it down in fast corners.
- The Williams is the car that rolls the most in turn 9, the fast righthander.
Renault:
- Improved a lot with it updates.
- The car is very nervous, or has to be driven nervous and aggressive.
- Suffers quite a lot from over- and understeer, but still controllable.
Force India:
- The car goes very well in fast corners.
- A bit nervous, but might be partly due to the aggressive driving style of Sutil
Newcomers:
- The balance of the Virgin is a disaster.
- Lotus looks much more balanced.
- Lotus has more downforce, but less grip and poor traction.
It’s been a busy day at Bahrain, albeit totally lacking in tension. The drivers and teams all seem very calm ahead of the new season. The new teams are understandably a little more edgy, but generally I am amazed how calm everyone is.
That doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been a lot going on. Alain Prost is to act as a steward this weekend, alongside three of the more traditional steward types, in order to add credibility to penalties handed out to drivers.
Also the World Motor Sport Council has today been discussing the 107% rule and decided to look into reintroducing it, in order to weed out cars which are far too slow in qualifying. Basically any car which did not qualify within 107% of the pole sitter, will not be allowed to start the race. On a track like Barcelona this would mean that if the pole was a 1m 19s lap, cars would have to lap faster than 1m24.3s. We will find out on Saturday how far off the pace the new teams are and how pressing this issue may become.
I understand that the 107 % rule has a lot of support within the FIA. For it to happen this year all the teams would have to agree to it, which the new teams are unlikely to do. For it to happen next year they would need 70% of the teams to agree, which is possible.
In a separate development, there are strong signs from the FIA that they are going to come down very hard on USF1 for failing to make it to the race track. It was discussed at the WMSC and FIA president Jean Todt has been mandated to “take appropriate action”.
Little has been seen of the Hispania team today, the garage doors were shut when I went to look, but it has been confirmed that the car has passed scrutineering and Bruno Senna said that they are planning on going out in the morning to do as many laps as possible. I will post tomorrow on what they will have to do to prepare an untested car for a race.
The debate over the legality of the McLaren rear wing continues. Three teams have spoken to the FIA’s Charlie Whiting, who has inspected the wing today and said that he is entirely satisfied that it is legal. If the other teams choose to protest it after the race on Sunday, it will be up to the stewards to decide whether it is legal, but they will be guided by Whiting’s view, clearly, as assessing these things is his job.
It is emerging that the cleverest thing about this wing is actually something very simple; the airflow from an opening in the cockpit to the slot in the back of the rear wing, is carried down a pipe in the sharkfin engine cover, but it needs to be “switched on” on the straights. To have any kind of mechanical device would be illegal. The solution? It is controlled by the driver’s body. When he moves his left leg in a certain way, it allows air flow through, which shoots into the slot on the back of the wing and separates the airflow underneath the wing, causing it to shed drag, so the car goes faster down the straight. It’s a bit like the brake steer third pedal McLaren had in 1997, but even more simple.
Quick run down of the rule changes for 2010.
- No more refueling, it seems the RedBull is the most consistant with a full tank, and also seem to use their tyres the best.
- KERS is scrapped
- The qualifying system will change to accommodate the extra cars: 7 cars will drop out of the first qualifying session, 7 from the second and as in 2009, 10 cars will shoot-out for pole in the third session. The third session will now be run in low-fuel configuration due to the refuelling ban
- The top ten drivers to qualify for the race must start the race on the same set of tyres that they qualified with. In the event that a tyre is damaged in qualifying, the FIA technical delegate will assess the extent of the damage and may allow the car to switch tyres to a set he deems to be safe
- Wheel covers are no banned. THANK GOD.
- The front tyres will be narrowed from 270mm to 245mm to improve the balance of grip between the front and rear
- A new points system has been ratified for 2010, in response to the increased grid. Since 2003, points had been awarded to the top eight finishers: ten points for first, eight for second, six for third and all the way down to one for eighth place. The 2010 system will see 25 points for first, 18 for second, with third receiving 15, 12 for fourth and then ten, eight, six, four, two, and one for tenth place
- The stewarding system will be overhauled for 2010. Rather than having a rotating line-up of stewards, they will now be drawn from a smaller, fixed pool of permanent stewards that will include former drivers. Previously, stewards were only able to issue twenty-five second penalties for infractions that occurred too late in the race for drivers to receive a normal penalty, but for 2010 they will have the power to hand out twenty-second penalties to drivers who would have received a drive-through penalty and thirty-second penalties to those who would have received a stop-go penalty. Any penalty must now be completed within two laps rather than the three of previous years
- Drivers will now have just eleven sets of tyres over the course of a weekend, down from fourteen in 2009. Three of these sets are for practice only and must be returned before the start of qualifying, regardless of whether they are used or not
Bahrain Practice times
Practice 1:
Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:56.583 18
2. Alonso Ferrari 1:56.766 + 0.183 18
3. Kubica Renault 1:57.041 + 0.458 19
4. Massa Ferrari 1:57.055 + 0.472 19
5. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:57.068 + 0.485 19
6. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:57.163 + 0.580 19
7. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:57.194 + 0.611 19
8. Rosberg Mercedes 1:57.199 + 0.616 15
9. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:57.255 + 0.672 17
10. Schumacher Mercedes 1:57.662 + 1.079 16
11. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:57.722 + 1.139 18
12. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:57.894 + 1.311 20
13. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:57.943 + 1.360 17
14. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:58.399 + 1.816 13
15. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:58.782 + 2.199 11
16. Petrov Renault 1:58.880 + 2.297 13
17. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 2:00.250 + 3.667 18
18. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 2:01.388 + 4.805 11
19. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 2:03.680 + 7.097 8
20. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 2:03.848 + 7.265 21
21. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 2:03.970 + 7.387 15
22. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 2
23. Senna HRT-Cosworth 3
24. Chandhok HRT-Cosworth
All Timing Unofficial
Practice 2:
Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Rosberg Mercedes 1:55.409 23
2. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:55.854 + 0.445 22
3. Schumacher Mercedes 1:55.903 + 0.494 23
4. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:56.076 + 0.667 28
5. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:56.459 + 1.050 18
6. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:56.501 + 1.092 26
7. Massa Ferrari 1:56.555 + 1.146 30
8. Petrov Renault 1:56.750 + 1.341 26
9. Alonso Ferrari 1:57.140 + 1.731 25
10. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1:57.255 + 1.846 24
11. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:57.352 + 1.943 27
12. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:57.361 + 1.952 29
13. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:57.452 + 2.043 21
14. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:57.833 + 2.424 29
15. Kubica Renault 1:58.155 + 2.746 29
16. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:59.799 + 4.390 31
17. Webber Red Bull-Renault 2:00.444 + 5.035 12
18. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 2:00.873 + 5.464 23
19. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 2:00.990 + 5.581 14
20. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 2:02.037 + 6.628 3
21. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 2:02.188 + 6.779 21
22. Senna HRT-Cosworth 2:06.968 + 11.559 17
23. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1
24. Chandhok HRT-Cosworth
All Timing Unofficial
So many things to cover i dont even know where to start.
Qualifying is on a 9pm tonight on channel one.
I'll let other people do the talking for me at the moment.
"Heidfelds analysis of the Barecelona test. He looked at the cars in fast corners, slow corners, over the kerbs, etc."
Ferrari:
- Ferrari impressed more during the Jerez test.
- In Jerez the balance of the car was neutral, while in Barcelona the car had a slight tendency to understeer (this could be explained by the nature of the Barcelona track, which provokes understeer, while Jerez provokes oversteer.)
- The car has a lot of downforce.
- The car is stable in fast corners, which gives the drivers confidence.
- Sudden over- or understeer can be correctly easily by the drivers, even on high fuel.
Red Bull:
- Without looking at the lap times, the Red Bull looked to be the best car after its updates.
- It is almost frightening how good the Red Bull is.
- Red Bull has "sandbagged" in Barcelona; they haven't shown their full potential.
- He has seldom seen a car that is so well balanced, both is fast and slow corners.
- No other car has as much downforce in fast corners than the Red Bull.
- No other car brake as late and as long into the corners as the Red Bull.
- No other car is as good over the kerbs as the Red Bull.
- The Red Bull swinged the less on/after a bumpy track.
- They have worked a lot on the suspension and damping.
- The car has very little over- and understeer.
- Vettel and Webber can very easily drive the car on the limit.
McLaren:
- Before the updates the car was very nervous when driving over bumps.
- The car was very "pitch senstive"; it had extreme reactions under breaking and acceleration (tail stepping out and such).
- After the updates, the car was transformed in terms of handling.
- It over- and understeers a bit too much still.
- The car is tuned very stiff also in slow corners.
Sauber:
- The most stiffly tuned car.
- It jumps very much on uneven ground.
- Looks like a car that is difficult to drive.
- For Kobayashi, he always worries that he just flies of.
- But the car seems to be fast.
- Much will depend on whether Sauber can maintain that level.
Toro Rosso:
- Suprisingly good.
- The car oversteers a bit too much, but still driveable, due to which the tyres won't be destroyed.
Williams:
- Almsot in all aspects average; nowhere it is particularly good or particularly bad.
- Tuned very soft, which makes it good to drive in slow corners and over the kerbs, but slows it down in fast corners.
- The Williams is the car that rolls the most in turn 9, the fast righthander.
Renault:
- Improved a lot with it updates.
- The car is very nervous, or has to be driven nervous and aggressive.
- Suffers quite a lot from over- and understeer, but still controllable.
Force India:
- The car goes very well in fast corners.
- A bit nervous, but might be partly due to the aggressive driving style of Sutil
Newcomers:
- The balance of the Virgin is a disaster.
- Lotus looks much more balanced.
- Lotus has more downforce, but less grip and poor traction.
It’s been a busy day at Bahrain, albeit totally lacking in tension. The drivers and teams all seem very calm ahead of the new season. The new teams are understandably a little more edgy, but generally I am amazed how calm everyone is.
That doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been a lot going on. Alain Prost is to act as a steward this weekend, alongside three of the more traditional steward types, in order to add credibility to penalties handed out to drivers.
Also the World Motor Sport Council has today been discussing the 107% rule and decided to look into reintroducing it, in order to weed out cars which are far too slow in qualifying. Basically any car which did not qualify within 107% of the pole sitter, will not be allowed to start the race. On a track like Barcelona this would mean that if the pole was a 1m 19s lap, cars would have to lap faster than 1m24.3s. We will find out on Saturday how far off the pace the new teams are and how pressing this issue may become.
I understand that the 107 % rule has a lot of support within the FIA. For it to happen this year all the teams would have to agree to it, which the new teams are unlikely to do. For it to happen next year they would need 70% of the teams to agree, which is possible.
In a separate development, there are strong signs from the FIA that they are going to come down very hard on USF1 for failing to make it to the race track. It was discussed at the WMSC and FIA president Jean Todt has been mandated to “take appropriate action”.
Little has been seen of the Hispania team today, the garage doors were shut when I went to look, but it has been confirmed that the car has passed scrutineering and Bruno Senna said that they are planning on going out in the morning to do as many laps as possible. I will post tomorrow on what they will have to do to prepare an untested car for a race.
The debate over the legality of the McLaren rear wing continues. Three teams have spoken to the FIA’s Charlie Whiting, who has inspected the wing today and said that he is entirely satisfied that it is legal. If the other teams choose to protest it after the race on Sunday, it will be up to the stewards to decide whether it is legal, but they will be guided by Whiting’s view, clearly, as assessing these things is his job.
It is emerging that the cleverest thing about this wing is actually something very simple; the airflow from an opening in the cockpit to the slot in the back of the rear wing, is carried down a pipe in the sharkfin engine cover, but it needs to be “switched on” on the straights. To have any kind of mechanical device would be illegal. The solution? It is controlled by the driver’s body. When he moves his left leg in a certain way, it allows air flow through, which shoots into the slot on the back of the wing and separates the airflow underneath the wing, causing it to shed drag, so the car goes faster down the straight. It’s a bit like the brake steer third pedal McLaren had in 1997, but even more simple.
Quick run down of the rule changes for 2010.
- No more refueling, it seems the RedBull is the most consistant with a full tank, and also seem to use their tyres the best.
- KERS is scrapped
- The qualifying system will change to accommodate the extra cars: 7 cars will drop out of the first qualifying session, 7 from the second and as in 2009, 10 cars will shoot-out for pole in the third session. The third session will now be run in low-fuel configuration due to the refuelling ban
- The top ten drivers to qualify for the race must start the race on the same set of tyres that they qualified with. In the event that a tyre is damaged in qualifying, the FIA technical delegate will assess the extent of the damage and may allow the car to switch tyres to a set he deems to be safe
- Wheel covers are no banned. THANK GOD.
- The front tyres will be narrowed from 270mm to 245mm to improve the balance of grip between the front and rear
- A new points system has been ratified for 2010, in response to the increased grid. Since 2003, points had been awarded to the top eight finishers: ten points for first, eight for second, six for third and all the way down to one for eighth place. The 2010 system will see 25 points for first, 18 for second, with third receiving 15, 12 for fourth and then ten, eight, six, four, two, and one for tenth place
- The stewarding system will be overhauled for 2010. Rather than having a rotating line-up of stewards, they will now be drawn from a smaller, fixed pool of permanent stewards that will include former drivers. Previously, stewards were only able to issue twenty-five second penalties for infractions that occurred too late in the race for drivers to receive a normal penalty, but for 2010 they will have the power to hand out twenty-second penalties to drivers who would have received a drive-through penalty and thirty-second penalties to those who would have received a stop-go penalty. Any penalty must now be completed within two laps rather than the three of previous years
- Drivers will now have just eleven sets of tyres over the course of a weekend, down from fourteen in 2009. Three of these sets are for practice only and must be returned before the start of qualifying, regardless of whether they are used or not
Bahrain Practice times
Practice 1:
Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:56.583 18
2. Alonso Ferrari 1:56.766 + 0.183 18
3. Kubica Renault 1:57.041 + 0.458 19
4. Massa Ferrari 1:57.055 + 0.472 19
5. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:57.068 + 0.485 19
6. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:57.163 + 0.580 19
7. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:57.194 + 0.611 19
8. Rosberg Mercedes 1:57.199 + 0.616 15
9. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:57.255 + 0.672 17
10. Schumacher Mercedes 1:57.662 + 1.079 16
11. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:57.722 + 1.139 18
12. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:57.894 + 1.311 20
13. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:57.943 + 1.360 17
14. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:58.399 + 1.816 13
15. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:58.782 + 2.199 11
16. Petrov Renault 1:58.880 + 2.297 13
17. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 2:00.250 + 3.667 18
18. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 2:01.388 + 4.805 11
19. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 2:03.680 + 7.097 8
20. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 2:03.848 + 7.265 21
21. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 2:03.970 + 7.387 15
22. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 2
23. Senna HRT-Cosworth 3
24. Chandhok HRT-Cosworth
All Timing Unofficial
Practice 2:
Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Rosberg Mercedes 1:55.409 23
2. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:55.854 + 0.445 22
3. Schumacher Mercedes 1:55.903 + 0.494 23
4. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:56.076 + 0.667 28
5. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:56.459 + 1.050 18
6. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:56.501 + 1.092 26
7. Massa Ferrari 1:56.555 + 1.146 30
8. Petrov Renault 1:56.750 + 1.341 26
9. Alonso Ferrari 1:57.140 + 1.731 25
10. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1:57.255 + 1.846 24
11. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:57.352 + 1.943 27
12. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:57.361 + 1.952 29
13. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:57.452 + 2.043 21
14. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:57.833 + 2.424 29
15. Kubica Renault 1:58.155 + 2.746 29
16. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:59.799 + 4.390 31
17. Webber Red Bull-Renault 2:00.444 + 5.035 12
18. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 2:00.873 + 5.464 23
19. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 2:00.990 + 5.581 14
20. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 2:02.037 + 6.628 3
21. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 2:02.188 + 6.779 21
22. Senna HRT-Cosworth 2:06.968 + 11.559 17
23. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1
24. Chandhok HRT-Cosworth
All Timing Unofficial