Warning: long...First, here are some links to get you up to date on what's transpired in the off-season and what to expect for the new one: 2010 Schedule at Formula1.com F1 News Sites: planetf1 autosport bbc gp update Rule Changes/Refueling Ban: Christine Blachard's excellent podcast re: rule changes for 2010 PF1 takes a hard look at in-race consequences of the refueling ban espn/f1 story re: same Tech: If there's someone better, please let me know! You can also follow him on twitter. formula1.com's season preview Where do the teams stand entering Bahrain? Excellent piece by the BBC's Ted Kravitz PF1's predictions for 2010 BBC's Barcelone testing photos Autosport's testing photo albums OK, I know that's a lot of stuff, but if you're a fan or if you just want to catch up and try to watch some races this year and want to do so with a little knowledge of what's happening out there, I think you'll find those links will give you a good start. There's plenty more great stuff to look at at the sites linked. Those are just some of the most useful links to get you up to date. Everyone feel free to add what you have. So here's where we are in a nutshell heading into 2010... The entry list is as follows: Vodafone McLaren Mercedes 1 - Jenson Button 2 - Lewis Hamilton Mercedes GP Petronas Formula One Team 3 - Michael Schumacher 4 - Nico Rosberg Red Bull Racing 5 - Sebastian Vettel 6 - Mark Webber Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro 7 - Felipe Massa 8 - Fernando Alonso AT&T Williams 9 - Rubens Barrichello 10 - Nico Hülkenberg Renault F1 Team 11 - Robert Kubica 12 - Vitaly Petrov Force India F1 Team 14 - Adrian Sutil 15 - Vitantonio Liuzzi Scuderia Toro Rosso 16 - Sébastien Buemi 17 - Jaime Alguersuari Lotus Racing (CNN) 18 - Jarno Trulli 19 - Heikki Kovalainen HRT F1 Team 20 - TBA 21 - Bruno Senna BMW Sauber F1 Team 22 - Pedro de la Rosa 23 - Kamui Kobayashi Virgin Racing 24 - Timo Glock 25 - Lucas di Grassi - No more KERS. It's still legal, but everyone in the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) has agreed to scrap it. - No in-race refueling. As a result, fuel loads at race start will be drastically increased. Where most cars used to start the race with 60-75 kg of fuel onboard, they'll now be carrying around 160 depending on their economy. The cars have been made longer to accommodate the bigger fuel cell, and the minimum dry weight has been increased by 15 kg. - The low front wing and narrow rear wing return from 2009, but the front wheels have been narrowed by 25mm. That should help solve the imbalance issues of 2009. - Drivers who make it to Q3, thus qualifying in the top 10, will have to start the race on the same tires they use in Q3. This will make for some interesting strategy choices in Q3, I would think. - Those aerodynamic wheel covers we saw from 2006-09. Gone. Good riddance. F1 cars should be purty, imho. Those things were uuuuggllyy. - Tire warmers will be back after the FIA tried to ban them in the offseason. In a compromise move, though, no warming of rims will be allowed. - Still no in-season testing, but 3rd drivers may again drive on Fridays during practice. Stand-in drivers will now also be allowed a day of testing. - Unnecessary new points system: 25 points for first, 18 for second,15 for third, 12 for fourth, then ten, eight, six, four, two, and one for tenth place. - Brawn GP has replaced McLaren as the Mercedes' team of choice, and is now their factory team under the name Mercedes GP Petronas Formula One - Button & Barrichello OUT at Brawn, Micheal Schumacher: IN - Raikkonnen: OUT at Ferrari, Alonso: IN - USF1: OUT My initial thoughts: The lack of refueling is critical. How teams have prepared for this will determine where they run in 2010. The implications of all the new variables thrown into the mix here are mind-boggling. How each team is able to make long runs will be more important than before, and will be dependent on tire wear and fuel economy more than anything else. Long runs will be longer now, and the cars must be fast over the long haul as the tires degrade and the fuel is used up, not just in the short run or for qualifying. I doubt you'll see much passing at the start of races as teams will all start on essentially the same fuel loads and the same tire compounds. However, as the tires degrade at different rates due to the different abilities of the drivers and the different characteristics of the cars, and as you see more cars on the track with different fuel loads and fresh rubber vs old rubber, you'll see more and more overtaking. Maybe more than ever. Tire strategy will be interesting. Teams with cars and drivers who are easier on the tires may be able to switch from the hard compound to the soft on the first stop and run softs in the 2nd and 3rd stints in an effort to get better lap times, while the other teams may not be able to pull this off because they'll eat up the softs. Those teams would have to delay the softs until the last stop when they're lightest on fuel. There will be variations, though. Maybe your car is really good on softs and you make it to Q3. Then do you put softs on for Q3 in an effort to qualify really well and see how far those softs can take you in the race, then put the hards on for a very long stint, then go back to softs for the last stint when you're light? This is the kind of risk-taking we may see. Fuel load, fuel economy, and tire degradation are going to be everything this season and you're going to be hearing about how different variables work into these ad nauseum. It really is going to be a very complex mix. No more guessing what fuel oads everyone is running during qualifying. Everyone is going to run on fumes...so we're finally going to see everyone's true pace. Pit stops will be dramatically shortened. Around 2 seconds is what I'm reading. So everyone is looking at ways to shave the most time they can off of that. Ferrari has been apparently leaving no stone unturned in their quest to return to the top, experimenting even with several different wheel nut systems in a search for every tenth of a second they can gather in wheel changes. They apparently also went through hundreds of formulations of fuel with Shell trying to get the best combination of performance and economy, while also looking at what temperature to keep the fuel for optimum effect and ways to reduce bubbling in the fuel to reduce cavitation. There is, of course, much, much more...and so much more that hasn't occurred and that nobody has even dreamed of yet. I can't wait to see how it all pans out, and I'd love to hear what y'all think.
Thanks Mandingo. Completely agree with your assessment of the tactics at the start of the races. Unfortunately this means the first third of the races will a boring tanker procession baring a crash involving one of the top teams. As the races progress, driver talent will begin to come to the forefront. 50/50 on whether the end of the races will be exciting. If no one attempts (or can) pass FOM/FIA will have finally succeeded in killing the sport. On the other hand, if real racing breaks out, the entertainment value will go off the top of the charts. Too bad about US F1, but no one at FOM or the FIA are shedding any tears. They are and will do everything possible to keep a US team out of F1 and keep a race out of the US. This despite the major manufacturers continuing to demand access to the US market.
Thanks for posting all the links. Just starting to read them. So far, trying to figure out how to convert pounds to dollars to figure out if I can afford F1 cologne, available in the souvenir link of the schedule thread, or maybe a nice Vodaphone McLaren wallet. Really, that's a lot of info, but I will enjoy checking out the different links.
OK, so Friday testing is in the books for Bahrain. Some teams were only able to get 4 decent laps out of the soft option tires before the rear tires went away. We don't know what kind of fuel load they were running. So I was thinking...you may see some teams who make it to Q3 sit most of it if they're confident in their long run abilities, since that's where the real time is going to be made in this new formula. They may go out for a lap or two to throw up a couple of attempts at moving up in the grid, but conserving the tires may seem more important. Then again, with the soft tires only lasting 4 laps today, maybe they use those in Q3, start the race on them and pit immediately for the hard compound, thus satisfying the requirement to use both. Practice def had a different look to it today. Not as crisp. You could tell people were trying to see how much they could get out of the tires. Still, when you get people out there battling for position, some are going to forget about the tires in the heat of the moment. Races will be lost over that. It's def going to be a year for the teams and drivers who can manage tires the best. Just off the top of my head Fernando Alonso immediately comes to mind as one of those, while Hamilton may have trouble in this regard, esp on the fronts, though he'll be a great qualifier. Pedro de la Rosa comes to mind as another who is reputed to be easy on the tires, and the Sauber is supposed to have had very good long runs in testing in regard to tire wear. Could be a dark horse there. Button could have an edge on Hammy over at McLaren, as he's smoother and easier on the tires. The Ferrari has been known to be easy on the tires as late as last year, when they'd go with the soft option tire even on long, heavy fuel runs when everyone else was going with the hard option and getting less out of their tires than the Ferrari. The Ferrari has also been known to be a bit thirstier than other rides, so this could help them out considerably. They might not pay as big a penalty as the other teams for carrying the extra fuel weight they may need to get to the end. Combine this with the fact that Fernando Alonso is an excellent tire manager, and it could be an excellent situation for them. It really is very difficult to say where anyone stands right now...esp given McLaren's slotted wing that they can stall on-demand at high speed, giving them an extra 6 mph on the straights. That's a great bit of engineering, even if it did take a pretty strange interpretation of the rules to make it legal. It'll be interesting to see how everyone comes up with their own versions of that, since they can't cut the homologated chassis to do it. Is it going to be best to go with a slow fuel burn and lower fuel weight or a more aggressive pace with less fuel economy and higher weight? Will conserving fuel come with too high of a pace penalty? Will being more aggressive at higher weight destroy the tires too quickly? When will a safety car throw all this strategy out the window?
LOL. Ummm...sure. I love you, too, man... Just got up and started watching my dvr of quali from this morning. Just like the last few years, but for very different reasons, I think we may see the quickest times at the end of Q2, but I could be wrong about that. We'll see in a little while.
It is going to be a crap shoot on Sunday. Heavy cars on worn soft rubber at the start will be a real tester. Sutil is on the harder tires and Schuy is just setting there in the 7th spot. The real racing will take place after lap ten. Question is how many cars will still be running after lap 10! At least all of the new teams are at the back so when the first crash takes place they will just be eliminating each other.
SPOILER So thoughts? Damn it's hard to pass, or overtake as they say. Vittell very well could have gone the entire way had he not had problems. Seems to be an issue as Schumaker commented on lack of passing afterwards. Those top four teams took all top 8 spots.
My only comment is I still find it hard to believe Red Bull is not only in the mix, but ahead of Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes. Quite an achievement. I think Ferrari may hold the strongest hand for this season, although things change quickly in F1. Lack of passing is a problem. I'm not sure how they can change rules to allow more passing opportunities, but they need to try something. With full gas tanks, those cars did laps about 7 seconds slower than they did later on. That's a lot of time. They started out carrying 50 gallons of fuel. I guess it makes it more even than the various strategies for fueling that went on the last few years. Someone would hit on a superior fuel stop strategy and win the race based on pit stop technique. Now it is just tire changes, and they are all somewhat similar, or at least it may not make as big a difference in who wins the race.
There are a couple of things I've been thinking about this race, aside from the fact that yes, it was boring. One of them is given some credence by an article I just found. First, pretty much everyone knows the Red Bull isn't the most reliable car on the grid. Steve Matchett went on and on in the practice sessions about how the lack of miles Adrian Newey had put on that car in testing was going to come back and bite them in the ***. He even pointed out specifically the header redesign. Ferrari and everyone else knew this, too. Ferrari started heavy and was pushing harder and harder toward the end of the race as they got lighter and lighter. Alonso was gaining on Vettel even before the failure. I believe this pressure may have pushed the Red Bull ride to the point of breaking. The other point. As I stated earlier in the thread, it looked before the race like Ferrari was going to start the race heavy on fuel, possibly heavier than anyone else. If they could qualify well and not eat up their tires, this meant they'd pay a time penalty early, but make pace gains faster than anyone else on the track as the race wore on because they'd be burning their fuel faster and thus lightening their load quicker than anyone else...kind of a calculus thing here. So, simply put, as the race went on, Alonso was accelerating more than Vettel was and there's a decent chance he'd have caught and passed him even without the mechanical he suffered. The historical unreliability of Adrian Newey's cars has robbed us of a great race-ending battle for the lead.
Meanwhile, it looks like a some teams were a little too loose in their interpretations of the diffuser rules in Bahrain, so the FIA has told them to bring new, redesigned diffusers to Melbourne. The Link
It may be true that the Red Bull is not the most reliable car, but I don't think Ferrari pushing the pace had anything to do with the headers cracking. They get incredibly hot, vibrate a lot, and are very thin metal, so they tend to break. A new design probably wasn't tested enough, and it failed. Maybe if no other car had been near the Red Bull, they would have reduced RPM's enough to keep the part from breaking, but it is something that shouldn't break-it must have been a flawed design. Saw a link to the article describing Ferrari's use of an ethanol made from wheat straw in Canada by Shell-pretty cool, although they said it was a small amount of the fuel mixture.
Broken spark plug? How did that happen? Installed incorrectly? Maybe it was defective-one out every so many brand new spark plugs will be a dud.
One thing I've learned watching F1 is that you def can't believe the teams about everything they put out there, esp when it comes to in-race problems. They don't want everyone knowing their weaknesses and will take all sorts of measures to cover them up, just as they do with their strengths. Teams will intentionally or unintentionally run their cars out of fuel all the time in practice. Afterward, it's always called an "electrical problem". It may not have been a broken header. I think it was, though, because imho, there's no way he goes that many more laps and only slips to 4th on seven cylinders, not in F1. Right when it happened, Vettel came on the radio and said "exhaust is broken...loss of power" but the guys in the booth only understood that he said something was broken. Then they listened to the sound of the car on an in-car shot and said it sounded like a broken header. That's from an ex-mechanic and an ex-driver. They played that radio clip at about 15 laps to go, but I think it happened 5 or more laps earlier. They delay those clips to get approval from the team. Later they came back from a commercial break and added that Vettel had just spoken to the crew and asked if anything could be done. The crew responded "No, we think we've broken an exhaust header. There's nothing we can do. You're just going to have to ride it out and collect what you can." Bear in mind that these teams have extensive telemetry on the pitlane (it looks like a mini NASA launch center down there) and would easily distinguish the difference between a broken header and a missing spark plug. I mean...from the telemetry, they can tell the driver they have a tire that's going down. They know their brake temperature, fuel consumption, etc. Here's a great video that shows what the telemetry was like 9 years ago. The Link The same thing goes for Massa in the Ferrari. He seemed very nervous and jumpy talking about that in the post-race interview. He said something like that he had an overheating problem in the car. Maybe. Or maybe it was him that was overheating. He's been overweight since the bad accident last year. Or maybe he was using his tires up trying to keep up with the likes of Alonso and Vettel. Who knows? Hell, they could even be sandbagging.
Ah, yes. I recall the announcers saying they thought it was a broken header, and the car sounded different, yet the car still performed pretty well. That's the most likely malady, I agree.
Now Ron Dennis has another theory. His creditability is near zero, but he does know the business. Link
I'll go with the broken header theory, and I don't know why they won't just admit it. They are going to fix it. The car sounded different, so it couldn't have just been they slowed down to save gas. The car sped up to prevent being passed near the end, which indicates it didn't have a dead cylinder due to a bad spark plug. With a broken header, they would need to slow down, because the temperature around the exhaust leak would be bad for something, and possibly cause a burnt valve or some other problem. Don't see the need for a bunch of cloak and dagger secercy, at any rate.
I don't get all the skullduggery, but we will see if the car still has reliability problems at the next race-this Sunday, correct?
Looks like rain is a good possibility for this weekend in Oz. I have a (possibly intriguing) question. With the new heavier cars loaded with fuel and no stops required for fueling, will the rain tires last the entire race provided the track stays fully wet? Anyone here know what rain races were like before, when refueling was prohibited back in the 90s?
