Picking up from the 2010 Formula 1 Discussion thread

Since the 2010 season is gone, and the 2011 silly season is upon us, let the new season discussion commence...

 

Okay, transferring Sabre's article, it would also potentially sound the death knell for Monaco...not much passing there, either.

 

Is there any real passing anywhere??? Really? I mean...once the race is a few laps old that's about it - now it's up to the pit stop sequence. The only tracks that are still interesting are the old school tracks and none of the Tilke track designs fit that description.

Let's hope the Austin track is different.

 

Heh, I watch sports car racing if I want to see real passing.

 

I'm with ya on that one!

 

Hope that everyone (those of us that celebrate it) had a great Thanksgiving!

Now moving on to the matters of the moment...

It is true that in sportscar racing (ALMS, SCCA World Challenge, Grand-AM) plenty of passing occurs but in defense of F1, they have improved somewhat, though some of the "passes" have been rather, shall we say...haphazard, in their execution.

Still F1 continues to be limited in its passing but if lots of passing is what you crave there's always NASCAR...

Say folks, on a different note I spotted this and just had to share with you all...

Ecclestone Mugged Outside London Home
Adam Cooper | GMM Newswire| Posted November 26, 2010 London (GBR)

Bernie Ecclestone was mugged in London on Wednesday night and had to go to hospital after getting a bump on the head.

However he was reportedly back at work the following day.

Bernie and his Brazilian girlfriend Fabiana Flosi were returning to his apartment when they were attacked by four men. They were forced to hand over watches and jewelry that are said to be worth £200,000.

Bernie was involved in a similar attack four years ago, when thieves attempted to steal his Mercedes.

A police spokesman told the Daily Mail newspaper: “We were called to reports of a man and woman who had been robbed in south west London at approximately 10.30pm on Wednesday night. The man, aged 80 years old, was taken to a west London hospital for treatment to a minor head injury. The woman was not injured.

“At this early stage it is believed a quantity of jewelry was stolen but we cannot disclose details of what was stolen as yet. No arrests have been made at this time and inquiries are continuing.”

Ironically Ecclestone was sceptical about reports of the seriousness of the attempted attack on Jenson Button in Brazil two weeks ago.

 

I did qualify it by saying "real" passing. Passing in NASCAR, of course, is totally meaningless, except on the last lap. But then, a NASCAR race is totally meaningless, except on the last lap.

 

If you look back at Bernie's comments on Button's Brazil incident and then read his incident it's quite fitting. I say Button arranged it...

 

Go fast, turn left, rinse and repeat... No thank you...

 

Yes you did, and I totally agree with ya!

The passing comment was just to get a laugh...

Agreed!

 

What goes around comes around...

 

For those with iOS devices, the F1 Timing & Scoring app for 2011 is up in the App Store. It's $30. I used it all through 2010 and it's a great enhancement to watching the races. This app is awesome. It gives you live telemetry and track position as the race unfolds. You can also download and rewind races if you don't watch live. It's also on Android, but I can't speak to how that version is.

I'm just waiting for my $50 iTunes card for $40 from Best Buy to make my purchase. For $1.50 per race it's really a pretty good value.

 

Please don't speak of that "series" on this thread....I want to come back here!

 

Its been quiet here for awhile.

Holidays and offseason conspiring against us...

Well there's really not much going on other than the offseason F1 rumor mill grinding out its typical fodder, but here's some good news to share with you all!



Organizers Get Construction Green Light For US GP Site

GMM | Posted December 15, 2010 / GMM Newswire

Organizers of the 2012 US Grand Prix have received a green light to begin work on the circuit at the Austin site.

Local KVUE news reports that a conditional approval has been granted for work within the Dry Creek flood plain to begin.

The authoritative American Statesman newspaper explained that the approval of Travis County Commissioners on Tuesday means initial "grading work" at the site will likely now take place before final approval is granted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"County officials said they anticipate no significant objections from FEMA," said the report.

Organizers have said they would begin work this month, necessary to have the facility ready for the Formula One circus to arrive in 2012.

However, there is still some uncertainty about who will pay the $6m price tag for road improvements. A recent county study found that it might take race-goers as long as 12 hours to leave the area after the inaugural event.

"Everybody is talking about a lot of people coming to our community and that this event is going to be a wild success," said US GP spokesman Richard Suttle.

 

Ahh, life in F1 is a glamourous thing.

Travel around the globe to exotic locales, lavish F1 dinner parties, the beautiful people who flock around you, the adulation of the fans and media...

That is unless you are an F1 mechanic.

Those poor blokes toil for endless hours to, prep the car, set up the car, rapidly repair the car (especially after the hero-driver shunts the car during practice/qualifying) and carry-on with the remaining daily minutiae that makes up life on an race team.

Well now, the FIA has taken pity on the poor F1 mechanic and come up with the following:


No more all-nighters for mechanics

James Allen / jamesallenonF1.com / Posted 12-13-10

One of the features of this season was the Red Bull mechanics looking utterly exhausted as a result of working deep into the night before qualifying to fit new parts to the cars which arrived at all hours at the circuit.

The ‘go faster’ parts certainly made a difference and I’m sure that those mechanics have been catching up on sleep pretty much since they finished in Abu Dhabi, dreaming of what to spend their bonuses on.

But it’s not all like that. The mechanics at every team were stretched during a gruelling 19 race calendar and those working for the new teams had a really tough time in the early flyaway races, not least because there were fewer of them and they were trying to bed down unreliable new cars.


Well all of that is now a thing of the past as the FIA has issued its technical and sporting regulations following on from last Friday’s World Council meeting and forcing teams to leave the circuit for a minimum of six hours on Thursday and Friday nights is one of the eye catching changes.

Mechanics will be locked out of the track from midnight to 6am in territories where practice starts at 10am and from 1am to 7am where practice begins at 11am.

“However, each team will be permitted four individual exceptions to the above during a championship season,” according to the FIA edict.
With a 20 race calendar this is eminently sensible. There is real risk of burn out for F1’s hardest working and arguable most professional people – the mechanics.

Saturday nights aren’t affected because the cars are in parc ferme so most mechanics leave early evening after they’ve had something to eat.
There are also clarifications on driving etiquette picking up from some of the incidents last year and other detail changes to report. I’ll post an analysis of World Council decisions and the new regulations tomorrow.

 

Seems rather impractical. After all, if hero-drive DOES break the car, which is pretty common in practice and qualifying, what do they drive? Seems like an awful lot of cars will simply be out, or at best starting from the pit lane. And that doesn't make for a good race. They would be far smarter, IMO, to limit the number of hours a mechanic can work and allow the teams to hire more to fill in during the night hours.

 

I say bring back the spare car....

 

Makes sense to me, but even that takes a while to set up, probably not enough time unless each driver has one.

 

Used to be that the spare car was set up for a certain driver on the team, and if you had to use it than that's what ya got. Better than being not in the race...

 

True, but it takes time to set it up. And now that they're taking away most of that time, there's not much they can do...

 

Happy Holidays to all my F1 & MINI friends...

Now let's get down to business...

I think that the use of the spare car is a good one, though there are those detractors that argue that the use of one (spare car) drives up the cost of competing in F1 ( Really now, this is F1 ).

I've always wondered what would happen if at the first turn of a race 90% of the field took itself out in a massive "grand carambolage" (with apologies to David Hobbs). Without spares it wouldn't be much of a race now would it! Reminds me of the USGP at Indy several seasons ago with, what was it... six cars circulating around the track, though due to a different set of circumstances.

Therefore having spares would (in theory) save the fans from a boring and in essence meaningless competition between the few surviving cars.

So what do you all think...

Having spares would be a good thing, yes/no?


On another front the World Council has decreed the following changes which should make for alot of lively discussion...


Analysis of World Council decisions, 2013 engines and new F1 rules

James Allen / jamesallenonf1.com / 14 December 2010

Last Friday’s FIA World Motor Sport Council was the culmination of a lot of work behind the scenes and threw up some interesting outcomes on several fronts.

The sport is changing in significant ways and these decisions are a milestone on that journey. F1 always has to balance several requirements; to be entertaining, to be relevant and to be technologically innovative and there are big moves in all three directions going on at the moment.

On the entertainment side you have the moveable rear wing, which will mean that a slightly faster car should be able to pass a slower car without losing the chance in the aerodynamic wake. We will also see Pirelli evolving the tyres in a way which makes them central to the show, making more races more like Montreal this year where it was up to drivers and the team strategists to get the best outcome using tyres which were quite on the edge for the conditions.

2013 Engines
The news on the 2013 engine formula is the most significant for the long term future of the sport. This is all about the sport staying relevant. Many road car manufacturers are evolving their strategy towards electric cars and to direct injection turbo engines, of the kind the FIA has voted through – 1.6 litres. The FIA’s statement doesn’t actually mention the word “turbocharged”, but it would be pretty difficult to get 750 horsepower out of a 1.6 litre engine revving to 12,000rpm any other way! The F1 engineers understand it to be turbos, but there are some other ideas around including turbo compounding.
The energy regeneration systems will be much more potent, which is a good thing. The rate at which they can harvest energy and recycle it will double. Instead of the 60 kilowatts KERS will give next year, the 2013 engines will have 120 kW.

The target is a 35% fuel saving, which is around 60 kilos of fuel per car per race. That said the fuel consumption will still be only 7 mpg – a modest improvement on the just under 5 mpg currently and a long way from road relevant.

There have been discussions aimed at optimising the chassis rules to work with the new engine rules, to create far greater efficiency. So for example, reducing drag would be a highly desirable, giving the same speeds with less consumption and greater efficiency. Radical reductions in drag would allow you to reduce engine power and still maintain F1 speeds. Active cooling is another idea engineers are keen on. The senior engineers are meeting today in London to discuss this.

Ideally with a clean sheet of paper concept teams will need 18 months to work on it, so the chassis rules could do with being finalised by next summer.
With the subject of road relevance comes the opportunity for the manufacturers to engage with the sport as suppliers not just of engines but of drivetrains as well. The new rules on gearboxes which have to last five races and sophisticated energy recovery systems create a commercial opportunity for manufacturers like Renault, Mercedes, Cosworth and even Honda, who I’m told have been following the engine discussions closely, are quite likely to return in 2013 as an engine/drivetrain supplier.

Team Orders
The thorny subject of team orders has been addressed, according to the FIA World Council’s statement; “The article forbidding team orders (39.1) is deleted. Teams will be reminded that any actions liable to bring the sport into disrepute are dealt with under Article 151c of the International Sporting Code and any other relevant provisions.”

In some ways this is worse than what we had before because it is so vague. The previous rule was unworkable, but at least it set out the principle that teams should not interfere -or be seen to interfere -with the order in which the cars finish. This is certainly valid for races in the first 70% of the season, but unrealistic in the closing stages.

After Ferrari invoked team orders at the 11th round of 19, there was an uproar from fans and media alike. The new rule seems to suggest that although team orders are allowed, a strongly negative reaction to a team order will cause the team to be charged with bringing the sport into disrepute. This could also occur for example if a driver pulls over in the final corner to let a team mate through. I think what this revision means is that the fans and media cannot point to a specific exclusion of team orders any more and that what is and isn’t acceptable will be sorted out behind closed doors at team principal level.

I’m also pretty sure we will see this rule tested next season, not by Red Bull who have stuck to their guns and say they will never favour one driver over the other. But Felipe Massa’s heart must have sunk when he read this statement. Although theoretically Ferrari hits a reset button at the start of 2011, it was pretty clear which driver was going for the championship. Will they play it the same way next year? It will be fascinating to see.

Driving standards
There were some controversial moments in 2010 where drivers blocked each other, raced in the pit lane and so on. There are some detail changes in the sporting regulations now to address some of those issues. Drivers must not overtake in the pit lane and when out on the circuit they must stay with all four wheels on the track at all times, and “Manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such as more than one change of direction to defend a position, deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are not permitted.”

This clarifies the situation and follows the incident between Vitaly Petrov and Lewis Hamilton in Malaysia. The race stewards, of which one will remain an ex F1 driver, have a range of penalties to hand out including any size of time penalty and at the extreme end, exclusion from the race or a suspension from the next race.

 

I hope they clarify the use, or ban, of turbochargers. Two seasons in a row have revolved around confusion of what's allowed, and the winning teams likely wouldn't have won had they played by the intent of the law, rather than the letter, based on later rulings.

I wonder also--does "all four wheels on the track at all times" include the curbs? And if a driver does drop a wheel in overtaking or defense of a position, does that automatically mean a penalty??? That could mean Driving Miss Daisy racing!

 

Well the FIA is at it again...

First we have big wings, then small wings, grooved tires, then slicks, KERS, then no KERS... now here comes the newest concept from those nice folks at the FIA...

WINDSCREENS...





Enclosed canopies like the ones on jet fighters cannot be far behind!


FIA To Propose ‘Windscreen’ To Protect Drivers

GMM | Posted December 23, 2010 / GMM Newswire

The FIA is proposing to mandate plexiglass windscreens for the cockpits of Formula One cars, according to an Italian report.

Autosprint, publishing a photoshopped image of a possible F1 windshield that can be viewed at tinyurl.com/2ew7rf6 , claims the innovation would be to protect drivers from being struck on the head.

The exposure of the drivers' heads made headlines last year, when Felipe Massa was seriously injured by a flying suspension spring, days after F2 driver Henry Surtees was killed when he drove into the path of a stricken wheel.

"I'm not saying we need to cover (the cockpit) completely," Ferrari driver Massa said after recovering from his skull injuries. "But maybe there are some other things we can do to the car to stop a wheel hitting your head."

After those incidents last year, Bernie Ecclestone said Professor Sid Watkins — the president of the FIA Institute for Motor Sport Safety — had been commissioned to "deal with" the issue.

The renewed push for driver head safety also comes just six weeks after the nose of Vitantonio Liuzzi's Force India rode up and almost struck Michael Schumacher's head during the 2010 season finale in Abu Dhabi.

Autosprint said the proposed protective structure, whilst not impeding driver visibility, would be designed to withstand the impact of a flying wheel and the full 640kg weight of an F1 car.

The report said the solution would also need to take into consideration its aerodynamic impact, including the flow of air to the engine airbox and the wings.


I personally can see the need for safety BUT it would seem that this small device would not offer the protection necessary to stave off the kind of injury that could result from a car climbing over another one and intruding upon the driver's cockpit. From the artist's conception you can see that the driver's head protrudes above the windscreen!

I really miss the look of the F1 cars of the 60's, 70's & 80's... Guess I'm just too nostalgic for my own good.

I can't say that the windscreen improves the looks of the cars...

Time to solicit some opinions from our esteemed forum members...

I'd love to hear what you all think.

 

Yeah, I agree. In fact, it might make it WORSE for the drivers. Consider rain, which is a part of the F1 scene, unlike other racing formats. Currently the helmets have tearoffs when things get too dirty. Will the windshields have tearoffs? Nope. Will they bring cars into the pits for windshield cleaning? Nope.

And I'd find it unlikely that Massa's injury would have been prevented. Given where the spring hit, it probably wouldn't have hit the windshield at all.

 

Windscreens.......

Not the greatest looking things in the world. Yeah...more a hinderence than anything. Should they implement these things threre will surely be grumblings from the drivers real soon.