Grand Prix Rejects

Well first race in Europe and 1st Practice has been completed. Piquet is in 6th! Like that's going to last. And a Williams isn't on top! Wow, maybe they're trying to focus on something like, I don't know, the race?

Guess what? Practice 2 is underway, and Piquet is currently fourth, behind only the Brawns and Vettel.

Somehow I doubt that Piquet's time is a true reflection of the Renault's comparative pace.

Faustus wrote:Somehow I doubt that Piquet's time is a true reflection of the Renault's comparative pace.

His trip to the kitty litter is more indicative!

Well, Rosberg was running on fumes at the end there, which led to his stopping out on the circuit. I imagine Nakajima had a similarly-dry fuel tank; it explins a lot as to way Williams haven't been able to translate their practice times into race pace. And we've seen that Renault have to run light to get a good time. After all, everyone else in Shanghai had twice as much fuel as Alonso. So with that in mind, the real order is Barrichello, Webber, Button, Vettel.

Please correct the spelling of the thread title. The sheer look of it hurts.

This year, for once, the Montmelo race won't be boring because the pecking order is still quite fluent, so I hope it'll be a good race.

Yannick wrote:Please correct the spelling of the thread title. The sheer look of it hurts.

This year, for once, the Montmelo race won't be boring because the pecking order is still quite fluent, so I hope it'll be a good race.

What language do they all speak?

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2009/5/9307.html
Bring it on

Brawn new sponsor:

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2009/5/9318.html

It's not really a brand-new sponosr, but more of a one-off, like when Red Bull had SUPERMAN RETURNS plastered over their sidepods in Monaco that year.

Impressive how light the Williams were running. Rosberg really ran out of fuel! Forgetting the Williams and the equally light Renaults, it's between the Brawns and the Red Bulls again. Three Red Bulls in the Top 10, Buemi beating Bourdais again, although his brakes caught fire at the beginning of the session!

Sutil couldn't run, due to a rupture in an element connected to the fuel tank, but Fisichells beat 2 McLarens, 2 BMWs, 2 Toyotas and 1 Ferrari. By the way, what happened to Toyota? Sandbagging?

CarlosFerreira wrote:By the way, what happened to Toyota? Sandbagging?

Toyota were running race fuel and setups in FP2

Kimi got the drop out of the first Qualifying session, after Ferrari repeated the Malaysia theory of saving a second run on soft tyres. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!

It's just unbelievable! Twice! they made the SAME mistake.

Piquet beat Hamilton and Heidfeld in Q2. Damn, that McLaren is dead slow.

Brilliant lap by Button. Its official now Brawn v/s Red Bull title fight and most probably between Button and Vettel, may be Barichello, but not Webber.

Also, a good performance by Brawn there. Now, it's nail-biting time, as we wait for the disclosure of car weights...

CarlosFerreira wrote:Also, a good performance by Brawn there. Now, it's nail-biting time, as we wait for the disclosure of car weights...

Smart money's on Massa to be light as a feather. Their times in Practice I and II relative to Practice III can't be explained by them finding the best setup. They have to be running light.

Shock and awe: Vettel is heavier than both the Brawns. And Massa, who is running KERS, remember, is the heaviest!

1. Jenson Button, Brawn GP, 646kg
2. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 651.5
3. Rubens Barrichello, Brawn GP, 649.5
4. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 655
5. Mark Webber, Red Bull, 651.5
6. Timo Glock, Toyota, 646.5
7. Jarno Trulli, Toyota, 655.5
8. Fernando Alonso, Renault, 645
9. Nico Rosberg, Williams, 668
10. Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber, 660
11. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams, 676.6
12. Nelson Piquet, Renault, 677.4
13. Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber, 676.3
14. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 683
15. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, 678
16. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 673
17. Sebastien Bourdais, Toro Rosso, 669
18. Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, 657
19. Adrian Sutil, Force India, 675
20. Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India, 656

I predict a riot: in his rush to get to the front, Massa is going to pile up someone.

Interesting that Massa has the heaviest fuel load of the top eight. KERS is going to be useful on that long straight at Barcelona, so I would say that the start could be eventful.....

I still don't feel it's going to be a Ferrari victory though, as I don't believe that the car handles well enough when cornering, so it will most likely be a battle between Button, Barrichello and Vettel for the honours.

This race will also be the biggest test yet for the new aerodynamic rules, as traditionally this race is a procession, so if they manage to liven up this race with some overtaking, then the rule changes will have done a fantastic job.

Well, that new aero package certainly seems to be working for Kubica, although he is on a new engine. Still, getting into Q3 has to be a real confidence booster for them.

I think it will be a pretty close battle between Vettel and Button tomorrow - Button's best chance is if Massa gets a great KERS start, puts himself into second and Button can scurry off into the distance. If Massa gets ahead of them all at the start, it'll make an interesting race.

On the subject of Ferrari, I cannot believe they did it again with that overconfident Q1 debacle.

I'm finally catching up with watching the Qualifying. Some ideas:

- The Williams cars looked very good. Inside, they looked like they were on rails. But Q3, Williams filled the car to the brim! Is the team being caped in performance by an extremely conservative strategy?
- The McLarens look like rubbish. Slow, ungainly.
- The Toyotas also look extremely nervous.
- Brendon Hartley - is Red Bull using him to send a stark warning to Bourdais?
- Massa is working hard and delivering, and Kimi is looking lazy and out of it.
- BMWs looking much better, and apparently are faster as well!
- That Red Bull... wow!

CarlosFerreira wrote:- Brendon Hartley - is Red Bull using him to send a stark warning to Bourdais?

Hartley might be a part of the Red Bull Young Driver Program, but Red Bull probably won't own Toro Rosso at the end of the year, and Bourdais was kept aboard for continuity reasons. I think the team would flounder a lot with two rookie drivers. Hartley's role is largely to be on standby in case something should happen to Vettel or Webber, kind of like when Vettel took over fo Kubica at Indianapolis after the Pole's accdent in Montreal.

Ok folks... Qually is over and it's time for our "Who will DNF first" Competition.
I'm putting my bets on Massa overusing the KERS and collecting atleast 3 of the guys around him

Fuel corrected top-10 grid, courtesy of the BBC:

1 Vettel - lap 16
2 Button +0.059 seconds - lap 14
3 Massa +0.151 - lap 17
4 Barrichello +0.172 - lap 15
5 Webber +0.389 - lap 16
6 Trulli +0.454 - lap 16
7 Glock +0.762 - lap 14
8 Alonso +0.959 - lap 13
9 Rosberg +1.321 - lap 23
10 Kubica +1.728 - lap 19

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/f1mole/2009/ ... ish-g.html

Note how Webber and Vettel are in exactly the same fuel, meaning one of them might have to come in early, if by the time of the pit stops they are running close.
Also, the Autosport live commentary confirms all drivers are starting on the soft rubber.

Right, it's done. Congrats goes to Brawn for another storming win (was that 2/3 stops mumbo jumbo necessary? Did Rubens lose a race win there because of that).

ROTR to Ferrari. The Kimi debacle on qualifying, plus Massa losing 2 places on the last lap because someone missed the accounting of fuel loads - not pretty. Too many organizational problems. Besides, there's the issue with Kimi retiring on mechanical issues.

Toyota surprised me on the negative. Trulli messed up, and Glock underperformed, again. Not brilliant. So did the McLarens and Kubica.

Another driver who surprised on the negative was Vettel. He never seemed quite keen on taking Massa, confident he would take him on strategy, and ended up losing a podium to Webber. Maybe this race will teach Vettel the need for aggression, and not just raw pace. Jenson has had to learn that as well, over the years.

Great race!! Another Ferrari Error!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Spanish GP is over. A sure sign that the new pecking order of F1 is cemented on the horizon. Or is it?
Nah, not so sure about that yet. Let's compare the results of today's race with the constructor's table.

CT01) Brawn: Button P1, Barrichello P2: Brawn GP are clearly out front
CT02) RBR: Webber P3, Vettel P4: RBR showing that they are the 2nd force. A great drive from Webber there.
CT03) Toyota: Trulli eliminated in the 2nd corner and where exactly was Glock? No, they don't look like 3rd best anymore
CT04) McLaren: neither the reigning World Champion nor Kovalainen scoring. They are still way off the pace.
CT05) Renault: Alonso in P5, Piquet finishing. With the double-diffuser now in place, they look like being the 3rd force, but with Piquet being so far off Alonso's pace, they are only half of the 3rd force just yet.
CT06) BMW Sauber: Heidfeld in P7 and Kubica finishing makes it look like their new aero kit works better than the old one and that they can be the 4th force in the end if they don't waste their time by experimenting with KERS.
CT07) Ferrari: Well, they are working on it. Their lack of consistency so far is putting it somewhat in doubt that they are a force at all this year.
CT08) Williams: Rosberg in P8, Nakajima finishing. It looks like they can still be the 5th force in the end, or rather, half of the 5th force with Nakajima not having made it into Q1 yet this season - even though they could not capitalize on their advantage of having the double-diffuser right from the beginning of the season.

This means that Alonso was Best of the Rest today, which would have gone to Massa without the fuel problem.
On average, the top 4 teams in the pecking order will win at least one race during a season, and 5 to 6 drivers win. So far, we've had two different drivers winning this year.
I guess Monaco will be interesting.

Well, two facts for the statisticians among us:

- Nick Heidfeld as proven himself to be the "Iron Man" of Formula 1, he has beaten Michael Schumacher's record of most consecutive finishes with his 24th consecutive finish.

- Adrian Sutil had his 40th race start - with his 40th consecutive failed attempt at getting into Q2. No one has more failed attempts, neither in a row, nor in total.

I think McLaren might be well suited to Monaco, after all there are no long, fast corners which have been their Achilles heel this year. Their 'hyperspace button' KERS system might be well suited to the point-and-squirt nature of the track. Plus Hamilton has generally gone well there.

Two things for Monaco,

1st) Red Bull must change strategy, they should get out light to get pole or else they will get stuck, the RB5 doesn't look like an overtake car I think is very sensitive to unclean air.

2nd) Race Start + KERS + Sainte Devote = FUN

alvaro3d wrote:Two things for Monaco,

1st) Red Bull must change strategy, they should get out light to get pole or else they will get stuck, the RB5 doesn't look like an overtake car I think is very sensitive to unclean air.

2nd) Race Start + KERS + Sainte Devote = FUN

Exactly my thoughts on both accounts. +1!

Surely the biggest story to come out of the Spanish Grand Prix is that while cars can follow each other more closely than before, they still couldn't get close enough to pass each other on this, arguably the ultimate aerodynamic circuit. This shows that the Technical Working Group still have a lot of work to do with regard to resolving the 'follow my leader' problem, in spite of the obvious progress that has been made.

I was disappointed that Barrichello didn't win, but Button was faster on the harder tyres, even if Barrichello hadn't had problems with his last set of soft tyres, so I'm not sure he could have won it even if his strategy had worked.

As for Ferrari, the fiasco increases, not that I'm overly concerned about this . Unreliability, strategic blunders, and a continued lack of commitment from Raikkonen (although I wouldn't go as far as suspending him à la Eddie Jordan) is all adding up to a complete mess of a season.

McLaren all took a step back here, but that was to be expected when you consider the nature of this track, but Toyota were surprisingly off the pace.

A question about Massa:

Why he didn't get to the front using his KERS? I mean Alonso gained about 7 positions in Malaysia, Hamilton gained 3, I was expecting Massa to be in front by the start of the race, What happened there? I saw an onboard camera and he didn't use much of KERS only a bit to pass Vettel, in a circuit where getting to the first corner first is really important I think that Massa screwed up big time

Because Massa had to neogtiate traffic, and by the time he'd broken through, Button and Barrichello were already in the corner.

Ker's can only activate between 100 - 300 kph.

johnston21 wrote:Ker's can only activate between 100 - 300 kph.

That rules out its use at Monaco

You'd be surprised at how quickly an F1 car can hit 100km/h.KERS might be out of the question for the first run down to Ste. Devoe, but up across Beau Rivage and into Massanet? You can bet they'll be primed and ready to go.

johnston21 wrote:Ker's can only activate between 100 - 300 kph.

I don't think there's any regulatory limits on when KERS can be activated, but you're absolutely right about it not being sensible to use below 100 km/h.

Captain Hammer wrote:You'd be surprised at how quickly an F1 car can hit 100km/h.KERS might be out of the question for the first run down to Ste. Devoe, but up across Beau Rivage and into Massanet? You can bet they'll be primed and ready to go.

I surely wouldn't use KERS going into Massenet. Using KERS while going up through Beau Rivage is maybe a possibility, but I think the tunnel and the pit-straight are the obvious places of choice. It might even be that KERS will not be a big factor in this race, since the straights are so short that you don't gain much by accelerating that little bit quicker. The only real use I see is helping you overtake going into the chicane after the tunnel.