OT: Racing 2009 (Spoiler Alert)

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:33 pm

Unless I missed it, Speed's coverage doesn't start for another two hours.

Cool to see Williams up front early on.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:39 pm

Speed never covers the first practice live. It provides a brief synopsis of the first practice during its live coverage of second practice.

The only place Speed offered live coverage of first practice was Indy for the USGP.

Take care,
PK

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:55 pm

I must say the Williams does look sweet.

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:56 pm

4 am, Rod - clocks go forward on Sunday morning, just in time to get me in a muddle over when the race starts. It's a mix of dedication and difficulty in sleeping, this. Mainly dedication, of course, cough cough.

Presumably I watched FP1 on ITV's terrible web stream and FP2 on Speed last year, then. I don't think these new cars look quite as bad in motion as they do in stills (except the Renault. Doctor, that thing's ugly) but they're taking a bit of adjusting to all the same so brace yourselves.

Edit: having cross-posted with Rod, I'll add that the Williams is one of the few cars out there that looks fine on first viewing. I don't know how much is design and how much is colourscheme - DC's white Red Bull last year looked nicer than the regular car to me, for example - but the Williams looks fine. The Brawn too, and to a lesser extent the McLaren.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:01 am

Rats I just missed the live internet stream. I found the link after the 1st practice was over. Off to bed shortly as I have a lot of work tomorrow. Hopefully Kimi can drop the hammer on the rest of the grid.

Adam does the Ferrari still look like a minger?

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:27 am

Is it still a minger? Well, the nightclubs around here close at 4 am. If you made it to 2 am alone, supposing the Williams had given you the brush-off and gone home with Peter Windsor, you'd order another pint and start thinking the Ferrari wasn't so bad. In the morning, though...well, you'd write a quick note and make good your escape, at best. Not as bad as I feared, but not the body beautiful.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 9:09 am

While we were expecting Brawn to top the time sheets, Williams was the team who came out on top. I expect a protest to the FIA during this weekends race. Teams have already said that they along with Brawn and I forget who else are running illegal rear diffusers and that's why they are on top.

The one thing i'm sort of confused on is if the teams running KERS have weighed down their cars a little and have given an advantage to teams like Brawn and Williams who I believe aren't running the system yet on their cars. I could be wrong on that, maybe Adam or PK could clarify that.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 9:49 am

Adam Cooper wrote a good column at SpeedTV.com in which he reported that the three teams that DIDN'T have representatives last year at the Technical Working Group meetings to lay out the regs for the new diffusers were -- you guessed it -- Williams, Toyota and Brawn.

Cooper suggests that an understanding of the spirit of the diffuser rules was reached by the members of the TWG. Since Williams, Toyota and Brawn weren't there, they were left to interpret the rules themselves.

Patrick Head and Ross Brawn are two of the most clever, brilliant minds in the pit lane, so you know they found a loophole in those rules and jumped through it.

I applaud those three teams. They worked hard and found a creative engineering solution. The other teams should get off their collective asses and do the same. They were caught with their pants down.

Take care,
PK

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 10:14 am

I wonder though if the Ferrari's and McLaren's ran their cars without the KERS system, I wonder how much they could gain from it? Also it's nice to see different cars at the top. Talk about spicing up the show.

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 5:21 pm

Rodster wrote:While we were expecting Brawn to top the time sheets, Williams was the team who came out on top. I expect a protest to the FIA during this weekends race. Teams have already said that they along with Brawn and I forget who else are running illegal rear diffusers and that's why they are on top.

The protest has already happened, mate. The scrutineers declared the cars legal on Thursday, and since that was the first official check of the season it represented the first opportunity for the protesting teams (Red Bull, Renault, Ferrari and BMW, who managed to file their protest too late) to lodge their concerns. Of the other teams, Toro Rosso might have considered one Red Bull-owned protest enough, while McLaren and Force India share an engine supplier with Brawn.

After deliberation, the stewards declared Williams, Toyota and Brawn legal; from what I know, the cars really are legal, and it was suggested on 5 Live yesterday that the teams protesting are doing so in hope that the FIA find something wrong rather than because they know exactly where rules are being broken. Of course it's been referred to the FIA Court Of Appeal, which won't convene until sometime after Malaysia. Until we're told otherwise, the three teams with different diffuser concepts are doing nothing wrong.

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 5:45 pm

Rodster wrote:The one thing i'm sort of confused on is if the teams running KERS have weighed down their cars a little and have given an advantage to teams like Brawn and Williams who I believe aren't running the system yet on their cars. I could be wrong on that, maybe Adam or PK could clarify that.

KERS weighs something like 30 kilos. The minimum weight limit for car and driver combined is, I think, 605 kilos and the cars are all built to be well under that and brought up to the limit with ballast, so the KERS runners are no heavier than anyone else. Compare and contrast the second free practice times of Nick Heidfeld, whose BMW is running KERS this weekend, and Robert Kubica, whose BMW is not running KERS this weekend:

14. Heidfeld BMW-Sauber (B) 1:27.317 + 1.264 34
15. Kubica BMW-Sauber (B) 1:27.398 + 1.345 36

That's not to say the KERS men aren't suffering in some way. The ballast can be attached to various areas on the car's floor to change the weight distribution and handling characteristics of the car. The lighter the car, the more ballast, the more you can use the ballast as an aid. 30 kilos of KERS sat in one place is 30 kilos you're not able to place elsewhere on the car, but the difference this could potentially make would be measured in tenths, and not very many tenths at that.

The only other argument you could make would be to say that concentrating solely on designing a good, sensible car as Toyota have done might be paying a greater dividend than working hard on a new set of rules and trying to integrate a new system into those rules at the same time, but...well, a good car is a good car is a good car, and I shouldn't imagine your design team would be responsible for KERS development in any case.

Quick note on your Ferraris, Rod, since you cited them with McLaren as an example of a team that might gain from not having KERS - they're in better shape than second practice might suggest. Kimi was not on track when conditions were at their best, and as conditions cooled in the early evening when he was putting laps in, the track went away from everybody badly. Massa's long run wasn't too bad either.

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 8:08 pm

pk500 wrote:Adam Cooper wrote a good column at SpeedTV.com in which he reported that the three teams that DIDN'T have representatives last year at the Technical Working Group meetings to lay out the regs for the new diffusers were -- you guessed it -- Williams, Toyota and Brawn.

Cooper suggests that an understanding of the spirit of the diffuser rules was reached by the members of the TWG. Since Williams, Toyota and Brawn weren't there, they were left to interpret the rules themselves.

Frank Williams didn't get where he is today without owning a telephone.

That's simplistic, I know, but with the united front the teams are gamely trying to present under the guise of FOTA, common sense would dictate that everybody be given the same understanding of such piffling, trivial issues as the sport's technical regulations so that the united front doesn't start to beat itself up as soon as it arrives at the first race.

fletcher21 · Post by **fletcher21** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 8:43 pm

Who are you guys picking as an EARLY choice to win the F1 championship this year. It's all gonna be guessing now, but it'd be fun to look back on this after the season and see how many people got it right... I know it won't be a repeat, but I'm not sure who I'd pick personally

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 8:48 pm

On my blog (oh yeah, time for some quick, cheap pimping - there's a blog in my sig these days. Stop by if ever you get bored) I've gone for Kimi Raikkonen, with a qualifier that I've never felt less confident about a championship prediction.

fletcher21 · Post by **fletcher21** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 8:53 pm

Not a bad choice. I have really started to love F1 more, now that the Schumi show is over, and has been over for a while. He was a special talent, but for some reason I never really liked the guy or had any rooting interest in him. His post race interviews showed him to have the charisma of tree bark. My favorite driver was either Hakkinen or Jacques Villeneuve in the late 90s. Haven't really "followed" a driver since then. Too bad the closest F1 race is hundreds/thousands of miles away from me or I'd make it a point to go to one.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 9:03 pm

I've been checking out your blog. Good stuff mate and I like your season pick but i've gotta totally disagree.

Signed,

Jinxy

Smurfy · Post by **Smurfy** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 10:56 pm

GB_Simo wrote:Is it still a minger? Well, the nightclubs around here close at 4 am. If you made it to 2 am alone, supposing the Williams had given you the brush-off and gone home with Peter Windsor, you'd order another pint and start thinking the Ferrari wasn't so bad. In the morning, though...well, you'd write a quick note and make good your escape, at best. Not as bad as I feared, but not the body beautiful.

That put a smile on my otherwise grumpy face.

I'm excited as hell about Brawn and Williams. I do hope that when the other teams catch up with their diffuser designes that those two teams don't fall too far back. I'd love to see Rubens win the championship this year. As for Jensen, this could be the last critical point in his career. He'll either prove himself a hero or there will be plenty of headlines like "The curious case of Jensen Button" in the F1 media.

Despite my expectation that these will come back to embarrass me by October, here are my predictions:

- Over the course of the whole season I think Kimi's Ferrari will be the car to beat.
- Nakajima will be the revelation of the season. He surprised me with his performances last year. At minimum he'll be much closer to Nico than most of us expect. I'd be surprised but I wouldn't be shocked if he edges Nico out by a couple of points.
- The Red Bull will give Sebastian Vettel no end of misery. Should the car last a whole weekend then he'll prove his worth to the big teams watching.
- In the end I think Ferrari and BMW will be somewhere among the top three teams over the season. McLaren will catch up but it will be too late.
- If Brawn GP is for real in Australia, then with Ross Brawn's leadership they will maintain a strong season.
- Force India will find their way back to the bottom by season's end.
- Hamilton will destroy HK at McLaren.
-

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 11:33 pm

fletcher21 wrote:Who are you guys picking as an EARLY choice to win the F1 championship this year. It's all gonna be guessing now, but it'd be fun to look back on this after the season and see how many people got it right... I know it won't be a repeat, but I'm not sure who I'd pick personally

Massa.

There's no way Brawn and Williams will keep this edge once the series returns to Europe. Ferrari and McLaren have way too much ability and money not to develop a diffuser around the "new interpretation" of the rules that will spank Brawn and Williams.

Plus it shouldn't be forgotten that Ferrari has two better drivers than the duos at Brawn and Williams, and McLaren has one -- the defending World Champion.

I pick Massa because I think he really matured as a race driver and a person last year. He knows how to cope with the pressure of a season-long fight, and I think Ferrari will throw its might behind him once Raikkonen inevitably loses motivation.

McLaren will suffer from the loss of Ron Dennis. Whitmarsh is very capable, but he has nowhere near the experience or clout as The Ron. Plus the early-season assaults from Brawn and Williams only will exacerbate the weakness of Kovalainen as a wingman for Lewis, as he will need to fight off at least three teams instead of just Ferrari in the past.

I don't know what to think of BMW. Honestly, I think Kubica is such a simpleton -- all he cares about is driving fast -- that I don't think he has the cunning, guile, political skills and leadership skills to rally a team around him. Just look at last year: He was leading the points after Montreal, and BMW told him to piss off any title hopes and started to focus on the 2009 car.

Can you imagine that happening at Ferrari when Schumacher was there? At Renault with Alonso? At Williams with Alan Jones? I can't.

I don't think Renault has the funding to keep up with the Big Two, and Piquet won't offer any strong wingman support for Alonso. He sucks.

Every other team is a pretender, including Red Bull. Newey will try to add to his genius credentials by pushing the design limits of the new tech regs more than anyone else and end up with a fast but fragile sh*tbox, wasting Vettel's large talents.

Toyota? Come on. Think the fax will arrive from Tokyo fast enough to allow the team to make changes for the qualifying session that other teams have made during Friday practice? A bureaucratic mess of a team.

I think it's highly possible that Brawn or Williams could build up enough of a gap early in the season to finish third in the Constructors Championship behind Ferrari and McLaren.

I sure hope it's Williams. That's my team. Racing is their only business; petrol runs through that team's veins like none other on the grid. That said, I always admired Ross Brawn's calm style and incredibly flexible, creative strategic thinking on the pit wall at Ferrari, and I'm also a Barrichello fan.

Enjoy watching McLaren and Ferrari sweat the next few races, boys. It's not going to last.

Take care,
PK

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:26 am

What a f*cking awesome grid, it is very nice to see the duopoly broken.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:29 am

Dave wrote:What a f*cking awesome grid, it is very nice to see the duopoly broken.

Ditto !

And that's coming from a diehard Ferrari fan.

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:54 pm

Post-qualifying car weights from the newly-transparent FIA:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/74011

I'm looking forward to seeing which day of the week Piquet's stop will fall on.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:50 pm

Autosport seems to be down for me at the moment. I was reading something interesting yesterday on Autosport and it involves KERS. All the top runners on tomorrows grid aren't running KERS. In fact the article states that Ferrari is the only team to have posted a 7th spot (6th spot now to Toyota failing qualy inspection) on the grid by Felipe Massa. Everyone else suffered badly including McLaren.

So it's an issue I brought up a couple of days ago regarding KERS. Hmmm I wonder what results Brawn, Williams and Toyota would have had if KERS was on their cars?

As PK stated earlier, the current top runners better enjoy their early success because once the top teams redesign their rear diffusers and the other teams install KERS the situation will change quickly. Btw is KERS required in 2009?

Anyway it's nice to see a shake up on the grid. I hope I can pry me eyes open at 4 am to watch the race live on the world wide wibble.

p.s. It'll be interesting to see how many spots Hammy will get back on the first lap.

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 9:30 pm

Rod, Autosport's down here now too. It was working earlier, but very very slowly.

Rodster wrote:So it's an issue I brought up a couple of days ago regarding KERS. Hmmm I wonder what results Brawn, Williams and Toyota would have had if KERS was on their cars?

The main issue KERS gives, as mentioned earlier, is one of weight distribution - 30 kilos or so mounted further back in the car than you might ideally like. The chaps responsible for the car's design wouldn't necessarily be the ones responsible for KERS development - I'd have guessed their only concern would be packaging it inside the car they've drawn up - so there'd be no reason to suppose the cars would be fundamentally different. The teams you cite have designed quick cars, or at least cars that work around Albert Park, and they'd be right up there with KERS too. McLaren have designed a car that seems well-balanced but lacking overall downforce, and they'd be the wrong end of nowhere without KERS too.

Rodster wrote:As PK stated earlier, the current top runners better enjoy their early success because once the top teams redesign their rear diffusers and the other teams install KERS the situation will change quickly. Btw is KERS required in 2009?

Not required, no.

Can the other teams incorporate a Brawn-style diffuser into their current package, or modify their cars to suit it if not? The diffuser isn't the magic ticket by itself; the car's aero package is just that, a package. It'll be interesting to see. Bit lost on the KERS thing - if the non-KERS teams can't make it work to their satisfaction they needn't use it, and if they can then we're talking about giving a boost to Brawn, Williams, Red Bull and Toyota, who are all at the sharp end as it is.

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 5:39 am

pk500 wrote:Plus the early-season assaults from Brawn and Williams only will exacerbate the weakness of Kovalainen as a wingman for Lewis, as he will need to fight off at least three teams instead of just Ferrari in the past.

Looks like Heikki's early season assaults on Brawn won't do him an awful lot of good either, though that accident would have happened without Kovalainen shoving Rubens up the back in any case.

I've done a thousand words on the race already and I'd quite like to go to sleep soon so I'll be brief: I really enjoyed that. Jenson was peerless, the Brawn appears to have the same kind of construction as a Challenger tank, and Hamilton and Trulli put in great shifts. Surprised to see Rosberg lose so much pace on the super-softs late on, very surprised to see Kubica going so quickly towards the end, not at all surprised to see Piquet on his usual form, and I really don't think Vettel had much to say sorry to Red Bull for.

davet010 · Post by **davet010** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:43 am

Good race that - I got up early and enjoyed it. Always seems a shame when a race finishes under the safety car, but that was a fair crash between Kubica and Vittel (I think it was him) and there were bits knocking about the track.

The timing of the race seemed a bit odd, although I know it was phased for European TV, I wouldn't have fancied driving into that setting sun at them speeds.