Formula 1

[dibo]

what you reckon bout this Piquet delibrate crash thing?

I highly doubt it, how would you organise something like this without anyone knowing?

All radio is monitered by FIA


Vettel will have a hard time with engines now, but I wonder why it is vettel having the engine trouble and webber not so much? The car computers wont let the driver over rev, so i wonder why is seb get all the bad luck?


Also good to know refueling will be gone next season, bloody fuel rigs suck anyway

if a driver feeds the power in more carefully and especially if they downshift more carefully then they'll be easier on the engine. if they follow too closely behind another car the engine will not cool down like it should either because it's going through a messy airflow and it's taking in air that in part has already been through an engine.

i think they have things like titanium (and therefore pretty heat-resistant) pistons, con-rods, crankshafts and cylinder sleeves but even then they'll want to keep the temperatures down. that's why often a driver who's stuck behind another will actually pull out of the slipstream if they can to get a burst of clean air.

 

[Lisarow Yellow (Pooley)]

what you reckon bout this Piquet delibrate crash thing?

I highly doubt it, how would you organise something like this without anyone knowing?

All radio is monitered by FIA

eaiser then you think. all that needs to be is a pre-race deal done that on a word said by the team on the radio he's to smack it into a wall. Some of the team leaders are the same ones that were caught up in cheating at benetton in 1994. There's every chance that Alonso will be stripped of the win, but i dont see the team being excluded anytime soon.

 

[tuftman]

Same thing happened with Sato when he drove for Honda in 2004(I think it was). He blew engines left right and centre, and Button didn't have an issue with them. Its just driving styles, Button makes the car flow very smoothly, probably smoother with his application of throttle, and coming off the throttle at the end of long periods of it(called 'overun') in a smoother fasion. What Dibo mentioned about temperatures, same thing will apply with the brakes this weekend at Monza, its a car killer in general.

Refueling going makes the tyre situation a little monotonous IMHO. Heavy fuel loads will mean that teams will use the harder tyre early out of necessity, and the softer ones later on with the lighter fuel loads.

The whole Piquet thing, bit of hot air if you ask me. Like a driver is intentionally going to crash, it hurts them a helluva lot hitting a wall.

Whats going to make the engine situation interesting is when the FIA phase out exotic materials being allowed in Formula 1. The timeline I read was for 2010/11 being the start of this, gearbox and tub construction as well. So whether they'll have to loosen the restrictions(on engine numbers etc.) or not I don't know

 

[Bex]

Yeh, I agree Tuftman about Piquet. No team would have the nerve to ask a driver to deliberately crash to help a team mate. Its tough enough on drivers to have to help out their team mate but to suffer the indignity of an at fault crash?? Nah, no self respecting driver would put up with that for one moment.

Not only that, word would be bound to get around about it and the team would be the laughing-stock/ire of the entire grid. We've also seen what happens to teams caught issuing team orders and I'm sure they would realise that a deliberate crash to bring out a safety car would be far worse than anything any team has done thus far. They would be far better off expending efforts on making the car go faster then to devise dastardly schemes like this.

 

[Bex]

what you reckon bout this Piquet delibrate crash thing?

I highly doubt it, how would you organise something like this without anyone knowing?

All radio is monitered by FIA


Vettel will have a hard time with engines now, but I wonder why it is vettel having the engine trouble and webber not so much? The car computers wont let the driver over rev, so i wonder why is seb get all the bad luck?


Also good to know refueling will be gone next season, bloody fuel rigs suck anyway

It has been reported by Red Bull that Vettel's second engine failure was a human error from the Renault factory. Cue the conspiracy theories...........

 

[Bex]

I'll wait to see what the lack of refuelling does to the racing before I pass judgement on that one. I remember when Prost was around and it used to drive me nuts that this bloody boring driver would go round and round doing nothing particularly special (seemingly), only to arrive later in the race with better tyres. I actually like the fact that the current regulations mostly allow the drivers to push the cars for the entire race if need be. Some of the drivers get some good attitude on the cars. Still reckon they need to reduce downforce and increase drag though so that slipstreaming can actually benefit the driver behind rather than stuffing up mid corner speed so dramatically as is the current situation. Its an improvement on last season, but not enough IMO.

 

[tuftman]

The whole aero thing is going to be a pain to solve, teams are only going to be willing to give up so much of what they've spent years and billions of dollars to develop

 

[Bex]

I'm not so sure Tuftman. The designers often start with a clean sheet; perhaps every two or three years as the team decides to alter the basic design of the car. They're constantly developing what they've got anyway. They've already had significant, regular changes with front and rear wing rules in recent times; I don't think the solution requires much more than that. I just don't understand why the FIA have so much problem finding effective solutions; its not rocket surgery.

 

[dibo]

even last year to this year there was a major change to the aero packages. all the bargeboards and whatnot were ditched, the front wing is lower and the rear wing was massively reprofiled, the front wings are now adjustable (for some stupid reason).

at one point they were talking about weird two part rear wing (as in split into two separate wings, one on the left, one on the right). all of the parts are custom designed and made in their own factories and they run several updates a year so a new set of rules just changes the terms of the redesign, so it isn't that out of the ordinary.

 

[Lisarow Yellow (Pooley)]

Yeh, I agree Tuftman about Piquet. No team would have the nerve to ask a driver to deliberately crash to help a team mate. Its tough enough on drivers to have to help out their team mate but to suffer the indignity of an at fault crash?? Nah, no self respecting driver would put up with that for one moment.

Not only that, word would be bound to get around about it and the team would be the laughing-stock/ire of the entire grid. We've also seen what happens to teams caught issuing team orders and I'm sure they would realise that a deliberate crash to bring out a safety car would be far worse than anything any team has done thus far. They would be far better off expending efforts on making the car go faster then to devise dastardly schemes like this.

Its only a step up from the Schumacher dramas at Farrari

 

[serious14]

WEBBER!!!! AGAIN!!! ;D

 

[hasbeen]

BUTTON!!!!! CHAMPION!!! 

 

[Bex]

Yes, congrats to Mark on the performance. He dominated the race and deserved to have an incident free win.

I'm finding it hard to get excited about Button's world title after the ear bashing we've been getting from the commentators all season and the relative lack of performance at the tail end of the season. Anyway, he has toughed it out in some crappy cars and accepted a big pay drop to compete this season in the Brawn so good on him.

 

[hasbeen]

Yes, congrats to Mark on the performance. He dominated the race and deserved to have an incident free win.

I'm finding it hard to get excited about Button's world title after the ear bashing we've been getting from the commentators all season and the relative lack of performance at the tail end of the season. Anyway, he has toughed it out in some crappy cars and accepted a big pay drop to compete this season in the Brawn so good on him.

This surely only enhances the magnitude of his win then ...

 

[dibo]

not really. he won it through sheer dominance early because braun were working on their 09 car before most teams had finished working on their 08s. as other teams caught up it was a much tighter proposition.

look at the two teams that fought out the championships last year - mclaren and ferrari: they could barely get the cars to stick to the road with a barrel of superglue for most of the season because their development schedules were shot. and look at force india and even red bull! any team that had a nice early start and a good and/or lucky development program did well. those fighting to late last season lost out early this year.

i'd be stunned if he wins a second title. i think mclaren and ferrari are going to be back hard next year, and vettel is only going to get better too.

 

[tuftman]

Webber, you f**king beauty :-D


TBH, I don't put Button in the top 6 drivers in the field, I'd easily put Alonso(whom I think is the best, love him or hate him), Raikkonen, Vettel, Hamilton, Rosberg, Massa and possibly even our own Mark Webber ahead of him(probably even Kubica as well). Dibo is 100% right about Brawn/Honda. Honda where so bad in 2008 that they canned development early in the season, and went straight to work on the 2009 car(by then, the team became BrawnGP). But in saying that, Kudos to Jenson and to BrawnGP for being the class of the field for the first 7-8 races, and slugging it out thereafter to hang on.

2010, I would assume the usual suspects will be there or thereabouts, Ferrari(Alonso in for Raikkonen, Massa to resume driving) and McLaren(Hamilton and Raikkonen/Barrichello/Rosberg/Kovalenien depending on what media source you read). I expect Renault(Kubica and probably Romain Grosjean) a to be a little stronger then this year, and Red Bull(same lineup) can hopefully continue on the gains of the last 12 months). Dunno what to make of Force India, they where so strong at Spa and Monza(low downforce circuits funnily enough) yet for the bulk of the season did not much more then make up the numbers, would be nice to see them be competitive, for the good of Formula 1.

Saw on youtube a digital lap around the new Yas Marina circuit, mostly just to see the corner sequence and whatnot, looks alright to me.

Back to Button though, wouldn't be surprised to see him not win a race next year, Brawn are said to be struggling for cash due to a lack of sponsorship(might change though, being 2009 WDC and WCC)

 

[serious14]

Was wondering if you could make a post without mentioning downforce - again you have crushed my hopes. 

 

[tuftman]

Was wondering if you could make a post without mentioning downforce - again you have crushed my hopes. 

Uncrush them, then put the kettle on

 

[serious14]

HA!!!

Just had a gander at that digital lap thingy from Abu Dhabi - that whole "through-the-hotel" sequence has right proper potential.  Can't wait for someone to f*ck up coming out of pit lane as well.  ;D

 

[adz]

are you only in it for the crashes? seems like it...