Comments disabled

19 March 2006 - 16:54

I've temporarilly disabled comments on this blog (and in a really hacky way) due to a flood of comment spam. I'll open them up again when I've put measures in place. In the meantime, if you need to make a comment, email me using the link at the bottom of this post and I'll add the comments manually.

/ No comments / § ¶

Rare press conference highlights

16 March 2006 - 12:29

For me the only thing about 24 hours news channels that's worse than hearing the same story over and over again every hour, is when they cut to press conference live. I suppose they think that on the rare occasion that some actual new information is released at a press conference, the only way they can be first with the news is to broadcast the conference live.

The problem with broadcasting press conferences is that they are excruciatingly dull. They are meant for the press to try and extract a vaguely interesting quote from the participants - they are not meant for wider consumption. In the world of Formula 1, press conferences are where drivers repeat the same canned PR-speak over and over as journalists ask the same largely inane questions over and over. As a blogger covering Formula 1, I could be considered a wannabe journalist and I'd certianly like to have press acreditation and be able to travel to Grand Prixs on expenses to interview drivers and team personel. If I did I'd promise not to ask any question that could be satisfied with the canned answers you see in transcripts all the time.

With those complains out of the way, it came as something of a surprise that the Thursday press conference for the Malaysian Grand Prix included a couple of gems. Firstly from David [tt:Coulthard]] who in his post-McLaren days is a regular quote-machine.

Q. (Dan Knutson - National Speedsport News) Talking about the heat, David said you are not looking forward to it. I know it is the same for all, but could you explain a little what it is like out there in the car and when you come into the pits?

DC: It's like having to do some physical exercise in a sauna effectively and unless it was having sex I cannot imagine why anyone would want to do anything in a sauna.

What you get up to in your own time David...

Talk of the heat then turned into a pissing contest over who's car had the biggest water bottle. 

Q. (MC) Have you planned for drinks in the car?

JV: We usually have a big half a litre drinks bottle in the car.

JB: We've got more than theirs. We've got a litre.

RS: We've got less…

DC: 400 mill.

So Jensen is the big winner! Or is he? Surely you're more of a man if you can cope with less water during the race? That would make with Ralf or DC the man.

/ No comments / § ¶

More qualifying stupidity

16 March 2006 - 10:55

There's one aspect of the current qualifying regulations that I missed out in my previous rant. I was reminded of it by Jacques Villeneuve's comments in the Thursday press conference for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Q. What did you think of the new qualifying at Bahrain? You were bumped out of it at the end by your team mate, but otherwise what did you think of it?

JV: I guess it can be seen of as exciting. It's quite stressful, it doesn't feel like qualifying because you never sit in the car, figuring out how you are going to get the perfect lap. You just keep doing laps, new tyres laps and it doesn't feel like qualifying, but the fans like it and why not? It's the same for everyone.

Q. Quite busy then?

JV: Very busy. It's funny because it's the time of the weekend, before the race, when we do the most laps but we're not even allowed to set the car up. It's all a bit strange.

Q. Would you prefer more opportunity to change more things?

JV: It would be nice to work on the car a little bit.

So even without the race-fuel requirement, the new qualifying wouldn't be much like the old 1hour free-for-all session we had prior to 2003 because the teams have to set their car up before qualifying begins and they're only allowed to change the front-wing trim and the tyre pressures during the session. So even if the cars didn't have to stay out on track mindlessly burning up fuel, they wouldn't be coming into the pits and making adjustments to account for the changing conditions like the good old days.

This goes back to the "parc ferme" rules introduced along with single-lap qualifying in 2003. Parc Ferme used to just be the place where the cars where parked at the end of qualifying and the race while the scrutineers checked them over. Now it refers the rules under which the teams can change stuff on the car between the start of qualifying and the race itself.

When single-lap qualifying was voted in it probably didn't take F1 designers to realise that if a car only had to complete three laps (with only one at top speed), they could make "qualifying specials" for everything. They wouldn't need much cooling for the engine - the radiators could be stuffed with enough dry-ice to last those three laps. The brakes could do without much cooling as well as it wouldn't matter if they wore down due to oxidation. In fact they'd probably start with special thin discs. Every part on the car could have 'life' taken out of it to reduce weight. They could even fit a smaller fuel cell for the dribble of fuel they'd need. Adrian Newey was the first to make this point in the press and shortly after the FIA announced that teams would not be able to change any components on the cars (unless they were faulty and then only for identical parts) between the start of qualifying and the race. This was in order to stop the teams going crazy, spending money on making parts just for qualifying. It also, for the first time, extended the life of the engine beyond that needed to complete a race distance, although the truth is that the extra mileage required for single-lap qualifying was well within the safety margin of a F1 engine.

The FIA went further though. They also introduced the race-fuel qualifying rule for no reason I can fathom - the rules already said that you couldn't change parts so there was no chance of people using a super-small fuel cell. They additionally said that teams couldn't even make setup changes under parc ferme conditions beyond a few minor things. Even tyres could only be changed once the race started. Why is that? Why should qualifying be part of the race itself? I think the fastest car/driver combination should be on pole, not the driver who starts the race with the least fuel, thus compomising their race for a little glory on the Saturday.

Since then people have talked endlessly about "the show" and how qualifying could be improved, but they never proposed removing these rules that effectively made qualifying the first few laps of the race. It seems it's even more difficult to get a stupid rule removed in F1 than it is to get new ones adopted.

/ No comments / § ¶

F1: None Of Us Is As Dumb As All Of Us

11 March 2006 - 11:25

Today we got to see the new knockout qualifying format in action for the first time. I've aired my thoughts on the ever-changing face for Formula 1 qualifying before, but that was mostly about the past rather than about the detail of the new system.

In practice, the new knock-out qualifying format works well - to begin with. With only the slowest six cars being eliminated, most drivers felt they only needed to go out and do one flying lap at the end of the session. The unscheduled stop caused by Kimi Raikkonen's crash made it even more interesting for those that left it to the end. With only enough time left in the session for one flying lap and almost all the cars queueing in the pitlane, it was bound to ruin someone's day. Ralf Schumacher had just gone out when the red flag was shown and a problem in the pits put him at the back of the queue for the restart. As a result he failed to set a representitve time on his one flying lap. That was his excuse anyway. According to ITV pit reporter Ted Kravitz, he came back into the pits and asked his mechanics for setup changes before being told that he was done for the day. Priceless! It'll be a small comfort that team-mate Jarno Trulli didn't qualify much better even though he did make it ahead of the team once known as Minardi.

The second segment passed with rather less incident and the six cars eliminated were more-or-less how you'd expect. It's the twenty minute final segment that has got people talking. Renault's Pat Symonds goes into more detail on the knockout qualifying format and it's implications for both qualifying and race strategy on Renault's team blog. The ten cars that start the final segment have to be fueled ready to start the race. At the end of the session they'll be allowed to add a certain amount of fuel back depending on how many laps they've completed during that segment. The obvious upshot of this is that the drivers need to do as many laps as possible on their used tyres - not even trying to set a time - before pitting for new tyres and setting a fast time. They can pit with 6 minutes to go if they want to set two fast laps on new tyres or if they're feeling really confident like Renault, they can pit with about 3 minutes to go which gives them enough time to do an out lap before the chequred flag falls.

There are at least two reasons this format is dumb:

{ Read More... }

/ No comments / § ¶

The Super Aguri shoulder wings

09 March 2006 - 11:15

I mentioned in my Super Aguri update that the definite bodywork on the SA05 featured "somewhat inexplicable shoulder winglet". That was based on photos from their shakedown test at Silverstone before they packed up the cars for the trip to Bahrain. With the cars being stripped down and reassembled in the garages there, I can see that this shoulder wing was supposed to have a larger BAR/Toyota like vertical fence on it.

In the picture here you can see the car as it was at the Silverstone shakedown test in February and on the right the car in Bahrain. Looking more closely at the Silverstone picture now I can see that they've taped over the end of the winglet where the screw holes are. Mystery solved! :)

/ No comments / § ¶

2006 seaon preview and predictions

08 March 2006 - 15:41

With the first race of the 2006 season just days away now, it's time for everyone who writes about Formula 1 in any capacity to have a go at predicting how each team will fare and even have a punt on the results of the drivers and constructors championships. Before making predictions for this year I would like to look back at predictions for last year. I wasn't writing a blog then so I'm mercifully exempt from ridicule for this year at least! Autosport.com (or Atlas-F1 as it was then) does a predictions article each year where all of their writers and contributors weight in. Last year 17 out of 22 of them expected Schumacher to claim a 6th consecutive drivers title and 16 of them for Ferrari to claim a 7th consecutive constructors title. Only 5 of them predicted Fernando Alonso would become the youngest ever world champion. In fact he was placed 4th in their cumulative table behind Schumacher and the two McLaren drivers.

This was all despite many of them acknowledging in their writeups that Renault and McLaren had set the pace in testing and that Ferrari looked like they were in trouble. The old "pre-season testing results are no indicative of championship performance" mantra was in full effect. They seem to have learnt from that mistake a little in this year's predictions. They have Alonso and Raikkonen battling again for the championship and that matches the pace set by Renault and McLaren in pre-season testing. However, they have Schumacher in third place and Button in fourth. Placing Schumacher in third seems, once again, to be for old times sake - Ferrari have clearly put a lot more effort into their 2006 car and we have the return of tyre changes to help Bridgestone, but Ferrari have still been pretty disappointing in pre-season testing compared to Honda. The other problem is that the top four table contains drivers from four different teams. This seems unlikely. So much of a driver's performance is based on the car that even if a team as a definite #2 driver, they usually finish 3rd or 4th in the drivers championship when the #1 driver wins.

The Teams

{ Read More... }

/ two comments / § ¶

Rare press conference highlights

16 March 2006 - 12:29

For me the only thing about 24 hours news channels that's worse than hearing the same story over and over again every hour, is when they cut to press conference live. I suppose they think that on the rare occasion that some actual new information is released at a press conference, the only way they can be first with the news is to broadcast the conference live.

The problem with broadcasting press conferences is that they are excruciatingly dull. They are meant for the press to try and extract a vaguely interesting quote from the participants - they are not meant for wider consumption. In the world of Formula 1, press conferences are where drivers repeat the same canned PR-speak over and over as journalists ask the same largely inane questions over and over. As a blogger covering Formula 1, I could be considered a wannabe journalist and I'd certianly like to have press acreditation and be able to travel to Grand Prixs on expenses to interview drivers and team personel. If I did I'd promise not to ask any question that could be satisfied with the canned answers you see in transcripts all the time.

With those complains out of the way, it came as something of a surprise that the Thursday press conference for the Malaysian Grand Prix included a couple of gems. Firstly from David [tt:Coulthard]] who in his post-McLaren days is a regular quote-machine.

Q. (Dan Knutson - National Speedsport News) Talking about the heat, David said you are not looking forward to it. I know it is the same for all, but could you explain a little what it is like out there in the car and when you come into the pits?

DC: It's like having to do some physical exercise in a sauna effectively and unless it was having sex I cannot imagine why anyone would want to do anything in a sauna.

What you get up to in your own time David...

Talk of the heat then turned into a pissing contest over who's car had the biggest water bottle. 

Q. (MC) Have you planned for drinks in the car?

JV: We usually have a big half a litre drinks bottle in the car.

JB: We've got more than theirs. We've got a litre.

RS: We've got less…

DC: 400 mill.

So Jensen is the big winner! Or is he? Surely you're more of a man if you can cope with less water during the race? That would make with Ralf or DC the man.

/ No comments / § ¶

More qualifying stupidity

16 March 2006 - 10:55

There's one aspect of the current qualifying regulations that I missed out in my previous rant. I was reminded of it by Jacques Villeneuve's comments in the Thursday press conference for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Q. What did you think of the new qualifying at Bahrain? You were bumped out of it at the end by your team mate, but otherwise what did you think of it?

JV: I guess it can be seen of as exciting. It's quite stressful, it doesn't feel like qualifying because you never sit in the car, figuring out how you are going to get the perfect lap. You just keep doing laps, new tyres laps and it doesn't feel like qualifying, but the fans like it and why not? It's the same for everyone.

Q. Quite busy then?

JV: Very busy. It's funny because it's the time of the weekend, before the race, when we do the most laps but we're not even allowed to set the car up. It's all a bit strange.

Q. Would you prefer more opportunity to change more things?

JV: It would be nice to work on the car a little bit.

So even without the race-fuel requirement, the new qualifying wouldn't be much like the old 1hour free-for-all session we had prior to 2003 because the teams have to set their car up before qualifying begins and they're only allowed to change the front-wing trim and the tyre pressures during the session. So even if the cars didn't have to stay out on track mindlessly burning up fuel, they wouldn't be coming into the pits and making adjustments to account for the changing conditions like the good old days.

This goes back to the "parc ferme" rules introduced along with single-lap qualifying in 2003. Parc Ferme used to just be the place where the cars where parked at the end of qualifying and the race while the scrutineers checked them over. Now it refers the rules under which the teams can change stuff on the car between the start of qualifying and the race itself.

When single-lap qualifying was voted in it probably didn't take F1 designers to realise that if a car only had to complete three laps (with only one at top speed), they could make "qualifying specials" for everything. They wouldn't need much cooling for the engine - the radiators could be stuffed with enough dry-ice to last those three laps. The brakes could do without much cooling as well as it wouldn't matter if they wore down due to oxidation. In fact they'd probably start with special thin discs. Every part on the car could have 'life' taken out of it to reduce weight. They could even fit a smaller fuel cell for the dribble of fuel they'd need. Adrian Newey was the first to make this point in the press and shortly after the FIA announced that teams would not be able to change any components on the cars (unless they were faulty and then only for identical parts) between the start of qualifying and the race. This was in order to stop the teams going crazy, spending money on making parts just for qualifying. It also, for the first time, extended the life of the engine beyond that needed to complete a race distance, although the truth is that the extra mileage required for single-lap qualifying was well within the safety margin of a F1 engine.

The FIA went further though. They also introduced the race-fuel qualifying rule for no reason I can fathom - the rules already said that you couldn't change parts so there was no chance of people using a super-small fuel cell. They additionally said that teams couldn't even make setup changes under parc ferme conditions beyond a few minor things. Even tyres could only be changed once the race started. Why is that? Why should qualifying be part of the race itself? I think the fastest car/driver combination should be on pole, not the driver who starts the race with the least fuel, thus compomising their race for a little glory on the Saturday.

Since then people have talked endlessly about "the show" and how qualifying could be improved, but they never proposed removing these rules that effectively made qualifying the first few laps of the race. It seems it's even more difficult to get a stupid rule removed in F1 than it is to get new ones adopted.

/ No comments / § ¶

F1: None Of Us Is As Dumb As All Of Us

11 March 2006 - 11:25

Today we got to see the new knockout qualifying format in action for the first time. I've aired my thoughts on the ever-changing face for Formula 1 qualifying before, but that was mostly about the past rather than about the detail of the new system.

In practice, the new knock-out qualifying format works well - to begin with. With only the slowest six cars being eliminated, most drivers felt they only needed to go out and do one flying lap at the end of the session. The unscheduled stop caused by Kimi Raikkonen's crash made it even more interesting for those that left it to the end. With only enough time left in the session for one flying lap and almost all the cars queueing in the pitlane, it was bound to ruin someone's day. Ralf Schumacher had just gone out when the red flag was shown and a problem in the pits put him at the back of the queue for the restart. As a result he failed to set a representitve time on his one flying lap. That was his excuse anyway. According to ITV pit reporter Ted Kravitz, he came back into the pits and asked his mechanics for setup changes before being told that he was done for the day. Priceless! It'll be a small comfort that team-mate Jarno Trulli didn't qualify much better even though he did make it ahead of the team once known as Minardi.

The second segment passed with rather less incident and the six cars eliminated were more-or-less how you'd expect. It's the twenty minute final segment that has got people talking. Renault's Pat Symonds goes into more detail on the knockout qualifying format and it's implications for both qualifying and race strategy on Renault's team blog. The ten cars that start the final segment have to be fueled ready to start the race. At the end of the session they'll be allowed to add a certain amount of fuel back depending on how many laps they've completed during that segment. The obvious upshot of this is that the drivers need to do as many laps as possible on their used tyres - not even trying to set a time - before pitting for new tyres and setting a fast time. They can pit with 6 minutes to go if they want to set two fast laps on new tyres or if they're feeling really confident like Renault, they can pit with about 3 minutes to go which gives them enough time to do an out lap before the chequred flag falls.

There are at least two reasons this format is dumb:

{ Read More... }

/ No comments / § ¶

The Super Aguri shoulder wings

09 March 2006 - 11:15

I mentioned in my Super Aguri update that the definite bodywork on the SA05 featured "somewhat inexplicable shoulder winglet". That was based on photos from their shakedown test at Silverstone before they packed up the cars for the trip to Bahrain. With the cars being stripped down and reassembled in the garages there, I can see that this shoulder wing was supposed to have a larger BAR/Toyota like vertical fence on it.

In the picture here you can see the car as it was at the Silverstone shakedown test in February and on the right the car in Bahrain. Looking more closely at the Silverstone picture now I can see that they've taped over the end of the winglet where the screw holes are. Mystery solved! :)

/ No comments / § ¶

2006 seaon preview and predictions

08 March 2006 - 15:41

With the first race of the 2006 season just days away now, it's time for everyone who writes about Formula 1 in any capacity to have a go at predicting how each team will fare and even have a punt on the results of the drivers and constructors championships. Before making predictions for this year I would like to look back at predictions for last year. I wasn't writing a blog then so I'm mercifully exempt from ridicule for this year at least! Autosport.com (or Atlas-F1 as it was then) does a predictions article each year where all of their writers and contributors weight in. Last year 17 out of 22 of them expected Schumacher to claim a 6th consecutive drivers title and 16 of them for Ferrari to claim a 7th consecutive constructors title. Only 5 of them predicted Fernando Alonso would become the youngest ever world champion. In fact he was placed 4th in their cumulative table behind Schumacher and the two McLaren drivers.

This was all despite many of them acknowledging in their writeups that Renault and McLaren had set the pace in testing and that Ferrari looked like they were in trouble. The old "pre-season testing results are no indicative of championship performance" mantra was in full effect. They seem to have learnt from that mistake a little in this year's predictions. They have Alonso and Raikkonen battling again for the championship and that matches the pace set by Renault and McLaren in pre-season testing. However, they have Schumacher in third place and Button in fourth. Placing Schumacher in third seems, once again, to be for old times sake - Ferrari have clearly put a lot more effort into their 2006 car and we have the return of tyre changes to help Bridgestone, but Ferrari have still been pretty disappointing in pre-season testing compared to Honda. The other problem is that the top four table contains drivers from four different teams. This seems unlikely. So much of a driver's performance is based on the car that even if a team as a definite #2 driver, they usually finish 3rd or 4th in the drivers championship when the #1 driver wins.

The Teams

{ Read More... }

/ two comments / § ¶