Bahrain GP 2009 - BIC

[djos]

once every car has kers, though, it gets less interesting

Too some degree - yes, but don't forget that you can use KERS for 6.67 secs only so drivers may choose different times to engage KERS and try to trick each other.

Thats why I hope MAX throws out the standard KERS idea and opens up the KERs regs for more power

djos is just mad cause Webber had a sub par race starting from the back thru no fault of his own.

True, although he did overtake 7 cars on the track which was fun to watch until he got stuck behind NP!

[Conceptual]

True, although he did overtake 7 cars on the track which was fun to watch until he got stuck behind NP!

I said before the race that Webbo would pass 5-6 cars on the opening lap, and I believe that he did in fact pass 6... Unfortunately, my prediction that he would end up in the points was proven wrong by the ability for a sub-par car with a sub-par driver and a KERS system to block...

[De Jokke]

Once again Fernando had an extra battle with a defect drinking pump in this heat for the entire race.

wow looks like kimi on a friday night

played FA

hilarious hahaha


Good race of button but I wonder what if Vettel would have had a clean track to chase him...

Hamilton magnificent drive and ending up 4th! Every race in the points on own merit, incredible with such a car. A true world champion and the best driver of the field CLEARLY!

Alonso well done considering the empty bottle and a rosberg on his tale

Brawn to Barce with a 0.6 update package, any news on the updates of the other teams (margin of improvements?)

[djos]

True, although he did overtake 7 cars on the track which was fun to watch until he got stuck behind NP!

I said before the race that Webbo would pass 5-6 cars on the opening lap, and I believe that he did in fact pass 6... Unfortunately, my prediction that he would end up in the points was proven wrong by the ability for a sub-par car with a sub-par driver and a KERS system to block...

You did indeed...

I now decalre KERS the worst idea in the history of F1 ... Thanks Max you tool!

[ISLAMATRON]

True, although he did overtake 7 cars on the track which was fun to watch until he got stuck behind NP!

I said before the race that Webbo would pass 5-6 cars on the opening lap, and I believe that he did in fact pass 6... Unfortunately, my prediction that he would end up in the points was proven wrong by the ability for a sub-par car with a sub-par driver and a KERS system to block...

You did indeed...

I now decalre KERS the worst idea in the history of F1 ... Thanks Max you tool!

Until RBR gets it right?

[vasia]

Bad strategy cost Toyota the race win. Speed-wise, Toyota was actually quicker than Red Bull and a hair faster than Brawn. Top two fastest laps in the race were from both Toyota cars. Trulli had the fastest overall race pace out of anyone else on the grid. Glock had slower race pace because he was struggling with his car and he was also held up in traffic, particularly Kimi's slower Ferrari. Both Toyota drivers had 9-10 lap runs in the 1:34 range. The only other driver in the race that managed to have a race pace very close to Trulli was Button.

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1 ... alysis.pdf

Looking at race pace, Trulli had best overall pace, closely followed by Button and then Vettel.

If Toyota instead had both cars running soft tires on first two stints, and then hard on the last stint they would have had a good chance of getting the win. On soft tires, the Toyotas were very fast and could have built up a nice gap between them and everyone else, only putting hard tires on for their last stint.

Their strategy of soft, then hard, then soft again for the last stint was a bad call.

Even with the strategic mistake though, Trulli's car had enough raw pace for him to finish on the podium.

Good job by Vettel, drove a consistent race to the finish. Great job by Brawn as Button did not have the fastest car. Great strategy and smart driving by Button got them the win.

Shame about Alonso's dehydration. I can't wait to hear what ridiculous comments Briatore will come up with to sum up their performance. I wonder if he still thinks they have a similar pace to Toyota and Red Bull right now.

This race really showed us the pecking order for the first time. Brawn and Toyota were roughly equal with Trulli a hair faster than Button in the race, and Red Bull closely behind the two in performance. McLaren has improved a bit their relative performance, and Renault despite all their car upgrades is fighting in the midfield with Ferrari, and Williams.

Barcelona shall be very interesting. It is a high downforce track, which should suit Brawn and Toyota very well. The pecking order may likely change based on each team's development pace.

[djos]

Until RBR gets it right?

No, I just think that KERS is a huge money pit at a time when the the teams are trying to cut spending - i think they would be better off using a smaller cheaper power plant using environmentally responsible fuels (ie arent made from food crops or oil).

If the FIA had any brains (which clearly they dont), they'd introduce smart new engine regs for 2011 along these sort of lines:

*1.8lt Twin turbo V6
*max 16,000 rpm
*min weight of 90kg's inc turbos
*any materials you like but Max cost for engines bill of materials for each engine = $200,000USD max.
*100% cellulosic Ethanol (non food crop derived)
*1 engine per weekend (= $4,000,000 per year)


I'd also open up the regs on Gear boxes and introduce similar cost & weight caps with would imo make F1 much more fun as we'd be back to the days of winding the motors up for qually but if they went too far they'd blow up in the race.

anyway, thats my few cents worth.

[Jersey Tom]

I don't like KERS as its a forced technical development, and it's a forced expense. Innovation should spur itself, not just be required by FOM.

OEMs and such will like to say it's F1 going green and spurring technical excellence for the consumer market but that's a load of crap.

New engine regs would be cool, in that I like the idea of going to bio-produced ethanol or some such fuel. Personally I wouldn't mind going to highly-boosted 1.8L turbo V6's generating 1000+ HP at < 12000 rpm, but that's just because I like the sound of F1 from the mid to late 80s

Realistically even then, it takes a lot of money to develop a totally new engine platform.

As I start to drift more off topic...

I like the idea of (a) encouraging creativity and new things (b) encouraging conservation and efficiency (c) limiting cost.

If it were me I'd think about opening up technical restrictions while imposing budget caps. "Ok you have 30mil EUR to spend however you please. Come up with something creative."

Or going along with that "Build whatever engine you'd like, but you only have X liters of fuel to use for the weekend, and Y EUR to develop the engine. Use it wisely"

[The FOZ]

I don't like KERS as its a forced technical development, and it's a forced expense. Innovation should spur itself, not just be required by FOM.

Is it, though? RBR has proven that it's possible to be competitive, and actually win, without it, or the DDD. Brawn has no KERS. Toyota? I don't believe so. Granted, they've all put resources into their development, but in theory, a team in their position could have elected to forgo the KERS altogether and focus more on aero development.

I like the idea of (a) encouraging creativity and new things (b) encouraging conservation and efficiency (c) limiting cost.

If it were me I'd think about opening up technical restrictions while imposing budget caps. "Ok you have 30mil EUR to spend however you please. Come up with something creative."

As do I.

I'd like to see the rules say "Screw the regs on what constitutes a legal wing, diffuser, etc. Your car can produce a maximum of xxxx kilos of downforce at yyy speed. Go nuts."

That would encourage creativity!

Also, a budget cap, however difficult to enforce, is a good thing. It encourages a team to do more, with less. Any team could, theoretically, show up and win. Throwing money at a problem no longer is the solution...and something can be said for that sort of philosophy!

[ISLAMATRON]

No, I just think that KERS is a huge money pit at a time when the the teams are trying to cut spending - i think they would be better off using a smaller cheaper power plant using environmentally responsible fuels (ie arent made from food crops or oil).

If the FIA had any brains (which clearly they dont), they'd introduce smart new engine regs for 2011 along these sort of lines:

*1.8lt Twin turbo V6
*max 16,000 rpm
*min weight of 90kg's inc turbos
*any materials you like but Max cost for engines bill of materials for each engine = $200,000USD max.
*100% cellulosic Ethanol (non food crop derived)
*1 engine per weekend (= $4,000,000 per year)

I'd also open up the regs on Gear boxes and introduce similar cost & weight caps with would imo make F1 much more fun as we'd be back to the days of winding the motors up for qually but if they went too far they'd blow up in the race.

anyway, thats my few cents worth.

I agree with you on the formula mostly (I would make it a 2L I-4 since every manufacterer on the planet has one... except Ferrari) but you have to understand that changing the engine formula right now would cost many times more than the investment they have made in KERS... they could run bio fuel with the current engines if they wanted to, and they could lower the revs to 16K now if they wanted to(although it would make no sense for a new engine formula to be rev limited at 16K... it would still need pneumatic valvetrain but not take full advantage of that expensive technology)

Leave the engine formula as is until the already planned and agreed upon switch in 2013, but in the meantime bring in the effiency enhancing technologies of HERS & KERS. That would be a much smaller cost hit for the teams. Only the 5 engine manufacterers would bear the brunt of the engin R&D costs whereas even RBR & STR have pitched in for the Magnetti KERS system costs.

These engines havent even been used for 4 years yet and you want to change them.... the 3.0 V-10's were used for 10.

They have already made the v-8's much cheaper to run and have ways to make them even cheaper.

I dont understand, first you say 16K rpm limit, then you say wind them up and blow them for qualifying.

[ISLAMATRON]

I don't like KERS as its a forced technical development, and it's a forced expense. Innovation should spur itself, not just be required by FOM.

I think we all know KERS is optional this year... or else there would have been another FIA kangaroo court session about it already.

But in light of your post maybe it should allways be made optional unlike next year(when all teams are supposed to have it), but they should also open up its limits so the teams are forced to use it for performance.

Allowing KERS was actually a way of opening up the regs, previously the car were allowed only 1 source of propulsion power, now they have more.

[djos]

No, I just think that KERS is a huge money pit at a time when the the teams are trying to cut spending - i think they would be better off using a smaller cheaper power plant using environmentally responsible fuels (ie arent made from food crops or oil).

If the FIA had any brains (which clearly they dont), they'd introduce smart new engine regs for 2011 along these sort of lines:

*1.8lt Twin turbo V6
*max 16,000 rpm
*min weight of 90kg's inc turbos
*any materials you like but Max cost for engines bill of materials for each engine = $200,000USD max.
*100% cellulosic Ethanol (non food crop derived)
*1 engine per weekend (= $4,000,000 per year)

I'd also open up the regs on Gear boxes and introduce similar cost & weight caps with would imo make F1 much more fun as we'd be back to the days of winding the motors up for qually but if they went too far they'd blow up in the race.

anyway, thats my few cents worth.

I agree with you on the formula mostly (I would make it a 2L I-4 since every manufacterer on the planet has one... except Ferrari) but you have to understand that changing the engine formula right now would cost many times more than the investment they have made in KERS... they could run bio fuel with the current engines if they wanted to, and they could lower the revs to 16K now if they wanted to(although it would make no sense for a new engine formula to be rev limited at 16K... it would still need pneumatic valvetrain but not take full advantage of that expensive technology)

Leave the engine formula as is until the already planned and agreed upon switch in 2013, but in the meantime bring in the effiency enhancing technologies of HERS & KERS. That would be a much smaller cost hit for the teams. Only the 5 engine manufacterers would bear the brunt of the engin R&D costs whereas even RBR & STR have pitched in for the Magnetti KERS system costs.

These engines havent even been used for 4 years yet and you want to change them.... the 3.0 V-10's were used for 10.

They have already made the v-8's much cheaper to run and have ways to make them even cheaper.

I dont understand, first you say 16K rpm limit, then you say wind them up and blow them for qualifying.

Fair points, I just want turbo motors back!

I didn't say blow them up for qually, I said "wind them up for qually" but they would have to be careful they didn't over do it as they would run the risk of blowing up during the race.

[outer_bongolia]

No, I just think that KERS is a huge money pit at a time when the the teams are trying to cut spending - i think they would be better off using a smaller cheaper power plant using environmentally responsible fuels (ie arent made from food crops or oil).

If the FIA had any brains (which clearly they dont), they'd introduce smart new engine regs for 2011 along these sort of lines:

*1.8lt Twin turbo V6
*max 16,000 rpm
*min weight of 90kg's inc turbos
*any materials you like but Max cost for engines bill of materials for each engine = $200,000USD max.
*100% cellulosic Ethanol (non food crop derived)
*1 engine per weekend (= $4,000,000 per year)

I'd also open up the regs on Gear boxes and introduce similar cost & weight caps with would imo make F1 much more fun as we'd be back to the days of winding the motors up for qually but if they went too far they'd blow up in the race.

anyway, thats my few cents worth.

I agree with you on the formula mostly (I would make it a 2L I-4 since every manufacterer on the planet has one... except Ferrari) but you have to understand that changing the engine formula right now would cost many times more than the investment they have made in KERS... they could run bio fuel with the current engines if they wanted to, and they could lower the revs to 16K now if they wanted to(although it would make no sense for a new engine formula to be rev limited at 16K... it would still need pneumatic valvetrain but not take full advantage of that expensive technology)

Leave the engine formula as is until the already planned and agreed upon switch in 2013, but in the meantime bring in the effiency enhancing technologies of HERS & KERS. That would be a much smaller cost hit for the teams. Only the 5 engine manufacterers would bear the brunt of the engin R&D costs whereas even RBR & STR have pitched in for the Magnetti KERS system costs.

These engines havent even been used for 4 years yet and you want to change them.... the 3.0 V-10's were used for 10.

They have already made the v-8's much cheaper to run and have ways to make them even cheaper.

I dont understand, first you say 16K rpm limit, then you say wind them up and blow them for qualifying.

All those points are great, but I think with a 16k rpm limit, one could force the engines to last 3 weekends, that would bring the engine cost to ~$2M/yr with the tests.

One other thing that I would suggest would be a limit on the amount of fuel that can be used per race. For ex, the fuel consumption for a car in Shanghai was ~150kg. If the maximum amount of fuel that could be used was limited to ~120kg, we could see more acceptance of energy recovery and much more interesting races.

I think with phasing out of refueling, this will start happening.

[kilcoo316]

In my opinion:

1. Keep the engine regs consistent. Changing them costs far more than you get back.



-if KERS is gonna be kept*-

2. Shorten the KERS time allowed per lap.

3. Increase the power output of the KERS signficiantly.


*to be honest, I think its hard to abandon it now - the public perception would not be good.

[paused]

In my opinion:

-if KERS is gonna be kept*-

2. Shorten the KERS time allowed per lap.

3. Increase the power output of the KERS signficiantly.
.

Totally agree with point 2. Limiting the number of effective uses would make inferior cars less likely to be mobile chicanes. With most newer tracks trying to design for 2 or 3 passing opportunities per lap this would negate the drivers using KERS at every point to hold up a faster car (eg. Piquet v everyone in Bahrain)

Instead you may have scenario where the cars can pass and then be re-passed on different parts of laps. That would make for more interesting "racing" than watching a KERS car use it 3 times per lap to close any opportunity of a pass at all.