Bahrain GP 2009 - BIC

[megz]

Those pictures of Alonso are terrible, kinda make me feel a little sick. Driver's shouldn't need to be held up after a race poor guy. Imagine if he'd blacked out. *shudder*

[DaveKillens]

Wow, lots of action at the beginning. All kinds of cars bunched up, and jockeying around. Good stuff, it sure beats watching 90 minutes of a high speed procession.
Lots of noses coming in contact, lots of cars caught behind slower ones. This race reinforces the need for teams to posess good strategy and the ability to place the car on the track where it can run it's best. Too many times I saw a faster car get caught behind a slower one, and said to myself "geez, the guys in the pits sure got that wrong".


Hey guys, KERS is here, and don't expect it to go away. And I just don't see all the fuss. Some cars do not have it, and do just fine. Others do have it and say it's a problem. No one HAS to run it, it's optional this season. And if a team complains about the costs of KERS, my response is this.. "You don't have to". Instead close up the KERS shop and allocate those resources in other areas of performance.
Green technologies are inevitable. And KERS falls in that catagory. And KERS is not just limited to Formula One, expect it to become common in other racing series in the near future.

Back to the race. I hope Alonso's OK, the guy's a warrior. Also, during the post-race interview Trulli's face was a greenish-yellow. It's either the color from the balaclava transferred to his face, or he was really ill. But he looked ghastly.
Backmarkers did have an influence on the race. It all started in qualifying when Webber got totally screwed by Sutil. And it just got worse during the race.
This race was determined by the best strategy. Some got it wrong and found themselves hindered by slower cars, or they got it right, and maximized the car's potential. Well done Jenson Button, and most importantly, to the man who really made it happen, Ross Brawn.

ps I really feel for Toyota. I had hoped this would be the race where they finally got that win.

[Conceptual]

Anyway, the race was good, but I don't agree that it was interesting to watch Webber stuck behind Piquet due to the KERS difference. KERS was introduced to increase overtaking, not to stifle it. It looks as if the non-KERS cars that get stuck behind the KERS blockers will probably end up pitting early simply to get out from behind the block, and make up enough time to leapfrog when the blocking car pits.

I sincerely hope that Nando is alright. In those pics, he looks very, very unwell. The Renault press statement says that he has made a full recovery, but I wonder how much (if any) influence his losing 4kg of body mass in the offseason may have contributed to his collapse. If I remember, his physio stated that Nando went down to the bare minimum that still makes him healthy to help the team with the KERS weight distribution. If they cut it that close, and with the loss of the drinking system, there may in fact be a safety concern on track.

What would have happened if that collapse happened at 200mph? It would have been catastrophic, and quite possibly fatal.

I hope that the remedy is in place for the rest of the season. I do NOT wish to see any drivers die from failures such as this...

[DaveKillens]

Anyway, the race was good, but I don't agree that it was interesting to watch Webber stuck behind Piquet due to the KERS difference. KERS was introduced to increase overtaking, not to stifle it. It looks as if the non-KERS cars that get stuck behind the KERS blockers will probably end up pitting early simply to get out from behind the block, and make up enough time to leapfrog when the blocking car pits.

Barrichello did just that. He was coming up on a gaggle of slower cars, and immediately jumped into the pits, ahead of schedule.

I hope that the remedy is in place for the rest of the season. I do NOT wish to see any drivers die from failures such as this...

Agreed, something like that would be as bad as it could get. Personally, the events of April 30th, and May 1st, 1994 still haunt me. Terribly.

[Fil]

for the amount of money and time these teams spend, you'd think they could successfully run a water pump for their drivers..

[ISLAMATRON]

Bahrain, might be too hot, a night race maybe?

[NormanBates]

I wondered today why we haven't heard louder complaints about the weather conditions in this race: passing out at 300km/h seems quite life threatening, even in a circuit in the middle of the desert

in any case, nobody is forcing him to stay in the car, he could pull out at any time if he wanted; I surely would have done so, but then that may be the reason I'm not driving an f1 car... these guys are a pretty self-selected bunch
(edit: that should be ONE reason, the other one being I'd pretty much suck; what was I thinking...)

now alonso really has to come back and win the title by one point, to make his feat from yesterday absolutely legendary

[Conceptual]

A night race would be cool (pun intended). If I was the organizer of the Singapore GP, I would be renting out that enormously expensive lighting system to any and every place that considered a night race just to recoup some of the investment, and possibly make a profit!

Night races in the desert may get too cold however. If I recall correctly, deserts tend to get REALLY cold after the sun goes down, due to the lack of moisture in the air to retain the heat, so it may be 45 during the day, but only 15 at night!

Although, I do believe that Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Las Vegas(hint:hint) would ALL be great to be held at night. And like I said, the Singapore lighting system could possibly generate enough money while making its rounds to actually fund the extorsion perpetrated by Bernie to allow the Singapore GP to be on the calendar.

But what do I know...

[ISLAMATRON]

They rent the lighting system from a Italian company. so they cant really ship it anywhere, but other venues can rent it from the same company.

[sdimm]

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

Poor Fernando, really sucks... why is it that those drinking-devices are broken for at least one driver every race?

You can really see how he concentrates as hell trying to fight it. That straight look says it all.

[Conceptual]

They rent the lighting system from a Italian company. so they cant really ship it anywhere, but other venues can rent it from the same company.

I'm actually surprised that the owner of that system isn't pushing it more. I'm sure that Bernie would love all of the middle eastern races to be night races, and Bahrain would look cool under the lights!

When are we going to see "water sprinkler" systems installed at these bone dry tracks so it can ALWAYS be a wet race there? The guy from the Abu Dhabi circuit said something about a "unique" race experience, maybe they are gonna do the wet race sim?

[djos]

They rent the lighting system from a Italian company. so they cant really ship it anywhere, but other venues can rent it from the same company.

I'm actually surprised that the owner of that system isn't pushing it more. I'm sure that Bernie would love all of the middle eastern races to be night races, and Bahrain would look cool under the lights!

Prolly cause you need a small nuclear reactor to power the system?

[ESPImperium]

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. :mrgreen:

anyway, thats my few cents worth. :lol:

I like your idea for the engines, but the last part, id make each engine last a maximum of 4 races, and the gearboxes last 8 races, with gearboxes costing no more than $250,000 each, meaning that a team could get a complete drive train for arround a couple of million dollars a season. With the Standard ECU and a standardised telemetry system. will make entering the sport easier. Im all for that. Id keep aero regs and such the same for each team as well to keep it a level playing field of sorts.

Teams that want to compete on theese parameters could have greater allowance for time in the windmill factory and more time for the boffins to play with their computers meaning altho aero regs would be the same, they would have more time to play with new things, even allow them full scale wind tunnel testing as well, compaired to the non cost cutting crew, who would have as much as 50% less time that the smaller teams.

Id also maximise the ammount of team members to tech race to arrround 50-75 per team, and that included engineers of all levels, media assistants, trainers, and drivers as well, as theres no need for a team to lug arround 100+ to each and every event. Factory staffing would be arround the 400-500 mark for the ideal level for me as well.

Back on topic...

Poor Fernando, heat exaustion is a bad thing. And shurly there should be a rule that the water bottle should always work, but i supose it can break as well.

[Ray]

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

I can't get over just how frightening he looks. Being as hydrated as these guys are, being athletes and all, it's scary to see him in that bad a shape. Makes me respect the talents and abilities of these guys even more.

[Conceptual]

They rent the lighting system from a Italian company. so they cant really ship it anywhere, but other venues can rent it from the same company.

I'm actually surprised that the owner of that system isn't pushing it more. I'm sure that Bernie would love all of the middle eastern races to be night races, and Bahrain would look cool under the lights!

Prolly cause you need a small nuclear reactor to power the system?

Actually, it comes with it's own generators...