Bahrain GP 2010 - BIC

[Jersey Tom]

As I said. A bit early for the exhaust durability remarks

And hey. Faulty parts happen. Not often, but they happen. Such is life. Never going to have 100% QC.

[ESPImperium]

Congrats Fernando, Felipe and Lotus as the high points of the race. Well done Hispania for getting cars into the race altho from the pits, and Vitantonio for scoring points. Disapointment by Virgin for not being as prepaired as they could have been and Michael and Vettel in the race, one for how his race pace was and the other for his car falling appart.

The most uninteresting race we could have. Wouldnt have been like that in the refuling era. Even 2005 season races were more fun with the single tyre rule for the race.

I think that there needs to be a couple, or many things to happen for the show to be improved. And my list is like this:

* Mandadatory single tyre stop
* Bring back refueling, but teams also have the right to run full tank strategies if they want, and run a steady Eddie strategies to get in the points from they back of the feild.
* Refueling to be on a "fuel only stop" where tyres cannot be replaced
* Refueling must be made with NASCAR style cannisters, gravity fed from one single "can" on the garrage side of the pits.
* Make tyres about 30% more marginal on what they are currently
- Super softs to fall off the cliff at arround 12 laps
- Softs to fall off the cliff about lap 15
- Mediums to fall off arround lap 21
- Hards to fall away arround lap 28
* When a tyre falls off the cliff, they should loose a driver arround 3-5 seconds a lap.
* Drivers in Q3: Must complete a mandatory 4 laps in a "shootout feel" quali session, with race fuel on board on the option tyre, both of whitch are carried over to the race.

For the cars, id bring back 2008 front wings, but keep the cars as they are at current, but with a diffuser that is inface steeper, but shallower. What i am getting at is they are 225mm high, but they cannot start before the rear wheel centre line.

Engine and gearbox rules:
* 8 engines per driver for the year.
- Each engine must be used consecuitivly, no engines that are changed in and out for practice sessions like there was last year.
- If you change a engine between Quali and the race, you incur a 10 place drop at that race.
* 6 gearboxes per driver for the year.
- Gear boxes can be changed out, as each driver is allowed 2 long, 2 short and 2 medium ratio gearboxes.
- Allow final drive ratios to be changed on any gearbox once per season.

All cars to have a "data strip" on the air box on each side of each car with, Chassis Number, Engine Number and Gearbox number with Driver name and nationality on it.

Adjustable aero on front wings only, anything that stalls rear wings to be made illegal. Also allow the ride-height to be mechanically adjusted, but only while stationary at tyre and fuel stops.

I know some ideas are somnewhat "contrived" but i think it would improve the strategy, but feel that thosw ideas will improve the way the F1 is seen. Lots to follow to the fan and leyman.

[vall]

I think nobody mentioned Petrov. Having in mind that it was his first race in Bahrain, and that he is a rookie, he was simply amazing. Unfortunately, broken suspension ended his race at p11 after starting 17th.

I thought so too. He was doing really well until the problem....

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

All I can say is after all the hype, where does F1 go after Bahrain?
Its an absolute disgrace that drivers are driving round at 80% looking after the car so as not to destroy the tyres.
Im an optimist, and was really looking forward to 2010. But after today I really think our sport is in for a long and very boring season indeed. My F1 affections are being sorely tested and I see a bleak future......I hope im wrong.

[manchild]

I think that there needs to be a couple, or many things to happen for the show to be improved. And my list is like this:
...

I have completely different opinion about what causes the boredom.

Mandatory tyre change made almost no difference with racing when refueling was allowed. In the old days, when there was no refueling, racing was good because there was no mandatory tyre change. So one could dare to try his luck, or change tyres.

Tyre change should be allowed, but not mandatory. Just one single compound that can last whole race, and that's it. Fill the cars, and race.

Lets not forget another thing that makes this refueling ban unsuccessful - engine and gearbox life time expectancy. If engine could be changed for every race, than we wouldn't hear radio comm: "Take care of the engine, it has to last for your son, grandson, and perhaps even great-grandson!"

This is just endurance show. So much political and financial-related regulations kill any possibility for real racing.

I've always said - let F1 be liberal as it was in its glorious days, and if that isn't possible for financial reasons, than let it go in history.

This was the first race I've watched after a year and half, and I find it pointless. I've been watching F1 races, every race for over 20 years before the pause, and today I've seen I haven't missed a thing in 2008 & 2009.

If there could be a place for suggestion, than I'd suggest a rule saying that if a driver finishes race on lower place than the former race, points from the former race would be stripped. This would go only for the point winning drivers as a motivation, so no one would sleep and calculate.

[manchild]

John Noble says that it's a fauly spark plug.

Christ. I don't know what Renault are supplying Red Bull with, but they're going to have to be read the riot act. Since RB is their best chance of actually winning I don't know what they're doing.

Teams don't make spark-plugs. Renault uses Champion if I'm not mistaken. They buy them finished.

To get an idea of the precision of the components of an F1 engine, McMurray told me that when Champion builds its F1 spark plugs, the length varies minutely from plug to plug. This is known as manufacturing tolerance; for the F1 plugs, the difference from the longest to the shortest plug is only 0.002 inch, or about the same as the thickness of the paper you're holding in your hands. If a spark plug is on the long side, the piston might hit it, so teams machine a divot in the piston or shim the spark plugs with washers.

Over the course of a year, Champion produces about 10,000 of these special units, and they're not cheap. Whereas you or I might pay two bucks for a spark plug, an F1 team coughs up between $35 and $50 each, or as much as $500 per engine. We all know the old racing adage: "Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?"

[Pedro]

Bahrain GP

Fastest laps:



Pit stops:


Source: F1news.cz

[dave kumar]

Well this settles one argument for me. Refuelling strategy wasn't an easy way to overtake people it was the only way. Removed as a strategy for gaining track position didn't magically give drivers the ability to gain the position in another way. We did see some tactical overtaking as there is a window of opportunity if you stop first for a change of tyres as the fresh rubber seemed to be worth a few seconds a lap. So if you're close enough to the man in front you can make this work. But with everybody one stopping this was a very limited opportunity.

Can we expect more diverse tyre strategies in the future? For someone to switch to a two stop strategy during a race, if we say a pit stop takes between 20 and 30 seconds depending on the circuit and you chose to stop with 20 laps to go, you would want that fresh rubber to give you upwards of 2 seconds a lap advantage all the way to the finish line to regain the lost time and still have some laps to overtake those on a one stopper. Tough call, I think this is why Martin Whitmarsh was calling for more marginal tyre compounds

'...But I think if we can now push on Bridgestone to have 'racier' tyres, we need a super-soft tyre that is really going to hurt if you take it to 20 laps. You shouldn't be able to do that with a super-soft tyre and I think even the prime, if it's a struggle to get it to do half a race distance, then you force [the issue].'
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82145

This would allow fresh rubber to have a bigger advantage.

...The proposed rule of making 2 stopping mandatory will make it even worse! All that's gonna change is when to stop. Takes another variable out...

Tyre change should be allowed, but not mandatory. Just one single compound that can last whole race, and that's it. Fill the cars, and race...

I've always said - let F1 be liberal as it was in its glorious days, and if that isn't possible for financial reasons, than let it go in history...

I agree. Less mandatory this and that. It is restricting strategies. We need diversity, choice comes from freedom. Liberty I say!

Today we had very similar strategies by the top 9 drivers on the start grid (no. 10 was Sutil and he qualified on hard compounds because they had used all the super softs getting in to Q3, according to Radio 5). We get a domino effect as soon as one of the top drivers stops, the rest will tend to follow so as to minimise the chance of losing track position. So throughout the race cars have the same fuel, and tyres are have done a similar number of laps assuming all are one stopping.

There seems to be a combination of factors causing this lock step:

• *The need to start the race on the tyres you qualified on (will teams be brave enough to compromise qualifying to go further in the race especially seeing as the super soft lasted so well).
  *The need to use both compounds during a race means that you know which compound your competitors will use in the next stint (again assuming two stopping remains rare)

But most of all there will need to be a bigger difference in tyre degradation between tyre compounds and the tyres will need to be more marginal over the race distance for there to be enough speed differential for cars to overtake on track given the present aerodynamic penalty for following another car closely.
The tyre compounds that Bridgestone bring to races can be changed as a short term fix to the problem but longer term more than banning DDDs needs to be done to allow closer racing.

We must remember that this is only one race. Let's not rush to conclusions. Teams may evolve more complex strategies as the season progresses. I'm just afraid that the rules as they stand will encourage teams to converge to the same race strategy.

[autogyro]

Not much has been posted on the RB6.
IMO it shows Adrian Newey as the best designer out there.
Just a better basic design that works well.
No bells and whistles just good design.
Last year it was beaten by the Brawn defusser, this year only by reliability so far.
Ferrari won by default in Bahrain, best of the rest.
Vettel should become 2010 Champion but this is F1, so who knows.

[_GOGGS_]

All I can say is after all the hype, where does F1 go after Bahrain?
Its an absolute disgrace that drivers are driving round at 80% looking after the car so as not to destroy the tyres.
Im an optimist, and was really looking forward to 2010. But after today I really think our sport is in for a long and very boring season indeed. My F1 affections are being sorely tested and I see a bleak future......I hope im wrong.

There was much hype about how exciting this season was going to be, with anyone being able to take to the challenge and many different race winners. While I still believe any of the big four will take home the prize, I have to agree with you on the fact that there was nothing really exciting about the actualy racing.

F1 needs to get back to a spec of car that will allow cars to follow more closely, perhaps more of a return to mechanical grip and less aero. The idea of the diffuser is great on one hand but completely useless for the spectacle aspect. We all can think of many examples for ways to spice things up, but quite frankly, i think the easiest solution would be to take the handcuffs off and let teams break away from the cookie-cutter car designs and come up with simple regulations that will allow the cars to be designed for close-quarter racing. Yes perhaps two mandatory tire changes might help, perhaps no mandatory tire changes might help. Too many superficial changes have been made to artificially spice up the sport or even the playing field that perhaps it's time to take a step back and just let teams and engineers loose for a bit, and let them bring whatever best they can come up with to the track on any given Sunday and see who brought the best package.

Do any of you remember the days when some cars had huge fans on the back, some ran v12s others v8s, or how about 4 front tires? Do you remember the days that up and down the grid no two cars looked the same? Even the late 80s and early 90s had way better action. Why all the changes? simply simplify would be my apporach.

I know many will say, you can't do that because different teams operate with different budgets and it would not be fair to the smaller teams....poppycock or bullshit - you pick. Don't have enough money to be running with the big boys in what is supposed to be the most elite racing league on earth? Then maybe you need to find some sponsors and investors to help, or simply get out and make room for those who can compete. Solution, introduce a reasonable cap of $200-$250 Million.

Maybe i'm just getting old and cranky, i'm sure some of you might have similar ideas though.

Anyway, Well done Ferrari and Alonso and Massa. Good job by Vettel to hang in there and lead most of the GP and hats off to Lewis as well for a podium finish that the car probably didn't deserve. Suprised to see Schumi that rusty and finishing behind young gun Rosberg. Good job to Liuzzi as well for a points finish. How about Lotus bringing home both cars...although just barely.

No surprise Virgin failed to go all the way!

[Just_a_fan]

Adjustable aero on front wings only, anything that stalls rear wings to be made illegal. Also allow the ride-height to be mechanically adjusted, but only while stationary at tyre and fuel stops.

I know some ideas are somnewhat "contrived" but i think it would improve the strategy, but feel that thosw ideas will improve the way the F1 is seen. Lots to follow to the fan and leyman.

Why not actually allow rear adjustable aero? The rear wing is part of the problem with overtaking anyway. If we can reduce the upwash from the rear wing we might help cars follow each other. Adjustable front aero on its own has done little to help the cars run close together.

Rear wing stalling has come to the forefront this year but it's been going on for a while. Look at the Ferrari rear wing as an example: the overlap of the flap to the main plane in the outer areas is almost certainly designed to stall the wing at speed by altering the slot flow.

With regard tyre changes, get rid of the "two types per race" rubbish and have one compound for the weekend. No mandatory changes or other things contrived "to help the show". Anything that is contrived is likely to backfire anyway (law of unforeseen consequences etc.).

[manchild]

Mandatory - safety regulations.

Non-mandatory - everything else.

Recipe for interesting F1 is as simple as that.

[rfs]

I'm no engineer, but my suggestion to change the aerodynamics to aid overtaking would be to use simplified, 2008-size wings, ban raised nosecones, and bring back ground effect rules. Also the tyres should be made fatter to give drivers more mechanical grip.

Other minor changes I'd suggest (and which they can enforce NOW):
--Don't make pitstops mandatory.
--Don't force teams to use both compounds of tyres.
--Don't force teams to preserve engines, gearboxes, or anything for more than one race. This is not endurance racing.
--Ban parc-ferme. Let them use a specialised qualifying setup, and let them fine tune their race setup some more afterwards.

Also, if Bridgestone can make a tyre that the drivers can abuse a bit without destroying them, please do. Thanks.

[WhiteBlue]

Our earlier race report stated that Sebastian Vettel’s loss of power on lap 33 of the Bahrain Grand Prix was due to an exhaust problem,” said a team statement. However, further investigations by the team have proven that the loss of power was actually due to a spark plug failure and not the exhaust.

[segedunum]

Teams don't make spark-plugs. Renault uses Champion if I'm not mistaken. They buy them finished.

I didn't say RB made them but no, the teams never have done (I think Lotus tried to fiddle with them on the Cosworth on the 49 and got stung, unless RB have been stupid enough to do that), but there has to be a reason for it somewhere. Renault always seems to end up being the common denominator. Either that or it's how Red Bull are packaging and installing it.

It's all become rather silly and embarrassing now for a race winning, and supposedly title challenging, team.