Bahrain GP 2010 - BIC

[ringo]

It was the drivers doing it. Some cases i was seeing maybe 306 or 304 on the telemetry. The 313 and 314 were few and far betwteen. Maybe they were under pressure and couldn't bother to use the fin wing.
Exit on the penultimate turn also depends how much speed the can build coming down the stretch.
What i also noticed on the telemetry is that the driver's left foot was always on the brake pedal, even on the straights. This suggest the snorkel is operated by the arm or the knee.

The brakes were at 2% by default. Which either means the displacement sensor was offset at this value, or the driver was resting his foot on the brake pedal on the straights, he did not move it over to a hole.

About the downforce. I think being in the top 3 with speed means that they have good down force, but not ungodly downforce like the redbull.
They should naturally recover more downforce when they switch back to the original engine cover in Melbourne.
I don't like the Mp4 24 like engine cover and i believe it adds drag, and takes off some of the pressure off the floor area ahead and between the rear wheels.
The nose snow plow can also be improved, floor edges and the diffuser as well.

I have some ideas for up grages i am going to draw up. Maybe Mclaren could use some of them.

[Giblet]

The car seemed reliable and deadly quick, apart from an 'off the shelf' part.

From what it seemed like, the car was fine. Sometimes brake disks fail, off the shelf as well.

Other than the standard tear down and build up they do after every race, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong.

I wonder what the percentage is of off the shelf parts that fail.

The oil in the cylinder for Mark was dramatic, but again, not much Red Bull can do, unless the put too much oil in the car.

[Giblet]

I like the female interviewer, who's name I can't give the honor of remembering, said the exact same thing to every driver who fell out of the race early.

"Drive Name, just tell us what went wrong...."

She said this exact same line about 4 times.

It was also odd not having Peter Windsor doing the post race interviews. I assume he didn't make it to the GP, which must have been heavy on him, as he hasn't missed a race in god knows how long.

[Giblet]

With their blown wing idea, i was expecting a bit more top end speed. What do you guys think??

It's hard to say, as we don't have a baseline with the car it is on. If we saw it run with, and without the blown wing, we could say "It adds 10km/h to the car", but we can't.

[Belatti]

* 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.

Really do you think is THAT easy?
If the answer is yes, go and send a CV to Bridgestone.

[feynman]

...
The brakes were at 2% by default. Which either means the displacement sensor was offset at this value, or the driver was resting his foot on the brake pedal on the straights, he did not move it over to a hole.
...

That 2% is the exact reason you should put too much emphasis on anything you see in the "telemetry".

The official explanation is that is where the sensor zeroed itself, which means you aint getting calibrated, normalized data.

Of course if you think those are the real numbers, and haven't had a light smearing from a random-number generator before they headed out onto the world wide web, then I've got a bridge that you might be interested in purchasing.

[ringo]

Yeah, i was wondering about data manipulation. However i think it's possible the pedals have some free play in them to allow the driver to rest his foot. Similar to a clutch pedal in most street cars.
Anyone know if this is true?

On a different note, Hamilton seems to have some engineering skills. He diagnosed Vettel's problem after pulling up beside him to pass.

HAM:"His engine's not firing on all banks."

He has a good ear. It turned out to be a spark plug issue.

[Shrieker]

On a different note, Hamilton seems to have some engineering skills. He diagnosed Vettel's problem after pulling up beside him to pass.

HAM:"His engine's not firing on all banks."

He has a good ear. It turned out to be a spark plug issue.

Sure is nice to hear that Impressive stuff.

[ringo]

Instant fixes are for bridgestone to whip up some of the 2009 tyres.
That is an easy fix to get the tyres more edgy. 2009 tyres are softer and are the same size as this year's, should be cheap and easy to reintroduce them down the line.

[MattyT]

I'll take a stab at a theory:

1.)Scrap parc-ferme and return to true qualifying.
2.)Scrap the starting on the tyre you qualified on rule. This encourages people to qualify as high as possible. I don't believe P11 should get an advantage over P10.
3.)Maintain the need to use both sets of tyre during the race.


I think if the drivers weren't worried about wrecking their tyres in qualy 3, it would spice up qualifying, while also making the racing more interesting by truely offering different strategies in the race.

Perhaps also make sure that no tyre could last more than half a race distance, thereby introducing a required (but not manditory) additional stop.

[WhiteBlue]

Some results of my statistics and analysis from WDC and WCC odds.

[WhiteBlue]

I'll take a stab at a theory:

1.)Scrap parc-ferme and return to true qualifying.
2.)Scrap the starting on the tyre you qualified on rule. This encourages people to qualify as high as possible. I don't believe P11 should get an advantage over P10.
3.)Maintain the need to use both sets of tyre during the race.


I think if the drivers weren't worried about wrecking their tyres in qualy 3, it would spice up qualifying, while also making the racing more interesting by truely offering different strategies in the race.

Perhaps also make sure that no tyre could last more than half a race distance, thereby introducing a required (but not manditory) additional stop.

+1

But compound optimization of the tyres should also be looked at.

[Pierce89]

On a different note, Hamilton seems to have some engineering skills. He diagnosed Vettel's problem after pulling up beside him to pass.

HAM:"His engine's not firing on all banks."

He has a good ear. It turned out to be a spark plug issue.

Sure is nice to hear that Impressive stuff.

You could hear it on TV, so I would hope Hami could hear it.

[dave34m]

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.

mate you are totally right, that was an absolute disgrace. I couldn't agree more. it was painful to watch in places, not what F1 should be about at all. I'm scratching my head about the whole thing.

I was afraid that this could have happened, I'm sure we all remember with horror the season with no tyre chances, first race this year was much worse than anything that year

[Roland Ehnström]

I think it was pretty interesting.

Sure everyone was super-cautious, but that's normal for the first race of the season with these rule changes and limited testing. As the year progresses teams and drivers will get more agressive. We will see drivers opting for 2-stop strategies, which for sure is faster on paper (they would have been 3 seconds a lap faster in the end) as long as you don't get stuck in traffic. It should make for some interesting decitions and great racing for position on the track in the final laps of the race.

Also remember that Bahrain is a track that has pretty low tire wear. On other tracks this conservative 1-stop strategy may not be feasible.

My wish-list for next season:

- Have Bridgestone make the drop-off in the tires a bit bigger than it was here at Bahrain, a 1-stop strategy should be a bit more of a gamble, especially if you pit way before half-distance.
- Ban double-diffusers to make overtaking easier, so that teams are less afraid of getting stuck in traffic if they pit for a fresh set with 15 laps to go.
- Scrap the rule about having to start the race on the compound you set your fastest qualifying lap on, it adds nothing to the exitement, just makes Q3 less interesting with less drivers going for pole.
- Scrap the rule about having to use both compounds during the race, let the teams choose themselves according to their strategy (2-stopper on softs or 1-stopper on hards?).