Bahrain GP 2010 - BIC

[andrew]

You obviously havn't got a clue about the issue you are talking of.

Well you just came accorss as a total jerk. That sort of attitude belongs on idiot sites like crash.net.

Max Mosley wanted a budget cap, he wanted new teams to enter with Cosworth engines, he wanted no refueling, he wanted engines to last several races, in short he devised the rules which have killed the racing. He also allowed the double diffuser which makes the air behind a car so turbulent that it'll severely hinder the following car and wreck the following cars tyres.

[segedunum]

Interesting observation. I hadn't noticed that at all, but looking back at some footage I think you might be right. I was too busy looking at the char grilled floor. I certainly didn't think ride-height adjustments were going to come in for a few races yet for many teams, but it looks as if Red Bull might have something up their sleeve there.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the effect of any ride height drop-off because the Red Bull didn't last long enough into the latter part of the race so we couldn't compare. Webber was stuck behind Button so we didn't see if there was any relative difference in pace with other cars that might give us an indication that they have something.

[marcush.]

One thing I noticed, or at least I think I did.
The RB6 seemed to have a very low ride height at the end of the race.
Some of the other cars had daylight under them.
I think Adrian has a little trick up his sleeve on this.

i think i have seem something on the Redbulls pushrods ...a change of designin the upper mount... has anyone a picture of the pushrod ends?

[vall]

Macca were odered by FIA to modify their diffuser. This should affect their downforce levels, right? So, they may find it more difficult in the next few races..

The reports I've seen have said that it has to be rectified for the next race. So I guess that means it does not give a significant performance advantage - a sign of sensible stewarding?

If I am not wrong, the rule says that only a hole of minimal size (no dimension specified) for the sole purpose use the manual engine starter. FAI finds that few team made that hole unnecessary large and ordered to revise the diffusers. To figure what what performance gain it give is hard without a detailed analysis, no?

[BreezyRacer]

Interesting observation. I hadn't noticed that at all, but looking back at some footage I think you might be right. I was too busy looking at the char grilled floor. I certainly didn't think ride-height adjustments were going to come in for a few races yet for many teams, but it looks as if Red Bull might have something up their sleeve there.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the effect of any ride height drop-off because the Red Bull didn't last long enough into the latter part of the race so we couldn't compare. Webber was stuck behind Button so we didn't see if there was any relative difference in pace with other cars that might give us an indication that they have something.

I saw that with all the cars, including the Ferrari. And did you see them coming off the jacks in the pit lane? They bounce like basketballs! They have to be running nearly infinite spring rates with very little anti roll bar and tones of bump dampening and bump stops.

[WhiteBlue]

Well you just came accorss as a total jerk. That sort of attitude belongs on idiot sites like crash.net.

And here you continue that tradition of cluelessness and add insult to your repertoir. Remarkably bolt for a rookie with 10 posts. Most of your points have nothing to do with the quality of racing as I can show you:

Max Mosley wanted a budget cap, he wanted new teams to enter with Cosworth engines, he wanted no refueling, he wanted engines to last several races, in short he devised the rules which have killed the racing. He also allowed the double diffuser which makes the air behind a car so turbulent that it'll severely hinder the following car and wreck the following cars tyres.

Budget cap has no impact on the quality of racing except maybe we would promote ingenuity over resources which would spice up the show. The racing in the 50ties, 60ties, 70ties and 80ties were done on much lower budgets than the proposed and were often thrilling. The arguments against the budget cap were a difficulty of policing it, the interest of the top teams to maintain their power base and the social aspect of a quick reduction of work forces. Racing was never an argument by the contra proponents.

The Cosworth engines are simply an insurance for the continuity of F1 if even more manufacturers leave F1. Williams have raced it quite respectably compared to their Toyota power last season. It cannot be shown to have a negative impact on racing.

Multi race engines and gearboxes are no impediment to thrilling races as the two last seasons have shown.

The refuelling ban proposal did not come from Max but is an original FOTA cost cutting proposal which was first genuinely proposed by David Coulthard in his ITV column in 2008.

“From my point of view a bigger drawback of refuelling is that it detracts from the racing by turning the grand prix into a series of low-fuel sprints between pit stops. In the days (pre-1994) when you carried your entire race fuel load on board the car, there was a much bigger role for the driver in managing the tyres and brakes. These days, in dry conditions, you very rarely see anyone win from further back than the second row of the grid, because race pace largely mirrors qualifying pace – which is not surprising when the conditions are so similar.”

The double diffusor is a result of a loop hole in the 2009 rules which were proposed by the OWG and decided by the teams voting. Mosley wanted a fixed downforce limit of 1,25 metric tons which was opposed by the teams. The ruling on the double diffusor was not done by Mosley but by the judges of the ICA who are independent from the president of the FiA.

You can see that you got each point absolutely wrong. This why I told you that you have no clue. Obviously you listen only to popular myths that are distributed by people with an anti FiA agenda.

[Miguel]

I feel that you don't counterargument the double diffuser point successfully, whiteblue. You base your argument in a loophole left by OWG, perhaps trying to imply that the fault lies in them. No matter whether the OWG is at fault or not, implying "but the OWG left the loophole!" doesn't make it falser that the DDDs are hurting racing.

Perhaps the lack of racing is caused by the extreme professionalism of both drivers and engineers. The idea that no refueling would help racing is based on two premises. The first one is that drivers don't overtake their peers not because they can't, but because a pitstop is enough. However, this would require exact knowledge of when the next car would pit, and anything resembling this was only available last year. Furthermore, do you really think any of these ultracompetitive personalities would rather wait even one lap behind the car in front than attempt an overtaking? Look at the Virgin versus Lotus fights yesterday. The second premise is that the extra wear of components coupled with different fuel management (and this is similar to the single race tyres of 2005) will eventually lead to a large speed differential, and will hopefully result a great show. It is likely that only one optimal solution exists, and when you couple clever people with advanced simulation techiniques, I think it's unlikely many of the top teams would do this wrongly and/or very differently.

Come on, I can predict the properties of a material (as long as it doesn't have rare earth elements) to an unbelievable degree of accuracy by knowing only the chemical composition. Yes, I can predict the crystal structure of Lithium, its density, its bulk modulus, its elastic constants (all of these give or take 5%) its melting point and even its superconducting critical temperature (20-30%) knowing only that lithium has three electrons. Come on. Are these guys not able to find out the optimal pace for a 305km + 1 lap race?

[WhiteBlue]

I feel that you don't counterargument the double diffuser point successfully, whiteblue. You base your argument in a loophole left by OWG, perhaps trying to imply that the fault lies in them. No matter whether the OWG is at fault or not, implying "but the OWG left the loophole!" doesn't make it falser that the DDDs are hurting racing.

I do not argue that the double diffusor hurts the racing. That is pretty obvious by itself. I just say that the FiA and Max Mosley never wanted that situation. The FiA seriously fought downforce exceeding 1,25 tons since 2007. They proposed the CDG wing to help overtaking and mandated that the total downforce must not exceed 1,25 tons at all times in their 2007 written 2008 technical rule proposal. They also proposed that wings could be active to limit downforce and drag on the straights.

That proposal was vehemently opposed by the leading teams Ferrari, McLaren and Renault at that time. They installed the OWG that did practical research including wind tunnel tests with two cars following each other. The opposition to the FiA proposals delayed measures for better overtaking by 2 years. The OWG found that the CDG wing wasn't the best solution but proposed the wide front wing with standard center section and the narrow rear wings. They also predicted a reduction of downforce to the desired level.

This was a huge miscalculation which became apparent when the 2009 cars (which was the first year of the implementation) without double diffusor were already exceeding the limit by more than 50%. With the double diffusors they had more than 2 tons and this year it has increased probably to 2,5 or 3 tons which is more than twice as much as the FiA had mandated.

To attribute the rise of the DDDs to the FiA is turning things absolutely upside down. The leading teams via the OWG are responsible for the silly wings and the DDDs. It is historically documented that Ross Brawn warned the FOTA teams not to implement the diffusor rules but they did not listen. The FiA followed the expertise of the OWG and look what this expertise has delivered. A dead end which has delayed a necessary cut in downforce for 5 years. We now will have to wait for 2011 to see a reduction in downforce that has been demanded in 2007 by the federation. I predict that as blinkered and selfish as the teams are the simple and elegant solution to limit the downforce to a physical specification will be once again disregarded.

[piast9]

I disagree with opinion that Bahrain race was particularly boring this year. It was similar to many races from last year. Just because of my personal interests I watched closely at the Kubica's fight after his unfortunate incident with Sutil at the first lap. And there was a lot (in F1 terms) of overtaking (too bad that not shown in TV, I've watched at the F1 live timing) just when cars differed with speed. The same was for Sutil. I think that the top teams are very close now in terms of performance and that is the main reason for lack of action.
The tyre rules may be changed, compounds may be changed so tyres would last for 15 laps to force more pitstops but it won't change the general picture. The most entertaining would be a rule forcing the drivers from odd places at the grid to start on prime tyres and from even places at option ones

[Miguel]

Kubica's race was excellent. However, looking at the live timing does distort the picture one has of the race. Because, even when "nothing's" happening, you do see racing in the live timing window. There you see every single driver battling for every single tenth in every single sector. You also notice quick changes in the gap before the TV Crew does. It's so important that next race I might not watch the BBC feed fullscreen in order to watch the live timing window.

By the way, whiteblue, I think we're on "the spirit of the rules" trap. You could see how none of the OWG teams had a double diffuser. Was it just sheer luck? Perhaps. I find it ironical that, right after a regulation change that aimed to shrink the diffusers, we're seeing maybe the biggest diffusers ever. When I saw McLaren's diffuser at Nürburgring last year, I thought it was more a bathtub than a diffuser. I still think so. We've seen the spirit of the rules raped again this year, with the Ferrari rims. What's worse, it was said in the bbc that the rims are homologated for a year from Bahrain on, so no other team can copy them should they provide an advantage.

In any case, I doubt these cars are producing anything close to three tons of downforce. Two at most in some conditions. If they produced 3 tons, they'd cornering easily at 6g.

[Pup]

...The OWG found that the CDG wing wasn't the best solution but proposed the wide front wing with standard center section and the narrow rear wings. They also predicted a reduction of downforce to the desired level.

This was a huge miscalculation which became apparent when the 2009 cars (which was the first year of the implementation) without double diffusor were already exceeding the limit by more than 50%. With the double diffusors they had more than 2 tons and this year it has increased probably to 2,5 or 3 tons which is more than twice as much as the FiA had mandated.

Personally, I agree that the OWG flubbed it; and I think that's primarily because the rear wings that came out in '09 were far more radical than anyone thought would happen. The diffusers didn't help, but my guess is that the wing is the real culprit. As has been pointed out many times in the McLaren threads, today's wings are essentially just big airbrakes...

2008 Monaco:


2009 Monaco:


But you can only criticize them so much. It isn't as if their goal or process is particularly flawed; whereas I would argue that the FIA's push toward standardization is indeed a flawed philosophy.

[segedunum]

I don't know why most of the comments that are obviously about specific cars have been magically copied to this thread.............. It's absolutely impossible to keep track of who replied to what.

[Ray]

With all the talk about tire management going on, at least this isn't NASCAR where you are guaranteed a tire failure at least 3 or 4 times a race. That series and their tires are a joke.

[WhiteBlue]

I don't think their tyres are so bad. The cars are just very heavy and the utilization very intense.

I don't know why most of the comments that are obviously about specific cars have been magically copied to this thread.............. It's absolutely impossible to keep track of who replied to what.

The moderators have decided to do their job. The place has looked like a mess for some time. I guess enough was enough.

[ds.raikkonen]

One of the dullest races ive ever seen....apart from the last bit obviously. If this is the kind of procession that will be called a Formula 1 race, I might as well as watch stock car racing or something. No offense to anybody here, just what i thought after literally dozing off half way through!