European GP 2010 - Valencia

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Mate you and Blackout are Renault and Kubica fanboys.
Nought wrong with that, but both your comments reek of fanboyism.

Its amusing you think the R30 is intrinsically a quicker car because it simply is not. a W01 has finished ahead of an R30 more often than not.

[Richard]

How much of the above conversation is relevant to the specifics of the Valencia circuit?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

How much of the above conversation is relevant to the specifics of the Valencia circuit?

About as much as your own?

[Donuts]

How much of the above conversation is relevant to the specifics of the Valencia circuit?

Well, I guess it's R30 vs. W01 in Valencia! It got out of hand... nobody mentioned R30 as a contender, so I did. I am 100% sure that R30 is going to outperform W01 in Valencia!

[godlameroso]

GRID | TOP EIGHT | 2009
1 L Hamilton McLaren 1:39.498
2 H Kovalainen McLaren
3 R Barrichello Brawn GP
4 S Vettel Red Bull
5 J Button Brawn GP
6 K Räikkönen Ferrari
7 N Rosberg Williams
8 F Alonso Renault

RESULT | TOP EIGHT | 2009
1 R Barrichello Brawn GP
2 L Hamilton McLaren
3 K Räikkönen Ferrari
4 H Kovalainen McLaren
5 N Rosberg Williams
6 F Alonso Renault
7 J Button Brawn GP
8 R Kubica BMW

FASTEST LAP | 2009
T Glock Toyota 1:38.683

LAP RECORD
T Glock Toyota 1:38.683

PREVIOUS POLE POSITIONS
2008 F Massa Ferrari 1:38.989

PIT STOP SCHEDULE
1 Stop 27-33
2 Stops 12-15, 33-37
3 Stops 6-12, 20-27, 37-45

Turn 1 no lift right hander, turn 2 heavy braking for a 45 mph corner, coming out you have some downforce seeing as you're going around 80ish, coming out of turn 3 you're pushing about 110 for some more heavy braking for a left right chicane that they have labelled as two turns. Again just one line through the turns, and you're doing about 90 coming out so a little downforce is important.

Then a right bend that is taken flat out to some more heavy braking, here traction is crucial as you go over the bridge, some downforce is also needed in order to wear out your breaks as you full throttle into the next turn, which is painfully slow. The track is wide but going even one cm off line ruins your exit out of the turn which leads to the main straight line speed test of the track.

This leads to...more heavy braking, into 3 corner 180 degree combination which again is painfully slow into a short acceleration zone where traction is crucial into a slowish right hander taken at about 50 into a long flat out section to....more heavy braking for a slow 45 mph right hander. Which leads to the only fast and windy part of the circuit, which rewards downforce, as it leads onto a flat out section with a tricky heavy braking section to the last turn which is also painfully slow.

I guess the main themes are traction and brakes, they'll probably run aero configurations that run slightly more wing than the Canadian GP. Last year the surface was impeccable and if it remains so this year as well then it will probably lead to cars running very low and stiffly sprung as there aren't many curbs you can "ride".

[feynman]

I'd say two minor Red Bull corners here, through 4/5 and then 20. By Red Bull corners, ones with significant steering angle, and on the throttle, >16k rpm.

With four f-duct straights, each getting over 300kph, in a battle of blown-wings versus blown-diffusers, I'd go for the f-duct cars.

Which is why I am unsure why Ferrari are choosing Valencia to introduce their new rear end.
After Canada, you'd have to figure them strong for a good podium/victory ... now instead they will be surrendering valuable practice time, and trying to setup a brand new aero and mechanical configuration at a circuit where it won't make a huge difference.

Not much to gain even if works straight out the box, and plenty to lose if it upsets the car, or even just by setup time, puts you behind other slippery f-duct cars that have spent the whole weekend tuning.

I guess Valencia is an easier over-road from Maranello than Silverstone, in case you hastily need to get some new or old parts from the factory, I dunno, we'll see.

[WhiteBlue]

There may be a five-place grid penalty for Sebastian Vettel next week.
His gearbox problems occurred on the first weekend of a four-race cycle, so the team may face a grid drop in Valencia if they are unable to prove sufficient evident damage and change the broken parts in accordance with the rules.

[PlatinumZealot]

How much of the above conversation is relevant to the specifics of the Valencia circuit?

Well, I guess it's R30 vs. W01 in Valencia! It got out of hand... nobody mentioned R30 as a contender, so I did. I am 100% sure that R30 is going to outperform W01 in Valencia!

I also believe that the R30 has been a much faster car than the Mercedez from a few races ago. It's just that things haven't gone Renault's way in a few of the races.

[raceman]

There may be a five-place grid penalty for Sebastian Vettel next week.
His gearbox problems occurred on the first weekend of a four-race cycle, so the team may face a grid drop in Valencia if they are unable to prove sufficient evident damage and change the broken parts in accordance with the rules.

That will be a serious blow to the championship hopes for Vettel.....!

[djos]

I wonder if RB have a GB QA issue as that's the 2nd gb to have issues at the Canadian gp?

[WhiteBlue]

There may be a five-place grid penalty for Sebastian Vettel next week.
His gearbox problems occurred on the first weekend of a four-race cycle, so the team may face a grid drop in Valencia if they are unable to prove sufficient evident damage and change the broken parts in accordance with the rules.

That will be a serious blow to the championship hopes for Vettel.....!

It is not 100% sure that they will get this problem, as Krawitz mentioned. In fact I hope and speculate that the chance is 50/50 that they can change the faulty parts without penalty.

[lebesset]

with that tyre combination and the abrasive surface I expect to see the top team which is lightest on it's tyres winning here

and that looks to be ferrari

[gibells]

Quote from Autosport:

Bridgestone to make super-soft push

By Jonathan Noble and Edd Straw Thursday, June 17th 2010, 14:02 GMT

Formula 1 tyre supplier Bridgestone is ready to become more aggressive with its tyre choices for the rest of the season, AUTOSPORT can reveal, in a bid to make events as exciting as the Canadian Grand Prix.

After a weekend in Montreal where the racing was spiced up by high levels of tyre degradation, Bridgestone says it wants to try and engineer repeat situations in the future.

Bridgestone's director of motorsport tyre development Hirohide Hamashima told AUTOSPORT that as long as his company could guarantee the tyres would remain totally safe, it would now be willing to push harder to make life difficult for drivers.

"Our first priority is to provide safe tyres that are fair for everyone," said Hamashima. "I don't want to provide a blistering tyre, because that is a risk.

"But if we can confidently predict no blistering with the super-soft tyres, then we will allocate those tyres as much as possible in the remaining races."

Bridgestone has already made plans to bring the super-soft and the medium tyre to Valencia, while the soft and the hard will be used at the British Grand Prix.

The first race where its new 'super-soft' policy could be introduced, therefore, is the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim that takes place at the end of July.

But despite the eagerness to go more radical on the tyre choices, Hamashima is well aware that the track characteristics in Montreal contributed greatly to not allowing the tyres to work at their best.

"It's very smooth so the tyres didn't deform enough to get enough temperature, especially in the beginning of the race," said Hamashima. "We learned so many things during this race and will analyse the tyres to learn for the future."

So we may or may not have the same tyre problems in Valencia. Anyone remember how smooth/grippy the tarmac is from last year?

[timbo]

This is the first circuit this year where Schu never raced. Would be interesting to see how fast he adapts.

[ISLAMATRON]

What he says about tire deformation makes absolutely no sense to me... what does the smoothness of the tarmac have have to do with tire deformations? isnt that load dependent? and wouldnt the load he highest at the start of the race? or does he mean lateral deformation? they werent flexing sideways only sliding?

interesting to see that they would run the risk of taking a hit to their rep to provide us with better racing, we as fans appreciate it, but i hope it doesnt backfire, doubt it will.