Bahrain GP 2012 - Sakhir

[princekaisus]

does anyone have latest pictures from bharain

[WhiteBlue]

The odds are still changing.



Vettel has fallen to P4 in qualifying and in the race. Hamilton on pole and top step in the odds. One could make a bit of money if Adrian manages to fix the exhaust issue for the race.

[raymondu999]

[fiohaa]

i have real concerns over schumacher, and i was hoping someone here would have some opinions.

he is well known for liking a pointy car, but your average casual f1 viewer probably doesnt understand why.
he would carry a lot of speed into the corner, and was lightning quick with the steering, being able to balance that car on a knife edge throughout the corner. Theres even a documentary on it on youtube, showing his steering and throttle traces at silverstone 94 qualifying.

cast your minds back to 2003 austria, or 2004 imola (i think that was the year), or 2005 canada. On a hotlap, schumi would be visibly on it, hustling the car throughout the entire lap, looking almost like he was overdriving, but maintaining the speed. you'd see him making constant steering inputs and corrections throughout the corner. in the TC days hed set the Car up so he could stamp on the throttle with TC, and use steering to counter any oversteer.

being an admirer of his abilities and as a result, a 'fan', ive been closely following his comeback. I have to say watching the onboards recently, even with what is clearly a better car for 2012, i dont get that same feeling of awe watching his onboards. It just doesnt look like hes hustling the car like he used to, he simply doesnt look as quick to react to the car movements.

now, i doubt this is an age thing, i really do. I dont see why adding 10 years to someone would null their reactions a little bit, at the age of 40+ he looks fitter than most of the other drivers on the grid.
Or maybe it is his age?
Or is it the car? Is it the fact that you have to drive these latest generation of f1 cars very smoothly on turn in, or the tyres start to grain?

i really hope its the latter and not the former... but watching his driving so far i just have this sense that its not quite there like it used to be.

[Ganxxta]

I think its because of the tires, if he would push everything out of them in the 1 lap in qualifying, they would be destroyed for the race.

In wintertesting there were some simulations where the Mercs tried this 2-3 very fast laps, then their times drops almost 2 secs for all following laps.

Its sad these days that you just can't push the whole time because you have to look after your tires

[myurr]

We see Lewis do the same, he used to fling the car around all over the place. His quali laps this year have been very smooth and calm, presumably to protect the tyres.

[Richard]

I have to admit to foolish error

I contributed in this thread to a conversation about Roserg's pace in the China GP. I have moved the posts to the correct thread and sent myself to the naughty step to think about what I'd done.

viewtopic.php?p=336163#p336163

[donskar]

I have to admit to foolish error

I contributed in this thread to a conversation about Roserg's pace in the China GP. I have moved the posts to the correct thread and sent myself to the naughty step to think about what I'd done.

viewtopic.php?p=336163#p336163

Oh! The shame of it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ForMuLaOne]

I think its because of the tires, if he would push everything out of them in the 1 lap in qualifying, they would be destroyed for the race.

In wintertesting there were some simulations where the Mercs tried this 2-3 very fast laps, then their times drops almost 2 secs for all following laps.

Its sad these days that you just can't push the whole time because you have to look after your tires

Think so, too. It is one of the reasons why i believe that one day, refueling will see a comeback. Furthermore i hope Pirelli will support some tyres you can push like hell. I mean, tyres which allow to gain more time than an added pitstop would cost. So that the teams saw an advantage in pushing the tyres rather than in saving them.

[Lycoming]

I'm wondering how that would work... is it even possible to make tyres where pushing hard and making an extra stop is as valid a strategy as nursing them and making 1 stop less? if we compare 2 stop vs 2 stop, the 3 stopping driver must make up 20-30 seconds depending on the track. If we split it up between the stints evenly, ignoring the difference between prime and option compounds, he needs to make up between 5 and 7.5 seconds per stint...

Its quite difficult to identify how to make tyres like that. The goal of the Pirellis was to target 3 stops on average per race, which they've mostly done. but the point of fast wearing tyres was to make a race like Canada 2010, and basically not have people running well over half the race distance easily on the option compound.

They've done that, now they need to make tyres that can be pushed a bit more, in addition to fixing the marbling. I really expected them to have had that fixed by now, but the last race showed that wasn't really the case.

So I guess what I want to know is, what exactly did bringing the compounds closer together accomplish, and is it possible to create a tyre that works as I described above on every track?

[clipsy1H]

and FP1 just start!!! OHOHOHO!! let's crossed fingers for Michael!!! just for a clean race!!

[mx_tifoso]

FP1 time...


http://stream.speedtv.com/formula-one

For those in the US.

[myurr]

Everyone's done an installation lap. Lewis just did a constant speed run but without any obvious sensors or flowvis on the car. Presumably just getting a baseline reading on everything?

[myurr]

Force India / Hulkenberg setts the first timed lap. Car looks solid enough around the lap but nervous on corner exit.

[myurr]

Di Resta looks a little more stable and goes a couple of tenths quicker.