Spanish GP 2012 - Barcelona

[raymondu999]

Nando - I rewatched the whole race twice. Vettel, when he had KERS, was deploying KERS at around the apex of the last corner. Hamilton waited until the car was inches from the exit kerb.

For the majority of the last two stints he was KERS-less though, with only 3 or so laps with KERS available. Sometimes there would be a message to use KERS, only to be followed by "do not use kERS" several corners later.

[volarchico]

And how does this all apply to the 2012 Spanish GP? New cars, no blown diffusers, different setups. Not sure last year's KERS and DRS use will be all that great at predicting this year's race.

[FrukostScones]

It will be a Lotus-Renault 1, 2. If it rains then a Perez or Alonso win.

[Nando]

Nando - I rewatched the whole race twice. Vettel, when he had KERS, was deploying KERS at around the apex of the last corner. Hamilton waited until the car was inches from the exit kerb.

For the majority of the last two stints he was KERS-less though, with only 3 or so laps with KERS available. Sometimes there would be a message to use KERS, only to be followed by "do not use kERS" several corners later.

Ok great i knew he had problems with the KERS not being able to deploy it through the whole corner. Thanks for watching it twice
I cancelled my downloads of the onboard as there was no seeders.

Hmm now that is strange.. so Hamilton for the most part of the race had KERS.
Maybe it was the gearing then that disallowed him to get past Vettel.

[Nando]

Ok so for the race. Hamilton all the way baby.

Alonso will start mid-pack but will be second into T1
Nobody knows how he does it but somehow he can drive the crap out of dogs.
Let´s hope he won´t get lapped this time around..

[raymondu999]

I actually look forward more to the qualifying than to the rae here personallu. Not that the race is bad or anything - vut I always like to see who has what it takes to nab pole at the pace benchmark track.

[Nando]

Depends on who has the best car here.
Mercedes i can't see being that strong here but Renault-RBR-Mclaren i think it will be hundreds maybe thousands separating them.

[raymondu999]

Yes but the point stands. Generally here we have the Noah's Ark effect taking hold - where teammates all qualify side by side, given how car-dominated the laptime potential of the circuit is. I hope we don't see the Pirelli "sweetspot" shenanigans again. I really hate that. Tyres should not be a performance differentiator. There should be no tyre sweetspot IMO. This year it seems a midfield car which hits the sweetspot can outpace a top car out of the sweetspot.

[nacho]

I hope it will be Kimi's return win that will tighten the points situation even more, they say the car is good in high speed corners, but then again they haven't been very good in qualifying which is important in Barcelona.

[PlatinumZealot]

Yes tyres are playing two big a factor for my liking this year. It seems a midfield team that uses its tyres well will do better than a top team that hasn't.

Having said that - tyre deg is always a massive issue here. Especially on the front left. The circuit is definitely front limited too. Last year after this race some teams were setting up their car with less-than-optimal-laptime wing AoAs because they saw from Barcelona that if you had too much downforce - you'd eat into the Pirelli tyres in terms of degradation.

Downforce reduces degradations to my armchair knowledge. what is your source that too much downforce in Barcelona 2011 was degrading the tyres more?

[alelanza]

I was talking about that too. If you run the wing at less AoA (angle), that means you're going quicker in the straight, but you have less downforce. Running less wing AoA IS running less downforce.

"What we have here is a failure to communicate"

Last year after this race some teams were setting up their car with less-than-optimal-laptime wing AoAs

Your sentence i've copied above, is that a fact? to make it easier, which teams, which races, how do you know this?

[raymondu999]

smikle, alelanza - I don't remember specifics, but it was mentioned by several team engineers in post-race quotes and the like. Downforce reduces wear, not degradation. When you have bundles of downforce, you go through corners quicker, putting more energy through them. Part of that energy would be the friction between the surface and tyres, which goes to heat the tyre quicker and causing heat deg quicker.

I think I was slightly wrong about the timing though - most teams started doing that post-Silverstone, not post-Barcelona. In terms of specific races I seem to remember it being mentioned in Suzuka and Hungary in post quali or race comments.

Post Barcelona there was an engineer (not in a post-race quote) who said that it looked as if the Red Bull had too much downforce in the race, which caused them massive degradation because of the heat they were generating through Turn 3 and Turn 9. Similar comments were made post-Silverstone, when Red Bull were initially quicker than Ferrari through Sector 2 (with Copse, Maggotts, Becketts) and as stints wore on - that advantage would switch to Ferrari's side, and the last 10 or so laps from the race saw Fernando pulling consistently 8 tenths a sector for every time they did sector 2.

Hungaroring - don't quite remember specifics of what was said. Suzuka - I believe it was a McLaren or Renault engineer who said that Red Bull took out up to 7 tenths of performance off Sector 1 (Esses) so that they didn't fry their tyres. Post quali or post race.

I hope it will be Kimi's return win that will tighten the points situation even more

I don't think it matters much to be honest - I don't think Kimi and Lotus will be in the title hunt this year.

[PlatinumZealot]

chemical degradation of the tyre? That would be temperature related and possibly shear force related. I have no stance on it, so more information is needed..

[raymondu999]

Yeah - the added friction under high speed cornering was putting more heat into the tyres.

[mcalex]

I don't think it matters much to be honest - I don't think Kimi and Lotus will be in the title hunt this year.

Didn't look like that also in 2007 and look what happened ...