2019 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, March 29 - 31

[mzso]

Max is born in Belgium but he is more from Limburg (South Netherlands) then Holland (West Netherlands)

In my language Netherlands = Hollandia (dutch = holland). There's no other name.

[digitalrurouni]

Honestly the only rule that they should remove in terms of restriction in formula one is the stupid power unit rule. They should have three races for one power unit. I am hoping it's not a one-off but the car seemed to be able to follow each other much better this year. So the only thing that is left is the stupid power unit rule.

[Sierra117]

Your crude example, as you named it, might have been passable to a degree, if the F1 cars would be powering their way through a straight line. But as we know, they don't, all of them need to take corners. And my understanding is that a car which already is on the backfoot in the corners due to less downforce, will have even more difficulties in windy conditions.

The Ferrari might have had less downforce than Mercedes in Bahrain, but it still was a highly aero sensitive F1 car. I don't know to which extend the Mercedes had more downforce, but bearing in mind that the Ferrari lost 1 tenth of a second over the combination of all 15 corners, gives the feeling that the difference was not that big.

I might be wrong, though, and it will be nice, if an aero guy can enlighten us.

You cannot use my simple example to then extrapolate a super complicated scenario such as cornering where you have power, traction and tyres, wings, rake, driving styles and throttle mappings working together to influence how the car behaves under such turbulent winds. My example was simply addressing that having less downforce is better in a situation where wind is changing directions and speed a lot because then you are only dependent on variables that you can control (the physical and mechanical aforementioned).

And even then, I would argue that a missile can go every which way but would hardly be affected since there aren't huge wings on it. But I'll wait now for Vanja or someone with industrial aero experience to at least confirm my trajectory (pun intended) before I get pwned lulz.

The Tyres are the real talking points and majorly affected by the aero and wind disturbances.
The Cars with more downforce i.e. more aero pushing the tyres down on the tarmac will have better temps in tyres and have better grip and eventually less susceptible to the wind and its effects compared to the cars with lesser downforce and hence less grip comparatively and hence with wind causing more of instability in the car and more sliding causing the tyres to overheat and performance loss.

If you observe closely off the two Ferraris Vettel had lesser downforce compared to Leclerc and hence he had a very hard time driving the car. Both Leclerc and Hamilton with higher downforce had a much stable car after the first stint and no complains of car not handling well.

An explanation without falling too much into the technical details.

That makes sense too, but both Hamilton and Bottas were complaining of the car being very unpredictable and, I quote Bottas, "all over the place" (see post-race interviews).

[GPR-A]

- Also RB is nowhere, there's one constant in the universe their BS hype not matching reality. You can blame tracks a bit or blame partly qualifying on the engine but not the race pace.

You mean by BS hype, that they openly admitted that they're not where they want to be chassis-wise?
They hyped up Honda, which so-far didn't disappoint.

https://www.racefans.net/2019/03/05/red ... ri-horner/

Speaking at the Geneva International Motor Show, Horner tipped Ferrari to lead the way following their performance in testing.
“It’s clear Ferrari after the second test look very strong.,” Horner told Sky. “Mercedes are going to be there or thereabouts, they’re the reigning world champions so they’re not going to be slacking. I think we have definitely closed that gap.

“I think we’ll see not just in Melbourne because that’s a little bit of a unique track but look over the first three races and then ask me again how we’re faring.”

Red Bull’s chief technical officer Adrian Newey has gained new motivation from the team’s switch from Renault to Honda, Horner added.

“[It’s] not just because of the rules, I think the engine change has stimulated the whole team and particularly Adrian. He sees that the engine is now getting closer and closer to the performance of the front-running teams.

“That’s really motivated him. He’s working very hard with all the guys ad girls back at Milton Keynes. Hopefully we can look forward to a good season. Our job is to try and close that gap to Ferrari and Mercedes.”

If you need more information, go over to Red Bull team thread, all those pages before the start of Australian GP. That is what @_iotar is talking about.

[Sierra117]

Is it just me or is the engine in suuuuuuper nerf-mode?

[subcritical71]

Because you start with a set amount of fuel, extra fuel costs performance, you have to finish with a certain amount of fuel for testing, which I honestly forget what it is these days, 1 litre or something, meaning you can't just add on laps to any kind of motorsport without fuel problem.

In terms of electrocution, that isn't why Ricciardo's race ended, he said that's why he didn't put his steering wheel back on the car because the car wasn't grounded when he got out of it. The race ended because the electrics simply cut out, , when there is a problem with the electrics sometimes the car can become unsafe to touch. The car became unsafe because of the failure, they didn't stop because the car became unsafe.

That isn't a reason to NOT extend the race by the number of laps under safety car. Then cars would need to be topped off or take a risk at running out during or after the safety car. It's not the fans problem or fault that a team underfuels their car. The point she is making is that the spirit of the race was ruined by the fact that the race ended under non racing conditions. It doesn't matter to her how or why someone's car stopped, but that the racing didn't continue after the cars and stewards were tucked away safely. Mind you she comes from a Major League Baseball fan mindset where extra innings and rain delays are no problem waiting around for. Maybe Formula 1 can learn a thing or two from the MLB, seeing how much money it makes?

No no no, never take anything from American sport and try and apply it to F1.
F1 is an International Sport, we dont want to turn it in to a National sport like the American games.

There's no refueling in F1, so you couldnt "top off" a car as you put it. Its not the Sports problem when the Fans know this can and will happen at times, before the fans buy tickets or pay subscriptions.

Nascar has their overtime rule where you can go, I think, 3 times into overtime at the end of the race. So that is 9 additional laps extra, assuming they can get a green flag out in one lap. I think this is the dumbest idea a racing series has ever come up with. It make the ending exciting only because it turns itself into a lottery vs winning on merit.

[Sulman]

Sounds pretty normal to me, but he's definitely not pushing it very hard. The early throttle lift before braking was very noticeable.

I've been watching lots of old races on the F1TV archive and one thing that has really jumped out at me is how much these new cars pitch about.

[Jolle]

That isn't a reason to NOT extend the race by the number of laps under safety car. Then cars would need to be topped off or take a risk at running out during or after the safety car. It's not the fans problem or fault that a team underfuels their car. The point she is making is that the spirit of the race was ruined by the fact that the race ended under non racing conditions. It doesn't matter to her how or why someone's car stopped, but that the racing didn't continue after the cars and stewards were tucked away safely. Mind you she comes from a Major League Baseball fan mindset where extra innings and rain delays are no problem waiting around for. Maybe Formula 1 can learn a thing or two from the MLB, seeing how much money it makes?

No no no, never take anything from American sport and try and apply it to F1.
F1 is an International Sport, we dont want to turn it in to a National sport like the American games.

There's no refueling in F1, so you couldnt "top off" a car as you put it. Its not the Sports problem when the Fans know this can and will happen at times, before the fans buy tickets or pay subscriptions.

Nascar has their overtime rule where you can go, I think, 3 times into overtime at the end of the race. So that is 9 additional laps extra, assuming they can get a green flag out in one lap. I think this is the dumbest idea a racing series has ever come up with. It make the ending exciting only because it turns itself into a lottery vs winning on merit.

Although finishing behind the safety car isn't optimal, it doesn't really change the exciting moments of F1.

F1 is probably one of the rare sports where the excitement isn't at the end but in at the start. Most of the races, after the first few laps it's maintaining gaps. Sunday's race was different because of Leclrc's problem. If he didn't have that failure, imagine after build up a 15 second lead, for a re-start he's got Hamilton and Bottas on his tail for a last dive into the last corner, or worse... Verstappen

but no, for me F1 is too much of a sport to have these entertaining features added to it.

[Sulman]

No no no, never take anything from American sport and try and apply it to F1.
F1 is an International Sport, we dont want to turn it in to a National sport like the American games.

There's no refueling in F1, so you couldnt "top off" a car as you put it. Its not the Sports problem when the Fans know this can and will happen at times, before the fans buy tickets or pay subscriptions.

Nascar has their overtime rule where you can go, I think, 3 times into overtime at the end of the race. So that is 9 additional laps extra, assuming they can get a green flag out in one lap. I think this is the dumbest idea a racing series has ever come up with. It make the ending exciting only because it turns itself into a lottery vs winning on merit.

Although finishing behind the safety car isn't optimal, it doesn't really change the exciting moments of F1.

F1 is probably one of the rare sports where the excitement isn't at the end but in at the start. Most of the races, after the first few laps it's maintaining gaps. Sunday's race was different because of Leclrc's problem. If he didn't have that failure, imagine after build up a 15 second lead, for a re-start he's got Hamilton and Bottas on his tail for a last dive into the last corner, or worse... Verstappen

but no, for me F1 is too much of a sport to have these entertaining features added to it.

I don't think it will happen. Most things that work for American TV audiences don't translate globally; you'd lose too many viewers. NASCAR has been a TV format for ages, even if Indycar has avoided this and is steadily evolving back to simpler racing. It is interesting to note that even US Nascar fans are utterly tired of all the bullshit that's associated with the series now.

Something to realise with F1 is that virtually every effort to improve 'the show' has resulted in either no improvement, or made it worse.

I don't have many complaints about it right now, apart from the tyres. The tyres have sucked for far too long.

[dans79]

It's ridiculous that the press is buying into the Ferrai cylinder failure misdirection.

The engineer clearly told Leclerc during the race "we have no H recovery" I heard it live, and anyone can hear it here.


With all the sensors and monitoring teams run now days, their is now way they could not tell the difference between a misfiring cylinder, and an MGU-H failure.

With that being said Leclerc and his engineer both stayed remarkably calm.

EDIT:
Also who speaks Italian and can translate the end of the audio?

[ispano6]

Because you start with a set amount of fuel, extra fuel costs performance, you have to finish with a certain amount of fuel for testing, which I honestly forget what it is these days, 1 litre or something, meaning you can't just add on laps to any kind of motorsport without fuel problem.

In terms of electrocution, that isn't why Ricciardo's race ended, he said that's why he didn't put his steering wheel back on the car because the car wasn't grounded when he got out of it. The race ended because the electrics simply cut out, , when there is a problem with the electrics sometimes the car can become unsafe to touch. The car became unsafe because of the failure, they didn't stop because the car became unsafe.

That isn't a reason to NOT extend the race by the number of laps under safety car. Then cars would need to be topped off or take a risk at running out during or after the safety car. It's not the fans problem or fault that a team underfuels their car. The point she is making is that the spirit of the race was ruined by the fact that the race ended under non racing conditions. It doesn't matter to her how or why someone's car stopped, but that the racing didn't continue after the cars and stewards were tucked away safely. Mind you she comes from a Major League Baseball fan mindset where extra innings and rain delays are no problem waiting around for. Maybe Formula 1 can learn a thing or two from the MLB, seeing how much money it makes?

No no no, never take anything from American sport and try and apply it to F1.
F1 is an International Sport, we dont want to turn it in to a National sport like the American games.

There's no refueling in F1, so you couldnt "top off" a car as you put it. Its not the Sports problem when the Fans know this can and will happen at times, before the fans buy tickets or pay subscriptions.

Who said anything about refueling? You top off the car at the beginning of the race.
I've followed Formula 1 since 1986 and there were eras refueling was normal. It was because of rash and unsafe pitstops working with unhealthy fuels that caused massive flames that led to no refueling. You guys are just making up excuses for parts of F1 that need improvement.

Did any of you read Leclerc's comments after the race? He said he got lucky with the safety car and without it he would have lost the podium and would likely have run out of fuel if he tried to keep pace with no MGU-H recovery.

Your comment about American sports is "off base". It has nothing to do with national sports, it has to do with delivering the fans an ending they deserve and came to watch.

[mzso]

It's ridiculous that the press is buying into the Ferrai cylinder failure misdirection.

The engineer clearly told Leclerc during the race "we have no H recovery" I heard it live, and anyone can hear it here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tujK_qFRQFk

Just because he said it doesn't mean he was right. Besides you could see Leclerc's LED flashing in acceleration phases, where H recovery happens.
What advantage it gain them to claim it was one problem instead of another?

[ispano6]

Because you start with a set amount of fuel, extra fuel costs performance, you have to finish with a certain amount of fuel for testing, which I honestly forget what it is these days, 1 litre or something, meaning you can't just add on laps to any kind of motorsport without fuel problem.

In terms of electrocution, that isn't why Ricciardo's race ended, he said that's why he didn't put his steering wheel back on the car because the car wasn't grounded when he got out of it. The race ended because the electrics simply cut out, , when there is a problem with the electrics sometimes the car can become unsafe to touch. The car became unsafe because of the failure, they didn't stop because the car became unsafe.

That isn't a reason to NOT extend the race by the number of laps under safety car. Then cars would need to be topped off or take a risk at running out during or after the safety car. It's not the fans problem or fault that a team underfuels their car. The point she is making is that the spirit of the race was ruined by the fact that the race ended under non racing conditions. It doesn't matter to her how or why someone's car stopped, but that the racing didn't continue after the cars and stewards were tucked away safely. Mind you she comes from a Major League Baseball fan mindset where extra innings and rain delays are no problem waiting around for. Maybe Formula 1 can learn a thing or two from the MLB, seeing how much money it makes?

There are too many variables, topping cars off is not as simple as it sounds. The pit lane is not geared towards refuelling any more, and the main reason is safety during refuelling.

Also, Bahrain 2019 was the 999th F1 race, and the 9th race finished under the safety car. That is .9% chance of a race finishing under safety car. Sadly she got to see it, most likely she will not see another safety car finish.

I never mentioned refueling. Topping off has nothing to do with the need to refuel during the race. Big difference.
I could care less that it happens 0.9% of the time, but more so that it affected the outcome and perhaps even more drama would have ensued. Mainly its a shame on Renault for a double dnf that led to the safety car end.

[mzso]

Who said anything about refueling? You top off the car at the beginning of the race.

You're nonsensical. You can't top-off a fuel tank that's already full. And besides how would you know how many safety car laps will be run.
This contrived race extension is just silly. I'm all for disposing the Safety Car though. Slow zones would be more than fine. But there were too many baseless whiners when they suggested it. Without even a proper try during racing.

[GrandAxe]

Your crude example, as you named it, might have been passable to a degree, if the F1 cars would be powering their way through a straight line. But as we know, they don't, all of them need to take corners. And my understanding is that a car which already is on the backfoot in the corners due to less downforce, will have even more difficulties in windy conditions.

The Ferrari might have had less downforce than Mercedes in Bahrain, but it still was a highly aero sensitive F1 car. I don't know to which extend the Mercedes had more downforce, but bearing in mind that the Ferrari lost 1 tenth of a second over the combination of all 15 corners, gives the feeling that the difference was not that big.

I might be wrong, though, and it will be nice, if an aero guy can enlighten us.

You cannot use my simple example to then extrapolate a super complicated scenario such as cornering where you have power, traction and tyres, wings, rake, driving styles and throttle mappings working together to influence how the car behaves under such turbulent winds. My example was simply addressing that having less downforce is better in a situation where wind is changing directions and speed a lot because then you are only dependent on variables that you can control (the physical and mechanical aforementioned).

And even then, I would argue that a missile can go every which way but would hardly be affected since there aren't huge wings on it. But I'll wait now for Vanja or someone with industrial aero experience to at least confirm my trajectory (pun intended) before I get pwned lulz.

The Tyres are the real talking points and majorly affected by the aero and wind disturbances.
The Cars with more downforce i.e. more aero pushing the tyres down on the tarmac will have better temps in tyres and have better grip and eventually less susceptible to the wind and its effects compared to the cars with lesser downforce and hence less grip comparatively and hence with wind causing more of instability in the car and more sliding causing the tyres to overheat and performance loss.

If you observe closely off the two Ferraris Vettel had lesser downforce compared to Leclerc and hence he had a very hard time driving the car. Both Leclerc and Hamilton with higher downforce had a much stable car after the first stint and no complains of car not handling well.

An explanation without falling too much into the technical details.

Downforce is proportional to lift coefficient and to the square of airspeed. Lift coefficient is in turn inversely proportional to changes in air density. Therefore, a car with higher lift coefficient will be buffeted more in windy conditions; applying that to Merc and Ferrari, Merc would be more affected by windy conditions and so would have worn their tyres faster than they normally would.

Another illustration of the effect of changes in wind direction is when a car moves out of the slipstream of another in a corner and loses downforce as a result - something the 2019 rules seek to fix with the higher rear wing.