BrawnGP

[Shaddock]

It looks like the bottom of the crash structure has a vane built into the bottom of it.



Are they the smallest intakes on the grid?

[wesley123]

Yep, i think those are the smallest, though they were ment to be bigger, look how it is connected to the tub.

This car can go for the 4th place i think, they were bloddy fast from the beginning so im sure of it, this car can be a success if everything goes ok for them

[ISLAMATRON]

It looks like the bottom of the crash structure has a vane built into the bottom of it.

When the first reports of Willy's & toyo using the crash structure as an extension of the diffuser this is what I thought of in my head... in my eye much better execution of the same concept.

[Ciwai]

I would really like to know when Honda started this car last year. For some reason, I remember Brawn in some pre-race show saying that they started it way early in 2008, possibly the moment that Brawn signed on.
It would be pretty understandable, and possibly ceredibility building if it turns out that the BGP-001 started the earliest, thus would be farther ahead at the first test...
Scarbs, do you know for sure?
From Formula1.com Q&A with Button:
Q: Your team started developing the 2009 car before anyone else. Do you think that is an advantage?
JB: Yeah - for sure! There are certain things that are a little bit difficult for us because we didn't plan to have this engine in the back of the car. Certain areas are not as good as other teams but we started this car very early and we have produced one that is competitive. And watching everyone testing, we are looking at the other cars seeing that certain parts that we have tried on our car and it didn't make us go that much quicker. That goes for a lot of the parts that are on other teams and we couldn't find a route with those parts so we took a different path which has worked for us. It's also a beautiful car, which is difficult to say with these wings, but this is definitely a beautiful car
Is it really a shock that it shows such performance out of the box?
I like this team for alot of points this year!

I would think all the teams had some form of parallel development of the next year's car with the current. So, I don't think the inception of the project is as significant as when they devoted their resources towards 2009. With Honda they said fairly early on, that they would sacrifice their 2008 results for the 2009 season.

An interesting point was made by Newey, when he said that the bigger team's have more resources to investigate different approaches, for example a wide low nose vs a narrow high nose. He said they only went the one way that resulted in their contender, so wasn't sure about his rivals designs. Button's comments touch on this, saying they had the resources to try approaches of the rival teams but didn't see advantages.

[TRICKLE69]

I think they have an EXCELLENT chance of doing very well this year and I am very happy to see them on the grid. The rate of development this year will again be very crucial seeing as how there are so many different solutions on the grid. I think that it will be interesting without inseason testing.

[Ray]

Nevermind. My screwup.

[pipex]

The interview made to Ross Brawn by autosport has some interesting information.
It says that the gearbox is their design, and the car has 15 months of development.
The complete interview is here http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/73655

[alexbarwell]

Given the rough times they have faced over the down-season, despite the historical R & D etc, I still find my self backing them as the underdog. Expectation is not to beat all-comers, but getting better places and points where experts and pundits declare it impossible. There may be a lot fewer board members and corporate politics getting in the way, maybe that was the problem...

[modbaraban]

Q. And KERS?

RB: We don't have KERS. That may be something for later in the season, but with the time we have had available, quite frankly, we have not considered KERS.

[freedom_honda]

what a shame they were leading in the development of KERS before Honda pulled the plug.

[xpensive]

With all due respect f_h, how could you possibly know that?

[enkidu]

With all due respect f_h, how could you possibly know that?

I thought it was common knowledge? They were testing it last year, I thought it was a machanical flywheel design?

[scarbs]

That depends on your perspective. Honda F1 ran their KERs early, however to think that with was a solution in cooperation with the Honda Motor company and hence an advanced technology solution would be wrong.
Honda F1 partnered with Flybrid (not William Hybrid which is a separate company and solution). The Flybrid system, as most here know, is a flywheel based storage system. The flywheel was to be placed inside the fuel tank area down low behind the drivers seat and driven off the front of the engine by a short driveshaft. With the Merc engine being designed for a MGU set up on the nose of the crank, conversion to a flywheel might introduce other problems into the drivetrain. I doubt with Brawns limited resources that they would focus on KERS, when they do not have to run one.

[captainmorgan]

In regards to Briatore's indirect comments on BrawnGP, how exactly could it happen that a team that gets top preseason test times fails to convert that into podiums in the race season? I remember this happening over the past couple of years, but could never understand why. When teams test, how often do they not test quali pace?

[donskar]

I'm a big Ross Brawn fan (and wish he were still at Ferrari!)

A lot of posters here seem to be crediting him with the car's design. That's not quite correct, is it? At Ferrari, Brawn was Tech Director, with Rory Bryne their designer. Is Brawn now playing both roles, or should someone else be given some credit for the Brawn's design???