Archive for category Formula 1
Schumacher and Jean Todt in Asterix and Obelix movie
Posted by Johann in Formula 1, Funny stuff on June 1st, 2009
Brawn GP may get sponsored by Google
I am a dedicated Ferrari fan in Formula 1, but Brawn GP has proven to be one of the coolest teams on the grid. First, they mashed a Mercedes engine into the Honda chassis a couple of weeks before the championship started, and then proceeded to kick everyone’s ass with their Frankencar. There’s no doubt that Ross Brawn has had a huge positive influence on the team (he helped Schumacher win his 7 world drivers titles), but this kind of performance is unheard of. They then secured a sponsorship deal with Richard Branson’s Virgin group, which is one of the companies I admire most in the world.
Now, Brawn GP may enter into another sponsorship deal with Google. The search giant is rumoured to want to enter F1 as soon as possible, and Brawn GP would be a logical choice. There’s still loads of space available on the car to plaster some Google logo’s and the car is mostly white, which is typical of Google’s sites. If this goes through, it will unite 3 people I admire a lot: Ross Brawn, Richard Branson and Larry Page. Fricken awesome.
Why I think the teams must split from F1
Max Mosley: The destroyer of F1
This weekend’s F1 race in Monaco was supposed to have been the highlight of the season. The entire week-end was as glamarous as ever, the racing was spectacular and even the GP2 races was exciting. However, it all took place under the gloom that this may be the last Monaco GP with the likes of Ferrari, Toyota and BMW competing. All of these teams, as well as Red Bull (and thus Toro Rosso) and Renault have made serious threats to withdraw from F1 from 2010 if the new regulations aren’t changed. The FIA wants to implement an optional cost cap of 40 million pounds, meaning that the top teams will have to cut their expenditure by more than two thirds, or face much stricter regulations. Although this seems like a good idea, especially with the current economic climate, many of the teams will not be able to meet this requirement in time. All teams are committed to reducing costs, but not by a factor of 3 or 4 in such a short period of time. What will happen then with the optional nature of the cap is that a two-tier F1 championship will develop, with either the cost-capped cars with more technical freedom, or the more pricey cars, having a huge performance gap. What’s even worse is that the rules are obviously and drastically biased towards the cost-capped teams.
I personally feel that this should be the last straw and that the teams must break away and form their own series. The FIA has been needlessly forcing silly regulations on the cars for years, and has been VERY inconsistent in their punishing drivers and teams for breaking the rules. The new regulations of the 2009 season is proof of this – the drastic change in the aerodynamic regulations should have made it much easier for cars to pass each other at circuits like Barcelona. However, not much had changed from 2008. The race was still a boring procession from lap 1. In fact, things have gotten worse due to some cars having KERS, and others not. Sebastion Vettel was held up the entire race behind the slower Ferrari of Felipe Massa, not being able to pass due to Massa having the advantage of KERS. What’s insane about the entire KERS situation is that the FIA wants to standardise the system from 2010, meaning all teams will get a standard KERS unit from the FIA. In other words, all the millions of pounds the teams have spent on developing their own solutions will be wasted.
Another big problem with the current regulations is the fiasco with the so-called double diffuser. The rules were not written clearly enough, so we ended up with some cars with KERS, some with the double diffuser, and some without it, thus creating a multi-tier race already.
Further proof of the amateurish nature of how the FIA is run was found when they published the full regulations for the 2010 season a couple of months ago. Included in these regulations were the so-called “medals rule”, by which the driver with the most wins (and not the most points) will win the driver’s championship. This caused yet another uproar. However, the rule mysteriously disappeared from the official document a couple of weeks later, the FIA mentioning that it was a slip-up on their part somewhere on their website.
Finally, the FIA has proven time and again that they cannot consistently punish drivers and teams. I’m not going to go into this right now, but the pit-lane release penalties that were given during the 2008 season is enough proof of this.
Teams meet in Monaco to discuss the crisis
So, that’s why I think the teams should just split from the FIA (and thus F1) and get it over with. The FIA has caused incredible damage to the image of the sport, and has made many people very angry (myself included). Most of the fans (especially the Ferrari Tifosi) will follow their teams, rather than F1. I believe Max Mosley is sadly mistaken if he thinks F1 is bigger than its teams. If Ferrari leaves, it will be a disaster for F1. If most of the big constructors leave, F1 will not survive. Sure, there are smaller teams wating in the wings the enter, but as Fernando Alonso said (I’m paraphrasing here): “Why would you want to chase away 7 big teams, and replace them with a couple of smaller and unknown teams?”
F1 is more interesting than ever before
Well, no-one would have expected the 2009 F1 season to start the way it has. Only a month and a half ago you would have been labelled a lunatic if you predicted that the main championship contender will be Brawn GP, a team that was saved at the last minute. What’s even more incredible is that it seems that their main competitor are the Red Bulls, constructed by Adrian Newey. They scored their first win (and 1-2 finish) in spectacular fashion in China.
What’s great about this situation is that one team is not running away with the championship, which keeps things interesting. Also, the teams with the big budgets will be aggressively developing their cars, meaning that they will also eventually compete at the sharp end of the grid.
One would think that after the diffuser controversy the units fitted to the Brawn, Toyota and Williams is what’s causing these teams to be the front runners. However, Red Bull has a normal single decker diffuser, and Brawn did not have an answer to these cars in China. Thus the Red Bulls are inherently quick, and the team is working at break-neck speed to develop their own version of the diffuser. Whether they are able to develop a diffuser as efficient as the Brawn remains to be seen, as the very unique rear suspension layout of the Red Bull means there’s very little space to fit the device.
Then there’s the debate about KERS. In China, only three cars on the grid was running it – the two McLarens and Heidfeld in his BMW. Ferrari has had too many reliability issues with their units, and Renault’s KERS doesn’t have the desired performance yet. It will be interesting to see whether KERS dies a silent death as the season progresses, or whether the teams get it sorted out and it starts making a noticeble difference. Interestingly the main concern with KERS is that it negatively affects the weight distribution of the car, which worsens tire wear. This is amplified with Bridgestone usually bringing a very soft compound tire to each race, meaning that these tires are only good for a couple of laps with KERS installed.
The main title contenders of 2008 seems to be absolutely nowhere after the first three races of the season. Ferrari has not scored a single point yet, their worst start to a season since 1981. This is due to their car being inherently slow, as they struggle to compete with the front-runners in the downforce department. Combine this with the unreliability of the Schuderia’s F60 car and one can easily see why they’re struggling. The only glimmer of hope is that Massa seemed to be doing respectable lap-times in the rain in China, and was making good progress up to third position before his car stopped on the track due to an electrical glitch.
Ferrari has also decided to shake-up their management structure, after the disastrous tactical error the team made with Kimi’s car in Malaysia. For some bizarre reason they chose to fit full wet tires to his car with barely any moisture on the track. He shredded the tires within a lap, and that destroyed his race strategy.
McLaren is showing some promise, however their efforts may be nullified if the FIA chooses to punish the team harshly due to the whole Hamilton lie-saga. The team scored a respectable fifth and sixth position in China (granted, they had a preliminary double-decker diffuser fitted to the car), with Kovaleinen in front of Hamilton. Lewis admitted that he made too many mistakes in the race, and he spun off in the closing laps letting his team mate through. For Heikki it was a nice change to actually finish a race, after failing to complete a single lap in both the Australian and Malaysian rounds of the championship due to first-corner incidents.
As for Renault, they have also fitted an interim double-decker diffuser in China and showed some good pace. Alonso was able to qualify on the front of the grid with low fuel, planning to quickly run away at the start of the race. However, this strategy was destroyed when the race started behind the safety car and he had to pit behind the safety car to keep from running out of fuel. As for his teammate Nelson Piquet, he was once again nowhere to be seen and should be fired.
The rest of the field performed okay, with nothing spectacular coming from any them. At least they performed better than Ferrari.
What’s up with the weather?
The 2009 Malaysian grand prix in Sepang was only the fifth GP in history which awarded half points to the drivers. The race was stopped half-way through, as the torrential rain caused the cars to fall off the track while traveling at walking speed. The extreme amount of water, combined with low visibility due to the race being run so late in the day meant it was impossible to continue the race.
Although I don’t normally watch MotoGP because it’s stupid to watch vehicles with only two wheels racing, I was interested in this race for to reasons. First of all, their new safety car is a brand new BMW X6 M, which means the bikes will have to follow an SUV around the track if needed. This is simply too awesome for words. Secondly, it was a night race under floodlights, which should make things interesting.
Unfortunately, the first race of the MotoGP suffered an even worse fate than the F1. The race was in held in Qatar, in the desert. However, this did not keep the torrential rain away. There was no grip on the circuit under these conditions, and the drivers especially complained that the floodlights reflected off the road and greatly reducing visibility. The 125cc class was red flagged after only 4 laps (out of a planned 18). The 250cc class only completed 13 laps out of 20, under slightly better conditions. The worst however was yet to come, as the main race was cancelled completely due to a massive downpour. The race was rescheduled to be run on Monday, leaving many spectators and personnel to adjust their plans, if possible.
The only positive thing I can see out of this whole situation is that a car was able to drive around the circuit easier and quicker than the bikes. This is cool, without even mentioning that the car is a big 2.3 ton SUV…
So, my question is this: what’s up with the weather? Is this the weather gods finally getting their revenge after so many years of cars and bikes polluting the atmosphere? Or is it maybe just a coincidence?
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