Notice how low the rear end of the Williams in the first image is. It basically drops off right behind the engine in order to better utilize the diffuser. It will be very interesting to see what difference that can make.
Notice how short the side-pods on the RedBull are (second image). Again in order to increase air flowing into the diffuser.
US and UK officially advise against non-essential travel to Bahrain. Ecclestone to let Crown Prince decide on GP
How about the FIA just skip Bahrain altogether to show solidarity for the people fighting for freedom there. ********er's are actually shooting the protesters. Why would the FIA want to support their evil regime?
The FIA doesn't care about evil regimes, and neither does Bernie Ecclestrone they care about money. Bernie has made clear in the past that he thinks democracy isn't all that great and that despotism is very underrated... This quote made headlines back then, when asked about his favorite dictator, he said this: Anyway, talk at the moment is that the Bahrain GP will be moved to November.
So the Bahrain Grand Prix has been canceled today. Who knew that the FIA was capable of actually doing the right thing.
It's still a little early, but I wanna try to predict where the various teams stand this seasons. I'll put them into four tiers: --------------------- 1. Red Bull 2. Ferrari --------------------- 3. McLaren 4. Mercedes 5. Lotus-Renault 6. Williams 7. Toro Rosso --------------------- 8. Force India 9. Sauber --------------------- 10. Team Lotus 11. Virgin 12. HRT --------------------- A couple of points: After the first tests, it seems as if Red Bull and Ferrari are in a class of their own this season. I'd think that Red Bull still has the edge, but it might also be very close. McLaren is very difficult to judge at this point. Their tests weren't as good as hoped and the car is apparently hard on the new Pirelli tires. They should still be secure in third place IMHO and might even belong into the first tier, but we'll see. Mercedes has been very disappointing so far. I still put them in fourth place, because apparently they still have some major upgrades to come before the season starts. Should these upgrades not bring the improvements Mercedes hopes for, they might even fall behind Renault and Williams. Renault and Williams are the wild cards this year. Both have a unique feature that should help them. The Renault has the forward exhausts which cause a better airflow, the Williams has an extremely low rear end, also improving the aerodynamic properties. Renaults exhaust will eventually be copied by everyone though, while Williams' solution can't be copied this season. Toro Rosso also has a unique design feature in their undercut sidepods. It seems to work very well. Force India started out really well last season, but they slowly lost ground on Renault and Williams and it appears as if they've further pulled away. Sauber is a similar story. As for the three new teams, they should be far behind, maybe not as much as last year, but still by a big margin. Only Team Lotus seems to have a somewhat competitive car. I still doubt that it's enough to challenge Sauber and Force India though.
I don't think Bernie made the call to cancel the race. The country is in disarry and having the race would only be used for the people to voice their opinions on what's happening in their country. I'm sure with the viewership in the millions this would of been the perfect telecast for publicity. Who knows what these people would do... perhaps even take to the track in protest! That would be very dangerous and a big concern to all the teams and staff.
Did someone ask for more Bernie madness ? http://formula-one.speedtv.com/article/f1-ecclestone-not-alone-in-support-of-rain-button-idea/ And that's so in the green trend...Just pour thousands of litres of fresh water in the desert... The funny thing is let's be honest, we all thought about that after a race became intriguing once the track got wet but it takes someone like Bernie to push for that in real life...
For some reasons, I think planet F1 idea of a "round about" chicane is quite interesting and not too artificial. That could be an inclusion in real life from the world of video games. We could imagine a section like this one with two symmetric paths that of course have to be as identical as possible. There are issues though : what will be the next corner ? I guess the best option is a straight line before a heavy breaking so that choosing one side of the other wouldn't have too many impact. The other problem that can be foreseen is the fact that for one reason or another, one of the sections will be privileged since it's almost impossible to have two completely identical ones. Then, the preferred path will "gain weight" as the it would be the one with the most rubber on and therefore the most grippy...Still, in race a faster car being stuck could use it to shake things and try his luck. To be honest, in the end, I'm not sure whether it's worth trying but theoretically it looks interesting.
Keeping in mind that it's always the efficiency and coherence of the whole package that makes the performance. Of course, when you have both that and the special feature like Brawn GP showed in 09, it's a killer. Speaking about Williams, they finally revealed their 2011 livery (not fresh news I know). Well, Lotus Renault GP and Team Lotus are not the only ones counting on nostalgia... Reminds us of the successful Williams-Renault Rothmans livery from 1994 to 1997.
HRT finally joins the test drive with their new car. That means that they can barely get to know the car before the first race. The team seems to be destined to another year of last place finishes (if they finish at all). On the positive side, after the terrible Dallara chassis from last year, the new car is their own design. Responsible for it is Geoff Willis who previously designed cars for Williams, BAR and Red Bull. So I would expect the baseline of the car to be much higher than last year. Still, it'll be hard to advance on the grid. But we'll see, Virgin looks rather weak ATM, so maybe HRT can battle it out with them...
I liked the all blue livery better TBH. Also, the front end still looks a lot like the design we've seen since 2006, only the rear end indicates the old Rothmans design. If they wanted to go retro, they should have gone all the way, with a brighter blue hue and the old nose design as well...
I'd be all for it. Sounds pretty good. I meant it's known that curves/chicanes with more tan one ideal line are beneficial for the action and this would be the ultimate way to achieve that.
So today was the penultimate day of testing. But since tomorrow, most teams won't even start and for the rest there's heavy rain forecast, today was the day where we saw the closest thing to what the teams are capable of doing. So first of all, here's the timesheet: Code: Pos Driver Team/Car Time Gap Laps 1. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m21.249s 67 2. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m21.614s + 0.365s 141 3. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m21.788s + 0.539s 22 4. Nick Heidfeld Renault 1m22.073s + 0.824s 67 5. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1m22.233s + 0.984s 89 6. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m22.315s + 1.066s 98 7. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m22.675s + 1.426s 72 8. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m22.933s + 1.684s 64 9. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1m23.437s + 2.188s 138 10. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m23.653s + 2.404s 42 11. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m23.921s + 2.672s 26 12. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1m24.108s + 2.859s 11 13. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m25.837s + 4.588s 57 14. Jerome D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1m27.375s + 6.126s 46 While we still have to take this with several grains of salt, it should give us something non the less. Let's start from the bottom: First of all, obviously HRT didn't even drive. They were still lacking some crucial parts. If they're lucky, they can drive tomorrow but with the rain, I doubt that they could learn a lot about the car even then. So we can safely expect them to begin the season at the very back of the grid. Next we see Virgin far behind. Granted, D'Ambrosio might be part of the problem there (although he's not a bad driver by any means), but still, I think we can also assume that Virgin will be next to last. Also very interesting is that once again, McLaren gave a terrible performance. Yes, they did have technical problems and I'm sure that they had better things to do on the few laps they got than to practice qualifying sessions. Still, I think that McLaren will have a hard time at the beginning of the season. Next we see Force India also very far down the table. Adrian Sutil even admitted that he was pretty much on the limit there. Given that Kovalainen did not only beat both Force Indias, but also managed to lap 138 times, I think it might not even be far fetched to predict that Lotus could beat Force India in Melbourne. Sebastian Vettel in 8th place wouldn't worry me though if I was a Red Bull fan. They also did have technical problems today, plus Red Bull did not aim for a fast qualifying lap. Despite some fast laps this weak, Red Bull is probably the team that held back the most. According to most experts, the Red Bull seemed to be the most stable car on the track. So I'd still say that they're the team to beat. Then we have Toro Rosso who looked very strong at the last test. Their unique sidepod design also seems to be working well. They're one of the teams to watch Sauber did surprise everybody yesterday when Perez took the fastest lap of the day. And today they also showed a good performance. They certainly surprised me over all. They might also be in the group right behind the top teams. Williams on the other hand has consistently shown over the course of the tests that they're capable of going fast round the track. Their main problem is reliability. But if they can finish, they should do well. Pretty much the same is true for Renault. Ferrari has been the most consistent and most reliable team of the winter. They're certainly a contender for the Championship. The big surprise has been Mercedes. And being a fan myself, I'm really happy that the updates gave them the extra second that had been missing during the last tests. What's also of interest, unlike Alonso who took second place today, Schumacher wasn't on the Super Soft tires on his fast lap, but only the Soft compound. So this really gave several people some food for thought. But I still wouldn't consider Mercedes a contender for the title just yet, given that this was just one day of pre season testing, be it a day where we saw more open hands than ever before during this pre-season. Taking all that into account, here's my revised ranking, which I'm thinking about continuing to update throughout the season: --------------------- 1. Red Bull 2. Ferrari 3. Mercedes --------------------- 4. McLaren 5. Lotus-Renault 6. Williams 7. Toro Rosso 8. Sauber --------------------- 9. Force India 10. Team Lotus --------------------- 11. Virgin 12. HRT --------------------- As you can see, I moved Mercedes up one tier, because I believe that they should be safe in third place (at least) for now. Having McLaren in 4th place might be a little presumptuous, given their terrible test record. But since much of their problems stemmed from technical issue, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and with their past record to judge on, I think 4th place could very well be realistic. Although I admit that there's a big question mark. The battle for 4th/5th place will be very interesting in general, as I see Renault, Williams and Toro Rosso virtually on the same level and if recent developments are any indication, Sauber is right there with them. Also, I moved Lotus up one tier and the only reason I didn't have them pass Force India is because I'm once again being on the conservative side here (like with McLaren).
One thing I love about F1 is how unique every car is, so I always enjoy comparing them. Here are some comparative shots of the rear ends: