Chinese GP RACE **spoiler**

There's approximately 4 hr 40 minutes until race time - the weather forecast now is showing partly cloudy, temp of 66F and winds SSE @ 18 mph. It gets better ! ! !

11 AM - 60% chance rain - temp 60F - 81% humidity - SSE 13 mph
NOON - 70% chance rain - temp 61F - 81% humidity - SSE 13 mph
1 PM - 2 PM - 70% chance rain - temp 61F - humidity 78% - SSE 13 mph
3 PM - 4 PM - 80% chance rain - temp 61F - humidity 78% - SSE 13 mph

If the weather guessers are correct it should be an interesting race.

Here's a photo of the Lotus in the garage in it's pj's until 10 am. Interesting is the "watching eye" above the car and the image you can see of the car under the cover. (at least that's what it looks like to me). Got it off twitter.

Carol
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I've decided to just keep myself busy here at the computer and stay up!

I just found this !!

In past years on Saturday evening, a day before the final race, all the cars were kept together in a single FIA garage. However with 26 cars originally expected for this year — and up to three new teams requiring garages of their own — the FIA decided to look for a new system to make better use of the space.

The cars are now kept under parc fermé conditions in the garages of the individual teams, and to ensure that there is no tampering they are zipped up in a car cover — a bit like a giant sleeping bag — which is then sealed by the FIA when parc fermé begins at 6.30pm on Saturday night.

In the past the teams would collect the cars at 8.30 am from the parc fermé garage, but now they can just unzip the covers.

The FIA has also mounted a camera on the pit gantry above every car to monitor any movement around the cars overnight. A t the Bahrain race, a track official had the exciting job of watching an FIA laptop with 24 camera views on it. Fortunately if he falls asleep anything untoward will still be recorded.

and this which is much the same as above: The cameras have two settings:

“In ‘normal’ mode, which is started at the beginning of qualifying, cameras are accessible by FIA Technical Delegate Jo Bauer; after qualifying the cameras switch to ‘night’ mode, and are configured to view the entire car and detect any movement in its immediate vicinity, ” according to the FIA. “Once qualifying is complete and the cars are returned to their pits, they are covered, sealed with a tamper-proof fastener and placed under camera surveillance. A security guard watches the camera feeds from all garages and alerts the technical team to any untoward activity.”

The camera’s output is recorded digitally.



(read that earlier about EJ, in fact Tony Fernandes offered to take his place!!)

 

BBC is far superior to Speed. They are there not in NC.

Carol

Good morning guys ! ! !

 

Loved Schumi's response when asked during the driver parade how was qualifying "CRAP" !!

 

Hi Florian - yes rain and more expected in an hour's time - fantastic!!