I dont think anyone will ever do that again..The FIA will stop Vettel and Red Bull with more regulations.
I don't want to take anything away from Michael's success, but is it just me or is there more competition now?? Seems to be a lot of cars up front including team mates in the past few years.
one hd has delayed qual by 2 hours because of some game with a ball. looks like i'll be streaming!! grrrrrrr
That wasn't suppossed to happen with OneHD. ****ing AFL, I hate the game, bogans game. Surely they can have one sport on one channel and other sport on the 2nd channel. All going well Channel 9 will pick up rights for the next 4 years.
well I'll be watching it live anyway cos I have a dinner appointment....meanwhile...FP3 Image Unavailable, Please Login
From James Allen The first three races have given us much to reflect on in terms of the new style of racing F1 now provides, but there are some fascinating details emerging too about the relative performance of the cars. One of the things to catch the eye has been the relative pace of the Red Bull and the McLaren in qualifying and in the race. And its not just about who has the newest tyres. When you look at it closely you see that there is reason to feel very excited about the competition between the two cars this season. At the first and third races Sebastian Vettel had a margin of 7/10ths of a second over the closest McLaren, while in Malaysia it was much closer, just 1/10th. But in the races, particularly the last two which have longer straights and more high speed corners, the McLaren has generally been very close. Part of the reason for this, of course, is the efficiency of the Mercedes KERS on the McLaren, while the Red Bull has been struggling to make its system work and has been using it for starts and not much else. Webbers KERS packed in after 24 laps in China, while Vettels was only giving him a 30hp boost instead of the normal 80hp and as he and the team explained, he didnt use it throughout the race. Its been pointed out to me by a senior engineer from another team that McLaren go into the races in good shape relative to Red Bull due to the differences between their adjustable DRS rear wings. The Red Bull wing has a steep upper plane design, which gets a bigger drag reduction than the McLaren when the DRS is enabled. That gives Webber and Vettel an advantage in qualifying, because the DRS can be enabled everywhere, as we have seen on the TV pictures of qualifying. In the race, when the DRS can only be used in one particular situation, McLaren have an advantage because their softer rear wing gives them a straightline speed advantage everywhere except for the DRS zone. In Shanghai, for example, in the race Hamiltons top speed in Sector 1 was 291km/h compared to Vettels 273 km/h. In sector 2 it was 269km/h compared to 267 km/h and in Sector 3 it was 258 km/h to 256 km/h. Obviously the reason Hamilton was able to catch and pass Vettel was because he was on newer tyres due to the different strategies they were on, but the principal was the same in Malaysia where Vettel and Button did the same strategy. Although there again we saw that the McLaren had better rear tyre wear than the Red Bull. Its one of the reasons to feel pretty encouraged about the competition in the races ahead of us in the coming months. Now Ferrari have to work hard on their car to get themselves into the fight, because Red Bull and McLaren are in good shape. Writing on his own website this week, Hamilton said, China was great because we made it work out on the track its always sweeter to win a race when youve overtaken the cars ahead. And in my final stint I got past Nico, Felipe and Sebastian for the win, which hopefully was great for all the fans watching. Incidentally the Mercedes problems with the DRS wing, which hit Michael Schumacher in qualifying in China, are believed to be aerodynamic in the sense that the air flow is not reattaching after the DRS wing is closed. This was a problem many teams experienced with the F Duct wing last year. Mercedes has been very aggressive with its design this year and appear to have the biggest gain when the DRS in enabled of all the teams, at around 20km/h. They will no doubt be using the three week break before Turkey to address their problems in this area, which may result in a less dramatic speed gain but a more efficient rear wing.
Sorry Speedy, after bagging the AFL I was was referring to 9 picking it up for the next 4 years. They are all fighting for 2010 to 2016.
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix organisers plan to widen the entry to the main hairpin and radically alter the cambering on another corner as part of changes to improve overtaking at its Yas Marina circuit, AUTOSPORT has learned. With the track having come under fire for a lack of passing last year, race chiefs have agreed to revamp some of the corners to improve matters for this November's penultimate round of the Formula 1 championship. Although the final details of what is being done have not been confirmed, sources have revealed to AUTOSPORT that plans are close to being signed off for three main changes. They are: * the Turn 5/6 chicane and entry to the bottom Turn 7 hairpin will be made much wider, so as to allow more opportunity for drivers to take a different line into and through the corner. * the negative camber on the exit of the Turn 9 chicane will be reprofiled to make it a banked corner - therefore giving drivers the chance to take a wide line and run around the outside of a rival. * the slow left handers at Turns 13/14 will be made into one sweeping corner to try and improve the flow of the circuit near the end of the lap. Although the evidence from the first three races suggest that F1's new rules are already throwing up more overtaking opportunities than last year, the Abu Dhabi tweaks have been welcomed by drivers. Michael Schumacher said at the Chinese Grand Prix: "We're very happy to hear that Abu Dhabi, after building a very good track, is open to make further changes in order to see if we can find some guidelines for the future that may improve the overtaking situation. So, I think it's a good step in the right direction, to see what will be done, what effect it will have. "Nevertheless, if you look at this year's competition in general, it does offer a lot more overtaking possibilities. I think that in that respect, in terms of spectacle and interest in the sport, it has risen extremely." http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/90938
