indeed. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a Red Bull computer or two missing their cooling fans right now too..... Cheers, Iam
redbulls misery bring some joy, still they will sort things out soon will be interesting to see whats what on the upcoming test at bahrain
Maybe Kobi wasn't supposed to reveal this, but now we know and probably obvious considering they don't have their control systems working properly at this stage. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112383 "They mentioned before coming here that they were quite a lot on the back [foot] with the programme. I said [to them], are you surprised by this result? They said no because we are missing a lot of schedules and are late.
As I said before, 'you gotta do what you gotta do'........ But it sure looks like they don't have much in the way of 'fabricators' at the track these days! I could have done better with some aluminum, a pop rivet gun and a can of paint!..... Cheers, Ian
Fair comment! I'm not so sure about that! Looks positively agricultural to me!..... Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder could have done better. Cheers, Ian
Lotus (Boullier) was hinting at this some time ago. Maybe this also precipitated his move to Mac... "You will see, we will not be the only team not being in Jerez," Boullier told the BBC. "I know this for a fact already." Lotus sure more teams will miss first F1 test of 2014 - F1 news - AUTOSPORT.com
I remember the story, and thought he was BS'ing at the time. Even Marussia made it out, and with a pretty nice looking car too. They're *way* ahead of anyone stuck with Renault right now, including the Cans! As for his move to Mac, I think he just jumped from the sinking ship, as have many others if the stories are to be believed. OTOH, the FIA have now confirmed Lotus' entry. I wonder what the over/under is on them making Bahrain? Cheers, Ian
Ted's Notebook for Day 4 [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW7NpIAnMrQ]Ted's Notebook Day 4 - F1 Testing Jerez 2014 - YouTube[/ame]
Snippets from evo's feature from the first day at Jerez: "8:50 Engines warm up behind garage doors. Different noises. Interesting noises. 9:00 Bang on time, the Mercedes goes out on track. We rush to the back of the paddock to find a good view. It’s just an installation lap and it sounds very odd, like there’s a 4500rpm rev limit and Lewis is a novice who keeps forgetting to change up. After one lap he’s back in the pits. 9:32 After half an hour with an empty circuit, Lewis goes back out. Another single lap, feeling his way round. A few more revs this time. Sounds much better. You can hear the turbo spinning when he’s off the throttle on the way into a bend too. It feels very strange with so little track activity. 9:40 The Ferrari comes out to a flurry of flash bulbs from the assembled photographers. 9:40 (and 30sec) I’m waiting for the sound of Kimi Räikkönen re-emerging from behind a small hill. Silence. A marshal runs across some open tarmac a little distance away and a radio crackles into life. Half a dozen corners in and the car’s come to a halt. Red flags. Five Ferrari engineers pile into a scruffy white SEAT Altea and head off to find their stricken car. 10:00 The Ferrari arrives back on a trailer. At least they tried. No one else even looks like coming out of their garage. 10:10 Man in a Caterham jacket wanders down the pitlane. With nothing else happening, photographers pap him half to death. 10:21 Lewis goes out again. The mechanics stand in the pitlane revving their air blowers waiting for him to return. Mercedes are just showing off now – they’ve done 600 per cent more laps than anyone else. Lewis returns and, as he pulls into the box, the car sounds like a jet fighter coming to rest with its engines spinning down. There’s a lovely wastegate tchi-tchiuuu as well. The air blowers cool the brakes and the car is wheeled back into the garage (with covers over the rear end). Silence once more. 10:35 I’m allowed into the pit garage-cum-operating theatre (once I’ve jettisoned any cameras) and it’s fascinating. Standing immediately behind the W05 I can see how open the back of the car looks now without the lower element to the rear wing. The upper element is ten per cent smaller too and there’s just a single central exhaust. The exhaust can have between 0 and 5 degrees of elevation and can sit either above or below what’s known as ‘the monkey cradle’; no aero pieces are allowed behind its airflow. No blown diffusers this year either, so people are saying that the maximum rear downforce they can generate is similar to the low-drag settings at Spa or Monza last year. There’s a hollow sound when the car starts (it seems odd with so many batteries on board that the regulations still don’t insist on self-starting), more like an F1 engine from the ’80s, and your ears can easily stand the noise at idle. Everyone waits while one man looks at screens and holds his hand up. They wait. There’s a conversation I can’t hear going on over the headphones. Then the flat palm becomes a thumbs-up, the tyre warmers are removed, the garage door goes up, the revs build to a level that resonates your stirrup and anvil uncomfortably and Lewis is gone. The previously calm screens start to look like Etch-a-Sketches gone haywire as data floods in. 11:10 A Force India goes out and stops on track. I’m standing by some bins and fall into conversation with an engineer from Pirelli. He says the tyres are more conservative this year to deal with the extra torque, so the 2014 super-soft is like a 2013 soft. They were planning big changes in size but then decided against it. Hoping for a quieter year, no doubt. 11:30 Interview with Nico. He has a cool air of nonchalance about him but a good sense of humour beneath it. He says it’s like going back to school learning all the new stuff, but he doesn’t like the new cars being slower. He then explains the fly-by-wire rear brakes, which sound terrifyingly complicated: the energy recovery system is in action most of the time while braking, but on downchanges the normal brakes have to cut in seamlessly to cover the transition through neutral. 12:20 Lewis crashes at Turn 1. A snapper tells me his friend saw it and thought it was rear suspension failure and that Lewis was limping. Lewis bounds into hospitality a few minutes later and the team announces it was a front wing failure. Such is the F1 rumour-mill. 13:45 It seems as though most people have wandered off for a siesta. Red Bull are apparently struggling with cooling issues (the 2014 sidepods have to house an intercooler as well as the normal radiators). I notice the Ferrari garage door slowly rising behind their privacy screens. I wander over. Sure enough, the F14 T starts up and a couple of minutes later Kimi selects first gear with a clunk (eight speeds this year and the ratios are chosen by each team and fixed for the whole season, while the five power units rule also applies to gearboxes and the cogs inside them). No doubt hoping to get a full lap in this time, he drives out of the pits, nearly running over my feet in the process. I’m the only one there. The Ferrari engine doesn’t sound quite as nice as the Mercedes’ – a bit more blare, but still good. The Renault engine has a constant high-pitched whistle, which is curious. When Kimi comes back in after a handful of laps there are a couple more photographers and we all comment on the curious smell. Sweet but slightly noxious at the same time. 14:30 Time to leave for the airport. On the way back we calculate that with the mandatory 100kg fuel (about 140 litres) and a 305km race distance, the cars will be doing about 6mpg. Better than some road cars round a track. It’s a great relief to know that the new F1 cars sound good, too. Really good, actually. The big question after the first day of testing, however, is whether any of them will actually complete 305km in Melbourne. Has F1 finally overstretched itself?"
Ecclestone: The whole thing with the new F1 engines is totally absurd | Grand Prix 247 Bernie's thoughts after Jerez...NOT A FAN
Just Bernie being Bernie. I happen to agree with him, but again, it's what they (the guys spending the money) wanted, so who are we to argue? At least it's bringing Honda back, so I guess that's good..... Cheers, Ian
Yep....change can suck sometimes, but it's invariably part of life. Let's see how the season plays out before indicting the drama. I will say that Bernie understands what makes the show compelling and he's not sold that this is the answer. On the other hand, I'll take this versus anything like last season.
+1 No need to panic...... Yet.... (Unless you're Renault of course! ) Gotta say I was a little surprised that Merc take *23* trucks to every race though!.... Dayum! I thought they may be at about 10-12, but twenty-friggin'-three! Wow! Cheers, Ian
Bernie playing the good cop with manufacturers and FIA as the bad cop. Yeah, suuure.. If he was so worried about the fans and the show, why did he insist in making races in empty tracks in the middle of the desert.
It's amazing how similar the Mercedes and the Ferrari look from the outside. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Nice to see he has an opinion eh lol! The fuel thing really needs to go. The rest of the changes will mix it up for us initially.
+1 As for the fuel, if they have problems I suspect it'll get increased. But, didn't Merc (?) do, basically, two complete races without stopping the other day? OK, they're a *long* way from flat out yet, but if true (& I'm sure Fpiloto will confirm ) it may not be as bad as the naysayers are predicting. Cheers, Ian
