Australian GP 2008

[stibbles]

Well, the crappy drivers did become obvious, but Heidfeld as well as Alonso looked VERY good without TC. Rememeber, passing is very low in F1 due to the aero, not TC, so to say that someone only moved up because of retirements is like saying that they only moved up because their car is 2 seconds a lap quicker. Bourdais was on a new track, with last years car (that was NOT designed to run without TC, with a Ferrari engine that I am sure are the lowest performers on the dyno because I also sure that Ferrari keeps the best ones for themselves), in a high pressure debut and did fantastic. He may have landed a podium had he not retired.

Sorry. I didn't mean I disagreed totally. Yes, the lack of TC brought the cream to the top. But I think it showed who was worse rather than who was better.

I do however disagree completely with you thoughts on Bourdais. Yeah, he done good. But I highly doubt that if Red Bull, Ferrari AND Toyota had been around at the finish, Bourdais would have held the same position. Not to mention his teammate still in the race. And it is very reasonable to say that he finished there only because of retirements. It's happened alot before in the past, and I don't see how it doesn't/can't apply here. I'm not suggesting he isn't good, his four ChampCar titles prove that. I just don't think he would have been in the same finishing position had half the field not retired.

And neither would Alonso, and Kmimi wouldn't have got one point (his WDC margin last year). Bourdais was faster than FA until his car stopped. SB (and I'm not a fan) did far better than I expected. And whilst he would have been there on retirements he was still in front of a 2xWDC, a 1xWDC and pulling away.

[stibbles]

...
Piquet. Go. Home.

And McLaren are miles ahead because of the close relationship of the designers of the common ECU. It's so blantantly obvious, yet the press is trying to shoo everyone away from that fact.

Two points I totally disagree with.

First of all, it was Piquet's first race, and Kovalainen last year already proved it's not an easy track to start your career in. Furthermore, Piquet's Renault was hit during the start and was hard to drive as of that moment. He therefore was unable to keep a decent pace. Give the guy a break, he'll improve and has the team behind him.

As for McLaren being miles ahead, Ferrari are pretty well on the pace too but are apparently still figuring out how to keep their engines reliable with the ECU.
I don't expect any McLaren advantage to last for more than a 4 races (at least I hope so).

I'm a bit p...ed at the mind numbing ECU barbs going on here, I just joined thinking this would be a bit better informed than some of the flame baiting trolling sites. And I start to read all this ECU engine failure stuff. None of the teams are blaming their failures on the ECU. Maybe a heat issue more likely. Just didn't design the aero for sufficient cooling. Remember that there was only 11% humidity, which makes cooling more challenging.

Remember these ECU's are closed loop systems - inputs are just temp (probably a variety of sources), variable valve timing (if used), advance, fuel (based on airflow and temp) and driver selected paramaters. This may be a simplified, but the same parameters should apply to any ECU:- just a simple matter of translation to the new system. If a team like Ferrari can't translate their own maps to a new system selected by the FIA then .....

[rghai6]

BTW: does someone know what happened to Heikki in the straight when battling with Alonso?
The last safety car spoiled Heikki but I think he was fast with his new McLaren, he will do better I think.

I managed to get past Fernando but then as I tore off a visor strip on the main straight I accidentally hit the pit lane speed limiter button and Fernando managed to get past me again. (Kovy)

http://www.motorsportmad.com/view/4092/ ... -too-early
Here's the video of the incident. I'm not too sure what happens but to me it does not look as if he is removing the visor strip and it also looks as if he hits the pitlane limiter later on consciously.

[Ray]

BTW: does someone know what happened to Heikki in the straight when battling with Alonso?
The last safety car spoiled Heikki but I think he was fast with his new McLaren, he will do better I think.

I managed to get past Fernando but then as I tore off a visor strip on the main straight I accidentally hit the pit lane speed limiter button and Fernando managed to get past me again. (Kovy)

http://www.motorsportmad.com/view/4092/ ... -too-early
Here's the video of the incident. I'm not too sure what happens but to me it does not look as if he is removing the visor strip and it also looks as if he hits the pitlane limiter later on consciously.

To my untrained eye, it looks alot like he was fist pumping and not taking a tear off off. Nice find, I had been looking for something like that.

[Carlos]

Welcome to the forum stibbles. You have probably read the site over a few months and noticed it was Troll free. But every site has a few flame baiting Trolls. I think F1Technical has a much lower Troll count than most F1 sites. Deprive them of food and oxygen, don't respond to their pathetic rascal posts or Out them as Plastic Toy Trolls making those irritating little sounds. There is no place on the net or real life that is Troll free -- unfortunately. The movies, at work, in a pub, walking the street. Tiresome but true. I don't read them, answer them or on the street give them spare change, a cigarette or the time of day. As a child in short pants I did what you did -- beat the hell out of them on the school ground. Sometimes I long for those days; most times I happily engage in adult pleasures and ignore Life's Trolls.

EVERYWHERE -- I SEE TROLLS. RANT OVER.

Once again, welcome stibbles.

On topic. I had forcast last year Williams and BMW would surprise this season. They did in Australia.

[DaveKillens]

Welcome to the forum stibbles. I agree with Carlos, and I'll try harder not to respond to trollisms. But then again, I'm also a very strong believer in freedom of speech.. even for trolls. But like a bothersome child, sometimes the best solution is ignoring the bad behavior.
I also hold each and every driver in the highest regard. They do a job that is very dangerous, where a mistake could lead to fatal consequences. Drivers also have tremendous skill, much more than this mere mortal. Additionally, the team members, from the front line at the track to the many countless, unseen others behind in the factories: each and every one of them is striving to give their best, because the measurement in racing is simple.. it's how the car finishes the race. So at times, I'm put off when someone dismisses all this hard work and effort in a cavalier manner.
All this accusing crap about the ECU's is based on ignorance.. very few know the actual workings of the device. So they just point fingers whenever there's trouble.

The Australian was a very interesting race. Some drivers had excellent races, and others the opposite. Mechanical failures and mistakes counted a lot, and we the fans got to see the cars racing, and we can each personally formulate our opinions on who's better than someone else. However, I was disappointed and put off by the very biased anti-Alonso sentiment by the announcers, very unprofessional behavior.
From my impression of the first race of the season is that we're in for a very competitive season. Not only between Mclaren and Ferrari, but also between the "rest of the best".
But the best impression I got from the weekend was at the very end, where two friends, Hamilton and Rosberg, both hugged each other and jumped up and down like little schoolboys. You can't stage that, you can't fake it. It's quite a departure from last year when there was a lot of personal animosity and scowling.
It's very nice to see sincere friendship and sportsmanship.

[mx_tifoso]

Autosport: Q&A with Kimi Raikkonen

Q. Lewis Hamilton has said that he believes McLaren are stronger than Ferrari, and that he did not show the team's true speed in Melbourne...

KR: I don't know. I don't really care what they said. I think we have a strong car, a fast car, and things can work well.

Classic Kimi!

I belive he said "I don't know" or "I don't think so" in almost every response too.

[myurr]

I managed to get past Fernando but then as I tore off a visor strip on the main straight I accidentally hit the pit lane speed limiter button and Fernando managed to get past me again. (Kovy)

http://www.motorsportmad.com/view/4092/ ... -too-early
Here's the video of the incident. I'm not too sure what happens but to me it does not look as if he is removing the visor strip and it also looks as if he hits the pitlane limiter later on consciously.

To my untrained eye, it looks alot like he was fist pumping and not taking a tear off off. Nice find, I had been looking for something like that.

To my equally untrained eye it looks more like he grabbed the tear off and threw it off in one grabbing motion which accidentally triggered the speed limiter. He then stabs at the button twice, getting it the second time, to try to disengage it. This is consistent with his statement.

[casper]

...
Piquet. Go. Home.

And McLaren are miles ahead because of the close relationship of the designers of the common ECU. It's so blantantly obvious, yet the press is trying to shoo everyone away from that fact.

Two points I totally disagree with.

First of all, it was Piquet's first race, and Kovalainen last year already proved it's not an easy track to start your career in. Furthermore, Piquet's Renault was hit during the start and was hard to drive as of that moment. He therefore was unable to keep a decent pace. Give the guy a break, he'll improve and has the team behind him.

As for McLaren being miles ahead, Ferrari are pretty well on the pace too but are apparently still figuring out how to keep their engines reliable with the ECU.
I don't expect any McLaren advantage to last for more than a 4 races (at least I hope so).

I'm a bit p...ed at the mind numbing ECU barbs going on here, I just joined thinking this would be a bit better informed than some of the flame baiting trolling sites. And I start to read all this ECU engine failure stuff. None of the teams are blaming their failures on the ECU. Maybe a heat issue more likely. Just didn't design the aero for sufficient cooling. Remember that there was only 11% humidity, which makes cooling more challenging.

Remember these ECU's are closed loop systems - inputs are just temp (probably a variety of sources), variable valve timing (if used), advance, fuel (based on airflow and temp) and driver selected paramaters. This may be a simplified, but the same parameters should apply to any ECU:- just a simple matter of translation to the new system. If a team like Ferrari can't translate their own maps to a new system selected by the FIA then .....

Just saw an F1-live article eplaining partly their engine going up in smoke in the Melborne GP, http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/n ... 1855.shtml.
Am quoting them entirely below:

Engine design had nothing to do with the failure of both Ferrari power plants in the recent Australian Grand Prix according to Michael Schumacher.

Ferrari did not encounter engine problems in 10,000 km of pre-season testing, which counters speculation that the McLaren ECU can be blamed.

In an interview with Auto Motor und Sport, Schumacher did not reveal the actual cause of the Albert Park failures, but he insists that they had "nothing to do with the engines themselves."

"I don't want to go into any more detail," he added.

Rumours on Thursday at the scene of the Malaysian Grand Prix indicate that the problems were of an aerodynamic nature, triggered by the intense heat of the Melbourne circuit.

Coulbe be this is just PR-speak for an "overheating engine" - due to lack of "aerodynamics" (ventillation).

[checkered]

Well, even if Michael

didn't go "into any more detail", the thing is that the failures in Felipe's and Kimi's cars were identical (eventually the intake valves failed). The root cause of the problem remains completely avoidable with the current engine, there was neither a design nor a manufacturing issue.

While there's apparently some room for improvement in the engine maps as well, the real trouble was that the race telemetry somehow failed to inform the engineers of excessive thermal loading (or the information wasn't readily apparent therein, or Ferrari had yet to integrate a specific safeguard for such an eventuality to work in conjunction with the MES SECU). Simply switching to a leaner mixture in time would've seen both engines run that much cooler and survive from Melbourne to Sepang.

While understandably the slight loss of power that this entails isn't exactly something one would want to advertise to the competition, the team will have the margins to compensate when qualifying well. I very much doubt we'll see a repetition of this particular problem under any circumstances. Of course, this is just something I've expanded from all the comments I've read - but to me, it's by far the most plausible explanation at this point.

[P_O_L]

Does anyone know where i can find the fastest racelap chart of melbourne?

[checkered]

Does anyone know where i can find the fastest racelap chart of melbourne?

Visionf1 is a

pretty fun interactive way to review the race. Contains quite a lot of lap data and some interesting numerical analysis as well. You'll certainly find every drivers' fastest race laps in the "analysis" section, though it'll probably require you to watch the animated "replay" if you also want to find out on which lap the best time occurred. Formula 1 Database also lists detailed data, but in a less "fun" form as far as I'm concerned. Of course, if you're an Autosport subscriber (by your previous posts I take it that you are not ...), there's FORIX. Apart from those there are a multitude of sites that I visit much less often for statistics and such ... I'll be surprised if those aren't a mere "Googling" away.

[P_O_L]

Many thanks!!