F1-BRAWN 1-2 IN AUSTRALIA

27 May 2013

  Brawn Grand Prix produced the miracle result in had threatened with a resounding 1-2 win for Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. Button was never headed but Rubens had a bumpier journey to the podium. After almost stalling at the start he was then involved in the first corner drama which took out Heikki Kovalainen (who hit Barrichello up the rear) and ruined Mark Webber’s race (Rubens rammed him). He later lost more of his front wing when he nerfed Kimi Raikkonen but his nose cone was replaced at the first pit-stop. More interesting was the substantial amount of damage to the Brawn’s rear diffuser after the McLaren had attacked it. Despite the damage Rubens was still able to come through the field and grab a comfortable second place so obviously even if the team is forced to alter its diffuser design the car will still be quick. 

  The post-race squabble over third took a while to sort out. Jarno Trulli enjoyed the podium presentation for Toyota but they were then given a 25 second penalty that dropped him to 13th place after the race officials decided that he had passed Hamilton under the last safety car period. Toyota then appealed this decision which was heard on Thursday and it was found that although Trulli had left the circuit and rejoined behind Hamilton at the beginning of the safety car period, Hamilton had deliberately slowed to allow Trulli back past as he believed the rules required. Worse was to come as McLaren, and Hamilton then lied to the officials regarding the radio conversation between Hamilton and the team at the time where they discussed letting Trulli back through. It was decided that Trulli could not be penalized as he had not been intent on overtaking, he just passed when Hamilton intentionally slowed. McLaren, and Hamilton, were then disqualified from the results for lying to the race officials. It may get worse, as the FIA are looking at further penalties for McLaren and Hamilton bringing the sport into disrepute.

   Mind you, as the appeal over the legality of the rear diffuser on the Brawn, Williams and Toyota cars will not be heard until after the Malaysian Grand Prix it may be that they are also disqualified from the results if the appeal is successful. That would then see Fernando Alonso, who finished sixth on the road but fifth in the final results promoted to winner followed by the Toro Rossos of Buemi and Bourdais, Sutil (Force India), Heidfeld (BMW Sauber), Fisichella (Force India), Webber and Vettel (Red Bull) as the point scorers. As Murray Walker once said, “If. If. If. F1 is If spelt backwards.” 

  And of course none of this dust-up over third place would have happened if Vettel had not tried a suicidal defence of second place at turn three after Kubica in the BMW had got a great run on him out of turn one. Kubica was already ahead going into the turn but Vettel left his breaking way too late down the inside and the resulting damage ended up putting both drivers into the wall and out of the race. Vettel tried a Villeneuve-esque effort to drive his three wheeled car to the finish as due to his efforts there was now a safety car so in theory no-one could pass him if he kept going. It didn’t work of course and the young German has now gotten himself a slap on the wrist and a 10 place grid penalty in Malaysia for not stopping immediately after the accident and causing a danger to other drivers.

   It was good to see that in general the new rules designed to aid overtaking worked. On a circuit that has a reputation for VERY little passing there was plenty of overtaking going on. The drivers who had their KERS system up and running had a great time, Hamilton especially passing many as he charged up through the field from his awful grid position. 

  All in all, an excellent start to the new season and the new rules. If this keeps up, we could be in for a vintage year.

 Sam Snape 

02/04/2009

F1 – ALL BRAWN AND PLENTY OF BRAINS

27 May 2013

  For the first time since 1970, when Ken Tyrrell’s eponymous team

   The two Brawn cars were the two quickest in all three qualifying sessions with Rubens topping the first two and holding provisional pole until Button pipped him on his final run. Considering their earlier performance the Williams were a bit disappointing as only Rosberg (5th) made the top ten while Toyota had both drivers times disallowed due to excessive flexing in their rear wings.    Red Bull were the only other team to get both drivers into the top ten shoot-out with Vettel claiming an excellent third fastest and Mark Webber finished in 10th after an under-par final lap.

"I'm not rapped with my last lap. My previous flying laps had gone well, so I would have liked a better result, but that's where we are so we'll try to make something from the race. The bumps were quite bad in Turn nine on the final run. The team's done a good job and we've worked well through our programme over the winter. It's a shame I didn't get the best time in qualifying, but we'll see how we go from there tomorrow." said Mark.

  As with yesterdays practice all the top four teams from last year struggled and only BMW-Sauber made any progress at all. Both Kubica (4th) and Nick Heidfeld (9th) will start in the top half of the field but only because both Toyotas have been relegated to the back of the grid due to their illegal wings. Both Ferrari drivers sit at the wrong end of the top ten starting 6th (Massa) and 7th (Raikkonen) while the McLarens had an absolute shocker with only Kovalainen taking part in the second qualifying session and finishing last in that. Hamilton would have taken part however a gearbox failure put him out and after his grid place penalty for changing said gearbox he will start in 18th place.

  Renault were not much better and it was only a totally balls out lap from Alonso that gave him 12th fastest time. He will start from 10th on the grid while poor old Piquet will line up back in 14th. A crap car almost killed off his F1 career before it really got started at the beginning of last year and it looks as if another crap car may complete the job this year. It’s difficult to assess a young drivers talent when he is provided with rubbish cars by a good team and he is up against an experienced dual world champion team-mate.

 QUALIFYING TIMES  Pos  Driver      Team                  Q1        Q2        Q3      1.  Button      Brawn-Mercedes        1:25.211  1:24.855  1:26.202  2.  Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes        1:25.006  1:24.783  1:26.505  3.  Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1:25.938  1:25.121  1:26.830  4.  Kubica      BMW-Sauber            1:25.922  1:25.152  1:26.914  5.  Rosberg     Williams-Toyota       1:25.846  1:25.123  1:26.973  6.  Glock       Toyota                1:25.499  1:25.281  1:26.975  7.  Massa       Ferrari               1:25.844  1:25.319  1:27.033  8.  Trulli      Toyota                1:26.194  1:25.265  1:27.127  9.  Raikkonen   Ferrari               1:25.899  1:25.380  1:27.163 10.  Webber      Red Bull-Renault      1:25.427  1:25.241  1:27.246 11.  Heidfeld    BMW-Sauber            1:25.827  1:25.504           12.  Alonso      Renault               1:26.026  1:25.605           13.  Nakajima    Williams-Toyota       1:26.074  1:25.607           14.  Kovalainen  McLaren-Mercedes      1:26.184  1:25.726           15.  Hamilton    McLaren-Mercedes      1:26.454  no time             16.  Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1:26.503                     17.  Piquet      Renault               1:26.598                     18.  Fisichella  Force India-Mercedes  1:26.677                     19.  Sutil       Force India-Mercedes  1:26.742                      20.  Bourdais    Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1:26.964                       

F1 – BUTTON REIGNS AT SEPANG

27 May 2013

  Damn it but don’t you just love wet races? Nobody has any idea what is going to happen and when. Not the drivers. Not the team managers. Not the commentators and certainly not the viewers. How wet? Intermediates or full wets? When to change? How much fuel to bung in while stopped? And even the big teams bugger up their strategy once in a while. This time Ferrari’s soothsayers got it all wrong and poor Kimi had to wallow around on full wets as the heavens stubbornly refused to open up. Oops. And following on from their qualifying blunder which saw Massa start from 16th on the grid…Oooohh dear…  

  OK in the end Jenson still probably deserved to win the Malaysian GP but he did still get just a bit lucky. He made a complete cock of his start from pole position and was fortunate to come out of the first turn complex in third place. From there he was stuck behind Jarno Trulli until the first stops while Rosberg in the Williams cantered away in front. Williams has a long and proud history of buggering up pit stops and lousy strategy calls and Sunday saw them produce the full range of their armoury. Nico’s first stop was way too early and way too long and put him back out on the track on slicks just as the rain was coming. Six laps later he was back in for full wets when, as Glock proved, intermediates were the best choice. Five laps later he was back in for intermediates just as it started to really rain. Two laps later, back in for full wets. A distant eighth and half a point was the end result. Mind you, they did a better job then Ferrari……

   In mitigation it must be said that at the first round of stops most drivers picked the wrong tyre (full wets) except Timo Glock. After a shocker of a start which saw the Toyota as low as 15th place, once on the inters he climbed from 11th to 2nd in just six laps carving as much as ten seconds a lap out of the leaders. Had he stopped just one lap earlier for full wets he may well have won the race But he didn’t and by the end of that one lap, Button who had stopped, was back in front on a track that was turning into Lake Titicaca. By the time Timo had stopped, rejoined and repassed Nick Heidfeld the red flag had arrived and so he ended in third place behind the BMW-Sauber pilot who had only stopped twice, and made the right call both times. 

  The other star of the conditions was Red Bull’s Mark Webber. Careful to avoid last weeks fate he made a cautious start to run seventh early on behind Alonso with whom he was to have a monumental scrap. On several occasions the Red Bull got in front only to see the Renault’s KERS system blast Alonso back past on the long front straight. After some highly entertaining side by side stuff through turns one and two Mark finally slithered past and simply vanished. Then the rains came and although on full wets Webber blew by four cars on his out-lap and was up to third place from 14th in just six laps when he was called in to put some inters on. It was of course, the wrong call at the wrong time and just one lap later he was back in for another set of wets and he rejoined in sixth on lap 30. He was still there on lap 31 but as he crossed the line after his 32nd lap he was second and hauling in Button at a great rate. But the red flag then came out and the race was called as of the end of lap 31. Typical of the poor sods luck Although his luck as been a bit better than Heikki Kovalainen’s in the McLaren who is yet to complete a racing lap this year. 

  Anyway who knows what would have happened if the race had continued. With cars on different tyres and different fuel loads, some with KERS, some without, Hell maybe Fisichella would have won in the Force India. Oh that’s right, no he wouldn’t have. He spun off at about 25 miles an hour on about 3 feet of water.

   You just gotta love the rain.

  Sam Snape 

08-04-2009     

BRISCOE TOPS IRL TEST

27 May 2013

 All the lads from our part of the world were in the top seven at the first IRL test of the year. Ryan Briscoe topped the test for Penske Racing with a best time of 0’25.1984 at an average speed of 212.156 mph. Seventh Stater Scott Dixon was next best for Target Chip Ganassi Racing just 4/100ths of a second off the pace. Will Power had a good first outing for Penske and ended up in seventh place with a time of 0’25.3914, just 2/10ths off Briscoe’s time.

Homestead test times 2009-02-25

 IndyCar Spring Training

Circuit: Homestead Miami Speedway (1.5-mile oval)

Homestead, FL Full Field Practice Times: 

Ps.  Driver             Team                     Chassis        Best Lap Time  

1.  Ryan Briscoe       Team Penske              Honda Dallara  25.1984        

2.  Scott Dixon        Target Chip Ganassi      Honda Dallara  25.2378        

3.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green Racing    Honda Dallara  25.3036        

4.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green Racing    Honda Dallara  25.3582        

5.  Dario Franchitti   Target Chip Ganassi      Honda Dallara  25.3842        

6.  Mario Moraes       KV Racing Technology     Honda Dallara  25.3842        

7.  Will Power         Team Penske              Honda Dallara  25.3914        

8.  Dan Wheldon        Panther Racing           Honda Dallara  25.4085        

9.  Mike Conway-R      Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Honda Dallara  25.4299          

10.  Graham Rahal       Newman Haas Lanigan      Honda Dallara  25.4465        

11.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green Racing    Honda Dallara  25.4578        

12.  Robert Doornbos-R  Newman Haas Lanigan      Honda Dallara  25.5077        

13.  Vitor Meira        A.J. Foyt Racing         Honda Dallara  25.5210        

14.  E.J. Viso          HVM Motorsports          Honda Dallara  25.5356        

15.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green Racing    Honda Dallara  25.5383        

16.  Milka Duno         Newman Haas Lanigan      Honda Dallara  25.5809        

17.  Ed Carpenter       Vision Racing            Honda Dallara  25.5881        

18.  Raphael Matos-R    Luczo Dragon Racing      Honda Dallara  25.6165        

19.  Justin Wilson      Dale Coyne Racing        Honda Dallara  25.6886        

20.  Jaime Camara       Conquest Racing          Honda Dallara  25.7790        

21.  Stanton Barrett-R  Team 3G                  Honda Dallara  25.9180          

F1 – BAD DAY FOR THE BIG BOYS

27 May 2013

  The Grand Prix season finally got under way today at Albert Park and to most people’s surprise, the big four teams all struggled to break into the top ten in either of the practice sessions. The worst of the lot was McLaren who ended the second session in 17th (Kovalainen) and 18th (Hamilton) place. BMW-Sauber were not much better and Renault lived up (down?) to its testing performance while Ferrari also struggled. Williams were the stand-out of the first day while home-star Mark Webber was the quickest of the “legal” drivers.  

   McLaren were playing down their prospects after suffering rear down-force problems in testing but no-one expected suck a lackluster performance with both drivers complaining that they had no grip and no feeling. Both Nick Heidfleld (14th) and Robert Kubica (15th) suffered from a similar problem and the way both drivers were sawing away at the steering wheel on their quickest laps suggests a fundamental balance drama. Renault has always looked slow during testing and didn’t look any better today. Both drivers had several spins on the way to 12th (Alonso) and 19th (Piquet). At least both Ferraris made it into the top ten in the first session but only Felipe Massa snuck into that list with the 10th best time in the second session. Kimi Raikkonen spent a considerable time at the bottom of the list before leaping up to 11th near the end of the session. Massa survived the most lurid slide of the day which would have surely put a driver of lesser car control into the wall after a huge “tank-slapper” approaching the second last turn. Proving the size of his genitalia he then put in his quickest lap of the day.

   Harking back to the mid nineties, was the pace of the Williams team which saw Nico Rosberg topping the time-sheets of both sessions with Kazuki Nakajima backing him up well finishing 2nd (session 1) and 7th in the FW31. The Brawn-Mercedes and Toyotas also featured at the top of the times in both sessions but these three teams are all racing under protest due to the configuration of their rear diffusers. Williams and Toyota have used a loophole in the technical regs and have a centre section that is higher than those regulations require. Brawn has used a double-decker diffuser design which meets the regs in that the lower part of the diffuser is lower that the regs require but the upper element is above them. All have been declared legal by the scrutineers however this has been appealed to the FIA International Court of Appeal. This will probably not be heard until after the Malaysian Grand Prix due to be held next week.   

  Australia’s home-grown hero Mark Webber was the only driver of a “legal” car to break up the top three teams with a stunning forth fastest time of the day after suffering hydraulic dramas in the first session and exhaust problems in the second. Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel also had a troubled day stopping with similar hydraulic problems in session one and spinning while trying to match Webber’s pace in the second. 

  Rubens Barrichello proved that Ross Brawn’s faith was well placed by beating team-mate Button in both sessions and ending the day second fastest. It is believed that Sir Richard Branson will announce that Virgin will become the title sponsor of the Brawn team later today. 

FINAL TIMES 

SESSION 1 

Pos  Driver       Team                      Time              Laps 1.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota       (B) 1:26.687           19 2.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota       (B) 1:26.736 + 0.049   21 3.  Raikkonen    Ferrari               (B) 1:26.750 + 0.063   24 4.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes        (B) 1:27.226 + 0.539   21 5.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes      (B) 1:27.453 + 0.766   15 6.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes        (B) 1:27.467 + 0.780   12 7.  Massa        Ferrari               (B) 1:27.642 + 0.955   24 8.  Glock        Toyota                (B) 1:27.710 + 1.023   24 9.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  (B) 1:27.993 + 1.306   2010.  Alonso       Renault               (B) 1:28.123 + 1.436   1611.  Heidfeld     BMW Sauber            (B) 1:28.137 + 1.450   2012.  Trulli       Toyota                (B) 1:28.142 + 1.455   2113.  Kubica       BMW Sauber            (B) 1:28.511 + 1.824   2214.  Fisichella   Force India-Mercedes  (B) 1:28.603 + 1.916   1615.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B) 1:28.785 + 2.098   2716.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes      (B) 1:29.042 + 2.355   1817.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault      (B) 1:29.081 + 2.394    718.  Piquet       Renault               (B) 1:29.461 + 2.774   2519.  Bourdais     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B) 1:29.499 + 2.812   2120.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault      (B) 1:32.784 + 6.097    4   SESSION 2 Pos  Driver       Team                       Time              Laps 1.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:26.053            36 2.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:26.157  + 0.104   38 3.  Trulli       Toyota                (B)  1:26.350  + 0.297   42 4.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:26.370  + 0.317   30 5.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:26.374  + 0.321   38 6.  Glock        Toyota                (B)  1:26.443  + 0.390   42 7.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:26.560  + 0.507   33 8.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:26.740  + 0.687   19 9.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:27.040  + 0.987   2910.  Massa        Ferrari               (B)  1:27.064  + 1.011   3511.  Raikkonen    Ferrari               (B)  1:27.204  + 1.151   3212.  Alonso       Renault               (B)  1:27.232  + 1.179   2813.  Fisichella   Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:27.282  + 1.229   3214.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:27.317  + 1.264   3415.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:27.398  + 1.345   3616.  Bourdais     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:27.479  + 1.426   3617.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:27.802  + 1.749   3518.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:27.813  + 1.760   3119.  Piquet       Renault               (B)  1:27.828  + 1.775   3520.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:28.076  + 2.023   33