F1 2009 Season discussion/development thread

schumi84 said:
Why were Mclaren so poor on Day 2?

Same reason as Day 1 in that they didnt go out when the track was fastest? :p
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Well, the first 2 days have had Heikki testing. Once Hamilton comes in, we can expect to see faster times.

What is worrying however, is they are playing around A LOT with their rear wing, which at this stage, is not good.

Secondly, when Hamilton did make an appearance last week, he was unable to put up the fastest time. And no, Hamilton is not the sort of person to slow down to put up an artificially slow time, as some people are suggesting. He would've been trying to go around the track in the fastest time possible, to show everybody that he is "the man".

I believe that McLaren are genuinely struggling right now.

To me, BMW and Ferrari seem to be the teams who are consistently putting up the best times. Moreover, they have completed the most test miles with few break downs, which bodes well for them. We might even see a new World Champion in 2009 (Kubica, Massa). ;)
 
I would go along with Ferrari and BMW being the teams to beat atm, however Toyota have shown some very good pace, so i think the gap between the battlemidfield battle and up front is going to be blurred slightly (at least i hope for the racing's sake).

I think after the work that BMW have put in they really do deserve a championship, have a couple of cracking drivers and will put up a very good fight. I dont like Alonso, however he is going to be up for it due to the rejuvenation of Renault from the 2nd half of last season.

All in all, am hopeful of a close season with loads of overtaking, and looking forward to The Chain being played for the first race :)
 
NeilMick said:
Didn't you say the same thing last week and then the faster times failed to materialise?
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I did say the same thing and the fast times did materialise (relative to the rest of the field), when Hamilton arrived. However, he was unable to post the fastest time.
 
sunama said:
Surely though, you can use it in qualifying, which should help eek out a faster time?

Also, when racing, if you have KERS on your car, while the car in front doesnt, it will give you a MASSIVE advantage, when trying to overtake - where last year so many people got stuck behind Trulli, as he would do just enough to prevent being overtaken, this year will be hard for him to do the same, if the car behind is faster AND has KERS, to assist with the overtaking move.

The way I see it, I would rather have a slightly slower car with KERS on board (to assist in overtaking slower cars or prevent faster cars overtaking me on the straights), than a faster car with no KERS unit.
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Which is exactly why i said "until it shows a performance advantage" which currently it does not.
 
Memphis said:
Apologies if it's been covered somewhere, but anyone any idea what's up with the paint splash on Heiki's car? > http://www.autosport.com/gallery/photo.php/id/123647

Something trivial I'm sure, but looks very odd!
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IIRC it's some sort of hi-visibility paraffin paint, in order to show the air-flow patterns over the bodywork. Think they use it to tie in what wind tunnel testing indicates and what real life actually does.
 
Schuy is watching today

schumacher.jpg
 
Very nice time from Button there 1:20.313 a whole thousandth of a second quicker than Kimi managed in the Ferrari yesterday. You've got to admit even fuel adjusted etc, Brawn GP is looking good for some points this year. Loved the comment earlier on the possibility of McLaren being the slowest Mercedes powered car on the grid.
 
I know what you mean, Brawn GP is impressing me.
Just not being consistantly last in an F1 field is impressive given the circumstances around their arrival (revival?) into F1.
 
frakker said:
Button quick from the word go and consistent over a race distance.
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Not forgetting buttons time was set when track temperature was 12c and air temp was 10c! its up to 19c track temp according to that site now. Clearly Brawn F1 (i so nearly wrote honda there) are able to get their tyres to work well in cold conditions. I'm very impressed with them so far, and would love to see them do well this season. My money is still on one of the Ferrari's to take both crowns this year.
 
frakker said:
Button quick from the word go and consistent over a race distance. Red Bull hit by yet another mechanical issue leaving Vettel stranded on track.
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Again, impressive stuff. Surely if they are running low fuel loads, they would be doing short stints. If they are doing similar stints to the other drivers, and still hitting decent times, this is fantastic!
 
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