F1 2009 Season discussion/development thread

Among McLaren’s rivals there is delight at a setback that could play a decisive role in the outcome of Hamilton’s season. One rival team member, with an educated insight into what might be going on, said that he believed McLaren were in a mess. “They are totally, totally in the ****.”
Click to expand...

Source

Seems like Mclaren have a little hill to push their car up before they will be in with a chance for a fight. Hopefully Alonso will be there or thereabouts to give The Messiah™(MBE) a run for his money :D
 
Lets start with the test times:
Duke said:
testingday4.jpg
Click to expand...


SKILL said:
Looking at the times though there are several 'bunches' of drivers/teams that are worth looking at:

Barrichello did a 1:18.9xx which is stunningly quick, it was definately a qually run but assuming that was a legal car that's damn good

Next with Rosberg and Glock, close-ish to each other but 8 tenths behind Barrichello and half a second ahead of Vettel,

Next up you've got half a second covering Vettel to Fisichella, 7 drivers/teams, of which Hamilton is 5th, only 3 tenths behind Vettel, and those 3 tenth's include the cars/drivers that most people, you included, are tipping to be championship contenders, namely Alonso, Massa, Kubica and possibly Vettel.

So yes the McLaren is slowl, but to say it's 2s per lap off the pace (eg an utterly huge gap) isn't quite looking at the whole picture, if they were 2 seconds a lap off the pace over the whole race then they won't be alone and that BrawnGP car is gonna win the drivers and constructors championships with ease :p (only question then would be Button or Barrichello? :p)
Click to expand...

Ok true, for the most part, but you also have to look at the drivers and their make-up. One thing we learnt last year was that Hamilton tends to go as fast as he can, at all times. Its just how he is. Ego is very important to him. The fact that he was one of the only drivers to have a few offs, is indication that he was on the limit. The Ferrari drivers on the other hand were totally the opposite last year, where they were both happy to have slow times during practise sessions, but pushed hard only when it counted.

Based on the above, I would classify Hamilton's time as being more likely to be a qualifying type run, directly comparable to Barrichello's. Whereas Ferrari probably weren't on the limit, on Friday.

We also have to observe the fact that Ferrari/BMW always seemed to be at or near the top of the time sheets, throughout the week. Thursday was their slowest day.

My take on it, is that if McLaren raced today, they could well be around 1.5s/lap slower than the BrawnGP cars.

McLaren are definitely hurting.
 
Skeeter said:
The best tracks for me will always be those that have evolved over time from basic road way back when. The tracks that have kept there charm and there interesting features, like Spa. Yes they are still cutting out the good bits on safety grounds, but the fact is, no1 in there right minds would build Spa as it is now if it were a new track. Something with corners like that, that is that long, and completely in the middle of nowhere, it just wouldnt happen. All new tracks are similar, and restricted, and It pains me to see the old tracks being ditched and replaced with newly build pancake tracks or boring street tracks... :( I mean, I watched the A1 GP at Kyalami (or however its spelt), that track looks great fun, ups and downs and flowing corners galoor, but F1 ditched that years ago...
Click to expand...

Yep, the trouble is those tracks are crap for overtaking and racing as well. Spa only ever throws up much of a race when it's wet or changeable. Suzuka was dull despite having some great corners. Imola, Monza dull. I remember very well the monza race in 97 wasn't it, when the top 5 followed each other a second behind for about 60 laps and the one highlight was DC getting mildly out of shape.

I always think it's a shame they build these new tracks with areas that are two cars wide. They should all be much wider. I'd like to see overtaking in F1 like you used to see in Cart in the late 90's. Where you saw something truely special when a driver passed the whole field on the racetrack.
 
Dorje said:
Can we make a rule of not referring to Hamilton as the Messiah this year, please, pretty please!
Click to expand...

Sure.....as soon as the more militant wing of hs fanbase shuts the **** up and acknowledges the fact that he's not infallible :)

Actually, now he's won a title the huge amount of worship that he gets is somewhat more justified. And the BBC might not go quite so overboard as ITV. We'll see how it goes.
 
JRS said:
Actually, now he's won a title the huge amount of worship that he gets is somewhat more justified. And the BBC might not go quite so overboard as ITV. We'll see how it goes.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, no more James Allen. Bliss.
 
sunama said:
Lets start with the test times:





Ok true, for the most part, but you also have to look at the drivers and their make-up. One thing we learnt last year was that Hamilton tends to go as fast as he can, at all times. Its just how he is. Ego is very important to him. The fact that he was one of the only drivers to have a few offs, is indication that he was on the limit. The Ferrari drivers on the other hand were totally the opposite last year, where they were both happy to have slow times during practise sessions, but pushed hard only when it counted.

Based on the above, I would classify Hamilton's time as being more likely to be a qualifying type run, directly comparable to Barrichello's. Whereas Ferrari probably weren't on the limit, on Friday.

We also have to observe the fact that Ferrari/BMW always seemed to be at or near the top of the time sheets, throughout the week. Thursday was their slowest day.

My take on it, is that if McLaren raced today, they could well be around 1.5s/lap slower than the BrawnGP cars.

McLaren are definitely hurting.
Click to expand...

Oh, McLaren are definately hurting, I don't quite agree with your assessment though.

If McLaren have serious aero/chassis problems why would they do a low fuel qually lap? it doesn't seem to make sense, surely it's better for them to do longer runs, get some real data on how the car handles?

Maybe I'm wrong and qually laps are more useful to them, in which case they're basically gonna be at the back, but I would imagine their program in testing would be similar to that of BMW and Ferrari, and hence their times are comparable (McLaren still slow, but not 2s too slow).

But of course we won't know for sure till Melbourne, Personally I think McLaren might be somewhere mid-field rather than right at the back, but who knows...
 
frakker said:
Some more testing begins today with McLaren, Renault, Williams and Brawn all in attendance: http://directo.thef1.es/tests/
Click to expand...


Nice find.

Barrichello straight to the top of the charts.

If that car is fully legal, barring reliability problems, I'm struggling to see how any other team can even get close, let alone overtake the BrawnGP cars.

I read an article which stated that most of the development work to the 2009 BrawnGP car was done in 2008 and 2007 and that their development will now be slowed down considerably (due to lack of funding and back up from Honda). This will allow the well-funded teams like Ferrari and McLaren to catch them up. So, even if BrawnGP do dominate the early GPs, its quite conceivable that the rest of the field will catch and pass them as the season progresses.

I have to say though, I am impressed with the pace of BrawnGP (they are fast wherever they go) and with Brawn at the helm, it's hard to see them messing the 2009 season up.

Oh, did I mention that I am impressed by the BrawnGP? :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom