F1 2011 season news / pre-season updates

GingerNinja1989 · 19 Jan 2011 at 20:35

sunama said:
I'm surprised nobody in the team has had a heart attack yet...or have they?

When they keel over they shove them just out of shot on the telly

Skeeter · 19 Jan 2011 at 22:32

Hang on? Shark fins are banned? Did I miss this ruling?

I know without an F Duct theres little point in connecting the engine cover to the rear wing, but didnt realise it had bene banned? Got any details?

MarcLister · 19 Jan 2011 at 22:35

Skeeter said:
Hang on? Shark fins are banned? Did I miss this ruling?

I know without an F Duct theres little point in connecting the engine cover to the rear wing, but didnt realise it had bene banned? Got any details?

I hadn't realised that either. Not that I'm unhappy with the ban. Those fings were ugly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_2011#Rule_changes

Quick find for that.

Skeeter · 19 Jan 2011 at 22:38

No, I agree, im not a fan of them. They have ruined the look of Le Mans cars by mandating them there

Not sure how they are going to regulate it though? I assume the FIA have defined a triangular area in relation to the rear wing and the air intake where there is no bodywork allowed? As engine covers have been all sorts of shapes over the last few years.

MarcLister · 19 Jan 2011 at 22:57

Skeeter said:
They have ruined the look of Le Mans cars by mandating them there

Lolwut?! Why would they do that? :eek:

Skeeter said:
Not sure how they are going to regulate it though? I assume the FIA have defined a triangular area in relation to the rear wing and the air intake where there is no bodywork allowed? As engine covers have been all sorts of shapes over the last few years.

Or perhaps they've just said no bodywork can come within a box area around the rear wing?

Skeeter · 19 Jan 2011 at 23:10

MarcLister said:
Lolwut?! Why would they do that?

Aparently its to stop cars from taking off.

Personally, I think its enforced advertising space.

JRS · 19 Jan 2011 at 23:14

From the regs:

3.9.1 No bodywork situated between 50mm and 330mm forward of the rear wheel centre line may be more than 730mm above the reference plane.

Think that rules out the shark fin.

No moveable splitter either, which might affect Red Bull (

). No shaped wheel spokes, which will definitely be causing some fury at Maranello. No more blade shaped roll-protection either, which rules out the Mercedes solution.

Malt_Vinegar · 19 Jan 2011 at 23:25

sunama said:
What is shocking is the sheer amount of Red Bull that the team seem to drink. I remember somebody commenting that perhaps they replace the RB fluid with plain water, as drinking that much RB would be dangerous. I think Nuts replied to say that no...there is no water substituting going on and that the team members really are drinking "that" much RB.

I'm surprised nobody in the team has had a heart attack yet...or have they?

Williams are the same with the "Hell" energy drink. Was(is) available free at HQ too!

GravyMonster · 20 Jan 2011 at 08:50

Pirelli announce their colour differentiations for the different tyre compounds and inters/wets:

motorsport.com said:
A report in the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat claims that each compound with have the words 'Pirelli P Zero' painted in different colours on the sidewall.

The super-soft wording will reportedly be in red, the soft will be in white, the medium in blue and the hard in yellow.

Meanwhile, the sidewall colourings of the full wet tyre will be yellow, and the intermediates red.

utajoker · 20 Jan 2011 at 08:53

they should paint spirals on to mess with peoples eyes.

Dutch Guy · 20 Jan 2011 at 09:24

Nice, no shark fins anymore.

deuse · 20 Jan 2011 at 10:01

http://smibs.tv/live

A great podcast on F1 rules. This is part 2.

Duke · 20 Jan 2011 at 11:59

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2011/01/19/factory-upgrades-to-boost-lotus-in-2011/

Quite a good read on how Lotus are growing/expanding their tech.

Bennah · 20 Jan 2011 at 16:29

Minimum weight has increased to 640KG to compensate for the re-introduction of KERS.

The mandatory number of wheel tethers has double too. I can't really think of many accidents where the tyre's went flying off somewhere due to an impact.

5abr3 · 20 Jan 2011 at 17:39

Bennah said:
Minimum weight has increased to 640KG to compensate for the re-introduction of KERS.

The mandatory number of wheel tethers has double too. I can't really think of many accidents where the tyre's went flying off somewhere due to an impact.

The two front wheels blew off a Toro Rosso under braking and cleared a crowd fence last season.

Bennah · 20 Jan 2011 at 17:53

That was a totally brake failure wasn't it? The tether's iirc are designed to hold onto the brake / wheel housing that the tyre bolts to along with the suspension arms. If there is a suspension failure then this is where the tethers come in.

In the Buemi case, the whole housing exploded. No amount of tethers would keep the wheel connected to the car.

Westyfield2 · 20 Jan 2011 at 18:28

Bennah said:
I can't really think of many accidents where the tyre's went flying off somewhere due to an impact.

Not in F1 but in other Formulas there were some last year

. A sensible move IMHO.

Overlag · 20 Jan 2011 at 18:57

5abr3 said:
The two front wheels blew off a Toro Rosso under braking and cleared a crowd fence last season.

i think thats because the suspension pick up points failed including the mount point for the tethers? Cant remember

JRS · 24 Jan 2011 at 17:31

Ugh. Looks like the Team Lotus/LOLTus Renault GP bunfight is going to run on into the new season.

Linky dink.

Case due to begin on March 21st, so after the Bahrain GP. Unless both parties can come to an agreement before then, which is unlikely given that Team Lotus are in the right and that prat Bahar is a complete [censored].

Anyone taking bets on the outcome? I'm reckoning on LOLtus winning and Team Lotus getting renamed 1Malaysia or similar. The whole sorry saga just has that feel that the good guys at Team Lotus are about to get shafted

sunama · 24 Jan 2011 at 17:45

Why are both parties fighting so hard over a name? What significance does this name have? It is very rare that a team fights so hard over a name that it ends up in court.

I could understand if they we were talking about the name of a (current) leading constructor (eg. Ferrari, McLaren or even RBR, but Lotus....Lotus is not a name which is synonymous with F1 any more and even when they did bow out, they were struggling to create decent cars). Yes, they "used to" be a team known for ingenuity and a reputation for taking on the big boys, but those days are long gone.

I would personally want to start off with a brand new name (unless of course there is some advantage in gaining the Lotus name).