This is the second in a series of “bluffer’s guides“. The first part covered the basics of Formula 1. This second part goes deeper into the rulebook and also covers one of the most important aspects of a race weekend — strategy.

After Qualifying: parc fermé

After the Qualifying session is finished, cars are deemed to be under “parc fermé” conditions. Parc fermé is literally French for “closed park”. All the cars are kept in parc fermé overnight to prevent the teams from working on the cars.

No-one can touch the cars without the express permission of the stewards. Even then, work is usually limited to routine procedures carried out under the supervision of the FIA’s Technical Delegate and other scrutineers.

All cars that qualified 11th on the grid or lower may refuel, but cars in the top ten cannot. Tyres can be changed. Minor set-up alterations can be made in the event that weather conditions change between qualifying and the race.

But apart from that, cars are essentially the same in the race as they were during qualifying. In the past, some teams used specific qualifying-spec engines which were deemed by the FIA to be wasteful. Parc fermé prevents teams from doing this.

If a team needs to do more work on its car, it may opt to do so but the car will have to start the race from the pitlane. This means that the driver must wait at the end of the pitlane until all of the other cars have cleared the start / finish straight.

The start procedure

The pit lane is opened 30 minutes before the scheduled race start time. It is closed 15 minutes later. In this time, cars must make their way round the track and onto the starting grid.

15 seconds before the advertised race start time, all mechanics must leave the grid so that only the cars are left on the circuit. Then the green lights switch on, signifying the start of the formation lap.

The cars then make their way round the circuit. They will be seen weaving around as the drivers try to get their tyres up to racing temperature — warmer tyres have more grip. Similarly, drivers will often stamp on the brakes to get brake temperatures up. Check out this video from the 2008 Malaysian Grand Prix to see this in action.

Warm up from AC on Vimeo.

Overtaking is forbidden on the formation lap unless a car has a technical problem. In this event, cars may make up their positions again so that they can start from the correct grid slot. If the car is unable to start for good, marshals will push the car into the pitlane where mechanics can work on it. If a driver manages to re-start the car but all the drivers have moved off for the formation lap, he must join the queue at the back and will start from the back of the grid.

Once the drivers have all lined up again on the grid, the starting procedure proper commences. Five red lights will switch on one at a time at one second intervals. Then, after a random amount of time the lights will switch off. When this happens, the race has begun.

Tyres

Formula 1 now has one tyre supplier — Bridgestone. There are four kinds of tyres that are brought to each circuit. Two of these are different ‘compounds’: one is softer and the other is harder. The other two are wet tyres: intermediate and extreme wet weather. The intermediate is sometimes simply called ‘wet’ because the extreme wet is only used in truly atrocious conditions.

If the race is dry (as most races are), each car must use both the soft and the hard tyre at some point during the race. The softer tyre has a white stripe painted in one of the grooves of the tyre so that viewers can tell which tyre the driver is on. If the race is deemed to be wet at any point, teams are free to choose whatever tyres they want.

There are actually four dry compounds — super-soft, soft, medium and hard. But Bridgestone only take two of these to any race weekend and from there one is designated ’soft’ and the other ‘hard’ for simplicity. The choices are made based on the characteristics of the circuit.

Soft tyres have more grip but wear out more quickly. A harder tyre is more durable but does not give the car the same speed.

During a race weekend, each team has access to seven sets of each of the dry compounds, four sets of intermediate tyres and three sets of extreme wets. Sets cannot be mixed. If the race starts behind the Safety Car, the use of extreme wets is compulsory.

Pitstop strategy

A number of aspects may play a role in race strategy. The two biggest factors are fuel and tyres.

As mentioned above, soft tyres wear out relatively quickly which might make a 2 or 3 stop strategy more viable. Meanwhile, hard tyres might be more suitable for a 1 stop strategy. Of course, nowadays both types of tyres must be used during the race, so it isn’t as simple as that any more.

Fuel levels also play a role. A team may choose to fill their car lightly, making the car speedy on the track but with the tradeoff that an extra pitstop must be made.

A typical pitstop may add 30 seconds to a normal race-speed lap time. But of course, this depends on the length of the pitlane as well. Circuits that have a short pitlane (such as Magny-Cours) lend themselves better to a 3 stop strategy.

Teams also try hard to arrange their pitstops so that their drivers will emerge from the pitlane in “clean air”, i.e. without any traffic. There is nothing worse than to have your race ruined because you came out behind a slow car after your pitstop.

Weather is also a big issue. If rain is predicted, a race can turn into a bit of a lottery as you need either the great skill (or the good luck!) to change to wet tyres just in time for the weather to turn for the worse.

The prospect of a Safety Car period also plays a huge role. Teams take into account the likelihood that the Safety Car will come out. Some circuits have more accidents than others. Teams will try to adapt their strategy to make the most of the Safety Car periods.

It is advantageous to make your pitstop while the Safety Car is out because the other drivers are not at racing speed. A driver can make his pitstop and rejoin the tail of the queue behind the Safety Car.

This was deemed to be dangerous, so now the pitlane is closed as soon as the Safety Car is brought out. This has annoyed the teams and drivers who have suffered the bad luck to run out of fuel while the Safety Car is out. In this case, cars may make their pitstop, but they will incur a 10 second stop–go penalty. This rule may be changed in the near future.

Pitstop strategies are criticised by many for neutering the on-track race. It is said that many drivers avoid the risk of overtaking on the circuit and instead rely on their strategy to effectively overtake cars in the pitlane.

Safety Car rules

When the Safety Car comes out, it picks up the leader and the rest of the field lines up in race order. Drivers must keep within a distance of 5 car lengths to each other. Drivers deemed to be driving erratically will be reported to the stewards.

As outlined above, the pitlane is closed as soon as the Safety Car comes out. A few laps later, race control will reopen the pitlane when they see fit.

When the pitlane is open, a red light will still be displayed at the end of the pitlane if the train of cars is still on the start / finish straight. Drivers who run through the red light will be disqualified.

After a number of laps, lapped cars will be allowed to overtake the train and make their way round again to gain back their lost laps. These cars must still drive at reduced speed and overtaking cars on the same lap is still forbidden. Takuma Sato took advantage of this in the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix when he unlapped himself under the Safety Car. When the race re-started he was in a position to overtake Fernando Alonso.

When the Safety Car is ready to come in, the orange lights on the Safety Car will switch off. From now on, the leader may dictate the pace and may fall back up to 10 car lengths behind the Safety Car.

The Safety Car driver is an unsung hero of Formula 1. He has a difficult job to do. Even though it is a reduced speed for Formula 1 cars, the Safety Car is on the limit. If the Safety Car was too slow, there is a risk that the Formula 1 cars would overheat.

It speaks volumes of the talent of current Safety Car driver Bernd Mayländer (who has been the Safety Car driver since 2000) that a Safety Car phase usually passes without event. Some quick thinking by Mayländer even prevented a potentially horrific accident in the 2007 European Grand Prix when Vitantonio Liuzzi lost control on the start / finish straight while the Safety Car was waiting to pick up the leader.

Engines and gearboxes

From 2008, engine development has been frozen and will be for the next five years. Teams will be unable to update their engines from now on due to homologation.

A single engine is expected to have a lifespan of two grand prix meetings. If a driver changes his engine before qualifying, he will be given a 10 place grid penalty. If he changes his engine after qualifying, he must start from the back of the grid. But the first engine change of the season will go unpunished.

Similar rules govern the use of gearboxes. A gearbox is expected to last for four race weekends. If the gearbox is changed a driver faces a five place grid penalty.

These engine and gearbox rules are a source of great frustration as even the most seasoned F1 followers find the rules too convoluted and impossible to keep track of.

Driver aids

From 2008 onwards, “driver aids” are banned. The most important of these driver aids are traction control and engine braking. In the past, these were allowed because they were deemed impossible to police. But in the interests of spicing up the race action, a standardised Electronic Control Unit has been introduced, making such aids impossible for teams to implement.

But teams can still use electronics to control engine map settings. But each change to these settings will take 90 seconds to take effect. This is what caught out Lewis Hamilton at the start of the 2008 Bahrain Grand Prix.

After the race: scrutineering

After the race — and often several times during the race weekend — cars are checked to make sure that they meet the various technical regulations. Among the most important is the weight limit. The minimum weight of a car including the driver at any one time is 600kg (605kg during qualifying). You will see the drivers and cars being weighed immediately after the race has finished before the podium ceremony.

Most of the technical regulations are quite detailed and I certainly am not in a position to digest them here. But an accessible guide to technical regulations is available on the official Formula 1 website.

It was not the greatest Grand Prix there has ever been, but there are still a few talking points to come away with.

Firstly, it has to be said that Felipe Massa did a solid job today. Everyone has been throwing stones at him for the mistakes he made in Australia and Malaysia, so the pressure on his shoulders must have been enormous. What a relief it must be for him to have won at Sakhir so authoritatively.

For Kimi Räikkönen, it was a bit of an off weekend. After a disappointing qualifying session he was firmly in the shadow of his under-fire team mate and was unable to pull any rabbits out of the hat during the race. Having said that, he pulled off an aggressive move on Kubica near the start of the race. Other than that though, Räikkönen had a fairly anonymous race. Nonetheless, he goes away from Bahrain leading the Championship for this first time this year.

Ferrari can be happy with the progress they have made in Bahrain. The disastrous opener in Australia feels like a year ago. Malaysia only partially made up for it as Massa fell off the track. But this time both drivers finished with a thoroughly authoritative 1-2 and you wonder what McLaren can do to fight back.

However, Ferrari still do not lead the Championship. That honour goes to BMW. The Hinwil-based team has wooed F1 fans the world over with their methodical approach and steady progress. They seem to be the most popular team around at the moment.

Robert Kubica made up for the near miss in Australia by grabbing a popular pole position in Bahrain (and can someone please tell James Allen to stop using that terrible “Pole on pole” pun?). Many suspected that Kubica was lighter than his competitors — he was the first of the leaders to pit — but this was no Trulli-style fake pole position. Kubica and BMW genuinely have the speed to compete with the front-runners now, as we can see from the fact that Kubica finished 3rd.

Both BMWs were ahead of both McLarens as Nick Heidfeld finished ahead of Kovalainen to take a well deserved 3-4 for BMW. McLaren must be scratching their heads wondering how they allowed BMW to gain this advantage, especially after BMW had such a terrible start to winter testing.

This may not be a permanent advantage. We saw last year how different circuits can suit different cars in radically different ways. But it is clear that whenever McLaren are on the back foot, BMW will be ready to pounce. This will eat into McLaren’s Championship haul in a way they never came close to experiencing in 2007.

Meanwhile, it’s not clear if BMW have the ability to beat Ferrari in a straight fight. You have to say that this clearly hands the Championship advantage to the Scuderia. Nevertheless, it is clearly now a case of when and not if BMW win a race.

As for McLaren, it was a bit of a disastrous day. They clearly didn’t have the pace of either Ferrari or BMW. Lewis Hamilton had a truly terrible start. It has since transpired that he began the race with the incorrect engine map, as I suggested during the race. Hamilton was swamped by his competitors who all have the ability to turn a knob at the right time, unlike Hamilton clearly.

To compound this, he managed to impatiently run into the back of Fernando Alonso. It was a racing incident, although the protests from the ITV commentators suggested that Alonso “brake tested” Hamilton.

This was clear nonsense and you would think Martin Brundle in particular would know better. I have a great deal of respect for Martin Brundle, but he is beginning to lose it. The contrast between ITV’s coverage and other broadcasters was apparent.

Radio 5 Live had a completely different approach. They only mentioned the possibility of brake testing as a jokey aside several laps later. At one point David Croft even said that Hamilton tried to use Alonso as a ramp! Meanwhile apparently Speed TV didn’t even mention the prospect of brake testing at all!

The situation was clear. Hamilton has a faster car than the Renault and he was unable to cope with the fact that Alonso doesn’t have that kind of acceleration underneath him. It was as simple as that. Alonso had nothing to gain from brake testing (why would you want to cause a potentially race-ending crash?). Moreover, if it was a brake test then the speed differential would have been much greater.

The ITV team have egg on their faces this evening as the brake testing theory has been proved to have been completely lacking foundation. Pat Symonds has printed out the relevant telemetry for journalists to peruse and it shows that acceleration always went up and Alonso took no unusual actions.

Meanwhile, Hamilton and Ron Dennis have both come forward to admit that it was driver error on the part of Hamilton. I applaud Hamilton for having the decency to come forward and hold his hands up. Some of Hamilton’s apologists in the media are doing him absolutely no favours, and you have to wonder if some journalists are starting to get nervous that their premature “new Senna” proclamations will end up making them look very stupid indeed.

Meanwhile, I find it most amusing that many of the people who were calling for Alonso to be punished for “brake testing” Hamilton today are some of the same people who defended Hamilton’s disgracefully awful driving behind the Safety Car in Fuji last year in dangerous conditions. During the Japanese Grand Prix, Hamilton clearly brake tested Mark Webber, leading to a huge accident involving Sebastian Vettel. Now all of a sudden lifting off the throttle even when you don’t lift off the throttle is a heinous crime!

Classy Ham from Axis of Oversteer * on Vimeo.

The only other major talking point from the race is that accident between Coulthard and Button. It was not high stakes stuff — the battle was for 19th position! Nevertheless, both drivers felt it worth a gamble and they soon found themselves sharing the same piece of asphalt.

Button had been all over the back of Coulthard for several laps and had clearly become impatient. I had noticed during the race that is appears as though the Honda is very fast in braking zones. I wonder if this caught Button out slightly as Coulthard slowed more.

Button was trying down the inside and looked like he lost control a bit on the dust. Meanwhile, Coulthard was late to block the move as he abruptly jutted to the right. Button has pointed out that this is not really cricket. The end result was an accident that was amusingly similar to the one DC had with Massa in Melbourne, which made me wonder how many colours of shit DC would threaten to kick out of Button.

I get the sense now though that David Coulthard is beginning to look quite rusty. He is getting involved in too many accidents nowadays, and I would be surprise if he lasts longer than the end of this season. He can be pleased with his innings though. He is set to end the season as the second most experienced driver of all time (behind Rubens Barrichello, assuming he too lasts out the season).

Jarno Trulli finished 6th, proving that the Toyota does indeed have the pace to regularly finish ahead of Red Bull and Williams. But Timo Glock is yet to repay the faith Toyota have shown him. He will have to start performing soon.

Glock did succeed in keeping Fernando Alonso behind, but it has to be said that the Renault looks like an absolute dog and Alonso certainly won’t be contending for podium positions any time soon. Nelsinho Piquet had another disappointing weekend. He spun on some oil on lap 1 and later retired with technical problems. Piquet has time to improve, but he must do better than this in the long run.

Williams were disappointing again. They had such a great Australian Grand Prix, but Malaysia was a disaster. Come Bahrain practice and everything was looking good again. But it was a false dawn as Rosberg confesses to being disappointed to just scrape into the points. Nakajima, meanwhile, continues to disappoint.

Overall, I am less confident about the prospects of a close championship. As Ollie has pointed out, the Championships look really close at the moment. But the comprehensive nature of Ferrari’s victory today means that it might not be that way for long. Meanwhile, BMW will be eating into McLaren’s ability to respond to the red team.