Among the final cars to launch was the Red Bull Racing RB5, which was launched yesterday. We can safely assume that the Toro Rosso will be very similar, while we are led to believe that the Force India will be in large part a McLaren customer car. Everything has gone all quiet on the Honda front in recent days, so who knows if that car will ever break cover.
So this is it then. And good things come to those who wait. The RB5 is a real beauty, though you wouldn’t expect anything else from the pencil of Adrian Newey.
Of course, we are now used to the strange new wings so the RB5 doesn’t have that shock factor to it. But the RB5 has all the sleek style you would expect from a Newey design. The pointy, narrow front nose has become something of a Newey trademark over the past five years or so. It’s very interesting to see that he has stuck to this principle, while other teams appear to be adopting wider, chunkier nose designs.
F1 Technical describes the front wing as “the most advanced out there”. You can’t fail to be struck by the detail in the front wing which doesn’t seem present in most of the other teams’ designs.
History shows that Adrian Newey adapts well to radical regulation changes, as James Allen recently noted. The 1996 Williams was about as dominant as a car gets. I have strong memories of that season. It was my first full year of watching F1, and the Williams car was awesome. I still remember to this day that they had the Constructors’ Championship wrapped up in Hungary. Amazing when you consider that their two drivers were hardly the greatest ever to grace a race track.
By the time the regulations radically changed again in 1998, Newey had moved to McLaren and he nailed it right away again. The McLarens were utterly dominant in Australia, and they clinched both Championships that season, ending a seven year long drought.
But beware Adrian Newey’s Achilles’ heel. The RB5 is among the last cars to be unveiled because Red Bull have made the decision to forego track time in order to give Newey more time to perfect his design. This may result in the RB5 being a fast car with possibly the best aerodynamics. But you have to hope that it works.
It’s the opposite approach to Ferrari’s. Ferrari launched their car a month ago, deciding that they would like plenty of time to “debug” the car. But if something is wrong with the RB5, they won’t have long to debug it. That is even more of a worry this year when in-season testing is banned.
You get the sense that Adrian Newey likes things to be “just right” from his perspective, even if that is at the expense of other things — even things as basic as fitting the driver into the car (hello, Alex Wurz and Juan Pablo Montoya!). It is not a pragmatic approach. Newey’s cars look the best on paper, but he has developed a reputation for being involved with unreliable cars.
In 2008 Red Bull had a fairly solid year reliability-wise. But the fact that the RB5 had to be stopped with gearbox issues just 14 laps into its first run does not bode well. Red Bull’s 2007 season was notorious for gearbox problems. Let us hope for Red Bull’s sake that they will not make a return.
I was originally quite pleased when I heard earlier this year that the Formula 1 teams had finally decided to put their differences aside and join together as the Formula One Teams Association. At last, someone with teeth who can stand up the Max Mosley and the FIA.
That’s all well and good if FOTA turns out to be half-decent and come up with good solutions. Unfortunately, the signs are now that the teams’ ideas for the future of Formula 1 are every bit as barmy as Mad Max’s.
Take a paragraph buried in Pitpass’s story on Luca di Montezemolo’s whines about the Singapore Grand Prix earlier this week. As it happens, I kind of agree with most of what di Montezemolo had to say, although that is for a different post. But as though the shock of agreeing with the execrable Ferrari President (who also happens to be President of FOTA) wasn’t enough, what Pitpass revealed about FOTA’s early ideas literally left me open-mouthed in shock and disillusionment.
We hear that at last week’s meeting a number of issues which could result in a seismic change to the sport were discussed, including standard transmissions, standard wheels, standard brakes and standard rear wings.
We hear there may even be a vote on whether F1 should have a weight handicap system!
Excuse me for swearing, but what the very fuck?! What is this pish? Standard transmissions, wheels, brakes and even aero? Why not go the whole hog and throw in standard drivers as well? We might as well pay to watch a glorified Scalextric race.
This is beginning to look like a complete stitch-up. I know the teams desperately want to cut costs, but this is just extreme. With practically spec cars, the only competition left in F1 will be over who has the biggest motorhome and the best catering.
Lest the powers-that-be forget, Formula 1 is supposed to be all about watching the best drivers in the best cars, and that means teams constantly innovating in as many areas as possible. F1 is supposed to be about technological excellence. FOTA’s plan sounds like a watered-down European version of IndyCar — and there is a reason why so few people watch those lorries tootling round the place.
If you want to watch a spec series, you can take your pick. There is GP2, A1GP (if they can ever get round to actually building the blasted cars), World Series by Renault and now even Max Mosley’s sorry Formula Two scheme. That is not to mention the literally countless spec series that operate lower down the chain.
If even Formula 1 becomes a spec series with standard this, that and the other, what is left? Please. We have to have at least one motor racing category that is dedicated to technological advancement. The world is already over-populated with spec series that there would simply be no point in F1 transforming into one.
I haven’t even gone into the weight handicap system. Needless to say, this would be a total disaster for F1. We want to see the best drivers and the best cars win. That is what sport is supposed to be about. Why should people be punished for being fast? What a load of nonsense. Remember, BTCC’s figures went off a cliff when they introduced their ludicrous ballast system. Why do they think we want to see fast cars going slowly? Keith skewers weight handicap systems here as well.
Meanwhile, Martin Whitmarsh has unveiled FOTA’s big plan for spicing up the Grand Prix weekend. But it doesn’t sound very spicy to me. Apparently, the biggest problem with Formula 1 is Fridays! Silly me for not noticing! And what is the great thing that is going to solve this ill? A mickey mouse time trial with a cash prize!
WTF?! First of all, Fridays are the one bit of F1 that are more-or-less perfect if you ask me. They are called practice sessions, I get to watch the cars practicing. For me, that is a win. There is a certain pleasure to be derived from watching F1 cars do their thing at high speed but without necessarily competing with one another.
Why does this — of all aspects of the F1 weekend — need to be tampered with? Why does there need to be competitive action on a Friday? As far as I’m concerned, Friday is for practicing. Competitive action is for a Sunday.
Don’t forget that no-one will watch anything if it happens on a Friday. People are at work. They’re doing other things. Remember the doomed experiment with spreading qualifying over two days. That was pretty hastily dropped because they realised that no-one could be bothered watching the Sunday morning session — and that was a Sunday, never mind a Friday!
As for having a cash prize, I mean please. This isn’t a game show — it’s Formula 1. Besides, do they really think fans will be that bothered to watch mega-rich drivers getting even richer? No thanks.
Well thankfully the predicted procession around the streets of Singapore failed to come and instead we were treated to an action-packed race. Okay, so it needed a couple of crashes, safety car periods and another calamitous weekend from Ferrari to make it so, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. I’m just glad it wasn’t a bore of Valencia-sized proportions.
First of all, you really have to take your hat off to Fernando Alonso. For me, he has been one of the best drivers of the season and if anyone else deserved a win it was him. He’s been fighting hard all season in a car that has seldom been capable of keeping up with the front runners.
Alonso’s weekend got off to the worst possible start when he had a “fuel supply” issue (damn credit crunch) during qualifying, leaving him a poor 15th on the grid. This forced Renault to be inventive with their strategy, and they took a risk by having him start the race with a very light fuel load, pitting early and hoping for the Safety Car to come out. After his pitstop, Alonso was actually in last place.
But with this strategy Renault had struck gold. Alonso was the only person to have made his pitstop before the Safety Car came out and was able to move up the field slowly but surely until he was leading the race. From there, he looked awesome. He needed a shovelful of luck, but that shouldn’t detract from what was a great drive. I, for one, was delighted to see Alonso — whom I regard as the best driver on the grid — back on the top step of the podium.
Ironically, the Safety Car that Alonso needed was brought out by his team-mate Nelsinho Piquet’s crash. Bring those tin foil hats out of the cupboard!
Another man who benefited greatly from the situation was Nico Rosberg. He was running out of fuel when the Safety Car came out, so had to make a pitstop while the pitlane was closed. He got a 10 second stop–go penalty for that, but Rosberg was in the unique position of leading the race at the time, enabling him to pull out an enormous lead. As such, he actually lost very little in the way of track position, coming out in 3rd after his penalty.
Before the Safety Car came out, Rosberg was 10th. So by making an illegal pitstop, Rosberg still gained a lot despite the penalty. Yet another reason why the current Safety Car rules are ridiculous.
Hats off to Rosberg though. He did a stunning job to build up that gap and he kept his head to complete a career-best 2nd place finish. Apparently it’s all down to Frank Williams’s lucky tartan trousers.
Robert Kubica had no such luck. He went round behind the Safety Car for an extra lap before making his pitstop, so he came out in traffic. His stop–go penalty really hurt him and he was never in contention again. I think that’s the second time this season Kubica has been seriously disadvantaged by this disgrace of a rule.
Ferrari didn’t need Safety Car shenanigans to cause their race-ending pitstop disasters. Ferrari’s semi-automatic traffic light system that was brought under the spotlight in Valencia completely failed in Singapore.
A human was operating the lights, but goodness knows what he was thinking when he switched the lights to green as the fuel hose was nowhere near being released. Felipe Massa correctly read the green light that appeared, but took the fuel hose with him all the way down the pitlane — very reminiscent of the incident involving Christijan Albers at the 2007 French Grand Prix. The Ferrari mechanics sprinted down to the end of the pitlane to remove the fuel hose (with much difficulty) and Massa was able to carry on, but his race was over.
Massa had looked in control of the race. And his qualifying performance on Saturday was mesmerising, as he took pole by six tenths. But he scored no points in Singapore. This has enabled Hamilton (who was slightly, but not greatly, disadvantaged by the Safety Car situation) to regain the momentum coming into the final three races of the season.
It was, in fact, a truly disastrous race for Ferrari. They have had a few awful races this year. To compound Massa’s pitlane problem, Kimi Räikkönen had another one of his strange moments where he has fallen asleep, and grabbed some air at the controversial kerbs at turn 10, ploughing straight into the wall.
Red Bull are beginning to look like they are gaining some momentum again. They arrived in Singapore with some noticeable new aerodynamic pieces and they were performing pretty well during the race. Webber looked like he was going to score some points until he had a gearbox failure. David Coulthard, meanwhile, was running 3rd at one point before coming home in 7th following a minor pitlane snafu when the lollipop was raised too early, which was handled much better than Ferrari’s similar incident.
All-in-all, the first-ever night race must be hailed as a great success. It looked better on television than I expected. The circuit was quite fun with a couple of booby traps catching the drivers out, which is what we want to be honest. There was some overtaking, which is much more than can be said for Valencia. And it looked as though the crowds were huge, and they certainly seemed very enthusiastic.
I have to admit I was rather sceptical about night races beforehand, but this worked really well and there were no real disasters. The only real problem was the botched pitlane entry and exit designs, but that would have happened whether it was night time or day time. I now wouldn’t mind seeing more night races in the future.
Now we have three final flyaway races to go, with a double-header in Japan and China coming up. I’m off to catch some zzzs in anticipation for the early morning starts.
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.
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.
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