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Archive: Valencia Street Circuit

Belated Budapest thoughts

6 August 2009 20:10

Categories: Report

Yes, yes, I know. This is a race that happened almost two weeks ago. Sorry. You should see the list of articles I still haven’t written yet but need to get round to!

In the intervening period I have received an email asking me what I think of Renault’s ban from the European Grand Prix. Now I have been accosted in the comments by Becken for failing to review the Hungarian Grand Prix. So I’d better do it then!

First of all, you have to give massive amounts of praise to McLaren for their stunning comeback. It was clear at the Nürburgring that this was a team very much on the comeback trail. At the time I said that they could be challenging for wins in the second half of the season. But I didn’t expect it to be so soon, or so emphatic when it happened.

I am not Lewis Hamilton’s biggest fan, but I was delighted to see him winning in Hungary. It is a testament to the huge amount of effort that the McLaren team has put into developing their car — what quite frankly looked like a hopeless task just a couple of months ago. The achievement is all the more incredible when you consider that testing is banned, removing a vital tool to track how the car is developing.

Hamilton’s run at the front was not down to luck. Nor was it with someone climbing all over his gearbox. Indeed, who could even have predicted that the second-placed car running 11.5s behind would be the Ferrari of Kimi Räikkönen? Are McLaren and Ferrari now once again the front-runners? It could be that kers has come of age.

At times, the grand prix had a very retro feel about it. This season has been all about a new order. But for the first phase of the race the leaders were Alonso and Hamilton, with Räikkönen in 4th. Three names we should be familiar with seeing at the front, but it was most bizarre to see it happening this year.

I can’t help but notice at the same time that the unusual stewards’ decisions have come back just as the old guard have returned to the front. During the first half of this season, the stewards were noticeably quiet (with the exception, of course, of Australia). Not now. Is there something about McLaren, Ferrari and Renault that makes the stewards just lose their minds?

As you might be able to tell, I am not very impressed with the decision to ban Renault from the European Grand Prix for Fernando Alonso’s wheel coming off. On one hand, you can understand why they did it. In the week which saw the awful death of Henry Surtees in a Formula Two race after he was hit by a wheel, and a day after Felipe Massa was hospitalised after driving into a piece of debris, seeing a wheel bouncing around the track was absolutely the last thing anyone wanted to see.

But the decision to ban the entire team from the next race feels like a complete overreaction, leading to the suspicion that it was a knee-jerk reaction. I could have understood a heavy fine, or some kind of suspended ban. But the FIA’s justification for the ban seems quite odd to me. They say that the Renault team “knowingly” released Alonso from his pit box with the wheel not securely in place. Seems a bit odd to me. Which would deliberately release their car in such a state?

Nonetheless, the fact is that the team apparently took no action after that. They neglected to inform Alonso — who thought he had a puncture — what the problem was. That seems pretty incompetent to me, if not downright negligent.

That is why I think a fine would be justified. But to ban them from the race, when we have seen countless instances of wheels falling off cars going unpunished (including a similar incident involving Alonso driving a Renault in Hungary in 2006!), is over the top in my view. That’s especially the case when you consider that the next race is in Valencia, where much of the crowd will be wanting to see Fernando Alonso in action. Sometimes you think Formula 1 likes to shoot itself in the foot.

Meanwhile, both of the teams that are battling for this season’s championship will be worried for different reasons. Brawn must now be worried about the drop in their car’s performance. There is no hiding behind explanations about the temperature. Jenson Button’s bewildered radio transmission, “How — HOW? — can this car be so BAD?” sums it up. Brawn have put something on their car to destabilise what was an awesome package.

It is not a complete disaster situation. Jenson Button finished 7th. But it now looks like Brawn are behind at least five teams: McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, Williams and Toyota. Their journey is the opposite to McLaren’s, and their challenge will be all the more difficult with testing banned.

Button actually only lost four points of his lead, which is still 18.5 points. And that is the reason why Red Bull should be worried. Because if they are to have a hope of challenging for the Championship, they need to stay at the sharp end, and they can’t afford to have the third fastest car. They need to be at the front, collecting 18, 16, 15 points when they can. Their tally from Budapest was just six.

It must be remembered that Hungaroring is a rather unique circuit, and many of the following circuits are very different indeed. But if McLaren and Ferrari are able to leapfrog Red Bull in the long run, Red Bull need to rely on staying ahead of Williams, Toyota and Brawn if their championship battle is to come to anything.

In this sense, despite only scoring two points, Jenson Button now looks like even more of a shoe-in for the championship. I’m sure he doesn’t feel like it. I can’t wait to find out how the rest of the season unfolds.

6 comments

Alonso takes surprise victory in a hard-fought season

29 September 2008 01:27

Categories: Report

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.

2 comments

FIA clarifies corner-cutting rule — but is there still a loophole?

12 September 2008 22:36

Categories: News, Opinion

Following the controversy of the Belgian Grand Prix, they needed to do it. And thankfully they have — the FIA have finally clarified once and for all exactly what they expect a driver to do if he needs to use an escape road.

During the drivers’ regular meeting with Race Director Charlie Whiting, it was made clear that drivers who cut a corner will not be allowed to challenge at the following corner as Hamilton did to Räikkönen at La Source in Belgium. This will come as a relief to fans and drivers alike who were previously left in the dark as to what the precise limit is.

On Thursday David Coulthard called for clarification in the rule. Meanwhile yesterday his Red Bull team mate Mark Webber expressed his relief saying, “generally, it is pretty clear for people to probably not attack immediately again, which wasn’t mega, mega clear in the past.”

Moreover, the solution is a broadly sensible one as it is relatively easily defined and fans and drivers will now know more clearly when a driver has pushed the rules too far. For this, the FIA should be applauded.

However, Charlie Whiting apparently raised eyebrows as during the meeting by revealing that this rule has actually been in place for two years! According to Ian Phillips (Director of Business Affairs at Force India) commentating during Friday Practice 2 on Radio 5 Live Sports Extra yesterday, Mr Whiting was adamant that the rule was originally clarified two weeks ago — but team principals could find no written record of the rule. It has already been established that neither the Formula 1 Sporting Regulations nor the International Sporting Code mention what a driver is expected to do after cutting a chicane.

Given Charlie Whiting’s apparent certainty of the rule, it does raise the question: why did he initially give the Hamilton move the “okay” in Belgium? Ian Phillips speculated that Charlie Whiting was only saying some things during the meeting because an FIA bod was also present in the room at the time. Whatever, it is another interesting twist in the story of Charlie Whiting’s behaviour surrounding the infamous incident in Belgium.

After this news emerged, we were discussing in the liveblog the implications of the new rule. Robert McKay made a very good point (at 1:25 during Friday Practice 2).

it’s also an interesting “rule” because there are some tracks where the definition of a “corner” is not clear – when Brundle says “some teams call this turn 5, some 6″ or whatever.

This was a particular issue at Valencia, where some small kinks in straights were given a turn number. Take a look at the map. Let us say, for the sake of argument, a driver cuts the chicane at turn 5. Can he scream up behind a driver through turn 6 then go on the attack at turn 7? Or should he wait until turn 8? I know which would seem fairer — waiting until turn 8. But under the strange definition of a “corner” applied to the Valencia Street Circuit, it’s not exactly clear cut.

Also, Charlie Whiting’s “clarification” only appears to clarify what should happen when a driver is on the attack. What about a driver who is defending, such as Michael Schumacher was during the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2006? Should a driver in this situation let the driver behind by? Because Schumacher didn’t — and he didn’t get punished for it.

Today’s clarification makes the situation with cutting chicanes much clearer. But even under the new situation, there is still scope for another controversial incident to occur one day.

4 comments

More complaints from teams about FIA-supplied equipment

12 September 2008 10:38

Categories: News, Opinion

The Belgian Grand Prix was frustrating not just because of the stewards’ decision to penalise Lewis Hamilton, but because for almost all of the race the indispensable Live Timing was not working. Live Timing is without doubt the best feature of Bernie’s website. And like many of life’s great things, you never realise how much you depend on it until it’s no longer there.

That is on the back of a number of failures over the past few grands prix where individual transponders have failed, causing drivers to start falling down the order on the screen when in fact they had lost no places at all. But this was a whole lot more serious — the live timing application simply wasn’t loading at all.

I wonder what caused the failure. I spent periods of the race trying whatever I could think of to get live timing to work — using different browsers and so on. I noticed that Formula1.com as a whole was slow. I do wonder if the failure was simply caused by too many people trying to access it. If that is the case, I hope it has sent a message to Bernie Ecclestone. The fans love circuits like Spa-Francorchamps, and we want fewer Tilkedromes!

In addition to the live timing problems of the past few races, there have been a number of incidents involving fuel rigs. There were a number of fires during the Hungarian Grand Prix while drivers were taking on more fuel. Then in Valencia, in addition to at least one more fire, a Ferrari fuel rig became stuck, partially causing the nasty incident when Kimi Räikkönen left his pit box too soon.

Fuel rigs ought not to be having these sorts of problems as they are all standardised and supplied by the FIA. These types incidents of by no means unheard of. But it does seem unusual that there have been so many problems in such a short period of time.

Now Renault have criticised the meteorologists employed by the FIA to provide all of the Formula 1 teams with weather data. All the teams contribute to pay for the service provided by Météo-France. But it seems as though Pat Symonds doesn’t think the system is working well enough. Here is what he said during the post-Belgium Renault podcast:

We use a weather prediction service this year from Météo-France. It’s really not been terribly good at the best of times. But it actually failed for fifteen minutes during the race just before that [the rain shower towards the end of the race] occurred. I think if you were to listen to the recordings of our pit communications, you’ll find a bit that would definitely need to be bleeped out when the radar comes back on and we see what’s on it. So it was very difficult for us to make those decisions at the time.

Oh dear.

1 comment

The disappointment of Valencia shows that fans have been forgotten

2 September 2008 10:47

Categories: Opinion

I’ve been thinking a bit about the recent European Grand Prix. Almost universally, Formula 1 fans have expressed their disappointment in what was — even by F1′s standards — an incredibly boring race. However, equally universally, those who are lucky enough to live in the Formula 1 bubble were effusive in their praise of the venue in Valencia.

McLaren boss Ron Dennis even went as far as to say that the European Grand Prix was so slick and cosy for the likes of him that it made him “ashamed to be English” because Silverstone was so poor in comparison. Moreover, he called for the government to get involved in the effort to create a British Grand Prix venue as good as the Valencia Street Circuit.

Quite why Ron Dennis expects that the government should subsidise a hugely rich sport which thrives better in Britain than it does in any other country in the world is unclear. The notion that it might ever be politically acceptable demonstrates that Ron Dennis is somewhat out of touch with reality. And the fact that he used the most boring race of the season to justify his idea suggests that he is well and truly off his rocker.

Alianora La Canta has hit on the problem that F1 currently faces in one in a post that ponders on the discrepancy between the views of those in F1′s ivory tower and the views of the fans on the ground.

I have a fairly simple theory on this; the discrepancy is evidence that F1′s business model is too heavily skewed towards the rich rather than the majority of people.

The fact is that despite the millions that have been spent by governments to ensure that the European Grand Prix in Valencia went without a hitch, fans were left disappointed on all manner of fronts.

Alarm bells began ringing pretty quickly during coverage of Friday Practice 1 when many television viewers noted that the circuit had very few landmarks with the exception of the bridge. Most sections of the circuit looked the same, lined with concrete walls all around. It looked grey and drab. Valencia Grand Prix? It might as well have been the Cumbernauld Grand Prix as far as viewers could see. (Is this the pit buliding?)

The people at FOM obviously noticed because as the weekend progressed, more and more aerial shots were used during the coverage. It was the only way viewers could see the harbour. Albert Park would have a similar problem, but they cleverly painted their walls green so that it did not look grey and dull. Hopefully this is on the list of improvements to be made for next year.

But the list of improvements must surely be a long one. There have been complaints from people who shelled out for tickets for the European Grand Prix that they couldn’t even see any of the action from the grandstands. Incredibly, this is a repeat of the problem from last year’s Japanese Grand Prix! How difficult can it be to build a grandstand facing the right direction?

Most importantly, though, the circuit was scandalously difficult to overtake on. In fact, I counted just one overtaking move all race, made by David Coulthard very early on in the race. He later tried to overtake someone else, but pathetically crashed instead.

The circuit was well hyped-up. It was meant to be great for a street circuit — wide and with run-off areas that would encourage overtaking. We were told there were at least three overtaking spots in the circuit.

This later transpired to be an out-and-out lie. Ferrari revealed that they knew that it would be very difficult to overtake. They were so certain of this that they actually based decision on Kimi Räikkönen’s engine on the basis that it was impossible to overtake. During last week’s Renault podcast, the Enstone-based team echoed Ferrari’s sentiments, revealing that their simulations too told them that it would be impossible to overtake in Valencia.

I can understand why it would be impossible to overtake on an ancient circuit like Monaco which was not built with today’s cars in mind. But the Valencia Street Circuit is practically purpose-built for modern F1 cars — at least it ought to be. And it was a complete failure.

Hermann Tilke gets a lot of stick for his circuit designs. However, we know that Tilke can design a great circuit. Just look at Istanbul Park. Shanghai International Circuit isn’t too bad either. But Valencia Street Circuit is a proper turkey. I think Hermann Tilke needs to save up some cash to buy himself a simulator of his own so that he can tell in advance, just like the teams, which designs will facilitate overtaking more than others.

What bugs me, though, is the prospect that the priority of the European Grand Prix wasn’t even the fans. We know that street circuits do not always lend themselves to the best racing. Yet, Bernie Ecclestone only seems to be interested in street circuits at the moment. The other new circuit on this year’s calendar is the Singapore Street Circuit. If you ask me, the Singapore Grand Prix has disaster written all over it, and the European Grand Prix was an ominous sign of things to come as far as I’m concerned.

All of this leads me to suspect that Bernie Ecclestone’s current priority is not to provide paying fans with some decent entertainment. But it is to provide the rich inhabitants of F1′s inner circle with some nice holiday destinations.

A couple of years ago there was a whisper that the Paul Ricard Circuit could play host to a grand prix where fans were kept out — a grand prix especially for F1′s VIPs and no-one else. The idea was widely ridiculed at the time. But you can believe that Bernie Ecclestone would actually go ahead with it.

It seems that the problem with F1 at the moment is that it doesn’t matter how bad the racing is. As long as the circuit comes equipped with superloos, that’s all the likes of Ron Dennis care about.

13 comments

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