Archive for 'rules'

Mar201013

Rob

0

McLaren’s rear wing and the prospect of provisional results

The rear wing of the the McLaren – or rather the mechanism that can affect the effectiveness of the rear wing at high speed on the McLaren has been questioned by the other teams ahead of Sundays race. The stewards have passed it as legal and the FIA have backed them up on this, but with the propect that one of the other teams could appeal or lodge a protest then the race result may end up being provisional.
The issue centres around the device on the McLaren which allows the driver to change the airflow over the rear wing. Normally the device will be shut and won’t effect the airflow at all but at high speed the driver can open the flap which will then let the air pass through the chassis and exit over the rear wing which has the effect of stalling it, reducing drag and therefore increasing [...]

Mar201007

Rob

0

With Bahrain just a week away, what’s new for F1 in 2010?

The first race of the 2010 F1 season in Bahrain is just a week away, it seems like it’s been a long winter. There are many things that are different (I won’t say new) this year in F1. New rules, new teams, new drivers and we’ll all see who’s done the best job over the last few months.
There are a few new rules this year such as the refueling ban and the ban on wheel spinners. As well as technical changes like the tyre size and the new points system of 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1. I may not agree with all of them – especially the refueling ban, I just don’t see how it can possibly improve overtaking – but they are here and the teams and drivers must make the best use of them.
We will have three new teams on the grid for the first race of the season, Virgin, Lotus and [...]

Feb201027

Rob

0

Retirements in 2009 and what that means for 2010

In 2009 there were 68 retirements from the races, that doesn’t seem very many considering what the sport was like only a few years ago. Even better when you see that 22 were accidents, 12 were spins, 1 was Hamiltons disqualification, 1 ran of of fuel and 1 withdrew. That leaves 31 mechanical retirements for the whole season, less than two a race.
What does this mean for 2010, bluntly that the drivers should be more careful. With so many rookies in the field this I’d expect accidents and spins to get worse not better this year but the established drivers should take note of these things. The cars are reliable and the drivers are now the weak link.
From these stats it seems that the engine homologation has at least done one thing, made the engines reliable. With only two failures last year and the engines running for two races it’s [...]

Feb201014

Rob

0

What’s with all these long runs in the F1 tests? It’s all down to the tyres.

The first two Formula 1 pre-season tests seem have included more long runs than in previous years, but why? I’d say that it’s down to the refueling rule changes for the 2010 season as well as some of the technical regulations around the size of the tyres.
Last year with the re-introduction of slick tyres the teams kept the same size tyres that they had in the grooved days this meant that proportionally the front tyres gained more grip. This was because both front and rear had four grooves that were now part of the contact patch, with the rear tyre being wider it meant that the four grooves worth of grip supplied was less in percentage terms than returning the four grooves to the front. This change upset the balance of the car with the front now being more grippy than the rear. The 2010 regulations revert this balance by [...]

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