Tag Archives: f1

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 [...]

Mar201008

Rob

0

The Bahrain GP – the track, the tests and a prediction

F1 has just under a week to go until the first winner of 2010 will lift the trophy. It all starts in the Kingdom of Bahrain at the Sakhir circuit. It’s been on the calendar since 2004 and has provided some good racing, it stays in it’s position of the first race from last year having deposed the Australian GP.
This year the drivers will run on the full length circuit compared to the Grand Prix circuit. This change takes that circuit from 5.412 km to 6.299 km and adds a twisty in field section after turn 4, the drivers will run 49 laps for a total race distance of 308.651 km. It will be the first few miles of running in anger for the new teams and the new drivers to F1, lets hope that they can all keep it together for those first few corners.The first corner is tight [...]

Feb201024

Rob

0

How the FIA failed entirely in expanding the grid

When it was announced that the FIA would be looking for new teams to bolster the F1 grid I was surprised – isn’t this a club where you have to know Bernie and have had dinner with him a few times plus have filled his pockets with gold before you can fill in the form? But no, they were indeed opening up F1, and they had a lot of applications.
The FIA (and Bernie) should have looked at the applications that were tabled and then thrown away the financially unsound ones and then looked at what was left, there was a lot of talk about due diligence  at the time. This process was obviously not through enough, two of the teams that were granted entry have been sold and bought before the new season has even started (Campos Meta and Manor), and a third is rumoured to have mounting financial problems [...]

Feb201012

Rob

0

Lotus take off the covers to their 2010 car

Lotus unwrapped the car that will return an iconic name to F1 today, the team has completed a brief shakedown of the car at Silverstone so it works and they are scheduled to join all the other teams for the third test in Jerez next week.
The car looks very business like without some of the more refined aero features that we’ve seen from the other teams, I guess that reflects the limited time that they’ve had to build the car. The classic Livery is back however so it seems.
It’s great that another one of the new teams has actually delivered on building and lanuching a car, I have the same hopes for them as I did for Virgin, just to be on the back of the pack – perhaps even beat them once in a while. That will surely be the aim of Lotus initially anyway.
With Jarno Trulli and Heikki [...]

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