Tag Archives: wheel spinners

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 [...]

No more wheel spinners, another new 2010 F1 rule

Another of the new rules for 2010 is that the teams can’t use the spinners that became popular in the last couple of years. These used to smooth the airflow over the wheels and ensure they caused minimal turbulence and drag. It also used to improve rear downforce and cooling.
These little gadgets had many benefits to the teams so it’s hard to see that they would have abandoned them without a fight but then the whole Alonso debacle where the spinner wasn’t fitted correctly and eventually tore the wheel free may have softened them up on that one. With the teams fighting for every inch I’ll be interested to see what the teams can do to claw back the positive sides to these devices.
It does mean that pit stops will really all be about getting the tyres on and off this year, there’s no room for any mistakes. I seem to [...]