Pat W

F1 Preview – Chinese GP 2009

FIA Formula 1 World Championship
– 2009 Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix (3/17)
– Shanghai International Circuit
– Shanghai, China
– 56 laps
– www.formula1.com
– F1.com track map / Allianz track map
– Live timing (Java required, free registration required, worth it)

Event History
Perhaps unbelievably the first F1 Chinese GP was held in 2004, my hasn’t time flown? I suppose that impression is furthered because the 2008 edition was only held last October and five months between races isn’t very much at all – however it means we have an interesting twist. This race should provide us with the starkest comparison yet between the cars as they were at the very end of the “aero era” with the beginnings of this new generation of car at the early stage of their development – I think qualifying 2 will be interesting for the laptime comparison, and the race will be interesting to see if the drivers can race with the cars and throw them about a bit more.

Normally we have to wait a full 12 months so let’s take the positives from this. The 2008 event was a very tedious affair which was panned worldwide for being boring – let us hope the new aero, the slicks, the diffusers and the KERS all combine to bring us some good racing action, as they have at the first two races of the year. It could go either way really – the KERS or diffuser guys may be able to drive past everyone else on that huge straight, so it seems odd that so many are opting not to use KERS this time.

I have to say I don’t remember a great deal about the previous races here. This may be down to my poor memory which is highly likely, or the races were genuinely not very memorable. Of the 5 races held so far Ferrari has taken 3 wins (Barrichello, Schumacher, Raikkonen) with Renault (Alonso) and Mclaren (Hamilton) taking the other two. It was in 2007 of course that Hamilton threw away his title chances on the pit entry, coming in far too hot and sliding into the tiniest gravel trap in the world. He made up for it by winning the race last year.

There has never been a huge attendance at this event. The main grandstand sees a decent size crowd but we are led to believe by some that many of these people are bussed in by the organisers. The rest of the circuit seems positively lacking in spectators – notice the large stands at each end of the long straight.

Circuit
Much is made of the fact that Hermann Tilke (and/or his design group) laid out this track in the shape of the Chinese symbol ‘shang’, as in Shanghai. The reality is that other than one of the longest straights on any racetrack in the world, the ever-tightening first corner and a similar ever-expanding turn on to the backstraight, there isn’t much to say about the place. The bulk of the circuit is made up a technical section linking turn one with the long back straight and that’s about all that can be said of the race track itself.
The biggest landmark are the two huge buildings overhanging the pit straight, one of which acts as the media centre (thus making it a very long journey for the hacks trying to get interviews) and I believe the other is corporate hospitality.

The teams are based in large huts behind the wide pitlane. Again, these are so far from the pitlane buildings it looks as though you’d need a taxi to get from the huts to the pits.

Here is Martin Brundle, then of ITV and now with the BBC, describing Barrichello’s pole lap of 2004, the inaugural event:

Here is David Hobbs of SPEED describing Hamilton’s pole lap of 2007, note the addition of further grandstands at turn one and elsewhere and the change in engine note:

Form
You’ve got to say BrawnGP really, haven’t you? And I’m not just saying that because I bought a cap! I’m tipping Button for another win and I reckon Barrichello may run him a bit closer this time, if not nick it for himself. I also expect Vettel, Glock and Webber to show well once more. I think both Ferrari and McLaren are still distracted by their respective off-track diversions with their management changes and we won’t really hear much from them until the Spanish GP. This is an ideal time for the likes of BMW, Williams, Toyota and RBR to score valuable points before the F1 giants get their acts together.

UK TV
Q: BBC One will air Qualifying live at 6am BST Saturday, session begins at 7am.
R: BBC One will air the Race live at 7am BST Sunday, race starts at 8am.
H: BBC Three will air 1hr Highlights at 7pm BST Sunday.

US TV
Q: SPEED will air Qualifying semi-live at 2am EDT Friday night.
R: SPEED will air the Race live at 2:30am EDT with the race to start at 3am. Rerun at 4:30pm.
– Canada should get coverage on TSN featuring BBC commentary but you may find Speed is blacked out.

Note about qualifying for US viewers: Speed builds in a delay during qualifying coverage in order to fit in as many advertisements as possible. This completely screws up your chances of following it online via live timing or joining in with Twitter / Live Commenting discussions. Complain! Make a fuss! Tell them which decade this is!

Live Comments
I will be at Sidepodcast.com for qualifying and the race. Fire up the Live Commenting Live..Thing at the appointed time, join the appropriate thread at the top of the screen, enter your name and then just type away! You’re welcome to join us as long as you keep the sweary stuff away.

I will not be on Twitter for this race as I will be watching at my Dad’s place, on his 42″ screen!

Support events
Porsche Carrera Cup Asia; Aston Martin Asia Cup;

IndyCar Preview – Long Beach 2009

IRL IndyCar Series
– Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach (2/17)
– Long Beach, California, United States
– 85 laps
– www.indycar.com
– Track Map (PDF)

Event History
The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach is one of the classic events in all of racing, starting out as a Formula 5000 test event before hosting Formula 1 for eight years. With Bernie’s ever increasing fees – and this was in the early ’80s! – the race organisers decided to switch to the nascent CART series which had recently split away from USAC. There was something of a drop-off in popularity for a short while before Long Beach found itself as one of the crown jewels of American motorsport and a level of prestige within Indycar racing second only to Indianapolis itself, with massive crowds and a party atmosphere.

This continued for many successful years until the damage from ‘The Split’ eventually found its way even to this event with the fall of CART. The re-formed Champ Car and the Long Beach GP stuck together until the death of Champ Car over the winter of 2007/08, and it was entirely fitting that the final send-off of the CART/Champ Car era was held at Long Beach one year ago, shortly following the unification announcement.

To the present then, and the IndyCar Series takes on the mantle of racing around these prestigious streets as the headline act and ensuring a long future for the Grand Prix of Long Beach. Toyota continues its long tradition as title sponsor (and the sponsor of the Pro/Celebrity race), and for the 3rd year running the ALMS is on the card and will be racing on the Saturday evening. The beginning of the IRL era at Long Beach also brings the Indy Lights to the streets for the first time in that series’ current incarnation.

Circuit
Long Beach is the all time classic American street race circuit, the one format all other US street tracks follow, and yet due to developments it has changed many times over the years.
The current lap begins with a long flat-out blast along Shoreline Drive, which is a dual-carriageway with the pitlane taking up the other side of the road. The cars then take a 90-degree left turn, one of the best passing places on the circuit, before passing the fountain and working back in a short loop to very briefly rejoin Shoreline Drive again. From here there is a 90-left into a short downhill section and then into the long back straight under the bridges. After that is the slippery run through to the hairpin, and back on to Shoreline Drive.

Here is Justin Wilson describing a lap of the track in 2007:

I’m not sure why he wasn’t flat out along the backstraight, it could be the audio was out of sync.

This track is one of the first I ever saw in American racing, late one night here in the UK, and is one of the reasons I fell in love with it.

Form
Justin Wilson always runs extremely well at Long Beach and given his performance at St Pete you have to think he’s looking very strong despite being with an unfancied team. Other ex-CCWS teams/drivers ought to fare well too including Will Power, and Ryan Briscoe knows the place well from his ALMS runs, but we’ll see if Helio Castroneves’ return will be disruptive to Penske’s efforts as they are said to be running 3 cars.
You can’t rule out the Ganassi team despite neither driver nor the team having run here for several years, the same is true of the likes of Kanaan. Marco Andretti also raced here in the ALMS.

Support Races
ALMS, SPEED Challenge, Indy Lights, Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race

TV Coverage

UK TV: LIVE on Sky Sports 3 at 9pm BST!

US TV: LIVE on VERSUS at 3.30pm EDT! (and catch the all new qualifying show at 6pm Saturday)
Don’t forget the race replay on Monday night if you miss it live or want to catch it again. Versus also carry the Indy Lights race highlights on Monday night.

Finally, be sure to check out their YouTube channel! Go there now to see highlights from St Petersburg and remember to check back later next week for Long Beach clips.

I’m not sure if I’ll be watching live as I may have double-booked myself with Sidepodcast.com’s Panel. If I don’t catch it live I’ll see be watching it as soon as I can on Monday!

To London!

Tomorrow I and a large group of fellow listeners to the world’s greatest F1 podcast will be hooking up with show host Christine and her trusty sidekick known only as ‘Me’ (or Mr.C). We’ll take a wander around the Science Museum in London where the McLaren F1 team have set up a series of exhibits under the title, “20 Ways F1 Is Changing Our World”.

There’s a lot cool techie stuff about applying F1 knowledge to real life and I think there will be about 20 of us going so it should be a lot of fun!

Here is the Sidepodcast post about the meetup including a video from the BBC which I think is UK-only but others might as well give it a go anyway.
Here is the Science Museum web page about it all and the New Scientist had a gallery of it. I hope to bring you a little report on Thursday as well as some photos if they’ll allow us to take any. I also hope to make use of Twitter and Twitpic from my mobile, if I can get them working.

I’ve been to London several times before but only once in the guise of a motorsport fan, this back in 2004 for the “F1 In Regent Street” demo runs where I stood three feet from F1 cars and didn’t see a single one! Pics! But don’t click that, there’s nothing there worth looking at.
Let’s hope that hyped up F1 fans will not be blocking all of the exhibits tomorrow in a frenzy of excitement. Look, a KERS device, crowd around it!

You may think I am mad for going all the way to London to meet some internet people in a museum, and you would be right. I started to wonder about my sanity when I saw the increased train prices..

On The Limit: Jari-Matti Latvala, Rally Portugal

TMR’s Video Of The Week

Driver: Jari-Matti Latvala (Co-driver: Miikka Anttila)
Car: Ford Focus WRC
Team: BP Ford World Rally Team
Series: World Rally Championship
Event: 2009 Rally de Portugal

Background: You’ve probably heard of Jari-Matti’s crash last weekend in which he and co-driver Miikka rolled 17 times down a mountain and survived with barely a scratch. What you probably haven’t seen, and neither had I, was the build-up to the crash and the way he was driving through the stage. It seems his team boss had already warned him to calm down his driving after crashing out early in two previous events this year.

Important note: Please don’t think I’m joining the ranks of the ‘crash-happy’ who go trawling YT for smash-ups. This is to celebrate his driving and the fantastic safety work done by the FIA and the Ford World Rally Team.

This is some of the best driving I’ve ever seen, there are times you can barely watch – and this is the calmed down version?!

(taken from The Official WRC YouTube Channel).

You can see how the crash was only caused by a knock against a barrier, pushing him to the right over the edge of the cliff.

Here’s the external view and a word from the man himself:

They were both VERY lucky indeed, a testament to the major safety improvements made in WRC over the last decade.

More from Latvala (via Autosport.com): “It was all my fault, I had the corner marked with a double caution, but the night before, I changed it. I have realised you should never change your notes after the recce. I realised we were going to crash, so I tried to use the Armco to slow the car. But it rolled over it and then it rolled and rolled. I can remember the crashing and the roll cage coming in. I thought: ‘We cannot survive this, it’s just not stopping.’ When it did stop, I looked to my co-driver Miikka and his eyes were red and full of blood because we had been upside down so many times. After I checked we were okay, I said: ‘Maybe this was our last rally.'”