Category: 2010

Thoughts on F1: Malaysian GP

Thoughts on F1: 2010 Malaysian GP

The first ‘normal’ race* of the 2010 season wasn’t any different to a normal race of the 2009 season.

The fast cars at the front raced away at the start. It just so happened they wore the same livery. Those fast cars stuck down the order made up places in the first couple of laps before settling down, stuck in traffic. Then we waited for the pitstops while nearly everyone essentially held station, just like last year. The stops changed the midfield order a bit and a tyre miscue ruined one of the front-runners’ chances of a win. There was a bit of strategy, it was just with tyres instead of fuel. Fine. Whatever. Same difference, same result. Red Bull would still have walked away with it. McLaren and Ferrari would still have been caught in traffic.

I tell you, just like any race of the last decade. The stops were just a tiny bit shorter.

It was interesting that Button and Hamilton were on opposite strategies (Button starting on hards and Hamilton on softs) yet after the pitstops they were running togther, even side by side as one left the pits. I sensed Ron would’ve been pleased the strategy put them in the same place and allowed the two to sort out who led.

It was a great drive from Vettel and mostly from Webber. Mark cost himself the race when he allowed a gap for Sebastian to nose through at the very start. We saw good runs from Rosberg, Kubica and Sutil too. You could legitimately argue those three would’ve been behind the Ferraris and McLarens had they started in their normal positions and you’d probably be right – but we’ll never know.

[picapp align=”right” wrap=”false” link=”term=malaysian+grand+prix&iid=8431362″ src=”f/9/0/c/F1_Grand_Prix_6536.jpg?adImageId=12103228&imageId=8431362″ width=”380″ height=”255″ /]

I was going to praise Button, Hamilton, Massa and Alonso as a collective unit for their progress up the field but I can’t do that. Button made the wrong tyre call twice in as many days – that’s fine, we’re all fallible and that’s the way it goes sometimes. Massa and Alonso did a good job – scratch that, Alonso did an exceptional job to run that quickly with an ailing gearbox that eventually let go.

We turn to Mr Hamilton. He was doing reasonably well but seemed to get desperate and started blocking and weaving against Vitaly Petrov. I am very disappointed in the race stewards for not awarding him a drive-through penalty or worse. They deployed the ‘unsportsmanlike behaviour’ warning flag, a flag I personally feel is underused across the whole of racing, yet in this case was not the right response in my view. I would like to know why that action was taken. Weaving is completely out of order.

New Rules

I was in favour of the ban on refuelling. To my mind the fuel strategies of the last couple of years haven’t varied a great deal from team to team. They all pitted within 2 or 3 laps of each other – what’s the point in that? The interesting tactical decisions of most of the previous decade or more,  and that you still see in the likes of IndyCar and ALMS, they seemed to have disappeared from F1 as everyone ran broadly the same ideal strategy as computed by their expensive software. If everyone is going to run the same fuel throughout, why not just run the same fuel throughout by having them not refuel? It makes ’em think. Gives ’em something new to figure out, for a while anyway.

I miss the 1-stop vs 2-stop (not so much 3-stop) as much as anyone but I genuinely don’t remember seeing a good race like that in quite a while. To me the period from roughly ’98 to roughly ’07 was the best for that sort of racing. If they aren’t willing to think out of the box any more on fuel strategy let’s give them a different challenge.

On Friday when I talked about the Australian GP I suspected people would complain about the Sepang race. I was right, there hasn’t been as many people criticising it as Bahrain but what I have seen has been quite vocal. I perhaps uncharitably said these people were goldfish because they forget that past dry Sepang races are mid-range in terms of excitement – neither turgidly dull or spectacularly fun.
They also seem to forget the very large amount of criticism of the 2009 races in general, the season itself was fine but the races weren’t great unless you were a team superfan. If the races are still not great under very different competition rules then surely that points to a larger more fundamental problem with F1? It isn’t refuelling or not-refuelling that is the problem. There is something else at play. It might be aero, it might be the tyres, it might be something else – I have my suspicions but I don’t know for sure.

If the races were processional and boring with refuelling and processional and boring without refuelling, then surely it has nothing to do with whether or not they are refuelling?

Is that too simplistic? I don’t know. It just seems obvious to me but what do I know?

Future

So we go to Shanghai in China in two weeks. Woopidoo. If anyone calls that race boring because of the new rules I will personally shoot them. This race is almost always boring. Barcelona after that isn’t great, either. Bernie’s decision to stack the first half of the year with rubbish racetracks may yet decide the outcome of the refuelling / non-refuelling debate.

Anyway where was the rain today? I was promised rain. I like rainy races.

* I call this the first ‘normal’ race because Australia was rain-affected, and in Bahrain it seems clear to me that every team was taking it easy as they explored the new rules. At Sepang they stepped up a gear.

Thoughts on F1: 2010 Australian GP

Thoughts on F1: 2010 Australian GP

Well that was better wasn’t it! A wet or drying track always spices up the racing no matter what the rules are.

The race started with every driver on intermediate tyres and we saw some great racing as the drivers struggled with the lower grip conditions. The Safety Car interruption was only brief and was early enough not to really have any effect on the gaps between cars and it was only a short while after that Button pitted for dry tyres. It seemed most thought he’d struggle including many of the BBC TV team and they were briefly proven right with a slide on his out lap, yet he responded with the fastest lap in the race. This triggered tyre stops from everyone else in the field, the Red Bulls staying out a further lap longer for Vettel and two for Webber. Webber’s was a touch too late.

That seemed to set most drivers up for the rest of the race with talk that the softer Bridgestone, for which everyone had opted, being able to last the distance. Not so for some, Hamilton and a couple of others were in again for a new set of softs.

The pitters emerged 30 seconds further back than they had been, but were now able to run 1 to 2 seconds per lap faster – could they make up the time loss? This is what we’ve waited the winter to find out under the new rules – can a driver on brand new softs catch and pass a driver who stays out nursing worn tyres?

[picapp align=”right” wrap=”false” link=”term=Australian+GP&iid=8364859″ src=”9/0/2/a/F1_2010_ae55.jpg?adImageId=12028016&imageId=8364859″ width=”380″ height=”253″ /]

As it turns out they couldn’t, at least Hamilton and Webber couldn’t, the gap was too much. Lewis and Mark ran together as they closed down the train of Kubica, Massa and Alonso who had not stopped and were running 2nd, 3rd and 4th – they caught Alonso but could not penetrate his staunch defence. How much of that was the problem of running in dirty air, how much was down to Hamilton and Webber using up the tyres to catch the trio, and how much was down to Alonso himself? I don’t think we’ll ever know but I think it was a combination of the three and perhaps Alonso deserves a credit for driving a wide car – not to mention his recovery from the back after his turn one spin.

Hamilton didn’t like the call but you can see what McLaren were doing – splitting the strategy in case Button’s staying the distance didn’t work if his tyres went off at the end. It was the right call because at the time nobody had any idea whether the soft tyres would actually make it – what if they’d got so bad with 8 laps to go that the top four who stayed out all had to pit? That would’ve put Hamilton in the lead with Webber half a second behind and Rosberg nearby. We just didn’t know. Perhaps at another circuit or with less of a gap it would’ve worked.

The other point to make is all the credit went to Button for staying out so long, but let’s not forget Kubica, Massa and Alonso went nearly as far. They drove just as well.

Further down the field you saw some passing as the pitters passed the non-pitters, the passers included Barrichello and Schumacher. For them, it worked.

On the whole it was a good run from Button, it was the right call to pit early. It was a good drive from Vettel too until he crashed out with an apparent mechanical failure. The only other notable drive was Webber’s – he drove a fast but scrappy race, clashes with other drivers kept delaying him (some his fault, some not) until he ultimately ruined his own day by spearing Hamilton into the gravel, luckily both continued.

A quick nod to Jaime Alguersuari and Lucas di Grassi for not getting fazed at all by racing wheel to wheel with Michael Schumacher! It was good to see they weren’t willing to back down and didn’t jump out of the way of his reputation arriving a second before the man himself. Nice to see Chandhok make the finish too, albeit 4 laps down.

In General

What is interesting is that we haven’t yet had a true representation of a fuel-ban race in dry conditions. In Bahrain the teams were taking it easy, learning the rules and learning what the tyres would do – plus there was the effect of the temperature which meant they’d take it easy anyway so as not to stress the car parts.

In Australia the first third of the race was on a damp but drying track, meaning the two-compound rule did not apply. The rest of the race played out the way I’d imagine a fuel-ban race would run on a dry track with no restriction on tyre choice, it was fascinating watching the cars on new rubber chase those on old. Unfortunately we have this rule where both hard and soft tyres must be run in a dry race, which could mitigate against good racing.

Malaysia looks certain to be rain-affected as well so perhaps we go to China for the first true race under the new rules, and that race is a yawn-a-thon in normal circumstances – I’m dreading the goldfish telling us how the new rules have suddenly made that race dull, when in reality it usually is anyway. The same goes for Catalunya, and Monaco is always unique. Turkey and Montreal could be the pairing where we get a decent read on how these races really pan out, unfortunately I fear that by then we’ll have had some knee-jerk rule changes.

Speaking of Malaysia, we’re into that weekend already. It still rains at 5pm every day and while that may not affect qualifying, it looks set to interrupt the race again – hopefully it won’t be quite as heavy as last year and the race can be completed.

Thoughts on F1: Bahrain GP

Preface

In 2008 and 2009 I wrote detailed Race Reviews of each F1 race, and some IndyCar and GP2 races, featuring my reaction to events as they unfolded, which I’d taken as short notes then wrote up more fully. These were moderately popular but took a lot of work and I felt I wasn’t enjoying it any more, so for 2010 I’ve decided to give a more loose account of my general impression from each race.

Here is my reaction to the Bahrain GP which I wrote on the Tuesday after the race while away from the internet during my break in Spain. I guarantee I have not edited this so I’m pretty happy Melbourne turned out well! Thoughts on Australia will follow on Wednesday, and similar posts about IndyCar or GP2 or other races may follow eventually depending on time I have available.

Thoughts on F1 – 2010 Bahrain GP

A lot has been said about how boring the Bahrain GP was… so I thought I’d add to it. Since I was watching without live timing and limited access to online discussions – I’m normally all over these like a rash during any big race – I wondered if I was just missing the extra layer of information the internet brings.

Turns out most agreed with me, the race was a snoozefest. Now – you’re going to tell me I wrote about this a few weeks ago. ‘All races are interesting in some way’, was the message wasn’t it?

I did say that, and I acknowledged at the time that you’re always going to get the odd bad race, my main argument was people were calling races boring when they were just looking at them wrongly. I said Valencia ’08 and Abu Dhabi ’09 were exceptions to that because they were dull. We can add Bahrain 2010 to that list.

Prior to the event I’d suspected it would be a bad one after they announced it would be run on the 24-hour course, the tight twisty slow section. I’m sure they did this in response to claims the other layout was stop/start and not challenging enough – what those critics missed is that actually it wasn’t that bad, perhaps below-average but not awful. The extension made it worse by creating field-spread excacerbated by new rules which were always going to do that anyway.

I think future events will be a little better. Albert Park will be its usual self, then Shanghai and Barcelona are always boring but there will be those who pin that on the new rules too.

The problem isn’t with the fuel rules – they’ve brought even more into focus a problem most of us acknowledged in 2009 after several boring races then – the cars cannot pass each other. The new-for-09 aerodynamic rules closed up the laptimes but they did not help overtaking. This is why last year qualifying was usually more fun than the race. Unfortunately there are no quick-fixes. Adding a mandatory second stop may help a bit but as we’ve seen in DTM you’re going to have to bring in pit windows as well to prevent pitting in say the first and last 5 laps. And in DTM the drivers still wait for the stops.

The other problem is teams are preoccupied with saving engines and gearboxes for the next race. I don’t think that makes for good racing. I’m fine with saving fuel and saving tyres as long as the entire field isn’t doing it, if it is a legitimate strategy versus someone pushing.

I’m less interested in ‘turning the engine down’ just so it can be used again. I’m hoping that engines and gearboxes will be developed enough within the restrictions to eventually be able to be pushed and still last a few races.

I enjoy sportscar racing because this is where this type of fuel and tyre ‘conservation’ racing works best – over a really long race lasting many hours, the car with the best mix of speed and reliability will theoretically win. Is it suited to a 90-minute F1 race? I guess we’ll find out over the season but it doesn’t look good so far.

The other thing to note – perhaps this was a dry run while teams test out the rules to see what the limits are? Will they be as conservative by the time we get to Barcelona or will they feel more free to be creative?

I haven’t mentioned the actual performances yet. Vettel’s pace was very impressive until the car problem, and both Ferraris weren’t far behind, I hope we aren’t in for a dominant season from the trio. I thought the McLarens were supposed to be on top? Special mention for Lotus and Virgin for not looking totally hopeless, things look promising in the long-term. HRT… the jury is out but they did a professional job to test the car while staying out of everyone’s way, and they have a LOT of work to do. And a completely anonymous race for M.Schumacher…

Results

1. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)  49 laps
2. Felipe Massa (Ferrari) +16.0s
3. Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) +23.1s
4. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) +38.7s
5. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) +40.2s
6. Michael Schumacher (Mercedes) +44.1s
7. Jenson Button (McLaren) +45.2s
8. Mark Webber (Red Bull) +46.3s
9. Vitantonio Liuzzi (Force India) +53.0s
10. Rubens Barrichello (Williams) +62.4s
11. Robert Kubica (Renault) +69.0s
12. Adrian Sutil (Force India) +82.9s
13. Jaime Alguersuari (Toro Rosso) +92.6s
14. Nico Hulkenberg (Williams) + 1 lap
15. Heikki Kovalainen (Lotus) + 2 laps
16. Sebastien Buemi (Toro Rosso) +3 laps
R. Pedro de la Rosa (Sauber)  hydraulics
R. Bruno Senna (Hispania) hydraulics
R. Timo Glock (Virgin) mechanical
R. Vitaly Petrov (Renault) gearbox
R. Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber) hydraulics
R. Lucas di Grassi (Virgin) hydraulics
R. Karun Chandhok (Hispania) accident

A lot of hydraulic problems in there. I won’t include a driver points table because it is the same as the top ten. I’m not sure whether to include results and points going forwards..

Constructors

1. Ferrari 43 pts
2. McLaren 21
3. Mercedes 18
4. Red Bull 16
5. Force India 2
6. Williams 1

The Games People Play

It is the time of year to start entering various prediction competitions and this year there seem to be far more than ever before. I noticed this partly through my efforts at promoting my own TMR Game, there have been comments from some quarters saying there are too many games this year – and perhaps there are. It is getting difficult to keep track of what’s what and where, so here are the games I plan to play in 2010. I’m not promising to stick with all of them because my memory is terrible – I will do my best.

I’ll start with F1 and move on to IndyCar. Why don’t you let me know what games you’re playing and perhaps I’ll tag along too?

SofaF1 Pole Poll (F1)

A nice easy going game to start from Alex and the guys at SofaF1. For each race you predict who will be on pole and the top ten race finishers (was top 8 last year). You get a point for a ‘near miss’ e.g. predicting 5th but actually comes 4th. Deadline is the start of qualifying, and the prize is a modest trophy… eventually.

I’ve linked to the extra part of the game, where you choose the top 8 (or ten?) finishers in the Championship which is worth double the points of a race. You don’t have to do that part to play the game during the year.

F1 Wolf (F1)

Fairly similar to SofaF1 in that you pick your top ten for each race, as well as driver with pole and fastest lap. There’s also a pre-season choice of championship winning driver, you have until 23.59 GMT Thursday to choose a champion and I’ve linked directly to that page, there should be another thread soon regarding Bahrain’s picks.

This will be my first year playing Wolf’s game, I’ve heard good things from others and I’m looking forward to it. The prize? 3 bottles of Mumm champagne!

VivaF1 – Predictions (F1)

This is a quirky one, my first time playing this too. Pick the pole winner, the race winner, the slowest driver in qualifying, the team that finishes 7th (what??!), and whether any ‘new team’ will finish the race. It looks like these questions may change from race to race which makes things interesting! Note you will have to sign up to the VivaF1 forum to take part.

VivaF1 – Quiz (F1)
Signing up also grants access to the chat area which is the home of the weekly quiz at 8.30pm UK time every Wednesday.

Fantasy Racers (F1) / Fantasy IndyCar / Fantasy WRC

A series of related games where you are given a budget with which to buy drivers, usually enough for 3 good ones or a more varied mix of 4 or 5. I have joined the Sidepodcast-affiliated leagues in all three variations. The prize is a trophy.

IndyCar.com

Pick several drivers, but you can only pick a driver so many times in the season. Being the official game of the series there are several prizes available although some or all may be US-only. I play in the Planet-IRL.com league – if I were able to play in two leagues without signing up a 2nd time I’d joined the Midweek Motorsport league too. Unfortunately at the time of writing the site is caught in a loop where I’m logged into IndyCar Nation but it won’t let me log in to the game section (and you do need a free login to play).

16thAndGeorgetown Fantasy Racing (IndyCar)

This is the dedicated game-site of the 16th&Georgetown blog. Pick one driver per race – but you may only pick a driver twice per season. You score the points of the position, so if your driver finishes 8th you get 8 points. The player with the least number of points at the end of the season will win a ride in the Indy Race Experience 2-seater IndyCar! Now I can’t collect that prize, not that I’m arrogant enough to think I’ll win it, I’m playing this anyway just for fun because it seems a challenging game (note – I did ask James if I could do this).

is it May yet? Izod IndyCar Series Prognostication Pool of Doom (IndyCar)

This is different. You choose whether drivers will complete 2010 at a higher or lower position than their 2009 ranking in the points table, the number of wins they will have, the number of top tens they will have, and answer some questions. There may be a prize, there may not be.

All-Racing Fantasy League (Multi-series)

This is an email-based game featuring F1, IndyCar, NASCAR, ALMS and GrandAm. You have 14 drivers and may play up to 10 of them per week, on a 5-oval and 5-road course split. The catch is that the drivers are shared among the players and no player may have the same driver as someone else! These facets combine to create a game of strategy. There is a small fee to enter and that creates the ‘pot’ for the winnings at the end of the year.

I’ll add a link to this later, this post took a while to write and I need to get to bed! (sorry Andy!)

TMR Game (Multi-series)

That’s here! It is based on the ARFL with huge thanks to Andy/Speedgeek, and adapted for blog-based entries and adjusted a bit for this blog’s target audience.

I’ve linked to this week’s entry but keep an eye on the blog for updates and there’s also the Game page. Just pick up to 10 drivers per week with no more than 7 from a single race. This week you can have 7 F1 and 3 IndyCar, or 5 from each, or just have 7 from one if you feel like it. It covers a variety of series but don’t worry if you don’t know about some of them, just enter what you’re comfortable with. The prize is merely to declare that you watch too much racing!

Let me know if you play any of these! I hope this prompts you to have a go at some of these games (hopefully mine!), and do let me know what you’re doing, even if I don’t end up playing them I’m interested to know.