Grand Prix 2012 Spanish Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

With the flyaway races finished for the time being the F1 bandwagon rolls into Europe for the first time for the Spanish Grand Prix. Traditionally this race hasn't provided the most entertaining of races with the pole sitter more often than not going on to win the race. 2011 was no exception as pole sitter Sebastian Vettel went on to win the race, however he wasn't by any means cruising as Lewis Hamilton charged him down and almost managed to take the lead off the young German but ran out of laps as he just couldn't get into the DRS window around a track that is difficult to overtake on.

Going into this years race it is virtually impossible on who is going to win the race. So far there have been 4 different winners with Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso, Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel all having stood on the top step of the podium so far this season and there hasn't been any team which has been consistently at the front at all four races with everyone having their fair share of problems and also benefiting from other peoples problems. The only truly consistent teams seem to be in the regions of midfield with teams like Williams who are now regular contenders for points after their 2012 car is proving to be far better than their dismal 2011 effort which barely managed to get a point and they have already surpassed last years total in just 4 races which isn't a bad achievement considering both drivers weren't exactly tipped for great things this season.

The buzzword at Mclaren at the moment and particularly for Lewis Hamilton is undoubtedly pit stops after a series of poor stops destroyed his race in Bahrain and also in Australia when he got caught out by the safety car. Jenson Button has also been affected by poor pit stops which show how these aren't isolated incidents and it is something that Mclaren urgently need to address as there is virtually no chance of getting on the podium let alone winning a race if they keep botching pit stops, for example, Hamilton lost well over 20 seconds from just pit stop problems which robbed them of at the very least 4th place if not a podium but this was probably unlikely given the supreme pace of Raikkonen and Grosjean in the lotus cars.

Indeed, lotus finally managed their most consistent race of the season and showed that they have designed a very fast race car as Kimi Raikkonen very nearly won his first race since returning to the sport in only his fourth race as an aggressive race saw him get within striking distance of leader Vettel but ultimately fell slightly away and had to settle for second which was still a fantastic result and with Grosjean finishing a comfortable third things are looking up for lotus going into the European season.

Barcelona is traditionally a hot and dry race although there have been wet races before although there hasn't been a rain affected race for a good number of years now. However it will be still difficult to suggest a possible winner as it depends who was the most productive at the Mugello test which starts today (Tuesday 1st May) and teams like Ferrari are banking that the raft of updates and upgrades that they will bring to the car for Barcelona will kick start their stuttering season which would be a boost for Fernando Alonso at his home race and an improved car would easily give him a good chance of a third drivers championship as he has already won a race in the below average Ferrari that is lower points at best at this moment in time but that could change for Barcelona and they will need to otherwise heads could be rolling at Maranello if Ferrari are out of the Championship before it has barely got going.

For Galahad 's brilliant circuit write up, see here http://cliptheapex.com/pages/circuit-de-catalunya/
 
The laptimes are looking very good for Lotus and McLaren. Lotus running their race fuel on soft tyres and doing 12 laps below 1m31. Jenson does 8 laps and Lewis 5, but Lewis did two more low fuel laps than JB.

Vettel in the high 30s for 7 laps where Lotus are doing high 29s and McLarens low 30s. Button also a good bit quicker than Vettel on the hard tyres. Both Mercs are in the 31s in their race fuel stints.

Ferrari? :dunno: Fernando does some very quick high fuel times, but how high is the fuel? Their low fuel was deeply unimpressive...

Q1 is going to be nerve-wracking with the softs looking like 1.5s faster in qualifying trim (maybe 1s in race trim). For the race, 3 stops means averaging 16 laps per stint and by the 16th lap, these softs are dead. I am looking for two option stints of 12 laps each and then two prime stints of 20/21 laps.

Can Lotus qualify high enough to use their race pace to deliver a win? They could easily get stuck behind a Merc and a Red Bull and by the time they are past, the McLarens may be too far ahead.
 
I think that sums it up pretty well. As for Ferrari's form I think as always in practice TV footage tells a bigger story than lap-times, and judging by onboard shots of almost uninterrupted steering wheel corrections from FA you'd have to say that Ferrari still looks as difficult to drive as ever.

FB, I did click on those links and the impression I get is that Williams must really be pretty hard-up these days....:no:
 
Are gear ratios set before a race weekend? Like permanantly?

Or can a team change them during and after practice?

Ie. Can Hamilton change his gear ratios for tomorrow?
 
The laptimes are looking very good for Lotus and McLaren.

Agreed. It's still early days but from what we saw today you would have to say they were the 2 most impressive teams on race pace. Martin Whitmarsh confirmed to Sky in a video on their website that McLaren could have not had anymore fuel in there car. Therefore, at best Red Bull for instance, had the same fuel as them and were slower. Lotus seemed slightly quicker at times on the long run and probably have the best degradation rate. The temperatures look set to drop on Sunday though so this could hurt Lotus and even play into Mercedes hands, although I do not see them as contenders here. I think it will be between McLaren, Red Bull and Lotus.

What's a little strange with McLaren is both drivers seemed quite unhappy with the car during most of practice but their pace looks very strong. I think Lewis especially says he has inconsistent balance from corner to corner, yet his 2nd long run on the prime tyre was mighty impressive, putting in his fastest lap (a high 1min 29) on the 10th and final lap of his run. I think this shows their new upgrades have brought performance but they have not got the car set up yet, which is no surprise with such a major change at the front of the car, which effects everything beyond it. This means they could be even faster if they dial it in overnight and into tomorrow. Their tyre degredation looks as good as it has on Friday all year and that is at a track that is very demanding on tyres, with very hot temperatures. As a McLaren fan im very happy and optimistic.

Final note is on Ferrari. I have a strange feeling of a conspiracy in that they purposely went out quite heavy on fuel for their soft tyre run. They were consistently the fastest car on the prime tyre during FP1 and the start of FP2 and they never normally run low fuel at these stages so I see no reason why they would. This suggests they have genuine pace. It will be interesting to see where they end up in qualifying.
 
Just watched FP2 so my comments are

Idiot of the session
  • The numpty that tweeted in without giving his name just after the radio message to the pits form Button, telling the team about his under-steer problems, which said "same old Jenson coming out with the excuses the moment his team mate is faster than him"
Taking that necessary information on board the team made an adjustment to the car and Jenson went out and posted the fastest lap of the session.

Message to the idiot, what do you expect a driver to do? radio the team and say "nah everything is fine guys."

Funniest moments of the session.
  • Somebody asking why it was called the man grove project for equality instead of the person grove project if it was about equality the answer the project is about planting mangroves to raise money for equality..:givemestrength:
  • Bruno Senna's mechanics cleaning tyre rubber off of the garage floor.
  • Crofty saying Buttel when trying to give the gap between Button and Vettel.
Least unexpected thing of the session.
  • The fact that both Lewis and Jenson are completely unaffected by not going to the last test.
 
I'm picking Alonso will be somewhere on the front two rows in qualifying, possibly on the front row. It's fair to say more heat in the day and soft tyres during Q2 was worth on average a full second, for some 1.5 secs. Unfortunately Alonso wasn't able to put in a clear lap in Q2 on the softs but if you take one second off his Q1 time of 1.24.430 he would have equaled Button's time and been two or three tenths quicker than any of the others. Of course it's only guessing but qualifying should be interesting to say the least. One thing that has been obvious is the Ferrari is behaving. For the first time this season Alonso wasn't fighting his car. It was also very consistent on long runs. I've been saying since Australia the Ferrari was a good car in need of development, which was to be expected for a totally new car. I also said that by Silverstone Alonso would be in the top three of the championship chase. I still believe he'll not only be in the top three but will be the driver to beat during the second half of the season. :)
 
I couldn't have less of an idea how Quali is going to go today. Have we ever had a season where 8 drivers go into qualifying all thinking they could get pole? and many midfielders could feel if they post a top end time they could break the top 6, like Ricciardo last time out. Amazing that Lotus are beginning to look like they have the best race pace over last 2 races. Kimi has to be one of the faves this weekend. If I had to back someone for pole though, it'd have to be Lewis or Seb. They just seem more capable of eeking out that lap time needed for pole.

Come on Lewis!!!
 
Does anyone know which Mclaren nose has performed best, the new high one or the old low one? And which is likely to be used in the race? Unfortunately I didn't get to see any of the practice sessions, but I did gather from the live text updates that both were tried at one time or another.
 
If I had to guess I'd say they will be using the new nose. Would be such a waste of time to have it in Mugello, then FP1 and FP2 and not even run it. The time gained or lost will be so minimal too as far as I'm aware.
 
Seriously, though, we will see in FP3 so let's keep our eyes open, our ears to the ground and our ...

Daniel Ortelli question to Sam Michael in the press conference re. the nose: "There were a lot of comments about the nose of the car at the beginning of the season. Now you’ve changed it. How much of a marketing tool was it and how much of a technical advantage can it be now"

Sam Michael: "The change that we’ve made here for this weekend is part of the normal development of the car. Obviously we haven’t changed our chassis and we wouldn’t plan to do that during the season but you’re always exploring things like that, whether it’s the nose, bodywork or wings, all over the car, regardless of what other teams are doing. It’s definitely not a marketing tool. The only reason why we change the car is to improve the aerodynamic efficiency. Here we do have a new nose to evaluate but I would not call it a first order or barely even a second order factor in car performance."
 
I personally think we should keep our nose out of Mclaren's business. This one could 'run' and 'run'.
 
Fenderman Yeah similar to what I was thinking. I think it has been regularly pointed out by various F1 types that these changes are pretty negligible when it comes to time. I guess it is just an easy update to make if there is evidence that it even slightly improves the car. It shouldn't be too hard to spot if they are running it in FP3, as from what I can remember seeing it was significantly higher than the old version.
 
Does anyone know which Mclaren nose has performed best, the new high one or the old low one? And which is likely to be used in the race?.

Both McLaren drivers have said the upgrades on the car are working, although neither singled out the nose specifically. Due to both drivers continuing to use the new nose in FP2 I would say it's likely that it will be used in qualifying and the race.
 
I don't want to dwell on the McLaren new nose debate but from the first introduction of the high nose by Bennetton in the early '90's it always seemed a contradiction to me. In theory, the air flow under a high nose is a recipe for creating lift. In the days of the ground effect cars of the eighties the concept was to have the chassis as flat as possible from front to rear with as near a vacuum as possible beneath the car. The top surfaces of the car were designed to maximise pressure over the car so that there was a combination of aerodynamic load on top and ground effect "suction" (for want of a better word) beneath.

With the higher nose design the propensity for lift has to be counteracted by the aerodynamics conferred by the front wing. To me that seems counter-intuitive and I often wonder why no-one has resisted the temptation to re-assess the whole approach. As far as I know the technical regulations don't preclude a much lower nose which might result in the ability to run with less front wing. If one looks at Le Mans prototypes we see that they have retained the flat botton front to rear arrangement.

So, my question (and sorry to take so long getting to it) is this: What exactly is the advantage conferred by the high nose design and why has it gone unchallenged for nearly two decades?

Maybe I should ask Scarbs:thinking:

Edit: Another thought. Airflow around the front wheels has always been a major problem for the aerodynamicists. It occurs to me that disturbed air from each of the front wheels can interact under the nose. So does having a high nose help control this interaction and mitigate it's effects? If so how?
 
What's the chances that the front nose is just a smoke screen. If I was Mclaren, I'd be more than happy to have everyone talking about a slight adjustment to the nose height while I fiddled about with stuff at the back. In fact if I was running one of these teams, I'd make sure that every time I brought a big important upgrade, I'd also bring a small unimportant, but more visible upgrade to draw attention.
 
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