Grand Prix 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying and Race Discussion

Round 1 - Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir

And so our long, long wait is over. Practice one is now complete and let's just say there are a few suprises in the mix.
Both HRT cars failed to set a time but at least they did get one car out on the the track to turn a wheel in anger.
It's no suprise to see all 6 of the new teams propping up the grid and I think it's a sight that we will be all too familiar with this season.

Here are the final P1 timings (un-official) (Source - Autosport)

Pos  Driver         Team                   Time              Laps

 1.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes   1:56.583            18

 2.  Alonso         Ferrari                1:56.766  + 0.183   18

 3.  Kubica         Renault                1:57.041  + 0.458   19

 4.  Massa          Ferrari                1:57.055  + 0.472   19

 5.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1:57.068  + 0.485   19

 6.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes       1:57.163  + 0.580   19

 7.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes   1:57.194  + 0.611   19

 8.  Rosberg        Mercedes               1:57.199  + 0.616   15

 9.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault       1:57.255  + 0.672   17

10.  Schumacher     Mercedes               1:57.662  + 1.079   16

11.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:57.722  + 1.139   18

12.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth      1:57.894  + 1.311   20

13.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault       1:57.943  + 1.360   17

14.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:58.399  + 1.816   13

15.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1:58.782  + 2.199   11

16.  Petrov         Renault                1:58.880  + 2.297   13

17.  de la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari         2:00.250  + 3.667   18

18.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari         2:01.388  + 4.805   11

19.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth        2:03.680  + 7.097    8

20.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth         2:03.848  + 7.265   21

21.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth         2:03.970  + 7.387   15

22.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth                             2

23.  Senna          HRT-Cosworth                                3

24.  Chandhok       HRT-Cosworth

 

[Brogan]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

[quote="Cancer Cowboy":itpe0rym]Is it just me or the HRT car has the ugliest livery this season?

It's not going to be a problem, I suspect we won't see much of it this season.[/quote:itpe0rym]
I'm not so sure.
It's going to be on TV quite a lot as it's getting lapped

 

[fat jez]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

I'm not so sure.
It's going to be on TV quite a lot as it's getting lapped

You're assuming they're going to be able to put two cars on the grid at every race

 

[Muddytalker]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

You also assume they will make it to 10 laps or so if they do start.

 

[Brogan]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Glock and di Grassi didn't have much luck with the Virgins did they?

Oh the fun we can have this season

 

[snowy]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Saturday Morning Practice 3 lap times:

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1_media/Documents/bhn-session3-times.pdf

 

[Brogan]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

All results are here: F1 2010 Standings & Results - Bahrain

 

[Brogan]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

I'll also be doing all the head to head data again this year.
The thread is here: F1 2010 Head To Head

 

[teabagyokel]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

In the big 4 teams, its 3-1 to the yellow hat brigade!

Rosberg bt Schumacher Vettel bt Webber Hamilton bt Button Massa bt Alonso

Nick Heidfeld by Barcelona, anyone?

 

[snowy]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Qualifying lap times:

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1_media/Documents/bhn-qualifying-times.pdf

Qualifying Session Best Sector Times:

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1_media/Documents/bhn-qualifying-sectors.pdf

Qualifying Session Speed Trap:

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1_media/Documents/bhn-qualifying-trap.pdf

 

[snowy]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Standout guys: Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg: Nico aiming for pole, casting a giant shadow over Michael Schumacher, showing great composure and appearing totally cool throughout todays practice and qualifying, bodes so well for the season.

Felipe throwing down an early and emphatic marker, saying "I'm not going to roll over and purr like a pussy Fernando!"

Jenson, Mark and Michael struggling to keep up. Oh dear...

 

[Brogan]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Button has already started with the excuses

Button says something wrong with car

 

[Brogan]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Of the top 10 drivers who went through to Q3, Sutil was the only one who set his grid time on hard tyres.
The other 9 could have problems with tyre wear early on and could see themselves being caught and passed by the midfield runners.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

The BBC team seem to think that Rubens is the one to watch and I must admit to having a chuckle when they spoke to him after the race and asked how he felt about Schuey being in 7th? With a huge grin he said, "yeah, and I've got fresh tyres".

The thinking seems to be those on the green stripes have to stop in the first third of the race but the question is how much tyre degridation will there be in those early laps? Full tanks, A track that will be dirty and dusty and cars on softer tyres. It could throw the race wide open. We've alread seen the Mclaren eat tyres this weekend so it would seem they are going to find the going difficult.

Special mention to Force India. They seem to have produced a really tidy car this season but the question is can they maintain the pace of development of the other teams? What would be the odds of Sutil moving to a bigger team next season (I know, perhaps a bit early to start talking about that in race 1) and KC moving to FI. Wonder if there will be a vacancy for a German at a well known German orrientated team??

 

[cider_and_toast]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Now that we don't have to worry about fuel corrected times and can compare pace across all three qualifying sessions I think one of the real suprises was Vettels pace in Q2. His best lap of a 1.53.8 is almost .5 of a second faster than anyone else in any session. Now that really shows just how clear a speed advantage the RBR cars have.

Also while on the subject of .5 of a second, the good ship Heikki really does seem to be sinking fast. He is .5 of a second behind his team mate at Lotus. Equal testing laps, same equipment and same status, no excuses for Heikki there. He really is just slow.

 

[genji]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Now that we don't have to worry about fuel corrected times...

Something strange still happened though. Only Massa went quicker in Q3 than he had gone in Q2. Everyone else dropped off in Q3. Why was this? Was Q3 run in cooler conditions, or was there some reconfiguration of the cars between the sessions, or what?

 

[snowy]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Fortunately there was only a difference of .29s between Sebastian and Fernando in quali 2 but it was a surprising turn of speed for the Red Bull. The race pace and consistency of the Red Bull hasn't exactly been turning heads during testing though, so the Ferrari guys won't be hanging their heads just yet.

McLaren though have some serious thinking to do, their middle sector times were often .7s off the pace through that qualifying session. They must be scratching their heads, wondering where all that lovely slow speed turn performance went over the winter!

 

[Brogan]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Good spot!
I wonder what the reason is for that, unless they used scrubbed/worn tyres in Q3 but I doubt it.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

McLaren though have some serious thinking to do, their middle sector times were often .7s off the pace through that qualifying session. They must be scratching their heads, wondering where all that lovely slow speed turn performance went over the winter!

That's just it, itsn't it. It's all well and good having a super dooper new fangled wing that can give you 5kph in a straight line but if the car dosn't turn corners you're in trouble.

 

[genji]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Do the cars qualify under parc fermé conditions? Martin Brundle seemed to indicate this is the case during the broadcast, but McLaren's live timing thing quotes the pit radio telling Hamilton to "remember the white line and you'll be going into parc ferme."

To what extent can they change the car between Q2 (outright low-fuel speed) and Q3 (where they would need to compromise qually performance with filling up with fuel the next day)?

Can they change the ride height, dampers, springs, wing angles, etc.? Do they run the tyres in Q3 with a higher pressure to lift the car up a bit?

Anyone got any ideas?

That's just it, itsn't it. It's all well and good having a super dooper new fangled wing that can give you 5kph in a straight line but if the car dosn't turn corners you're in trouble.

Rather than using it to add 5kph on the straights, you'd think they'd use it to enable them to run higher downforce for the slow corners without sacrificing top speed. Doesn't seem to have played out that way today.

 

[BlackCountryBob]

Re: 2010 Bahrain GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Now that we don't have to worry about fuel corrected times...

Something strange still happened though. Only Massa went quicker in Q3 than he had gone in Q2. Everyone else dropped off in Q3. Why was this? Was Q3 run in cooler conditions, or was there some reconfiguration of the cars between the sessions, or what?

It is strange, my initial thought was that perhaps the cars have set up more compromised for Q3 to deal with the weight on the soft tyres but then I figured that the park ferme rules would apply as usual so the cars would be locked down from the start of Q1. Maybe it is just a case of not wanting to take too much out of the tyres as they will start on them.

This qually thing is a bit daft as I am sure there are plenty of news organisations writing that the Red Bull and Ferrari are streets ahead but at this point, we have no idea how compromised the low weight setup has been for the race fuel, for all we know at the moment, that Mercedes could be at a massive advantage at high weights over the others.

Still non the wiser about which is the best package myself, and any perceived advantage is amplified by the sheer length of the Bahrain circuit, especially with its stupid new section.

As for McLaren, isn't this the exact same problem they had last year at places like Spa where the car was epic in the 1st and third sector, in the tight technical sector 2 it was about a second off the pace. Perhaps the car is just not suited to that kind of track, more a point a squirt package.