Grand Prix 2010 Spanish Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Well at last after what seems like an age we are back on the grid for the 5th race of the season. It's the first of the European races and the first chance for a lot of teams to introduce a few upgrades that they hope will bring them those all important few 10ths. Unlike the British General Election, at least we are guaranteed a result come Sunday evening.

Mercedes will be the team to watch at the front end of the grid after they have introduced several huge aero revisions to their car and hopefully corrected that all important weight distribution. They have also introduced a new and radically re-designed engine cover.

Red Bull have got a new front wing, floor, side pods, engine cover and rear wing so they will be hoping to put their reliability woes behind them and turn raw speed into final results.

Lotus are another team that are hoping that their improved package will bring the 1sec plus improvements that they were talking up a few weeks ago.

Virgin were looking to have resolved their fuel tank issues but due to various delays including the flight issues over the Icelandic ash cloud, they will only start this race with one modified car which will go to Timo Glock. Given that they have only managed to cross the line once this season any sort of finish would be an improvement.

Paul Di Resta will once again sub for Adrian Sutil at Force India and the "Driver with Experience" talked about in Autosport at HRT will be Christian Klien who will take the car in first practice in order to help the team develop.

There are plenty of things to look out for this weekend and if it remains unaffected by weather we could get a good idea of the pace of the cars for at least the next couple of races.
 
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Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Rosberg "baffled" by car problems:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/83441

The weird thing is, if the car has updates for this race, shouldn't it be faster, not slower?
Rosberg even says that "the changes that we have made with the car are obviously good and we have made a step forward but I haven't really been able to use the improvements so far".

Maybe he's not the oversteer kind of guy?
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

By all accounts they went the wrong way with setup on Friday so they've been undoing all their setup work since then.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Brogan said:
GeoffP said:
Since you have the data at your fingertips :) , were the other instances that incurred fines during a race, or practice/quali.
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I knew you were going to ask that :D
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Thanks for that Bro - I have excuse other than my inate laziness :thankyou:
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

I wonder why they switched from € to $ :dunno:
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

What a disappointing end to the race.

Dreadfully bad luck for Lewis :disappointed:
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

He does seem to have a sometime propensity for tyre bursts. I reckon McLaren should look to stop him as late as possible on the softs at the start.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

That didn't look like a puncture to me, there was no sign of any adverse wear on the tyre, it just exploded with a whole chunk of rim flying off the wheel instantaneously. That suggests debris, a brake caliper or a part of the suspension failing.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

What hasn't been discussed is the fact that Massa was lapping faster after damaging his front wing.

Surely that demonstrates that all of the little winglets, vanes and stuck on bits are largely ineffective?
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Brogan said:
What hasn't been discussed is the fact that Massa was lapping faster after damaging his front wing.
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A fact which didn't escape his race engineer. LOL
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

That explains why I didn't think it looked like a puncture. That huge chunk of wheelrim flying off before the tyre deflated looked decidedly unlike a puncture and much more like a failure of another kind! :bored:

Still what's the betting that from hence forth it will go down as another damning indictment of Lewis Hamilton's lack of tyre management? :givemestrength: And be quoted repeatedly and no amount of iteration of the facts will deflect these misguided souls.
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

snowy said:
Still what's the betting that from hence forth it will go down as another damning indictment of Lewis Hamilton's lack of tyre management? :givemestrength: And be quoted repeatedly and no amount of iteration of the facts will deflect these misguided souls.
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There is no bookie who'll take on that bet!
 
Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Wheel rim failure confirmed but cause still unknown:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/83530

McLaren has confirmed that Lewis Hamilton's penultimate-lap crash at last weekend's Spanish Grand Prix was caused by a wheel rim failure.

Team principal Martin Whitmarsh said that the cause of the rim failure had yet to be determined though, and that an investigation remains ongoing.
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Re: 2010 Spanish GP Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Martin Whitmarsh reveals cause of Lewis's Spanish GP wheelrim failure, speaking during Monaco's Thursday press conference:

The wheel failure was the consequence of backing off of the
clamping load with the wheel nut. You try and investigate and it is always difficult to know exactly
why that is. I think it is a range of things. Being on bottom end of tolerance. I think the air regulator
that drives the air wrenches was perhaps erratic. The gun was within tolerance but at the lower end
and maybe the gun stayed on a little shorter than it could have done, so all those things meant that
the wheel was able to flex. When it does that it rubs on the brake drum, gets hot, leaves the
properties of the magnesium and leads to a failure.
Click to expand
 

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