Grand Prix 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Unfortunately I don't have any text prepared (this was supposed to have been posted yesterday by someone else), nor the time to write anything up, so this will have to do.

 

[Jos the Boss]

Surely it should be one or the other, not both

 

[Mephistopheles]

Should we run a sweepstakes to see who the first driver will be to get a race ban through penalty points

 

[Mephistopheles]

Surely it should be one or the other, not both

I don't care because it's Sutil...

 

[Kewee]

Hey Kewee what's wrong with this year's Ferrari. Bryne's magic wand not working??

I bet Ferrari wish it was an aero problem, Rory Byrne could solve that a lot easier than the engineers can solve a power issue. Ferrari's main problem is they are down on power considerably compared to Mercedes, and as there are four teams powered by Mercedes, there are eight cars on the grid with more power than Ferrari. You've been watching F1 for ages now Quintessentially, you should have realised that.

 

[Quintessentially]

Kimi says he finds the car more driveable after Ferrari made changes to the front end of the car. Coincidentally he out qualified Nando.
Anyway, Bryne's bold statement about last year's Ferari being child's play compared to this year's not looking too smart now eh

 

[Mephistopheles]

But aren't Renault even more down on power and Danny Boy seems to hustle that thing up the grid...

 

[Lew_beauty]

Thought I'd post some info on long runs from FP2, as I was looking at them anyway. I don't know what the tyres of each were, but I'd imagine Vettel-Ricciardo and Verge-Kyvat were on different tyres. Obviously you can't read too much into this, but Force India look good for race pace. I think Hulkenberg's time are a little misleading as his stint was so short. Over the first 7 laps, Rosberg did a 39.7 average, so not miles ahead and Perez over first 7 did a 40.4, so he wasn't as far off Hulk as it looks. One of the interesting things the data showed was a significant drop off from the start of the stint to the end. I'd say it's at least 1.5 seconds after 15 laps, even with the fuel burning off. This data only shows the first stint up to the first pit stop because as soon as drivers put on fresh tyres they were going about 2.5-3 seconds faster. Williams didn't doing long runs.

Rosberg 01:40.120 12 / 14
Hulkenberg 01:40.168 7 / 7
Hamilton 01:40.214 11 / 15
Perez 01:40.989 13 / 15
Ricciardo 01:41.298 17 / 17
Alonso 01:41.459 13 / 13
Vettel 01:41.865 9 / 9
Magnussen 01:41.887 12 / 12
Vergne 01:41.913 18 / 18
Button 01:41.922 12 / 12
Raikkonen 01:41.976 11 / 11
Kvyat 01:42.749 11 / 11

The fraction to the right of the times is the number of laps I counted / the number of laps in the stint, as I deleted anomalous times.

 

[teabagyokel]

Hulkenburg still nearly 2 seconds clear of Vettel, who did only two laps more - could be more difficult for Vettel coming through the field if he has to simultaneously fend off Hulkenburg.

 

[Lew_beauty]

This may be the first race in 5 years where we get to see Vettel going wheel to wheel with drivers in equal (or better) machinery than him.

 

[The Artist.....]

teabagyokel

We really can't say that the hulk is 2 seconds faster as we don't know what fuel weight they're carrying!

 

[Quintessentially]

Lew_beauty Do you have a death wish or something matey

 

[Lew_beauty]

The Artist..... I'd take a stab in the dark and say around 100kg.

 

[Lew_beauty]

Wonder if Vettel will hit Max Chilton and call him a Tomato or something.

 

[The Artist.....]

The force India isn't the same pace as the Merc. Therefore, hulk must've been running slightly lighter than at least the mercs. .... As such, it won't have been carrying 100kg! Interesting as the times are, sadly we are missing a key variable, the overall fuel weight, to get a good grasp of the true race pace!

 

[Lew_beauty]

I can't see any advantage to running underweight. I think it is more likely that Hulkenberg's times are genuine and the reason they are so close to the Mercs is because he probably started the stint much later in the session. There are many hidden factors that don't tell us the true picture in Free Practice, but for long runs I doubt fuel is one of them.

Particularly when you consider the fact that the times do look kind of representative, maybe about 0.3-0.5 second quicker. To get a time like that, they'd surely only be running at 5-10kg under race fuel, so what would be the point. What additional advantage would they gain from doing that?

 

[teabagyokel]

The Artist..... - Just let me get naïvely excited on the Saturday night of the Grand Prix...

 

[The Artist.....]

Lew_beauty

There's all manner of reasons why they might want to run without full fuel; such as simulating the weight after the first pitstop, etc etc etc... Let's face it, all the other teams are approximately 1 second behind the Mercs at the moment; for a driver to split them and only be 48 thousandths behind has two possibilities; either the Force India is as fast as the mercedes in race trim, or alternatively, he had less fuel on board. As DC said, weight is the one thing that can easily be simulated; so, actually, running with 50kg of fuel or 70kg fuel makes no difference to the information that can be gained, but what they can get a handle on is how the car might react at different points; what is more likely is that Perez had full fuel onboard, whilst Hulkenberg was probably fuelled for the amount of fuel he would be expected to have on board after his first stop.... This would explain the difference in pace between the two force indias... But even that is just a supposition!

 

[Kewee]

Kimi says he finds the car more driveable after Ferrari made changes to the front end of the car. Coincidentally he out qualified Nando.
Anyway, Bryne's bold statement about last year's Ferari being child's play compared to this year's not looking too smart now eh

You are obviously reading the motorsport news which means you must also have read that there was a problem with Alonso's car. It was down on top speed and they are trying to find the cause.
Kimi's better result was through improving the front braking not an aero issue. Not quite sure why you would want to criticise Rory Byrne, he designed all the Championship winning cars during Schumacher's years at Ferrari and has been the only designer considered to be Newey's equal.

 

[Quintessentially]

Some drivers have mentioned that there was little point in FP as they've already gathered extensive amount of data during testing which was run in similar conditions. Doesn't go for the Renault powered teams obviously.

 

[Lew_beauty]

The Artist..... Hulkenberg only split the Mercs on his average time over a much shorter stint, made later in the session. So for him to be the same pace of the Mercs means absolutely nothing and we don't need to arbitrarily guess that they were running really slowly but on 75kg, we can just say that they showed good pace in FP2. I think that's the point you were trying to make in terms of reading too much into the times, but I think it is just as silly to start adding time back on, on the assumption that teams are intentionally running 5-10kg underweight for no apparent reason.