F1 Fanatic round-up: 20/3/2010
20th March 2010, 0:14 by Keith Collantine 14 Comments »
A weekend off before two races back-to-back in Australia and Malaysia. Keep an eye out for a technical review of the cars seen at the opening round hitting the site later today.
Links
McLaren and Magnussen come full circle (BBC)
“McLaren, regarded by some as a cold and clinical team, have recently signed up to their young driver programme a 17-year-old Dane called Kevin Magnussen. And while such information would normally not rate a mention here, there is a poignant story, laden with irony, behind this latest move.”
Felipe Massa feared for his F1 future ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix (The Guardian)
“It’s always important to go well on the first race weekend, but in my case it was even more important, because if I had made a mistake some people would have immediately said: ‘You see, he is not the same as before.’ That would not have been nice because even if I had made a mistake, it was not going to be connected to my accident at all.”
Comment of the day
François-David Lemierre was excited by my pictures of the Jaguar XJR14:
Oh my god ! The second XJR-14 still alive will be in Goodwood! The other chassis is in Highcroft Racing Headquarter showroom but can not run at racing speed. It’s incredible!… If my information are right, it’s 791 re-built chassis in 2003.
Site updates
A caching problem on the site was fixed yesterday so hopefully it should load a bit quicker now.
The Bahrain Grand Prix analysis was missing a few things I wanted to include due to some technical problems. These have now been added to head back to the original article to see the lap one analysis, pit stop break downs and race average lap time charts.
Remember you can access all this data and more in the F1 2010 statistics section.
Happy birthday!
No F1 Fanatic birthdays today. If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.
On this day in F1
Eight years ago today the FIA announced the Head and Neck Protection System (HANS) would be mandatory in F1 from the 2003 season.
There were some complaints from drivers who found it uncomfortable to begin with. But the device is now credited with significantly improving driver safety, especially in high-speed accidents such as the one suffered by Robert Kubica in 2007.
Vincent1972 said on 20th March 2010, 1:12
Keith, can we include starting the next race the data how long each driver took in the pits? so we may know if there are mistakes during the pit stop. Ban on refueling makes us more interested in pit stop time comparison against same team as well as other teams. For example how Hamilton passed Rosberg during the pits? Thanks.
Bleu said on 20th March 2010, 7:17
Was it Rosberg who was held a short time in his box as Webber was pitting at the same time? Also, with no refuelling it’s better to pit first.
PJA said on 20th March 2010, 9:12
I think Rosberg was held in his pit because it was Button coming down the pit lane, but yeah that seemed to be how Hamilton got passed Rosberg.
The BBC commentators mentioned a new rule where if another car which is coming down the pit lane is within so many metres of them they couldn’t release their driver. Had anyone else heard about this as it was the first I had heard about it?
Although FOM seemed to have problems with the on screen graphics, they had two timers for pit stops one for total time in the pit lane and one for total time stationary. I think this is a good idea and hopefully it will be on screen for every pit stop and released after the race with all the other timing information.
Tom said on 20th March 2010, 11:43
So if you’re behind someone whose pit is in front of your one, you can delay his stop by coming in, on the same lap, about 5 seconds later…
I wonder if we’ll see drivers starting to drop back a little if they’re stuck behind someone and the stops are approaching!
I liked the idea of the two timers, although I guess you lose a few more seconds than that negotiating the pitlane entry and exit. Hopefully they’ll fix the graphics so the ‘stationary’ time comes up immediately, then the 20-odd seconds as the car leaves the pit lane.
Tom said on 20th March 2010, 11:45
Whose pit is before your one. Confused myself, dammit.
Icthyes said on 20th March 2010, 1:17
Very little run-off, a very high-speed impact, and amazingly Kubica was back in a few weeks.
Kinda puts the acres of run-off demanded nowadays into perspective…
Sirko said on 20th March 2010, 2:04
Felipe made a good job last weekend, but the real thing he has to worry about is Fernando’s pace. The car looks great, there’s no time to play games, so Ferrari must decide who is number one as soon as possible. Even though Fernando looks like a big scary fish, Felipe must beat him. There’s no other way.
BasCB said on 20th March 2010, 7:07
interestingly, at the same time as the FIA announces opening the bidding proces for the 13th entry for 2011, Toyota informes, that StefanGP does no longer have its support, meaning that the Toyota can be adapted to 2011 for any party involved.
http://adamcooperf1.com/2010/03/19/stefan-gps-toyota-deal-is-dead/
verstappen said on 20th March 2010, 9:24
Nice story about Jan Magnussen. Sometimes the ‘son of’ is just that (or less… Nelsihno!) and sometimes the ‘son of’ can surpass daddy.
And as you can guess form my nick, here’s someone hoping that Max, the son of Jos Verstappen will continue on his path to F1… and has all the raw speed of his father, but a little more constraint when needed – hopefully his mother (who is/was also a talented karter) put that into the mix
GeeMac said on 21st March 2010, 8:40
Jan Magnussen was one of F1′s great disappointments. “The next Senna” was a term often used when describing Jan Magnussen, and he never came close to living up to the title. It’s all well and good to say that “we could have handled the situation better”, but the simple fact remains that he didn’t live up to expectations. Kevin won’t have much to do much to out do daddy…
Patrickl said on 20th March 2010, 9:47
Talking about poor starts of the season. I had expected Massa not to finish in the points. He’s statistically poor in starting the season even without there being some doubt over his fitness after an accident.
He scored only 11 points in the first 2 races of the previous 4 seasons. With his second place in Bahrain he almost doubled the achievement of those 8 races.
Simon Hull said on 20th March 2010, 11:11
Just to let you know. David Coulthard is driving last year’s red bull down Belfast City centre at 8pm if anybody is interested. Should be good. Earlier the car was outside Stormont and I was wowed by Adrian Newey’s introcate design work.
marc said on 23rd March 2010, 18:31
was it good cause i dont live in ireland so i dont know?
Søren Kaae said on 20th March 2010, 17:22
By the way, Kevin Magnussen is the son of Corvette ALMS driver Jan Magnussen. And he is from Denmark, yay!