F1 Fanatic round-up: 22/3/2010
Later today we’ll begin the build-up to round two of the 2010 F1 season with our Australian Grand Prix preview. In the meantime, here’s the daily round-up:
Links
Hamilton: Red Bull has big advantage (Autosport)
Lewis Hamilton: “The Red Bull is ridiculously faster than anyone else’s car. It’s insane. The downforce they had on their car last year was at some points just about double what we had.” It’s unusual to see any driver make this kind of remark about another team.
Formula One’s appliance of science is leaving Joe Public cold (Daily Telegraph)
“F1 has to decide if it is a laboratory for the advancement of automotive science or a sport. A compromise must be sought because its attachment to the former is killing the show. Not only is the science unknowable to Joe Public, it is brutally unwatchable. ”
Comment of the day
Dave has an essential reminder for F1 fans in Britain:
Clocks go FORWARD 1 HOUR on Sunday morning @ 1am. So when you’re getting up on Sunday @ 6am, it’ll seem like 5am…
Dave
Site updates
After reading your suggestions I’ve made some changes to the driver form guide to show more information and make them easier to see how team mates compare at-a-glance.
Find the form guides for all the drivers here and check them after each race to see who’s winning the inter-team wars: F1 2010 statistics
From the archive
I use Google Streetview so often now it’s hard to imagine that only 12 months ago it was all shiny and new. Use it to tour F1′s next destination, Albert Park in Melbourne, here: A virtual lap of Albert Park, Melbourne F1 circuit with Google Streetview
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to reader Juan Pablo Heidfeld!
On this day in F1
The last Mexican Grand Prix was held on this day in 1992. The Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez held 15 rounds of the world championship between 1963 and 1992. Nigel Mansell won the final race for Williams.
Patrickl said on 22nd March 2010, 19:19
Does anyone understand why Hamilton is saying that Red Bull is so far ahead?
Looking at the laptimes both the Ferrari’s and Hamilton were actually faster than Vettel on the hard tyre. Hamilton’s laps are almost identical to Alonso’s until Alonso gets close to Vettel.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 22nd March 2010, 21:36
Well, it does you no favours to diminish your opposition – talking them up only makes you look better when you beat them.
But I suspect there’s more to it than that. Their one-lap pace came out of nowhere at Bahrain and their race pace was good too. It’s hard to say at the moment whether Alonso started catching Vettel just because Vettel was being slowed by his problem before it had become obvious to us that he had one.
If I was going to attach the phrase ‘ridiculously fast’ to any car at the moment it would be the F10 based on its pace at the end of the race. Then again, who else was really pushing that late in the race apart from Alonso?
Patrickl said on 24th March 2010, 14:09
Yeah, I guess we just can’t tell who’s fast and who’s not. The teams probably have a much better picture though, since they have much more data to work with.
Hamilton already said that he could keep up with the Ferrari’s (looking at his laptimes after he passed Rosberg, he’s right) and thought he might have been fighting for the lead had he kept the position ahead of Massa in turn 4. Perhaps overly enthausiastic, but still.
Hamilton would also have known that he wasn’t pushing to the maximum since he had nothing to gain anyway, so I guess it makes sense he thinks Ferrari and McLaren aren’t that far apart. Otherwise I would assume he would have been impressed by those laptimes yes.
Maybe the McLaren engineers calculated the Red Bulls downforce and Hamilton was impressed. Vettel was quite a lot faster during the first stint too.
Juan Pablo Heidfeld said on 22nd March 2010, 19:45
YAY! Birthday. Go Mansell ;)
steph said on 22nd March 2010, 21:03
As Mexico is mentioned here’s one of my fave overtaking moves which was from there in ’90 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2g1yrGputA
GeeMac said on 23rd March 2010, 6:49
Wow, I actually remember that 1992 Mexican Grand Prix! It was probably the 2nd F1 race I ever watched! If I’m not mistaken it was Michael Schumacher’s first podium finish.
My lasting memory of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was that there was a fierce bump in the middle of the last corner (the Peraltada, what a great name for a corner!) which caught many drivers out in quali and the race.