Remembering to use KERS a challenge for Rosberg

2011 F1 testing

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Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, Barcelona, 2011

Nico Rosberg was the fastest driver at the Circuit de Catalunya on Sunday.

But he admitted afterwards the team had to remind him to use his Kinetic Energy Recovery System at times.

Rosberg said: “Until now it’s been interesting because of the tyres, KERS, the rear wing. It’s just getting the hang of everything and learning how to cope with all the different situations.

“Sometimes it’s very complicated out there because my mind is concentrating on testing something, at the same time, I have someone shouting in my ear ‘You forgot KERS, you forgot KERS’!

“Once you forget it, you’re in a mess. It’s quite confusing sometimes.”

He said it was “very positive” to end the day fastest:

“We still have some problems but we are going in the right direction. We learned a lot today.”

Rosberg explained how difficult it was to keep the new Pirelli tyres alive during a long run: “You have to take it very easy at the beginning to save tyres for the end of the stint.

He admitted it was against his racing instincts to drive slower but said: “To be honest it’s very interesting because you need to be really aware of the situation and then it becomes a challenge to make the best out of it.”

He added: “We have always seen exciting races when the tyres have had a problem with degradation. So it’s probably going to be a good thing and some very exciting races.”

Quotes and additional reporting by Leandra Graves

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    52 comments on “Remembering to use KERS a challenge for Rosberg”

    1. Better to hear “You forgot KERS!” than “You forgot to turn!”

    2. Don’t forget to drive the car Britney! Honestly, there are too many gadgets in F1. Can’t we just have 4 wheels, and massive engine!?

      1. How would you steer…? :)

          1. That’s a tractor isn’t it? Combined harvester?

            1. No, thats tractor pulling!

            2. Britney forgot to sing…

        1. Jarred Walmsley
          21st February 2011, 10:00

          5 Wheels then

          1. A 5th wheel? Like for towing semi trailers?

          2. 4 tyre wheels, one steering wheel. ;)

      2. These guys are being paid a lot to drive. There are a lot of people willing to take their place.

      3. John H does have a very valid point however. Cutting edge of technology yes, but we must remember this is a sport. I don’t know about you guys but I think the biggest variable in sport should be the human input.

        I find it rather sad that the aspect of the sport which has the greatest effect on overall performance is something that we can’t even see – downforce.

        1. Isn’t engineering human input?

          1. Well then is it a sport or a science?

        2. I’d argue that Rosberg’s interview confirms that human input is still the biggest variable – it’d be great to see someone pass him because he forgot to push the KERS button or had already used it up.

    3. A small electric shock in the seat of his pants would sort that out rather soonish…. :)

      1. My motorbike instructor once threatened to hook some jump leads up to me, wired up to shock me when I had the indicators on, to remind me to turn them off.

        1. My old Yammy 250 of yesteryear had indicators that turned off after 10 seconds of use. Sad to hear that bike tech have gone backwards.

          1. I think it’s much better to have the rider control when the indicators are on or off, and I wish the auto shut off was also taken out of cars. This is because it would force the rider or driver to maintain awareness of the signals they are showing.

            Incidentally you can now get aftermarket motorbike fittings that beep while the indicator is on. I’m glad that the “10 second” indicator lights are a thing of the past though because some manoeuvres take much longer than this with the levels of traffic where I live.

            1. You just turn them on again, it’s not rocket science. Plus you never get cars pulling out in front of you because you a wrongly indicating.

    4. I eagerly await the BBC intercepting a radio transmission to Rosberg saying “Dude. KERS.”, which would be right up there with Montoya’s deer incident in Austria for entertainment value.

      1. “its like a horse with horns!”
        “yeah, I know

        thanks for reminding me.

    5. Is KERS mandatory?

      1. Lotus and Virgin (probably HRT as well) will start the season without it.

        1. …and most likely end the season without it as well.

    6. At least he admits to it. I like what he is saying about the tyres. I think Alonso said something like that about the refuelling ban last year.

    7. These drivers are too young to remember arcade games with a “Turbo” button.
      ….and I thought they were the “Playstation generation”? :)

    8. “Remembering to use KERS a challenge for Rosberg”

      I find this hard to believe coming from a man who no doubt has a strict and disciplined haircare regime.

      1. More to the point, Rosberg can speak five languages and was offered a place to study aerodynamics at Imperial College, London… if one of the most intelligent drivers out there is having issues remembering everything, there’s obviously an issue!

        1. Intelligence and speed of thought doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand. And also, the more you understand something(the more intelligent you are) then the more confusing and complicated ‘it’ becomes, therefore the more intelligent you are the more depressed you can potentionaly get, this interesting phenomena is studied in psychology.

      2. “You forgot the conditioner! You forgot the conditioner!!”

        1. 2 in one for the win!!

    9. I am thinking what will be the penalty if a driver uses his rear wing before he comes close to a 1 second to the car in front?

      1. Black flag and huge fine to the team I’d guess, since that should only happen if the system was tampered with.

        1. Kimi's Ice-Cream
          21st February 2011, 18:30

          Unless it’s you know who

      2. I believe it is all electronically regulated.

      3. The FIA control it electonrically. Until the drivers are within one second of each other, the wing can’t be operated

        1. OmarR-Pepper (@)
          21st February 2011, 13:23

          Yeah, asecond, but I wouldn’t be surprised if on any race, Lewis “accidentaly” has a two or three seconds span and wins the race. Then the marshalls would “investigate” it after the race, until nothing happens in the end…

          Am I wrong? and what about overtaking the Safety car? and the tow in Nurburgring? and the hit to Webber in China last year? and the scandal on blocking Petrov in Malaysia? and… and… AND?

      4. Given that the ability to use the button is controlled by Race Control, the penalty will likely be that Charlie Whiting will get a telling-off…

      5. Not possible, the DRS is controlled by the ECU which is under FIAt control.

    10. You can’t use the DRS more than a second behind, WasiF1. It’s functionality is controlled by the stewards. Actual use is at the drivers discretion.

    11. “Dude, Kers” -> Brilliant!

      But I don’t think those speed junkies will forget about buttons that will increase their speed during actual races or quali runs, when there are no distractions from testing anymore.
      The driver who loses position/points because of this…

    12. “Use the Force!”

      1. ‘Niko, I am your father…’

        ‘ no seriously Niko, its Keke here, press the damn KERS button…’

    13. I hope in the future, F1 cars have 3.5-litre 1,483 hp V12 engines that rev to 20,000rpm. I can imagine they would go like the clappers, F1 are going in the wrong direction these days, in 2006, we went down from a 3.0-litre V10 to a 2.4-litre V8, in 2013, we will have 1.6-litre Turbo four-cylinder engines. Pretty soon, the cars will be pedal powered!

      1. And still the cars go faster and faster…

        1. actually most of the lap records are from 2004. since then the regulations pretty much slowed the cars down. (obviously new tracks have lap records that are more recent. but schumi’s ferrari from 2004 would beat those times)

          teams have to compensate for the loss of power (smaller engines) and increased weight (due to the baning of exotic materials) with higher downforce. Last year the downforce was at its highest level but the cars were not as fast. this is also probably the biggest reaseon for the lack of overatking. cars hit the limiter on the straights and the turbulant air is much more pronounced. current F1 cars are underpowered meaning drivers have it much easier than before. once the give them more power or less downforce, the best drivers will shine.

          its a shame that the financial crisis and ecomentalists have affected F1 so much. hopefuly the future will be more bright for the sport.

          1. The Ferrari 2004 and Mclaren 2005 are the two fastest cars ever build. Montoya hit 372.4 Km/h at Monza in 2005, which is roughly 15 Km/h faster than modern cars, even with Kers and the F-duct.

            So yeah, F1 is getting slower.

    14. There is no correlation between high top speed of racing cars and the number of over-takings in the races. On the contrary seems more to be the case: The higher the top speed, the lower the number of over-takings.
      Those few who just wants 4 wheels and a BIG engine have greatly missed the point about F1 – they should rather waste their time on some other type of motor sport.
      Regarding a 4 cyl. 1,6 litre turbo engine: The BMW M12 F1 engine of the 1,5 litre with turbo in the 1980ties was quite powerful, up to 1300 BHP in Qualifying at 5,5 bar pressure. Back then some of problems was inadequate Engine Management systems causing reliability problems and the lack of variable geometry turbochargers caused narrow rev bands of torque.

    15. who would be quickest around say Monza, Hamilton + Mclaren ( or any other top F1 combination ) or Franchitti + Indy car ( or any other) ??????????????

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