Trulli “struggling a lot with power steering”

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: Jarno Trulli says fixing his power steering problem should be Lotus’s priority.

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Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Trulli wants power steering fix (Autosport)

“I hope I can get this sorted soon. The team is working on this more than the aero updates, as it really is for me the main issue. I can’t feel the car; I can’t drive it. But once the power steering is fixed then I think I can give the team everything they want in terms of feedback.”

Where on earth is Brabham? (WA Today)

“According to Land Minister Brendon Grylls it’s the area between Murray Street and Lord Street in Perth’s east after the suburb was named after racing legend Sir Jack Brabham OBE today.”

F1 Fanatic on Twitter

“If anyone wonders what F1 on Sky would be like, watch Versus’s coverage of the Indycar race. Occasional glimpses of the cars between ads.”

Via the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app

Living History: April 27, 1975 – The Day F1 Politics First Defeated Safety (The Race Driver)

“‘It’s as if a gun has been pointed to our heads,’ said the World Champion. ‘Nothing – money, contracts, racing – nothing is more important than safety. I believe the track is not safe for racing and I hope that the stand I am making now will in some way help safety in the future.'”

Bruno Senna on Twitter

“Check out the video I made with my phone (yes… again the phone) from inside the car!”

Via the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app

Speed TV’s Varsha on Austin, broadcasting and the current F1 season (Austin-American Statesman)

“We put our own graphics on it, we put some replays and that sort of thing. But we are typically not supposed to do anything from the time the cars line up on the grid until the podium ceremony is over. So the idea of side-by-side action during commercial breaks is not something that Formula One is allowing us to do.”

Heikki Kovalainen on Twitter

“25 years since rally driver Henri Toivonen’s death today, I reckon he would have dominated the rally world for many years, super talent.”

Via the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app

Thanks but no thanks (ESPN)

“The Bahrain authorities are the very people who cannot be trusted to make an impartial decision. It is politically important for them to try to show the world calm and normality has returned, even if that is untrue. It is worth noting the only other messages that things are hunky-dory come from those with a vested interest for that to be so.”

Follow F1 news as it breaks using the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app.

Comment of the day

It’s not hard to see Felipe Massa being edged out of Ferrari soon – but it’s a lot harder to see who they might replace him with, as Prisoner Monkeys explains:

If Massa leaves and there is another vacancy on the market – like Webber’s Red Bull seat – other drivers may be unwilling to walk into a team knowing they’ll be second fiddle to Alonso from day one.

That means Ferrari may be forced to do a McLaren circa 2008 and take the best driver available once all their first choices are gone, which means taking an inexperienced driver and compromising their constructors’ championship campaigns.

They got caught with their pants down when they didn’t establish a young driver program until very recently, and they won’t put a rookie in the car without first running him through a customer team like Sauber. That could very well leave them in no-man’s land next year.
Prisoner Monkeys

From the forum

Trunky is looking for some F1 gift ideas.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to J.Danzig!

On this day in F1

The first ever San Marino Grand Prix was held 30 years ago today. As was the case throughout the 26-year history of the race it wasn’t held in the tiny principality, but at the nearby Italian circuit Imola.

Didier Pironi led the race for Ferrari early on but Nelson Piquet passed him to win for Brabham:

Author information

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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48 comments on “Trulli “struggling a lot with power steering””

  1. Going down Eau Rouge doesn’t look that bad actually. Nice video though, well done Bruno.

    1. Seeing the mechanic at the front of the car makes me feel like i’m playing F1 2010.

    2. How he managed to do so whilst filming with the other hand is above me.

  2. Doesn’t Bruno know you can’t use a mobile phone whilst driving?

    Points on his licence and a ban from motor racing for 1 race please, Mr Todt. ;)

    1. Don’t joke, that’s what the Vic Government would do. Remember Webber’s useless 100km/h drive over a bridge….

    2. Look at the disclaimer below the video on YouTube. It actually states, he was running slowly and controlled and explicitly warns you not to use your phone during driving! Nice touch, Bruno.

      1. It actually states, he was running slowly

        Hard to believe…

  3. seeing an f1 car go down eou rouge the wrong way makes me think that they should try some circuits in reverse to liven up the racing. only problem is i guess is safety. quite difficult to move grandstands at the end of a long straight :/

    1. Abu Dhabi would be improved immeasurably, just a few run-off issues. Better first corner (tighter) and we could also get rid of that stupid third chicane (as it is now) and have a medium-speed entry onto a long straight. What would become Sector 3 would be a great end to the lap, though there’d be a bigger chance of crashing in the pit-lane tunnel…

  4. The COTD is totally ridiculous. Everybody driver hates Ferrari so much, they would never sign up for Ferrari. Yeah sure.

    Well, there are surely a few F1 drivers that are not PM.

    1. Everybody driver hates Ferrari so much, they would never sign up for Ferrari. Yeah sure.

      That isn’t what it says at all.

    2. Every top (and that was his point) driver hates coming second before they even walk into the garage.

      1. Especially Mr. Webber, whose name has yet again been mentioned as a Massa replacement. I really can’t see that happening. My guess would be that he’d rather retire than go to Ferrari, if other good options aren’t available to him.

        1. I’m not so sure, Webber and Alonso have been pretty good friends for a long time now, I think if Ferrari really wanted Webber, they could get him.

          Personally, even though he would not be in the best car, I would love to see Webber in a red suit and I think it would spark a lot of interest in Australia with the fringe viewers of the sport as they would instantly recognise the significance of Ferrari.

          1. I suppose it’s possible. Just seems very unlikely.

          2. Isn’t the plan that Berlusconi gets booted as the Prime Minister of Italy, and di Montezemolo takes over leaving an empty spot at Ferrari for Briatore, who just happens to be Alonso’s manager, and Webber’s manager. If so it wouldn’t seem so weird that Webber could end up Ferrari, and if he did who could blame him, massive pay increase, your manager as the team boss, your friend as your team mate, a team that is generally towards the top of the points standings, and you get to live an country that has the best food in world. Sounds like a good retirement plan to me.

          3. On top of that, a team that simply rewards the guy who’s doing best. The only reason Alonso is the #1 at the moment is:

            a) he almost won last year
            b) Ferrari have little faith in Massa being a challenger, which is both sad and stupid

            Whereas a powerful section of Red Bull want Vettel to win no matter what. Horner is about Mark’s only major ally.

            So long as he matched Alonso, Webber would have less to fear from team favouritism at Ferrari than at Red Bull.

          4. @Pinball…I thought Webber already lived in the country with the best food in the world…or has moved away from the UK ;-)

    3. I think that COTD is very accurate to describe the situation. What top notch, race winning driver would go to a Ferrari to play second fiddle?

      Webber certainly not. Kubica – very unlikely, Ham and But is out of the question, Vettel no chance. Of the rest of the drivers: Rosberg – why would he do that. Kovalainen has experience of that and did not like it, Trulli neither. Barrichello quit Ferrari because of it. Doubt Glock would be much into it, but he might just be interested.
      That leaves Ferrari to chase unproven guys like Kobayashi, Perez, Sutil, … .

      1. Sound_Of_Madness
        3rd May 2011, 6:54

        I think (IIRC) they planned to sign Sutil and send Massa to Sauber midway last year, but plans changed. Dunno why.

    4. bananarama
      3rd May 2011, 7:01

      I don’t htink thats what PM was saying, but I don’t agree with him either.

      If there was a vacancy at RB, would it be THAT MUCH different to Ferrari?! They have their golden boy, Dr Marko has repeatedy made it very clear they only want Vettel to win and even Horner (accidently) admitted they only have one driver to win the championship. So anyone coming into the team would be a number two aswell. If they think he is ready they might want to take Alguersuari for the job, if they don’t believe in him they have a bit of a problem because it lacks options.
      Ferrari on the other hand are facing the same lack of options, but if they are left with nothing they can still draft Perez in case he does well this season. Bianchi isn’t experienced enough and will have to prove himself first.
      Kubica might be a bit of a “free agent” once he returns, nobody can know what he is still capable of and he might be tempted to drive for a team that has all the resources in the world (so, one of the big 3,5 at the moment) but neither do I think he’d take a number 2 position nor do I think Alonso or Vettel would like Kubica as a teammate (even if him and Alonso are friends, we all know the Spaniard performs best when he knows the team 100% behind him).

  5. If Trulli can’t cope without power steering, Lotus might want to look to replace him with a stronger driver. Perhaps a driver who is capable of driving an F1 car around Spa one handed!…

    1. I must say, its very intrigueing how these problems keep haunting mainly Trulli. In the article he says, the power steering issue means he does not get feedback for how the car is reacting, must be pretty uncomfortable.

      To be fair to Trulli, he does not state it slows him down or is the reason for being outqualified by Heikki. Just it means he cannot give very much feedback for car improvement.

      1. I can’t shake off an impression that he’s such a whiner. Excuses excuses excuses. It’s a shame that he requires all of the Teams resources thrown into this issue.

        Ok, i know that if true it may be an legitimate issue, but he made this as if the wheels would come off his car when he turns the steering wheel.

        I remember Button saying that the drivers feel the reactions of the car and grip through their spines, so i’m finding it doubly difficult to believe him.

        But then again, what do i know.

    2. Trulli isn’t complaining about the steering being too heavy, he’s complaining about the lack of sensitivity and feedback.

  6. Montjuic 1975 was my first F1GP live, more than 36 years ago. Even though it was a disaster, it didn’t discourage me, I went to 20+ more GPs. Hungary 2007 was my last one.

  7. How come Senna is allowed to drive that car around Spa? “Filming days” are all very well, but we haven’t been to Spa yet this year…

    1. Last year’s car repainted in this year’s livery.

  8. “If anyone wonders what F1 on Sky would be like, watch Versus’s coverage of the Indycar race. Occasional glimpses of the cars between ads.”

    I think SPEED’s F1 coverage would probably be a better measure. I find their coverage infinitely better than the Vs. coverage of Indy races. Despite the fact that they don’t do a picture in picture during ads (which according to the Varsha interview, FOM won’t allow), the breaks are fewer and farther between, and typically placed as strategically as possible to avoid missing key action. For the necesary evil that ads are in F1 coverage in the US, SPEED does a great job of minimizing their impact on the race. Their commentary is also far better than that of any of the knuckleheads on Vs.

    1. I wish I cold say the same thing about ONEHD in Australia. The pre and post race coverage is shockingly horrible and there ads are more frequent than a HRT breakdown.

      For instance, we missed the 15 minutes MOTO GP qualiy because (I can’t remember what) ran over time, then when we finally got on air, Greg Rust decides to give us the times and sum up the first 3 practice session. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, we went to the BBC coverage where we got a massive 2 minutes and 36 seconds of qualiy action before ONEHD thought it was a good time to take there first break. By the time they came back to the coverage there was already 22 minutes of qualiy gone.

    2. I must say that Vs coverage was abominal. Sure during the full course yellows its fine to do some ads, but it was like 1 minute talking between ads at times.

      And just as the Takuma Sato got into the pits they put in the one and only full screen advert!

      I think the guys at Speed are really very good from what I have seen of their coverage.

    3. Regarding picture-in-picture:

      Last year I got a Freeview box (or whatever the cheap LIDL equivalent is) and for the first week or so all I was getting was German channels since I had the satellite dish pointed in the wrong direction.

      Anyways, I had to watch the Monaco Grand Prix on RTL (in German) and they’d cut to an ad break every 30 minutes or so, with picture-in-picture of the race.

      1. Sure enough german RTL do horribly much ads in as well. I think their minimal ad block is about 5 minutes and when watching F1 on German TV (from about 1997 – 2002) they had a great nack of timing it completely wrong.

        Still at least with the picture in picture you know something did happen. With some stations they completely miss action and forget to tell the vieweres something happened at times (Czech TV often does that).

  9. The footage that Bruno Senna took really immersed me into his world of high speed and adrenaline and just how difficult it was to see when he was gunning it down Kemmel. I’d love to see that kind of footage in a race. Wouldn’t it be fascinating to see the Hamilton vs Vettel battle in Shanghai from his point of view?

    1. That’s why I think it would be cooler if they had in-helmet cams instead of the t-bar mounted cameras, or at least in addition to… they really put you much closer to the driver’s actual perspective.

      This is all edited up strangely, but gives an impression at least, now picture this in HD! :
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpLjvkh4hQE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

      1. Personally I think helmet cams are a dead-end. Much better would be cameras on the sides of the head-rests.

        1. HD Goggles are the way. I have a 5mp pair & they work great. The lens is between the eyes

        2. That vision of Kubica is awesome!

          @Icthyes, I’m interested to know why you think that it’s a dead-end :)

          Certainly my biggest argument for it is that it brings race fans closer knowing what it feels like to drive one of these things as with T-bar cam and nose-cams, etc. the sensation of speed and terror are somewhat lost.

          I remember seeing a F1 1991 review video and as crap as the on-board footage and audio was, the rawness of it certainly brought it home that these cars are off the planet! Now I’m not saying we should have bad technology, but that we should be using the latest video tech and miniaturisation to give the viewer a better experience :)

          1. A driver’s head moves so much, have you ever seen a badly-shot wedding video. Motion sickness galore!

  10. That Bruno video is exactly how I drive in F1 video games, except I do it during races

  11. Nice link to the Varsha interview Keith. Insightfull and some new bits about Austin etc.

  12. And not to forget, a happy birthday to J.Danzig. Hm, that name rings a bell, something with a book involved?

    1. If Trulli can’t cope with the new era maybe he should hang up his helmet. Did any of you know the Bin Laden death date was the same as Senna’s. Keith I suprised there was no article on Senna on May 1st.

      1. Nope. Bin Laden was killed around 1AM local time on May 2nd, not May 1st.

  13. Bloody hell! If going UP Eau Rouge wasnt scary enough, going DOWN it must be petrifying!

    A nice camera view, I would assume that’s roughly all that the driver can see of the tarmac in front of him. Also, was Bruno holding onto the phone whilst changing up gears? Top marks if so!

  14. The comments above about split screen ad breaks on some German channels is interesting. I have been in Valencia several times on a Race weekend (not the Spanish GP). I usualy watch the race on a big screen in a sporta bar and they also always have ad breaks in half the screen with the race still showing in the other half. You lose the commentary but my Spanish is not good enough to follow that anyway.

    Is Mr Varsha wrong that it is not allowed or is he just making excuses.

    1. In canada TSN broadcasts the comercials with split screen race and commercials.

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