New cars take twice as long to fix, say Ferrari

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Ferrari’s Pat Fry says teams spend twice the amount of time attempting to fix mechanical problems with the new V6 turbo era cars compared to last year.

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Ferrari says problems with 2014 F1 cars take twice as long to fix (Autosport)

Pat Fry: “It’s harder getting to the bits you need to change than changing the bits themselves. I guess there’s a certain level of familiarity with what we had in the past. I would have thought the things that have set us back and cost us four hours would have taken half the time, at a guess.”

Mercedes admit they believe they are ahead after blitzing the field in Bahrain (SkyF1)

Paddy Lowe: “The strongest teams out there are the Mercedes-powered teams. The Ferrari is also looking strong, so those are the people we are watching and trying to measure against.”

Protest threat hangs over Melbourne opener (SPEED)

“The dispute is about the protective covering on the top of Ferrari’s turbo unit, weighing in at a crucial 3 kilograms lighter than the ones fitted on the Mercedes and Renault units. Mercedes and Renault argue that Ferrari’s cover needs to be more substantial for safety reasons in the event of a dangerous turbo failure, but Ferrari’s explanation was initially accepted by the governing FIA.”

The Bahrain test in numbers (SkyF1)

“A statistical rundown after four days in Bahrain for the second of the three pre-season tests.”

Grosjean wins Moscow ice race (Racer)

“Romain Grosjean overcame European Rallycross champion Timur Timerzyanov to win the annual Race of Stars ice-racing event in Moscow on Sunday. The Lotus Formula 1 driver came to Russia direct from Bahrain testing as the guest of honour in the 25th Race of Stars, organised by Za Rulem magazine.”

Retrospective Formula 1 exhibition of Fernando Alonso at Sala Arte Canal (Designboom)

“Exhibiting at Sala Arte Canal in Madrid, the ‘Fernando Alonso collection’ is the most comprehensive installation dedicated to a Formula 1 driver.”

Making of Fernando Alonso collection (YouTube)

Tweets

Comment of the day

As the debate over double-points continues, Nick believes it’s not a question of the championship providing excitement, but the racing itself.

When I was talking about the double points with a friend who casually watches F1 ever since he’s known me (2007-ish) he asked me a very profound question: ‘Have they given up on trying to make the sport itself more exciting?’

Let’s face it; Abu Double is merely a measure to increase the entertainment levels. Sports need entertainment (ask anyone who doesn’t live in a country where speedskating is popular about the Dutch success, or any non-cricket playing country about the sport in general), but in the past the sporting regulations were changed to minimize the gaps between the front and the back of the field. This rule completely negates the racing, the quality of the race for purely mathematical fun.

This worries me. Like my friend asked, have Bernie and the FIA given up on improving the races? Do they think the racing is ok? (Because as long as there’s DRS, it’s not.)

I’m nearing a point where I can no longer rationally explain people why I like F1. It’s a part of my life, and has been since I was 7, but it’s becoming that crazy aunt/uncle you love because they’re family, but have to ignore whenever she does something stupid..
Nick

From the forum

Is Bernie Ecclestone’s control of Formula 1 a good or a bad thing for the sport?

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Georgedaviesf1!

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

Ayrton Senna drove the Williams-Renault FW16 for the first time 20 years ago today. The first race of the season – Senna home event in Brazil – was a little over a month away. But rivals Benetton had begun running their B194 several weeks earlier.

Meanwhile Tyrrell launched their new 022 at the London motor racing show. They had failed to score a point all season the year before, for the first time in their history, and rehired former design Harvey Postlethwaite in an effort to fight back.

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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62 comments on “New cars take twice as long to fix, say Ferrari”

  1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    24th February 2014, 0:14

    It’s a bit annoying that there could be a protest at the very first race over Ferrari’s turbo covering. It sounds like Ferrari have come up with an ingenious way of saving weight.

    If it’s already been accepted by the FIA, why bother protesting, when they could just copy, what is clearly a clever idea?

    And let’s be honest, the teams who have a problem with this are just dressing it up as a safety issue so that the FIA will consider it. I doubt very much they care about the safety aspect of it at all. All they care about is the fact that Ferrari’s solution is 3kg lighter than theirs.

    1. And let’s be honest, the teams who have a problem with this are just dressing it up as a safety issue so that the FIA will consider it. I doubt very much they care about the safety aspect of it at all. All they care about is the fact that Ferrari’s solution is 3kg lighter than theirs.

      My thoughts exactly.

    2. I was under the impression that the entire power unit which includes the turbo had a minimum weight. That would mean Ferrari are not saving weight but just gaining the luxury of putting the weight somewhere else on the unit.

      Am I wrong?

      The gain from moving 3kg from one part of the unit to another can’t be very much unless they’re putting it way down low.

      1. That would be the case if all the PU’s were under the minimum weight by more than 3kg, so that weight could be added to the PU where it would be less penalizing.

        Maybe with that solution Ferrari managed to reach the minimum weight, whereas Mercedes and Renault may be within those 3kg from reaching the minimum weight, thus Ferrari having a weight advantage over the power units of both Mercedes and Renault. It’s just a theory, but one which could explain the discontent of Mercedes and Renault.

      2. There may be other advantages to saving weight on the protective cover, even if the PUs are under the limit. They could use the additional 3kg to reinforce other areas of the PU to improve reliability, or robustness for example. Whichever way you look at it there will be some advantage to using the weight elsewhere, whether it’s centre of gravity, weight distribution, or something else.

    3. The cover is not only required where necessary, but is just required; and Ferrari doesn’t have it.

      This is a clear transgression, and the FIA is just too inconsistent.

      1. @jason12 @coefficient I find it funny people making comments like these without knowing the facts. Which are as follows:

        Engine manufacturers were required to protect from turbo exploding parts leaving the inside of the car. Renault and Mercedes did it the conventional way by adding up the weight of the ballistic cover. Ferrari seems to have an ingenious way of strengthening the protection without adding up the weight. They didn’t try to sneak it in, hide it or anything-they informed the FIA, provided it with technical information and the FIA tech delegate agreed that it is safe. What’s there to protest? Renault and Merc have only themselves to blame for failing to think out of the box

        Nowhere in the rules it’s stipulated that things must be done in a conventional way. In fact the very essence of F1 as the pinnacle of motorsport implies pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in exploring new tech. Provided it’s safe. Does any of you have proof to the contrary?

        1. @montreal95 They protest because it’s the way things work in F1. If you like something out of the ordinary and you have doubts about its legality, you protest before you copy. If FIA says it’s OK, you try to build your own…

          1. @jcost I know that’s the way of F1. It’s cheaper to protest than try to copy of course so they try that first. Only the comments I replied to were IMO condemning Ferrari of being dangerous where all we know by now is that they were innovative

        2. @montreal95
          What Ferrari have done is incorporate the Turbo Shield into the primary engine cover so it comes off when the engine cover is removed. It’s very clever and a great idea but there are concerns that it is not adequate in the event of a Turbo explosion. These concerns are born out of the technical regulations specifying the details of the Turbo cover which has led 2 of the 3 engine manufacturers down one path coupled with the fact that several excellent engineers from various teams doubt the efficacy of the Ferrari solution. Also, Ferrari must have known their solution was teetering on the cusp of legality otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered designing a more robust back up cover in case the Stewards decision goes against them in Australia. If they weren’t pushing the boundaries they’d be failing in their jobs just as their rivals would equally be failing by not querying it. It’s just part of the game so don’t get too upset about it. Behind closed doors there are protests and technical clarifications taking place constantly but only the big items get media attention.

          1. @coefficient I’m not upset by the protest, in itself. As @jcost rightly pointed out this is the way F1 works. However, this is a little different than most tech rows. It concerns safety. Your original post indirectly implied that Ferrari were willing with this innovation to potentially sacrifice safety for performance. @jason12 ‘s suggestion was even worse, implying that the FIA was somehow willing to go along with this.

            Now even if you’re being cynic, it’s IMO implausible to suggest that. Imagine the public disaster should people be fatally injured by 125k RPM shrapnel. Even for Ferrari, surely the pros were outweighed by cons by that possibliity if the safety was marginal. Let alone the FIA who don’t have anything to gain whatsoever

          2. ‘there are concerns’…but it doesn’t sound like FIA is concerned. I think the other teams are concerned about the weight saving Ferrari is benefitting from. Was going to say Ferrari is ‘getting away with’, but if their solution is deemed legal, again, then they didn’t get away with anything other than a better solution than the others.

            I doubt several excellent engineers from other teams are losing sleep that Ferrari could kill someone. They simply don’t want to have been scooped.

            And sure, maybe it is telling that Ferrari is poised with a change if it is necessary, but maybe more telling about the inconsistency of F1 that they can’t rely on than about any self- doubt they may have over their solution.

          3. @montreal95

            I didn’t intend to imply anything of the sort. However, another contributing factor to the fuss over the Turbo cover is that Ferrari have not tested their solution to destruction by deliberately exploding a turbo whereas Merc and Renault have. Surely you can understand that this would raise at least an eyebrow. I am all for the teams pushing the limits of the technology as far as they possibly can and I applaud Ferrari for their creativity. I would love to hear that their solution turned out to be as robust as those of their rivals because the 3kg weight saving would go some way towards mitigating the weight penalty they have to carry as a result of opting for “air to water” cooling rather than “air to air”.

          4. @coefficient If they haven’t physically tested it, then it’s a serious oversight as they should’ve known about the protests that will come. What they should do know in that case is test it, show the evidence to the FIA and forget about it

          5. “now” instead of “know”

      2. @jason12 I think you got it wrong there. As @montreal95 explains it, it is legal and FIA has considered it safe. Ferrari are accomplishing what rules require in a different way which does not require to add 3 or 4kg at the top of the engine, thus affecting COG. The aim of the protest is either to force Ferrari to add that extra weight, or getting clarification from Ferrari to see how they are doing it (as I understand it).

        1. I read somewhere, sorry I can’t quote where, that Ferrari had circumvented the rule by designing the turbo in such a way that if there’s the slightest possibility of a turbo component failure, the unit’s software shuts the whole thing down. Great at weight saving, but bad news for maximum power if there’s a failure.

    4. Have you ever seen a Turbo explode? Without a proper incendiary cover their is real danger! If an F1 spec Turbo exploded during a pit stop their quite literally could be serious if not fatal injuries from the resulting shrapnel if the containment mechanism is inadequate.

      1. Here’s a video created by Garrett with footage of an exploding turbo. It looks as though it can be fairly well contained, but it would depend on their turbo suppliers.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y01Ed4Sg3U

    5. petebaldwin (@)
      24th February 2014, 11:17

      @tophercheese21 – Whilst I agree that it’s a bit annoying that we’re doing the whole protest thing again, it was fairly inevitable! With the amount of new rule changes for this year, I would be more surprised if there wasn’t a protest!

    6. @tophercheese21 I don’t think the protesting teams are ‘dressing this up as a safety issue’. It is ONLY a safety issue. It is a component put there for safety, not performance. Making it lighter of course benefits performance. The teams will still have to provide a safe solution even if Ferrari’s is rejected. But I doubt it will be.

      According to BE, double points are meant to help Ferrari, and we are possibly seeing Mercedes emerging as the new force and presumably they have the heavier solution up top for now, so I expect that when the teams get further clarification from the FIA, Ferrari’s method will be given the green flag. I think if this was an RBR innovation, and RBR was also dominating the testing, then the solution might be rejected, and there certainly would be the same protests that are being suggested may occur soon.

      A question. Is the risk of a turbo exploding and sending out harmful shrapnel that great? Is there much in the books about injuries from this?

      Anyway, the bottom line for me is that if I’m Ferrari I’ve already asked pretty forcefully for a detailed summation from FIA about the legality of their solution. I wouldn’t want to have already gathered data from 2 pre-season tests only to have to add 3kg of weight up top, so I’d want to be pretty confident that any protests will fall on deaf ears.

    7. I don’t care much about the politics of this issue – only thing the FIA has to make sure imo is that Ferrari’s solution is safe an follows the rules.
      An exploding turbo with shrapnels leaving the car would pose a lethal risk for drivers and spectators. If the others have doubts then they should protest to get a clarification – I see no harm in it as long as it doesn’t get blown out of proportion.

  2. Nice to see Williams putting in so many laps. I really hope that this year it finally translates to on track performance. Would be very nice to see.

    1. petebaldwin (@)
      24th February 2014, 11:19

      They are clearly ahead of where they were last year but I wouldn’t expect them to trouble the top teams. I’d imagine they’ll be battling with Force India/Sauber this year as opposed to Toro Rosso like they were in 2013.

  3. This new generation of F1 cars must be a nightmare to trouble-shoot and to service/repair. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there were to be a car or two missing from the starting grid in Australia.

    1. @schooner In Aus maybe but the problems are because teams don’t yet know how to rectify things quickly as the cars’ components are placed completely differently. As soon as they know that, times of repair will go down dramatically

  4. OmarR-Pepper (@)
    24th February 2014, 0:52

    @nick To quote one of my favorite movies, Forrest Gump, “You said it all, man!”.
    I’m maybe in that part of the “negation phase”. I feel this year I’ve lost F1, the sport I’ve always tried to see since 1990, when I was 5. I’ve lost it, yet I come around F1F everyday to talk about it. It’s like those divorced guys who still wear the wedding band.
    I guess that I’ll go for a drink or something that Saturday night (for my time zone) when the Australian GP is on, just to avoid it completely. But next morning I’ll be here around to know what happened.

    1. @omarr-pepper Nooo! Don’t give up, I hope you end up in a sports bar and have no choice but to watch the race anyway :p

      1. formula one is a strange adiction: its not really a sport, but its not really just entertainment. you know people are ruining it (hello, bernie), your friends dont get it (or why you like it in the first place), but you still stick to it!!!
        man: dont give up!!!! (at least not until the double points…)

        1. Here I suddenly find a lot of people showing an interest in F1 even before the first race. Probably because Magnussen is the first driver for more than a decade, who coincidentally has a Danish passport:-)

    2. @omarr-pepper, Not yet Omar, wait until the abomination is upon us, unless of course you have to pay to watch, in which case cancel and let them know why, it might help.

      1. OmarR-Pepper (@)
        24th February 2014, 4:16

        @hohum yes, I know that there’s a (remote) chance to see the double-points idea being dismised before it actually happens… and I don’t pay for F1 as a sole thing, it’s part of usual cable TV here. But I think I would feel scammed if I watch it all year long, and then double points stay and ruin the show HEAVILY.
        What many people talk about is about the World Champion winning it “just for that”, but let’s not forget the other 21 places can also be affected by that, and the WCC standings too. It’s a raffle that will pay money to some teams, by plain luck, money taken by this mockery, from another team which is better all year round just to see their efforts snatched away by Bernie’s “clever” idea. And you know more money=more possibilities to improve the next season.
        I guess the abomination has already arrived, because it’s the last straw many fans (me included) can take. The annoyance is here now, if FIA back off and the championship retuns to “normal” for a rule change in, let’s say, September, well that won’t change how upset I’ll feel all year about it.
        PS: Sorry for the long rant.

        1. No apologies necessarry I feel much the same.

    3. We all know how upsetting and disappointing this blatantly obvious foul manipulation of our beloved Formula has become for us fanatics, but I urge you not to punish yourself for the foul misdeeds of those evil money grubbing scum bags hacking at our sport like trolls feeding on a huge haunch of mutton (though Bernie looks more like a goblin).
      There are so many fascinating and exciting elements of this new season and dedicated F1 aficionados such as yourself @omarr-pepper should not feel obligated to deprive yourself just to prove a point or because you feel annoyed. Sure if you can affect the ratings by ‘saying’ that you didn’t watch it, do it, but I implore you don’t miss out!
      I totally agree that we have to have a voice and fight tooth and nail against this hijacking of our sport anyway we can, and we have people like @keithcollantine leading that charge, but abstaining is not the answer.

    4. @omarr-pepper “Forrest Gump” is my fave movie :)

    5. First of all, thanks for giving me the COTD @willwood!

      @omarr-pepper I’ve actually missed a dozen races between 2007 and 2008, but I’ve always come back to F1 and I check F1 websites multiple times a day. Still, I think I’m more disenfranchised now than I was in 2007/2008. Then I could blame my apathy on my favorite driver no longer competing, but now I’m just turning a little bitter.

      F1 isn’t on public TV here anymore and I actually canceled my subscription after Hungary, to watch German and British broadcasts. I was considering getting a subscription again, but between watching the pre-race events on other channels and not wanting to spend money directly to watch something I’m no longer in love with, I’m not so sure now.

  5. That official testing video is the best I’ve seen so far, now I have a much much better idea of how the cars sound. Let’s face it the V8s had to go sooner or later and this new turbos are worthy successors, specially if they end up faster by the end of the year.

    1. It’s a cool video. No annoying commentator! :D And you can see the rear end wants to take off when they accelerate out of a corner, nice torque.

    2. I dunno how he got that clip from. It’s seems like the official video with the F1 logo and the camera angles. Wow! Why can’t we have such highlights every single day?

      1. @neelv27 I know, it’s weird. Maybe we should ask @gt-racer if that’s a leaked FOM video or they realesed it themselves.
        I know that they send a crew to the tests to put it on the end of season DVD but I don’t know why it’s gone public now.

        1. FOM do send a small crew to get some bits of footage from the test’s.

          The video in the article is the highlights reel which FOM send out to the news agencies at the end of each day. Bits & pieces from these videos will then be used for news clips & by broadcasters like Sky who used bits on there Sky sports news reports (From the raw feed minus the f1 logo).

          Its a small crew thats sent out, Maybe 5-8 guys to work cameras & in the truck to edit & send out the footage.

          Since the footage is sent to the new agencies via satellite it is possible to grab the feed if you have the right satellite equipment & I’d guess this is where this video came from.

          1. Ok, thanks, I didn’t know they sent a highlight video every day, to be honest this is much more interesting than the heavily cut/edited no track audio version broadcasters do.

          2. Was something they started doing last year.

            They had always had cameras at the test getting footage for the end of year review as well as the archive but nothing had ever been sent out to broadcasters before that to my knowledge.

          3. Is there an official policy by FOM that set out guidelines whether or not you have to use the F1 DOG or not? Because last year like you said, the only footage of Hamilton’s crash at Jerez that all the broadcasters, including Sky used was from FOM, but it had the DOG on it.

        2. Also, @gt-racer, is it true that FOM are discontinuing the Pit lane Channel & Driver tracker for this year? I’ve heard rumours that they may be doing so.

          1. There’s no official policy that im aware of regarding broadcasters using the f1 dog or not.
            Also not heard anything regarding the pit lane & driver tracker for this year. Be surprised if they did drop either as both have gone down well with fans & broadcasters, I know most the broadcasters use the tracker in the comm box.

            Only reason I can see for them dropping them is if they were planning to combine the tracker, radio & other data from pits channel into a single channel. I know some sort of multi-data ‘race control’ channel was talked about in the past.

          2. @gt-racer Well, apparently the rumours have come about because Sky Italia has said they won’t be offering those two channels to their broadcasters this year, and will be reducing the number of extra F1 channels they offer to viewers. It could be that it’s just Sky Italia dropping them then. I know they like to show dedicated onboards of the Ferarri cars. If they did modify the pitlane channel, i’d rather they dropped the data graphics and made the Pitlane feed inset a bit bigger, but then you’d lose what was happening on the world feed then, and personally I don’t like picture-in-picture, as it would obsure part of the main video.

            This image from Sky DE (apparently taken this year – maybe as part of tests): seems to imply that the pitlane channel is just being a regular full-screen video, which would mean FOM are leaving the broadcasters responsible for creating their own multi-screen, as is done in that image.

  6. I don’t know about you, people, but these new engines sound mean! They sound ballsy and the sound is so rich with numerous different sounds! I quite like it. There’s some definitive seriousness about that sound.
    Can’t wait to hear them all scream together when lights go out for the first time this year!

  7. @Nick I share the same experience. My father who effectively made me watch to F1, likes to tease me with the “Is DRS still there?” question, that said I tease him too but with a football paradox. In the end my father and myself still watch our sports but sometimes I fear that it can too be erased of our routines such as a lingering show that seizes to not end or renew itself or maybe some sport we liked because we played it well, (I’m just taller than anyone else…)in my case basketball. I no longer watch it and it ended up like that basket gym at london 2012 that got taken down, it’s like it never existed.

    1. I used to watch F1 with my parents, but they effectively stopped watching when Schumacher first retired and still don’t really feel much for Alonso, Raikkonen, Hamilton or Vettel. Sometimes I’ll be watching a session or a race with them when I’m there, but they typically go about their day. This being the same people who used to have subscriptions to 2 F1 magazines and took me to Zandvoort, Spa and the Ring (not during F1 races, though) as a kid.

      Life goes on, I guess, and hobbies don’t always move along..

  8. One of the things I do like about these engines not being as loud is that you can actually hear the tires start screeching when being pushed. It will make for great viewing trackside to see he is driving fast and smoothly.

  9. So the new cars take twice as long the older ones to fix, hardly surprising, for the last 50 years that I have owned cars thats been exactly what they have told me every time I had to take them to a repair shop.

  10. Regarding turbo failure, usually the first sign of a problem in a turbine is disintegration of the turbine wheel, bringing it to an immediate stop will only increase the loads on the rotating parts. Having said that 3 Kg of Kevlar is a lot of “bulletproof” materiel.

    1. Nowhere does it say that it comes to an immediate stop though, it would be progressively slowed at a rate that wouldn’t increase the failure?

      No idea just thinking around it.

      1. I thought they said a shield was unneccessary because the turbo is stopped at the 1st sign of a problem, so either a brake is applied or the engine is shut down to prevent further exhaust gas energising the turbo, if the rotor is allowed to freewheel to stop after partial disintergration it will further disintergrate due to unbalanced forces. At least that is my understanding, do we have an engineer with turbine experience in the readership?

  11. “Mercedes and Renault are not satisfied that the FIA is satisfied,” said Auto Motor und Sport correspondent Michael Schmidt.

    Well you think the place for Mercedes and Renault to start would be to ask the FIA if they are satisfied with Ferrari’s solution no? If the FIA are, then they can shave weight off their turbo housings themselves, if the FIA aren’t they’ve got nothing to worry about as Ferrari will have to alter their turbo housing.

  12. The FIA’s final ruling on the Ferrari turbo casing issue will be an interesting one. The regulation in question simply states that “measures must be taken” to contain debris in case the turbine fails. Clearly Ferrari have indeed taken measures, in the form of a safety control system. But who can really say, other than the Ferrari engineers, how effective this control system is? I mean, is it a bit like reverse gear and there simply because the regulations require it? Will it undergo testing by the scrutineers? Just how serious an issue is a sudden failure of the turbo?

    From a regulations standpoint, this is no different than the style of innovation that we are all used to in F1 – circumnavigating the rules to extract extra performance (think double diffuser, F-duct, the Lotus twin nose), in this case it comes in the form of weight savings. But we’re talking about a rule intended to preserve safety integrity here, and clearly that is pretty high on the FIA’s agenda.

    One thing is certain though, Renault should stick with a physical housing… clearly engine control systems are not their speciality right now!

    1. For now I’m stuck on the notion that if indeed safety is pretty high on the FIA’s agenda, particularly surrounding this issue, then they would not have already allowed Ferrari 2 pre-season tests with their solution if it was lacking integrity.

      And there is also the very real notion of FIA standing for Ferrari Intentional Assistance, not to mention a desire to stop the RBR train, and BE’s admission that double points is meant to help Ferrari. ie. it’s not just about the integrity of the turbo housing.

  13. Senna didn’t have much time to get used to his new team with only a month testing in 1994 and all the different changes in regulation they had.

  14. Fix 1t 4gain… The day after tomorrow

    If Ferrari ever return to Le Mans, some of the thinking they’ll find there might be useful in F1. In a 24-hour race the Audis spend notably less time in the garage than Toyotas (or Peugeots before them): components such as suspension and alternators are designed to be easy to access and replace, so if a car has a failure or damage, it loses fewer laps and stays in contention.
    Even if F1 packaging is way tighter and more regulated, and there’s no time to fix any major problem during an F1 race, it could still make the difference between being taking part in qualifying and starting from the back, or getting through all the team’s tyre and set-up programme.

    On a WEC note, it’ll be fascinating to see how far Porsche have engineered ease of servicing into their new car, and whether the new LMP1s (with their upgraded hybrid power and smaller chassis) create the same delays as the new F1 cars.

  15. It is really starting to concern me with all the unreliability within the new regulations. This is supposed to be the pinnacle of racing. It would be very embarrassing to see 3 or 4 teams not be able to compete in Melbourne. Currently, it looks like only 4 teams could make it to the end of a Grand Prix.(at least at anything close to racing speeds) When was the last time we had a 50% attrition rate in an F1 race??? I wonder if additional testing will be allowed if several teams continue to have issues. It would be a real farce if the reigning 4 time champion team doesn’t qualify in the 107% or finish a race. 2014 could get really interesting in the next few weeks…….

  16. The Alonso collection looks wicked cool. I’d love to be able to visit it in person.

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