KERS in the 2009 Season
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Hello,
I’m researching KERS in F1 and I am sure someone on here will know: Did all teams run KERS in 2009 or if not which ones did and which ones didn’t?
And it is worth noting that not all teams ran KERS in every race in 2009, or on each car at various races in 2009. I seem to remember Robert Kubica not running it in some races where Nick Heidfeld did, because Kubica was significantly heavier at the time and the weight penalty was not worth it.
Ok, that’s interesting. From what I’ve read the KERS cars were not initially as fast as the normal cars but then as the technology was developed they were eventually faster right? Were there any teams that tried KERS and then abandoned it or started the season with it only to drop it? I only really started watching F1 in 2011 so I don’t know much about the ’09 season.
If I remember correctly Renault and BMW abandoned it mid-season, only McLaren really managed to get it to work, see Hamilton’s results later in the season.
I wouldn’t say they were faster by the end of the season, but they’d certainly closed the gap significantly. The advantage obviously varied based on the circuit characteristics.
2009 was dominated by aero though. The double diffuser was the big talking point which gave Brawn the advantage over Red Bull in the early races (Williams and Toyota had it too, but were useless as usual). Red Bull had a few tricks up their own sleeves too, which laid the course for the next four years…
Yes, KERS was pretty heavy back in ’09 so it wasn’t an advantage that big, whereas the double diffuser was. At the start of the season only Brawn, Williams and Toyota used the double diff, but I think all teams adopted later in the year (that’s the main reason Brawn lost its early-season performance advantage mid-season).
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