F1 Fanatic

I’m not so sure about an MB lock out. MB does well on Saturday because they can heat the tires faster, or rather, their tire-overheating process begins as soon as the car comes off the jacks. At Monaco no one […]

I hear Newey wants to design some boats next. And we know he likes to wreck a nice vintage race car on the weekends. So I predict that the MB Aufsichtsrat will resolve to incorporate Newey Yachts GmbH and […]

I don’t think the presence of turbos itself means much to manufacturers. Turbocharging, per se, is old-hat. It’s not some kind of leading edge technology anymore and its not like the F1 rules are going to be […]

The only clear point of substance here to respond to, i.e, the one that goes beyond school-yard bluster, is incorrect: the delamination problem cannot be solved without changing the construction. The reason for […]

Was the rule tirggered in 2002 when Ferrari got Williams’s front tires outlawed, because of their supposed dimensional variance from the rules?

Right. The fact that he could go flat out, between stops, exerting his superior skill and concentration, is what made the race great. Today, Schumacher, on the same four-stop schedule, would still be […]

Don’t forget that this dramatic delamination also broke a driveline and gearbox on the Mercedes. Pirelli tried to buffalo people about that at the time saying it was just due to debris or whatever, and thow they […]

As I said before, the comparison to Magny Cours is irrelevant, immaterial and pointless for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is refueling. The Horse Whisperer, as usual, is talking nonsense in the […]

The Magny Cours thing is completely immaterial. For one thing, there was refueling back then, which meant that more stops meant running lighter/faster when you were running, which was the key to Schumacher’s win. […]

Boullier makes some good points and some lousy points. In general, the comments are not smart. I disagree with the approach of trying to accuse Pirelli of trying to balance out the competition rather than […]

Perez brings in a big pyramid of pesos, Vodafphone on the way out, and Honda on the way in. The picture is becoming more complete now. We do know that the Japanese manufacturers love to see their man in the car. […]

Good question.

My quick list:

Linear or parabolic degradation curve for tires. Not a cliff. And the tire must sustain some period of flat-out driving without immediate destruction if only for a few laps. […]

Ferrari did not buck anything. Other teams stopped the same number of times and Alonso coasted just as much as others. The car was just relatively better. Buxton started an urban legend. Parking behind rosberg in […]

Not so sure. Buxton wasn’t driving the Ferrari, Alonso was. And Alonso says he was not driving anywhere near the limit. The data show he was several seconds off his fuel-corrected ideal time at all times. […]

It’s fair but its not “racing.” It would be fair if every finalist in the men’s 100m race had to run in flip flops (and Usain Bolt may not win, if some people are bored of his winning) but it would not be much of a race.

When you have a single tire supplier that supplier necessarily determines who wins and who loses. You accept that issue if the tire design choice is done “blind,” i.e., before the teams test their cars. The […]

Fair point. I think that people view HAM as a known quantity for pace and ROS as an unknown, seeing as his main competition was Opa Schumacher. Rosberg is a very quick driver. The W04 is very unpredicatable, […]

Check out the qualifying stats. Button scored about the same points because he never bins the car and is very disciplined in following strategy. Problem is that not binning the car is not the same thing as […]

Almost as bad was hearing Brawn tell him, “you have gained two laps on your target.” At this point, in stint 2, he had fallen to about 11th!.

I heard Mateschitz gave Ecclestone a ration of crap about the tires yesterday. I’m not happy about high-level lobbying going on about the racing spec. However, now that the FIA and Hembry have put the design and […]