F1 Fanatic round-up: 19/1/2010

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The Monte Carlo Rally begins today with Robert Kubica taking part in a Renault Clio with co-driver Jakub Gerber. The event ends – 1,600km later – on Friday.

There’s some especially interesting stuff in the links today including more details on US F1’s car. Here’s today’s round-up:

Links

US F1 Type 1 revealed (Racecar Engineering)

Renderings of the new US F1 car.

No running on thin ice (Toro Rosso)

Red Bull had to abandon their attempts to drive an F1 car on ice at Montreal because the weather wasn’t cold enough.

World council member questions FIA appeal (Pitpass)

“The decision to appeal is a decision that should have been taken by the World Council but we haven’t had a World Council meeting.”

McLaren Electronics Fuels Analysis of Formula One Racing Data with SQL Server (Microsoft)

One for hardcore techies this – a look at the software in the electronic control unit which is fitted to every F1 car. Seems they picked an Indy Car for one illustration though. Thanks to Andrew Lighten for the tip.

Comment of the day

A lot of people agreed with my take on the mandatory pit stops debate so I wanted to promote a solid counter-argument for those who aren’t sure. Here’s one from GQsm:

Are you "No" voters thinking that drivers will have to pit for tyres anyway? In which case what’s the problem with it being mandatory? Allowing them not to pit just means they can work their strategy towards that goal and when they achieve it we end up with a parade.

This isn’t GP2, there is no reverse grid. The cars are closer than ever, on track overtaking isn’t going to suddenly become more possible than it was before. I’d say quite the opposite. Without cars running varying fuel weights and fresher tyres I would expect on track overtaking to fall not rise.

Races without a single position change the entire race are perfectly possible if qualifying goes without a hitch and no one pits.
GQsm

From the forum

Now that Canada’s back on the F1 calendar it’s time we got an American round to go with it. Dlaird asks where an American Grand Prix should be held.

Site updates

There’s a good chance we’ll be moving servers later this week which could mean a brief period of outage. I’ll keep you posted with developments, but hopefully once we’re through the difficult part we’ll end up with a faster, more reliable F1 Fanatic.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to MarkG!

On this day in F1

Jenson Button was born on this day in 1980 – many happy returns to the world champion.

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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16 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 19/1/2010”

  1. Happy Birthday to Mark and Jenson!

    I hope USF1 can make it to the grid and do reasonably well.

    1. Happy Birthday to MarkG & Jenson Button.

  2. ‘Comment of the day’

    “on track overtaking isn’t going to suddenly become more possible than it was before. I’d say quite the opposite”

    100% agree

  3. According to F1 tabloids, USF1 appears to be handing out their CFD results and full car designs on floppy discs outside the mall to attract potential investors. Lets hope this strategy works out.

    Seriously though, I love how open USF1 is being, and I really hope they succeed. Also, that looks like a viable car. Definitely not a copycat of one of a chassis from last year, especially since even the like of Ferrari are pretty much saying, “well… to be honest… its a RB5 in red with a barcode on it.” Here’s to Bahrain.

  4. What the comment of the day doesn’t address is that teams shouldn’t be FORCED to pit a particular number of times.

    Leave it up to the teams to decide their own strategy.

    Its about variety, not about saynig everyone must stop twice, theres no variety in that. This way we might have 0, 1, 2 and 3 stoppers all in one race. That is going to shake things up, not if everyone has their race strategy dictated to them by the rules.

  5. I agree with the comment of the day article to a certain extent. The point is though that every overtake here is being measured equally… i.e. more overtakes = better.

    The ban on refuelling may very well reduce the *amount* of overtakes, but there will be more passes that actually mean something (other than a light fuel loaded car going past a heavy car).

    An example would be Hamilton’s pass on Massa at Turkey (I think 2008). Here the pass was great, but as we knew he had to pit for fuel and was lighter, and hence it lost some of its impact.

    1. I guess my point is that overtakes have varying ‘quality’ and that seems to have been forgotten.

      1. If the pit stop are mandatory then is basically the same as not having any because all will pit about the same time.

  6. “USF1 Type-1” I like it, thats a nice car designation.

  7. John H, you banged the nail on the head! Pre 94 every pass did mean something, and really meant that a driver HAD to find a way past on the track. But even if the overtake didn’t happen, the excitement was still great, because the driver behind didn’t have the option of staying out longer on a lighter fuel load. Classic example would be Senna all over Brundle’s Bennetton at Silverstone in ’92. It’s the knowledge that the driver has to attack now, that spices up the show.

  8. I’m not sure where GQsm is coming from. He’s advocating mandatory pit stops by arguing that ‘without cars running varying fuel weights and fresher tyres I would expect on track overtaking to fall not rise’. Surely if every car had to make two mandatory pit stops, there would be less variety in strategy and the problem would be even worse? As someone has said above, removing refuelling will make meaningful overtakes more likely, but there will still be some element of strategy. Mandatory pit stops restrict this element and they will make overtaking harder.

  9. The renders of the USF1 car look like a large scale Indy car.

  10. Am I right in assuming that, since USF1 (or is it still USGPE?) are putting tubs through their autoclave, they have already chosen both of their drivers?

    Doesn’t each tub have to be built around its driver?

  11. The USF1 Type-1 renderings look nice. Seems to have a tidy rear end (although its hard to tell from the drawings) and an unconventional front wing endplate design, similar to the Brawn BGP001.

    Good luck to them!

  12. Regarding the “McLaren Electronics Fuels Analysis of Formula One Racing Data with SQL Server (Microsoft)”, it would be nice to have this explained in simple lay terms. But I may have trouble with that as well lol.

    Damm, I would have liked to see the Torro Rosso on ice.

    And what a surprise, more inrigue from the FIA…

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