Rosberg: Wet testing useful for Mercedes

F1 Fanatic round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Nico Rosberg says Mercedes used yesterday’s wet running in Mugello to work out why they had struggled to perform in the rain in Malaysia.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Mugello key for Mercedes (Sky)

Nico Rosberg: “We learned some valuable things this morning in the wet. Lately in the wet we haven’t been that strong, in Malaysia, so that was useful.”

Hembery: Pirelli open to change (Autosport)

“If the sport decides we are too aggressive we can change though; we can supply tyres that don’t degrade and allow you to push, as we did last year when the hard and medium tyres had negative degradation – the loss of performance from the tyre was less than the loss of fuel.”

Mark Webber via Twitter

“Did ten dry laps today around Mugello, which is the same as doing 1000 laps around Abu Dhabi track in terms of satisfaction.”

Ron Howard directs Formula 1 film Rush at Snetterton (BBC)

“What we’re doing is using different corners and sections to replicate tracks that we either can’t get to, or have changed so much that we need to do things to make them historically accurate.”

The moment carbon fibre came of age (Race Tech)

“For the 1981 season, Bristo explained, his predecessors at what then was simply McLaren were looking at ways to reduce the frontal area of their new car. The problem was that reducing the cross sectional area of the tub robbed it of its strength, and the aluminium monocoque technology favoured at the time simply wasn’t strong enough to make it work.”

Sean Edwards via Twitter

What not to do to a £2 million Ferrari F1 car… That’s going to be expensive, it’s meant to race at Monaco next week!”

Comment of the day

Red Andy makes a case for a more radical change in the tyre rules:

If we’re considering tinkering with the tyre rules we might as well make the case for some wholesale changes.

I’d open up the rules completely. Limit the number of sets used each weekend in the same way as currently, but allow the teams to bring any combination of compounds with them. No requirement to race on the tyres you qualified on, no requirement to use any particular combination of tyres during the race. We no longer need artificial rules like the two-compound rule to get people talking about the tyres, which is why Bridgestone insisted on them being introduced – they do that well enough anyway.

Adopting this approach, we’d see a wider variety of strategies and we’d avoid the spectacle of teams being hobbled because the tyres they’re forced to run don’t work very well on their car.
Red Andy

From the forum

Happy birthday!

No F1 Fanatic birthdays today.

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

The BRDC International Trophy, a non-championship race at Silverstone held today in 1964, saw a spectacular and exciting finish

Dan Gurney had started from pole position in his Brabham but retired from the lead when his brake fluid leaked out.

Team mate Jack Brabham took over the lead but came under intense pressure from Graham Hill’s BRM. The pair swapped the lead but Brabham held on to win as they crossed the line side-by-side.

The timekeepers gave them identical race times to a tenth of a second – 1hr 22’45.2 each – but declared Brabham the winner. Peter Arundell was third for Lotus, team mate Jim Clark having retired earlier.

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...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

38 comments on “Rosberg: Wet testing useful for Mercedes”

  1. *Bows down in reverence to Mark Webber* Amen, brother.

    1. Are you listening Bernie? No of course not you money hungry *insert abusive comments here*
      And before PM gets on his high horse to stick up for Bernie, save it.

      1. @ivz
        P-moneys constantly plays the devils advocate. It’s not a bad thing, it makes for interesting arguments and good reads. We can’t just have one side of the argument, we need the other. Otherwise it isn’t really much of an argument.
        Someones has to do it, and PM has the literary ability to do so, and do it well.

        I enjoy reading his arguments even if I don’t agree with them, It helps you learn to open your mind a bit to contrary views and hey, you might even learn something useful from it.

        1. Actually, I kind of agree with @ivz – Abu Dhabi isn’t very good. I don’t blame Bernie for taking the sport there; in his shoes, the United Arab Emirates would be very high on my list of places to visit.

          The real tragedy of Yas Marina is that they literally had a blank cheque to do whatever they wanted, and they failed miserably. Some sections aren’t too bad, but large parts of the track leave me disappointed. The whole exercise just seems wasteful; it’s like walking into a five-star resuarant and being served a can of baked beans. Sure, you get a meal, but you were probably expecting something more.

          That said, I don’t believe that any circuit is so dire that it cannot be fixed with a little bit of effort. Even Yas Marina and Valencia. Do this, running the cars down the main straight in the opposite direction to what they do now and build a fly-over (it works because the paved run-off at the swtichback goes under the grandstands), and it would be fine.

          That said, GP2 has produced some fantastic racing there – most notably last year – so maybe changing the cars would make the racing at Abu Dhabi more exciting.

        2. Think I’ll stick up for @prisoner-monkeys here because as far as I remember he’s always said that the track isn’t great for racing, but it can be vastly improved with some tweaks. I’m not so sure myself.

          PM, you mentioned this back in 2011: “They have promised that if the Pirellis and DRS do not work, they will reconfigure the circuit for 2012.”

          Is that still the case to your knowledge?

          1. @john-h – I don’t know whether the promoters felt that DRS and the Pirellis “worked” in 2011, so I really can’t say for sure. But as far as I know, there are no plans to change the circuit.

    2. I considered giving Mark Webber Comment of the Day but I liked Andy’s too.

  2. Mark Webber telling it as it is, Mugello is a gem of a track.

    1. No, it’s not. Webber is simply trying to land a retirement job at Ferrari, but he can’t be positive without being acerbic at the same time, I wish he’d just keep his mouth shut.

      1. Have you ever actually seen the Mugello circuit? Sure, it’s better for bikes than it is for cars, but it has plenty of flow to it and none of the stop-start nature of the circuit in Abu Dhabi. The back half of the circuit in particular – from Casanova to Bucine – looks like it would be particularly good to drive.

      2. I wish he’d just keep his mouth shut

        I wish the exact opposite of drivers. Keep those mouths open please.

        1. Only as long as they’re saying things like this:

          “because I was able to race at a speed that previously only Vodafone’s network could achieve…”

  3. COTD is very interesting. Would love to see it seriously considered, and possibly implemented.
    The current tyre regulations have definitely run their course – I spend all weekend worrying about them.

    1. Yes, I’d be interested to hear some arguments against this idea, because I have to say it makes perfect sense to me.

      1. @aka_robyn – I’d argue that Red Andy’s suggestion would place too much emphasis on tyres. Teams get currently get four hours of track time in free practice, and in that time they work on set-up, qualifying simulations, and tyres among other things. And that’s with two sets of tyres. If they had all sets available to them for every race, they would have to dedicate a lot of their practice programmes to working out which tyres are the best for the race, which means they would have less time to concentrate on everything else. In the event that something went wrong – ie the driver crashes – then they would have to make an educated guess at the best tyre to use, and a lot of the driver’s success would hinge on their choice of tyre.

      2. The main argument against it is the cost of hauling 50% more wheels and tyres around the globe, in an era when cost-cutting is the name of the game.

    2. It actually would be great – teams who did 1 stop and used hard tyres, and teams who did 3 using super-softs. The overally difference would be minimal, but it would help teams use tyres which they’re better on.

  4. Mike the bike Schumacher (@mike-the-bike-schumacher)
    2nd May 2012, 1:20

    but allow the teams to bring any combination of compounds with them

    Agree with COTD, but i think the teams would probly end up using very similar tyres, although would be better than what they do atm. Another cool twist would be to give them a set number of tyres for the whole year and allow them to bring and use whatever amount of tyres they want at a race weekend so long as they didn’t exceed the total by the end of the year. Might be a bit mad and over complicated but would be very interesting!

    1. Thats a way cool idea, Love it.

    2. I think the yearly allotment should only count towards Quali and Races, otherwise I love the idea, especially if the allotments are low enough that every team will be forced to run on the hards a few times per season.

    3. I agree. I think that if teams were allowed to do what they wanted in terms of tyres you would get more predictable races with people doing the same strategies as everyone. Apart from Sauber obviously, they would always go against the norm and do something mental like not stop during a race whilst using Option tyres!

  5. re: carbon fiber

    i had no idea graham hill introduced cf in 1975. that guy just keeps getting more awesome :)

  6. I understand Webber not liking abu dhabi, in terms of the track but most likely because of the politics. But does he have to mention it every week? The media got pass it, about the time for webber to. Last time he said no celebration, I wanted to say something but I kept silence because it’s his own feeling. However now he mention it again, I gotta say.

    1) Comon it was his team’s winning, sure it wasn’t his winning but still, did he have to ruin all the atmosphere?
    2) He’s a driver. His job is to perform good on the track. If he put 100% in his race, he did his job well no matter where the track is, what country it is, who the leader of the government is. Let the media do the politics report.

    GJ on mercedes to take the damp track as an opportunity rather than limitation.

    1. @afya

      Erm, I think you’re mixing things up here. He’s talking aboutYas Marina, you know, that boring circuit at the end of the season. He wasn’t talking about Bahrain.

      1. I don’t think he will say that just because it’s a boring circuit.

        1. @afya The only thing he’s referring to is how boring the Abu Dhabi circuit is. You’ve blown it out of context completely.

          1. yea, that’s what happen when you get home after 14 straight hours of work haha.

    2. He said Abu Dhabi not Bahrain, way to go on a tangent that had nothing to do with the comment. You want to air your agnst against those against the Bahrain regime take it there. Also even if he did say Bahrain he has his right to express his opinion like you. So instead of ranting maybe you should learn to read and research before letting your fingers churn out what you just did.

      1. I apologies. I read it wrong. I am not against those who against the Bahrain regime, I actually support them chasing freedom. It is people that keep relating sports and politics makes me sick. And I have to admit I wasn’t very happy about webber’s comment that week especially when his team won that GP. Maybe that really stuck in my mind and too tired from work to read correctly. And yea, he has his right to express his opinion, thats why I kept silent that week but when (I thought) I saw that again, I had to express mine too. Sorry again for reading it wrong.

        Yea Abu Dhabi track is boring, but probably just because of last few year’s loose gap. Things may change this year like the first few races.

        1. Who is a race driver? A human, right? Then why can’t he have the right to have his views, whether Bahrain or Yas Marina? What is the problem if he expresses it?

          Just like you, me and other formula 1 fans can comment on the political situation in Bahrain or the boring races produced by “tilkedrome”, why can’t he express it?

          1. He can, you can and I can. Simple as that.

  7. This is actually from two days ago, but I noticed it wasn’t in the round-up.

    Britain’s craven silence over Bahrain stinks of hypocrisy

    Nothing really new in there, but it’s still worth a read.

    I hope the FIA learns from this disaster. But they were in breach of their own rules, so who’s going to do the disciplining? Who enforces these “laws” if they are broken by the people that wrote them?

  8. I know this was mentioned in the round-up earlier, but they held the “Budapest Downtown GP” yesterday. Button did three runs. I just wanted to say, that was AWSOME! Thats all :)

  9. I’d recommend those folks on Twitter get following Ron Howard. He tweets quite a lot with plenty of pictures of the films progress. It’s pretty good.

    @RealRonHoward

  10. I don’t always agree with Webber as I sometimes think he’s just looking to get the fans on his side to help his career. I do however completely agree with what he says about Abu Dhabi.

    1. @slr

      looking to get the fans on his side to help his career

      When did that ever help anyone in F1?

      1. @keithcollantine I’ve sometimes felt that he says the right things to get people to focus their attention away from his poor results last year, though it is probably just me being cynicial. I have however heard of pay drivers accepting money off fans to help fund their careers, though that probably doesn’t happen with Webber.

  11. Nice COTD from @red-andy, It sure would be worth giving that one a try

Comments are closed.