The F1 season 2004

Ralf to Renault? I doubt it. Most of the rumours have him moving to Toyota at the end of the season. With Montoya leaving aswell Williams appears to have done his usual good job of keeping his drivers happy .

Michael.

 

Hi Markus,

"I'm not convinced that the Michelin camp will do that much better in Sepang than it did in Melbourne. Yes, Michelin has beaten Bridgestone in hot weather last season, but nobody expected them to be this good in Melbourne, so why shouldn't they repeat the trick in Malaysia?"

We are expecting Mi tyres to be much better in Sepang. We expected BS to come up with a good tyre for Melbourne. We didn't expect Ferrari to be that good in the race (we were clsoer in qualifying than before). The cold weather conditions had a lot to do with it along with the fact that this type of circuit layout suits BS tyres and the Ferrari car.

"Apparently, Ferrari did a lot of tire testing this winter. Bridgestone is said to have split the test programme: keeping the carcass constant and changing the compound on on occasion, and reversing it on another. Only when the results of the work on carcass and compound were brought together late in the testing programme did the enormous advances become apparent."

That is called the splatter gun approach. If you are lucky you get an improvement. Wheras Michelin approach the whole development process much more scientifically. I don't think BS made any significant advances let alone enormous developments vs Mi but we will see.

"And seeing as the hot weather disadvantage has been known for a long time, I would be surprised if eliminating that disadvantage was not a main priority."

It has been for a few years. Doesn't mean that they have or will get it sorted!

Ian

 

Hi rds,

"Mercedes disaster, of course, compounded by silly strategies."

What makes you say that?

Their strategy choice was fine. 2 stops were very close to 3 stops in terms of final race position.

Ian

 

Hi, Ian.

Perhaps you are right, and I am just repeating a platitude. But Ron Dennis and all his conservative approach (which means getting the strategy right after the fact as has often happened in the past) undoubtedly influenced me.

What I mean to say is that having a heavy, slow car with grippy tires was not, perhaps, the best strategy.

But I agree - I'm merely talking through my hat.

That said, Mercedes were disappointing. I don't know what caused Raikkonen to break the engine (it could be his fault) but they were a shadow of their past. But, well, that's F1.

 

Given the fairly dramatic improvement at BAR since the switch to Michelin, and assuming that BAR's improvement in other areas has been relatively the same as every other team (the chassis/aero was already highly regarded last year despite the Bridgestone handicap) it would be fair to assume that Mi still have a reasonable advantage over BS, at least on the BAR car.

If that's true it actually suggests that the Ferrari F2003-GA was a remarkably superior car, pegged back by poor tyres and that the F2004 is maybe even more superior, and potentially dominant with the help of improved BS tyres.

McLaren look like they've really dropped the ball though - which I'm personally full of schadenfreude about :MILD:

Naturally I expect that Ian will disagree with my assumptions

Michael.

 

Hi Michael,

"Naturally I expect that Ian will disagree with my assumptions "

This time I think you are pretty much spot on.

Sorry if I come across as disagreeing with people too much. I am in charge of race strategy model development, competitor comparison and vehicle dynamics issues so this is my area of expertise!

Having worked at McLaren for 8 years I am very happy to see us beat them! Long may it continue.

Ian

 

Hi rds,

"What I mean to say is that having a heavy, slow car with grippy tires was not, perhaps, the best strategy."

Subsequent analysis shows that they started on a 3 that could be converted to a 2. When they realised that they were really struggling they switched to a 2 and hence got a bit more out of the tyres by getting through the graining phase. That saved them a lot of race time as they would have been a lot further behind us if they had stayed on a 3.

Not prepared to discuss whether we should have swapped!

Ian

 

That's not the impression I get. My comment was really because I was implying that most of BAR's improvment (relative to the other teams) was down to the switch to Mi tyres - which I thought you might take issue with

Michael.

 

"My comment was really because I was implying that most of BAR's improvment (relative to the other teams) was down to the switch to Mi tyres - which I thought you might take issue with " Michael

A lot of our improvement is from the tyres. Nonetheless we have also made major gains in the chassis as well. Unlike Toyota who have gone backwards from last years car!

Ian

 

Toyota spending all that money and still getting soundly beaten by BAR-Honda...it must really hurt :JPS: .

Michael.

 

Willi Weber back-pedalled today, saying he was misquoted and he still wants Ralf to sign with Williams. But he also said there would be a "final talk" in Bahrain on April 4th; if there's no agreement then, Ralf will change teams .

Pretending to take this seriously for the moment, what would Williams do if they knew early in the season they will lose both drivers? They have already said that they will cut back on development work for Montoya in the second half of the season for fear of revealing too much to Montoya's next employer. If they also lose Schumacher, this should hamper them in the last six races or so.

BTW, I always thought Montoya should drive for Toyota. Imagine - a Montoyota ...

 

"Toyota spending all that money and still getting soundly beaten by BAR-Honda...it must really hurt "

Maybe there are Toyota executives getting their ceremonial swords out....

Ian

 

More likely being sent back down into sales. Amounts to much the same thing really: Kissing human life goodbye
Toyota don't mess about. If something isn't working to their satisfaction, they will pull the plug.

 

So, if Michael Schumacher changes to Ian's team, would it become a case of Schumachbar?

 

Latest rumour - headhunters were approaching engineers in Melbourne, exploring their willingness to change to a new, as yet unnamed F1 team. Medcedes is said to have been behind the move. Apparently, they are fed up with McLaren's performance and are considering dropping MCL and running a team on their own.

Rumours can spread only when they have some credibility. It says a lot about my opinion of McLaren when I'm willing to give the rumour some credence.

 

I get fed up of hearing Schumacher winning, is there any other competition, its no fun, like Man U. winning all the time, we want a fight some fun and duelling.

What is it to do with I am not really an F1 follower, but is it a lot to do with the car and the team, as much as the driver?

 

In F1 today the driver is perhaps less important than the rest of the package but someone as good as Schumacher can still make the difference between winning and losing. However, put Schumacher in a Minardi and he'd still come in near the back

However, Ferrari wouldn't be the superteam they are today if it weren't for Schumacher. He came in, brought over people he knew from Benetton (Ross Brawn & Rory Byrne) and basically was the driving force behind the resurrection of Ferrari from years in the "almost winning" wilderness. All the political infighting and backstabbing has gone and the stability there (same basic team since 1997) has reaped huge rewards.

It's difficult to imagine another driver doing the same thing at another team. Villeneuve tried with BAR and it was a disaster . BAR getting rid of him last year was a decision long overdue IMO.

Michael.

 

I think it's true to say that, for quite a while, the measure of the competence of Ferrari's car was Rubens Barricello. Schumacher alone could make the car a winner against superior cars from McLaren. Can anyone ever forget the first Schumacher win for Ferrari in streaming rain in an evil-handling monstrosity running on nine cylinders? Not quite Fangio at the Nurburgring in 1957, or Moss at Monaco in 1961, or Clark thrashing the pants off an elite sportscar field at the Nurburgring in a Lotus with essentially a Ford Anglia engine, but getting up there.

 

Yes, Schumacher is the present day Fangio. As Tones pointed out, there is no way of comparing a race such as the 'Ring in 57 with any race of Schumacher; but still, he completely dominates the field, more or less like Fangio did.

And it is true that when he went to to Ferrari the car was not a competitive one, and yet he managed to win races and was always a runner up to the title.

Of course Fangio actually managed to win in an inferior car, like the Maser 250F, but Fangio was ... Fangio. Remember that he won about half the races he entered, he had 7 full F1 championships and won 5!!!

In terms of all the percentagens (fastest laps, poles, wins, championships) he is still ahead of everybody. But Schumacher does come close.

 

Not poles, RdS, that's still held by Ayrton Senna.