The Formula One Season 2005

"For one thing, they seem to have a good deal more power than last year."

Just a little!!

Ian

 

The Enstone chaps have a philosophy that they are succeeding, at least in part, if their contribution is better than that of their Viry counterparts - ie. the engine.

Th experiement last year with the wide angled V10 was a failure which caused them to resort to a tweaked version of an older design. This time round their intended engine design appears to be working. I think they lost second place partly to do with the failure of the wide angled V10.

I can hardly believe 2005 F1 engines hit 20K rpm. Bizarre.

 

I think they only hit 20000rpm once....

Maybe next year with the smaller capacity V8?

Paul

 

Well, it looks like BAR are definitely back from the dead. If Honda have tightened all the screws this time, we should see a good race performance.

Let's see how Renault will be doing in the second session, though.

 

That's good news because I gambled that BAR would be back in business for Imola and put Button in my fantasy F1 team (the rest of my team is Trulli, Renault chassis, Mercedes engine, Michelin tyres). See here: http://www.f1-management.nl/v32/index.html

I hope that Schumi's performance in that session isn't indicative...otherwise you really will be able to write off Ferrari's season

Michael.

 

Hi Markus,

"Well, it looks like BAR are definitely back from the dead."

A lot of things have gone wrong for us but we still had underlying pace. This weekend should see us deliver.

But as always motor racing can be very unpredictable at times....

The Ferrari isn't loking too good at the moment or more acccurately the BS tyres aren't working so well.

Ian

 

Discounting de la Rosa for the moment, Ian's optimism seems well-placed while Michael's fears about Ferrari seem well-founded. Unless BS comes up with something decent fast, they are bound to lose this season.

I'm a bit disappointed by Toyota and Williams. I mean, a Jordan faster than a Williams?

Sunday should be interesting.

 

Well MSC was pushing very hard. Looked like the BS tyres had very good long run performance. And until he had his off in Q2 he was looking very good. But now it will be very difficult for MSC to get back to win.

We are still showing that we are fast and that we have improved vs our competitors over the past few tests. But a bit more work is required to win a race and then a lot more to win a championship.

Ian

 

Losing the second and third to last laps , whilst Alonso and Schuey where having a battle royal was infuriating in the extreme :inferno: . I recall form a few years ago whilst living in Italy for a few months, that one of the Italian satellite channels also showed the f1 GP but when the adverts came on the race would default to a small screen in the to RH corner so you could still follow all the action , without missing anything. Is such a channel available to Sat users in the UK. I have just the standard SKY installation.
I like ITV's covearge but have always hated adverts with a passion...

 

And MSC surprised us all. Well more accurately the BS tyre performance surprised us all. They kept on getting better (compared to to MI) throughout the weekend instead of Michelin improving over the weekend.

Ian

 

Ian, it's good being modest, but you could have said something about being proud of your outfit's showing this weekend and we wouldn't have minded.

 

Don't know - Micky Shoes was lapping 2 sec. a lap faster than anything else out there at one stage. If I were another team manager, I'd be petrified, especially if Ferrari returns to the old bulletproof reliability.

 

I was impressed but not surprised by Bridgestone's performance.

AFAICT Bridgestone approach Formula 1 with a different approach to Michelin. Michelin are racers and try to make the best tyres they can. Bridgestone are more commercially-minded and do as much as they have to do to help Ferrari win championships. Over the last winter, they admit they didn't do much, certainly not for the F2004M. When they got most of the blame for making Ferrari look uncompetitive, they did what they had to to make the F2005 competitive again.

I'm sure that when BAR and Sauber were still running on Bridgestone, Bridgestone could have improved their tyres, but they didn't have to because they had Ferrari.

 

I'm told to 2005 Renault engine touches 20,000

 

Further on BAR's podium place, which was in danger for six hours apparently:

"Immediately following the end of the race the car was weighed in the configuration it had finished and was above the minimum weight limit. It was subsequently drained of fuel and then re-weighed and found to be underweight.

The stewards after hearing the explanation of the competitor's representatives and studying all the available documentation decided that the matter requires no further action."

BAR's explanation has not been made public so far. Ian is excused from this discussion, but does anybody have any light to shed? I'd have thought underweight is underweight?


Edit: it seems the FIA also has further questions and has made an appeal against the stewards' Button decision. We'll have to wait and see.

 

"I'm told to 2005 Renault engine touches 20,000"

From where did that come from?

Their engines are very similar to the other top F1 engines, none of which rev to 20,000 rpm, in a race event in normal controlled running.

"BAR's explanation has not been made public so far. Ian is excused from this discussion, but does anybody have any light to shed? I'd have thought underweight is underweight?"

Thanks, I can't comment until it is cleared up the authorities.

Ian

 

Article 4 of the F1 technical regulations reads,

So if BAR could show that the minimum amount of fuel in the car at any time during the race was sufficient to put the all up weight at 600kg then they'd possibly be in the clear. I can't find any regulations requiring the car to weigh 600kg or more with the fuel tank 'dry', which of course doesn't mean they don't exist.

Paul

 

If the stewards went to the trouble of weighing the car without oils and fuels, their understanding must have been that the weight of the "car" is the weight without fluids.

Since it would be difficult to fix a seal on fuel, it can't be counted as ballast either IMO.

 

I haven't seen a regulation that requires the fuel and oil systems be dry when the car is weighed. All that's required is that the car weigh more than 605 in qualifying and 600 during the race, checked when the car returns to the pits.

It would be a careless team that didn't account for the overhead of fuel that you have to carry to make the system work when calculating all up weight, this is no more ballast than any other functional part of the car.

I presume the difference between qualifying weight and race weight is to account for oil usage and any normal coolant loss?

Paul

 

This is really getting nerdy, I never looked up the text of the F1 regulations before, but I can't help myself.


Paul, Article 1 of the regulations gives defintions for the terms used in Article 4:

1.9 Weight
is the weight of the car with the driver, wearing his complete racing apparel, at all times during the event.

1.10 Racing Weight
is the weight of the car in running order with the driver aboord and all fuel tanks full.


From this, we may infer that the car in 1.9 is not in running order, i.e without fluids.