Archive for year: 2013

The countdown for the Chinese GP, where the third race of the F1 world Championship will be run, has already started.  Almost three weeks after the Malaysian GP, teams and drivers worked hard in the factory to get well prepared for the Chinese challenge and try to get the better of Red Bull whose drivers finished the Malaysian GP on the podium, along with Lewis Hamilton who made it onto the podium for the time.

While Helmut Marko says that “we won’t give team commands any more”, the Scuderia will have to try to forget about the Malaysian weekend, where it only managed to finish fifth thanks to Felipe Massa, after Alonso’s premature withdrawal.

“In the first two races we kept up a good pace on both kind of rubbers – explains Ferrari’s Technical Director Mr. Pat Fry to www.ferrari.com website – but our qualifying performance it’s still not so good, so it’s to this direction that we’ve focused our work. Until now, we’ve focused on long-run so much, even though this year they’re not as long as they were before because of the increasing number of pit-stop during each race. The qualifying performance has not been put to the side, but we know that we can still make improvements to that direction. There are still many aspects we have to understand about the new car and we’ll try to make the most of it.”

When he’s asked to evaluate the opportunity the new F138 has to be successful in the next GP, Mr. Fry’s reply is cautious: “The circuit of Shanghai is a mix of different corner types and a 1.2 km straight. Will the track get on well with our car? It’s too early to say it, as there are too many unknowns to make an objective evaluation. For example, this is the first weekend we’ll use the Pirelli soft compound, along with the medium. I think we’ll have a clearer picture only at the end of the race, as we’ll have more details about how all the tyres compare to one another. So to some degree, Shanghai will be another learning weekend for all teams , as everyone will get new feedbacks for the first time, but I’m not concerned, giving the fact our pace, relative to the other teams, was ok on all the tyre types we tried so far.”

“Even if we’ve done only two races so far – says Felipe – it was clear that the car was more competitive than last year. This means that the work we did on the F138 during over the winter has taken us to the right direction. The car has much more potential. I always want to be fighting for the win and, even though in the first two races it didn’t work out, our race pace was excellent. All I can say is that there are definitely more than two teams that are capable of fighting for the wins and the championship and our team is one of them. I’m so pleased to see that the car is moving forward in the right way and it’s delivering results on track that we expected when looking at data in the wind tunnel and in the stint at the simulator. We’re all well prepared for the next GP – reckon Felipe – all the updates we planned to bring to Shanghai after working on the simulator last week will be made available. I hope this translates into a further performance improvement on track. Shanghai is a very nice track with a variety of corner types and fast straights, so you definitely need a car that works well in the fast sections, but you also need it to have plenty of downforce to deal with the tighter turns. We can expect to see quite high tyre degradation, especially on the fronts, so strategies will deeply affect the final outcome. Massa’s high expectations regarding the third race are the following: “The aim is not only to fight for a lot more points, but also for a podium and hopefully to get on the higher step of the podium. The season has started in the right direction and it’s so important to set oneself higher targets.”

Great attention will be paid to the car manufacturing company from Stoccarda which just one year ago scored its first win with Nico Rosberg, after 57 years: “I have good memories her in China. I like this track so much and I have positive feelings going there with the car that we have at the moment. The team has been working so hard to develop our car. We’ve had a strong start to the season and I’m confident we will keep pushing hard. I hope to score good results in China and Bahrein.”, says Nico. It’s the same for his teammate Hamilton: “The first two races have been so interesting, we’ve got more than we had expected. We should keep pushing hard and work hard on car development. We have several upgrades to bring to China.”

Jenson Button’s start of the season was not so easy. The British driver hopes that the Chinese GP feels like something of a reboot of the start for him: “The Chinese Grand Prix almost feels like something of a reboot of the start of my season. Taking home two points from the first two races obviously wasn’t what we had in mind at the beginning of the year, but I think everybody in the team has picked themselves up and really attacked the task of addressing our car’s issues. We know where we’re losing performance, so I think we’re actually all looking forward to seeing just what we can achieve in Shanghai. As far as the circuit goes, I’ve always enjoyed racing here: our car has always performed well around this circuit and we’ve always seemed to be able to find a good balance between the slow stuff, the high-speed changes of direction and the drag-loss needed for the long straight. It’s a pretty good place for racing, too, because that straight offers such a good opportunity for slipstreaming and overtaking. I think we can have a pretty good race. The important thing for us is to hone our strengths and increase our understanding of the car.”

“In Australia and Malaysia – says Jonathan Neal, the managing director – we’ve made upgrades and we’ve shown to be capable to keep the pace of the first teams; we made more upgrades to be brought to China, some of them had already been planned, some of them were made to try to solve the problems found. Free practices will be so important, as through them we’ll have the opportunity to check the package’s feature. Anyway I think we’re going in the right direction, even though we’ll have a clearer picture only after the race. Although we had some problem at the beginning, I think we’ll be able to fight for the title, ok, there is still a lot to do, but I think we have to trust in our potential.”

The Australian and Malaysian races were two different races for Lotus and Kimi Raikkonen, aiming for getting high positions: “Foreseeing what is going to happen in the next GP it’s always difficult. The car has different behaviours on different tracks. The E21 will have new elements to be brought on the Chinese track; it will be interesting to see what it’s going to happen in the dry. In Australia everything worked perfectly, while in Malaysia everything was much more complicated, even because of a car collision at the beginning of the race.”

Shanghai has a sad record: it was in China that in 2005 the long history of the Minardi Team into the world of F1 came to an end. The Team raced 340 GP over 20 years “In 2005 in China our long adventure in the world of F1 came to an end, after 340 GP. It was a very sad moment but there were no conditions to go on with our racing adventure,” says Gian Carlo Minardi.

In less than one week spotlights will be switched on the F1 world championship again. The Shanghai venue will be the third round of the season and it’s going to be an interesting racing weekend from a technical point of view.

In Shanghai we’ll see the Pirelli soft tyres (P Zero Yellow) making their debut in the championship. Soft tyres will be tested for the first time in different weather conditions if compared with the first two venues. Besides soft tyres, drivers will also use the already lapped medium tyres (P Zero White) to be used on a track which usually alternates dry conditions with wet ones. Teams have had two weeks to analyse the strategy, learn how to make the most of the Pirelli compounds and compare all data collected during the first two races.

As far as tyres are concerned, the Pirelli is willing to strengthen the tyres compound in order to extend their duration. As we saw during the Malaysian GP, pitting three times per car it’s too much and it’s so difficult to avoid making mistakes. Pit-stops are getting more and more dangerous, especially if we consider the pit-stop time which is shorter and shorter. Teams and mechanics are subject to a remarkable level of stress.

The car designed by Adrian Newey still remains the reference car, but they’ll have to sort out a problem regarding drivers’ management. I’m expecting the Ferrari to undertake an offensive strategy. The Malaysian event has to be quickly forgotten and they have to try to regain the lost ground.   Historically speaking, the car from Maranello has always been at ease with both compounds. We’ll see if Mercedes will deliver a good performance again or if the result achieved in Sepang was a bolt from the blue. It was just in China that one year ago Rosberg scored his first win.

Little reassuring voices are heard about Lotus, due to the critical economic situation. So, I hope teams will soon sign the new Concorde Agreement. The situation is quite critical and the 2014 is just round the corner. The debut of turbo engines will cause a remarkable increase in costs.

Those could be the ingredients for a weekend full of suspense, which will hopefully help us to better understand the quality of each squad.

During the Malaysian weekend we saw not only beautiful struggles between drivers and team mates, but also many pit-stop mistakes and much more…. Let’s try to analyse drivers’ performances and see who is up and who is down, before the Chinese GP.

RED BULL. The Austrian team has to deal with an inner problem, so they will have to be determined if they want to avoid bad consequences throughout the season. When a driver disregards a command, he has to be ticked off immediately. Positions had already been fixed. The command was clear. It was not the first time Vettel behaved like that. The team has a broaden concept of the race and, what is more, the point of the track where he overtook his teammate was very dangerous, considering also the fact he went beyond the white line which defines the track. I wonder what it would have happened if Bianchi, Bottas, Pic, Chilton or Grosjean were in the place of Vettel and Red Bull………..Would have everything ended up in oblivion or would have they been penalised? We will see during the season. I think the team took advantage of the weather condition.

MERCEDES. They made a great step forward. They finished 3^rd and 4^th, getting a result that only 8 days ago was absolutely unpredictable. They jumped up to the first four places of the overall standing. Brawn’s command makes us understand that the team has a good team spirit, so did Rosberg’ post-race statement.

MCLAREN. Their performances at Sepang blanked out the Australian hard weekend, showcasing that Button can get excellent results on hard.

FORCE INDIA. Unfortunately they had technical issues, because of which they couldn’t achieve good results. They can have the same issues even in the future, as pit-stops are getting faster and faster (the average time is 2 seconds). In such conditions it’s very easy to make mistakes and have issues. Anyway, the car behaved so well in qualifying and in the first part of the race.

LOTUS. Their performance level got down just a little bit; by the way both drivers scored important points.

FERRARI. It’s difficult to make an evaluation. Supposing that it was a driver’s decision, the team had to take over and command Fernando to pit. A wing has only a certain load resistance, so it was impossible for it to withstand all the laps required to avoid a further pit-stop. It’s a long championship and every single point scored is very important.  It was necessary to pit and try to recover.

SAUBER. The team recovered a little bit in comparison with the opening race. Hulkenberg delivered good performances, but we’ll see their further step.

 WILLIAMS. The team has too many issues. It’s non-comprehensive at the moment.

The first race of the 2013 F1 racing season is over, now all eyes are on the Sepang International Circuit, where the second race will be held next weekend.

Teams and cars are on a trip to Malaysia, but we want to go back to the Albert Park and talk about drivers who deserved a glowing report and those who didn’t deserve it. We don’t have to forget that the Australian GP is an “anomalous” race; it’s a street circuit with nonabrasive asphalt and the weather can change within few hours. In fact, by mid-week the temperature was 45°C and cooled down to 15° on Sunday. Furthermore, since it was the “first day at school” for drivers and teams, they still have to learn how to use the new Pirelli compound. In the past season, it took seven races to see a double winner.

All the aforementioned items could have influenced the on-track performance. Only after some GP, we’ll have a more precise overview of the situation. What is certain is that we have 5 first actors who will strive for the world title and some outsiders like Force India and Williams, who can disturb their struggle.  We’ll see how many of them will continue to make car upgrades until the end of the season, considering that 2014 will be the year of the new turbo engine.

LOTUS (…and Kimi Raikkonen). They can drink Champagne, as they deserve it. Despite the car was less fast than before, the team managed to get a good result and made the most of the strategy. They’re not a surprise, considering also that during the past season they finished almost every race on the score zone. Kimi is a world champion, so he hardly misses points. The budget available for the team is lower than the one available to Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes. So, it will be interesting to see until when they’ll manage to make car upgrades.

FERRARI their objective was to finish on the podium in Australia. They’re now heading the world championship. Anyway, it is important to stay grounded. They’re very performing in the long run, even though they are not so good in qualifying. They didn’t miss a shot and I think we don’t have to blame Massa’s pit-stop. The chain of command inside the team has already been established. The second driver has to “sacrifice himself”, so the team’s strategy to delay Felipe’s pit-stop in order to make him pit only twice, it’s comprehensive.

RED BULL after holding the stage during free practices and qualifying, the situation suddenly changed. They were able to recover during the race, but later they slowed down their racing speed. Once again Webber had some issues in the starting stage. Team and driver will have to concentrate all their efforts to solve this issue.

FORCE INDIA they showcased to be the first among secondary teams, having enough strength to bother the 5 top teams, thanks to an interesting car. Along with Lotus, they played on the two pit-stop- strategy. They were successful in Q3 with Di Resta. On the contrary Perez didn’t manage to get the Q3.

MCLAREN the result achieved in Australia doesn’t mirror the team real skills. It will be necessary to wait until the next GP to see the necessary upgrades. In the past, Button showcased he could mange tyres very well. But it’s too early to judge their performances, as well as Williams’, which has many issues in terms of reliability and performance.

MERCEDES they still have many issues in terms of reliability. They moved team’s improvements to the background; Hamilton’s fifth place is good. The Englishman’s race was only compromised by the aggressiveness expressed towards Alonso. The Mercedes’ driver had to change his strategy as a consequence of tyres degradation. By the way, it has to be said that everybody has to look out for both of them, because Rosberg behaved like a leader.

This year championship will be a point struggle, so what is important is to seize every chance and avoid rivals to take over. This season is expected to be full of uncertainty, so let’s get ready to see some disruptions in terms of performance and winners.

Now, we’re heading to Malaysia, where the team will use a new rubber, the P Zero Orange hard, besides the usual medium. Weather conditions will be so different if compared to Australia; humidity and heat will change the situation. Sepang is a very fast track and the downforce level has to be higher than the one required by the Australian circuit (in Australia a low downforce was demanded). What is more, particular weather conditions such as high temperatures and showers will impact on everyone’s performance.