Later today we’ll begin the build-up to round two of the 2010 F1 season with our Australian Grand Prix preview. In the meantime, here’s the daily round-up:
Links
Hamilton: Red Bull has big advantage (Autosport)
Lewis Hamilton: “The Red Bull is ridiculously faster than anyone else’s car. It’s insane. The downforce they had on their car last year was at some points just about double what we had.” It’s unusual to see any driver make this kind of remark about another team.
Formula One’s appliance of science is leaving Joe Public cold (Daily Telegraph)
“F1 has to decide if it is a laboratory for the advancement of automotive science or a sport. A compromise must be sought because its attachment to the former is killing the show. Not only is the science unknowable to Joe Public, it is brutally unwatchable. ”
Comment of the day
Dave has an essential reminder for F1 fans in Britain:
Clocks go FORWARD 1 HOUR on Sunday morning @ 1am. So when you’re getting up on Sunday @ 6am, it’ll seem like 5am??
Dave
Site updates
After reading your suggestions I’ve made some changes to the driver form guide to show more information and make them easier to see how team mates compare at-a-glance.
Find the form guides for all the drivers here and check them after each race to see who’s winning the inter-team wars: F1 2010 statistics
From the archive
I use Google Streetview so often now it’s hard to imagine that only 12 months ago it was all shiny and new. Use it to tour F1’s next destination, Albert Park in Melbourne, here: A virtual lap of Albert Park, Melbourne F1 circuit with Google Streetview
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to reader Juan Pablo Heidfeld!
On this day in F1
The last Mexican Grand Prix was held on this day in 1992. The Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez held 15 rounds of the world championship between 1963 and 1992. Nigel Mansell won the final race for Williams.
RFB
22nd March 2010, 0:57
Looks to me like Kevin Garside is watching the wrong sport. If he wants cars going sideways and opposite lock, he should cover WRC or dirt track racing.
Icthyes
22nd March 2010, 1:19
Given a choice between technology and driver skill, I know which one I’d choose.
rfs
22nd March 2010, 1:33
Didn’t Nick Heidfeld say during testing that the Red Bull had the downforce advantage. Hamilton seems to agree with him, but to me the Ferrari is just as good.
sato113
22nd March 2010, 1:35
does anyone else find it takes two attempts to post a comment?
on another note, lets hope that FOM or BBC(UK) bring back the timing ladder during qualifying! strangely enough I did find this screenshot-
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/913/f12010bhr08aehdfp1senna.jpg
so it appears that some broadcasters did receive the essential positions list on the left of the screen…
also we need proper pitstop timings to see which team is fastest! ahhh!!!
mfDB
22nd March 2010, 1:41
always takes me two attempts to post sato
Rits
22nd March 2010, 2:07
What? As far as I know, all broadcasters receive the same images, how did Sky Sports manage to get the ideal one?
And I’m sure the production/direction guys for F1 have changed and the new ones have got a lot to learn, most important thing being, there’s a lot of cars other than the top 5 or 6 and people want to see those cars too.
e.g. – Kubica and Sutil overtook half the grid after their touch n spin, but we never saw any of it.
@sato113 – It sometimes does take two attempts to post a comment, and on occasions a comment keeps awaiting moderation for days! (@Keith, that comment is still awaiting moderation, I just checked back mate. It’s been what, a week?)
BasCB
22nd March 2010, 6:33
I think i read somewhere, that the BBC gets the normal viewing, which is without the timing bars, but some brodcasters get the wide screen broadcasting that has the times.
So maybe that is the reason Sky has it.
steph
22nd March 2010, 8:29
I’d flick over to sky then for the race and quali and get the ladder. It irritates me that much :P
ajokay
22nd March 2010, 9:37
I was annoied by the absence of the timing ladder, as was my dad. It’s one of the better additions to the graphics of recent years, and I was very confused as to why it wasn’t there during qualifying. Hope it’s back for Australia.
iceshiel
22nd March 2010, 12:31
I didnt see it too on Star Sports and was exceedingly annoyed. I couldnt follow anything. Hopefully the broadcasters get it right for melbourne.
David A
22nd March 2010, 18:32
They really should’v e kept it similar to last season instead of fixing more things that weren’t broken.
Myles Woerner
22nd March 2010, 3:26
Keith, I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but there’s an interesting Monaco GP scene in the trailer for the new “Ironman” movie. Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6Olpjl_IrE
Calum
22nd March 2010, 7:37
Did anybody see the irony in that the film had an American owned F1 team competing!!
What? Too soon :P
Harvs
22nd March 2010, 4:55
Keith,
On this day:
It would have been Senna’s 50th birthday!
Calum
22nd March 2010, 7:39
I think Hamilton was just highlighting how bad the MP4/24 was last year.
“An excellant example of Hyperbole clearly suggesting the brilliance of Redbull and the fatal flaw (poor downforce) of the Mclaren”
John H
22nd March 2010, 9:35
“Formula One’s appliance of science is leaving Joe Public cold”
Yeah, let’s dumb down F1, just like we have done with everything else in this world. Arrrggghhh!! $:)
RandomChimp
22nd March 2010, 10:11
Tell it straight brother!
Wesley
22nd March 2010, 12:36
“Formula One’s appliance of science is leaving Joe Public cold”
Well then….let Joe Public freeze his a** off for a little while and maybe he will wise up.
K
22nd March 2010, 12:58
How many people genuinely understand how an internal combustion engine actually works?
LewisC
23rd March 2010, 0:17
Suck, squeeze, bang, blow.
Multiply by eight cylinders and 19,000rpm.
GeeMac
23rd March 2010, 6:48
About as simple and explaination of internal combustion as your ever going to hear!
K
23rd March 2010, 21:08
My point is that most people don’t understand how a road car works so saying that F1 should be dumbed down to make it easier to watch is nonsense.
Patrickl
24th March 2010, 14:01
why not 18,000 rpm?
BarneyDaGumble
22nd March 2010, 12:35
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82287
Toyota and Stefan GP have finally broken up. What next for Zoran Stefanovich and his madcap team?
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
22nd March 2010, 12:51
F1.com have put their Bahrain Grand Prix video up:
http://www.formula1.com/video/race_edits.html
Is it just me or was a lot of that footage not shown in the live broadcast? No wonder people complain the races are boring if they don’t show the best shots.
They still missed the Chandhok crash though.
BasCB
22nd March 2010, 13:26
The race looks quite good from this.
I saw just how far in front Lewis Hamilton got, before he didn’t manage the braking and lost to Rosberg as well.
Patrickl
22nd March 2010, 18:50
Yeah indeed. 21 overtakes and we saw only a fraction of those on TV. Even the all the action of the start was missed.
BarneyDaGumble
22nd March 2010, 13:17
http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/epsilon-aims-for-f1/
Joe Sawrad has done a feature on the aspiring F1 team Epsilon Euskadi. Their facilities look very impressive, like a Spanish version of McLaren. The fact that they weren’t given a place on the grid for 2010 instead of USF1 or Campos suggests that either a) there is a major hidden flaw in the team that the team selection process uncovered, or b) the FIA under Max Mosley was truly incompetent. I know which option I believe…
BasCB
22nd March 2010, 13:25
I saw this as well and had exactly the same thoughts.
Maybe HRT can just join up with them to do the cars from next year onward.
Red Andy
22nd March 2010, 16:02
If you read Joan Villadelprat’s comments, it sounds like what stymied his entry was the fact that he couldn’t get sponsors to commit unless the entry was secured, and the FIA wouldn’t sanction the team’s entry until they had sponsors in place. If anything you could say that the FIA’s procedures were too stringent – Prodrive ran into the same problem because they couldn’t sign off on their Mercedes engine deal until they had an entry, hence they didn’t get one. But no conspiracy as far as I can see.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
22nd March 2010, 16:45
Was this waived for US F1? And I don’t see too many logos on the HRT.
Red Andy
22nd March 2010, 17:00
To be more precise, I think one of the conditions of entry was that the team could show enough financing in place to see them through until 2012. I don’t know exactly how USF1 and Campos got around that but it appears that Epsilon couldn’t.
BarneyDaGumble
22nd March 2010, 17:29
I think it was a lot more political than that. I know Virgin have done a great job so far, but I can’t help but think they wouldn’t have got a place on the entry list if it wasn’t for their Alan Donnelly connection.
And Keith- I think you’re being a bit harsh on HRT. They’ve clearly got substantial backing from two big name companies, ‘Karun’ and ‘Bruno’!
Patrickl
22nd March 2010, 19:01
Wasn’t the problem with USF1 more that they simply didn’t get things done?
From what I understood they had plenty money from Hurley and other sponsors. They started losing sponsors after it turned out they were so far behind with developing the car and that they wouldn’t even be able to finish it on time.
Then the sponsors started pulling out and the whole thing collapsed even further.
Rits
22nd March 2010, 19:32
Wow! I’d never even heard of them! And how many teams are out there waiting to get an entry? If there were teams like Epsilon with such impressive facilities, then how the bonkers did a sick outfit like USF1 get an entry? (Max you ****!)
The second question I have is, how do teams like these have such huge facilities even before they have a place on the grid? Isn’t that a a loss making procedure?
Third, why can’t StefanGP merge with USF1 and form a stronger team with cumulative facilities and finances? That’d only be sensible and the FIA should support it imo, they should, atleast to save their own face that Max left flushed with mud by the 2010 entry decisions he made…
Also, what is the current situation/story of Prodrive and Lola? Its sometimes so surprising that these two outfits, who appear to be the most deserving and competent to occupy a place on the grid, are nowhere in the running as far as I know!
BasCB
23rd March 2010, 6:26
Even if these teams do not have a F1 team, it does not mean they have no equipment to build it of.
There is a lot of work done for sportscar racing – they often build the car themselves as well – and for lower formula it surely does not hamper to have some technical department as well.
ram
23rd March 2010, 22:35
why can’t StefanGP merge with USF1 and form a stronger team with cumulative facilities and finances?
Us and serbian teams together :D what will be the livery like?
ajokay
22nd March 2010, 13:51
For anyone interested in the F1 2010 game, Computer and Video Games have part 1 of a 2 part interview with the senior producer, fleshing out what exactly is going to be in the game.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=239718
ajokay
22nd March 2010, 13:51
Oh, and apparently part 2, too!
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=239775
BasCB
22nd March 2010, 15:42
Some time ago some of you were telling, that they are working on getting their engineers degree. Maybe an interesting job option at Renault:
http://renaultf1.com/Renault-F1-Team-and-Altran-launch.html?lang=en
looks like they are working hard to get a better image after the recent troubles.
Calum
22nd March 2010, 17:43
Surprised to see that when my F1 Racing dropped through the letter box toda that they now have the disgraced exRenault employee Pat Symonds writing about the tech side of F1.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
22nd March 2010, 21:37
He knows his stuff and he can’t work on the cars, so I’m not surprised at all. How much space have they given him?
BasCB
23rd March 2010, 6:27
And he probably has a lot of contacts to F1 people to get some information as well.
spawinte
22nd March 2010, 18:08
The track at spa has been damaged, access tunnel collpased at blanchimont causing a hole in the runoff area. Hopefully it’ll all be fixed up.
Rits
22nd March 2010, 19:18
That’s bad…
… in time for the GP most importantly.
Patrickl
22nd March 2010, 19:19
Does anyone understand why Hamilton is saying that Red Bull is so far ahead?
Looking at the laptimes both the Ferrari’s and Hamilton were actually faster than Vettel on the hard tyre. Hamilton’s laps are almost identical to Alonso’s until Alonso gets close to Vettel.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
22nd March 2010, 21:36
Well, it does you no favours to diminish your opposition – talking them up only makes you look better when you beat them.
But I suspect there’s more to it than that. Their one-lap pace came out of nowhere at Bahrain and their race pace was good too. It’s hard to say at the moment whether Alonso started catching Vettel just because Vettel was being slowed by his problem before it had become obvious to us that he had one.
If I was going to attach the phrase ‘ridiculously fast’ to any car at the moment it would be the F10 based on its pace at the end of the race. Then again, who else was really pushing that late in the race apart from Alonso?
Patrickl
24th March 2010, 14:09
Yeah, I guess we just can’t tell who’s fast and who’s not. The teams probably have a much better picture though, since they have much more data to work with.
Hamilton already said that he could keep up with the Ferrari’s (looking at his laptimes after he passed Rosberg, he’s right) and thought he might have been fighting for the lead had he kept the position ahead of Massa in turn 4. Perhaps overly enthausiastic, but still.
Hamilton would also have known that he wasn’t pushing to the maximum since he had nothing to gain anyway, so I guess it makes sense he thinks Ferrari and McLaren aren’t that far apart. Otherwise I would assume he would have been impressed by those laptimes yes.
Maybe the McLaren engineers calculated the Red Bulls downforce and Hamilton was impressed. Vettel was quite a lot faster during the first stint too.
Juan Pablo Heidfeld
22nd March 2010, 19:45
YAY! Birthday. Go Mansell ;)
steph
22nd March 2010, 21:03
As Mexico is mentioned here’s one of my fave overtaking moves which was from there in ’90 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2g1yrGputA
GeeMac
23rd March 2010, 6:49
Wow, I actually remember that 1992 Mexican Grand Prix! It was probably the 2nd F1 race I ever watched! If I’m not mistaken it was Michael Schumacher’s first podium finish.
My lasting memory of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was that there was a fierce bump in the middle of the last corner (the Peraltada, what a great name for a corner!) which caught many drivers out in quali and the race.