for off season for fans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZEAy...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAZ_z...eature=related

 

When Brawn won last year I believe it was less about Honda and more about Brawn getting the DD relative to the others and that is why they won...in short, Brawn's insights and pushing the limits of the reg's. in the second year of his takeover, not Honda's chassis and all the prior developement, is what won the day.

That said, U have made me think about my suggestion that the cause of the new team's poor results is just due to the lack of money. $$, per se, R not going to get the job done...look at Toyota...they had the biggest budget of any of the teams and yet could not find the formula to win. No, it is finding the talent, the Newey's, that is important and, yes, it takes money to do same but the team boss has to be able to find the talented engineers, hire them and then provide the funding to develop and test ideas. Of course, identifying the best drivers at the lowest cost is another critical aspect as well...what would have happened to Toyota if they had hung on for another year with Kobay behind the wheel?...who NOs (ok, so I am stuck on the guy!).
Now the money is so tight due to the world economy, sponsors R few and far between and one source of team funding for the new teams has to come from the drivers themselves. This unfortunately, may result in the best drivers, w/o sponsorship, not getting a seat, e.g., Hulkenberg and the opposite, drivers with less talent but having sponsorship getting a seat, e.g., Petrov. This adds a lot of "noise" and variability to F1 results especially for the teams towards the bottom of the grid....sorry, this diatribe has gone on for to long.

Later, Ken

 

Hulkenberg- may stay at Williams depending upon contract for 5 years and penalty if he leaves prior. Some talk/speculation he may be test driver for Merc... waiting for Schumi to quit after next season...Sutil wants his seat for 11 but it aint goen to happen.
Trulli looks like he is out at Lotus (perhaps following Montoya) with Senna or Petrov looking to slide in.
Aleshin, a russian may be in at Force India but is short 10-15 mil Euros.

Later, Ken

 

Brawn was recently quoted as saying that Mercedes' recent uptick in results has come despite the fact that have stopped introducing new parts. Actually, "despite" is not the right way to say it. It might actually be "because" they stopped introducing new parts. He said that they have simply been able to come to grips with optimizing the setup of the car now that they have stopped changing it. "Hard to hit a moving target", and all that.

One of The Schum's skills is development work. But under the new rules he is simply not allowed to perform that work.

I think an unintended side effect of the testing ban is that we are not being allowed to see drivers performing at their best.

<rant> While I understand the reasons for the testing ban, it is in reality ridiculous. We've had new drivers come in to F1 who have shown up to race weekends having previously only driven an F1 car in a straight line. In what other "sport" do the top guys not get to practice before their big events?</rant>

 

It was pretty impressive!

My memory might be playing tricks on me, but I recall a gar blowing up on the grid one year - and the explosion was so comprehensive it actually lifted the back end of the car off the ground.

It might have been a McLarten-Peugeot. I tried Googling, but my kung fu is letting me down.

Anyone else recall this?

 

lemans, Indy 500 and race of champions all come to mind where drivers get a ride specifically for the race and thats it.


as for brawn bringing honda up to the top, it absolutely revolved around the previous honda chassis. of course they designed it to the new regs, but they started from the existing chassis, took the lessons learned, and built a new car. its not like when brawn took over they threw everything in the trash and fired all the engineers, hired new ones and started from scratch.

many of the teams would argue that the double diffuser that skirted the rules was the primary reason for brawns success. with spending all your resources on developing the new car a year in advance, you would find loopholes like that more easily then someone spending resources up to the last race fighting for the championship.

 

^ Toyota found the same loophole, and they still couldn't win.

l8r)

 

U R right but they did improve significantly.

As far as Honda is concerned, Brawn's first year sucked...they still laged behind everyone using the Honda chassis. It was the second year with new reg's that Brawn brought to everyones attention concenrning the possibility for the DD...Most did not listen and Brawn went ahead and developed one and that is the main reason they won last year.

Later, Ken

 

http://www.planetf1.com/news/18227/6...-on-the-cards-

Later, Ken

 

In an effort to bring the new teams and drivers up to speed, perhaps the FIA should allow the new teams unlimited testing for some period prior to the season opener....efforts should be made to help these teams improve or else dump them.

Latrer, Ken

 

I think a lot of Brawn's success was due a lot to the double diffuser. Ross Brawn warned the FIA about the loop hole in the rules and when they did nothing about it... Brawn made use of the loop hole. I don't think he did anything wrong... he made the best of the situation.

But once the other teams figured out the double diffuser... Brawn was no longer blowing away the competition. Jenson was barely holding on by the end of the season. It's just that they had such a big lead in the beginning of the season that the other teams couldn't catch up.

 

Having rain during qualifying would still make for an exciting race. Espewcially if it comes towards the end of Q1 or Q2. That way we can get to see the front runners rocketing up the field and making some great passes since the Championship is on the line.

 

I couldn't agree more.

About last years double diffuser thing, I remember all the teams except Brawn, Toyota and one other team I think that didn't attend a meeting with the other teams before the season began. During the meeting they made a gentleman's agreement to not use the tail lamp area for the double diffuser as the rules were a little vague. How convenient for Brawn and Toyota

 

In other news, GT5 is being pressed as I type this... That is all.

 

When the season draws to an end, many drivers do not have contracts for a seat in the next season. In an attempt to put pressure on the current team, the driver suddenly has press conferences and interviews about his desires to drive for another team or how much he admires another team or that talks, secret, of course, R taking place with other teams but that their heart is really with the current team and that they have really enjoyed the support of same throught the year. Such behavior is just posturing... the objective here is to get a commitment from the current team or incorporate some demands the driver wants in his contract for next year.
Nowhere is this best exemplified than the recent musings of Adrian Sutil...he talks about how he would like to drive for Merc and then later how he really doesn't want the seat and that talks with Renault and Williams are on going..., and so on. Then, when Force India appears to be coming around (http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/87912 ), he says FI is really his "home" and that he was "born" there.

Recommendation to Sutil and the like: Stop dicking around with the press and the fans of F1...do UR negotiating in private and spare us the posturing.

Later, Ken