SofaF1

With the driver market hotting up we’re bound to be in for an interesting weekend of Formula 1 politics but what of the race itself? What will that bring?

What happened last race with Renault is difficult to know. It seems now that their form fade was down to four factors.

1) The mass dampner system certainly will have played a factor but it’s hard to know how much. Especially as everyone else had to take theirs off too. We are led to believe that Renault were better hooked up with the system than Ferrari but how much of a difference does it really make? The easiest comparison would be to use McClaren who didn’t have the dampner. They clearly improved relative to Renault and also to Ferrari. But if you can follow this logic with me: Renault went backwards more than McClaren went forwards against Ferrari and presuming that using the system well isn’t worth twice as much as using it badly (which I think is reasonable) then there was probably something else going on as well.

2) The blistering tires. After the drop of in Michelan tires in France Renault were desperate to find something new. And Michelan were likewise desperate to prove that they haven’t stopped working because they aren’t going to be in the championship next year (actually this claim really doesn’t wash because Michelan have known full well that they aren’t going to be continuing next season since last season). In testing before Germany they found a new tire compound and rushed it into production just in time but clearly the tire didn’t do exactly what they had wanted. It blistered and had lots of trouble in the suprising heat. McClaren on the other Michelan had no such trouble.

3) The new rear end aero package was the real problem for the Renault. We know this now because Renault have not said that they are going to be tweaking it while they try and sort it out. No they are actually going to just junk it and go back to the old one. How it affected the tires we don’t know. But I wonder about this because the whole week of testing was also very hot so the tire choice must have been made in similar conditions. Also we know that in testing you have to be scientific. You need to take a car with a baseline speed that you are sure about and then just change one thing and see what that does. If you change two then you won’t know which one caused the change. And with a limited amount of testing mid season and a limited amount of new design tires it’s possible that it was the combination that was slow not either of the components. It’s possible that they didn’t work well together.

4) The last but by no means least point is the mental state of Alonso. His overreaction to Michael’s pit stop is a sign that Michael really is starting to get to him. He needs to be able to concentrate if he’s going to stem the onslaught. Michael’s after him and he better sort his mind out. In Formula 1 the most important square foot of the race isn’t on the track it’s between the drivers ears. And with Alonso unable to beat Fisi he’s certainly got some thinking to do.

So where does that lead us? Well out of the four things two have been solved already. They won’t use those tires or that rear end again and they we don’t really know how important the dampner was to them. So other than getting Alonso laid or sorting him out some other way they might not be in such bad shape.

But with all of the upheaval and no time you’d have to be pretty brave to suggest they’d be faster than the Ferrari this weekend.

Michael is on fire at the moment and Massa has never driven better. There are definate signs of him being held back for the greater good of Ferrari.

As for the signs that the mass dampner is important it’s worth noting that the two teams who improved the most were Honda and McClaren. Two teams that didn’t have it in the first place. Kimi’s bad luck continued apace with a refueling error, a tire change error, hydraulics failure and a faulty gear box. The fact he was still faster than Pedro probably says something about Pedro as well as it does Kimi. The McClaren is fast again but it’s still not reliable. Honda are faster again too but there’s that reliability gremlin again. Rubens hasn’t even got to the end of a race for a while (after having one of the most successful reliability records at the begining of the season).

Toyota and BMW are keeping everyone nice and honest at the front. With Toyota just ahead and more reliable than Honda.

* I’m I’m sure there’s a joke about eastern european countries in here somewhere

According to the Guardian this morning Ross Brawn is set to retire. Surely though, if Ross retires then so will Michael?

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/formulaone/story/0,,1835952,00.html

Or would it mean that Kimi and Michael would have more even chances rather than it all just being about Michaels race chances.

I think Renault have bought Webber out of his contract with Williams, because they now know that Kimi is going to go to Ferrari and not them…

Why else would Williams give up Webber for Wurtz? Much as he’s a nice guy he didn’t even get picked by McClaren for the role when Montoya left. He’s was so obviously out on his ear that he must have been dead cheap, but even so. I think they had effectively already budgeted for Webber (he had one more year on his contract) and there’s no way he’s been underperforming.

Webber is contracted to Flav. So I think it’s a lock on the whole driver Market.

Ferrari: Michael + Kimi
McClaren: Alonso + Paffet
Renault: Fisi + Webber
Red Bull: Coulthard + Massa (With Ferrari engines he’ll go here)
BMW: Kubica + Heidfeld
Toyota: Ralf + Trulli
Williams: Rosberg + Wurtz
Honda: Rubens + Jenson

By the way I think Paffet will edge it because of the question of experience

I was most surprised to hear they’ve replaced Villeneuve for Hungary, and possibly longer. And, I do think it was a replacement: Jacques was fine after his crash, and now he’s suddenly injured? For a driver struggling to get a seat for next year, you don’t want to give up any chances to prove yourself, no matter how injured. And what race is it? The one possibly nearest to Kubica’s Poland? And the next? Turkey? This seems all too suspiciously neat for BMW. Jacques needs to remain focused and not say anything remotely bitter, otherwise people will start to say he’s gone back to his old moaning self, and then he’ll never get a drive.

So, following on from our ‘that special something’ thread, is Kubica going to cut it? The problem for him is that Hungary is a very, very hard track to do much with.

With Jaques not racing this weekend. I start to worry again about the loss of characters in Formula 1. It’s a worry that seems to come around again every time a particular character leaves (or is forced out of the sport). And it does seem to be happening – Jaques, Juan Pablo, Irvine, Stoddard and Jordan have all gone or seem to be on the way out.

But there really are new characters around we just need to get to see them. Scott Speed and Sato immediately spring to mind from the new crop. Also there is more to come. I expect a lot of new drivers coming through.

There is a code that James uses to describe the local race fans. When in Germany or Italy he will start up his commentary by talking about the weather and then describing the fans as passionate. Whereas here in the UK and in the US we are always knowledgeable. Other countries fall in to one or other camp. Some are neither seemingly but nowhere is both. This has always annoyed me because I like to think of myself as knowledgeable and passionate about Formula 1 and I bet lots of German, Italian and American fans do too.

But having been to Italy and watch the grand prix on television there I think what James is saying may be code for something else. In Italy they watch Formula 1 like champions league football. You support any teams from your country in the league even if you hate them when you play against them at home.

What I mean is this, although everyone knows that Italy loves Ferrari they supported Renault last year because Ferrari couldn’t cut it and at least an Italian is in charge at Renault and Fisi races there too.

This position of bias might be explained by a number of things but I think I know the answer. This is the complete list of people who were interviewed on tv during the race, the sporting director of Ferrari whose name I can never remember, Massa, Fisi, Flav and Trulli (and one more I’m going to hold back a bit).

The difference between that line up and one for race day in the UK is massive. Here we would have spoken to at least one representive of every team but there? They mentioned McClaren only to say that Montoya left and that Pedro had not done too badly. I’m not even sure they mentioned Kimi.

All of the people that they interviewed were Italian or worked for an Italian team and if that doesn’t make you feel a bit biased then I don’t know what will.

Actually it’s not quite true because the one I held back was Rubens. He’s not Italian or racing for an Italian team but he is fluent in Italian as is Massa. In fact there was no English the entire race. If you couldn’t speak Italian then you weren’t getting on tv. And I’d bet the same thing happens in Germany but probably nowhere else. They must be the only countries where there is enough of a wealth of speakers to make your program interesting.

The interesting read across is for what this means for the driver market. Did Honda choose Rubens for his driving or to balance up the italian press with arch rivals Toyota having Trulli?

Actually Rubens must be a really good catch for a formula one team as I think he even speaks German.

The lap counter graphic is something that I have recently realised has actually been on my mind for a while, if that makes sense.

It could be that my brian is bruxxed but I find the lap counter quite confusing to the point where I don’t take much notice of it anymore.

The lap counter counting the number of laps to go makes sense to me on the first lap or the last lap, when I say to myself “ah … that’s how it works!” but any laps in between I can’t make up my mind what lap the cars are actually on.

If the lap counter says 57/65, “That means 57 laps to go fool!” I hear you say, but then I always seem to go off on a magical thought train tour debating whether it is 57 complete laps to go or 57 including the one they are part way though.

I should be able to work out which way it works and then remember and not have a problem any more, but for some reason every race revisits the same issues for me.

Now, it is quite useful to know how many laps there are to go especially if someone is flying towards the end of the race and you want to work out if they can catch the person in front before the chequered flag or something and is used in the race commentary accordingly, but I would suggest that most commentary usually refers to the lap that the cars are currently on (or will be) such as…

“Raikkonen in on lap 10” or “Alonso puts in his fastest lap on lap 24” or “Taking on enough fuel to get him to lap 49” or “Incident on lap 14 involving …etc etc etc”

This has been bought to the forefront of my mind recently with things like British Superbikes and Touring Car coverage following the Grand Prix programme. On both of these events the lap counters have counted up, starting from 1/16 or whatever when the cars or bikes are on lap 1 and showing 4/16 when on lap 4 with 3 laps completed. This seems to make much more sense (to me) partly because

a) I can place the cars in the race quickly

b) Using the symbol “/” to me says “of” and although both “57 of 65 laps to go” and ” on lap 4 of 16″ are probably both correct I would suggest the latter was more intuitive

c) Suprisingly given my previous admission of mental confusion, I can easily work out how many laps are still to go.

I think if I know quickly where the cars are in the race, I’ve got a fixed starting point for any lap calculations either forward or back in the race. The problem I have with the counters counting down, it takes me so long to work out what lap the cars are on that it has changed by the time I work it out even if I got it right!

After all the Jenson-bashing (or criticism of the unnecessary media attention on him) we do on the sofa, I thought it should only be fair that we praise him for his performance yesterday.

He out-qualified and out-raced is teammate, perhaps out-performed his own car, did some great over-taking moves, might have been on the podium had it not been for traffic, and was honest, amusing and likeable in the TV interviews afterwards. Yes, Rubens was fuelled heavier and was slowly making his way forwards, but Jenson passed two Renaults in two laps. What’s more, the focus on his performance by the itv crew was justified for once – he performed exceptionally well, and I actually wanted to hear them talk about it, and to him, at the end. Nonetheless, Driver of the Day is surely Massa?

What was Alonso talking about? Michael pulling out of the pit-lane right in front of him? Surely, though, Michael had no option: the lollipop man told him to go, so he went. Michael really couldn’t see what was going on behind him – Massa was there. If anyone is to blame, it’s the lollipop man who knew he had to get Michael out first. So, what was Alonso talking about? Maybe he saw a replay of Michael’s slippy entrance to the pit-lane on a big screen as he was doing his warm-up lap and was just wondering what it was all about? Unlikely, but still possible…

Whatever the case, both incidents show us two great champions fighting for this year’s championship right on the limit of their abilities. Today’s race, and the rest of the season, can only get better.

In August’s issue of F1 Racing magazine Peter Windsor suggests culling drivers if they’ve raced more than 100 GPs without producing any significant results – exceptions to be made for those who have been in very slow cars the whole time. Thus, Montoya was right to go when he did. The implicit message, however, is surely aimed at Jenson. Except for a couple of years, he’s been in a pretty competitive car all along.