No, it is not, it is just our speculation, and obviously there is huge sense of pride that Lewis¨s race engineer might be on our topic.

When does Parc Ferme end???

Could the adjust it on the grid before the start of the race???

Parc ferme ends when the lights go out IIRC.

In that case I don't there is a change in height then. I dont think I saw anything in the pits stops that looked like anything was being adjusted. And the car is only stationary for a few seconds (2-3ish).

I don't think trying to do something in the pits with the suspension is forbidden, I remember various team members discussing the possibility, but 'there's no enough time' was quite a popular answer.


edit: and yes, parc ferme ends when the lights goes green, this is why we used to see cars starting in the pits with teams ready to fuel the car but they had to wait till the start of the race to do it. Same applies to cars going into the garages and coming back on track to test some things despite being laps down.

Interesting graph comparing Ferrari and Mclaren pace in hards:


from f1technical.net
http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic...48f5a4207a7babd

Alonso was being conservative behind Vettel in the early stage?
Hamilton should add more speed in the last part (due to Massa's problems) but could not?

Is the car still in Parc Ferme after it's done its formation lap, and is stationary waiting for the lights?

Well he was too far back to do anything about the Ferraris realistically, so there would be no point in pushing.

Doesnt explain why FA kept his foot down.... was he making a statement or was he/his car just comfortable at that speed?

Edit: Just realised the graph is a moving(?) average and the times are actually all over the place...

Maybe he didn't want to. What could have been the point? Watching the race, I got the feeling that he slowed down deliberately.

All personnel had to leave the track no lesser than 2 mins before the formation lap and any adjustments that henceforth needs to be made to the car can only be done in the pits.

When he secured 3rd place he slowed down...
He didn't had enough laps to get massa...

Guys, I don't think the ride height is the issue. The car was comfortably able to match the pace of the fastest cars after the change of tyres and I don't think this has any bearing on the RH. The RB wasn't so hot on the hard tyres and I don't think this was related to the RH either. I remember Bundle saying that the Mclaren was not able to get hear into the tyres enough during qualys, I think he was right.

Alonso was being conservative in the early stages because his car was cooking when following Vettel.

As for Hamilton: I suspect that his over-heating rear brakes put a stop to any real go at the two Ferrari's or a distinguished lap time.

Hey Buzatlas,

Great chart, now i understand i can interpret the words from MW ( that McLaren was up there with the times, or even faster, then RBR and Ferrari) in a different way; looking at lap 40-45 Lewis was at a similar pace as Alonso even with problems with a break balance that wasnt optimal to suit Lewis's style. As of lap 45 (maybe earlier) Lewis went in cruising mode.

McLaren isnt as bad as some suggest, lets see what McLaren can do on a circuit that suits the car more, MELBOURNE here we come!

Edit: Didnt see that last part, we have no clue in what condition the rear brakes were, Lewis had problems as really as lap 30(?) so taking the risk to push and see the rearbrakes end up in smoke and lose valuable points dont make up for P2.

And for Alonso being conservative; Vettel was able to field, foil, parry (what is the correct word?) the times from Alonso easily, IIRC at lap 4 the gap was over 5 secs and Vettel was driving away with ease.

I can't remember the source but McLaren's qually problems were the car being very unstable over the bumps when it had no fuel, as soon as fuel was in the car was balanced over the bumps again.

makes sense...plus I think the car's downforce level wasnt optimal... a bit too low

Sounds like a mechanical issue to me, with that in mind; why would McLaren setup a stiff car for Q when a stiff car is 'needed' for a race-setup? I guess i know the answer to that, cars go into PF right after Q3.

Could there be such thing as running to much earo. DF in slow corners, more DF = more drag = instable rear, together with stiff suspension. It could also explain MW statement 'There was no real serious degradation of the tyres', as the car maybe doesnt have the latitude to slide around the track / corners due to too much DF.

I'm just thinking and writing down stuff to maybe hit something that sounds logical.

About this rideheight business...

There are 2 kinds of downforce acting to compress the springs and lower the rideheight.

One is the total weight of the car and driver and fuel. This can vary by about 150kg (I think) between the start of the race and the end.

The other is the aero downforce. I may be wrong about this, but I believe that the aero downforce is much greater than the weight of the car. Maybe somebody can give some up-to-date figures on this.

There would also be much more variation in the aero downforce, depending on whether the car is running at full speed, or whether it has slowed right down for a hairpin.

The suspension has to be made very stiff, otherwise a car which was scraping the ground in a fast corner would be up on stilts in a hairpin, on the same lap of the same track.

So talk of changing the rideheight to compensate for the reducing fuel load is basically nonsense, I don't understand why intelligent people are still on about it.

Unless I'm completely wrong, and the fuel weight is actually in the same ballpark as the aero downforce, in which case well done the OWG!!

or that or the vent system really makes a difference because the Mclarens were by far the best in the straights.

Button is confident for Australia, anyway, the next 2 races will be decisive whether Mclaren will fight for the tittle or not because Albert Park and Sepang have very different requirements than Bahrain, if Mclaren doesn't go well there, they won't threat RBRs and Ferraris throughout the year.

Something i read a while ago i thought the DF could be as much as 2000+kilo plus on highspeed.

Aero downforce is much greater than car's weight when in sufficient speed. In the begining of the decade, car's had about 600kg of downforce at 120km/h, 1200kg at 190km/h, 3600kg at 320km/h(this last one I don't remember very well). Downforce/drag increases exponecially therefore speed plays a big role on it.

I have been perusing some internet discussion forums and coupled with the info that Mclaren engineers made some "mistake" in the car setup for the last race, I came away with the feeling that car wasn't setup optimally because they underestimated the car's tyre management capabilities. I think this was because of not doing enough mileage during testing as Ferrari did for example whidh I think was due to the race team not still properly understanding the car.

The experience and data gathered during the Bahrain race would come in very handy. I think we will really know where everyone is at the end of the Sepang race - assuming it doesn't rain!

Yeah yeah yeah ... Things are falling into place if we are in the right direction with stiffness from the car.

The difference in setup between McLaren and Ferrarí's was assumably, Ferrari setup the car soft and put the 'responsibiliy' to look after the tyres at the drivers, thats why Alonso could do the 1:58 times because he was in charge of the tyres while McLaren's setup was that the car was 'looking' after the tyres, both drivers could go maximize every round.

+1
aye this is the same conclusion i came up with from whats been said. seems with a radical car we took a conservative approach. perhaps this will play nicely in the coming races as we push the setup/tire wear to its limit, along with our own aero developments

I'm pretty sure that McLaren spent that vast majority of their testing time gathering data for development through simulation, and as a result traded off set-up work. Therefore the car is still very "raw".

There's a beast waiting to be unleashed lurking in there.......

i think the same

And of course assuming McLaren matches or even beats RB and Ferrari.

Otherwise we will learn here in this very thread the exotic reasons why the cars unlimited potential could again not be unleashed and how we'll only get to see the true picture after Shanghai or Barcelona.

Right?

All teams gave the best of themselves, except McLaren, who failed to find the sweet spot. That is the summary of Baharain. Nice to know.

Give them a break, they need to believe in this in order to not get desperate.

Whitmarsh confirmed that was the issue on the BBC.

What's the problem?

you have blind eyes? we have many valid reasons to believe these ideas as we all know McLaren is the only team who can develop most throughout the year so in bahrain we were no match of Red Bulls or Ferraris but we were clearly the 3rd fastest team. We wont be worse than that but better.

No-one said that.

Anyway it's not so frequent for a big team to choose a wrong aero config and to make an off set-up for a race. McLaren admittedly has failed to give its best at Bahrain, probably more than Ferrari has done.

Give your reasoning why do you think Ferrari has failed in Bahrain with its aero config and set-up exactly as much as McLaren!

You need to ask Martin Brundle then why he said ride height adjustment is said to be worth .02s/lap.

Also you might stop to wonder why teams set their ride heights to less than 1mm tolerance and why it's been said that drivers can feel 1mm adjustment easily.

F1 suspension travel extremely non-linear, the first 100kg of extra load can very easily be important. The static height is a crucial setting, and always has been. Remember MS at Spa in 94 (?) when he drove away from everyone by using an illegally low ride height? It matters.

I'm pretty sure Lewis said himself that he was pushing to catch Massa there for a while before eventually giving up. His best times are likely representative.

the comment was a bit exaggerated, I know. Let's wait for next race.

Wonder if nando will do the same when lewis wins.

It could be a while before we get an answer to that question.



BTW, IIRC it was Alonso who aproached Hamilton when they came into parc ferme. Hamilton hardly had a choice other than to give his best "I'm a good sport" impression.

It's just a few weeks time.

Unless I missed it, I didn't see anyone post this:
http://f1.automoto365.com/news/controller....p;news_id=39736

Lots of nice diagrams on the F-vent.



PS A bit of competitor watch:
Whole new chassis for Red Bull at Melbourne:
http://www.yallaf1.com/2010/03/17/lighter-...r-in-melbourne/

More B-spec Ferrari rumours:
http://www.yallaf1.com/2010/03/17/ferrari-...-on-b-spec-car/

Not that representinve, Hamiltons rear brakes were failing from before he took vettel. Kravits said he had to push the ballance all the way to the front, pretty good job to get anywhere near the top laptimes really.

It seems to me that the McLaren had slightly better race pace than the Red Bull, but not quite as good as the Ferrari. And the Quali Pace is WAY off both the other cars. I think the Red bull is only the car to have due to it's Quali pace, and the new rules dont allow any overtaking at all.

I think the following 3 conclusions are not too far off the mark.

Red Bull - Needs to work on it's Mid race pace, Quali Pace EXCELENT, Race Pace GOOD
Ferrari - Needs to work on it's Starts, Hamilton really should of jumped Massa, had Massa not Pushed him off the track, Quali and Race Pace EXCELENT
McLaren - Need Far better Quail Pace, and a little bit of race pace on the lighter fuel. Quali Pace Okay (poor in comparason to the Ferrari and Redbull) Race Pace VERY GOOD, prehaps only betterd by the Ferrari.

Can't wait to see the progression of the cars throughout the year.

The excitement of the 'development-race' is surpassing the 'on-track' racing....thanks to you guys

Thanks again for all your contributions Andy

please tell me how Hamilton was doing a "I'm a good sport impression".

I can't wait to hear how you read peoples minds.....

You could say the same for Alonso, he was pushing 99% when chasing Vettel. This was before Vettel had his problem. LH was more than matching Alonso's pace during that period and that could be one of the reasons why LH felt he could stay with the front trio or even pass Massa in the Mclaren as it was.

Can't tell more, sorry. It would blow yours, I'm afraid.

Reading Hamiltons mind is only for the enlighted, like me and undersquare. We only have to fix the slight problem that we're keep reading opposite things, but that's really only a minor inconvenience...

man, this widespread optimism in here won't end up well.

Mclaren is not the team who most improve throughout the season. Last year, they were always good on slow corner circuits and remained like that while their aero remained bad although not ridicolous as in the begining. Force India and RBR developed much better last year.

I really think you're in the wrong thread.

there is nothing to argue with you mate.