6 replies to this topic

[F.M.]

So, which team will be under fire/made fun of after the start of the European rounds?

I think it started with Renault during early winter testing, as it was plain slow. And then they fitted the fat nose.
Next, the McLaren turned out to be a dog of a car.
McLaren got overtaken by Ferrari with some stupid errors + car performance that wasn't/isn't up to the expectations.
And now we have BMW, who is, according to Kubica, only faster than Force India at the moment, due to a lack of updates. They are still racing with exactly the same car as in Australia, which was pretty much the same as the one they used in winter testing...

So who will be next? Maybe the Brawn's, if they get overtaken by teams when they fit a proper DD?

[Gilles12]

McLaren's misery isn't over yet

[F.M.]

Originally posted by Gilles12
McLaren's misery isn't over yet

Neither is Ferrari's. But they both got overshadowed

edit: ah, you mean the WMSC hearing

[MWM]

Williams perhaps?

Given they are one of the 3 DDD teams, perhaps they should be higher than 5th in the WCC so far?

That's not to say they will become the laughing-stock that McLaren have sadly become, but I have a feeling they are not going to ascend to the heights some might have hoped at the beginning of the year.

[Imperial]

You've got an interesting way to phrase your question, which team will be "made fun of"?

I don't think any teams are made fun of, I know what you mean though.

Well the obvious team with the most to 'lose' is Brawn. After the first two race weekends they only thing they could do is go backwards. Here in China that's exactly what has happened, albeit only in qualifying so far. Let's see what the race brings.

Red Bull and Toyota may lose a bit of ground when other teams have new packages in Spain, but let's not forget that Red Bull and Toyota will also have new packages there. Furthermore let's not forget that Red Bull isn't one of the DDD trio and qualifying today has shown exactly how fast you can be without a DDD on your car. Finally people are starting to realise that there are actually more parts on an F1 car than a diffuser and you only have to glance around the F1 media to see journos falling over themselves to be sure they are not the last to mention that it's not all about diffusers after all.

Other than the above teams there is nobody eligible to fit into your criteria as all the other teams have made such a rubbish start to the season (although Williams are curiously neither here nor there), they can only stay where they are or go backwards.

So Brawn it may be.

For what it's worth at this stage of the season I do think Brawn (i.e. Button) will be in title contention within the last few rounds, but I think he'll be hanging on by the skin of his teeth by then. The other teams know where the deficiencies are on their cars now and their cars will be unrecognisable by seasons end.

[TickTickBooom]

Originally posted by Imperial
For what it's worth at this stage of the season I do think Brawn (i.e. Button) will be in title contention within the last few rounds, but I think he'll be hanging on by the skin of his teeth by then. The other teams know where the deficiencies are on their cars now and their cars will be unrecognisable by seasons end.

You're making the assumption that the Brawn's development will stand still! This attitude really irks me.

We already know the Brawn has one upgrade on the way, and more will come as the season progresses. Just like the other teams. Until the circus gets to Spain, it's impossible to make judgement on who's moving backwards or forwards.

I edited out the part of your post about qualifying. Maybe you didn't notice that every car in front of the Brawn's is a good deal lighter.

[Imperial]

Originally posted by TickTickBooom

You're making the assumption that the Brawn's development will stand still! This attitude really irks me.

We already know the Brawn has one upgrade on the way, and more will come as the season progresses. Just like the other teams. Until the circus gets to Spain, it's impossible to make judgement on who's moving backwards or forwards.

I edited out the part of your post about qualifying. Maybe you didn't notice that every car in front of the Brawn's is a good deal lighter.

Well all we can do is wait and see what happens in Spain and onwards. It's all assumptions right now.

Re qualifying and weight:

Do not fear, I've done my study of Times Vs Weights already today.

This is probably not the place to discuss this but I did notice that certain people were a certain amount quicker on their fastest Q1/Q2 laps today than in their fastest Q3 lap and at least two of those cars have enough weight on their cars from fuel that they'd be comfortably a certain amount quicker in Q3 with the fuel taken out and one particular person happens to be running a lot of fuel in a car quicker than it has looked all weekend. Every car ahead of the Brawn's are indeed running lighter, but they aint the cars I'm referring to ;) Someone has the speed to be in P3 (a sniff behind P2's time at that) but isn't. They have the fuel on board to stay out forever though.

Let's see how it goes, but my feelings are that one should not assume the Brawn's will even be finishing on the podium tomorrow. I won't expand on this cos I have money riding on a few drivers and I've done the maths to decide where my money should be going. I'll let people work out for themselves which few drivers I'm talking about.