318 replies to this topic

[Vilenova]

Originally posted by Speed_A
Klien is absolutely right. It was a racing accident.

that he caused by wildly overshooting his braking point.

[K-One]

It was a bit funny in press conference in spanish bit FA said that his main rivals Kimi and MS didn't get that much points. Must have been nice for Fisi to sit next to him...

[ferrarista]

Pep, you are not right

First, i'm not saying that Ferrari would have won. I'm saying that if MS had the same fuel of Fisi he would have been on pole and could have done another kind of race.

It's easy to make the calculations.

Fisi burned 14 laps of fuel, since he stopped on lap 17, he had three laps of fuel left when he did the pole.
MS burned 11 laps of fuel, since he stopped on lap 23, he had a massive 12 laps of fuel left in the tank when he did his best time (1.34.6).
So, we can conclude that MS was 9 laps of fuel heavier than Fisi in quali, that equals to 25.2 kilos (the teams agreed that each lap of fuel is about 2.8 kilos).
The weight penalty at Sepang for each 10 kilos is 0.39 sec (data from Autosprint, released by Brembo), so MS with the same fuel of Fisi would have done a 1.33.6 (25.2 kilos equals to about one second), thus he would have been fast enough to get the pole.
Doing the same calculations, Williams was 0.8sec behind Ferrari.
I know Fernando was very heavy, but no way to know how he would have compared to Fisi in similar fuel loads.

Second, as i said, the race pace of Renault was better, especially in the few laps at the beginning of a stint, where Renault was by far better than Ferrari because the Michelin tyres were immediately effective, but at the end of a stint the consistency of the tyres was similar, in fact MS lapped as fast as Alo in the last laps of the first stint.
Overall, in a clean race (without the engine changes of Ferrari, i know it's a big if....), Renault would have had a one-two in any case, but MS hinted that this track is historically hard for Ferrari (or B/S?), so he expects to strike back in Oz.

Originally posted by F1Champion
Could you just clarify the point on the engines. Were the engine failures due to a faulty component that they've now fixed or due to a modified component that was causing the failures?

Basically have Ferrari sorted out their problems?

Yes, a faulty component caused the failures and it was modified.

But i have a fresh news. Ferrari had a problem that never was visible in the winter, they understood it and they modified a component, Todt said indeed "for this reason Michael and Felipe could finish the race".

[an1res]

Originally posted by Tombu
....Rather bold thing to do, selecting worn tires for a long first stint and new ones for the short two ones. Maybe they calculated that he could get near the top with the long first one, and then ould push and fight with the light load and fresh tires on the second half of the race? I guess that tactic became rather unnecessary when he got that dream start from the line.

But I do wonder, would have Alonso been able to catch Fisico in the first stint with fresh tires? He wouldn't have had to conserve them as much. Probably not, the gap was so wide, and Fisichella had good pace during the whole weekend. Just came to my mind.

Alonso said that they were worried about blistering if they start the race on new tyres with high fuel load, so they choose used ones.

[Spunout]

that he caused by wildly overshooting his braking point.

Don´t push your luck. The fact that Speed_A doesn´t blame Räikkönen for the incident is more than generous from him.

[MortenF1]

Originally posted by Pep


No, MS had fuel for 6 more laps than Fisi, not 9. And Alonso started quali with twice the fuel they wanted, about twice more than Fisi. But Alonso didn't want to get back all the fuel, just took a little:

James Allen (itv-f1.com) :
-------------------------
Renault's mistake in qualifying on Alonso's car was a refuelling problem, whereby the refueller thought that no fuel had gone into the car, when in fact it had.

So they refuelled the car again, giving Alonso too much fuel for qualifying. But how much did he have?

We know that
Alonso was almost two seconds slower in qualifying, which, if it was all fuel, means he could have been carrying 105kg.

We know that he burned off around 33kg of fuel during qualifying, leaving him with around 78kg in the car.

Now Renault said that they did claim some, but not all of their 33kg 'fuel credit' after qualifying, and he would only have started the race with 75kg because he went to lap 26.

So he probably had somewhere in the region of 90kg of fuel for qualifying, which must have felt like towing a truck!
------------------------
IMO it was clear that Ferrari had no pace to fight for the win in Malaysia.

Something must be wrong with Allen's calculations there I think. He says that "Fisi opted to take around 50kg in qualifying, because he went as far as lap 17 in the race."
But Toyota informed the FIA/race control that they would start the race with 66.2 kg's of fuel, and Ralf Schumacher stopped on lap 13 already. The answer could be that they brought him in earlier than planned, because they did switch from a planned two-stopper to a three. However his second stint was only nine laps so it's a bit confusing as to when they decided to change his strategy.

[ferrarista]

BTW, making the same calculations, Montoya's Mclaren was more or less on par with Fisi's R26.

About the tyre war, a reason for which B/S lost competitiveness in the first laps of a stint could be that the track temp in the race was far lower than in quali.
Maybe the relatively cooler temp of the race played against B/S as far as one lap performance is concerned, not sure if it had any effect on the durability.

[MortenF1]

Originally posted by ferrarista


But i have a fresh news. Ferrari had a problem that never was visible in the winter, they understood it and they modified a component, Todt said indeed "for this reason Michael and Felipe could finish the race".

I just wish Red Bull could've gotten the same fix to their engines...

[Zdeus]

You folks always bash Ralf about how he cannot overtake, I think he did some overtaking during the Malasian GP, which was good.

Just wanted to pount it out. Also, he came from dead last, with one extra unscheduled pit-stop and still finished ahead of Trulli.

[baddog]

Ralf is a pretty good overtaker, the whole cant overtake thing was bulletin board fantasy.

However he defends worse than Jenson.

Shaun

[330R]

Originally posted by race addicted


Something must be wrong with Allen's calculations there I think. He says that "Fisi opted to take around 50kg in qualifying, because he went as far as lap 17 in the race."
But Toyota informed the FIA/race control that they would start the race with 66.2 kg's of fuel, and Ralf Schumacher stopped on lap 13 already. The answer could be that they brought him in earlier than planned, because they did switch from a planned two-stopper to a three. However his second stint was only nine laps so it's a bit confusing as to when they decided to change his strategy.

Ralf's car had a pneumatic problem.

[MortenF1]

Originally posted by 330R


Ralf's car had a pneumatic problem.

So his stop on lap 22 was probably when they had planned to make the first stop then (66/22=3~2.8kg's a lap). A bit strange that they didn't spit in some fuel when they brought him in on lap 13. (If I'm right here then...)
So Ralf's three stopper wasn't really a three-stopper, with the potential advantages that strategy may have, it was a two-stopper with an extra stop. His drive was really, really strong then!

[Rob76]

Originally posted by baddog

However he defends worse than Jenson.

I'm quite interested to see the huge list of occasions where JB has conceded a position on track that you're going to come up with to back that comment up.

Maybe your perception of JB is somehow linked to the very low number of times that JB retires through contact, or limps back to the pits with damaged wings or punctures.

He defends just fine, I think. Some people defend, even when the corner is lost, and it's no coincidence that they don't score points as often.

[Ricardo F1]

Imola last year when he let Schumacher by will be what he is defined by.

[HBoss]

Originally posted by baddog
Ralf is a pretty good overtaker, the whole cant overtake thing was bulletin board fantasy.

However he defends worse than Jenson.

Shaun

Ralf?
I remember him defending himself from Schumacher at Imola when Schumacher had a vastly superior car. Was it 2002 or 2003? Schumacher did opt to wait for the pits, but every atempt made until he backed off was sucessfully blocked by his brother.

When has he ben easily overtaken?

[Rob76]

Originally posted by Ricardo F1
Imola last year when he let Schumacher by will be what he is defined by.

Well a list of one, wow. If people are that short sighted to brand a driver on one unevenly matched occasion, then that is clearly their problem, not JB's.

I'm not sure how many drivers, given the BAR-Honda, would have held back Schumacher in the Ferrari, without resorting to desperate blocking and potential car damage.

Would JB have managed to fend off MS if he'd been in the Renault? I think he would, but it's only a guess....

[330R]

Originally posted by Ricardo F1
Imola last year when he let Schumacher by will be what he is defined by.

Everyone conveniently forgets about the two Williams scrapping with each other in front of Button. They were past the chicane while we saw him negotiating through it. It was the perfect opportunity for Michael in his much quicker Ferrari to make a move, as he had more momentum than Button.

There's also Button's remarks after the race that he felt it was more important to bring the car home for the first points of the season, instead of doing something that could "end in tears". Of course that comment will only equate to an excuse for the same folks who define this moment as Button the F1 driver.

A lot of folks like to mention that pass, so you're probably right that he's defined by it, but honestly I think that's a bit unfair, but makes for a better slag than defining him with one of the good overtakings he's made.

[Corners]

Originally posted by fasteR


We agree on that.



To me Klien corner was not bad at all, if u watch the helicopter view again, u clearly see than he is not loosing his car. He was surprised by KR going to the outside and then cutting to the inside again.

My final conclusion (yeh i have enough now ) on this accident after watching all the videos is that it was a stupid racing incident, nobody really at fault, Klien obvisously more responsible than KR but then KR could have avoided it in my opinion

Kimi has been tarnished with the bad luck image but his genuine unfavourable circumstances that all the drivers have have been used to disguise other circumstances that maybe possibly brought on by the driver. Its not a very good example but looking at the last race Kimi exited that corner where he was hit as far away from the racing line as one could be, he was fully on the apex and staying that side of the track. He was kinda floating about in the pack trying to select alternative lines setting people up for passes exiting corners from a different part of the track. Its probably how he does so well going through the pack on lap one but it can confuse other drivers braking hard on cold tyres.

[Spunout]

Kimi has been tarnished with the bad luck image but his genuine unfavourable circumstances that all the drivers have have been used to disguise other circumstances that maybe possibly brought on by the driver. Its not a very good example but looking at the last race Kimi exited that corner where he was hit as far away from the racing line as one could be, he was fully on the apex and staying that side of the track. He was kinda floating about in the pack trying to select alternative lines setting people up for passes exiting corners from a different part of the track. Its probably how he does so well going through the pack on lap one but it can confuse other drivers braking hard on cold tyres.

Maybe Kimi should start from the pits in every race so he wouldn´t confuse the other drivers to completely miss the braking point...? Seriously, I cannot find any other driver from the grid who has been involved in less tangles than Kimi, so I really doubt it was his "racing style" causing Klien to act like beginning go-kart driver.

Look: Klien messed up big time and this time it was Kimi on his path.

Tough luck. But that´s racing...