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I think we saw our first real race of the season, which gives an idea of what the rest of the season could turn out to be. Strategies are stabilising and a pattern is starting to emerge. With the exception of teams that know that they have no chance anyway, most teams will qualify to win the race, not to be on pole. Depending on the track that may mean that some of the leading teams are fuelled for one stop while others are fuelled to stop twice. The start of the race will then be rather meaningless, especially from a spectator’s point of view, because we will only be able to work out the strategies after the first lot of stops. Seeing that overtaking, anywhere but in the pits, is impossible, we will need to develop a real understanding of pit stop activity to have any understanding of which team is better equipped to pull off an overtaking manoeuvre. In the meantime the drivers are expected to stay on the track and keep their position in the procession. Take this to the extreme and some other changes are inevitable: Seeing that the drivers really cannot make that much of a contribution to the outcome of the race, the refuelers or maybe even the lollypop men may be asked to the podium rather than the drivers as they seem to have more impact on the outcome of races. Television crews will no longer follow the progress around the track, except if there is and accident or other similarly exciting event, instead they will focus on the activity in the pits as that is where the battle is waged. Grandstands will be built around the pits and not the circuits any more and most mechanics will be promoting their individual brand named products in their spare time between press interviews where the focus will be on the slick handling of the latest pneumatic tool. Instead of downforce or grip I will be doing reviews on the different thread choices for wheel nuts and giving opinions on the risks of cross threading in the heat of the pit stops. Watching five day Cricket may be more fun. Mr Mosely, what are you doing? Deliberately making rules to kill the sport? Alienating all sponsors and loyal followers of the sport by proposing bullshit rules. Or are you one of those people that believe their own bullshit? If so, we are in for a prolonged downhill slide. Why not make a complete spectacle of it by awarding points for qualifying positions as well. Make it around half of the points for the race and each weekend will become a crapshoot. Sure, you will lose all the serious followers but it won’t be boring. If we add to this circus things like standard wings and engines that must last for six events, God knows what will happen to the sport. It may become cheaper for the teams but will that saving be as big as the loss in attendees and the corresponding income? To fill the grandstands they may be forced to half the price of entry. Make it boring enough and they will have to pay spectators to attend. Circuit de Catalunya (the Spanish Grand Prix venue near Barcelona) is seriously hard on tyres. Pole position will start around one third from the beginning of the mile long pit straight, leaving an easy kilometre for the cars to get up to close on 300km/H(186mph) before they have to brake for the second gear, sharp right Elf. Being so far from the first corner has the advantage that the drivers will get a chance to asses their relative positions and avoid touching other cars in the approach to Elf, but on the other hand they will all approach that first corner on cold tyres at very high speeds so if anything goes wrong it will be traumatic. Watch the Renaults at the start. This year they have incredible braking power and they will try to take advantage of this in the gaggle as they approach the first corner. Of course either could also get rammed up the rear if a following driver underestimates their stopping ability. Elf exits into a gentle left sweep which will see the cars build up to 250km/H(153mph) for the long, fast right-hander, Renault, followed by a short 290km/H(180mph) straight before braking for Repsol, a right-hander negotiated at around 145km/H(90mph) which straightens out for a short burst up to 250km/H(153mph) before a tight 2nd gear lefthander at Seat. Seat is the beginning of three relatively slow corners where mechanical grip would be very important before a short straight (250km/H or 153mph) that ends in the tight 2nd gear right-handed Campsa, the start of the second longest straight where cars should get up to 300km/H(186mph) before braking for the left-hander La Caixa a complex curve that starts slow in second gear and accelerates up to over 160km/H(100mph) before it changes direction into Banc Sabadell where cars will be down into second gear again. A short 250km/H(153mph) straight then leads up to New Holland (3rd gear) after which the cars get up to 260km/H(158mph) before the right-hander, negotiated at over 200km/H(124mph) before exiting onto the main straight where top speeds will exceed 310km/H(192mph). Because turbulence will affect a following car in the very fast corner on the approach to the main straight it is not as easy to overtake on the pit straight as it looks. The following car will find it hard to maintain the same speeds through the corner as the car ahead and will therefore need to catch the leading car in the first part of the straight losing much of the advantage offered by the long straight. The shorter straight between Campsa and La Caixa offers almost as good an opportunity to overtake because speeds in Campsa will be low enough to be able to rely on mechanical grip. Cars with superior mechanical grip can exit this corner faster than the car in front which goes a long way towards getting to La Caixa first. Lets have a look at what we can expect from the teams. McLaren leads the constructors’ championship with Raikkonen in the lead in the drivers’ championship. All Raikkonen has to do is finish on the podium from here on and he looks pretty safe. But is he? When last did McLaren launch a new car that was reliable in less than six months? If they have improved to the point that they have only four retirements before they get their cars reliable (and that will be a huge improvement for McLaren) Raikkonen and Coulthard will be well down the leaders board. Raikkonen could be lucky and get a reliable car, but I don’t think so. McLaren are yet to test their new car in earnest. Ferrari are using their new car in Spain, if it proves to be a big improvement McLaren will have to accelerate their program just to stay in touch and it will be unreliable for a while. Long enough to take Raikkonen out of contention. Ferrari may have reliability problems too, which will level the playing field. I do not think so because they really do not have to use it in Spain. In San Marino they proved that last year’s Ferrari is more than a match for last year’s McLaren and, seeing that Williams are not a threat, why use it if McLaren are not upgrading? The only explanation is that it is ready to race and Ferrari believe that it is reliable and faster than the current car. If so, expect the prancing horse to dominate the rest of the season. Renault may currently be third, ahead of Williams, but I do not think that they will be able to maintain their position. In Spain I do not believe that they will have enough power to stay ahead of Williams. They are slowly getting better so they are worth watching. I predict that they will be competing with the Williams cars in the next four races but it will take some time before they will be able to push for the lead. Jordan, Sauber and BAR may be in the points but have a snowball’s chance in hell of competing in the lead of the race. Jordan seems to be low on power (as good as Fisichella is, his win in Brazil was a fluke and that contributed all 10 of their points), Sauber are struggling with a year old Ferrari engine which, by now, will be down on power too and BAR are powered by Honda. Enough said! Jaguar seem to be fast enough to get involved in the struggle between Renault and Williams but are unreliable. I have always believed that a fast car will get reliable sooner than a slow car will get faster but with Jaguar I am not too sure. They seem to make a mess of everything they do so why would they suddenly get sensible? I have always maintained that one cannot build a race team in months, it takes years and we also have to consider that Toyota, like Ferrari, build the entire car themselves. Ferrari have years of experience, going back almost as long as F1, and Toyota has a lot to learn. On the other hand I feel that Toyota seem to make almost no progress. Sure, they are faster than Minardi, but my old Mum on a bicycle will probably be faster than Minardi who are plodding along on bargain basement two year old Cosworth motors. I will not be surprised to see both these teams disappear in the next twelve months. Toyota, because the benefit that the marque must be getting compared to cost must be ridiculous and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Minardi, because in any venture when you save money at the detriment of the business you enter a downwards spiral that keeps on accelerating until it is impossible to stop. Minardi is in deep trouble in my opinion. I hope that we will see some overtaking in Spain, but I am not holding my breath. I fear that it is going to be a repetition of San Marino: the only excitement relegated to the pit teams. Agree or disagree ? Previous Heretic Issues Loading
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