Same thoughts hereshail69 wrote:arent honda using kers?
if not then they might be running the weight of kers lower than the legal limit..
When asked to Massa, he told reporters that he would never achieve that lap time of Rubens in a Ferrari. So, Brawn GP's this hig-key outing might be misleading. We'll have to wait and see. But still, they might have exploited being a non-KERS car by fine-tuning the weight distribution via more ballast. This might give Brawn GP lots of room to play with. Weight distribution is quite important in terms of rear tyre wear and grip given that front grip is guaranteed by slicks but rear grip is somwhat problematic as we can see at McLaren. So, Brawn GP might have found a sweetspot here or this was holy bulls**t effort just to find a sponsor. We'll see.Zack wrote:Same thoughts hereshail69 wrote:arent honda using kers?
if not then they might be running the weight of kers lower than the legal limit..
Team that failed to calibrate wind tunnel for two year ..suddenly bang on top!
lower-case david wrote:who knows … f1 nowadays, more than ever, it’s a tough racket and it wouldn’t take very much of an error to see a championship team get spat out the back, but those sort of mclaren laptime gaps, slower than a Force India and a Brawn that both only recently finished drilling different mount-holes for their Merc engines? really?
i don’t get the feeling its old-fashioned sand-bagging either … we could be looking at something brand new here. a methodical program to carefully connect the 09 car on the track back to the computer predictions, and ensure precise correlation. if so, then it’s not really about doing fast lap times, it’s about doing the same laptime that the computers said that you would.
there is no in-season testing this year, no 100% wind tunnel work, engines have to last even more weekends, after setup-work, spare practice mileage for testing, using unrubbered Friday tracks, will be tight … that’s game-changing stuff. the old methods no longer work. how do you make sure that you are in a proper position to aggressively and reliably develop the car all year long.
mclaren want their engineers, designers and drivers to be able to heavily lean-on software and simulations, much more than anyone has ever seen before (ron’s nirvana surely? all the engineering, none of the mess) … i think perhaps what we’ve seen from mclaren so far this winter is the long-game, it isn’t about melbourne, it’s about being ready for the nurburgring and for fuji. to confidently bolt on new “untested” parts and knock two tenths off when you need it.
if this is what they are trying, how successful have they been, we punters won’t know till mid-season, but i can’t help feel that getting distracted by the stopwatch might mean missing out on a much more interesting bigger picture.
here comes pedro, the SMS text-pest, what’s he got to say, “We are doing a lot of comparative work with different configurations. What has surprised us is that other teams are not doing the same”.
either way, that new floor was clearly designed months ago, it represents a very clear and distinct aero design philosophy. all the flick-ups, fences and steps, it’s not a hacksaw-job and it represents decisions taken way before any “winter testing crisis”.
haug was quoted a month or two ago talking off “a completely new interaction between floor and rear-wing”. i think we saw the first part of that new interaction yesterday.
today, mclaren bolted on some small sidepod winglets, important but not critical aero elements, and again, after a few laps, splattered them with flow-viz paint. more checking, more validation and more real-world feedback for the computer models.
sure, it is absolutely possible that they have produced a broken hopeless car that will on these times struggle to get out of Q1, or instead they could have shown us how all F1 cars will be tested in the future. that’s pretty much your two choices, place your bets.
By thinking that way they are only underestimating opponentswhy so serious wrote: By the way, a very different approach to McLaren's test performance from a commentor of James Allen's blog. I'd like to share it with you:
shail69 wrote:We are not competitive - McLaren
McLaren say they face a race against time to match the pace of their rivals ahead of the opening Grand Prix of the 2009 Formula One season on 29 March.
World champion Lewis Hamilton's car has performed poorly in pre-season testing.
Team boss Martin Whitmarsh said: "We are working hard to resolve a performance shortfall."
Norbert Haug, engine partner Mercedes' motorsport boss, added: "We are definitely not fast enough and not competitive enough to aim for wins."
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsp ... 941572.stm
Massa had some doubts too:FERRARI:
Ferrari-technician: “They are one second faster than us. It can’t be real.”
RENAULT :
Flavio: “When I arrived here I was still optimistic as far as our chances are concerned. Now I am not optimistic any more.”
WILLIAMS :
Sam Michael: “If they can repeat these laptimes in Melbourne which were set by Button on Wednesday morning during his long stint, Button and Barrichello will win the Australian Grand Prix by one lap advantage.”
Mercedes :
Norbert Haug: “The team have had more time for developing the 2009’s car than the others. It seems to pay off.”
Remember that the cars don't have to be legal during the tests, but they will be checked in Melbourne.http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=37217 wrote: At a time when it is being suggested that up to three teams are running 'illegal' diffusers, and it being common knowledge that Williams and Toyota are two of the outfits under suspicion, Massa offered his own thoughts.
"As far as the aerodynamic solutions are concerned I can only say that I'm not the one to comment on that. First of all I'm not an engineer, but a driver and then there's a Federation (FIA), which has the task to see if everything is alright or not."
You'd better read this:swca92 wrote:Hold on a second-Brawn win the race in Australia? Their testing times are impressive,but don't assume they'll be challenging for victories.Lets get to Australia and see their perfomance there,but their performance is astonishing and they'll be up there,but I'm not sure they'll win the race.
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http://allenonf1.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/get-your-money-on-brawn-for-melbourne-win/True.And don’t forget, Barcelona is a great yardstick for the season as it rewards aerodynamic efficiency and good tyre management, so if your car goes well there it’s going to go well at most places.