Official 2010 F1 Pre-Season Thread

[vikiradTG2007]

Abu Dhabi is all wrapped up. The 2009 season is finally over. It's already time to look towards the new season...

Relatively few changes, only two technical ones are more significant: introduction of narrower front tires and the ban on refuelling. This also means that Q3 will no longer be run on race fuel, but it will be yet another all-out thrash on fumes.

Also, we can look forward to new teams joining the sport. How many, we don't know. Some might stumble on the starting blocks. Cosworth is certainly returning as an engine supplier after a 3-year hiatus which followed more than 20 years of continuous presence.

Silly season is not yet over, we also have young driver test days to look forward to before the end of the year. Let's see who impresses enough to get a seat.

And also, the Senna name is officially returning to F1.



Okay, the 2010 pre-season gossip, talk, chat and banter begins...


NOW.

[SchumacherM]

Ferrari F2010 (F61)..looking into 2010..

Since the rules don't change much ( at least on the stuff that us mortals see on the outside ) here is a preview of the 2010 Ferrari..



Article->http://ferrarif1forum.com/2009/10/29...0-f61-preview/

Copied here..just to have a discussion...

[vikiradTG2007]

RB-like chassis "horns"... looks like they're returning to the early 1990s with that look. Willams FW13, Leyton House CG901, I'm looking at you two.

[melbournian]

143 days til the Australian GP...I have grandstand seats for all four days and yes, I'm counting.

[Dan9-1]

This is going to be a long winter.....

[vikiradTG2007]

80 pages in the 2009 pre-season thread. We should keep this figure in mind and see whether we can beat it.

[ladora]

133 days (or 132, depending where you are now)!

[Sir Stiggington]

That's pretty intense. 0.6 pages per day guys....

I guess once the car launches happen we do lots of pages per day...

[be-ach]

I can't wait for the return of the Canadian GP next year Its going to be my first in person GP. It's pretty hard to get to see them out here in western Canada, a long trip to Montreal or Indi back in the day, so a couple years back I seetled on going when i was 18 for the 2009 race Oh well, next year will be brilliant.

I'm also excited to see 4 new teams on the grid, but I also think Sauber is going to be one of those teams. I don't know why but I don't have a great feeling about Lotus making it to the grid and to a lesser extent I'm not 100% on Manor or USF1's ability to make it to the starting line in Australia. Campos, on the other hand, seems to have their act together and they're my early prediction for the best of the new teams coming into next year. Anybody else have any thoughts on how the new teams seem to be coming along?

[Dan9-1]

Also as vikirad said it does just look like the F60 with RBR horns... doesn't look longer either.

Ross Brawn has apparently said the BGP002 will look similar to the RBR from this year (can't remember the number).... looks like we could have pretty much standard cars across t'grid

Anyone know what Torro Rosso are doing next season?

[SchumacherM]

http://www.defendonsfrancorchamps.be...corchamps.html

A bit offtopic: A petition to save SPA!

[Xeon SX]

Another technical change next year is raise on min car weight but what, 15kg was it?
What do we know about Cosworth engine right now? I heard theres no rpm restriction but how does it compare in terms of power and reliability? When was the last time someone run these?

[be-ach]

Originally Posted by Xeon SX

Another technical change next year is raise on min car weight but what, 15kg was it?
What do we know about Cosworth engine right now? I heard theres no rpm restriction but how does it compare in terms of power and reliability? When was the last time someone run these?

Is the 15KG for a bigger fuel tank?

[vikiradTG2007]

Originally Posted by Xeon SX

Another technical change next year is raise on min car weight but what, 15kg was it?
What do we know about Cosworth engine right now? I heard theres no rpm restriction but how does it compare in terms of power and reliability? When was the last time someone run these?

Last time a Cosworth engine ran in a F1 race was Interlagos 2006.

They'll also be limited to 18k rpm, but since they haven't run for the last 3 years, they're allowed to do a regulated amount of re-development to tune the engine to the current regulations. As for reliability, it's been good; the awful Williams season of 2006 was due to combinations of electrical and mechanical failures, and they were only once or twice related to the engine itself, a.k.a. catastrophic engine failures.

Originally Posted by be-ach

Is the 15KG for a bigger fuel tank?

No. It's to accomodate larger drivers (e.g. Webber and Kubica) with KERS, even though KERS won't be used by the teams next year via common agreement. So the dry weight of the cars, with driver inside, must be 620+ kg at all times.

[DaHitch]

Originally Posted by be-ach

Is the 15KG for a bigger fuel tank?

The increase in weight is actually to accomodate KERS, to negate the benificial effects to smaller/lighter drivers compared to heavier drivers (Kubica vs Heidfeld fi).
The weight of the fuel is never included in the weight of the car.

[vikiradTG2007]

The cars will probably weigh somewhere in the region of 760-780 kg next year at the start of races, actually. Depends on the fuel density and consumption.

[jedd_kenobi]

first on my thoughts for the 2010 season is that hopefully the whole Silverstone/Donnington/British GP mess gets all sorted out and quickly. Annoys me slightly that Abu Dhabi were able to put on a really good track and great GP, yet we're still trying to sort out a track.
Kamui Kobayashi, after his last 2 races someone needs to give him a team spot straight away. Coming in at 6th in his 2nd GP race is an impressive feat and i'd like to see him going into the 2010 season.
anything else really i'll probably have a beat on once things like team lineups and cars have been announced.

[narf]

Originally Posted by SchumacherM

I would imagine that yellow panel labeled A being bad for aerodynamics, but who am I to argue with the Scuderia?

[settler]

After big regulation changes now there shouldn't be so many surprises. I think Ferrari and McL will be back on the top, but RBR and Brawn will stay there, so I hope for all these teams fighting for constructors' championship.

The biggest change in 2010 will be new teams. I don't think any of them will be any good in their first year. And now another issue is Sauber. But in my opinion even if they make to the 2010 grid without BMW's money and late start of building a new car Sauber will not have decent pace.

I've never been at the F1 race yet but I hope next year I'll go to Monza, because there will be direct plane connection from my city to Milan. So I'm looking forward to it.

[ViperVX]

As far as i understand cars next year will have 30-40% bigger tanks, the rest pretty much the same. Considering that they upped the limit to 620 and agreed to drop Kers, cars should look more or less the same.

One thing i don't get, Ferrari decided to concentrate on 2010 car months ago. McLaren's Whitmarsh in an interview said they were using every Friday to try new parts, at the same time upgrading current car with them, Ferrari didn't have any significant upgrades since the froze the F60 development, so why two different approaches and where exactly are Ferrari testing new parts with ongoing testing ban?