2008 Formula 1 Season Thread

I'm buying two tickets (some lucky bugger is gonna get a free ticket) next year if it gets back on the calendar. Must... Support... the RACE!
 
^^I'll come to the race with you if you pay for the plane ticket to Canada as well...:p
 
Good news, I really hope it does get reinstated and for the long term.

A Canadian GP Final Gear group meet anyone? :p
 
Devon said:
A Canadian GP Final Gear group meet anyone? :p
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If we could find a sponsor who would pay for the plane tickets and such... :p
 
Joc? said:
If we could find a sponsor who would pay for the plane tickets and such... :p
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I'm sure we wouldn't have a problem finding a sponsor :p

In other news...


Cost-cutting plans emerge after talks

Wednesday, 22 October 2008 11:31

Further details of the cost-cutting plans agreed at the meeting between the FIA and the Formula One Teams? Association have emerged, with money spent on engines one of the key initial areas for reduction.

The governing body and FOTA met for crunch talks in Geneva on Tuesday, with a brief joint statement issued following the discussions announcing that ?significant? cost cuts had been agreed for 2009 and 2010 while teams would urgently work on further proposals for 2010 onwards.

And while none of the agreements have yet been officially made public, autosport.com reports that four key points were agreed at the meeting.

Firstly it reports that engines will now be required to run for one more grand prix weekend than is currently the case, with the units now set to complete three rather than two races.

Customer engines will also have to be made available to independent teams at a capped price of 10 million euros for 25 units.

In addition, a further meeting of the FOTA representatives, which comprises all 10 Formula 1 teams, will be held in Brazil next week to discuss new testing mileage limits for 2009 and to reach an agreement in principle on introducing standard Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems for 2010 or 2011.

A further meeting between the FIA and FOTA will then be held after the end of the season to discuss how to reduce chassis costs and the continued use of customer cars.

Tuesday?s meeting between FIA president Max Mosley and FOTA chairman Luca di Montezemolo (Ferrari) and vice chairman John Howett (Toyota) had been called to discuss how ?urgent? cost-cutting measures in F1 could be implemented in wake of the global financial crisis.

A spokesman for the governing body told itv.com/f1 that he could not comment on the details of the meeting, but did say the discussions had been ?very positive?.

"It was a very constructive meeting," he added.

"We welcomed the teams' proposals and we look forward to taking the discussion forward."
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Source

Sounds reasonable.
 
Max Mosley via itv-f1.com said:
KERS won't be standardised

Tuesday, 21 October 2008 12:01

Max Mosley has said that Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) will not be an area under consideration for standardisation amid the FIA?s drive to cut Formula 1 costs.

The governing body is meeting with the Formula One Teams? Association (FOTA) in Geneva on Tuesday to discuss how cost-cutting measures can be introduced for 2010, with the FIA already revealing that an increase in standard parts ? including engines ? is one of its main proposals.

But one area Mosley is not keen to see come from a single supplier are energy-saving KERS systems, permitted in the sport from 2009 and a challenge which many teams have admitted has posed a big engineering test.
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Devon said:
In addition, a further meeting of the FOTA representatives, which comprises all 10 Formula 1 teams, will be held in Brazil next week to discuss new testing mileage limits for 2009 and to reach an agreement in principle on introducing standard Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems for 2010 or 2011.

Source
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I see chicanery ahead. Call me a cynical old bastard if you like, but I'd be willing to put on a huge bet that Ferrari know they won't have a properly working KERS for 2009, and its introduction will be delayed for a year. Then, in 2010, every team uses the same KERS developed either by Honda (which would have seen them rocket up the grid), Toyota (which would see them win a race or two) or BMW (which would win them the World Championship). Either way, any advantage any of these teams may have had will be swept under the carpet.
 
^^ Yeah, it all sounds very reasonable. Personally I'd like to see them put a very restrictive cap on the testing & then either run sessions at the race circuit on the Thursday of grand prix weekends, or the Monday after, and have those sessions be a 'free-for-all' with no restrictions on what they can test, how many laps they can run, and free to use whatever engines they wish (i.e. the 'race-weekend' motors etc are removed from the cars before being put back in on the Friday).
 
I dont understand where the energy from braking goes, does it mean the car doesnt need an alternator? The weight saving makes them go faster?
 
MattD1zzl3 said:
I dont understand where the energy from braking goes, does it mean the car doesnt need an alternator? The weight saving makes them go faster?
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It is stored either by a large flywheel or batteries. They can then use this stored energy as a power "boost" on each lap.
 
Is the boost going to be implemented in some sort of "push for powerrrrr" button like in A1GP? If so I'm not a fan. It seems a bit arcadey for me!
 
Peter3hg said:
It is stored either by a large flywheel or batteries. They can then use this stored energy as a power "boost" on each lap.
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How does a flywheel score elecrical energy, and how does a battery drive a cars motion forward other than using a smaller and lighter alternator, which is offset by a presumably bigger battery?
 
MattD1zzl3 said:
How does a flywheel score elecrical energy, and how does a battery drive a cars motion forward other than using a smaller and lighter alternator, which is offset by a presumably bigger battery?
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Well obviously the flywheel isn't storing electrical energy, it is just storing kinetic energy.
I admit I'm not 100% sure how they are using batteries, I guess some kind of electric motor.
 
Somewhere between the engine and the gearbox (if I'm not mistake) there will be an electromotor. When the car is driving around, the electromotor does nothing (presumably not connected to the drive-train as well). When the car brakes, the electromotor is plugged into the drivetrain and when motion is applied to an electromotor it basically works like an alternator and as such loads up the batteries. The added resistance caused by the electromotor helps slow the car down.
When the pilots want they can press a button on the steering wheel which allows the electromotor to be plugged into the drivetrain again and use the charge in the batteries to gain a few HP, provided by the electromotor, during a limited amount of time.

In a flywheel system, there is no electromotor, nor battery. The kinetic energy of the drivetrain (under braking) is stored by a flywheel, which spins very fast and as such can store an immense amount of kinetic energy, which just as in the electromotor-system be used to momentarily boost the performance of the car.
More information on KERS and flywheels:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KERS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage

Also, if I'm not wrong weight isn't a big issue with KERS. The whole system should weigh in at around 30-40kg's or so. And most F1 cars need to be weighted extra in order to reach the 600kg minimum required by the FIA. What is a problem is the change and thus limitation of weight distribution. This system means that the engineers can't choose where to put those extra 30kgs which could mess with a car's balance.
 
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Thanks for the description. I've read a few articles online about KERS but none really actually explain how it works so its nice to read that and get a better understanding of the system and how the teams are having such troubles with their respective systems.
 
What I heard was that Williams was using a trick flywheel system, whereas the other teams were using a more "conventional" electronic system of sorts. I read about it in F1racing a few months ago, I don't remember which one...
 
Ok after reading Ted Kravitz's pit lane report it made a question mark appear above my head.

The Finn doesn't like the fin:
We all know that Kimi's performance has been less than impressive in the second half of the season mainly because he has been qualifying very poorly. I said in one of my post race essays that maybe the car just suited Massa more than Kimi, and now Ted has given me an idea. At China we saw for the first time Massa run with the shark fin engine cover while Kimi ran without. This made me think, was this the problem? Hard to say.....as Kimi's poor run of qualifying started at Hockenheim when he qualified 6th while the engine cover didn't come in until Hungary. Kimi also qualified quite well at Fuji although perhaps that was more because of Massa's poor lap than his great one. However seeing he had pole at Magny Cours yet from then on was struggling to reach the second row it would be a good bet that the Ferrari engine cover did not suit Raikonnen at all.

Why do I think it would make a difference? especially when almost every team runs the fin now. Kimi and Massa have polar opposite driving styles. Watch any onboard of Massa and he has armfuls of understeer in pretty much every corner. He likes to have the front end as the weak link, Alonso is very much the same, particularly in his Renault days. Kimi is the opposite, he turns the car as much with the brakes as the steering wheel. Gently sliding the rear to ease the strain on the front tyres. He is not as overt as Hamilton, much closer to Michael Schumacher.

The aim of these engine fins is to provide greater rear end stability. I think that this rear end stability is robbing Kimi of the chance to slide the car as much, which probably means he can't get proper temp into his tyres explaining partly his poor quali performances. After 5 or 6 laps Kimi has tended to come right back on the pace but it is taking him that long to get the tyres working right. Massa on the other hand revels in this new stability, He knows 100% that the rear end will stick meaning he can throw the car in at as high a speed as the front tyres will allow.

This is probably 1% conclusive and could all be complete bullshit, but it will be interesting to see if Kimi runs the engine fin in Interlagos. I bet Massa does, but it will be interesting to see their respective performance. Also highlights the difficulty in having two drivers with completely different driving styles. It must drive engineers and mechanics absolutely mad. Also means that perhaps the Alonso-Hamilton partnership would never work given their opposite driving styles.
 
The thing about Kimi is that the Finns' driving style seems to be quite reliant on oversteery behaviour from the cars. For example, that's why Keke Rosberg had major trouble in 1986 in the McLaren, since Alain Prost was used to a more understeery set-up, and so had been Niki Lauda, and the understeery McLaren MP4/2 didn't suit him, with the possible exception of two GPs where he was as fast as anyone else in the field, and another one where his pace was imperious until his tire delaminated.
 
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