The 2011 Formula One Season

Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa's pictures from GPUpdate.net

Sauber has this slogan on their cars for the entire weekend in support of the events in Japan.

Also it's Coulthard's 40th Birthday on Sunday



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2011 08:52PM by alexf1man.

Massa openly said yesterday on the Brazilian press that the F-150 is definitely slower than the RB7 and if they wanna win something, they will have to make the car much faster.

^We all know that anyway lol.

[www.autosport.com]

some might find it irrelevant, but i think this is great news!, not for the rivals though

Storms in Melbourne! :D

Wow, what a start to practice this is gonna be, I am so excited!


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Made a load of Firefox Personas for each team earlier, link below if you're interested
[www.getpersonas.com]

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Brawn will be gone by next year thats the 1st stage of him going, if the team dont do well this year that is.

India's Circuit is apparently 5.141 km = 3.194 miles which is the SAME as the 2009 Silverstone layout!

So how do we think the season is developing so far? I think it could be another very close one, despite Vettel's great start. I don't think RedBull have the same advantage they did last year, as Webber's form has shown. And I think McLaren, Ferrari and even Renault will be closing the gap on them as the season goes on.
I get the feeling this will be another awesome season.

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Australia was good, Malaysia was so-so but China was pretty awesome.

I think the RBR does have the car addvantage, and more so from last year, but I think the tyres are not allowing them to show it, and strategy is allowing the other teams to come into it (ie, Nico leading at China by 10+ seconds!). To me, thats brilliant because I believe this will allow, not only Mclaren and Ferrari to win, but Renault and Mercedes if they can nail the strategy.

It's shaping up to be an interesting season more than anything imo.

My personal hopes are that JB can maintain his gap to Lewis, Massa recovers from last seasons awful showing, and Webber gives Vettel one more last run!

Webbers China performance will probably have bugged Vettel more than anyone imo. He would not have known anything about Webber's race till he was behind him!

Lotus look to have gained the time they promised, their downfall has been the other teams have improved a great deal too!!

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

The good news is that Red Bull have started with KERS in two races, and finished without it in four out of four finishes, which gives a bit of hope that either they'll a) stop using it and give us a race as they lose places off the line, or b) carry it and it sometimes fails, making races a bit closer than they otherwise might be.

Still, I don't care. In the past few years we've had excellent championship battles to keep us keen. The races themselves have almost invariably been average or poor. Now if we get excellent, exciting races on 12 out of the 19 or 20 weekends, which we have had even on the two Tilke tracks we've had, then even if that means sacrificing a championship which is decided on the last weekend, I'll still grab that with both hands.

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EC83
I don't think RedBull have the same advantage they did last year, as Webber's form has shown.

I'd argue that Red Bull have a further advantage compared to last year as evidenced by Webber's form in China.

Webber was the only one of the two Red Bulls to do a similar strategy to the McLarens. He came from 18 seconds back after a few laps (and presumably futher before he pitted - I was just going off what Brundle said), and overtaking some 15 cars (in the pits or on track), only finishing 7 seconds off the leader by the end. While carrying KERS which wasn't working for most of the race.

On that evidence, had Vettel followed the same strategy, he'd have been way off in the distance.

Vettel was already ahead in Sepang and Melbourne... he did look under a little pressure in Melbourne before the first pit stop, but other than that, he looked like he had everything under control. We had some hope in Sepang when the pack was slowly closing him down, but clearly that was unfounded come the end.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2011 11:23AM by gav.

I'm not sure about that. Massa was catching Vettel in China over 5/10 laps or so, so I think that Red Bull's advantage on options is not massive.

With Mercedes and Ferrari improving, there are potentially 5 teams that can fight for podiums, which is a great sign for the rest of the year!

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X (@ed24f1)

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SchueyFan
I'm not sure about that. Massa was catching Vettel in China over 5/10 laps or so, so I think that Red Bull's advantage on options is not massive.

Well given Webber's pace without KERS, I'd say they're plenty fast enough. It's hard to judge the pace of the leader when he has a gap. If he's protecting his tyres (as Vettel would have been in both Sepang and Shanghai), then he'll only go as fast as he needs to to minimise wear. If he'd needed to stretch the gap, I'm sure he had the pace in hand to do so.

Like I said, without KERS they were even slower than they should have been. Assuming KERS gives the apparent three tenths everyone says, and the fact that they're lugging around a KERS unit they can't use, which let's say costs them a tenth per lap due to the imperfect weight distribution (clearly it's less than the three tenths), then that's four tenths off their ultimate pace. If Webber, four tenths off the ultimate pace of that car and still making huge strides through the field, isn't testomony to the pace that team has in hand, then I'm not sure what is.

gav Wrote:
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> Well given Webber's pace without KERS, I'd say
> they're plenty fast enough. It's hard to judge the
> pace of the leader when he has a gap. If he's
> protecting his tyres (as Vettel would have been in
> both Sepang and Shanghai), then he'll only go as
> fast as he needs to to minimise wear. If he'd
> needed to stretch the gap, I'm sure he had the
> pace in hand to do so.

In Melbourne and Sepang, I understand the conservation argument, but there was almost no way Vettel would not be pushing hard in this situation, as it had become clear that Hamilton and others were on a 3-stop strategy, so Vettel needed to push for his strategy to work.

I suppose we'll get a true picture once we get to Barcelona in a month or so, as Red Bull will likely have fixed their KERS by then, and we'll get to more accurately see the year-on-year gap to the rest of the field.

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X (@ed24f1)

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SchueyFan
[..]but there was almost no way Vettel would not be pushing hard in this situation, as it had become clear that Hamilton and others were on a 3-stop strategy, so Vettel needed to push for his strategy to work.

He wouldn't have been pushing hard, and while he wouldn't be taking it easy, he'd have been doing all he could to not to spin up the wheels, lock them up, use too much lock, etc. His marker was Massa. So long as he could manage the gap to Massa and still have some rubber to defend from the others at the end, then he'd have made his strategy work. As it turned out, Massa fell apart in the last few laps, while Vettel only lost out to Hamilton. I'd argue that was decent damage limitation after they'd committed to the two stop strategy - I was expecting Rosberg and the two McLarens to haul him in.

I'm not about to suggest that Red Bull's (well Vettel's) stunning qualifying pace is fully representative of their general pace, but there's no way Vettel was much if any slower than Webber in that race. Unless he had another issue which hasn't been reported, then strategy aside, the Red Bull is still way out in front.

What are your views on this article ....?
Personally I am in agreement.

[www.gpupdate.net]


" Perfection is not a gift ....... it comes with practice."

Member of R.S.C.T Group

I agree with the majority. We will have a big accident as a result of DRS - everytime someone is about to pull out from beneath a rear wing I'm cringing. Someome will misjudge the huge speed difference, and while they can always misjudge a slipstream (see Sepang), the difference DRS makes is scary and surely greatly heightens the chance of contact.

More to the point, we don't need it. The tyres are giving us more than enough racing without needing DRS and KERS (though at least everyone has the option of KERS whenever they want). If we were still with Bridgestone, then DRS wouldn't be so bad... but Pirelli have awoken the sport single-handedly.

The only area DRS is working is in keeping the driver behind closer around a lap. If we do keep it, then the way it worked at Melbourne should be the way it works everywhere.

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Olivier Panis
Seriously, if you want to have some overtaking like in China, you need to do it with the circuit; if you put a hairpin before a long straight, for sure you will have overtaking.

Sorry, but if ever there is a clear indication of how wrong that statement alone is, then Abu Dhabi 2010 was it. I agree from a technical standpoint that hairpin leading onto long straight leading into hairpin is ideal, but it's not that simple. The problem with a slow corner is how much sooner a driver ahead can get on the power, and how they can carry that extra speed all the way down the straight. The higher the speed, the less time between drivers being able to get onto the throttle. What we need are the wingless cars of the future, as hairpins have only ever served as a place to overtake into, not from.

What we need are challenging corners, be they high speed or low speed. Look at how much overtaking we've always had at Spa and Suzuka. The entry to the new section at Silverstone produced some excellent overtaking opportunities last year (though they've unfortunately removed the bump now, so it'll be far easier this year). What we don't need are billiard smooth shiny tracks. We need street circuits and road circuits, or at least motivation plucked from them. We don't want overtaking just because Tilke wanted a long straight so drivers can press a plethora of buttons and shoot past with minimal effort - there's no excitement or challenge in that.

picked up on a line here, anyone have any more on this!?

[www.f1sa.com]

'Team Lotus are preparing for an announcement concerning the future of the team at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, UK on the 27th of April 2011 at 10h30'


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

*shrug*

[www.autosport.com]

I agree, just the race drivers should not take part.

Only test, and young drivers, and extend it to 10 days / year.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL