2009 car launches thread

It would have been cheaper not to do anything tbh the cars dont need anything, people could pass and with the new wings it should be easier to follow.

KERS was there to recover the waste as its been said, and they are allowed to have a boost of power from it.

Its a waste of money, time etc as most car builders have said they will never be able to use this system on a road car its just to different.

The whole thing is if one team has it they all need it as the team that has it and gets it working first will have an advantage.

I just dont like to see them messing with these settings while driving, and as for nursing te cars to the finish, now today it is easier with all these buttons onboard to drop revs and stuff like that. Where's driver skill in it? I thought racing was about driver skill not strategy?

You said drivers today have too much to cope with, and I said they had as much to cope with before. They will mess with it whilst driving. They did it with brake bias, traction control and engine mapping settings for years. They will manage it with these.

I am not discussing whether it is legal or illegal, neither assuming that teams are doing the rules. My aim was FIA for doing these rules. Its safer in my view because drivers dont need to adjust them in an overtaking manoeuver at 300 kph with other cars closer to them and its easier to police than driver-adjustable front wings.

Flexiwings aren't easier to police! The reason flexable bodywork was banned was because it was impossible to police. It got to the point where the entire grid was running illegal cars, but couldn't be punished because they appeared to be legal!

Adjustable wings will minimise the loss of downforce when following another car. It isn't perfect, but it does actually work...in theory.

Right, I accept your argument. But there are lot more buttons and stuff to mess behind a wheel of a F1 than in a CART/Champ Car wheel. Far more complicated.

They don't sit and constantly play with it you know. A lot of the buttons just aren't used in case of an unusual situation. You don't sit and play with the LCD readout. You set it to what you want, and then leave it alone until you need something else. 4 of the buttons for example are drink, brake bias +/- and radio. These aren't complex.

F1 drivers do have a lot to do, but now days they don't have a bunch of electronics to manage for every corner. They just need to use a boost button, and change the wings a couple of times. They have less to do now than they did in 2006. Arguably they have an easier job than say, a GT2 driver at Sebring, or a LMP1 driver at Road Atlanta. Now THAT is a difficult job, outside of the skill of driving the cars.

I didnt said that. I know FIA does the rules. I was pointing my finger to FIA and FOTA, they both agreed on cost cutting measures and they are going to put the same wasted amount of money & efforts (previously in aerodynamics) to develop a KERS system for 2009/2010. So, they arent saving any money at all!

You did NOT say that at all. No offense man, but read your own posts. You said the teams, and at no point mentioned the FIA.

Its quite hypocritical to see teams talking about cost cutting measures while wasting time and money in a device that will only produce a small boost for a very small time.

o_O lol... yet they havent shown any sign of problems with their KERS in testing?


I don't know how Williams testing of KERS has gone, I haven't really followed it much. But I do know that having the mechanical flywheel system is even less useful to road cars than the electrical system as you'll NEVER have a 64,000 RPM flywheel in a road car. The regular KERS system is useless as far as road car progression goes, but the mechanical system is redundant technology.

Well... surely it is cheaper than a KERS project.

When you fit a turbo to a car you don't just bolt it on then bugger off down to Silverstone for a run-around. You need to rebalance the engine, redo the entire cooling system (since you just added a VERY hot mass of metal to the engine), change the engine mapping etc to suit it, introduce the pop-off valve etc. It isn't a small operation, and it is one of the reasons IndyCar turned down the change to turbo engines, electing to stay with the natural aspirated units. Its just plain cheaper. It might be cheaper than KERS, I don't know, but it certainly isn't a cheap thing to do.

KERS will make a difference to passing. Probably not much at all, but it will make a difference. Arguably, if they had sorted the aerodynamics out in the first place we wouldn't need this ridiculously expensive PR system anyway. You don't need boost (either KERS or turbo) to produce good racing, you just need to manage the cars correctly, which the FIA have failed to do. And judging by the rear wing rules they have put in, they have probably cocked it up even further this year in some regards.

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well dave, since i am having my lunch atm and i am bored... i'll take your arguments as OK for me, as I ran out of arguments tbh and oh btw, no offence taken

BUT... about the 09 rear wing rules from an aesthetics point of view, the new rear wings are bloody ugly. First I thought i couldnt live with these front wings, now i realize that if the rear wings were wider as 08's ones, it wouldnt be so bad. The photoshopped cars with wider rear wings are nice and hey, McLarne tested at Algarve under wet conditions using the 08 spec rear wing. It looked so much nicer and apparently they used it because of the weather conditions.

Functionally, I can understand the reason for the new rear wings height, but whats the point for reducing its width?

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2009 04:31PM by Bruninho.

my fav picture:

That's quite nice indeed, not my fav this season, but nice.
However, if I would show my own favorite picture, this would instantly become an 18+ thread.

________________________________________

Some say... he's even smaller than 20kb.
And some say... he's so offensive he could get you into trouble...
The only thing we know is that he's called...

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Felipe Massa, World Champion 15:34:11pm- 15:34:21pm.

Shyt, Williams just ruined their car with that anvil wing...

Bruninho.... being able to correlate changing a car setting via a button on the steering whilst concentrating on keeping the car on the track at speeds of over 100mph and g-forces of up to 4G is really quite an impressive skill.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that a button on the steering wheel takes away the effort and skill of driving. It might be a different and sometimes more efficient way of controlling something, but it doesn't necessarily make driving easier.

Niki Lauda, a three time champion don't forget once said that a monkey could drive the new cars (during his Jaguar days). Well he drove one, and he made a complete monkey of himself.

I can see a ton of drag being generated by team running the rear wings with massively higher angles to help with stability

Maybe... but you're also forgetting that the slicks return a fair amount of mechanical grip.

I'm not forgetting that, that rear wing will take a lot of driving for the drivers to get used to it and until then they'll be running much higher settings :P

so does mclaren seem illegal to people? the driver is sitting too high i think to fall in line with safety regulations. maybe no offical people can see this.... so f1 forum readers need to send a reminder.
I would think if the driver cant see the road ahead, they have to redesign the car, not just sit them higher and put their life at risk... that is if its true what it looks like, but maybe i am not too correct on this.

Basically you're not too correct on this.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2009 07:36PM by J i m.

I posted on the last page that the williams drivers have the same amount of drivers head showing when the angels are the same.

It would have all been checked by officials and if the driver was to high or whatever they would not be allowed on track!

The only illegal car at the moment is the ferrari and BMW are cutting it close.

Distance driven so far this year (in km) :

1. Ferrari 1.678
2. BMW Sauber F1 Team 1.153
3. Scuderia Toro Rosso 1.131
4. Williams 948
5. McLaren-Mercedes 887
6. Toyota 690
7. Renault 596

marcl Wrote:
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> The only illegal car at the moment is the ferrari
> and BMW are cutting it close.

how are bmw cutting it close???

Wouldn't it be nice?

It looks a lot better without the fin.

It still looks horrible though

Change the nose and make it yellow or orange instead of white and you got a sweet car

It looks a lot less bad without that wing.

However, I think it would look even better without some other parts too:



________________________________________

Some say... he's even smaller than 20kb.
And some say... he's so offensive he could get you into trouble...
The only thing we know is that he's called...

THE SIG


Felipe Massa, World Champion 15:34:11pm- 15:34:21pm.

Renault not only got rid of the anvil wing, they also got a new nosecone. Anyone got pics from other angles of it?