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The Official 2012 F1 Thread...

Merc is not fast as he seems in quali. Mc laren did this winter great job.Vettel looked also happy with today's race.Alonso again confirmed that he is top driver.

Williams and Sauber did good race to,little disappointment Lotus today.
Interesting start of season.
 
Hamilton's race didn't go so well. He hardly answered or were asked any questions during the in-camera portion of the post-race interview. The following came from the latter portions after cameras were turned off.

Q: Lewis, what happened at the start, because it was almost as though when you changed into second or third gear the car seemed to hesitate or bog down?
LH: I’m not really sure what happened but I lost at least too many positions.

Q: And during that first round of pit stops you seemed to lose around five or six seconds? I didn’t see how you lost it.
LH: Me neither.

Q: How about the tyres?
LH: I had some degradation on my first set although probably similar to others.

Q: And how hard was Webber pushing at the end?
LH: Yeah, he was very quick. I damaged my tyres behind Sebastian, then I decided to drop back a little bit so I had some clear air but Mark was definitely putting pressure on.

Q: And with DRS and KERS you were unable to get past Sebastian.
LH: Yeah, they were very quick down the straight, so there was no chance of getting past.​

Conspiracy theories anyone? This saddens me.
 
After quali, I honestly thought:

1. Lewis was back.
2. Jenson is still on his game.
3. RBR would be fighting to just get on the podium.
4. Mercedes & Lotus would be battling each other, along with McLaren for podiums.

After today:

Jenson is on his game and has HUGE amounts of confidence. He pulled a page from Vettel's book and gapped the guys when he needed to...

Lewis will rebound but he needs to get his father back. I hate seeing him be a cry baby because it allows the Button haters to say Lewis wasn't at his best & detract from button's performance.

I thought Mercedes was gonna kill it too but Rosberg sucked and Schumi got overzealous & ruined his race.

I expected a little more from Kimi & Grosean's day was ruined. He'll definitely give Kimi a fight for his money. Oh and neither of the guys @ STR impressed me. I honestly think Buemi & Jaime would have done better today.
 
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Big thumbs up to McLaren... but Mercedes is gonna be tough.
 
Great start to the season! Kinda disappointed Rosberg ran into Perez on the last lap and he had to drop 2 places, but still managed to finish in the points. Impressed with Sauber. That Williams sure seems strong too. Ferrari, back to the drawing board?
 
Hello!!!!' Alonzo best drive? Whatever!!! He he he ;)
Sergio Perez 22nd to 8th on a one stopper . Get massa out of that seat and let 'Checo drive that car already, don't know why it hasn't happened is inevitable .
Massa just can't drive anymore .

-MSR
 
Just got back home from the airport.

I can report the McLarens seem the most settled in the corners, with the RB8 not far behind, certainly a lot closer than Q3 suggested. Hamilton went out early and put down a good lap, and Button left his "hot" lap a little late. With Q3 run so late in the afternoon [dusk] the lengthening shadows and cooling breeze meant the track surface was loosing temperature by the minute! The few minutes between the first and second runs did make a difference in track performance I believe.

Webber was committed to just 1 run and went early - without KERS AGAIN!!! How can it happen to him so consistantly?? Vettel said he made a mistake on his main run which cost him a couple of tenths - so it was closer than it looked.

Alonso did drive well in the race, but his mistake in Q2 was, erm, amaturish? Putting the outside rear wheel on the grass at turn in? He has been watching Massa too closely [he did his loop in practice] :biggrin:

As for the starts, is it any wonder the Red Bull cars suffer at the starts?? On Saturday I was sitting opposite the Pit exit, and every one of the teams did at least a couple of practice starts on exit - except for the 2 Red Bull cars? What gives there??

As for Ricciardo and Vergne, they actually did very well. Daniel was swamped at the start, bashed from pillar to post going down into the first corner and had a coming together with Senna's Williams. He was very lucky to be able to continue after fitting a new nose cone, and the damage to the car meant it was pulling left apparently. But in that first stint on hard tyres he came out of the pits some 20 seconds in front of Button, and for the next 15 odd laps managed to hold the gap back to Button to no less than 17 seconds which is enocuraging. Vergne was unlucky to be punted off at the first corner and faught back hard for the remainder of the race.

Hamilton was unlucky to concede second to Vettel in the round of pitstops under the Safety Car. No way would Vettel have got passed him on the track, and same goes for Webber on Alonso. But the Ferrari still has a LONG way to go to be competitive. Webber actually put in a strong drive, being patient behind cars he couldn't pass but flying when he got some clear air.

As always passing is still problematic at Melbourne, even with the 2 DRS zones they used this year.

Finally I was really surprised to see so many cars so close in practice, although the gap to the McLarens in Q3 was large! But Sepang is a differnet ball game and I can't wait!
 
Im not sure if Im the only.... only one pulling for Kobayashi... but I did last season and it's just fun to root for a huge underdog.... pulled out 6th for the first race this year so I was excited. I hope he gets something this season!:biggrin:

None the less good to see JB and LH win/place and RB not on top to start.... yes I'mma Vettel hater, but I like Webber:biggrin:
 
Im not sure if Im the only.... only one pulling for Kobayashi... but I did last season and it's just fun to root for a huge underdog.... pulled out 6th for the first race this year so I was excited. I hope he gets something this season!:biggrin:

None the less good to see JB and LH win/place and RB not on top to start.... yes I'mma Vettel hater, but I like Webber:biggrin:

I root for both Sauber drivers but I favor Checo over Kamui. Perez was on his way to a solid 6th place finish before Rosberg bumped into him on the last lap. Kobayashi then moved up to 6th, Kimi up to 7th, and Perez managed to limp home 8th. I dislike Vettel and Hamilton, but I like Webber too. Happy Jenson took the win of course!
 
Hello!!!!' Alonzo best drive? Whatever!!! He he he ;)
Sergio Perez 22nd to 8th on a one stopper . Get massa out of that seat and let 'Checo drive that car already, don't know why it hasn't happened is inevitable .
Massa just can't drive anymore .

-MSR

I did say best drive with a dump truck of a car. At this point I fear the Sauber is better than the Ferrari.
 
I did say best drive with a dump truck of a car. At this point I fear the Sauber is better than the Ferrari.

It's hard to say really. The problem is Massa, as Alonso manages to get the car up there.

While I have nothing against Massa, and he comes across as quite a decent chap, I'm afraid that since that accident with Barrichello's spring he has not been the same driver. For me he makes to many unforced errors on top of errors in general, and truth be known I cannot understand how he kept his drive this year.

That may seem ruthless but we are talking F1. :frown:
 
It's hard to say really. The problem is Massa, as Alonso manages to get the car up there.

While I have nothing against Massa, and he comes across as quite a decent chap, I'm afraid that since that accident with Barrichello's spring he has not been the same driver. For me he makes to many unforced errors on top of errors in general, and truth be known I cannot understand how he kept his drive this year.

That may seem ruthless but we are talking F1. :frown:

Nevermind F1 , we're taking Ferrari !! If they give MSC the booth for Raikkonen I don't see why MAS hasn't .

Hopefully he can put a couple races together .
 
1. Hamilton
2. Schumi
3. Button
4. Kimi
5. Vettel
6. Alonso
 
Anyone care to explain how anything on the rear wing can affect airflow on the front wing? That seems totally impossible, unless you run an air duct through the length of the car and let air out through that hole which opens up when DRS is engaged.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98217
Lotus and Red Bull have openly questioned whether the device - which features a hole on the Mercedes W03's rear wing end plate uncovered by the movement of the DRS wing and directed air to the front wing to stall it for a straight line speed boost - is within the regulations.

An impressively detailed answer is here:

http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/mercedes-f-duct-front-wing-operated-by-the-rear-wing-drs/

f_duct_wing.jpg


Here is their explanation:
Evidence of the duct can be seen on the car, when the car is not moving. Clearly the W03 rear wing endplate is quite thick, an access panel that houses the DRS actuator is outboard of the flap\endplate intersection, plus there is another panel in line with the beams wings intersection with the endplate. I’d suggest the duct is opened by the flap and hinge plate, the duct then routes through the double skinned endplate down into the beam wing. This then exits through the duct that mounts the beam wing to the gearbox. There’s a tortuous route for the duct through the car to reach the front wing, but this isn’t that dissimilar to the 2010 F-Duct routing. As with McLaren in 2010, the trick is to design the duct into the car at an early stage to minimise losses through the ductwork. This usefully makes it harder, but not impossible to copy. To copy this set up the monocoque needs to be altered and the nose cone needs the apertures into the front wing mounting pylons to feed the airflow into the front wing itself. This requires time to redesign and potentially re-crash test any changes.
 
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Yes, look at MSC protecting it here:
BTW, Scarbs is the it in all F1 technical.
<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/c5gjPrb43LA" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="420"></iframe>
 
It also proves a basic fact of physics: air can travel in a closed tube in the opposite direction that the tube itself is traveling. The U turn that the air is forced to make surely reduces its velocity.
 
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