Monaco 2009

I managed to watch some of the qualifying for Monaco, just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. And at the time, I commented that it was a measure of how bad the season had been up to that point that I was happy with Ferrari having the fastest time in Q2, and P2 in Q3.

Now that said the whole weekend was very kind to Ferrari when it counted. Both cars got into Q3, and Raikkonen managed to be less than three hundredths of a second slower than Button's Brawn. In the race both cars ran well and although were unable to make up places on the track, ran competitively and ended up "best of the rest" behind the Brawns.

And the result can be considered more or less legitimate, too. The only real absence during the race was Hamilton's McLaren after it was bounced into the barriers during Q1, effectively ending Hamilton's weekend right there.

Because Monaco is a strange event, I am not that concerned by Toyota's miserable showing. Monaco shows who can drive and who is flattered by horsepower. Which is fine, because next time out we can be flattered by horsepower again. I firmly believe that both Red Bull and Toyota will be back at the sharp end when we go to Turkey.

The event does highlight the stranglehold that Brawn has on the 2009 season. The car just seems to work well everywhere. And while I think Button may be more Jacques Villineuve than Micheal Schumacher, he definitely knows how to get the best from the car in more circumstances than his team mate does.

Max Mosley: Idiot, or genius?

Idiot.

OK, I should probably qualify that somewhat.

One of Mosley's saws that he keeps going back to is that despite the teams and manufacturers enthusiasm for Formula one, not a single one has signed a legally binding contract to remain in the sport for any given period of time.

Now seriously: why would an organization commit to participating in a sport that requires the outlay of millions (either tens or hundreds, doesn't matter at this point), if the rules for participating in that sport are going to get changed at the drop of a hat? If someone had given Mosley a five-year commitment two years ago, they'd be feeling more than a little taken at this point. Radical rules changes for 2009, and even more radical changes for 2010.

This whole showdown with the teams has a predictable next-stage to it. The major teams won't file entry papers. Some half- (or, lets be generous, three-quarters-) baked teams will step in to replace them. Mosley is threatening to stand for re-election this year; this potential ruination of the Formula 1 championship is going to be more than adequate grounds for the delegates to dismiss him. Mosley is (despite my insistence at the top of this post) no idiot, he has to see that what is going to happen is that he is going to have to blink and step aside. Someone else will sweep in and broker a compromise that will let the teams continue to participate while maintaining the FIA's authority; I'm going to predict that the replacement teams who try to participate under the 'cap' rules are going to be tossed aside in favor of the establishment's interests. I'll also predict at least one major team (my money is on Toyota) will use the chaos as an excuse to withdraw.

Mosley and Ecclestone always seem to be three moves ahead of anybody else when it comes to these political games. So you have to know that they have the next two moves figured out.

But what is the next move? What is Mosley's ultimate goal here? Where is the endgame? I don't see it.

2010, Part Two

A couple more changes for cap teams, which I read about on F1Technical.net:

• more power from the engine
• a greater range for movable aerodynamics
• double KERS potential
• four wheel drive
• no limits on testing
• full-scale windtunnel testing

Of these, the most interesting is the four wheel drive. From the linked article above:

For [budget cap] teams, article 9.1 of the technical regulations that states "No transmission system may permit more than two wheels to be driven." has been scrapped from the rulebook.

This means two things: first, that the KERS can now be charged from the brakes on the front of the car, and second, that KERS can probably drive the front wheels by feeding the KERS charge back through the generators.

Of course there a whole whack of difficult problems to solve, not least of which is that the driver will have to contend with front drive that comes and goes. But on the other hand, a car that can feed KERS energy back through the front wheels would potentially have an incredible advantage in the wet...

Rules Changes for 2010

The 2010 Sporting Regulations (with differences from 2009 highlighted) makes for some interesting (if dry) reading. It represents the FIA's current vision of F1 racing in 2010, as a gateway to further development in the future.

Given the FIA's previous history with making changes to their proposed changes (everyone got that straight?) we cannot assume that this is the final word; in any case, I have some thoughts on the lowhighlights of the changes.

Cap or no cap?

I have to admit that my initial thought about this was oh no please not another sport that you need a capology expert in order to follow in detail. The NHL's salary cap rules are pretty thick reading, and navigating those regulations to maximize the value out of every penny spent in player compensation requires attention to tedious detail. Such details may make opportunity for plenty of column issues -- but the fan in the arena doesn't really care. Besides, the issue with hockey is that the owners spend themselves into a hole and then punish the players in an attempt to get themselves back under control... after which point they go berzerk again.

The FIA brings a whole new kind of crazy to the idea of a spending cap. There is going to be a cap of something like US$45 million per year -- well, except for marketing and promotion and driver compensation and...

Not only is there a cap, but it is optional, and depending on whether you opt in or out, there are going to be different rules governing what you can do with your money. If you spend lots of money, you will be restricted in some ways; if you go with the cap, you will have more opportunities, but less money to pursue them.

Naturally, the chronically underfunded independents love this idea, while the well-heeled factory efforts don't. Someone suggested that Toyota would have to cut 90% of their spending to fit under a cap. While the board of directors might like this idea, I'm not sure the rest of the organization (those who would be left after the inevitable downsizing, that is) would be so on board with it.

This has all the ingredients of a farce in the making, especially when you add the FIA's punishment (to be decided based on... well, whatever the FIA bases decisions on) and promise to "tune" the areas of technical freedom to keep the cap and non-cap teams more or less at parity.

I have long said that the problem with F1's budgets isn't that Toyota spends US$400 million a year, it is that Toyota has $400 million a year to spend. Telling Toyota that they are now only permitted to spend $45 million is not going to really fix anything.

No refueling

I was never really a fan of race refueling; it seemed to be an artificial way of adding a hidden complexity to something that should really be straight forward. I was never really opposed to it either, except that some of the fires that happened put the drivers and mechanics at risk. While playing with high-tech motorcars is never going to be a totally safe enterprise, refueling made it dangerous for no really good reason.

There are several interesting side-effects of this. First, the cars will now require larger fuel tanks so that they can go a race distance. This will require some changes to the way that things are laid out in the car's midsection, which may themselves be interesting to look at.

The second is that cars will no longer be required to qualify on "race fuel". We will once again be treated to cars being driven at the absolute limit -- fresh tires, low fuel, and no more droning around for the first half of Q3 to burn off fuel. (I still want to return to single lap qualifying, but I'm pretty much the only one who wants that.)

Another will be that the tires will have to be engineered to deal with a car which is much heavier at the start of the race than it is at the end; if the FIA persists with the "option tire" silliness then the weight difference may dictate what tires get used when.

Finally, it means that pit stops will be short again. I doubt that we will get back to the sub-4 second zone that McLaren and Benetton accomplished, but it should be a bit more interesting. The only problem with this is that limits on the number of tires available to a driver will reduce the opportunity for the teams to demonstrate their skill.

15 kg Heavier Cars

This is an attempt to reduce the penalty that taller, heavier drivers have when it comes to sorting their ballast. Right now Kubica runs without KERS because he would rather have a balanced car than one with KERS.

I'm not really sure how this will make much of a difference; lighter drivers will always have more ballast to play with.

No tyre warmers (again)

The GPDA screamed bloody murder about the proposal when it was made for 2009; I'd expect more of the same for the 2010 proposal. Their arguments were a bit silly last time around, but really they have no choice but to repeat them, or they would look silly themselves.

KERS may not be used above 300kph (186mph)

Now I think the intention here is to make KERS a tool for starts and for exiting corners; not for use when going down the main straight, reducing the potential top speed that the cars can achieve. Which is confusing, since it will eliminate one of the prime uses for KERS, which is to get a run at the guy in front of you so you can get into the next corner before he can.

Overall

Overall I think these rules changes are a combination of keystone-coppery (the whole cap issue) and fiddling with small change (the tire warmer ban). I foresee much wrangling over the details and implementation of these rules in the near future.

In short, nothing less than we've come to expect from the FIA.