What We Learned: Malaysia 2011

Quick commentary which boarders on incoherence:

• DRS worked better here than it did in Australia. I think there were two differences between here and Australia. First, the placement of the "determination" point just before the last corner was at the end of a long straight run with only the final corner between the "determination" point and the "active zone", meaning that cars which were faster through the curves than their pursuers were unable to get away as much. So the cars which were faster in a straight line than their targets ended up closer to their targets than they did in Australia. Second, the pit straight is longer and wider than it was in Australia, giving more time and space for the DRS advantage to be realized. DRS still seems gimicky to me, and I suspect the Australia experience will be closer to the norm than Malaysia. That said, DRS will probably work better in China than Australia.
• Ferrari has some qualifying speed, but at Malaysia they were clearly slower than the McLaren and Red Bulls.
• Ferrari's race pace looks much more promising. While still not challenging for the lead, the Ferrari can dice with the Renaults and pick up anything that the McLarens and Red Bulls drop.
• Ferrari's DRS failure on Alonso's car is frustrating. This is a pretty simple system all things told. I point at this failure as the principle cause of Alonso's driving into the back of Hamilton. The collision threw away the podium to be sure.
• Massa had a steadier race, but still doesn't look like he's on Alonso's pace. If the Ferrari was on pace with the McLaren this wouldn't be as much of an issue, but really Ferrari needs both cars coming home higher up than they have been.
• At this point the championship looks like Vettel's to lose. Two wins in dominating fashion, the Malaysian one with KERS unavailable to him. If Red Bull can keep consistent, he'll be uncatchable except perhaps around some specialist courses like Monaco or Spa.
• Nice to see Heidfield back on the podium. It is just hard to hear it over the sound of Kubica weeping.
• Petrov does his audition for the Dukes Of Hazzard sequel. Scary stuff to see the steering assembly come apart in his hands on landing, but not really surprising since the cars are not designed to be bounced over anything. That's the picture of the year so far.
• The current car rankings look like Red Bull, then McLaren, then Ferrari, then Renault. Lots of distance to go, and I think Renault will fade as the year goes on.

Short week then China this weekend.

Engine Rebalance?

F1Fanatic wants to know if the currently available engines should be equalized. Currently Red Bull is whining that the Renault engine they are using (to lead the Driver's championship with, natch) is down 20 to 30 horse power when compared to the Mercedes engine, currently the benchmark for power.

Like all issues in Formula One, the answer to this depends on what the FIA and the constructors want Formula One to be.

If Renault is permitted to boost their horsepower, then Mercedes will be put out because the Renault engine is lighter then theirs. Cosworth will be put out because the Mercedes is smaller. Ferrari will be put out because the Renault is more fuel efficient. Or whatever. The point is: whenever you have different engines, there are going to be pros and cons to each one. Some will excel some areas while being deficient in others; other engines will offer a balance of all criteria[*].

If you give legitimacy to this complaint, you are opening the door to validating the rest of the complaints, and this road leads to... a spec engine. If every manufacturer is making the same engine, you might as well just have one make the engine and save everyone some money.

Formula One is slowly sliding down the slope to a spec series, or a might-as-well-be-a-spec-series like CART used to be.

If you want to let engineers try to have new ideas in an attempt to gain an advantage, you have to accept the fact that sometimes this advantage will put some teams ahead of others, and that sometimes these ideas are going to get it wrong, either in conception or execution. And this will happen in all areas of the car that are not "spec".

The engine freeze probably looked good on paper, but in execution it makes the manufacturers line up rather predictably. And this running order is rather rigid.

It also puts even more lie to the idea that concepts learned in racing are (or even can be) applied to road cars. Especially since aside from the last round of rebalancing, very little has changed in Formula One engines in two years.

From all that, I have this opinion. I think the engine freeze should be lifted in its entirety.

But failing that, I think that a "rebalancing" isn't appropriate, as it would lead to other complaints.

--
[*] = In the case of Cosworth, the only particularly important area this engine excels in is "availability", since most teams cannot get a Mercedes, Renault, or Ferrari engine for any price. But that's still a valid advantage for Cosworth.

Driver Stewards: Not Impressed So Far

So one of the new ideas for 2010 is that one of the stewards at an event will be a former driver. The idea is that this driver can bring balance to the stewards council and the stewards will therefore be seen to be more fair and balanced.

The Malasian GP of 2010 pretty much puts lie to that theory.

The stewards made themselves noticed twice during this event.

First, Lewis Hamilton was fighting for position with Dmitri Petrov's Renault. Hamilton got past into turn one, but went deep and Petrov went by on the inside. Second time past, Hamilton went back and forth and back and forth down the main straight, an action that a lesser man might construe as "weaving". Hamilton defends himself:

I wasn’t weaving for him, I was weaving to break the tow.

The stewards took a look at this behavior, and decided that while it wasn't weaving, it wasn't sportsmanlike behavior, and Hamilton was warned.

Warned!

Either it was weaving, or it wasn't. If it was, it deserves punishment. If it wasn't, then it doesn't deserve notice.

Now the problem from this is that drivers may get the idea that they can drive like that once and they will get away with a warning.

Consider this -- had it been Petrov's Renault doing the weaving trying to break the tow, no doubt McLaren would have been screaming bloody murder and Hamilton would have some words about how dangerous it was. And I don't doubt for a second that the stewards would come down hard on Petrov.

The second time the stewards got involved was at the end of the race when it was determined that eventual race-winner Vettel had passed a Lotus under waved yellow conditions during the race:

During Sunday's race, the 22-year-old passed Lotus' Jarno Trulli while yellow flags were waving, and a stewards report said Vettel "did breach ... the international sporting code".

Despite this determination, no penalty was assessed, because...

But the stewards, including former Grand Prix winner Johnny Herbert, said the Red Bull slowed down in the yellow flag area, and noted that Trulli at the time had "an obvious problem".

...the "obvious problem" being that he was recognizing the yellow flags.

We won't see this decision tested, because the driver home in second place was the other Red Bull and there wouldn't be anything to gain by Red Bull protesting their own driver's conduct. But had the Mercedes been home in second place that close to Vettel's car, I'm quite sure there would have been a protest.

Both of these "decisions" are reminiscent of the FIA's clown-court favoritism that results in popular, or championship-leading, drivers being held to one standard while the rest of the field is held to another. The only thing lacking from this weekend was a decision against a back-marker driver that was similarly marginal, defended by the paper equivalent of shrugging shoulders and a "well them's the rules, sorry" explanation.

Having the drivers on the stewards board was supposed to eliminate this type of circus.

I'm not impressed so far.

Them Other Fellers

Launch type pictures for some of them other fellers:

• McLaren MP4-25: holy shark fin, batman! McLaren's ride this year also features sidepods which drop away from the upper lines much more significantly than we've seen before; the visual difference probably accounts for much of the reason why I can't see more bulk. There's also a pronounced barge-boarding in front of the inlets. But all the weird lines aside, you know that since it is a McLaren, it will either be quick, or they'll make it quick. F1.Fanatic's side-by-side photos show that this car is longer than last year's.
• Renault R30: What's with the black on black colour scheme? The entire rear of the car is practically invisible as the detail just gets washed away. The car does have strong resemblances to last year's (see F1.Fanatic for the usual side-by-side pictures). Thank whomever that the nose is much less ugly this year. There is more bulk in the sidepods, and like the Ferrari the bodywork seems pulled in tighter towards the rear. There are also the predictable not-turning-vane turning-vanes just outboard of the sidepod inlets, although they are more discreet than other teams have been, and there are no barge-boards.
• BMW-Sauber C29: This car is the first car that I can see some of the new bulk in the mid section. The front is "classic" BMW, although the wing/nose arrangement is a little unconventional. Visually the car doesn't have the proportions that we are used to, from the fat front wing through skinny nose through fat mid-section through tiny rear wing. Again, what's with the black colour schemes this year? It sure makes it hard to see what is going on. F1.Fanatic's side-by-side pictures show the extra length in the car.

So far this year shark-fins seem to be a fashion requirement; however recall last year that Toyota launched without one, but the first testing sessions showed that one had been attached. So the lengths and geometries of the fins will likely be variable through the year. The cars are longer, which will probably make them more stable but correspondingly less nimble, which may be why the fins are being played with.

Testing at Valencia starts tomorrow, and there will be more teams (Williams, Mercedes, and Toro Rosso who are somehow launching ahead of their Red Bull parent team) revealed then.

Perhaps also of note: Virgin claims to have fired up their first Cosworth engine, although the car itself is not due to be launched until later this week.

F1 Engines

James Allen reports on comparative studies of 2009 F1 Engines:

Most teams reached the conclusion, based on acoustic analysis and GPS, that the spread of engine power from the best to the worst engines was less than 2.5% this year. This means that, if the Mercedes is believed to have had 755hp, the least powerful engine was 18hp down, which is worth just under 3/10ths of a second per lap.

I find that 0.3 second per lap penalty from 18 horse power to be suspiciously large.

Power wise, the ranking is Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault, and Toyota.

Efficiency wise, the Renault was the best engine, the Ferrari the worst. This will be important next year as refueling is no longer permitted.

For 2010, Cosworth is claiming 770 horse power. That is another 15hp up on the Mercedes. As Allen notes, the Cosworth has much less reliability testing and fuel consumption is an issue.

Renault Preparing To Exit F1?

Joe Saward quotes Indian sources quoting Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosen about F1:

“F1 is one of the most-seen spectacles in the world,” he said. “It is facing some challenges: Challenges on how fair it is and how do you marry F1 with the environmental concerns. Can you bring zero emission through technology? So there are lots of questions about F1.”

...and...

“I don’t think it is going to be very important for anybody, if it doesn’t answer some of the concerns that surround F1,” he said. “I notice that in the last year, three car manufacturers have bowed out of F1. Three in one year! That means there are a lot of questions that we need to resolve.”

If we are reading the hall of mirrors here, one would have to say that Renault wants out, at least as a team participant. They will probably continue to provide and service engines for whomever wants them since it will be very difficult for teams currently committed to Renault to change now. Since there isn't much in the way of engine development permitted to go on any more, the costs of the engine is a sunk cost and supplying them can probably even be profitable.

Right now only Red Bull is an engine customer, and they were allegedly trying to get Mercedes power for 2010. But by now they are committed.

I think that once the FIA decides what penalty to give Toyota for bailing, Renault will follow shortly after.

2009, End Of An Era

So with 2009 winding down, we really do appear to be looking at the end of an era in Formula One. In the last year we have lost Honda, BMW, and Toyota. Renault hasn't decided what to do yet. This leaves Mercedes and Ferrari as pretty much the only major "manufacturers" still in the sport.

Toyota's departure was probably inevitable. Much was made of Toyota's goal to be in Formula One to beat Honda; and while Toyota managed to do that, Honda didn't make that a very high bar to clear. This year the word was that Toyota would have to win or be drummed out. While they came close at the beginning of the year, their challenge faded again as it has every year. When word came down in Brazil that Toyota was releasing their drivers to make other arrangements, the writing was pretty much on the wall.

I liked Toyota in Formula One even though they never really came to grips with the sport. I enjoyed watching them, and their participation was one factor which helped decide one of our car purchases.

I think that Formula One loses some of its legitimacy with the exodus of manufacturers from the sport. The presence of globally-recognized names helping to develop the cutting-edge technology needed to compete raised the level of prestige. The idea is that if a manufacturer has smart people who can make competitive race cars, they have smart people to make road cars, too. This may be totally faulty reasoning, but it is what I went with.

Next year will be a different year, with more private teams joining the sport. The levels of money in the sport will drop, and we will probably end up with a larger performance variation between the front runners and the back of the pack. If Renault does indeed withdraw, engine choice will be reduced even more (unless Renault does another Mechacrome/Supertek-style technology sale).

It will be interesting to see where Formula One goes from here.

I still can't believe it

So why we sit and marvel at the sight of Jenson Button doing his level best to piss away a world championship, I think I'm finally ready to address the story of the year so far in F1.

I still can't believe that Renault essentially copped to race fixing.

I'm probably the only one in the world who believes that F1 is about competition, and while rules might be aggressively bent, they would never be blatantly broken. And yes, that makes me an idiot.

In a sport with this much money flowing through it -- and make no mistake, the "budget capping" exercise will do little to reduce the flow of money, only slightly redirect into which pockets it ends up residing in -- it is probably surprising that this doesn't happen more often. Or maybe it does, and the surprise is that nobody admits it or gets caught doing it.

Keep in mind that if Piquet had not been abruptly terminated in mid-season, he probably would have never spoken about it to the media. If it ever came out, it would probably be in indirect terms buried in someone's memoirs in twenty years when nobody would be around to care any more.

The FIA moved quickly on this, as it had to. Any overt rumblings of out-and-out race fixing would have to be investigated, and if there was substance to the stories, the perpetrators punished.

So how were the various players punished?

Pat Simmonds got five years. This seems a reasonable punishment, and really his being associated with this scandal will put him to rest for longer than that. It does give him the possibility of building up his reputation again in another formula once the five years have passed.

Flavio Briatore -- he got a lifetime ban. This has a knock-on effect with his other dealings, in that the football organization he is an owner in says you can't be an owner if another sporting federation has kicked you out, which the FIA has. It also buries his driver management side-business. It makes him a persona non grata in motor racing, and will affect his life beyond this.

This I think is excessive. A charitable reading of the evidence might suggest that the idea was made in jest, with people not being sure if the idea was really a jest or not -- maybe a joke that got out of hand. When I read it, my impression was that it was Piquet and Simmonds who were the main protagonists. Briatore knew, was involved, did not do anything to object or prevent it from happening, and as team principal is ultimately responsible for what happened -- but life? Come on.

Nelson Piquet Jr got nothing, since he was granted immunity. And yes, he was in an impossible situation, since his agent was also the team principal. However the fact that he gleefully shared Renault's dirty laundry after being dismissed will give many other people pause before they hire him, which is worse than anything the FIA could have possibly done to him. I doubt we will ever see him in F1 again.

Team Renault got -- nothing.

Wait, that can't be right. We had better read the decision again. Section 68 says:

The WMSC considers Renault F1’s breaches relating to the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix to be of unparalleled severity. Renault F1’s breaches not only compromised the integrity of the sport but also endangered the lives of spectators, officials, other competitors and Nelson Piquet Jnr himself.

I don't think you can sugar coat that. This is about the worst thing a competitor can do in Formula One.

The WMSC considers that offences of this severity merit permanent disqualification from the FIA Formula One World Championship.

Permanent. Disqualification. Sounds severe. Also sounds appropriate. I mean, Renault has only called into question the integrity of the entire Formula One organization in general, and the FIA's ability to police it.

However, there's a However:

However, having regard to the points in mitigation mentioned above and in particular the steps taken by Renault F1 to identify and address the failings within its team and condemn the actions of the
individuals involved, the WMSC has decided to suspend Renault F1’s disqualification until the end of the 2011 season. The WMSC will only activate this disqualification if Renault F1 is found guilty of a comparable breach during that time.

Don't you love fine print?

Translation: Renault will only be permanently disqualified if they are convicted of doing the same thing. In other words, short of getting caught fixing another race in the next two years, there's no punishment.

So yeah, Renault got nothing.

This is completely ridiculous. When Schumacher drove into Villeneuve, he lost all his world championship points for the year. When BAR was caught fiddling with their cars in post-race scruitineering, they got banned for two races. When McLaren was caught with Ferrari developmental documentation, they got fined $100 million AND lost all their constructors points for the year.

But Renault commits an offense which the FIA states is about the worst thing you can do, they get -- nothing.

Now F1 is in a fragile state right now. Honda has gone, BMW is leaving, Toyota and Renault both are considered on the edge, and the FIA has a bunch of new teams who all signed up to run under a different set of rules from what will actually govern next year's series. The chances of next year becoming a Formula Farce with teams that can't compete or can't keep the required level of funding are very high.

And say what you want about Renault, they are an organization which can field a reasonable team and can build some very competitive engines as evidenced by their Red Bull customers. So kicking them out of F1 completely would have some very unpleasant knock-on effects for F1 as a whole.

Now I am not arguing that Renault should have been banned. I think a whopping great fine would have been appropriate plus docking them the manufacturer points for '08 (since that was the year of the offense) and '09 (since that will have an effect on how they conduct business in 2010).

But the FIA's attempt to have its cake and eat it too, in that it is seen as being able to quickly and effectively police the series under their control while not actually harming one of their important competitors -- I think this has backfired completely. How can one view this verdict as anything other than political?

I hope that the FIA can somehow figure out a way to hang this on Max Mosley's head so that some, if not all, of the stigma departs with him. But really, it is hard to take the FIA seriously after this.

I'm absolutely floored

Renault will not contest race fixing charges; Briatore, Symonds leave team

ING Renault F1 Team Statement – 16 September 2009

The ING Renault F1 Team will not dispute the recent allegations made by the FIA concerning the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. It also wishes to state that its managing director, Flavio Briatore and its executive director of engineering, Pat Symonds, have left the team. Before attending the hearing before the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Paris on 21 September 2009, the team will not make any further comment.

I really don't know what to say.

I've long thought that team orders should be legal -- at the time my argument was that Ron Dennis pays a lot of money to run two F1 cars, if it should please him to run one particular one in front of the other, then that should be his privilege. Assuming of course that there's no unsporting behavior going on.

Using one car to defend another -- that's been done for years. Recall Boutsen's Williams at Hungary in '89 or '90 -- Patrese in the sister car delayed his pit stop, destroying his own chances at a good result, so that Boutsen would have a few more clear sailing laps before the McLarens would catch up with him.

And holding up faster traffic, especially lapping faster traffic, is a time-honored tradition, even if it is technically against the rules now.

But deliberately crashing one car to the advantage of the other?

Frankly, I'm stunned that it happened, let alone that Renault has, as an organization, essentially copped to it.

(Update: Comprehensive analysis at Motorsports.com.)

Brief Deadpool Update

Toyota confirms F1 Participation:

Toyota's Formula 1 chiefs have been assured that the Japanese manufacturer is not planning a shock withdrawal from the sport later this year - but the team has been warned to prepare itself for major costs cuts.

So that's good news. However, some are speculating that Renault's tenuous commitment to F1 will be dashed by the FIA's investigation into last year's race at Singapore.

Personally I'm more than a little surprised at this level of interest by the FIA. I would have thought with F1 as fragile as it is, the FIA would have sought every possible excuse to deal with this quietly and sweep it away under the rug. The fact that it has gone this far must mean there is something very compelling behind this issue.

Given Renault's lack of results over the past two years, it would not be surprising if this bad publicity pushed the company to decide to pack it in after this year or maybe next.

Formula 1 Deadpool, Revisited

Well I didn't see BMW's departure coming at all. I figured that BMW would recognize that the dynamic change in the rules, coupled with the predictable unstable "clarification" of some rules with respect to the aerodynamics (specifically, the double-diffusers), that this year was going to be a down year. I fully expected them to brush themselves off and carry on building towards a more successful year next year.

Their involvement and support of both the FIA's wacky technologies (KERS) and FOTA's insistence on having some control over their own destinies showed that they were trying to bridge the gap between the two positions and embrace the future of the sport.

Instead, they are gone.

In the short term, this is the perfect time to quit. It means that they can focus on finding a new ownership group for the team instead of paying to develop next year's car. The ownership should be pretty straight forward, the rumblings seem to suggest that Peter Sauber will get control of the team if nobody else more attractive comes forward; from that point, building for the future becomes someone else's problem. This reduces the risk that BMW will feed another Brawn, paying to develop a car which ends up being much more competitive than expected and making the departure look premature.

So what else has changed since we last looked at the deadpool?

Red Bull has become unexpectedly competitive. This will breath new life into Torro Rosso as a 'junior' team, assuming that the results continue to be suitably 'junior' and costs can be kept under control.

Toyota has had a down year. While they were optimistic about their chances this year, the results have followed the path from previous years -- being on the verge of a break-out at the beginning of the year, then falling back as the rest of the pack continues development. For some reason Toyota builds a better car on average at the beginning of the year but just can't develop through the season. It is an odd failing. Toyota also has to face the fact that their goals in joining Formula 1 will not be met -- they joined to beat Honda. The problem is that 1) Honda isn't in Formula 1 any more, and 2) even having left, Toyota can't beat the remnants (Brawn).

Renault has been revealed to be a bigger budget team than suspected. This makes them a prime candidate to be the next to depart, especially considering their results thus far and the treatment they are receiving for their behavior in Hungary. Their parent company continues to have a rough year financially and the Formula 1 team has to look increasingly like low-hanging fruit to cut from the expenditure table.

Toyota and Renault's uncertain future has to have an effect on their customer teams too. Williams and Red Bull are current engine customers, and should the parent team leave the supply of engines may be eliminated. One wonders if Red Bull knows something we don't, as there have been stories that they are seeking a supply of Mercedes engines instead. It's quite possible that they want to get rid of the Ferrari engines that Torro Rosso is using, and shuffle around who is using what, but the fact that they might have been quietly told that alternate arrangements will be required cannot be dismissed.

All in all, things are looking pretty grim for Formula 1 as a premier series. The series enjoys its status because of the manufacturer involvement. Should too many of the manufacturers withdraw, it will become just another international series.

We can only hope that Renault and Toyota stay the course for the next few years and then re-evaluate things as the costs come down.

2009 Begins To Shape Up

More launches:

• McLaren (photos and technical analysis)
  
• Williams (photos and technical analysis)
  
• Renault (photos and technical analysis)
  
• BMW (photos and technical analysis)
  

So by my count that leaves us waiting on Force India, the Red Bull twins, and maybe whomever rescues Honda as the teams who have still not launched their 2009 cars.

Of the lot, the Renault features perhaps the ugliest nose revealed so far. However Williams and BMW seem to agree that the wider nose has its advantages.

Interesting: Canada's The Globe And Mail newspaper has covered the launch of the BMW F1 car, but has remained silent on its competitors.

Renault interested in FIA Standard Powertrain?

Autosport is reporting that there are five expressions of interest in the FIA's standard powertrain on offer, and that one of them is Renault.

The other four are the two Red Bull teams, Williams, and Force India.

This would leave Ferrari, BMW, Toyota as "total package" manufacturers, while McLaren gets their engines from Mercedes.

The offer of standard engine packages is attractive to the non-manufacturer teams, especially when you consider that the standard will also be a reference, in that while manufacturers will be permitted to build their own versions of the reference engine, their versions will not be permitted to exceed the reference version's capabilities in any way. This will put the independant teams on an equal footing as far as powertrain goes, and will be at least an equal footing to the other teams if not an outright performance advantage.

I still don't understand why a car manufacturer would want a standard engine, even if it does come unbadged. Anyone who knows anything about Formula 1 will know which teams get the standard engines, and badging this one a "Renault" won't fool anyone.

Teams which build their own engines will not have development costs spread over multiple teams, so they will end up spending more to end up with an engine which at best is at parity to everyone else's.

Engines are one of the few areas where race technologies might still have an influence on real-world products. To deny the manufacturers this area of development devalues Formula 1 to potential participants.