What We Learned: China 2011

Having watched Sunday's race through a haze of small children and pain medication, I may not be especially coherent.

• Red Bull isn't invincible: Somehow Vettel found himself unable to fend off Hamilton's McLaren at the end of the race, having wrung the life out of his tires at that point.
• Qualifying poorly may be a tactical advantage: Too bad that Webber and the team got the qualifying dance wrong, with Webber lining up 18th. But Webber put on a clinic on how to put to good use all the available, unused option tires he had available as a result. Definitely the drive of the day.
• Strange Strategies: the teams at the front which deviated from the expected two stop race (ie McLaren, Webber, Mercedes) all fared better on balance than the teams that did the expected (which actually is just Vettel and the Ferraris). Massa and Vettel were out front with only a handful to go, but their tires were done and they were powerless to resist those which caught them. In Massa's case, he slid all the way back to 6th, as Hamilton, Webber, Button, and Rosberg all steamed by and was still only 15 seconds back of winner Hamilton at the flag.
• Alonso brings up the rear again: For the third event in a row, Massa finished the first lap in front of his team leader. Massa seems to be either getting luckier than Alonso is right now -- or he is just better at making his own luck.
• Another DRS fault for Alonso: While not exactly in his favor, at least it wasn't to his detriment the way it was last week in Malaysia. Ferrari has some work to do with this system still.
• Faster cars burn more fuel: or so Mercedes has learned with Rosberg's car. Rosberg had to go into serious fuel consumption management during part of the race or would have risked running out.
• Whither Renault? After impressing at the first two stops, the Renault cars did not impress the way some had expected in China. Time will tell if this is merely a case of the rest of the field developing while Renault stands still, or if the Renault car is going to turn into a specialist for some types of circuits.

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.

Idiot Officials

Well here we are race two, and already we have a stupid decision from the stewards to wrangle with*:

Hamilton was penalised for making more than one change of direction as he tried to defend his position from Alonso. The Spaniard, meanwhile, received the same (20 second) penalty for causing a collision with the British driver during the fight.

So basically Hamilton was weaving, while Alonso was penalized for driving into Hamilton -- because Hamilton was weaving.

Either Hamilton defended his line appropriately and Alonso was too aggressive, or Hamilton was defending his position too aggressively and Alonso is blameless.

Can't have it both ways.
---
*= and why the hell is the press release detailing this not on the internet anywhere? All the sites I've checked just itemize the punishment without reprinting the text of the decision (which would be interesting to me, anyways) and the FIA site doesn't have it either.

Update: so OK now that I can actually find details of the penalties -- it looks like Hamilton and Alonso are being penalized for different incidents. Hamilton's transgression happened about two minutes before Alonso's:

The incident which caused Hamilton’s penalty was timed at 17.20 and the incident which caused Alonso’s penalty was timed at 17.22. Given the lap times involved one can say with some certainty that Hamilton’s penalty related to a move on lap 45, while Alonso’s penalty was linked to the collision on lap 46 that led him to pit at the end of the lap.

So the officials can have it both ways. Would have been nice if the text of the decisions had been actually available in a timely manner.

Deadpool update: HRT sinking?

Motorsport.com is reporting HRT in 'major financial trouble':

"People with half a brain can understand what is going on," the source is quoted as saying. "We engineers have gone unpaid for two months.

"Five engineers have quit already," he revealed.

When you are not paying the staff, and the staff is noticing that they are not getting paid, you are in trouble. For most startups, this is where the end happens -- worthless options are snowblown at the remaining staff in liu of of real money. However the operation is usually running on fumes and the end is merely days away.

What We Learned: Australia 2011

What we learned from yesterday's GP:

• DRS isn't working in its current form. The only convincing DRS-enabled pass was Jenson Button blowing past a backmarker that he'd have blown past later anyways. When his McLaren was on even terms with Massa's Ferrari -- that is to say, the McLaren was visibly faster once released by the Ferrari -- DRS didn't help. Most of the other passes that happened could be attributed to tire degradation, in that cars with fresh tires are much faster than cars on worn tires. Watching one of the Ferrari's stalk Button before he peeled off on a tire change, you could see the DRS being deployed and it making almost no impression on the McLaren. Definitely not the go-faster tool that the FIA envisioned.
• Ferrari is probably the third-fastest car right now. Alonso had a terrible start, but even so managed to be making up ground on third-place Petrov at the end. If he had not had the terrible start, he probably would have been ahead of Petrov's Renault. However he'd also be behind Button's McLaren, so at this point there is work to do. The F150* will almost definitely win races and may contend later this year, but for now it is clearly best of the rest.
• Vettel still has it: a dominating performance in qualifying gave him the platform to convert to an almost uncontested win. This car/driver combination still looks unbeatable. What more needs to be said?
• I don't want to write off Massa, but this performance is just more of the same we saw last year -- much slower than his team mate and vague complaints of technical difficulties, this time "rear tire issues". It would be too easy to write him off at this point, we'll check back in after a couple more races before we polish the axe.
• Petrov impressed, but would Kubica have bettered that result? The year's worth of experience had done Petrov's performance a world of good, and a trouble-free run grants him his first podium. He probably is the beneficiary of Alonso and Button's poor luck. All things being equal, I don't see him regularly coming home in front of those two cars.
• Sauber stumbles: running the entire distance on one tire change, especially when others were having severe problems making them last, is impressive. To see both cars excluded due to a technical infringement that didn't grant them a competitive advantage is a shame.

---
*= ...th itallia blah blah blah, whatever. It's the F150 to me.

Crazy Time At HRT

OK, this one takes the cake as the stupidest thing said in F1 for... oh, quite some time:

Alguersuari: tyres could put HRT in front of Ferrari

Speaking to reporters in Barcelona he said: “You could see Hispania running faster than Ferrari if they are on new tyres and Ferrari were on worn tyres. You could see Hispania overtake Ferrari.”

Personally I think the only way a HRT will overtake a Ferrari during a race is if the Ferrari being passed is parked on the side of the road with at least two wheels knocked off it.

At least we know HRT has the budget for the really good drugs this year.

Deadpool 2011

So let's review my predictions from last year:

I would say that the bubble teams are Campos Meta and Lotus, with Stefan GP not being able to show up even if asked. Virgin could end up on the bubble next year depending on results.

Campos Meta became HRT, but somehow made it through the whole season -- possibly through not spending a dollar on car development. HRT has shown computer-generated images of their 2011 car, but nobody's actually seen it yet.

Lotus and Virgin both made it through the whole season, with Lotus comprehensively winning the "best of the new teams" category for 2010.

Implied in my prediction was that USF1 would survive 2010. They didn't.

For the more established teams, I note that the Renault team's ownership has been further diluted through the infusion of Group Lotus. I remain certain that Renault will divest themselves of the race team within a couple of years, at this point Group Lotus looks like the most likely buyer.

I also predicted that Toro Rosso would be sold last year, and that didn't happen. Between HRT and Sauber grasping for money to keep going, there was a surplus of teams available for purchase, so the Toro Rosso deal never even got started.

For 2011:

None of the premier establishment teams (Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, McLaren) are at risk.

Of the remaining establishment teams:

• Lotus-Renault has momentum from last year and should survive.
• Sauber is showing signs of weakness, but I think they will make it to the end of the year. I'm going to say they don't get sold.
• Toro Rosso will get sold if a ready buyer steps up.
• Williams will survive, but this season marks the beginning of a sea change. Patrick Head is basically selling off his shares (he is going from 27% ownership to 5% ownership) in the team through a stock-market scheme. He and Frank Williams are both in their 60s, and won't be able to do this forever. If this is a short term way to boost financing issues due to a lack of sponsorship, Williams is probably doomed next year or the year after.
• I continue to not understand how Force India continues to get around, but they will continue to get around for at least this year.

For the new teams:

• Team Lotus will be the best of the rest, possibly regularly beating Toro Rosso and Sauber. Finance is a bit more of a question though. I say they make it.
• Barring some kind of disaster, Virgin will continue through into 2012.
• HRT is my candidate for not making it, since they are only showing computer-generated imagery of their car thus far, and said imagery is very short on sponsorship.

As always, tune in next year for the laughing and pointing.