March 26, 2011

Red Bull's clever again.


Photo:Alex Comerford

Recently there has been some rumbling from Bernie Ecclestone about how F1 rules should not be conceived by the FIA, which is perhaps more interested in image and politics, but by the teams and the Formula 1 organizers . Bernie says, we know what we need and we should make the rules, the FIA's job should be to simply enforce them.

Hard to argue with that when the FIA mandated KERS rule can be , cleverly, circumvented as Red Bull has. Apparently one of the main technical issues this season is with the placement of ballast within the car, this year the location is restricted. Red Bull is rumored to be using a miniature version of KERS with much smaller, lighter batteries and used exclusively for the start when not having it would mean getting burned off the line. This allowed Adrien Newey to balance the car much better providing crucial drivability and blinding speed. Combine that with Vettel, who burned everyone by 7/10th, and you have a package that can only defeat itself.

Check out turns 11-12, that left-right complex on the back side of the track, the speed is absolutely mind bending.



Pos Driver Team Time

1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m23.529s
2. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m24.307s + 0.778s
3. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m24.395s + 0.866s
4. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m24.779s + 1.250s
5. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m24.974s + 1.445s
6. Vitaly Petrov Renault 1m25.247s + 1.718s
7. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m25.421s + 1.892s
8. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m25.599s + 2.070s
9. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m25.626s + 2.097s
10. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m27.066s + 3.537s
Q2 cut-off time: 1m25.882s
11. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m25.971s
12. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m26.103s
13. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m26.108s
14. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m26.739s
15. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1m26.768s
16. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m31.407s
17. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth
Q3 cut-off time: 1m27.222s
18. Nick Heidfeld Renault 1m27.239s
19. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1m29.254s
20. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 1m29.342s
21. Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1m29.858s
22. Jerome D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1m30.822s
23. Tonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 1m32.978s
24. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1m34.293s

107% time: 1m31.266s





4 comments:

  1. Thank you Pirelli you made quali fun watching !!

    Sutil doing a 360 at full speed ...

    Vettel flying like an aeroplane and kobayashi in banzai mode.
    That rear wing is going to cause serious damages.

    ReplyDelete
  2. im starting to hate red bull

    ReplyDelete
  3. also, RedBull veeeery clever with front wing flexing all over again...

    http://twitpic.com/4df5oz/full

    waaaay closer to tarmac than the competitors, meaning a flexing that surely exceed the 20mm stated in the regs, despite passing the 100kg test (i think they're a step ahead of everyone in studying carbon fibre deformation, remember Toro Rosso susupension's collapse last year?!)

    that also could explain the mind blowing Vettel's 3rd sector!!

    Newey is pretty much "swimming" in the two main loopholes in the regs, wing's flexing and kers...

    still, i'm fascinated by the sheer genius of that man

    ReplyDelete

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