Trulli : NASCAR Superior to Formula 1

OK, trick headline but check it out: this from an interview Jarno Trulli gave Gazzetta Dello Sport (Italy) after his NASCAR test in Florida with Michael Waltrip Racing.

Q. What was the biggest adjustment coming from F1?

JT. Getting used to fenders, a closed cockpit and of running such mass. The proximity to walls? no big deal, you get used to them.

Q. What struck you about the experience?

JT. The car management and the tuning, which allows for infinite possibilities, definitively superior to Formula1. To give you an idea, to have the same level of adjustment in Formula 1 as is available in NASCAR you would need to completely redesign the cars. Another thing that struck me is that you need to be extremely clean in your driving, something I'm good at.

Q. And what's missing in NASCAR compared to Formula 1?

JT. Aerodynamics are essentially non existent.

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Las Dhabi World!

Looks to me like what we have here in the Yas Marina circuit is a combination Paul Ricard and Speed Racer 2008, something that looks beautiful on TV but has no substance and will probably give you a headache after 10 minutes.

Mostly long straights followed by hairpins or left right quasi-chicanes, it's yet one more Formula 1 track built as an amusement park without any natural features (this more than any other has NO natural features as it's built on a landfill) and where it's hard to imagine any consequences paid for mistakes made.

Apparently there are fantastic accommodations for the teams and their guests, for the press and, with the lights on, it will make TV directors happy but ... It feels like what it set out to be: an amusement park...complete with FerrariWorld ride. A middle eastern Las Vegas/Disney World, Bah. We'll see this week end if, at least, the circuit allows for good racing.

Free practice saw the Mclarens in front but as usual the first 13 cars are within one second of each other. Note Kobayashi in 5th!!
That might explain why Trulli's silly behaviour at the Thursday press conference which was best commented by Fernando Alonso with a "we will discuss tomorrow...deep". check it out after the jump.

Pos  Driver       Team                       Time              Laps
 1.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:41.307            35
 2.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:41.504  + 0.197   34
 3.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:41.541  + 0.234   39
 4.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:41.591  + 0.284   37
 5.  Kobayashi    Toyota                (B)  1:41.636  + 0.329   34
 6.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:41.683  + 0.376   37
 7.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:41.684  + 0.377   34
 8.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:41.831  + 0.524   38
 9.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:41.931  + 0.624   39
10.  Raikkonen    Ferrari               (B)  1:41.987  + 0.680   39
11.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:42.180  + 0.873   28
12.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:42.245  + 0.938   36
13.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:42.278  + 0.971   36
14.  Trulli       Toyota                (B)  1:42.409  + 1.102   30
15.  Liuzzi       Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:42.530  + 1.223   33
16.  Alonso       Renault               (B)  1:42.782  + 1.475   29
17.  Fisichella   Ferrari               (B)  1:42.932  + 1.625   37
18.  Grosjean     Renault               (B)  1:43.021  + 1.714   37
19.  Alguersuari  Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:43.022  + 1.715   39
20.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:43.708  + 2.401   13

All Timing Unofficial

Peter's Wisdom

If you saw qualifying for the 2009 Malaysian GP on SpeedTV you heard this yourself.

Results and qualifying weights after the jump

Pos  Driver       Team                       Q1        Q2        Q3      
 1.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:35.058  1:33.784  1:35.181
 2.  Trulli       Toyota                (B)  1:34.745  1:33.990  1:35.273
 3.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:34.935  1:34.276  1:35.518
 4.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes        (B)  1:34.681  1:34.387  1:35.651
 5.  Glock        Toyota                (B)  1:34.907  1:34.258  1:35.690
 6.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:35.083  1:34.547  1:35.750
 7.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault      (B)  1:35.027  1:34.222  1:35.797
 8.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:35.166  1:34.562  1:36.106
 9.  Raikkonen    Ferrari               (B)  1:35.476  1:34.456  1:36.170
10.  Alonso       Renault               (B)  1:35.260  1:34.706  1:37.659
11.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber            (B)  1:35.110  1:34.769
12.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota       (B)  1:35.341  1:34.788
13.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:35.280  1:34.905
14.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1:35.023  1:34.924
15.  Bourdais     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:35.507  1:35.431
16.  Massa        Ferrari               (B)  1:35.642
17.  Piquet       Renault               (B)  1:35.708
18.  Fisichella   Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:35.908
19.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  (B)  1:35.951
20.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  1:36.107

Qualifying weight

Pos. Driver       Team                Car weight (kg)
 1.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes         660
 2.  Trulli       Toyota                 656.5
 3.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault       647
 4.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes         664.5
 5.  Glock        Toyota                 656.5
 6.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota        656
 7.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault       656
 8.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber             663
 9.  Raikkonen    Ferrari                662.5
10.  Alonso       Renault                680.5
11.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber             692
12.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota        683.4
13.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes       688
14.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes       688.9
15.  Bourdais     Toro Rosso-Ferrari     670.5
16.  Massa        Ferrari                689.5
17.  Piquet       Renault                681.9
18.  Fisichella   Force India-Mercedes   680.5
19.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes   655.5
20.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari     686.5

FIA releases Mclaren radio transmissions

I would say a new era of transparency from the FIA has begun, for better or for worse:

Press Release

Stewards Decision - Australian GP

02/04/2009

PENALTY IMPOSED ON DRIVER NO 1 LEWIS HAMILTON AND COMPETITOR VODAFONE MCLAREN MERCEDES

SUMMARY OF KEY CONSIDERATIONS

At the first hearing following the Australian Grand Prix the Stewards did not have the benefit of the radio exchanges between driver No 1 Lewis Hamilton and his Team Vodafone McLaren Mercedes nor did they have access to the comments to the Media given by Lewis Hamilton immediately after the end of the race.

From the video recordings available to the Stewards during the hearing it appeared that Jarno Trulli’s car left the track and car No 1 moved into third place. It then appeared that Trulli overtook Hamilton to regain third place, which at the time was prohibited as it was during the Safety Car period.

During the hearing, held approximately one hour after the end of the race, the Stewards and the Race Director questioned Lewis Hamilton and his Team Manager David Ryan specifically about whether there had been an instruction given to Hamilton to allow Trulli to overtake. Both the driver and the Team Manager stated that no such instruction had been given. The Race Director specifically asked Hamilton whether he had consciously allowed Trulli to overtake. Hamilton insisted that he had not done so.

The new elements presented to the Stewards several days after the 2009 Australian Grand Prix which led to the reconvened Stewards Meeting clearly show that:

a. Immediately after the race and before Lewis Hamilton attended the Stewards Meeting he gave an interview to the Media where he clearly stated that the Team had told him to let Trulli pass.

b. Furthermore, the radio exchanges between the driver and the Team contain two explicit orders from the Team to let the Toyota pass.

The Stewards, having learned about the radio exchanges and the Media interview, felt strongly that they had been misled by the driver and his Team Manager which led to Jarno Trulli being unfairly penalised and Lewis Hamilton gaining third place.

Hamilton's statement to the media after meeting with the stewards

Mclaren radio transmissions during the final safety car period

(FIA)

And here is the rest of it.

Hamilton and Mclaren Busted!

Depending how you look at it, Formula 1 got either a whole lot weirder or a whole lot clearer, maybe it's both. Lewis Hamilton got stripped of his result in Australia, disqualified for lying about the circumstances in which he overtook Jarno Trulli for third place under the safety car period at the end of the race. Trulli had been given a 25 second penalty when it was thought that after a quick off track excursion, he improperly overtook Hamilton to get his position back.

The statement from the FIA was pretty dry:

"The Stewards having considered the new elements presented to them from the 2009 Australian Formula One Grand Prix, consider that driver No 1 Lewis Hamilton and the competitor Vodafone McLaren Mercedes acted in a manner prejudicial to the conduct of the event by providing evidence deliberately misleading to the Stewards at the hearing on Sunday 29th March 2009, a breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code.

"Under Article 158 of the International Sporting Code the driver No 1 Lewis Hamilton and the competitor Vodafone McLaren Mercedes are excluded from the race classification for the 2009 Australian Grand Prix and the classification is amended accordingly."

Article 151c states "c) Any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally."

The FIA is accusing Hamilton and Mclaren of lying. That's a pretty heavy accusation which Mclaren is denying blaming the incident on the inability to get an answer from race control at the time. If the FIA is serious about their new found transparency they will release all radio transmissions as well as crucial in-car footage from both Hamilton and Trulli.

For now we can, once again thank F1 fans for making at least part of the information available

to all: Here is are the pit/car transmissions from Toyota.

and here is a video of the moment when Trulli runs off track and is passed by Hamilton. Confused? let's see how the FIA handles this.





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Trulli vs Lauda

For your consideration:

Niki Lauda  says Hamilton did not get an advantage.

Jarno Trulli begs to differ. 

Editorial Note: With all due respect for a great former World Champion,  Trulli is a current driver and more familiar with both the current Spa configuration and a current car's capabilities....

Lauda: Hamilton decision was the 'worst judgment in the history of F1'

Niki Lauda has described the decision to strip Lewis Hamilton of his Belgian grand prix victory as "the worst judgment in the history of formula one".

"This is the worst judgment in the history of F1, the most perverted judgment I have ever seen," said Lauda, now a grand prix commentator. "It's absolutely unacceptable when three functionaries [stewards] influence the championship like this. Hamilton did nothing wrong. He was on the outside, he then let him [Raikkonen] by, which is the rule, and afterwards he passed him. Hamilton did the right thing in letting him by before again passing him."


Trulli: Hamilton gained an advantage

Jarno Trulli says he has no doubts that Lewis Hamilton did gain an advantage by cutting the chicane at the Belgian Grand Prix.

As the controversy rages over whether the race stewards were right to hand down a 25-second penalty for Hamilton's driving, Trulli thinks that the McLaren driver did benefit from missing out the final corner.

"In my opinion Hamilton got an advantage by cutting the chicane," Trulli told Gazzetta dello Sport. "Had he stayed on the road, he wouldn't have had the speed to overtake the Ferrari.

"In the same way at Monza someone could cut the first chicane, catch a rival's draft, and overtake him under braking at Roggia.

"When you attack on the outside, you do it at your own risk, because who's on the inside has the right to do the corner. If there isn't enough room, then you lift.

"Had there been a wall there, instead of the surfaced escape route, would Lewis have attacked anyway? Had there been gravel, he wouldn't have had the chance to attack when rejoining the track because of dirty tyres."

McLaren are due to decide today whether or not to press ahead with their plans to appeal Hamilton's penalty, which dropped him from first to third in the race results.

2008 French GP wrap-up

Our live stream this morning was a mixed bag, some in the US saw it, many did not, don't ask me why, I'm not much of programming expert. We tried!


On to the race, for the first time in 15 years a Brazilian leads the World Championship. Felipe Massa took advantage of Kimi Raikkonenen's flailing exhaust and won the race. Ferrari was miles ahead of the field but I think this was the first GP for Kimi's engine and it looks pretty fried. Expect Raikkonen to have to start 10 places back at Silverstone.

Lewis Hamilton got hit with yet another penalty. This is a tough one, if you look at the clip he was ahead of Vettel at the turn in for the Nurburgring chicane when he ran off the road. I guess the counter argument would be that he would never have made that pass stick if it were not for the paved runoff.... what do you think?

Very "appy" for Jarno Trulli who in no way was going to let himself get smoked on the last lap of a French GP again! His battle with Heikki Kovalainen was epic.

Nelsiño Piquet got a nice break when one of the Force India cars blocked Alonso on the last lap and allowed the Brazilian through. I guess he gets a reprieve.

Kart Krazy

...karts are perfectly safe of course... kind of.
6 minutes of tiny wheeled nuttiness for you.
(A sharp eyed tracktard reader, Birel186, noticed a young Jarno Trulli in third place on the podium at about 1:00. He's the guy in the green suit just before the podium chicks get the champagne shower....nice catch Birel!)

Tire Warm-up 101

Jarno Trulli is on his warm up lap, putting heat in the tires. I was struck by the relative violence of it all, no pussyfooting about there from the Toyota driver.

One could use this video to illustrate friction circle theory quite graphically to performance driving students: There are times when Trulli, in a corner, whips in more steering and you can see this has almost zero effect on his trajectory.

It is also an illustration of how stiff and under steering Formula 1 cars are set up to be. At low speeds, with low aerodynamic loads, a gentle touch is needed to maintain adhesion.

Winter testing wrap up.

We don't get much coverage of winter testing in the US but elsewhere it is covered like baseball spring training might be here.

That Michael Schumacher was testing again was eclipsed by news of the Renault-Mclaren spy case verdict and how that will affect Fernando Alonso's future. Massa says he does not follow the Alonso soap opera except to say that Mclaren will be a weaker team for losing a top driver. The now more fluent in Italian Schumacher smirks, Trulli and Kubica play coy and claim ignorance.

As to why he's there, Schumacher explained:

"You know, I have spent so much time in Formula 1, it's clear that I love the sport and there are many things I still enjoy about it, like driving. It is a great pleasure to be able to drive without further responsibility and pressure for the next season, I just enjoy it, it is quite nice!"

He goes on to warmly praise Kimi Raikkonen for stepping up for the team after he and Ross Brawn left. Of Lewis Hamilton, who recently declared his intention of eclipsing all of Schumacher's records, he says "a very good preparation combined with a natural talent and you see the results"

The second part of the Spanish language clip is raw footage of the cars testing, check out the extra large data aerial mounted on many of the cars and also the giant sensors on the Renault's left wheels. You can see how the various drivers are coping with not having electronic aids... Hamilton looks like he was torture testing the rear tires a bit, hopefully Mclaren was practicing figuring out the right time to bring him in and change them!



Jerez testing 1. from Axis on Vimeo.


Jerez winter testing 2. from Axis on Vimeo.

Talk Turkish

Sunday's Turkish GP, it could be argued, was won by Felipe Massa on Saturday during qualifying and today many pundits are slamming Kimi for making too many mistakes. But what does a mistake in F1 qualifying look like? Not Sutil-Yamamoto mistake but a slip that will cost you pole by hundreths of a second?

Here are the last two corners of Kimi's quali lap...don't blink. That's all it takes.




In any case, I don't think Kimi had enough for Massa or Hamilton even if he had nailed that last complex. He was only .082 ahead of his own best after the second sector, he probably did not do the turn 9-10 complex optimally and compromised the following long run down to the section shown in the clip. However, on the second to last lap of the race, Raikkonen turned the fast lap of the race with a 1:27.2, faster than Massa's pole lap...timing Kimi, timing.

Now speaking of Hamilton, it takes some luck to go with the skill and on Sunday he showed both those boxes are checked on his resume. Of all the possible outcomes, to have a fully blown and flailing front tire and come out of it with only minor damage to the front wing and still in the points is amazing. The skill part was in his adapting to the now damaged car well enough to control Heikki Kovaleinen and bring home a fifth place. Renault aero engineers might need some extra aspirin today.




On the opposite end of the luck plane is Jarno Trulli who must listen to the complete works of Albert King all day long. If Jarno "did not have bad luck, he would have no luck at all", hosed by Fisichella in the first corner, Jarno nonetheless had the best passes of the race. Here he skewers Rubens Barrichello in turn 1.




Rubens and Honda did provide some comic relief: