Boneheads and Their Blunders

I’m thoroughly convinced that Formula One teams are comprised of the best and brightest minds in the automotive business. Each one of those racing machines, particularly those at the front end of the field, are absolute technological marvels. The amount of organizational, engineering, and mechanical knowledge floating around an F1 paddock is staggering. So, it’s all the more befuddling when you see one repeated bone head move after another. It seems each week, the F1 circus is intent on one upping each other in blunders.


The true silly season started even before the start of the season. A big Boneheaded Blunder award deservedly goes to our very own USF1 entry, an ambitious project spearheaded by Peter Windsor and Ken Anderson. Big on intellectual horsepower, but woefully short on financial horsepower. Despite preparing early and appearing to have all their “ducks in a row,” the team massively underestimated the budget required to even get started with producing a car. We should have known something was amiss when the team was a no-show at the first test session.

Speaking of no-showing at a test session, another big Boneheaded Blunder award goes to Christian Horner, Adrian Newey and the lads over at Red Bull Racing. They decided to skip one of the four test sessions so as to further refine the aerodynamic package – the thought being, “Why test when we’re going to make changes?” Here’s the reason: to develop reliability. Two races into the season, Sebastian Vettel has seen two easy victories turn into one forth place finish and one DNF. Instead of sitting on 50 points in the championship, he has 12. If we’ve learned one thing from modern F1, it’s that building an early lead in the championship is critical. Will Red Bull make all the tests next pre-season? My money says “yes,” particularly if Vettel can’t overcome his early season deficit.

While Vettel was failing to finish last week’s Australia Grand Prix, the cars of Virgin Racing, driven by Timo Glock and Lucas Di Grassi, went into the race knowing they wouldn’t be around at the end. Somehow, with all the technical engineering know-how back at the shop, the boys at Virgin Racing designed a car with a fuel tank that was too small to see their cars to the end of the race in Melbourne. Last year, no big deal. This year, the first with no refueling allowed since 1993, it’s a really, really big deal. It’s not like they were a few drops shy. They estimated they were a ridiculous 12 liters shy of the fuel necessary, and that’s what they admitted to. Either they’re planning a very expensive redesign to accommodate a larger fuel cell, or we can expect the Virgin cars to be parked well before the end of several Grands Prix this year. To Virgin, I bestow another Boneheaded Blunder award.

All of the above was prior to today, when the big bully on the F1 block, Ferrari, made another colossal screw-up, bigger so than the shockingly foretelling Massa Malaysian Qualifying Mess-Up of ’09. At the Sepang circuit today, both Ferraris were safely ensconced in the garage, out of the elements of the wind and rain, brilliant in their red finish, so sparkling as it was being bone dry. The other cars, mind you, were circling the wet track, posting timed laps – any time – in case the weather got worse. Ferrari gambled, and lost. The weather did get worse, the times grew slower, and by the time the cars of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa took to the track, a sailboat would have been a more preferred vehicle to post a fast time.

Gambling makes total sense when the goal is to be the quickest car. However, the goal of Q1 is not to be quickest; rather, the goal is to not be in the slowest seven, and thus earn your way into Q2. Ferrari gets to start Sunday’s race in 19th and 21st. Alongside those honors, they can also show off their own Boneheaded Blunder award.

So, if the F1 teams are filled with the best and brightest minds of the automobile industry, what explains the ongoing parade of idiocy? Ah, I overlooked perhaps the key words – “best and brightest minds of the automobile industry.” Oh yeah, that’s right.

Tweet me up at the track @RayHartjen

When 15th is Like First

The trip back home from Bahrain will be a raucous party for the lads with Lotus F1. While hardly a competitive threat for the podium on Sunday, the entire organization will still view the result as nothing short of a victory. The cars of both Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli finished the full race distance of 49 laps, the only finishers from the new entries on the F1 grid.
“It was a good race for our team,” a happy Kovalainen said. “To get both cars to the finish is a great achievement. My car didn't have a single problem. I know Jarno did, and managed to nurse his car to the end, but the primary goal was to get both cars to the end and we achieved that."

The Lotus crew worked nearly around the clock the entire weekend to get both cars prepared for the race. They were rewarded with an invaluable 98 combined laps of race testing, producing reams of information that will help them more fully develop the car. The sky-high level of morale was evident in the paddock after the race, despite the long days and nights prior to the race start.
There is simply no way to overstate the enormous effort it takes to compete in the modern era of Formula One. Budgets run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and the quest for top engineering and mechanical talent pushes budgets even higher. Lotus Chief Technical Officer Mike Gascoyne has put together solid foundation for F1’s only Malaysian team. By mid-season, look for Lotus F1 to challenge Force India, Renault, and BMW Sauber Ferrari for bragging rights in F1’s middle tier of teams. Who knows, maybe even Williams will be in sight by the end of the year.

Well done, boys! Enjoy the flight home. You have two weeks until you have to do it again.

follow me on Twitter @RayHartjen

For the Love of Tires (or Tyres, as the case may be)

The Formula One season begins this week in Bahrain, the middle eastern tax haven "home" to a surprisingly large number of Formula One pilots.  They don't actually live there, like they often do in places like Monte Carlo.  But, plop down a few mil for a residence and tax haven, he we come.

Racing for luxury townhomes is one thing, racing on the track entirely different.  This season shapes up as the most anticipated in recent history.  The stories are too many to count:

1. Combacks - Schumy is back, albeit with Mercedes; Felipe Massa is back in the Ferrari
2. Driver transfers - World Champion Jensen Button (can't believe I just typed that!) has moved from Brawn to McLaren; Reubeniho is in the Williams; Rosberg is in the Mercedes; Fernando Alonso looks superb in Ferrari livery
3. World Champions - Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton, and Button (4!) are in the field.  I could have probably added Felipe Massa's name to that list and not come up with too much of an argument due to his near miss two years ago. 
4. Constructors - Brawn is now Mercedes; BMW is now BMW Sauber Ferrari; Toyota has left, perhaps in the nick of time to deal with its burdened consumer brand; and Renault is sorta still Renault, sort of Lada
5. New constructors - Lotus, Virgin, and HRT.  No USF1 - ugh!  Of course, these teams will struggle.  But, keep the lookout for Lotus F1.  They have experience in management, engineers, crew, and maybe most important, drivers.  They'll have the quickest pace of the newcomers and will be the first to get points. 
6. New drivers a-plenty.  Have deep pockets?  You might be a F1 pilot next year!
7. New rules - the usual tweaks of the technical regulations, with one big one - no more mid-race refueling.

It's the ban on mid-race refueling that will play out over and over again throughout the season (in addition to the struggles of the newcomers).  The new fuel rules have a "trickle" affect.  First, cars have to accomodate the extra fuel - over 300 pounds or over 20% more again of the car's total weight.  That extra weight is going to play havoc on two areas of the car - the undertray (boring, but a potential source of disqualifications this year) and tires, or as the Brits so lovingly spell, t-y-r-e-s.  Those Brits are so cute.  Precious, indeed.

Tire management will be THE deciding factor in the races this year, compounded by the fact that teams must start the race on the tires they qualified on.  Up front, that will be the "super soft" tires, which, while fast, will be going off after just a few laps of race pace.  Early in the season, look for some strong results from mid-field qualifers on the harder compound tires.  They'll be able to go longer on their first tire stints.  Moreover, they'll be able to save their super soft tires for later in the race, when the tracks are rubbered in, and more importantly, their cars are hundreds of pounds lighter.

On Sundays, the races will be won by the swift, for sure.  But, the early season wager might be best played on the mid-field qualifer, where "swift" is better defined over the course of the entire race on Sunday as opposed to a single lap on Saturday.  For the first race, look for Adrian Sutil of Force India, sitting surprisingly racy on the tenth spot on the grid.

Of course, on the tenth spot of the grid, the entire race might be done by the first corner.  That's a story for Monday.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

The wizards of Formula 1 often look down - always look down - on other forms of open-wheel racing around the world, particularly in the United States. Even in the hey day of CART in the late-80's and early 90's, F1 claimed superiority despite a seemingly endless, snooze-inducing run of McLaren Honda romps.

One thing I always agreed with though was the use of local cautions during an accident. In F1, the clean-up of a shunt is unbelievably quick. It's rare to see the appearance of a safety car (pace car, in the states). The highest of high-tech lifts and cranes are utlized liberally, and a wrecked or stalled car is removed to safety in no time at all. Racing resumes - it usually is only slowed down for a corner or two.

Totally different scenario in the States. Whether CART, IRL, or whatever, the pace car pays a routine visit almost every race weekend. On road circuits, full-course cautions are de riguer, bunching the field. For many, it works - most Americans want wheel-to-wheel racing action, with lots of passes. In the culture of F1, the race on the track on Sunday is just one part of the total race - design engineering, mechanical engineering, qualifying, and racing.

What Americans have figured out though, is how to manage a wet track - we've seen futile F1 attempts several times this season, highlighted (or low-lighted, as may be the case) by this afternoons 90-minute delay in qualifying at Interlagos in Brazil.

Granted, today's storm was, in the parlance of my mother, a "frog strangler." But, F1 race stewards could learn a thing or two of managing a wet track to avoid it "getting away from you." For, once the track is "away," it's lost to the whims of mother nature.

Today saw the folly of the medical car - a bad-ass AMG Mercedes station wagon - taking "inspection laps" to determine if it was safe to resume qualifying. One car on a three-mile track is going to do nothing to disipate water. In the sponsorship crazy state of American road racing, the track would have been littered with "Pace Trucks" flushing the water as much as possible. Ever sat through a ran delay at Indy? Ribbons of trucks circle the track - at times it seems there's more traffic than on Georgetown Road gettng to the track in the first place. Depending on the venue, you'll see a jet-dryer or two.

NASCAR, the epitomy of racing low-tech, even has a great solution. As the track nears drying, they'll line up the cars and run them around at reduced speeds. Not only will the tires help dry by spraying water in the air, but the oven hot exhausts and engine bays do their part to.

A couple of solutions for F1 to ensure their shows go on:

1. Put the Saftey and Medical Car out together, along with every other saftey and track maintenance vehicle on site - the more ties spray, the more water is removed. Try to keep the track from receiving standing water in the first place - it requires almost constant use (and if anyone remembers the CART Portland race circa '95 or so can attest it works)


2. Consider running the field under controlled circumstances, under a full-course caution. An F1 tire can pump out (and up) almost 16 gallons/second at full speed. Even at reduced speeds, it's double-digits of gallons per second, per wheel. 20 cars, 4 wheels apiece - well, they can do the math. Sure, you'll get bitching from the team - it will ruin our fuel loads - but it will be the same for everyone.
   

The show goes on. But for F1 to maintain its collective superiority complex, its got to be the forerunner and leader all the way around. Fellas, do some to better drain your facilities.

As for the race on Sunday, will the dry set-up of Vettel and the McLarens make a difference? A little, but not enough to compensate for their starting positions. If Reubinho can bring it for the home crowd, we'll see the championship go down to Abu Dhabi.

Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life.

Anything that happens before or after is just waiting.