official F1 World Championship 2011 Thread

[MightyJordan]

Good to hear. Hopefully, he'll be back in an F1 car next year. :)

[TheLegendOfMart]

Haha, Vettel just planted his car into the wall in FP1, everyone in RB garage has a frowny face apart from Mark Webber, hes not smiling but you can tell hes laughing internally. The car is completely trashed.

This is going to be a very interesting race if it rains on Sunday, nearly everyone is struggling at turn 11 aquaplaning off.

[simonlang]

apart from Mark Webber, hes not smiling but you can tell hes laughing internally. The car is completely trashed.

he is some old frustrated guy, isnt he? :p

will rbr steal his frontwing again and put it on vettels car? :woot:

i see another potential repeat of what happend in turkey last year and a mclaren 1-2 would be welcomed very much too, but dont count out massa yet, he is the guy who has won more than anyone else on this track and could well be the surprise of the weekend.

[san.W10]

Alonso fastest, Vettel crashes in FP1

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Vettel hits the front in final practice

Sebastian Vettel shrugged off his lack of Friday running to go quickest in the final practice session ahead of Turkish Grand Prix qualifying.

The Red Bull driver edged out countryman Michael Schumacher by just a thousandth of a second as Mercedes continued to show very promising form and took second and fourth places, with Mark Webber putting the second Red Bull third ahead of Nico Rosberg.

After his Friday crash, Vettel had insisted that the loss of the afternoon's dry running would not hold him back - and he proved his point by hitting the front 25 minutes into today's session, and remaining on top until the late qualifying-style soft tyre runs started.

The usual flurry of changes at that juncture saw Sebastien Buemi, Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso, and both Mercedes take turns at the front in quick succession, before Vettel reclaimed the top spot by setting a 1m26.037s with a minute a go. It was just 0.001s ahead of Schumacher's time, but some of Vettel's advantage had been lost when he came across Tonio Liuzzi's Hispania in the final corners.

Mercedes had held first and second going into the closing minutes before both Red Bulls made their late improvements to take first and third.

The McLarens were fifth and sixth, Jenson Button ahead of Lewis Hamilton.

Behind Vitaly Petrov's seventh-placed Renault, the Ferraris of Alonso and Massa were eighth and ninth. The former slowed after his soft tyre run, reporting that his car was stuck in sixth gear.

Buemi's soft tyre time in the Toro Rosso was good enough to keep him in 10th. His team-mate Jaime Alguersuari had the only notable incident of the session when he spun off at Turn 4.

Pos  Driver              Team/Car              Time       Gap       Laps
 1.  Sebastian Vettel    Red Bull-Renault      1m26.037s            17
 2.  Michael Schumacher  Mercedes              1m26.038s  + 0.001s  17
 3.  Mark Webber         Red Bull-Renault      1m26.404s  + 0.367s  16
 4.  Nico Rosberg        Mercedes              1m26.420s  + 0.383s  19
 5.  Jenson Button       McLaren-Mercedes      1m26.578s  + 0.541s  17
 6.  Lewis Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      1m26.726s  + 0.689s  14
 7.  Vitaly Petrov       Renault               1m26.755s  + 0.718s  20
 8.  Fernando Alonso     Ferrari               1m26.819s  + 0.782s  12
 9.  Felipe Massa        Ferrari               1m26.883s  + 0.846s  12
10.  Sebastien Buemi     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m27.080s  + 1.043s  16
11.  Sergio Perez        Sauber-Ferrari        1m27.121s  + 1.084s  20
12.  Pastor Maldonado    Williams-Cosworth     1m27.255s  + 1.218s  18
13.  Adrian Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  1m27.318s  + 1.281s  19
14.  Nick Heidfeld       Renault               1m27.379s  + 1.342s  17
15.  Rubens Barrichello  Williams-Cosworth     1m27.528s  + 1.491s  19
16.  Paul di Resta       Force India-Mercedes  1m27.644s  + 1.607s  18
17.  Jaime Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m27.724s  + 1.687s  15
18.  Kamui Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari        1m27.976s  + 1.939s  19
19.  Heikki Kovalainen   Lotus-Renault         1m28.911s  + 2.874s  15
20.  Jarno Trulli        Lotus-Renault         1m29.697s  + 3.660s  17
21.  Jerome D'Ambrosio   Virgin-Cosworth       1m31.097s  + 5.060s  25
22.  Timo Glock          Virgin-Cosworth       1m31.175s  + 5.138s  19
23.  Tonio Liuzzi        HRT-Cosworth          1m31.375s  + 5.338s  19
24.  Narain Karthikeyan  HRT-Cosworth          1m32.009s  + 5.972s  15

All timing unofficial

Source: Autosport

While this is only a free practice result it looks as though the Mercedes GP upgrades are working.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

[TheLegendOfMart]

Mclaren wasted by a Mercedes, unless it rains they are in trouble tomorrow.

[san.W10]

WTH happened with MS?

Webber got out of car with 1.2minutes left on clock.

[leesmithg]

Hamilton and Button didn't do too well.

Seems Webber and Vettel have the best cars for this track.

I still expect Hamilton to win in Turkey.

[san.W10]

Schumacher mystified by lack of pace

Michael Schumacher admitted that he was hugely disappointed to qualify only eighth on the grid for the Turkish Grand Prix, having shown strong pace in the final practice session on Saturday morning.

The Mercedes driver ended up recording a lap more than a second slower than that of his team-mate Nico Rosberg in Q3 - who starts from third on the grid ? having matched Sebastian Vettel's pace during P3.

Schumacher said afterwards that he was mystified as to where the laptime had gone during qualifying.

"I'm not happy at all, being so far off, that's a bit unusual," he told the BBC. "It didn't really work out at all. The grip for whatever reason wasn't there compared to what I had this morning.

"I struggled already in Q2. The track certainly was better than it was this morning, but we couldn't reproduce what we did this morning. So, we need to understand what's going on.

"The more I pushed, the more things went wrong, and in the end there was no grip left."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/91214

[what]

Mclaren wasted by a Mercedes, unless it rains they are in trouble tomorrow.

Wasted?

[simonlang]

so far so bad, concerning the internal team battles. would have just needed webber beating vettel to finish my day completely :wacko:

[simonlang]

has anyone seen the weather prediction for tomorrows race? it will be cloudy and quite cooler than today + the wind is going to turn direction. could be bring up some surprises tomorrow :yes:

at least in the places behind vettel, that is. :p

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

[simonlang]

the numbers only tell half of the truth imho. how many laps did vettel between his 3rd and 4th stop? was that even 10 or less? for me that was only a pitstop for safety reasons, otherwise vettel would have finished 30+ in front of webber.

otherwise this race seemed a bit boring for me. ferrari is not the team that i used to admire once, they deliberately screw up 50% (!) of massas pitstops just to prevent him racing his overrated teammate, who at least got demoted from faked p2 to p3 thanks to webber finally being a racer for at least 5 laps. :p

mclaren was just shocking today. really, really shocking! i dont even wanna mention hamis pitstop or the lack of teamorders so that button could hold up hami for the first laps in the race, while alonso pulled away.

they better bring a good update for barcelona or they ll see themselves more often than not behind ferrari.

[ahmz]

Solid race for the top 3, bit scruffy for the rest. It will be very interesting to see if there's much overtaking at Barcelona in 2 weeks.

[.mcman]

mclaren was just shocking today. really, really shocking! i dont even wanna mention hamis pitstop or the lack of teamorders so that button could hold up hami for the first laps in the race, while alonso pulled away.

It was very entertaining though... But yea, Jenson should have let Lewis through, they were on different strategy - Button would have saved tires and Hamilton would've kept up with Alonso. Probably.

[Chasethebase Reporter]

I think Vettel's currently #winning :laugh:

[san.W10]

Petrov back in form :p

[san.W10]

Sutil to face criminal complaint :laugh:

Force India driver Adrian Sutil is to face a criminal complaint for physical and grievous bodily harm from Eric Lux, CEO of Renault F1 team owners Genii Capital.

The complaint relates to an incident that took place in a Shanghai nightclub on the night of this year's Chinese Grand Prix. No official details relating to the incident have been released.

A statement issued on behalf of Lux by the Lalive law firm on Monday said: "In the view of the recent events which occurred in Shanghai on 17 April, Mr Eric Lux has decided to file a criminal complaint against Mister Adrian Sutil for physical assault and grievous bodily harm.

"As soon as the complaint is registered, the F?d?ration Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and the team Force India will be notified.

"Furthermore, please note that Mr Eric Lux does not exclude commencing an action against any other persons involved in this matter."

Sutil confirmed to German media last week that he was involved in an incident in China, but insists there was no deliberate intent from him to injure anybody.

"During a private event, there was a very unfortunate action by me in which I hurt another person completely unintentionally," Sutil said in a statement to the German media.

"I regret the incident and have apologised accordingly. Since this was a private event and not directly related to Formula 1 or my job as a Formula 1 driver, I ask for understanding that I will say no more on this incident."

Force India was unavailable for immediate comment.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/91458

[.mcman]

"Furthermore, please note that Mr Eric Lux does not exclude commencing an action against any other persons involved in this matter."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/91458

oh boy, poor Lewis.

[san.W10]

FIA in blown diffuser clampdown

Formula 1's competitive order at the front of the field could be thrown on its head in this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix with the FIA having made a major change to the exhaust blown diffuser regulations, AUTOSPORT has learned.

With the design and execution of blown diffusers being viewed as a key area of the 2011 development race, teams have been pushing hard with their concepts to try and eek out any competitive advantage they can.

One aspect that has been worked on a lot is in ensuring that a flow of exhaust gases keep pumping through the diffuser, to help increase downforce, even when the throttle is not in use.

But now, on the back of some teams expending huge effort in tweaking engine modes to help gain performance in this area, the FIA has acted and decided to clamp down on what they are up to.

High level sources have revealed that the FIA has written to teams informing them that from this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix they will no longer be allowed to continue flowing gases through the engine when the driver is not on the throttle.

It is understood the directive to the teams tells them that, under braking, the throttle input can now be no larger than 10 per cent of its maximum. Some outfits had been gaining aerodynamic benefit from keeping the throttle flow at 100 per cent under braking.

To push this regulation change through, the FIA has deemed that throttle use will be allowed only for the purpose of increasing torque, not for 'aerodynamic performance'.

This effectively means that any team found to be using off-throttle blown diffusers could be in breach of the famous Article 3.15 of the technical regulations that outlaws moveable aerodynamic devices.

The change in regulations is set to hurt every team running a blown diffuser - although some may be hurt more than others.

Mercedes GP team principal Ross Brawn said: "It will affect all the teams. These staccato exhausts you hear, I don't think you are going to hear them anymore.

"The teams have all been developing their engine management systems to get the maximum advantage from the exhausts, and the FIA want to push us in a different direction now so there will be changes there.

"I've no idea what will be the outcome there, but it has forced all the teams to have a fresh look at what they are doing in terms of engine strategies."

However, with McLaren having recently hinted that it viewed off-throttle engine maps as a key to Red Bull Racing's qualifying form, the change in regulations could mean the reigning world champion team is one of the worst hit.

Speaking to AUTOSPORT about the impact of the change in rules, Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner said: "I think that it is going to have an affect with all teams that have been utilising it.

"That appears to be 90 per cent of the grid, if you look at how many teams are running blown diffusers. It is not something unique to this year, it is something that started last year, so Barcelona will clearly show what effect this will have."

When asked if he thought the rules change had come about as the result of a complaint from a rival team to try and slow Red Bull Racing down, Horner said: "It is inevitable and the unfortunate consequence of success."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/91475

[ahmz]

Hmm, I wonder how big of an effect this will have on the order, and it seems quite sudden.

[HSoft]

I agree and why stop there, why not remove the KERS button from inside the car and have random light up sensors on the track that if you drive over you get a "turbo" KERS boost, maybe have contact pads so you can unlock oil slicks to use at your will, or even better put guns and missiles on the cars!!!!!!!!!

yeah and whilst they are at it, why not have some imaginary line on the track whereby if you are within 1 second of the car infront then between another two imaginary lines on the track you can make an adjustment to your wing to give you more speed, but only within the designated imaginary lines. Oh wait, they are already doing that...