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Red Bull Racing's technical chief Adrian Newey has admitted to concern that the new lower nose regulations introduced in Formula One may have uninentionally made driver safety worse.
Sorry to refute your rant. This proposal is actually from FOTA. It will indeed save a ton of money because the equipment for refuelling can be as simple as a Jerry can. You need a much smaller pit crew if you do not refuel. And finally we will simply see more direct overtaking moves because drivers cannot rely on waiting for pit stops. Combined with winner takes it all it will force the top runners to dice it out on track. Thats not so bad in my view. On top we will get real qually without race fuel back. Which is the best news for many years.gibells wrote:Re: no refueling for next year. .....
Their argument is that it will remove the expense of refueling rigs etc. That's bull. They will always need a refueling rig of some sort. And what about the massive cost to the teams who have to now design a car around a 180 litre fuel tank. What the teams need is 3 years of stability. Then move on from there.
On next year potential two tier and the sole effect of moveable rear wing by patrick headQ. Ross, would you like to start on the overtaking situation as you and Pat were on the overtaking working group I think.
Ross BRAWN: No, I wasn't. Pat was. Our drivers are reporting that the cars are easier to follow. They have still got an imbalance when they follow other cars. But the cars are easier to follow. At the moment we have got the situation that some cars have KERS and some are without KERS. We have had several occasions where we have managed to get on the back of a car with KERS and we can't overtake it as it uses KERS to pull away, so we have got a little bit of an odd situation at the moment but the general impression from our guys is that the cars are better and because they have got this adjustable front wing it also helps to get the car set up when you are coming up behind someone.
Q. Pat, has it pretty much worked the way you thought it was going to?
Pat SYMONDS: I have to say I am not completely sure. We are on race five now. We have had a couple of wet races, Australia is always a difficult track anyway. I have been quite impressed with the way the Brawns have overtaken us a couple of times, so maybe it has worked or maybe they are just quicker than us. But as Ross says the KERS is clouding things as well and I think it is certainly easier to follow now and that is what we set out to do. But it is not the magic panacea.
Q. (Mike Doodson) I suppose this is for all of you. As I understand it, you don't know the full technical regulations for next year, especially the tank size. I wondered if since this impinges on costs that if you each think it is realistic for the President of the FIA to be imposing a budget cut before you even know the rules.
PH: I think teams are having to take a fairly strategic view and maybe cover a number of options. I think at the moment everybody is pretty clear that there is no refuelling next year. I think that was something that FOTA supported way back in December last year, so it is not as if there is any conflict at all about that position. I think there has been some talk about races changing in distance. Really I think everybody is working on the assumption that the races will be of the same length next year and they are doing their numbers on that basis.
But there are all sorts of factors, if you are able to move your rear wing and lower your drag level going down the straight obviously has a number of interesting effects both on lap time but also on your fuel consumption as well. But I think most people will be having to say 'well, we will have to work out our fuel consumption on the basis that we won't be able to move our rear wing and if we are able to move our rear wing we will probably have a little bit too much capacity,' so there is quite a lot of strategic thinking. It is a difficult one.
It is certainly not a comfortable position where rules can be changed without any consultation, without any passing through the technical working group and to me it seems unfortunate that Formula One rules seem to come about through change a lot of the time, through confrontation, rather than through consultation. I think very often Max (Mosley) might say ‘well, I have given them the chance and they haven't come up with what they wanted.' But the teams are very open to realistic and practical ways of saving money. It is not as if the teams, and this goes for the manufacturer teams and the smaller teams, as if they are all rushing around wanting to spend more money. They're not.
They're wanting to spend less money, so I think the environment is very positive towards a less costly Formula One but I don't think anybody, and this goes for Williams certainly, I don't think anybody thinks that a two-tier championship is a good idea. Even on the basis of being able to adjust the rear wing alone, that is going to be very significant. I mean it depends whether any additional things come in that limit how far you are able to adjust it, but on the basis of a completely adjustable rear wing with a single flap moving you are going to be talking about, I don't know, a second-and-a-half, two seconds a lap.
Now, no amount of expenditure on more expensive, more fiddly hydraulic blocks, no amount of expenditure anywhere else will make up for that difference. It is certainly a difficult environment at the moment but I think everybody, Ross, Pat, Aldo, are all having to sit in strategic meetings where you decide what possible option might come through and how you cover it and how, if that doesn't go through, you then don't find yourself significantly embarrassed by having made a wrong decision. It is a bit of a gambling imposition on what should be a logical design process but all part of the fun and the same for everybody.
Q. (Dan Knutson – National Speed Sport News) Question for all of you: the weight limit has been raised for next year but it's a general overall increase, so the taller heavier drivers are penalised. Would you support a system where you weigh the drivers, seat and helmet together, so that it's a level playing field no matter what size your driver is?
RB: I don't think you will get total equality. A big driver should be stronger, he should have more stamina, he should be able to drive the car over a longer period more consistently, so I don't think you will ever get total equality. Possibly the weight limit now, particularly with the introduction of KERS, is making it quite difficult for teams who want to run KERS to find the weight distribution they want and accommodate the heavier drivers.
I think there are two important things next year: one is the weight and the other is the smaller front tyre size which is going to push the weight distribution, let's say, to a more natural position in the car. The ratio size of tyres at the moment is forcing everybody to run very forward weight distributions and that's where people with KERS and bigger drivers also run into problems, so I think it's a sensible change. I think with those changes, I don't believe bigger drivers are penalised. Bigger drivers are stronger and they take those advantages.
PS: I think the only thing that I would add to what's been said is that it's probably worth remembering that next year's cars will be heavier per se, the bigger fuel tanks mean more monocoque to put that fuel tank in. The fuel tank material is quite heavy. If the FOTA material restrictions are adopted and of course they can be because material restrictions abide in the appendix to the technical regulations, so they can be changed in quite short order, if the recommendations which the FOTA technical regulation working group have come up with on material restrictions are applied, then again that will increase the weight of the cars, so I think that the increased weight limit, while not entirely neutralised, will be largely neutralised just by changes in regulations.
Please read the press conference on this. They take something like 30 of these units to fly away races. That will probably close to save one aircraft to not have to take those. The teams certainly are happy with it.gibells wrote:..
About refueling, I'm just saying, surely the investment into the fuel equipment has already been made. If the only defence for another rule change is the 'massive cost' of transporting refueling rigs & hiring extra crew I think we've been sold a tablet. You can't tell me it's worth each of these teams spending millions redesigning the core of the chassis just to get rid of these minute costs. Case in point #1 jerry cans- come on. They'll spend fresh millions redesigning new fuel dispensers. and #2, look at the entertainment 'caravans' these teams so hapily transport 10s of thousands of miles. You cant tell me that ridding the budget of the transport of a few refueling rigs and getting rid of on or 2 crew will make any sort of difference.
I'm only saying that they/we haven't thought all this through.
So taking 13 units (one for each team) is going to save F1?WhiteBlue wrote:Please read the press conference on this. They take something like 30 of these units to fly away races. That will probably close to save one aircraft to not have to take those. The teams certainly are happy with it.gibells wrote:..
About refueling, I'm just saying, surely the investment into the fuel equipment has already been made. If the only defence for another rule change is the 'massive cost' of transporting refueling rigs & hiring extra crew I think we've been sold a tablet. You can't tell me it's worth each of these teams spending millions redesigning the core of the chassis just to get rid of these minute costs. Case in point #1 jerry cans- come on. They'll spend fresh millions redesigning new fuel dispensers. and #2, look at the entertainment 'caravans' these teams so hapily transport 10s of thousands of miles. You cant tell me that ridding the budget of the transport of a few refueling rigs and getting rid of on or 2 crew will make any sort of difference.
I'm only saying that they/we haven't thought all this through.
Wheel change is much more fun.