Ted Kravitz - the European GP from the pit lane
The Mole welcomes BBC pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz to the blog to give his inside line on the European Grand Prix at Valencia
McLaren's pit stop
I hate to spoil a good story, but McLaren were correct when they said they would have lost the European Grand Prix even without the blunder at Lewis Hamilton's pit stop.
The key piece of information gleaned from the Brawn team at Valencia on Sunday night was that Rubens Barrichello pitted three laps early.
The Brazilian's planned second stop was on lap 43, but as soon as his engineer Jock Clear was sure his driver would make it out of the pits in front of Hamilton, he called him in and got the job done.
As Clear put it: "We elected to bank it". He'd do well on The Weakest Link.
Had Hamilton's stop on lap 37 gone perfectly, Barrichello would still have had six laps to pull out a gap on Lewis. He was a second per lap quicker than the McLaren at this point, on low fuel and with the harder tyres still working well. It would have been easy - Barrichello would have beaten Hamilton out by more than two seconds.
Having said all that, it was a bit barmy of McLaren not to have Hamilton's tyres out in the pit lane as a precaution while they were working out whether they could run him a lap longer before his stop. Heikki Kovalainen - whose tyres were being readied, unlike Lewis's - wasn't challenging for the win and so wasn't really the main priority. I'll let you know after Spa if McLaren change their procedures to stop this happening again.
Brawn
I'm sure they'll get over it, but Brawn team members were a little disappointed that the perception of the European GP result was that of Hamilton losing the race rather than them winning it.
In any case, it was a very confident performance by Barrichello, if a little too laid back for some, in terms of how he managed the gap to the McLaren.
As Jock Clear explained after the race, even though Barrichello was in complete control of the situation, it looked like he was doing worse than he was, circulating a consistent four seconds behind Hamilton.
Barrichello was doing this so he could run in some clean air, and not have his aerodynamics ruined by the turbulence of the McLaren (this is a really big problem, now, and is the subject of much discussion by the FIA technical and overtaking working groups).
But it made for some frayed nerves on the pit wall. If something went wrong, or if McLaren suddenly went quicker, Barrichello was giving himself a four-second mountain to climb.
That's why we heard the slightly concerned radio message from Clear: "I don't mind how you do this, Rubens, but this is how much time you have to make up." Just to make sure the driver knew what the score was.
It was an emotional day for Clear. Incredibly for one of F1's most experienced engineers, it was his first win since Jacques Villeneuve won the 1997 Luxembourg Grand Prix at the Nurburgring for Williams, almost 12 years ago.
Clear followed his Canadian charge to BAR in 1999, without much success. When Villeneuve left and the team became Honda, Clear switched to Takuma Sato. He has worked with Barrichello since he joined the team in 2006.
I guess that's just the way grand prix racing goes, but it was no surprise to see Clear clutching his constructors' trophy tightly in the paddock with some considerable pride.
Ferrari
The feeling at Ferrari on the Luca Badoer issue was very much one of: "Yes, it was as bad as it looked, but it was a big ask and he's going to be better in Belgium."
The full post-race interview with Rob Smedley, who is engineering Luca while Felipe Massa is injured, gave some more insight into how big a task Badoer had in front of him.
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Evidently the Ferrari F60 is a very complicated car to operate. There are many buttons and dials to turn and twist: Kers harvest and usage settings, brake balance and bias levers, fuel and oil pumps, front flap adjusts and the usual revs, throttle and mixture settings.
These demand a lot of spare capacity to think about all these control systems while driving the car on the limit at the same time, and there is also a complicated procedure to follow when a Ferrari driver comes into the pits.
There was a lot of sympathy within Ferrari for Badoer, but one gets the feeling they accept he's not world-class. And the feeling in the paddock was that unless he scores points in Spa, he won't be driving car number three much longer.
I went down to position 20 to sample the atmosphere around the car on the grid. Badoer must have found it quite familiar, given he was used to qualifying down there when he was at Scuderia Italia, Forti Corse and Minardi.
But the rest of the team could barely disguise their distaste for the back row. Michael Schumacher was there, too, ostensibly lending support and showing solidarity with Badoer, but with a look on his face that said: "I want to be somewhere else."
Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel revealed the interesting cause of his refuelling problem: The rig suffered pressure failure within the fuel cell.
Since the fuel is delivered into the car at 12 litres per second, it needs to be pumped first into a big cylinder right in the middle of the rig. This cylinder is then pressurised with inert gas, and is 'primed', ready to pump fuel in.
But this last stage failed on the first rig, so only a small amount of fuel that was in the hose went into the car.
Formula 1 TV did a video about how the whole process works, coincidentally with Red Bull Racing, if you'd like to know more.
Williams
With the likelihood of Williams splitting with engine supplier Toyota next season, Kazuki Nakajima's time at the team may be drawing to a close.
Williams is effectively a one-car operation at the moment, with Nico Rosberg scoring all 29 and a half points as the English team try to overtake Toyota for fifth place in the constructors' championship.
I asked Kazuki on Thursday what his main problem was in the races, and he said that he was losing too much time in traffic. I couldn't pin down whether he meant he lost time letting other people through or lapping slower cars.
He seemed confident of scoring points soon. Williams desperately need him to.
As far as Williams's drivers for next year, Robert Kubica's name seems to be in the frame, alongside their German test driver, Nico Hulkenberg.
One might think Kubica would fit better as a star name to lead the Renault team, and he admitted to me on Thursday that they are on the list for consideration, but Williams may be a straightforward, no-nonsense option for the like-minded Pole.
And as every other team trims its budget to the levels Williams have been operating on for some years, Williams's ability to produce more bang for their buck should see them move steadily up the grid.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~20~RS~)
Comments
Ted,
Great article as ever... do you agree that removing refuelling from next year will take away one of the biggest strategy tools. It relies on technology, defines the running speed of the car which can vary with fuel and tyre wear making the lack of overtaking somewhat acceptable. What else can have such a profound effect on a race outcome.
Next year we have aero on cars that still make overtaking or at least close driving impossible, no KERs to give a boost, no flexibility in the fuel levels which means one thing... cars following each other for 100+ miles on a Sunday afternoon waiting for the guy in front to make a mistake.
Never more will a good quali position be required.
Or am I missing something?
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Williams have signed up with toyota as the engine supplier in 2010 so if they changed to renault (or any other) tey would loose all their constructors points next year, meaning a huge drop in income.
The only way Williams can viably change supplier is if Toyota withdraw.
As to more Mercedes engines, each supplier can only have their works cars (Mclaren) and a customer car (Force India), Brawn was because of exceptional circumstances but Mercedes wouldn't want to drop them next year.
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Good round up from the pits as always
Could you or another go in depth regarding why this year's aero rules aren't working?
Its been said the double diffusers are the main culprit but aren't diffusers/ground effects supposed to create less turbulent wake than wings and bodywork aero?
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I agree with post 1 to a certain degree. In the 80s and early 90s when there was no refuelling, the cars were not as aerodynamically advanced, which made following closely and overtaking easier - although it has to be said that the performance differences between cars was also greater which nullified some of the aerodynamic effect.
But with today's cars as they are, processional races might become common place. Again, referring to the previous era, the sight of mechanics struggling to take wheels off while tyres bounced around the pit lane meant people could benefit from botched tyre changes. But nowadays (Hamilton's incident aside), there is hardly ever a drama while changing tyres, it is usually fuel rig-related, meaning another avenue of position change has been eradicated.
Maybe a change in the points system is needed to make people gamble more. At present, with the difference between winning and coming 2nd 2 points, and even between 3rd and 4th one point, there is little incentive to risk everything and throw it all away for the sake of one or two points. The current system was only introduced because Ferrari dominated 2002 and 2004, but that hasn't happened since. And with the cars being so close, maybe reverting to the old 10-6-4-3-2-1 system would place more emphasis on winning and taking the risk to do so.
It would also prevent situations like now, where Button has managed to maintain his championship lead so handsomely even by finishing 7th. The original points system would have allowed the Barrichello-Webber-Vettel chasing pack to be a lot closer by now, making for a more interesting championship, and also forcing the leader, in this case Button, to raise his game instead of being overly cautious in qualifying and the races.
However, I fear that as post 1 said, cars will just follow each other around for an hour and a half every Sunday afternoon from pretty much their grid positions.
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I am not in favour of "killing off" refueling. I see refueling as a demonstration of the team effect and not the driver/car effect. It takes alot more than just a car and driver to win. I doubt that many drivers could even start the cars let alone drive them without the suport of the rest of the team. Next year, imho the cars will follow each other with little or no overtaking for at least the first hour of the race. The teams will be trying to save the tyres whilst burning up most of their fuel, so that they can go hell for leather after the last tyre change.
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Hi Ted, great blog.
I totally understand the situation with Hamilton vs Barrichello, but i have a question.
Hamilton finished the race only 2.5 seconds behind Barrichello, and i realise that Barrichello may have been taking it easy in the closing laps of the race enabling Hamilton to catch him.
But if the tyres had gone straight onto Hamiltons car he would have only been 2/3 seconds behind instead of 4/5. Once both drivers had worked there tyres in and equalised the fuel in there cars towards the end of the race Hamilton would have been on a charge with nothing to loose where as Barrichello would have been far more cautious so not to loose ground in his title push. I also realise Barrichello would have stretched his lead before coming into pit, which he did early. But are we saying Hamilton was just going to let Barrichello win. He would have fought all the way to the end.
If Barrichello was under more pressure from Hamilton you also have to take into consideration the management of tyres and brakes from Barrichello point of view.
If Hamilton did get into striking distance of Barrichello and applied some pressure I would back Hamilton everytime to pass anyone on the grid, especially with KERS on board.
It's a case of ifs, buts and maybes - but i just can't believe Martin Whitmarsh just wrote them off after the race instead of saying we made a mistake and cost Lewis a good challenge at Barrichello.
Keep up the good work, i'm loving the coverage this year.
- I totally agree with seisteve in point 1 about refuelling.
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@ post #4
I agree that reverting back to the old 10-6-4-3-2-1 points system would place more emphasis on winning, however it would not have resulted in a closer championship this year, as Button has won the majority of the races and would therefore be further ahead than he currently is.
With current system, he is 18 points clear of Barrichello, 20.5 clear of Webber and 25 clear of Vettel.
With the old system, he could currently be 23 points clear of Barrichello and Vettel, and 23.5 clear of Webber.
I suppose it would technically mean that the championship would still be in the hands of any one of those 4 drivers (as wins in the remaining 6 races would create a gap of 24 points to someone who finished 2nd in all 6, compared to the 12 it would under the current system).
However given that McLaren and Ferrari are both looking increasingly competitive, it's quite likely that they will be in the mix in the final few races and will have a say in who ends up taking the title.
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Changing tyres and refuelling together has been a major cause of processional racing. Things were much improved when changing tyres was banned - but Kimi's crash (among others) showed why that wasn't entirely safe. So, we go back to no refuelling - brilliant! We find out the performance difference between hard and soft tyres. We find out who can be smooth enough to make soft tyres work with a heavy fuel load. We find out which cars can make a set of hard tyres last the race (unless we're stuck with "you must use both compounds"). I used to love the suspense of a non-stopping car being reeled in by someone on fresh tyres - just think of Mansell and Piquet in '86! Bring it on!
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Great article Ted, I'm glad someone in the media has finally pointed out to the public that Brawn would've beaten McLaren regardless of the botched pit stop. I was trying until I was blue in the face to explain to people that after Hamilton's fuel hose came off (by which time the tyres are usually ready) it took a further five seconds to get the tyres on, and when the second round of pit stops were over, Barichello had more than a 6 second lead. So either way Lewis was coming out behind Rubens. Add to that the fact that Brawn brought him in three laps early, as you've pointed out, and that he was the fastest qualifier taking weight into account, they were always going to catch Hamilton.
McLaren should be very happy with the turnaround though, second and fourth is a pretty good result and shows that Hamilton and hopefully Heikki will have a big say in who takes the title this year.
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Am I just being really thick? Badoer is a test driver for Ferrari, so surely he should know the workings of the car inside out. The excuse of "many buttons and dials to turn and twist: harvest and usage settings, brake balance and bias levers, fuel and oil pumps, front flap adjusts and the usual revs, throttle and mixture settings" really can't wash. He's slow and doesn't have the skills to be a competent Formula 1 driver. Yes, Michael Schumacher's face did give it away, as Badoer spun for the second time!
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Hi Ted,
You're not spoiling a good story, you're just telling the truth, because you're absolutely right about what you say with McLaren and Brawn!
Still, great blog and keep it up!
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Agree with post three, it would be really interesting to have a demonstration of this ‘dirty air’ maybe a simulation with models in a wind tunnel with some smoke to fully show the airflow over the cars and how getting closer to the car in front effects the aerodynamics.
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HAve to agree with the above about refuelling. Strategy calls and switches are a fabuolous part of Formula One and I love sitting watching, working out who's going to come in when and whether the other guy has the fuel to overtake in the pits.
The racing will undoubtedly be more processional without refuelling, but it will be interesting to see how the new system beds in, and whether people can go the whole race on one set of "boots."
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yellow_n_green: There is a difference between test driving and trying to drive as fast as possible in a race with other people competing for position. I read it that although Badoer know's what to do, doing it under race conditions is something he was struggling.
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Great blog but where was/is the Rob Smedley interview? Is it on the BBC site somewhere?
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Just wondering if that's Jenson in the front row of the Brawn team photo, celebrating Reubens victory? Not sure many other drivers would do this. A real credit to the Brawn Team.
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The one good thing about Luca Badoers performance is that it showed that F1 is not all about the cars - drivers' skills make a huge difference.
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4 & 7 - how about giving points to all but the very last one - and those that retire - so that there would be more competition for places below the 6th or the 8th, too? Giving the winner proportionately more points, though, of course.
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10: I think I'm right in saying Badoer hasn't driven the car at all this year with the testing restrictions, which suggests that he's never used KERS before.
As #14 said, testing is a far more sedate environment in which to fiddle about with settings. Add to this the fact that back when Badoer was racing there were far less knobs to twizzle and he has a lot to catch up on.
I'm not sure how long it has been since Badoer has thoroughly tested a car, I would guess a couple of years. Obviously the guy to compare him with is Alguersuari (GP2 cars are quite similar to F1 I think, so Buemi and Grosjean have an advantage), but Badoer is an old dog now and it's taking him a while to learn the new tricks.
However, what I cant really understand is the pit speeding violations and crossing the white line after he let someone by in the pits (think it was Nakajima or a Toro Rosso). It seems to me he's oversensitive about making mistakes, understandably so after all the criticism he's come under, and gets flustered quite easily. Hopefully at Spa he will relax a little and be able to get into the groove.
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Post 18
I agree that awarding points further down would improve the racing. F1 in general has stuck to 9, then 10 points as the win, but that would change. On the regular 606 pages, people have suggested giving points for fastest lap and pole position, which I think would be good as well.
At present, with the difference between positions so small points-wise, it has created a high-risk, low-reward system. It needs to be a high-risk, high-reward situation, where if people attempt to overtake, the risk of crashing out is equalled by the reward of more points.
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How did lauda, Prost, Mansell, Piquet, Andretti and countless others manage on one set of tyres and a full tank? Were they super-human? Or have we simply forgotten the basic rule of racing: to finish first, first you must finish! Race AND care for your machine!
And let me add to this that procesional races were not as frequent as they are now: not a romantic vision of things past, merely an observation from an old guy who has been watching F1 since the days of B&W TV... The highlight of the week was to buy Motoring News to read Alan Henry's comments on the week-end's events and shenannigans (go back to 1976 and see what Mosley/Ecclestone were up to then!).
Pit-lane battles and moody long lens shots of drivers' Dads in the garages are anecdotal addenda to the real business: racing! And we are forgetting that. Electronics now ensure that the current generation knows nothing about death of up to ten Cossies during a race, if they even know what a Cossie is...
Still, can't be at Pouhon this year, so it will have to the TV and perhaps some overtaking on track?
Enjoy Sunday folks!
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Nice to have confirmation of what was bleeding obvious to everyone except Lewis nerds - Rubens would have won, regardless. And no, mssheppard, there was no way Lewis could have found a way past Rubens if he'd come out close behind, barring a mistake of course, of which there was about 1 chance in 100.
Let's hear it for Rubie !!
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Get rid of refuelling.
Too much onus on pit strategy and pit passing, therefore no on-track overtaking.
If you're told the car in front is going to pit before you then why bother making an effort, ruin your tyres and risk damaging your car when the next best thing is to wait and then push on a clear track?
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Their has only been two Grand Prix staged in Valencia and both wins have come from Brazilians.Last year Felipe Massa stormed away in a procession to prove Ferrari are not just about a certain Michael Schumacher.This year the old man but probably the most popular amongst F1 fans saw an emotional Rubens Barrichello salute his compatriat Massa who is recovering from a near fatal accident and five years in the wilderness since his last win.This was a statement of intent to all concerned I am still here!For one wake up call Jenson Button cetainly needs to get his arse into gear.He might have finished a gruelling Triatholon some weeks ago but he is beginning to lose his mojo.The motivation was etched all over Barrichello and Hamiltons face but Jenson was showing all the signs of a Hull City start before hitting the buffers.Red Bull had an off day just aswell for the Brawn outfit but Spa should suit the Adrian Newey combo and Jenson must be concerned of Rubens comming into his rear view mirrors.Rubens doesn't sit easily on the nearly man tag and felt Ferrari never took him seriously in the car from Maranello.Fortunately Button couldn't get near to his team mate but sometime Brawn will have to make a hard decision on who to favour he would have had easier moments.Red Bull will be steering that way also as Aussie Mark Webber is proving that losing the Ashes is secondary and Webber won't take second best.So everything to play for Spa up next where you can bet on one thing the predictable is always unpredictable!
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To #1:
Removing fueling will take away one strategic element yes but it will add another.
At the moment the teams have very little ability to alter strategy as the race unfolds because doing so will always mean either running some laps with more fuel than intended. When they all have the same full fuel load next year we will see more flexability as teams will be instead looking to maximise tyre potential. As cars this year are always far slower after a stop it will be more likely the case that they are slightly faster after one from next year.
To #4:
Aerodynamic instability is and will continue to be a problem for F1 until the FIA make it more of a priority to reduce wing size and standardise body shapes. Changing the points shystem will NOT help this, the drivers on show ar the best in the world, they are already taking all the risks that they can without being reckless, they just can not get close enough to do anything that would not end up being a desperate lunge that would likely take them both off.
People seem to think that the reason we have less overtaking now is because of technical things like Aero and Tyres, well that is only a small part of it, mostly its because the teams and drivers are so much better all round today than 20 years ago. Back then outside the top 3 teams and 4 or 5 drivers the quality dropped off massively, This lead to massive discrepencies in car performance and most importantly to driver errors. Today you can watch an entire race and see maybe 6 or 7 driver major errors, some of them will result in lost places, others will not but 20 years ago almost every driver was making multiple errors every race (running too deep into a corner, spinning, oversteerign off etc.), you see this if you watch the GP2 or Indy series races, the guys just below the top make these errors and it leads to overtaking.
To #10:
Badoer will have not operated the car on a test track since early March and never undr race conditions. His role in testing is a functional one rather than an outright pace one, he would have spent most of his time testing specific elements of the car, probably ignoring the rest. For instance to get a better idea fo relative performance of rear wing settings he would have run multiple laps with each setup without using any of the extra bells and whistles like KERS, fuel mixes, brake balances or radios because each one of those brings a potential inconsistency that an cloud the performance of the wing. He would have likely done very very few racing laps as this part of testing would have been covered by Massa and Raikkonnen so that the cars could be tuned to their styles and the drivers who were actually going to race got the experience with all the gadgets at once.
To #12:
ITV actually did a very good feature on this last season that showed exactly what you suggested by blowing smoke over a car in a wind tunnel
To #18:
Yes awarding points further down would be good, it would also give more room for rewarding first place with a bigger gap. Start with 50 for 1st, 35 for 2nd then 25, 20, 16, 12, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 for 16th. Throw in 5, 3 and 1 for the fastest 3 laps (for 3 different drivers of course). OK the extra point for a place from 14th to 13th might make no difference to the title but it will make a difference for 5th/6th in the constructors most likely.
To #21:
No they were not superhumans, they were given big chunky low grip tyres which would be able to run probably twice the race distance before blowing up, completely the opposite to todays tyres that are designed to work in a specific window in terms of temperatuer and distance. Given a tyre that will run 400 miles any of todays drivers ould make them last the whole race as well and given one of todays compounds even Prost would have shredded then afte 35 laps. I refer you to my comments earlier about car discrepencies and driver errors to answer your processional argument.
To #24:
What has being brazillian got to do with winning at Valencia?
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I have to agree the pitstop didn,t cost Lewis the race but why does Martin Whitmarsh insist they only lost 2sec,s.Do you have longer seconds than the rest of us Martin? Could it be W(Woking)ST.
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I think Martin Whitmarsh was referring to the fact that Lewis needed a long stop for fuel so would have been stationary for 9 or 10 seconds anyway. Because the tyres weren't ready, it took 12 so 2 were lost. Maybe. As for no re-fueling meaning more processional races, would Bernie's silly gold medal idea be an antidote to this?
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A question thats been bugging me if anyone can answer. the idea of this year's rules was too cut dowm on the mechanical aerodynamics to help over taking, they had prime opportunity with the diffuser issue at the start of the season to ban the double diffuser which generated more down force but allowed it to be kept.
I personally think as the majority of the cars downforce gains are from the diffuser and there should be a standard controlled one for all teams while allowing them to tweak the usual stuff around the cars.
In regards to the past comment about Mansell and Piquet in '86 and how it would be good to get back those days,the cars are so sophisticated now I can't see that happening.
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Just a quick heads-up to poster number 9, who said "I'm glad someone in the media has finally pointed out to the public that Brawn would've beaten McLaren regardless of the botched pit stop".
The BBC actually pointed this out in our report on the website on Sunday afternoon - the one that is the first hyperlink off Ted's blog. Ted has added some valuable extra analysis to a fact that the BBC was on top of as soon as the relevant info came out on Sunday shortly after the race.
Thanks
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The lack of race pace for Badoer is one thing...but his lack of qualifying pace in inexcusable!
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I seem to remember the days of cars running out of fuel on the lst lap.. or even within sight of the flag......
Will this "new" strategy only bring this scenario back into the equation..??
What value on a "win" when your rivals ran out of fuel....??
Being able to run a car light has been used by many teams to get clear air....this is all part of the various different tactics that give each team at least a chance to take advantage of their cars specific advantages over others on differing tracks..
I wonder if the "other tactics are part of the equation" mentioned will actually be enough to compensate for this..
Answers on a postcard to...Flavio Briatore c/o Bernie &Max...Renault France.
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