Ted Kravitz - the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix from the pit lane
The Mole welcomes BBC F1 pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz to the blog to give his inside line on the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and some pointers for 2010.
Brawn
Team boss Ross Brawn admitted on Saturday night that his car had been out-developed by Red Bull and McLaren, but revealed an impressively daring strategy that should enure his team are not a one-championship wonder.
The Brawn car arrived at the first grand prix this year as the most developed car of all. Where other teams were only on their Mark I designs, Brawn was at the equivalent of Mk III.
Add what turned out to be the legal double-diffuser concept and they had a massive head start.
The team did some development work on the car, but by the time of the Turkish Grand Prix in early June, Brawn took a gamble.
He believed the car had enough in hand to win the championship, so told his design engineers to switch their attentions to the 2010 car.
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Brawn told us that they only switched wind-tunnel attention back to the 2009 car for one week between mid-summer and the end of the season when they realised they might need a bit more performance to secure the championship.
All the other time was spent on next year's car.
Ross Brawn is clearly building foundations for the long term, and since the 2010 car won't have the compromised radiator layout and gearbox mounting that this year's car had to accept because of the late switch to Mercedes engine, next year should be stronger still.
Red Bull
Like Brawn, another big question for 2010 is whether Red Bull will be able to sustain their performance following the banning of refuelling.
They ended the season with the fastest car on the grid, but were helped in Abu Dhabi by their ability to work the tyres hard, whereas Brawn and McLaren had problems achieving the optimum tyre temperature and suffered grip variations between sets.
With the cars starting the races much heavier with fuel, the name of the game next season will be tyre management, so a car that is naturally hard on its tyres will be at a disadvantage. That's a part of this year's Red Bull DNA that will have to be eliminated for next season.
Red Bull also face a potential problem with their engines.
Team boss Christian Horner's desire to have the Mercedes power-plant in his cars seems to have been torpedoed. A final decision from both sides was delayed for so long that it is now too late to incorporate a change of engine.
Rumours in Abu Dhabi suggested Red Bull's Mercedes deal was blocked after pressure from current Mercedes teams Brawn and McLaren, who don't want a potential championship rival sharing their 'best in class' engines.
So, needing to know which engine to build his car around, design chief Adrian Newey was left with no choice but to stay with the Renault, despite Red Bull's very public comments and private concerns about the French engine being unreliable and lacking top-end power.
Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel won the prize for the highest number of fastest race laps achieved during the season. Mark Webber was tied with his team-mate on three fastest laps, but Vettel won the trophy on count-back.
Renault's Fernando Alonso was not far behind with two fastest race laps, which, considering the car he's had all season, is pretty impressive. That Renault engine must have some grunt after all...
McLaren
Some interesting detail on Lewis Hamilton's brake failure. It was caused by a manufacturing error that left a less dense area of carbon material in the middle of one brake pad.
That explains how the brakes worked well in qualifying and were just about all right in the first stint of the race.
But when the pad wore down and hit the 'hole', it quickly wore out, the temperatures went through the roof and total brake failure would have resulted, had McLaren not retired Hamilton on safety grounds.
Toyota
Given the drip-drip of rumours suggesting Toyota were set to leave Formula 1, I don't suppose we should be too surprised at their decision in recent days.
What I am surprised at, however, is that they did not give their employees more notice to allow them to find work elsewhere in the paddock.
It's ironic that a good number of Toyota personnel attended the BMW leaving party on Saturday night, wishing their colleagues well for the future, not knowing they would soon be put in the same position, and with far worse prospects of finding another way to pay the mortgage.
Renault
It's been particularly difficult to gauge how much improvement Renault have made over the season, as their performance has been so circuit-dependent.
A podium in Singapore on merit, but nowhere in Abu Dhabi a month later. Indeed it looked like they had gone backwards.
With continued doubts over their F1 future, it looks like Renault will resolve one issue by releasing Fernando Alonso from his contract early; before it expires at the end of the calendar year.
Alonso spoke last Thursday about wanting to start work at Ferrari at the end of November. His new house in southern Switzerland is a three-hour drive from Maranello (although, with him driving, maybe it's two and a half), so with seat fittings and cockpit layouts to be finalised, he understandably wants to get on with his work.
Force India
By the time you read this, Simon Roberts, the Force India chief operating officer, will have been back at his desk at McLaren for the best part of a week.
I was on the flight back with Roberts and his replacement Otmar Szafnauer on Sunday night, and Roberts was proud of the work he had done there and, while sad to be leaving the team now his loan period is up, is sure that the new working processes and reporting structures set up there will continue to be fruitful at the Silverstone team.
Now he's back at McLaren, it will be interesting to chart where Roberts ends up next. A team principal of the future?
Toro Rosso
This won't be confirmed for a few weeks, but Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari will be staying at Toro Rosso for next year. Team boss Franz Tost let the cat out of the bag when we spoke on Friday, albeit in the context of a slightly negative remark about his drivers.
The gist of it was that Toro Rosso has essentially had a good season and had scored some points, but there had been too many mistakes from the young drivers. When they both come back next year, Tost explained, Buemi and Alguersuari will be expected to deliver, drive fast and not crash.
Buemi will no doubt receive 'rookie of the year' plaudits over the winter, although Kamui Kobayashi may have something to say about that.
Buemi's performance in Abu Dhabi was very impressive: Only one point for eighth place, but the second fastest lap of the race, just 0.047secs slower than race-winner Vettel yet faster than McLaren and Brawn.
That's about it from this column for this year. Thanks for all your comments, opinions and observations over the season. Enjoy your winter, and I look forward to starting it up again in March.
© 2012~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~17~RS~)
Comments
Ted,
Insightful as ever - I will miss the phrase "Over to you Ted" throughout the winter...
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excelent blog!! i will miss the mole!!
dont want to spoil a excilent blog but you havent written anything about ferrari in it except for the mention of alonso...
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Great insight as ever Ted. Although being a McLaren fan I would have liked a bit more insight as you did with Red Bull and Brawn but I will forgive you this once. Looking forward to 2010 already.
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Seeing as the Ferrari engine is just as reliable as the Mercedes, why don't Red Bull share the same engine as sister team Toro Rosso?
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Does the world of F1 maintain the same fundamental workplace rules and regulations that we in the boring nine-to-five office world adhere to? If so, then surely Toyota would have to pay all their workers for a period of notice of, say, one month or probably two. That should at least allow the Toyota crew some time to go find a job with another team.
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That's incredibly insightful insight you've got there Ted! (Sorry, I couldn't stop myself. That word has always been used so much in comments to your blogs. (I wonder why?!?:))
Having your good self join the fray has put the icing on the cake that is Auntie Beebs coverage of this season! (But if you could teach that (nice) bloke Legard a bit about broadcasting etiquette, I would be forever in your debt!)
Keep that insight in shape over the winter Ted, your country needs you.
GREAT STUFF!
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Very interesting about Brawn being probably the 1st team to give up on this seasons car to work on next seasons.... Promises great things for them I hope :).
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Most interesting part about Brawn is they did not make a song and Dance about their development plans, just quietly went on doing the business, cool strategy even off of the race course.
Ted, I think that Mole needs to give you a special project of doing an in depth analysis of the 4 new teams, we have heard very little about the currant state of each one. With BMW waiting on the sidelines understanding who will, who might and who will-not make it to next year is worthy of a Mole Column.
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I'm suprised that Toro Rosso want to keep Jaime Alguersuari. Sebastian Buemi did an excelent job in one of the slower cars on the grid, getting into Q3 in qualifying and always near the top of the time sheets in practice. I If he can cut out the mistakes, I can see him being a top driver in the future.
Congratulations to Brawn and Jenson Button. Hope he manages to be the first brit to retain the title next year.
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I think it will be interesting to see how Algusuari does next year, can he take a step up and cut out his mistakes, at times particularly at the end the season he was threatening a q3 spot, and has done some good lap times. Maybe if he is able to test/develop next years car he will be more comfortable racing it.
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Well done Ted, an excellent year's reporting. I really think Andrew should give you your own blog.
Congrats to the whole team, well done BBC. So nice to get back to uninterrupted coverage again and "The Chain" brings back so many memories of Mansell and Senna.
Have a good winter, see you in the spring.
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Hi F1 fans,
Please help with your support for the British F1 race and join the group: Save the British F1 race on facebook.
We look forward to seiing you there and reading your comments and getting involved in you discussions.
Thanks
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Does the world of F1 maintain the same fundamental workplace rules and regulations that we in the boring nine-to-five office world adhere to? If so, then surely Toyota would have to pay all their workers for a period of notice of, say, one month or probably two. That should at least allow the Toyota crew some time to go find a job with another team.
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The pay isnt the issue, the issue is that F1 works on a 12 month Calendar, generally they have their staff all in place before developmment begins in earnest in November so staff will now be lucky to find work in F1 over teh next 12 months. It will be even worse for Toyopta's people as most of the vacancies would have already been targetted by BMW staff.
Brawn developing for 2010 all summer? I doubt it, yes they probably started their program like the rest as soon as they knew what the regs would be but I'd be surprised if that was really any more of a commitment than any other team, the only one that might have started later was Red Bull.
Aljesuari deserves his chance in 2010, he came into a 2009 car without any real testing and learnt to drive the thing reasonably well, certainly as well as any other mid-season starter did. Given a pre-season I think he could do very well for the team.
Buemi was by far and away teh best rookie, Koba only took part in 2 races for heavens sake and in one of those he drove in such a kamikaze fashion that the only surprise was that he didnt take someone out sooner.
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well after al the hype about mr shumacher returning to show the new boys how to do it,what a di8small sign.i love f1 but half way tru i dozed off,never thought i would say that but it was that boreing,i have been to several f1 meets and that was the worst i have ever seen,i hope that is not like the rest of the season,i will switch to bikes and touring cars,your a very dissapointed fan
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The F1 season is in full swing - and once again the Etihad Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is expected to delight fans.
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After last years sell out F1 Grand Prix at the Yas circuit Etihad Airways, the event's sponsors are increasing the number of flights to Abu Dhabi and other airports within the United Arab Emirates
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Mole - where have you gone - ?
miss the commentry with thought behind it. Are you looking into another Formula 1 career?
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What a great season it was, well done Brawn! Great blog, will miss the mole.
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