Formula 1 2009

If you haven't heard yet, there's new rules and regulations regarding the F1 cars this season. This, in my opinion, should be one of the geatest seasons ever, with the return Murray Walker alone it's already brilliant, and the coverage on BBC will be greatly better (due to no ads and the commentators).

But for the cars, the rules and regulations have changed to increase focus on mechanical performance rather than working on the aerodynamics.

The new KERS system which takes kinetic energy from the brakes and stores it for later use is going to be a huge 'upgrade'. What it basically means is, the energy from the brakes will be stored for the driver to use. They press a 'boost' button on the steering wheel, giving them an extra 80 BHP for roughly seven seconds per lap, exactly like Nitrous Oxide.

Grooved tyres are now gone and slicks (the old form of tyre) are being used. This means cars will be here there and everywhere, even though there's more grip with slicks. The reason they'll 'move around' more is because there's new aerodynamic regulations meaning the downforce will be much, much lower, making things less facile for the drivers.

I've heard this on another forum and decided to check it out on the official website. Turns out there's even more regulations this season.

Just one thing about the KERS...Not quite exactly the same as nitrous oxide as nitrous oxide just provides a more complete combustion in the cylinders as the ratio of nitrogen to oxygen is changed from 4:1 to 2:1.
It's a lot more like the "Push to Pass" button in Champ Car and also how the brakes work on Virgin trains.
It's more accurate to say the KERS system provides more electrical energy.

Although cornering speed and braking distances will change quite a lot due to the lower downforce configurations, it means top speed is more easily achieved and so SHOULD overtaking given the "lack" of downforce so in the following of another car's wake in cornering, the turbulent airflow does not affect the following car as much.
So, yes it is harder for the drivers in braking and cornering speed, but in overtaking the hope is to aid overtaking.

As for the Slicks. They're not exactly the "old form". If anything the grooves are the old form given that was how F1 used to be really. Today's road cars in essence are like the F1 cars 50 years ago.
Slick tyres are used in all the other car motorsports.

The slicks were used in the '90s though.

Yeah, thats what i heard about the tyres.

On 28-Feb-2009 iiÖ said:

The slicks were used in the '90s though.

Yes, but Slicks are not old since they are used in all the other car motorsports. "Grooves", however, were used in the early years of Formula One or in essence, today's road tyres which are funnily enough grooved.
slicks are very much more the "modern" tyre for racing and performance. It's jsut the FIA tried to slow down the cars so they made the tyre manufacturers make grooves on the basis of a decrease in contact patch from the tyre and also the fact that harder compounds of tyres would be required to avoid the graining as much as possible

This weekend i saw the new F1 cars, the new design. They look really bad, i liked them as they were.

Took you long enough lol
Some of them yeah look god aweful, but a couple of them do look beautiful. In particular the Ferrari of course, so does the Williams and also the Brawn GP (BGP) car.
The cars just look clean and top speeds should be no problem despite the rev restrictions cut further to 18,000rpm.
In other news, I'm sure you have heard about the Rule changes to have the "Winningest" driver to win the championship. The FIA said they were willing to change it back to the points and what not, but the story is so thrown back and forth it's impossible to track. More later hopefully.
In addition, the budget cap has returned, but only as an option. The budget cap is at £30 million and will account for fees for the drivers and all the employees and accomodation. The only thing it doesn't account for is any penalties that involve fines.
This may seem ludacrous, BUT in choosing this budget cap releases any of the technical regulations on the team taking the budget cap option; namely the engine freeze, rev restrictions, aerodynamic restrictions, etc, etc.
Tough choice, but don't wouldn't put it down.

Once again the Austrailian GP was a curse for Ferrari, jut like last year. Both cars from Brawn GP did well and got the first 2 places, and the luckyest driver was Truli for getting 3rd after starting last. Also Hamilton had a good race starting on 15 and finishing 4th, but the most tragic part was when Vettel crashed on Kubica and they both lost 2nd and 3rd place in the last 4 laps.

Further news about the Oz GP.
Following the incident between Hamilton and Trulli, originally Trulli was given the 25 second penalty for overtaking Hamilton under SC conditions, but the tables were turned as Hamilton was found to "lie" to the stewards. As a result, Trulli was reinstated to third and Hamilton was DQed.

Results from the Malaysian GP are still a bit erratic due to it stopping early from absoluely torrential rain. With regards to Ferrari, once again no points, mostly due to a ridiculous gamble from Ferrari and Kimi going onto the extreme wets way too early and thus they were destroyed when the rain did come.
When the race was red flagged and finally stopped, the cars only managed half race distance and therefore only received half the number of points.

Kinda dissaster todays race, but i still cant understand why did Ferrari choosed the extreme wet tyre for Kimi, before the rain? They could at least had chosen intermediate wet tyre. Really a stupid move from Ferrari. Also nice driving from Glock and getting on 2nd place.

Glock got third in the end because they took it from the end of lap 31.
But yeah, absolutely ridiculous decision by the Ferrari team. If it was Inters, then actually fair enough because the Inters would have last just about long enough for the rain when it came. If not, they should have stuck with the dry tyres.
Always better to be on the right tyre at the right time and quite frankly it was either stick with the dry tyres for another couple or so laps or gamble on inters, but NEVER on the full wets.

Sunday Trulli was very unlucky, also great driving bu Vettel once again.

Indeed, but once again steller performance for Button during that Bahrain GP and also the Spanish GP that just passed.
Once again it seems Rubens is going to have to play second fiddle and he is not liking it.

As for Ferrari, good thing they have managed to score points (both in Bahrain as well as Spain). But reliability issues striking the luckless Kimi once again.

whats the deal with Mclarren, still "something wrong with the car" or what?

After all the changes in Formula one all the teams have the chance to win, but McLaren and Ferrari fighted for last year and didnt cared for this year like Brawn GP. Ferrari and McLaren are on my opinion the worst teams in F1.

It's not that they didn't care. Just didn't have as long to work on this year's cars because of the title fight last year and when you have that going on, your focus has to be winning the championship.
As for Mclaren's current situation with the car, it is possible there is still something "wrong" with the car in terms of the aerodynamic pieces underneath the car, not sure about the aerodynamic pieces that we can see though.

Ferrari, however, made massive improvements. This was shown during the Spanish GP as Ferrari before this were some 0.6 seconds off the pace. Brawn had made improvements of about 0.3 to 0.4 seconds, but Ferrari had closed right up to about 0.2 to 0.3 seconds. That's a massive improvement of roughly 0.8 seconds to a whole second!
Expect Ferrari to win at least some races this season.

Lets see what will happen in Monaco where speed is not everything, you also need driving skills.

Well, define what speed and where it comes from.
Ferrari are now officially within a blink of an eye of Brawn after the result of Monaco. They have made the biggest steps forward in the history of Formula 1 probably.
Istanbul is going to be really interesting.

i am really glad jenson button and brawn are doing so well it has really made this seasons formula one better thean last years instead of the same two teams every year its now 3 or 4 competing for the first position.

In terms of the quali yes I will agree with you on that. In the race, however, Button is just flawless. That's why when it seems he won't win he does because the others around him are making the errors or getting caught up behind KERS cars like Vettel in Bahrain behind Lewis and Barcalona when he was stuck behind Massa the whole entire race.