Mclaren Catching Red Bull?

Image courtesy of Team Lotus

So the Malaysian Grand prix is over and the status quo is maintained, just! An interesting and unusually exciting weekend created some twists, but no major surprises at the pointy end of the field. Vettel wins followed fairly closely by a Mclaren, but not the one everyone was expecting. And Renault continue their new-found form by taking the last podium position.

Qualifying

Qualifying started slowly for Mark Webber, he didn't seem to be anywhere in Q1 at all but he still made it through. All the other usual suspects made their expected performances but it was plain to see that Ferrari were not where they hoped to be. They seem to be putting this down to some kind of aerodynamic mystery. Wind tunnel looks great, real life not so much. With no real clue about the problem, the plan seemed to be a case of cross fingers and trust Alonso to get them some sort of result.

Michael Schumacher put in another of his middle-of-the-pack performances. This, the team claimed later, was due to his DRS flap not working, but lets face it. He just doesn't seem to be as fast as he used to be. Time to hang up the gloves forever? Its getting a little depressing now, and that's just for me, never mind Michael!

At the end of Q3 Both Button and Hamilton put in fantastic laps, leaving Vettel and Webber with a big job to do. Vettel squeaked it at the last but it was clear that Mclaren are a heck of a lot closer than anyone (including me) thought they would be. The relief on the Red Bull pit wall said a lot!

Race

Renault made a blinding start to the main event by simply going around everyone else. They were helped a little by Webber having no Kers, but still a great move. Surprisingly no one managed to get hit on the first few corners, which is always nice, and then the race proper got underway.

The DRS system didn't seem to be making the impact expected in the first half of the race. Instead of lots of overtaking there seemed to be more people slithering into the first corner barely under control. Still good fun to watch though. There was some good dicing by a number of people, Webber trying to recover his position without the aid of Kers and Kobayashi just being Kobayashi for a start.

Fernando made the best of a bad situation and provided everyone some entertainment. The radio message to the pits, "I am pushing, don't worry!" made me (almost literally) laugh. Cool under pressure or what. Towards the end, as he tried to get past a very defensive Hamilton, Alonso made a slip-up and hit the back of the Mclaren. Luckily (for Hamilton at least) he only destroyed his own front wing and had to make a pit stop to replace it. The interview after the race where Alonso suggested that they "hit each other" was a classic moment. The man really does seem to have no idea that anyone else in the world has a right to be on the track. Or perhaps its just Lewis? In an extra twist, the stewards have decided that Fernando should have missed and have given him a penalty of 20 secs. They also decided that Lewis moved twice (must have missed that?) and given him a 20 second penalty as well which drops him to 8th!

Mark Webber, dragging himself back towards the front, made an impressive move on Massa. The DRS seemed to just about make up for the lack Kers and got him alongside the Brazilian. Then it was down to sheer bravery to get him around the outside of turn 1, good job!

Petrov made sure of getting his name remembered. After running wide he found an extra bit of tarmac and nailed it to get back on track, without worrying too much about the small strip of grass in the way. It launched him fully in the air and he landed with a lap full of steering gear. Classic manoeuvre and very lucky to be more or less under control as he rolled to a halt. I've had a similar thing happen with my wheel on the PC and that was a bit of a shock at the time. I can only imagine how much worse it is at 150mph! Turned out to be a bit of a shame in the end as he would have been on for a good result. If Vitaly keeps on like this he may well replace Kobayashi as my number one F1 nutcase.

I think the news worked out well for DRS in the end. There was overtaking but it clearly wasn't as easy as some had feared. In terms of the season the news is, interesting. Red Bull did have mechanical problems, but not enough to cost them the race. Mclaren did have speed, but not quite enough to win it. And Ferrari do have problems, but not quite enough to put them out of the points. Lotus Renault (the other Lotus?) are the biggest surprise so far this year, their pace is very good indeed. They must be missing Kubica like crazy right now. Watching Ferrari fight their way back to their rightful place should be good. Lets just hope they get an idea of what the problem is soon.

Bring on China, this should be good!

Full Result

Red Bull Dominate Again?

Friday Practice is well and truly over and Red Bull seem to have continued to pull out a major lead over everyone except Mclaren, who are doing their very best to keep up. Mark Webber was the fastest man after the dust (and marbles) cleared for a change, although I can't imagine Vettel allowing that to continue through the rest of the weekend.

The Mclaren boys are the only ones that appear to be in with a chance of keeping anywhere near the Red Bulls. And even that looks to be a bit further back than they would like. Best of the rest is a full second back which would seem to suggest that its going to be a four horse race at best. Hopefully Ferrari are not showing their full pace but I reckon even that's a bit of a dream. Everybody must be hoping that Mark and Sebastien start one of their lovers tiffs at the front of the field to give a them bit of a chance at some points.

The massive amount of marbles do seem to be much more of an issue here than at Australia, as was widely predicted. Which may impact the overtaking opportunities provided by DRS. At least the Drag Reduction System activation point seems to be in the right place, chances are good that there will be some braking battles into turn 1. Also, due to the back to back straights we should get a good idea of how much difference it actually makes!

The last big question is the weather. The later (local time) start of the race means that the chances of rain are higher, but with the famous unpredictability of the region, nobody has an idea of whether it will pour or not. Latest info I've seen puts it at a 50% chance which is hedging your bets just about as much as you can!

Looks like we may be in for a treat (if you've got your optimistic head on). So bring on qualifying and the race! I'm going to go ahead and make a bold prediction of the final result:

 Vettel to win followed by Hamilton with Alonso magically surviving the carnage (maybe!) to end up third. 

Let me know your predictions if you think that's too boring! ;-)

So How the Heck Does DRS Work?

DRS or the Drag Reduction System is a new feature of F1 this year and I think its going to be one of the more important features of the championship. So I thought I would spend a little while explaining how it actually works because as usual, what started out as a simple idea has been made a little more complicated than it should be.

First off the easy bit, what is DRS. From a mechanical point of view all it consists of is a moveable element in the rear wing. The driver pushes a button, one of the rear wing sections moves to be flatter to the air. Drag is reduced and the car goes faster, simple! This is obviously only useful on straights because it also reduces grip. The car apparently loses around 5% drag so we can assume its at least that much  in grip too. On corners this can be regarded as a 'Bad Thing'. Now a higher top speed means that compared to another car without the DRS system activated you stand a far better chance of being able to get in front before the next corner. Now comes the tricky bit!

During the race you don't want everybody to be able to use the Drag Reduction System at the same time. If they did there would be no relative difference in the cars and the standard no-overtaking races would continue. A scheme was hatched! "What," thought some bright spark somewhere in the Formula 1 control centre, "if only a driver who was close enough to have a chance at overtaking anyway could use his DRS?" That is the simplest explanation, so here comes the tricky bit, how to do that fairly.

Two lines are marked on the track before the start/finish straight. The first of these is used to check the gap between any pair of cars. If two cars are within one second of each other (i.e. pretty close!) then the second of them gets a nice light appear on his wheel saying "DRS active". This is good news because it means that after the second line the following driver can hit his DRS button and go faster. The lead driver however, gets nothing and so has to prepare to defend, hard. Once the DRS button is pressed the flap will stay flipped until the driver hits the brake again (i.e. the first time he needs some grip again!).

Slightly confusing the issue again is the fact that the second line (the "press your button" line), seems to be before the last corner. But because they need grip to get round it, the driver doesn't dare push the button until he has made it to the straight. Allegedly if there are more than two cars in a group, all less than a second behind the next car, all the following drivers will be able to push the button. Which should lead to some major entertainment at the end of the following straight!

Now the bad news. This is only a 5% reduction in drag. Its not much and its only drag. In theory that's good for 12 km/h difference in speed by the end of the straight. Which means less than that most of the way down. In Australia that didn't seem to be enough to get properly alongside another driver. With longer straights hopefully it will be.

Of course we don't want any changes and confusion during practice and qualifying, (heaven forbid) so the system is active for everyone all the time. This does allow people (*cough* Sutil) to get it horribly wrong when they move their movable rear wing a little too soon, which is always fun! But it also allows the teams to get the gearing right for the higher speed down the main straight.

There is a chance that it will make overtakes seem a bit cheap, but I'm open to seeing if it makes the race more unpredictable. Fingers crossed it spices the show up rather than dumbing it down. Roll on Malaysia!

DRS Baby Yeah?!

So F1 is off again (at last) and now we have new toys like the Drag Reduction System. Is it any good? Well who really knows? There seemed to be two overtakes caused by it and I can't say that either was that dramatic. Oh well, to be expected I guess. It just didn't seem to make enough difference but maybe thats because the straight in Oz just isn't long enough. Hopefully the next race should sort out an answer to that!

In fact the most exciting bit (for me at least) was Jensen's short but dramatic battle with Felipe. Exciting stuff in which the flappy rear wing appeared to play almost no part whatsoever. The comment that 'I was in front before the corner' has to be the best bit though. If you're in front you probably wouldn't chicken out before the next corner.

Early signs are that Red Bull are top of the heap. Hopefully they keep up (or down?) their usual reliability score and it will give us an exciting championship. Fingers crossed anyway!