james Allen

[maripi]

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso saw his championship lead cut from 29 points to just four points on Sunday and for the second time in three seasons is confronted with the prospect of losing a title he had in his grasp.

And the signs are that, with Red Bull on the up, with technical development hitting its peak and more to come in Korea, Ferrari has to find a way to win at least another race this season or the title will be gone. It is going to be very hard as the Red Bull is now approaching the level of superiority it enjoyed last season.

Vettel set the fastest lap on the penultimate lap on Sunday, a second faster than the opposition, leaving a psychological message to them that he had been cruising all afternoon and that Red Bull had something in hand.

Consistency is what has got Alonso to where he is, not raw pace, but now it is a battle of raw pace. The contenders have thinned out and its Alonso versus Vettel for the title, Red Bull riding a wave of confidence, Ferrari’s Pat Fry rushing back to Maranello for a 24 hour mission to encourage, cajole and push his back room team to find an extra few tenths in qualifying.

Alonso spoke on Sunday of driving essentially the same car for the last six or seven races; new parts have come but in many cases they have not worked. Ferrari has already announced that it is going to shut down its newly enlarged wind tunnel for correlation checks, indicating that all is not well.

Nevertheless, although it was a second slower than the Red Bull in Japan, on race day the Ferrari was the second fastest car, with Massa able to outpace the McLarens of Button and Hamilton. The main problem is qualifying, that’s where others have made bigger gains and where Ferrari risks losing out, as the pattern of this season is that the front row is the place to start if you want to win races.

Nine of the 15 races this year have been won from pole position and all of them since Germany in July. Of the rest, three have been won from second on the grid and one from third – so just two races have been won from further back, by guess who? They were Alonso’s wins in the chaotic races of Malaysia and Valencia.

Alonso’s retirement at the first corner of the race on Sunday, was down to him not finding the trouble-free way around a first corner which is just 9 metres wide with cars either side of him. Most of the modern tracks are twice as wide as that, so Suzuka is known to be a Bermuda Triangle at the start for the unlucky or unwary. In Spa he was a victim of Grosjean’s flying Lotus.

Vettel has also had two retirements due to alternator failures, which will remain a niggling doubt until the end of the season, even if there is confidence at Renault that the problem is solved.

Before Japan Ferrari could count on Alonso scoring podiums and Vettel and the McLarens taking wins off each other to the end of the season. Now they need a silver bullet of raw pace – and fast,

“From here on we have to win at least one more race, or the championship is gone,”said team boss Stefano Domenicali on Sunday. “Now consistency isn’t enough, the situation is very different, we have to finish ahead of Vettel one way or another.

“The key point is to understand why we are struggling so much in qualifying because the difference between that and the race pace is marked. We have to solve this not just for the remaining five races but for 2013 too, otherwise we’ll find ourselves following again.”

From Alonso’s point of view, he has to shoulder some responsibility for Sunday’s retirement, in an other wise blame free season. If Vettel is indeed headed to Ferrari from 2014, as some commentators in Italy still insist, then the plan surely was for Alonso to clinch the all important third world title before then, ideally this year.

Next year now looks quite different with Hamilton at Mercedes, which is unlikely to challenge for the title in year one from the base they are starting from. McLaren will be led by Button with Perez alongside and being consistent will be a challenge for them.

So the likelihood is that 2013 will also be Alonso vs Vettel – the Spaniard looking for that third title which equals his hero Senna and Vettel looking at possibly challenging for his fourth in a row….

..Unless Ferrari gives Alonso some speed in the next eight weeks.

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/10/co...eed-speed/

[maripi]

Lifting the lid on engine torque maps

Posted on October 11, 2012

“In its simplest form, the engine torque map is a theoretical model of the engine. It represents the torque output of the engine for a given engine throttle position and engine speed,” says Renault Sport F1 engine engineer David Lamb.

Torque maps were a hot topic in July and August when the FIA made some changes to the way teams were using them mid-season. But they are the single most important map for the engineers to use for reference when trying to make sure that the engine is optimised for a given circuit, according to an interesting note put out by Renault Sport today.

A directive from the FIA around the time of the German and Hungarian Grands Prix closed a loophole exploited by Red Bull Racing and its partner Renault, to improve gas pressure from the exhaust by lowering the torque curve. As a result the Formula 1 teams are no longer allowed to change the torque maps from weekend to weekend, so the maps used this weekend in Korea are not the ultimate expression of what an F1 engine will do, even if they are still fantastically advanced,

“Prior to this directive,” says Lamb, “We would change the torque map freely to suit the climatic conditions. For example, the engines will produce nearly 10% less torque at Sao Paulo than they will this weekend in Korea due to Sao Paulo’s high altitude. By changing the torque map to the prevailing conditions the engine response will feel the same to the driver across the season. Nowadays we have to request this torque map change from the FIA, and fully justify our reasoning.”

For an indication of how sophisticated the technology is in F1 nowadays around engine mapping, Lamb explains the different ways in which the engineers can tune the map to cut cylinders in order to give the driver consistent power and feel from the engine – or driveability, as it is known,

“When the driver lifts off the pedal the engine can be either fired in four cylinders or fully cut, depending on the level of overrun support he requires,” explains David. “When the driver goes back on the pedal from full ignition cut, you need to inject more fuel than usual to ‘wet’ the engine. Inject too little or too much and you will have a torque deficit from target, which can cause a hesitation and a loss of lap time. The initial torque demand will generally be met with only four cylinders, as you’d rather save a bit of fuel and have four cylinders firing strongly using a more open throttle than have eight coming into life rather weakly with a relatively closed throttle.

“When the torque demand exceeds that which can be met with just four cylinders, the remaining cylinders need to be fired. These will also require ‘wetting’. At this point you also have to close the throttles at a rate which coincides with the final four coming back into life – this is the tricky bit! Get it right and the driver should feel nothing across the transition, just a change in engine pitch. In all cases, the torque map is used in conjunction with other settings to govern both the fuelling requirements and throttle position.”

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/10/li...rque-maps/

[Alfaster-F1]

[maripi]

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/10/vi...-contract/

During his first Formula 1 career Kimi Raikkonen’s dislike for sponsor and media engagements was almost as well-chronicled as his achievements on the track.

But second time round, and with perhaps a greater freedom and desire to go in his own direction, the 2007 world champion has become involved in something very different with a clothing company from his homeland in Finland.

Makia Clothing has signed the Lotus driver to be the ‘face’ of its new motorsport range and to launch the partnership has got the 33-year-old to star in a viral video campaign.

The first teaser clip played on the fact that the Finn’s F1 future for 2013 isn’t completely confirmed by asking ‘what will Kimi do next?’ with a promise that a new contract would be revealed this week.

The contract in question was his deal to be the face of Makia’s new racing range, but rather than announce the signing via a dry press release, the company got Raikkonen to do some more acting in a spoof kidnap plot in which he is taken by some heavies, wearing black hood and all, to a remote caravan where he is blackmailed to sign up for Makia before being sent on foot back to Monaco.

With 420,000 views on YouTube already the clip has already clearly found an audience, with Raikkonen’s fan base one of the largest in F1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Hk1GnB331WQ

[Alfaster-F1]

Todt prepares to stand up for FIA in crunch meeting with F1 teams and Ecclestone
Posted on October 22, 2012
Darren Heath

Tomorrow (Tuesday) in Paris at the headquarters of the FIA, a very important meeting takes place with Jean Todt hosting the F1 teams and Bernie Ecclestone the F1 commercial rights holder.

On the agenda will be the new eight year Concorde Agreement due to start in January 2013, a new FIA regulated cost control mechanism (Resource Restriction Agreement) relating to both chassis and engines, and the subject of spreading the costs of the 2014 engines across the full eight years, so the development costs are not front loaded and too expensive for teams.

The idea of tomorrow’s meeting is to move as swiftly as possible towards getting a Concorde Agreement signed and there is great interest from the teams to see whether Todt and Ecclestone present them with a draft Concorde Agreement and/or any kind of fait accomplis at the meeting.

At present none of the F1 teams is entered for next year’s world championship and they do not know what the entry fee is going to be; there have been suggestions of €500,000 basic fee per team plus €7,000 per point scored in the previous year’s Constructors’ Championship.

On top of that two of the teams, Marussia and HRT, do not yet have a commercial offer from Ecclestone to take part in the 2013 championship, so cannot make any plans.

Ahead of tomorrow’s meeting I went to Paris last week with a colleague from the Financial Times for an interview with Todt – part of which is in today’s FT and part of which will appear in an F1 supplement with the paper during the US Grand Prix weekend.


There is uncertainty about the way forward for the RRA, with the two Red Bull teams refusing to go along with the other ten teams and Todt unwilling to force through something agreed by the other ten teams because he wants an agreement that works for everyone. Red Bull has dragged the process on because it wants a chassis and engine Resource Restriction Agreement and we asked Todt why he had not done what the 10 team majority wanted him to do,

“I think it is a fair view to say ‘Why have one restriction agreement on chassis and nothing on engine?’ ” said Todt. “So, I think it is fair to say that if we do something, we have to do it on chassis and on engine. Are we going to do something on the engine in 2013? No. So, I think it is a strong opportunity. On that I will say more than these ten teams agreed that it’s something which could be agreeable to all the competitors if we would include the chassis and the engine from 2014.”

One of the most important things to come out of this round of negotiations will be the position of the FIA in the rule making process. There have been a number of suggestions of what might come out, including a reduced role for the FIA.

The FIA has been very keen to get a better financial deal from F1, having sold the commercial rights for 100 years under Max Mosley’s reign to Ecclestone for around $350 million.


It seems some kind of improved deal has been agreed with Ecclestone – but not signed yet – and one of the key things we wanted to know was whether in agreeing that deal, the FIA had surrendered any of its regulatory and rule making powers. Todt said emphatically that this is not the case,

“For me FIA anyway must have a bigger impact, not erosion,” said Todt.

“I’m not a dictator trying to control. The contribution and the role of the FIA has to be protected, to be respected and I feel the FIA needed to have probably a bigger role, not as much as it had maybe 15 years ago.

“Sometimes it makes me smile when I read that we are going to lose control, that we are going to sell the… It’s not absolutely true. I am a legalist, so I will never do things which are not our responsibility but I will never allow things which are under our responsibility to be dealt with by anybody else.”

Part of the FIA’s new income from F1 will come from better terms from Ecclestone, but part of it will come from the teams with an enhanced entry fee and a “tax” (as the teams see it) on points scored the previous year.

“Successful teams, definitely they will have a bigger contribution,” said Todt. “For the smallest teams, they will have the lowest contribution. So, it’s not we just murder everybody. No, not at all. The biggest, with more income, will have to pay more. The smallest, with less income, will be able to pay less.”


Summing up the build up to tomorrows meeting Todt said, “It is time to put everybody around the table to make the final decision and the final choices. That is why on 23 October I have organised a meeting which we will host together with Bernie Ecclestone as commercial rights holder and all the representatives of the 12 teams to hopefully finalise the agreement and my dearest wish is that we are all happy about finalising.

“We have the last say to write the rules but I think it’s very important that we write the rules together with the people who are going to participate in the sport.

“We have had several discussions with the commercial rights holder, with CVC, with Bernie, and… I mean, on our side the situation is clear on what we are prepared to propose and to accept, which seems to be the same on the promoters’ level but until… We have to be very cautious until things are signed.

“My wish is to settle a balanced agreement between commercial rights holders, the teams and the FIA, respecting the rights and the duties of the competitors, the rights and the duties of the commercial rights holders and the rights and the duties of the FIA as a regulator and legislator. So, if you ask, am I optimistic? Yes. I think that what we have agreed in our discussions does answer constructively to my questions, the FIA’s questions, but until it is signed, it is not done.”

Fuente

[Alano_Spanol]

Ferrari sure development recovery underway and vows to go ‘aggressive’
Posted on October 23, 2012
Source | JamesAllenOnF1.com



The paddock is awaiting Ferrari’s on-track response to being toppled from the head of the drivers’ championship for the first time since mid-June in India and the team today has promised this weekend will herald the start of an “aggressive” development push for the remainder of the season.

While Red Bull’s steady, and consistently impressive, rate of development over the past few races has allowed Sebastian Vettel to win three grands prix on the spin and establish a six-point cushion over Fernando Alonso at the top of the drivers’ standings, Ferrari’s bid to improve the F2012 has been stymied by correlation problems with its wind tunnel.

However, in wake of a straight-line aero test ahead of this weekend’s return to action in India, Ferrari’s chief designer Nicholas Tombazis is confident the team is back on the right path with the car.

“The data we saw in the wind tunnel did not match 100% the data we were getting from the track,” he told Ferrari’s website. “We had some unpleasant surprises from some of the updates we brought to the last couple of races, so immediately, we wanted to fix that and understand where it had gone wrong.

“Therefore we have had an aero test prior to heading off to India, where we ran control tests on these updates to really understand what the problem was. We got some very interesting answers which we believe will allow us to recover from those problems and so, our aim in this forthcoming Indian GP, will be to make up the ground we have lost.”

Although the testing of various rear wings at recent events has characterised the kind of problems Ferrari has been experiencing, Tombazis insists that “does not mean that all our work in the wind tunnel has been worthless” and says the push to find improvements has been renewed now the team is trailing in the championship.

“We don’t currently enjoy an advantage, either in terms of performance or as far as the points situation is concerned, we cannot defend, we must attack and adopt an aggressive approach to car development for these four races, bringing updates to every one of them to close the gap and fight for the wins and hopefully bring home the titles,” he added.

“Our aim is to bring, in as short a time as possible, all the developments we have tried in the wind tunnel to see how they work, confirming their performance, so that we don’t encounter the same problems as before. That way, for every race, we hope to get closer to those ahead of us so that we can fight for the wins.”

Tombazis reiterated that Ferrari will close its wind tunnel to allow for upgrades for a period of “several months”, with an external tunnel to be used in the corresponding period, and admits that while usually not ideal to use two different tunnels, it will give the team the chance to drill down on where exactly their own one has gone wrong.

He added that unlike in winter 2008/2009 there would not be any negative knock-on effects of developing right through the season: “We have the good fortune that the rules remain basically stable for next year, which means we can carry on developing this year’s car without compromising the 2013 one. The work we do aerodynamically for this year’s car can be beneficial for both. We can work on improving the weak points on the current car which will help for next year, although the main structural elements of the 2013 car are already fixed: chassis, gearbox, mechanical layout, suspension and crash structures, with the car already in production.”

[Alfaster-F1]

[maripi]

Red Bull strong for qualifying, but race pace looks close in India


Today’s first day of running in India was very interesting with stable weather conditions and no stoppages meaning that everybody was able to learn a lot about how their cars perform in single lap pace and race pace.

[undefined=undefined]In the afternoon the Red Bulls had the edge on single lap pace, almost 6/10ths of a second ahead of the Ferrari, although some caution is needed in assessing the times, because Sebastian Vettel set his fastest time on the third lap on soft tyres, while Fernando Alonso’s time came after the tyres had done six laps[/undefined]. The teams used the opportunity to simulate qualifying at the same time of day as they will qualify on Saturday afternoon.

The Red Bull looked very easy to drive on low fuel, with lots of traction out of low speed corners, while the Ferrari looked the opposite. The car was a real handful for both drivers, with Massa spinning off the circuit twice and Alonso having a few “moments”.

]But the Ferrari looked much better with high fuel. McLaren also looked good in race trim, but might perhaps be a little disappointed with the pace they showed on the single lap. But they have time to work on that for tomorrow.

Later on in the session, on the high fuel runs, the leading contenders were very well matched on race pace with Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Lotus lapping consistently in the 1m 32s and high 1m 31s.

It is a vital race from the point of view of Ferrari and Fernando Alonso, who must react to the recent run of three wins by Vettel. The German has never won four races in a row and Ferrari’s goal must be to keep that tradition.

[undefined=undefined]Ferrari has brought a new front wing endplate, new brake ducts and a new diffuser to India, while the Red Bull has only a couple of detail changes, according to the boss Christian Horner.[/undefined]

This morning in free practice, Esteban Gutierrez got his chance to drive the Sauber as Sergio Perez sat out the session due to the aftermath of a cold. Gutierrez managed to do 29 laps, some 150 kilometres, with one notable moment where he almost went off.

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/10/re...-in-india/

[Alfaster-F1]

[Alfaster-F1]

retains Raikkonen “Better the devil you know”
Posted on October 29, 2012
Darren Heath

Kimi Raikkonen will drive for the Lotus F1 team again next season, a move which was widely anticipated, after no real sign that he was in the running for a seat at Ferrari, McLaren Red Bull or Mercedes, all of whom have confirmed their drivers this summer. There is no word in the statement about the future of Lotus’ other driver Romain Grosjean.

Raikkonen’s comeback from two years away in rallying has been very impressive, he lies third in the drivers championship, the after a competitive season, with six podiums among 16 points scoring results out of 17 races. Only China was a blank; a race were he was in the top five in the closing stages but tried to go too far on the tyres and lost out.

His comeback stands in stark contrast to Michael Schumacher who has only managed one podium in his three years back in the sport.

What Raikkonen has lacked in qualifying pace this year he has more than made up for in consistency, particularly in contrast to his team mate Romain Grosjean, who has cost the team a significant number of points through getting involved in incidents with other drivers. For a a variety of reasons, Grosjean has failed to score points in eight races, almost 50% of the total and only outscored Raikkonen once, in Canada.

Team principal Eric Boullier said at the weekend that he would confirm bothe his drivers for next year before the last race in Brazil. It’s slightly unusual for them to announce separately, with no word about Grosjean’s drive for next year. But perhaps they are keeping him focussed after his recent misdemeanours. There are no serious signals around that they plan to go with anyone else for 2013.

But Raikkonen has used his experience to bring home the best results the car is capable of, lacking as it does that last few tenths of qualifying pace which have meant that victories have eluded them.

In announcing the renewal, Lotus headlines its press release, “Better the devil you know”, an elusive line, to which no further reference is made in the rest of the document.

There is a bit of the devil in Kimi, but there have been no stories this year of the kind of high-octane, devil-may-care lifestyle Raikkonen enjoyed in his previous F1 career. He has said very little, got on with the job and kept his private life out of the papers.

As for his decision to commit to Lotus, despite rumours swirling around this weekend in India that Genii was looking to offload the team amid questions over finance, everything seems to be functioning normally, even if development has tailed off slightly in recent races. THe team had new parts in India and good race pace, but lost some time with development of its double DRS which never actually raced.

“I think my return to Formula 1 has gone pretty well and the team has done a very good job all year so far,” said Raikkonen. “To be honest, I didn’t expect to be fighting for the Drivers’ Championship this season when you look at where the team was in 2011, so it has been great to be on the podium so many times and to score points on a regular basis. I feel very comfortable with Lotus F1 Team and we share the same philosophy of racing. Continuing with the team was an obvious choice for me and I’m looking forward to making another step forward together next year.”

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/10/lo...-you-know/