For a long time now Red Bull have been the best car, and almost unbeatable in qualifying. Recently, now that both Ferrari and McLaren have narrowed the gap in race pace, that little bit of extra pace at the end of qualifying that Red Bull has is easier to notice. During practice and early qualifying the Red Bull of Vettel and the two Ferraris were equally quick, with hardly any time between them. However when it comes to the crunch Vettel somehow manages to pull another half a second out of the bag. It has already been mentioned that Vettel missed the apex at the hairpin after locking up, so in theory he could have been even further ahead. Another example of this extra pace that Red Bull can use for very short periods of time is at the beginning of every race. Vettel simply streaks away. Brundle in the BBC commentary box duly says, "And look at the lead that Vettel has pulled out, after just one lap", or words to that effect. After two laps of blistering pace when the rest of the field have been blown away, the Red Bull's pace settles back down. Of course now it is easier to spot, because when the Red Bull slows down back to its' rightful pace now the Ferraris and the McLarens start catching up as they did in Spain and Monaco. Vettel is unfairly praised as some sort of qualifying genius, when in fact it is just that his car goes into some sort of overdrive mode, where he can make mistakes and still get pole by a hatful of tenths. What is it that the Red Bull does during the last knockings of qualifying and the first laps of the race that gives it so much extra speed?
Lol, you are such a bitter Vettel-Basher, must really hurt you to see that Vettel has the edge. But you ignore the fact that Vettel has shown his talents long before he drove that Red Bull. Plus the fact that Webber was praised as Quali-genius till he met Vettel.....
Bitter? No, I'm just expressing my opinion about the man. Does it really hurt me to see Vettel having an edge? No, it's just depressing seeing the dominance of the Red Bull. The thing is, this thread was not supposed to be about Vettel, and how he is actually quite an ordinary driver who is quite bad at overtaking. This thread is supposed to be about what the Red Bull does to conjure up its' extra pace during its' final runs in qualifying and the first laps of the race. It definitely does this, and I'd like to know if anyone knows what it is.
Your definition of "definitely" seems to suck. Why do you ask for information when you "know" its "definitely"? And yes, you are a bitter Vettel-Basher. You tried to play down Vettels driving skills in almost every post you ever made on BBCs 606 as far i remember. Now you try the same here.
Tomcat606, I think Basil has every right to make this thread and shouldnt be criticised for an opinion. I dont see this as Vettel bashing, but about the unusual burst of speed from Vettels car that occurs even when Vettel makes errors - and whatever happened on 606 is irrelevant. This is not606 Back.on topic... In Q1, Alonso was faster than Vettel on primes. In Q2, Massa was faster than Vettel on options. Yet somehow Vettel blows everyone away in Q3 - and on a track where Red Bull were suppossed to struggle AND Vettel's lap wasnt even that great. In fact, Vettels best sector times added up show that he was capable of a 1m12.8 Ferrari drivers were fast and consistent on their laps so its definitely something about the RB7. What is fairly obvious is that Red Bull have the best aero package, but they are doing something else to the car which they can only do for a limited amount of time and it seemingly makes the car look super easy to drive and a lot quicker - in effect it appears to have a lot more downforce. When the off throttle ban was initially reported, we learned a few other bits of info, like how the Renault engine was designed for off throttle blowing or something like that? We also learned that Red Bull use 45% blowing off throttle while Lotus Renault use 95%. I suspect Newey has a special setting which makes the car go into a super overrun mode where the car is at 100% blowing off throttle, which would explain why their pace suddenly becomes unbelievable but only lasts a lap or two. With the exception of Renault who arent comparable, RB have the best exhaust system and therefore the off throttle blowing will give them a greater effect than another team blowing the same percentage off throttle. Thats my theory - but I just think exhausts play such a huge effect in F1 currently and its the only way to explain how a car could suddenly go unbelieveably fast when the driver isnt even driving that well (like Vettel's Q3 lap yesterday).
I agree and mentioned it on another thread, referencing Button's win with virgin as a similar year of car 'trick's - as neither virgin or button have done too much since that win. Also, weber was very close to vettel last year and now ends up several places behind at each qualifying, so I can only assume that his car hasn't been set up like vettel's. In saying the above, you would expect the FIA to investigate if there was any advantage added to the car, but then again virgin survived their year without any troubles, so who knows?
Aight pepi. Welcome to the forum. For info - Button won his WDC with Brawn GP, the ex-Honda team that is now Mercedes GP. Virgin Racing is a new team that joined F1 last year. I'd also dispute whether Button has done much since winning the title (although I appreciate that you mean winning another one). In a very tight season last year he was in the title hunt until the penultimate race. He also scored two victories. Finally, it's not for the FIA to investigate how a team is managed and run.
What you have to remember is, Red Bull's race pace is generally not as good as their qualifying pace, so, expect the Ferrari's to be on him/over taking him in the race. Not sure how Jenson thinks he'll be up there, so far behind. Martin Whitmarsh said that they've gone for a wet set up, but Lew Hamilton said they'd set 7th gear wrong, too short, so they're about 12-13 kph slower. Which one is telling the truth, me thinks Whitmarsh is trying to cover for the sudden lack of pace. They've not been on it all weekend, when they really should
random92, Hamilton has a habit of exaggerating. He always comes out with stuff like "it was one of the best drives" - and he says words to that effect in the same interview where he claimed McLaren were so slow on the straights, but to be honest the 12-13kph deficit is nonsense. AG posted the speed trap times already: Vettel - 320.0 Alonso - 319.6 Massa - 319.3 Webber - 318.3 Button - 316.7 Hamilton - 314.5 Doesn't look like a wet setup to me, just a bit more wing. hahaha you don't sandbag in qualifying. Vettel's been pulling big gaps relative to rivals from Q2-Q3 for a while now.
I don't intend to judge Vettel against the other leaders - until they all drive each others' cars - whats the point? Without doubt Vettel is able to use the RB for short sprint laps, but needs to restrict this 'hyperdrive' setup to specific events. Overall race pace is almost matched by Ferraris and McLarens - so there IS a feature that the RB has - but could not be used for any meaningful number of laps. Fascinating but not at all clear what is going on. I bet the teams would love to see the performance sensors !!!
Thanks for your thoughts, Forza. It does seem that the Red Bull has bags of downforce in normal mode, and watching the final qualifying laps is astonishing, because Vettel is able to push so hard. All he is doing is pushing to the edge of the performance of the car (sometimes over it), like all the drivers do, but it does seem like this feature has been built into the car from the ground up, and the rest of the field has no answer for it. I am expecting that during the race Vettel will pull a few seconds gap and then get overhauled by the Ferraris or the McLarens, depending on how the weather pans out.
Whats strange is that Vettels final lap performance does not seem to be replicated in Webbers car. Conpsiracy theory time, they want to ensure no webber/vettel fight for the championship by ensuring that webber doe not have this advantage for the Q3 qualifying ?
oh yeah, I don't think they've got a wet set up, if they did, they'd have been several seconds off the pace
But logistically, how can you sandbag by such a fine amount? If you're talking about doing a lap maybe half a second slower than the maximum, thats roughly equivalent to driving at 99.4% of your best, is it possible to be that accurate, when you risk going out if you misjudge it, or having to use more tyres? You can get away with it a little in Q1, because the bottom 7 will be a bit off the ultimate pace, but I don't think you can in Q2.
They may run with lower engine modes in Q1 and 2 than others? Who knows, whatever it is, Vettel is very good at 1 great lap. He's much better than Webber in the same car at it, therefore, it may have something to do with the driver, not the car. Remember Trulli during his Renault days? Beat Alonso nearly every time, and that's no mean feat
That's fair enough, but in Q2 he just has to set a fast enough time to get through by beating the likes of Renault. Q3, set a early time and then go 100% and see where you are. My version of sandbagging is probably not as low of a standard as some people here, yes he's not sandbagging in the general sense of going backwards at 50mph eating an ice-cream. My version of sandbagging is purposely not attacking a corner as hard as possible. For us it's a fine mark, but to them it's just being careful.
Thankyou for the welcome, and my apologies. I knew Button drove with a new team with Brawn and thought it was virgin. However, Brawn hasn't made the same impression on F1 as he did that year with Button. My comment re: the FIA investigating was based on the assumption that Brawn's GP racing cars and now Vettell's were / are 'souped' up so to speak.
So here we are again - wondering what RB have been doing mainly for Quali. If it's using (unburnt) exhaust gases on 100% revs when driver braking, the drop to 10% might show us something? However, why don't they use the advantage much more? Would it leave too much unburnt fuel marks on bodywork or show competitors some other clue?
