I'm not sure the speed advantage Mercedes have over Red Bull is all engine. Mercedes have a great overall package that has been developed for years now, so once Red Bull have a competitive power unit I don't think we'll see them leap frog straight to the top.
The engines weren't frozen until 2007 so development was a free for all on 2005 and 2006. It was only when RBR kicked off in 2009 about alleged disparity that Renault got the breaks as they convinced the FIA that they were down on power and reliability, despite being recognised as torquier (it was this that helped Alonso in 05 and 06 as the Renault's low down pull made it great out of corners and off the start line) and more efficient than Ferrari and Mercedes.
Anyone watching GP2 atm? Vandoorne looks set to take his first victory in his first race. Impressive stuff!
I watched it glad Vandoorne showed the GP2 boys how FR3.5 roll. McLaren will have a problem if he wins it in his rookie year, Jenson might have to leave McLaren. But amazing stuff by McLaren and the guys who help mould these drivers and help show the world that Lewis being created was by no freak accident, their youth program is by far the best in the world at the moment.
Agreed. I don't think Mercedes are giving much away to Red Bull aerodynamically, and they've been very strong mechanically for a couple of years now. They seem much lighter on their tyres, or possibly the tyres being more durable is masking any deficiency in that area. The engine's also giving them all kinds of advantages, Mark Hughes has revealed where a lot of their performance has been coming from: http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/1...of-their-turbo-engine-has-given-them-the-edge Even when Renault get their engine running at full whack they'll still be a long way short of Mercedes whose engine is far more sophisticated. It will take Renault and Ferrari years to catch up, and they might not ever be able to catch if the engine freeze forbids it. Hopefully Honda are working on something similar. Apparently Ferrari tried to do what Mercedes have done but didn't think they'd be able to control the vibrations along the shaft connecting the turbine and compressor. They were still using V10s in 2005. I agree the Renault V8 was nowhere near as bad as has been made out in recent years, they won five championship double in eight years. It was also generally considered to be the best engine to begin with, Red Bull lobbied hard with Ferrari to palm their engine contract off onto Toro Rosso so they could have Renault engines in the works team. It was maybe a shade down on outright power, but it was efficient and driveable and they were able to do some very clever things with engine mappings in the last years to fully exploit Red Bull's exhaust blown diffusers.
The issue for me is that Merc has an outright performance advantage over the customer supplied teams as out line in the article that has been posted on the Merc thread. It's not just the advantage over the other engined teams.
FP2 [TABLE="class: raceResults, width: 715"] [TR] [TH="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]Pos[/TH] [TH="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]No[/TH] [TH="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]Driver[/TH] [TH="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]Time of Day[/TH] [TH="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]Speed[/TH] [/TR] [TR] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]1[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]11[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]Sergio Perez[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]19:15:26[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]327.0[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]2[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]27[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]Nico Hulkenberg[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]18:37:21[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]326.8[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]3[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]44[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]Lewis Hamilton[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]18:34:33[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]326.1 [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE="class: raceResults, width: 715"] [TR] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]3[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]14[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]Fernando Alonso[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]18:34:58[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]319.1[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]14[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]7[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]Kimi Räikkönen[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]18:35:24[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]318.1[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]15[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]13[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]Pastor Maldonado[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]18:06:47[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]317.5[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]16[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]1[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]Sebastian Vettel[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]18:47:42[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]316.6[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]17[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]3[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]Daniel Ricciardo[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]18:41:25[/TD] [TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"]315.2[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]
Well golly gosh, I never. Vettel's beached it at T2. Bit of an odd turn to lose it at, but I'm going off text commentary so I don't know what really happened.
Bbc sports "During Friday practice we explained why the Mercedes car is so fast, because of a clever layout of the engine, with the compressor at the front and the turbine at the back, which reduces throttle lag, improves weight and packaging and frees up the electrical parts of the power unit to produce more power at the wheels. We have a bit more info now on the detail behind that. The key is the better airflow into the compressor, because the air has less far to travel from the inlet. Less pressure loss at the compressor leads to more power than is available from the Ferrari and Renault engines. The interesting thing is that apparently the idea initially came from the chassis team, aware of the potential packaging, weight and weight distribution advantages of splitting the turbine and compressor. The engine team realised it was an enormous technical challenge and were not initially sure whether they could pull it off. But they have, and the results are spectacular."
Force India looking good, Paul almost managed a podium here last year, maybe Hulk or Perez can grab one tomorrow.
Watch out for Massa.. I think he will want to prove something to his team...or to show up his young team mate.
