F1 2022

[1%er]

Red Bull and Ferrari handed major blow as FIA clamp down on illegal floors​

When the new technical regulations were introduced at the beginning if 2022, both managing director and CEO of Formula 1, Ross Brawn and Stefano Domenicali, predicted that some of the teams would endeavour to find loopholes to exploit. It appears that this may be what has happened in the current legislation, and it surrounds the floor and the plank. Ferrari and Red Bull have been struggling a lot less than Mercedes this season in terms of “porpoising” and bouncing, with the Silver Arrows have been losing a lot of lap time as a result.

It got to the point where it was becoming a safety concern for Sir Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, so the FIA took action ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix. They introduced a technical directive that brought about a metric whereby they can decipher which teams are bouncing excessively. Any team that is encountering dangerous levels of oscillation will, as of the French Grand Prix, be asked to raise the ride height of their cars. In order to set a limit, the governing body took measurements of the cars in Montreal to establish whose car is oscillating the most, and what level is acceptable before it becomes unsafe to run.

Within the regulations is a ruling that two specified areas of the plank – as well as the floor itself – are not allowed to flex more than 2mm under a given amount of pressure. This is according to 3.15.8 of the technical regulations, but the back of the plank around the seating area of the driver is not directly discussed. Ferrari and Red Bull have, reportedly, been using this to their advantage by essentially providing more stability on the plank for their drivers by deflecting more than 2mm, allowing them to traverse straights and corners with less bouncing.

However, this is not strictly illegal, because the regulations do not technically prohibit it. This will not be allowed at the French Grand Prix when the directive is enforced, and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff spoke of his surprise that this technique was being used. “Nobody had an idea until the FIA brought it up in the last Technical Advisory Committee,” the Austrian said in an interview. “Which was to a great surprise of all the teams because what’s in the regulations, and what was the intent of the regulations, it’s pretty clear. There is no argument why that could deflect more than what’s in the regs. A bit of a surprise to say the least, more of a shocker.” Trackside engineer Andrew Shovlin added that, due to the fact that the leading two teams will have to change their plank setup in a few weeks, the Silver Arrows may be brought back into play. “When it came to light, we realised there are opportunities that we’ve perhaps not been taking or exploiting,” he added. “So, it won’t affect us in how we run our car. It may well be it affects our competitors and by virtue of that we move a little bit closer.”

Red Bull boss Christian Horner affirmed in Canada that there should have been a “consultation” process before introducing the new directive, while Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto said that the directive is not “applicable” to its influence on the regulations. The feeling in the Red Bull camps is that, having mastered the regulations and built a better car, the FIA are doing Mercedes’ job for them by pegging the leaders back. It reportedly led to a “heated” debate between Wolff and Binotto in Montreal as the team bosses tried to strike a balance between performance and safety, but one thing is for certain: it will be fascinating to see how Ferrari and Red Bull perform if and when their planks are adjusted at the French Grand Prix.

 

[1%er]

Ferrari blasted for “no logic” decision that cost Charles Leclerc British Grand Prix win​

Ferrari have been slammed for a decision which cost Charles Leclerc victory at the British Grand Prix by former world champion Jacques Villeneuve. Leclerc looked on course for victory at Silverstone which would have breathed new life into his championship hopes, with leader Max Verstappen’s finishing down in seventh in his wounded Red Bull. A late safety car changed the complexion of the race and saw Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz, Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton pit for fresh tyres, with Leclerc left out on worn hard rubber.

When racing resumed, Sainz barged his way into the lead and went on to win the race. Leclerc didn’t even finish on the podium, dropping to fourth following an epic tussle with Perez and Hamilton. Villeneuve, whose late father Gilles drove for Ferrari in the late 70s and early 80s, was impressed with Leclerc’s pace and couldn’t understand the decision to leave the Monegasque out on old tyres for the final stint. “There is no logic behind the decision to let him continue on the hard tire after the safety car in the final phase, they left a one-two there,” the former Williams and BAR driver wrote in his column for Formule1.nl. “And I see Ferrari making mistakes like this all the time. Perhaps they hoped Sainz would stop Hamilton or feared that Hamilton would not stop if Leclerc did enter. I understand Leclerc’s anger after the race, this is another example of conservative strategy.”

However, Leclerc didn’t escape criticism either, with Villeneuve unhappy about his complaints over the radio when he was stuck behind Sainz earlier in the race. “What he does need to work on is his communication with the team,” he added. “Okay, Sainz was slower but a one-two was just in it. The moment that substitutions were made [Leclerc was allowed through at one stage] was logical because they were losing the race at that moment. But that is something different than in the previous phase. Then Leclerc spoke as if he had already been declared the definitive leader and he is not, contractually neither. It's too early for that, Sainz still has a chance. A decision too early while two drivers have a chance at the title can also cost you as a team. Eddie Irvine left many points to Michael Schumacher in 1999 and eventually lost the championship as a result. So I think Ferrari will not be very happy with the tone on the radio. Leclerc asked for a decision and it came: ‘Sainz has been told to pick up the pace’. That should be enough and then the radio messages should also stop. It doesn't make sense to insist, everything is broadcast and that is not good for Ferrari either. Do that indoors after the race.”

The 1999 championship saw Irvine play second fiddle to number one Schumacher over the first half of the season. But when Schumacher broke his leg in a crash at Silverstone, he was ruled out of the title fight. Irvine almost pinched the crown, only to lose out narrowly to McLaren’s Mika Hakkinen.

 

[Ax^]

don't think the silverstone gp will help red bull case to much, whatever trick the explored broke on max's car after hitting debris.

haha more Karen Horner GIFs to come along

 

[1%er]

Lewis Hamilton handed championship boost as Mercedes to introduce ‘invisible’ upgrade​

Auto Motor und Sport journalist Michael Schmidt has outlined Mercedes’ development plans from now until the Hungarian Grand Prix before the summer break. The Silver Arrows’ performance was much improved from the opening nine rounds of the season in Silverstone last weekend, and Sir Lewis Hamilton looked capable of challenging the Ferraris for victory before a late Safety Car. The smooth track surface at the British Grand Prix played to his and George Russell’s advantage over the course of the weekend, but there is more undulation and a bumpier track to contend with in Austria this weekend.They are therefore expected to use Austria to determine how effective their latest iteration of the W13 can really be, and they will bring small changes to Spielberg, as well as Paul Ricard and Budapest before Formula 1 breaks for the summer.

“At Mercedes they are not sure how Spielberg will work out for them,” said Schmidt. “It will be a good circuit to see how good the updates from Silverstone really are, they told me that they [Mercedes] will now bring small upgrades every race, all these upgrades will be floor related.” The idea of the alterations is to ascertain how much progress they have made in stopping the “porpoising” and bouncing phenomenon. “Mercedes will take these upgrades all the way to Budapest,” added Schmidt. “That is the big test to see if they have completely fixed the bouncing. If everything works there, Mercedes think they can win races on their own in the second half of the season.” The German journalist suggested that the changes made to the car are expected to be very minor, so much so that there will not actually be a visible difference to the car. The anticipation as a result of the research and development is that the eight-time constructors’ champions can start winning races in the latter stages of the season.

 

[spitfire]

So the roll hoop snapped off? That's not great...

‘I don’t know how I survived’: Zhou Guanyu feared fire after British GP crash

The Chinese driver, who was trapped in his Alfa Romeo until marshals helped, said: ‘The halo saved me … I just tried to switch the engine off’

www.theguardian.com

 

[1%er]

Gary Anderson: FIA’s F1 flexi-floor clampdown explained​

Suspicions that certain teams might be taking advantage of what the wording of the regulations allows to create flexi-floors is what has triggered the FIA to take action with the technical directive clamping down on such designs that will kick in at the French Grand Prix later this month. So what might teams be doing? This illustration is a cross-section of what I would be looking to achieve if I was still closely involved with a team and wanted to come up with a design taking advantage of this.


The black area is the chassis, the grey is the floor, the plank is wooden and the yellow is the skid material around the holes in the plank. The holes themselves are used to measure the thickness of the plank, so the more protection that you can give them from a very hard material the better. The purple part of the diagram is one of the rams – two at the front, one at the rear. These locations are marked in red circles on the underfloor of the Alfa Romeo of Zhou Guanyu, who gave us a good look at the underside of a current car at Silverstone.



The FIA uses these as their datum to measure the location of other components around the car, including the front wing height, the front wing overhang and the rear wing height and overhang, to name but a few. To take these measurements, the car is pushed onto what has been nicknamed ‘the bridge of doom’. The rams fit through the holes in the plank and are then powered up until they touch what is called the reference plane (red dotted line).

Then they are loaded to a certain level to make sure this area supports the weight of the car. In this layout, it is basically a hard point in the chassis to support that weight. Using my design, you could construct your floor with, for example, some sort of memory foam insert between two carbon skins. When the plank hits the ground, it would compress that memory foam and allow the plank to be pushed upward by a few millimetres. This would reduce the wear on the plank or its skids. By doing this you could run the ride height lower and not suffer so much plank wear, it would also mean that when the skids hit the ground the impact load on the chassis and in turn the driver would be reduced.

We also know that several teams mount the front skid on a spring and damper unit. This is located at the front of the plank. Several teams have such a spring and damper unit, including Haas, so from that we know that they can preload this spring to accept the deflection test load but then break the preload when the load is higher, reducing the wear on the front skid.

The other two holes in the plank (yellow circle on the Zhou underside diagram) are also for plank wear check. They are also protected by a skid to one side of the hole. The major problem with my scheme is that if the FIA was clever enough to change the diameter of its rams to be bigger than the holes in the plank and then do a back-to-back test, they would discover that the floor compresses with the same load as it takes to lift the chassis for the initial legality tests so it would mean that other areas of the car become illegal.

Well, that’s exactly what the FIA is intending to do in Paul Ricard. So if any team is up to something like my scheme, they will suffer more than those that are squeaky clean. But of course, this is F1, so squeaky clean is perhaps not a phrase that ever applies.

[Will we see Ted showing us this with a couple of ice-cream wafers and some Marshmallows over the weekend ]

​

 

[1%er]

Lewis Hamilton shuts down Christian Horner with brutal comment at Austrian Grand Prix​

Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton has brutally shut down Red Bull principal Christian Horner after the 48-year-old suggested that the Silver Arrows failed to make competent strategy calls at the British Grand Prix last weekend. Hamilton impressively finished third despite starting in fifth on the grid by overtaking Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, much to the delight of his home crowd. But Horner claimed that Mercedes should not have pitted Hamilton for hard tyres on the 33rd lap, instead insisting he should have stopped for soft tyres instead.

The Red Bull hero said that Ferrari had been 'let off the hook' by their poor decision. But Hamilton has fired back by claiming that he 'does not pay attention' to Horner as a war of words continues to embroil between the two sides. "I don’t really pay much attention to what is said by that guy!" Hamilton told reporters ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix. "From our knowledge, from what I was told, from our experience, the tyres were not going to go the distance. They were definitely quicker for the first part but there was huge degradation on the other cars that we had seen. Now, did we get it perfect? Who knows. But I think we made the right decision." Hamilton started with medium tyres, and only Lando Norris lasted longer on that compound at Silverstone.

And whilst the seven-time world champion admitted that he could have changed the decision in hindsight, he was more than happy with his performance. "No one could do the stint length that I did on the Medium. I don't know if anyone else did that length and had that performance and pace at the end on that tyre," he continued. "The question is could I have kept going and then shortened my Soft tyre run? But in hindsight it's always positive." The Brit will look to battle with Red Bull and Ferrari once again as he takes to Austria this weekend.

 

[1%er]

Bottas to take grid drop for Austrian GP​

Valtteri Bottas will start Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix from the back of the grid after taking on new Power Unit components in Spielberg. The Alfa Romeo driver has taken on a fourth internal combustion engine, turbocharger, MGU-H and MGU-K, as well as a third Control Electronics. As the new parts exceed the penalty-free quota for a season, Bottas has been issued with a grid penalty. The penalty oversteps 15 places on the grid, which means it automatically gets turned into a back-of-the-grid start.

Bottas’ starting position for Saturday’s F1 Sprint will not be affected the penalty will only be applied after the shortened race. The Finn failed to finish the race last time out at Silverstone, as he suffered gearbox issues early on in the race. Lando Norris has also taken on new PU parts for the weekend, but does not receive a penalty as he has not exceeded the penalty-free usage of components.

 

[1%er]

Lando Norris' car catches fire during Austrian Grand Prix practice​

Lando Norris has been forced out of practice just hours before qualifying at the Austrian Grand Prix as his car caught fire. Norris came to a rest just before turn six, complaining his car was on fire over team radio. The Mclaren driver said his car was in limp mode during the opening part of the session, suggesting there was an error. Usually, his engineers would be keen for Norris to get the car back to the garage but the Briton made it clear wanted to stop urgently after claiming his seat was “smoking”.

He said: “I'm on fire, I need to stop. Race engineer Will Joseph said: “If you’re on fire and need to stop do it." Norris responded: “it's smoking from underneath my seat mate so I'd rather get out alright." Norris was okay after the incident and was seen in discussion with engineers inside his garage moments later. The team can still return to the track in FP1 if they can receiver their car and fix the damage.

Usually, the team would have an extra session this afternoon to dial in their car ahead of qualifying tomorrow. But, McLaren will not have that luxury with Austria’s Sprint weekend format meaning qualifying will take place in just a few hours.

 

[1%er]

Austrian Grand Prix FP1​

Red Bull's Max Verstappen set an impressive pace in first practice at the Austrian Grand Prix before qualifying at this 'sprint' event. The world championship leader was 0.255 seconds quicker than Ferrari's Charles Leclerc. Mercedes' George Russell was third, a further 0.145secs adrift. Lewis Hamilton was fourth, 0.207secs behind his team-mate.

Qualifying sets the grid for a short race on Saturday that defines starting positions for the main grand prix. Haas driver Kevin Magnussen was fifth fastest, followed by the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso's Alpine - using the medium tyres while everyone else at the front set their times on the softs - and the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez. Haas' Mick Schumacher and the Alpha Tauri of Yuki Tsunoda completed the top 10.

The session featured two red flags, one while Lando Norris' McLaren was removed after breaking down after Turn Four, and a second because of debris on the track. It was a difficult session for McLaren. In addition to Norris' reliability problems, which came quite early on, Daniel Ricciardo was also struggling with an oscillating DRS flap, which it took the team most of the hour to solve. Alfa Romeo driver Valtteri Bottas, who was 14th fastest, will start from the back of the grid as a result of a penalty for using too many engine parts this season.

POS	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:06.302	34
2	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	0.255s	32
3	George Russell	Mercedes	0.400s	32
4	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	0.537s	27
5	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	0.607s	31
6	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	0.663s	32
7	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	0.737s	29
8	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	0.798s	32
9	Mick Schumacher	Haas	0.944s	32
10	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	0.994s	33
11	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	1.129s	26
12	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	1.160s	27
13	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	1.174s	29
14	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo Racing	1.220s	27
15	Alex Albon	Williams	1.280s	32
16	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	1.290s	33
17	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	1.441s	25
18	Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo Racing	1.587s	28
19	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	1.847s	28
20	Lando Norris	McLaren	3.613s	14

 

[dessiato]

Not impressed by the total lack of live access to F1 here in UK.

My DAZN doesn't work here.

Nothing I can find on any free to air channels.

What do you do to get it all?

 

[Ax^]

pay for it or hunt down streams is the only option dess

 

[MrCurry]

Is the F1 streaming service F1TV still not available in U.K.? We can get that here, not that I do because I have the Swedish F1 channel viaplay

 

[1%er]

Not impressed by the total lack of live access to F1 here in UK.

My DAZN doesn't work here.

Nothing I can find on any free to air channels.

What do you do to get it all?

Loads of links here. Don't download anything!!!!!

 

[spitfire]

Gary Anderson: FIA’s F1 flexi-floor clampdown explained​

Suspicions that certain teams might be taking advantage of what the wording of the regulations allows to create flexi-floors is what has triggered the FIA to take action with the technical directive clamping down on such designs that will kick in at the French Grand Prix later this month. So what might teams be doing? This illustration is a cross-section of what I would be looking to achieve if I was still closely involved with a team and wanted to come up with a design taking advantage of this.
View attachment 331186

The black area is the chassis, the grey is the floor, the plank is wooden and the yellow is the skid material around the holes in the plank. The holes themselves are used to measure the thickness of the plank, so the more protection that you can give them from a very hard material the better. The purple part of the diagram is one of the rams – two at the front, one at the rear. These locations are marked in red circles on the underfloor of the Alfa Romeo of Zhou Guanyu, who gave us a good look at the underside of a current car at Silverstone.

View attachment 331187

The FIA uses these as their datum to measure the location of other components around the car, including the front wing height, the front wing overhang and the rear wing height and overhang, to name but a few. To take these measurements, the car is pushed onto what has been nicknamed ‘the bridge of doom’. The rams fit through the holes in the plank and are then powered up until they touch what is called the reference plane (red dotted line).

Then they are loaded to a certain level to make sure this area supports the weight of the car. In this layout, it is basically a hard point in the chassis to support that weight. Using my design, you could construct your floor with, for example, some sort of memory foam insert between two carbon skins. When the plank hits the ground, it would compress that memory foam and allow the plank to be pushed upward by a few millimetres. This would reduce the wear on the plank or its skids. By doing this you could run the ride height lower and not suffer so much plank wear, it would also mean that when the skids hit the ground the impact load on the chassis and in turn the driver would be reduced.

We also know that several teams mount the front skid on a spring and damper unit. This is located at the front of the plank. Several teams have such a spring and damper unit, including Haas, so from that we know that they can preload this spring to accept the deflection test load but then break the preload when the load is higher, reducing the wear on the front skid.

The other two holes in the plank (yellow circle on the Zhou underside diagram) are also for plank wear check. They are also protected by a skid to one side of the hole. The major problem with my scheme is that if the FIA was clever enough to change the diameter of its rams to be bigger than the holes in the plank and then do a back-to-back test, they would discover that the floor compresses with the same load as it takes to lift the chassis for the initial legality tests so it would mean that other areas of the car become illegal.

Well, that’s exactly what the FIA is intending to do in Paul Ricard. So if any team is up to something like my scheme, they will suffer more than those that are squeaky clean. But of course, this is F1, so squeaky clean is perhaps not a phrase that ever applies.

[Will we see Ted showing us this with a couple of ice-cream wafers and some Marshmallows over the weekend ]

​

 

[spitfire]

Not impressed by the total lack of live access to F1 here in UK.

My DAZN doesn't work here.

Nothing I can find on any free to air channels.

What do you do to get it all?

I pay for NOW TV, Channel 4 show replays in the evening.

It's a load of old bollocks is what it is.

 

[spitfire]

Is the F1 streaming service F1TV still not available in U.K.? We can get that here, not that I do because I have the Swedish F1 channel viaplay

No. Sky have (nearly) all rights to live racing.

 

[1%er]

Both Aston Martins out in Q1 again and Danny Ric

 

[MrCurry]

I wonder if pole will be decided by track limits causing a faster time to be deleted?

 

[1%er]

Lewis appears more comfortable in the car now, first time he has been top in any qualifying session this season (if only for a short while) and splitting the Red Bulls and Ferraris

 

[spitfire]

Oh fuck Qually is today isn't it!

Bad spitfire.

I'm going to the park.

 

[MrCurry]

Lewis appears more comfortable in the car now, first time he has been top in any qualifying session this season (if only for a short while) and splitting the Red Bulls and Ferraris

Famous last words!!

 

[1%er]

Lewis has crashed

 

[Limejuice]

Mass jubilation among the sporting orange-clad fans.

Ted: "Was it always like this?"

 

[1%er]

On the up side Lewis can move forward in the sprint and get in the top 5 on the grid for the race looking at his times.

 

[1%er]

Oh fuck nightmare quali for Mercedes

 

[Limejuice]

Oh dear.

George.

 

[1%er]

Austrian Grand Prix sprint race starting grid​

Row 1	1. (1) Max Verstappen 1’4.984 Red Bull RB18
		2. (16) Charles Leclerc 1’5.013 Ferrari F1-75
Row 2	3. (55) Carlos Sainz Jnr 1’5.066 Ferrari F1-75
		4. (11) Sergio Perez 1’5.404 Red Bull RB18
Row 3	5. (63) George Russell 1’5.431 Mercedes W13
		6. (31) Esteban Ocon 1’5.726 Alpine-Renault A522
Row 4	7. (20) Kevin Magnussen 1’5.879 Haas-Ferrari VF-22
		8. (47) Mick Schumacher 1’6.011 Haas-Ferrari VF-22
Row 5	9. (14) Fernando Alonso 1’6.103 Alpine-Renault A522
		10. (44) Lewis Hamilton 1’13.151 Mercedes W13
Row 6	11. (10) Pierre Gasly 1’6.160 AlphaTauri-Red Bull AT03
		12. (23) Alexander Albon 1’6.230 Williams-Mercedes FW44
Row 7	13. (77) Valtteri Bottas 1’6.319 Alfa Romeo-Ferrari C42
		14. (22) Yuki Tsunoda 1’6.851 AlphaTauri-Red Bull AT03
Row 8	15. (4) Lando Norris 1’25.847 McLaren-Mercedes MCL36
		16. (3) Daniel Ricciardo 1’6.613 McLaren-Mercedes MCL36
Row 9	17. (18) Lance Stroll 1’6.847 Aston Martin-Mercedes AMR22
		18. (24) Zhou Guanyu 1’6.901 Alfa Romeo-Ferrari C42
Row 10	19. (6) Nicholas Latifi 1’7.003 Williams-Mercedes FW44
		20. (5) Sebastian Vettel 1’7.083 Aston Martin-Mercedes AMR22

 

[Ax^]

if Perez keeps that place with no grid drop

then the policing of turn 10 is kinda ballocks

Hammy and Ricardo saved blushes by their team mates woes

 

[MrCurry]

Wow, grid drop to 13th for Perez due to track limits breach at turn 8 in Q2. That’s harsh. A big drop I mean, from 4th to 13th. If it had been noticed at the time he could‘ve done another lap to get himself thru to Q3, but I suppose they take the view the driver is meant to know if they’re inside the track limits or not.