2009 Chinese Grand Prix – Can anyone stop Brawn?

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Ardius
Well it isn't the German Broadcasting Corporation is it? :rolleyes:
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And they should be effin' grateful for that. Watching the race with RTL's commentators was pure torment. "This is our 300th race as broadcasters! Oh, what a present to have here, a GERMAN driver winning! And FIVE german engines in the points! And three Germans battling for 8th place! And GERMAN VICTORY AND GERMAN POLE AND LOOK HERE'S THE NEW SCHUMACHER HE'S GERMAN AND STRONG AND FAST AND MASCULINE AND HE WINNNNSSSS."

Pretty much.

P.S: Sorry I couldn't reply earlier, Bram - regular RTL indeed. Hope you found it in time.
 
I'm depressed - 3 races in and all teams, bar one, have scored points.. It's going to be a loooong season for Ferrari fans (which includes me)

*sigh*
 
Flerbizky
I'm depressed - 3 races in and all teams, bar one, have scored points.. It's going to be a loooong season for Ferrari fans (which includes me)

*sigh*
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Just a heads-up - Sutil crashed out in the end. ;)

But yes. The only reason I was happy Sutil made an error was because it gave Alonso another position, and the saved the Scuderia the disgrace of ending up dead-last. Massa was doing really well until his car collapsed.
 
Metar
P.S: Sorry I couldn't reply earlier, Bram - regular RTL indeed. Hope you found it in time.
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Yeah, I caught it, but it was oh so retarted to listen to. German this, german that. At one point, I heard one commentator say"And our german drivers...Glock in...Heidfeld...Fisichella..." What? How can you mistake a Sutil for Fisico? :odd: Also, the german english was awful to hear to "Und wir sehen dass Sutil auf ze zwelefth lap" Oh dear :ouch:

I can't to get my Belgian coverage back.

Also, Sutil loves rain, as does his car. If he only managed to keep it together :ouch:
 
Bram Turismo
Also, Sutil loves rain, as does his car. If he only managed to keep it together :ouch:
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As I saw the camera switch to a bouncing tyre and lots of debris, I knew it was Sutil lol, it almost seems inevitable that Force India can't finish well.
 
So much for the wheel tethers at Sutil's accident. Didn't even seem that much of an impact and both front wheels were off and bouncing.
 
Well, actually, the wheel tethers did their job - they obviously can't keep the wheels on in 100% of incidents especially if they are impacted so hard in that area, so they are also designed to take most of the impact energy out so we don't have the wheels flying in the air if they do indeed come loose. They appeared to work ok, the wheel that came off onto the track at least didn't go flying in the air and hit a marshal....
 
The whole point of a tether is too keep things attached. The accident didn't seem violent enough to be able to break them.
 
The whole point of a tether is to prevent the tyre from flying. Flying into a marshal's post and flying onto the track is just as dangerous. Imagine, one of Sutil's four chasers could've been hit by that wheel - if it hit the car, it'd ruin another race, if it hit the cockpit area, we would lose a driver.
 
Congratulations Red Bull on your first win and 1-2 finish.

Stong from Brawn GP too, considering Button's comment about tyre temp, although seems a little strange to have a diffuser that doesn't want to create resistance for the tyres to work against in the wet, but still does in the dry.

On the diffuser topic, Red Bull will definately be a contender for both drivers and constuctors championships, when they replace their single decker for the double.
Ferrari will be furiously working on a replacement rear-end for at least another Grand Prix, taking yet another record,....failing to score a single point for 4 races.Yes I predict they won't score in Bahrain either.
On the other hand McLaren have found something in mechanical grip, with a much improved effort to take 5th & 6th, almost equalling Barrichello's pace, this giving hope to a drivers championship fight for the reigning champion, when their new rear aero arrives.
Hard luck award would have to go to Sutil, everyone had a bit of a moment there or just after.
BMW take the "what the" award for the mystery of performance or there lack of.
Renault may have a new no2 driver soon as Piquet is doing more pirroets than a ballerina every race.
Looking forward to a dry race in the Middle East.........surely it wont rain next Sunday.
 
Metar
The whole point of a tether is to prevent the tyre from flying. Flying into a marshal's post and flying onto the track is just as dangerous. Imagine, one of Sutil's four chasers could've been hit by that wheel - if it hit the car, it'd ruin another race, if it hit the cockpit area, we would lose a driver.
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Then in that case are we suggesting that either Force India's tethers are not legal or that tethers just don't work? As tethers have worked fine before and I would have thought this implies they work 99% of the time except when taken extremely hard knocks in just the wrong place.

zed300
Stong from Brawn GP too, considering Button's comment about tyre temp, although seems a little strange to have a diffuser that doesn't want to create resistance for the tyres to work against in the wet, but still does in the dry.
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Downforce != better resistance for tyres necessarily.
I would have thought more downforce means less work for the tyres as they have to do less work in order to turn the car as they are being helped by downforce.

We have seen that the Brawn's are less hard on their tyres than the rest of the field in Australia, I'd imagine its the same again here, except with wet tyres it turns into a disadvantage. Wasn't it a similar scenario last year with Ferrari and McLaren? The McLarens were harder on the tyres but generally better in wet conditions.
 
Ardius
Downforce != better resistance for tyres necessarily.
I would have thought more downforce means less work for the tyres as they have to do less work in order to turn the car as they are being helped by downforce.

We have seen that the Brawn's are less hard on their tyres than the rest of the field in Australia, I'd imagine its the same again here, except with wet tyres it turns into a disadvantage. Wasn't it a similar scenario last year with Ferrari and McLaren? The McLarens were harder on the tyres but generally better in wet conditions.
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That's pretty much how I saw it. Fact is in really wet conditions, you can only go so fast. Brawns package may be that good on their tyres that they couldn't get as much temperature into the wets circulating at the pace they were.
 
Button's smoooooth driving style won't help to get heat into the tyres either.
 
Ardius
Downforce != better resistance for tyres necessarily.
I would have thought more downforce means less work for the tyres as they have to do less work in order to turn the car as they are being helped by downforce.

We have seen that the Brawn's are less hard on their tyres than the rest of the field in Australia, I'd imagine its the same again here, except with wet tyres it turns into a disadvantage.
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Downforce is a necessity for the tyres to work, more downforce, more resistance, more resistance more heat, that's why I said strange they weren't hot enough. All I can deduce is that the mechanical grip(it is still good) is not as good as the grip gained from the diffuser,and the lower pace can't take advantage as we have previously seen.

Dry conditions they also need to be at the right temp(not too hot) to work for grip and longevity, they obviously do this better than anyone else.
 
OMG YES VETTEL HAS DONE IT AGAIN GET IN THERE!!!

Again I didn't see it live. Bad luck, Sutil.
 
Flerbizky
I'm depressed - 3 races in and all teams, bar one, have scored points.. It's going to be a loooong season for Ferrari fans (which includes me)
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Ferrari still have fans?

daan
So much for the wheel tethers at Sutil's accident. Didn't even seem that much of an impact and both front wheels were off and bouncing.
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Have the tethers ever worked? They introduced them years and years ago now and ever since they've been around there have been dozens of accidents where wheels have detatched.

As Ardius said though, they probably take some of the energy out of a wheel about to detatch.
 
homeforsummer
Have the tethers ever worked? They introduced them years and years ago now and ever since they've been around there have been dozens of accidents where wheels have detatched.

As Ardius said though, they probably take some of the energy out of a wheel about to detatch.
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It's only a single example, but without them, we'd no longer have Kimi Raikkonen with us: Monza 2007, at a Practice session: Kimi's F2007 gets nervous braking into the Ascari complex. Rear suspension troubles - the new J-damper system fails. As the F2007 clears a small bump on the track, it swerves to the left. Kimi counter-steers, it reacts and drives into the wall. As the car scrapes along the wall, his right-front wheel detaches, and flies directly towards his head - but the tether stopped it.
 
Metar
It's only a single example, but without them, we'd no longer have Kimi Raikkonen with us: Monza 2007, at a Practice session: Kimi's F2007 gets nervous braking into the Ascari complex. Rear suspension troubles - the new J-damper system fails. As the F2007 clears a small bump on the track, it swerves to the left. Kimi counter-steers, it reacts and drives into the wall. As the car scrapes along the wall, his right-front wheel detaches, and flies directly towards his head - but the tether stopped it.
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Yeh, but I doubt there would enough speed differential between the wheel and kimi's helmet to cause a fatality in that crash.
 
Stevisiov.
Yeh, but I doubt there would enough speed differential between the wheel and kimi's helmet to cause a fatality in that crash.
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A 20kg wheel flying towards his head?

A similar "wheel detaches and hits head" is what's killed Senna - so says the National Geographic documentary.
 
bram: that seems like a fairly inappropriate smiley for the comment :|

on the BBC thing: from where I'm sitting the BBC commentary sounds much like you guys say the German commentary did. "Oh, yes, and the British team in the British town will be so happy about the victory for this British car built by a British team in Britain...Irene the tea lady in Britain will be smiling a British smile on this glorious British day of British victory!" Good lord, give it a rest.

Of all the commentary I've heard, oddly enough, the least biased tends to be American, possibly because they win so much they don't feel the need. If you watch American coverage of a major international sporting event it covers everyone pretty fairly. When the Olympics were on I got a choice of two American and two Canadian feeds - I usually watched the American one because it felt like the Canadian one would rather show the Canadian bog snorkelling champion finishing up in sixteenth place than, say, the 100m final...
 
Senna didn't die becasue he was hit by a wheel. He died because a suspension component was still attached to the wheel and it pierced his helmet...
 
AdamW
bram: that seems like a fairly inappropriate smiley for the comment :|

on the BBC thing: from where I'm sitting the BBC commentary sounds much like you guys say the German commentary did. "Oh, yes, and the British team in the British town will be so happy about the victory for this British car built by a British team in Britain...Irene the tea lady in Britain will be smiling a British smile on this glorious British day of British victory!" Good lord, give it a rest.

Of all the commentary I've heard, oddly enough, the least biased tends to be American, possibly because they win so much they don't feel the need. If you watch American coverage of a major international sporting event it covers everyone pretty fairly. When the Olympics were on I got a choice of two American and two Canadian feeds - I usually watched the American one because it felt like the Canadian one would rather show the Canadian bog snorkelling champion finishing up in sixteenth place than, say, the 100m final...
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Exaggerate much? My point about it being the British Broadcasting Corporation is that it isn't surprising to have a small amount of bias towards certain teams/drivers or even certain aspects of certain teams. Your holy coverage which has no bias doesn't exist.

Don't want to hear a British bias? Don't watch the BBC coverage then! Though you are really overblowing the issue as I don't find the BBC as biased as many other countries commentary (according to their viewers anyway) and certainly no where near the dizzy heights of James Allen-led ITV coverage.
If the BBC were as biased as you say, then why are the interviewing drivers like Buemi? Or some of the commentary team visibly supporting other non-British drivers such as Legard's support of Raikkonen or Eddie Jordan's bias with Glock?

When we have USGPE in F1 and some decent US F1 drivers, I imagine the US commentary will be just as biased as everyone else's.
 
I don't get anyone else's coverage (without paying an extra fifteen bucks a month to get Speed). I understand your point, I just don't agree with it - the BBC's bias is as annoyingly large and painfully obvious as ITV's ever was.
 
AdamW
I don't get anyone else's coverage (without paying an extra fifteen bucks a month to get Speed). I understand your point, I just don't agree with it - the BBC's bias is as annoyingly large and painfully obvious as ITV's ever was.
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You are deluding yourself.
 
Metar
A 20kg wheel flying towards his head?

A similar "wheel detaches and hits head" is what's killed Senna - so says the National Geographic documentary.
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If I am not mistaken, a suspension fork punctured his helmet.

there was potential for Kimi's to have done some damage if he was unlucky, but your statement kimi wouldn't be with us is a little dramatic don't you think? ;)
 
Great race, stayed up until 5AM to watch it. Shame about Sutil and Kubica, but I'm happy about Glock swiping a few points.
 
Stevisiov.
If I am not mistaken, a suspension fork punctured his helmet.

there was potential for Kimi's to have done some damage if he was unlucky, but your statement kimi wouldn't be with us is a little dramatic don't you think? ;)
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I agree, the Helmets are probably more than strong enough to withstand the impact of the wheel. Michael Schumacher's Helmet survived intact after being ran over by a Tank.
 

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