2009 Chinese Grand Prix – Can anyone stop Brawn?

[Mad94d]

Is that Alonso's sister?

Anyway, I hope we see some improvement from Ferrari.

Yeah Ferrari seems to be struggling at the moment. I really want to see Kimi do well after last year's tough year for him.(and cause he's my favourite)

 

[thirteendog]

My predictions:
Pole:
Button in a Q2 time of ~1minute, 31.9 seconds
Race:
1. Button
2. Vettel will suprise!
3. Barrichello after a long fight with
4. Trulli
5. Webber
6. Rosberg
7. Nakajima who will duel with
8. Kubica and
9. Glock
10. Heidfield

Why leave Hamilton out? He has at least finished in the points in the last two races. Granted Melbourne never happened.

 

[Ardius]

Why leave Hamilton out? He has at least finished in the points in the last two races. Granted Melbourne never happened.

Because both the past races he managed to get into the points with:
1. Melbourne - 2 safety car periods.
2. Malaysia - extreme weather and lucking on tyre choices/pit stops.

On race pace, his car isn't up to scratch and his talent will put him into points but only with the bad luck of other drivers. He will struggle to make 8th position.

 

[Stevisiov]

Because both the past races he managed to get into the points with:
1. Melbourne - 2 safety car periods.
2. Malaysia - extreme weather and lucking on tyre choices/pit stops.

On race pace, his car isn't up to scratch and his talent will put him into points but only with the bad luck of other drivers. He will struggle to make 8th position.

Agreed, he is a good driver, with a good team strategy (usually), but that's not enough by itself to get him to the points with the current car (if the race is processional).

Why leave Hamilton out? He has at least finished in the points in the last two races. Granted Melbourne never happened.

Mclaren is making quick progress, and with a good engine in china, the Mclaren might find itself slightly quicker than usual relative to the other cars, but it would take a big improvement to be a favourite for points.

 

[Peter]

Button will be doing great here, Vettel should be able to keep those toyotas behind him, Raikkonen will be scoring ferrari's first points here and Massa probably, Lewis might suprise us, but i'm not so sure about it, and Force India, a decent last place for them.

 

[Peter]

Button could put out a decent late 1:31, but Schumi time is prettey fast, so i'm not expecting a new lap record but they will come incredibly close.

 

[Metar]

Again, should we take it seriously? A 1'31? A whopping 3 seconds faster than a 2004 time?

Going faster than last year is a possibility at some-to-most tracks, but 2004 laps are nigh untouchable. They had more power (to the scale of 150-200hp more), more downforce, and the ultra-sticky tyres from the Michelin-Bridgestone battle era.

 

[Ardius]

Metar, I know its hard but you just have to bite your tongue and ignore the slightly ignorant posts...
I know, I too wish it was ban worthy lol.

 

[Peter]

Again, should we take it seriously? A 1'31? A whopping 3 seconds faster than a 2004 time?

Going faster than last year is a possibility at some-to-most tracks, but 2004 laps are nigh untouchable. They had more power (to the scale of 150-200hp more), more downforce, and the ultra-sticky tyres from the Michelin-Bridgestone battle era.

But now we have lighter cars, less drag, slicks, KERS and Brawn GP. I am sure that we will see some records at shangai

 

[Metar]

But now we have lighter cars, less drag, slicks, KERS and Brawn GP. I am sure that we will see some records at shangai

Since when?

The power of the V10s is the only reason they had more drag then: They could afford it, and gain extra downforce. Today's spec slicks are, at best, as fast as the tyre-war era grooved. This year's drag is just marginally less than last year, and KERS isn't an advantage over a single lap - and it's even on the Brawn GP.

And again, even an optimistic 80% of last year's downforce would put it at an optimistic ~70% of the 2004 downforce.

 

[nissan tuner]

I'm not sure if anyone noticed this but during the the Malaysian qualifying, Heidfeld's Q2 time was 1:34.769. This is 0.546 seconds off of the 2004 track record.

I doubt that anyone is setting a 1:31 this weekend though.

Again, should we take it seriously? A 1'31? A whopping 3 seconds faster than a 2004 time?

Isnt the track record for Shanghai 1:32.2?

 

[Peter]

The cars are lighter now because of the 2 less cylinders and they are stripped down of all those stuff that helped with downforce except for wings.

 

[Stevisiov]

The cars are lighter now because of the 2 less cylinders and they are stripped down of all those stuff that helped with downforce except for wings.

Not intending to be mean.....but you have made a few physics slips tonight. 2 less cylinders means less power - BAD - This doesn't make the car any lighter as the cars have a minimum weight limit that the cars cannot go under, it does most likely mean fractionally less ballast, but we are not talking KERS amounts. so no there isn't really a weight advantage whatsoever, only power loss.

How is being stripped of downforce good? when downforce becomes a disadvantage (due to drag) the teams just run with a bit less wing to reduce downforce. However not having enough becomes a huge disadvantage when you really need it because the regs prevent you from getting any more.

A good thing to think of for downforce and drag. The teams aim to use as little downforce as they can get away with, but if you already have less than you get away with, then your going too loose time, thats whats going to happen this year, particularly on the twisty tracks. The main performance advantage is the return of the slicks.

The current Mclaren doesn't produce enough downforce, do you think the engineers are celebrating because they get less drag (actually that might not be true, I bet it has more drag than the multi-tier diffuser cars ).

 

[mPWRD]

Nice job Blake, way to just own my thread starter from Malaysia.👍

Anyway... I'm going to go out on a limb here.
- Barring any more collisions, Vettel is the man to beat here. After a promising showing in Australia and a premature ending in Malaysia, I really think he's due for a win. Of course, Button and Barrichello will be in the running, as will Mr. Consistent, Kubica.
- Massa's car will blow up again, but Raikonnen might score a point. Ferrari's technical lineup shifting won't do much.
- Last place won't be Force India! No, it wont! It's going to be poor Nelsinho.
- Should be better luck for McLaren... as long as Heikki qualifies in the top 15... hopefully... if he completes a lap... maybe... probably not.

 

[senamic]

Lap Record: 1:32.238 – Michael Schumacher (Ferrari), 2004

~1.32.2 - ~1.31.9 =0.00.3

HOW IS THAT 4 SECONDS DIFFERENCE FROM THE FASTEST LAP???

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I think they're talking more about the 2004 times compared to the times the 2009 cars have been putting in so far.

 

[Metar]

Lap Record: 1:32.238 – Michael Schumacher (Ferrari), 2004

~1.32.2 - ~1.31.9 =0.00.3

HOW IS THAT 4 SECONDS DIFFERENCE FROM THE FASTEST LAP???

Indeed, I used the 2004 pole time - since they're usually the fastest times out there - and didn't expect the race-time to be faster (even though it makes sense, being a new track and all). My bad.

Still. Fastest 2008 time? 2005 time? We won't be breaking records. The 2004 race-time is still out of reach.

 

[Alex.]

Just in:

 

[MustangSVT]

No one is gonna a 1:31 anything. The fastest lap in 2005 was a 1:33.2, and in 2008, the Q2 lap was 1:34.9. You're saying they're gonna do 3 seconds faster this year than last year? That's ridiculous. Even with slicks, they have less downforce than last year and less power (18,000rpm), they're not gonna be 3 seconds faster than last year.

 

[Alex.]

With the movable wings and kers they may get closer than suspected.

 

[Metar]

They won't.

KERS isn't an advantage over a single lap yet, and moveable wings aren't that useful: It's a single flap that, at best, messes up your balance. Every driver interviewed on it so far admitted that they haven't once used it in races and qualifying. It was allowed to help drivers cope with changes in balance in traffic and turbulence, but so far, it seems drivers prefer the expected change in balance, rather than cope with unintended consequences.

They have ~20HP-25HP less this year, they have less downforce. On the other hand, they have slicks and marginally less drag. It cancels each other out, more or less - at times, they're slower by a bit, at times, faster by a bit. A bit is not 3 seconds.

 

[Peter]

We have seen some really fast times so far in this year, so I'm expecting a record or really close to it from Brawn or, maybe Lewis might actually suprise us this race hopefully getting out of Q1 for the first time this season.

 

[Metar]

We have seen some really fast times so far in this year, so I'm expecting a record or really close to it from Brawn or, maybe Lewis might actually suprise us this race hopefully getting out of Q1 for the first time this season.

Compared to what? Compared to 2008, perhaps. Compared to 2004 times, which hold almost every record, we're several seconds off them at every venue tested so far. At Jerez, the only time 2009 cars were below an official record, said record was set during the last race there - over a decade ago - so passing that record wasn't that much of a surprise. However, 2004 cars, in testing, went several seconds faster than that.

At every venue so far, times were always several seconds slower than in 2004 - so records won't be broken, other than at the Yas Marina circuit, where no F1 car drove before, and quite possibly Valencia and Singapore, where 2008 cars were the first.


The 2004 cars are unbeatable at the moment. More power, more downforce, probably-better tyres (competition grooves vs. spec slicks).

 

[nissan tuner]

At every venue so far, times were always several seconds slower than in 2004

Again, the 2009 cars were within the same second of the 2004 records at Sepang. I wouldn't be surprised to see something similar to that in Shanghai, we'll just have to wait and see

 

[Metar]

Fastest lap was a 1'36.641 - that's 2.4s off the record. Note: Records are set during a race. 2004 cars were faster in every single matching session - though this year's Q2 time was just 0.7s slower than the pole time for 2004.

 

[mPWRD]

With the movable wings and kers they may get closer than suspected.

No way in hell will they get close to the lap record. Schumi did that when the cars had V10s and were running around about 25 hp more than this season's cars. Less power, less downforce, and I don't think there is a driver who could match Schumi's times. KERS is not good for much per lap, and remember, not all drivers have it. So Schumi's time is safe.

 

[Peter]

No way in hell will they get close to the lap record. Schumi did that when the cars had V10s and were running around about 25 hp more than this season's cars. Less power, less downforce, and I don't think there is a driver who could match Schumi's times. KERS is not good for much per lap, and remember, not all drivers have it. So Schumi's time is safe.

Button's suprising for this year so far aren't even close to an end. 1st so far in all races and sticking there the whole races left the whole world picking their jaws up from the floor. All Button needed was a more powerful engine, all Honda needed was a more powerful engine!!! Now that they have a McLaren engine, which has the most power of them all, all the good engineering that went into the car is up and running.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Button's suprising for this year so far aren't even close to an end. 1st so far in all races and sticking there the whole races left the whole world picking their jaws up from the floor. All Button needed was a more powerful engine, all Honda needed was a more powerful engine!!! Now that they have a McLaren engine, which has the most power of them all, all the good engineering that went into the car is up and running.

Actually, Honda needed a lot of things; their engine was the least of their problems. For two years they had to deal with a bad designer, terrible aerodynamics and the sponsor-free Earth Dreams concept that meant zero money was coming into the team in a sport notorious for its expensive nature. Sticking a new and more powerul engine in the back of the RA107 and RA108 wouldn't have solved anything; Button once commented that when he drove the car even after a full year of testing and development, he still had no idea what might happen when he threw it into a corner.

 

[The Outlaw]

Button's suprising for this year so far aren't even close to an end. 1st so far in all races and sticking there the whole races left the whole world picking their jaws up from the floor. All Button needed was a more powerful engine, all Honda needed was a more powerful engine!!! Now that they have a McLaren engine, which has the most power of them all, all the good engineering that went into the car is up and running.

I would have to agree with you to an extent, although the Brawn chassis is a far superior design to anything Honda had produced in their F1 days. It's been said that the Honda chassis would had made it to Q3 pretty consistently last season, had they had equal power to that of Ferrari and Mercedes/Mclaren. I believe they were down ~35-40hp last season. So power was definitely a main issue as to why they were no where near competitive in their later years. But it must be said that it was likely not all of their inferiorities, as their aero was still inferior to what Macca and Ferrari had produced, as Do You Race touched on.

 

[C-ZETA]

Well, since the diffuser battle has been won by the diffuser users, I can guarantee Brawn are most likely on their way to another victory. I do wonder if all the other teams will start using the diffusers in new cars now though...and that would really kill it.