2010 Formula One Spanish Grand Prix

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I think we all know how Alonso steers, considering he has the, ahem, 'cojanes' to drive an F1 car with no hands on the wheel.
 
Nice one from Kobayashi! :D
RB strong as expected and MSC finally picks up some pace. 👍
On TV they said the last 15 (!?) wins were from pole... but we'll see, I still hope for an exciting race.
 
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The last person to not win from pole was Schumacher in '96, when the race was wet.
 
H20HYBRID_GT
Nice one from Kobayashi! :D
RB strong as expected and MSC finally picks up some pace. 👍
On TV they said the last 15 (!?) wins were from pole... but we'll see, I still hope for an exciting race.
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Huh? Vettel won the race at Sepang, yet he didn't start from pole...
 
That was a pretty impressive performance from Red Bull, they've got a bloody good car now! Praying that Vettel wins! Although it seems like Webber deserves it more.

Bram Turismo
Huh? Vettel won the race at Sepang, yet he didn't start from pole...
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He means the last 15 Spanish GP's, not GP's in general.
 
So supposedly this is a litmus test for the rest of the season.

A fairly short circuit, with approx 7 tenth advantage.

In the wise words of J. Clarkson "7 tenths is like three years in Formula 1"
 
Another Red Bull pole, I think I should just not watch qualifying anymore. Kobayashi did a good job, landing in Q3, not far away from everyone else. Hopefully if he doesn't drive like Sato tomorrow, he can finish with some nice points, and perhaps Pedro de la Rosa can move up as well, won't that be awesome? Meanwhile, at the back of the grid, Lotus is comfortably ahead of Virgin, almost a second faster than them, and that's a lot in F1. And Chandhok ouqualifies Senna, who is pretty slow here, and has ben all weekend.
 
PJ-FFL
And Chandhok ouqualifies Senna, who is pretty slow here, and has ben all weekend.
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Chandhok has received a 5 place penalty since qualifying for a gearbox change.

Hoping for a Webber victory tomorrow, and some decent points for Button.

H20HYBRID_GT
On TV they said the last 15 (!?) wins were from pole... but we'll see, I still hope for an exciting race.
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Duffers917K
The last person to not win from pole was Schumacher in '96, when the race was wet.
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Hakkinen won from second on the grid in 2000. Schumacher's 1996 victory is the only occasion at the Circuit de Catalunya that the winning driver hasn't started on the front row - he started third.
 
Some very impressive pace from RB. That Ferrari f-duct is crazy, amazing that Alonso ended up 4th.
 
PJ-FFL
Kobayashi did a good job,
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Anyone else heard Sutil's engineer informing him about Kobayashi?

"It looks like Kobayashi went on a banzai" :lol:!
 
Roo
Hakkinen won from second on the grid in 2000. Schumacher's 1996 victory is the only occasion at the Circuit de Catalunya that the winning driver hasn't started on the front row - he started third.
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My mistake.
 
They really mean from the front row, which means 1st or second. So, if everytihng goes right tomorrow, Red Bull will win.
 
PJ-FFL
Another Red Bull pole, I think I should just not watch qualifying anymore. Kobayashi did a good job, landing in Q3, not far away from everyone else. Hopefully if he doesn't drive like Sato tomorrow, he can finish with some nice points, and perhaps Pedro de la Rosa can move up as well, won't that be awesome? Meanwhile, at the back of the grid, Lotus is comfortably ahead of Virgin, almost a second faster than them, and that's a lot in F1. And Chandhok ouqualifies Senna, who is pretty slow here, and has ben all weekend.
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To be fair to Kobayashi, he's yet to retire from a race due to his own mistakes. The Sauber has had plenty of reliability issues. Hopefully it holds together tomorrow and he can dice with the top teams and hang onto 10th at least for points.
Lotus have made a clear step forward...so much so they are looking like they are doing a better job this season than Williams, who appear to be going backwards (as usual, :indiff: as a Williams fan this is expected now).
If Lotus catch Williams later in the season, I think we all know who is doing what wrong when it comes to the Cosworth engine.

A very predictable qualifying (except Kobayashi). Not much of a change in order, though the midfield is still very close, the aero-dependencey moving Sauber up and Force India and Williams down.

Hopefully Hamilton and Alonso can nail the Red Bulls into turn 1 and we get some form of battle, even if its just in time differences. I think I'll be watching the midfield tomorrow though.
 
Am I the only who can see Di Resta replacing Liuzzi before the end of the season?
 
Nope, though Liuzzi was doing ok at the start of the season. Also, Force India has been fairly loyal to its drivers, they could have sacked Sutil long ago. I think Di Resta will be there next year though.
 
Ferrari received a $20,000 fine for the incident in the pits.
 
725
Some very impressive pace from RB. That Ferrari f-duct is crazy, amazing that Alonso ended up 4th.
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Agreed, on both points.

I am astonished by the improved performance of the Red Bulls. I was just trying to calculate if they could lap the whole field by the end of the race! I then took a look at the weather forecast for tomorrow and it suggests rain showers from 11am to 2pm in Catalunya. I wonder if the performance levels may reflect a wet-race set-up on the other teams.

Watching the replays of Alonso juggling all but the steering wheel in the cockpit - whilst doing over 150mph is bemusing. I would hate to see anything bad come of that but really, is it worth the risk?
 
Well, Mike Gascoyne, Bob Bell and others did warn that things could get a bit crazy after McLaren's system was deemed legal - now we will have drivers activating all sorts of devices.
I'm all for keeping the drivers busy, like going back to manual gearboxes or whatever. But making drivers have to hold a steering wheel, select gears, change brake bias with their right hand and mess about with ducts with their left hand is a bit much.

We will see if it catches the Ferrari drivers out at some point, at least we might be re-introducing mistakes from drivers which is what we want.
 
725
Some very impressive pace from RB. That Ferrari f-duct is crazy, amazing that Alonso ended up 4th.
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To actuate it, he seems to relax his grip on the left side of the steering wheel. Yikes! Also he seems to have to use his right hand to make control adjustments on the left side. The commentators on the Speed Channel interpreted him to be possibly favoring his left hand or arm. Surely this is not the definitive system.
 
Kobayashi is clearly a strong driver and is actually turning out to be one of my favourites this season.

He had terrible luck in the earlier races though. Hydraulic failure in Bahrain, Front Wing failure in Melbourne, Engine failure in Malaysia and he was taken out by another driver in China.

And now he's got a good starting position, i'm hoping he does well. If he gets taken off in the first couple of laps, he's going to be annoyed lol.

I was rooting for Button, but looking at the Red Bulls, they're even quicker in relation to Ferrari and Mclaren than they have been in the first 4 races. They look pretty much unstoppable at the moment. Red Bull + Vettel could turn out to be another Ferrari + Schumi sort of deal if they keep this up. By that I mean dominating races from start to finish, with by far the best car and one of the best drivers in the sport.
 
I want more teams to produce these:
http://www.lotusracing.my/newsletter/2010/05/06/LotusRacingNotes_GPSpain.pdf

:tup:Full marks to Lotus for giving us a clear explanation of their upgrades without having us rely on the media to explain it all.

Dotini
To actuate it, he seems to relax his grip on the left side of the steering wheel. Yikes! Also he seems to have to use his right hand to make control adjustments on the left side. The commentators on the Speed Channel interpreted him to be possibly favoring his left hand or arm. Surely this is not the definitive system.
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No, its because he also has to alter brake bias (the lever in the cockpit). Obviously he cannot operate the duct as well as change the brake bias with one hand, so naturally one hand does each. Problem is, this leaves him without any hands left to hold the steering wheel at times! :lol:
 
It kinda begs the question - why doesn't he adjust the brake balance before engaging the padded glove, unless, the glove is too padded to operate the brake bias control. :lol:
 
Duffers917K
The last person to not win from pole was Schumacher in '96, when the race was wet.
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Christ - that just shows that this track should be binned.

C.
 
Q: In final practice you were seven-tenths behind Sebastian but in qualifying you were able to turn it around. What happened to your car in the two hours between practice and qualifying?
MW: I removed the mirrors inside and put the seat back a little bit…

Q: So you are not giving up any secrets?
MW: Nope, and you guys don’t understand anyway…
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Made me laugh...:lol:

By all accounts RBR should be passing up to 10th place and HRT, Virgin and Lotus about 3 times. Their pace is quite astounding, we haven't seen this kind of speed difference between the lead team and the best of the rest, for a couple of decades.

Comoooon Mark :D
 
zed300
Made me laugh...:lol:

By all accounts RBR should be passing up to 10th place and HRT, Virgin and Lotus about 3 times. Their pace is quite astounding, we haven't seen this kind of speed difference between the lead team and the best of the rest, for a couple of decades.

Comoooon Mark :D
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Nah, the 2002-2004 Ferrari's were in a similar level of dominance. In fact, before the past few seasons, it was quite common for the fastest cars to be several tenths to almost a second ahead of the rest.
People have become too used to the close grids of recent times.

Anyway, lets not get too carried away here, Red Bull have been consistently fast in every qualifying session so far and then their race pace hasn't been quite so dominant.
 
What if Red Bull was to take pole position in every race this year? Has that ever happened before? I would think so, like from the Mercedes W196 days.
 
PJ-FFL
What if Red Bull was to take pole position in every race this year? Has that ever happened before? I would think so, like from the Mercedes W196 days.
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No, though McLaren took 15/16 pole positions in 1988 and 1989 and Williams in 1992 and 1993.
 
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