2010 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix

[red7]

Yaaaaaaaaaay! F1 is back! If I'm lucky, I'll catch the very end of practice when I get out of work.

Nice vids there, no music or silly visual effects going on, just documentary style footage. @ 3:13 of the first vid...............ANGRY!!!!
I think Kobayashi was taking out his aggressions on the gas petal.

 

[yeti]

Practice is here...

Looks like Jenson and Heikki are going to be first on track (as they're in their cars)...

How long before a read flag stops play!?

C.

 

[senamic]

Its finally happening.....

 

[yeti]

Green lights!!

Lotus car (Trulli) first...

Then both torro rossos... and a Force India!!

C.

 

[Dijital Majik]

Can anyone please explain what the commentators on BBC red button were talking about with regards to McLaren drivers using knees to direct airflow and 6mph more? Had a bathroom break and just caught the end of the conversation.

Edit: nevermind, read up on it.

 

[Sureboss]

I hope Lotus are holding back on purpose. F1 will be stupid if they are this slow at the race.

Edit: Why have Virgin/HRT not come out yet? Stupidty, surely?

 

[Sharky.]

Chandhok isn't coming out because he, well... can't. His car's broken.

 

[J-PaP]

I thought the car just wasn't put together yet?

At least Senna has finally come out but I thought Virgin and HRT would be running more this session.

 

[Ardius]

I hope Lotus are holding back on purpose. F1 will be stupid if they are this slow at the race.

Edit: Why have Virgin/HRT not come out yet? Stupidty, surely?

Calm down dear.
Don't be surprised if the Loti are that slow come tomorrow. As for Virgin and HRT, well HRT only put the cars together today and Virgin I guess are still having reliability issues.
I'm going to continue to defend at least Lotus' pace because they have done all this in 6 months - which makes 7 seconds off the pace excusable in my opinion.
I'll also defend HRT for now, I have massive respect to Colin Kolles for just managing to get this team here!

Chandhok isn't coming out because he, well... can't. His car's broken.

I thought the car just wasn't put together yet?

At least Senna has finally come out but I thought Virgin and HRT would be running more this session.

Yeah, Chandhok's car had a hydraulic problem apparently according to Senna earlier, so they couldn't get the car together in time for the session.

 

[Sharky.]

Times:

Pos  Driver         Team                   Time              Laps
 1.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes   1:56.583            18
 2.  Alonso         Ferrari                1:56.766  + 0.183   18
 3.  Kubica         Renault                1:57.041  + 0.458   19
 4.  Massa          Ferrari                1:57.055  + 0.472   19
 5.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1:57.068  + 0.485   19
 6.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes       1:57.163  + 0.580   19
 7.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes   1:57.194  + 0.611   19
 8.  Rosberg        Mercedes GP            1:57.199  + 0.616   15
 9.  Webber         Red Bull Racing        1:57.255  + 0.672   17
10.  Schumacher     Mercedes GP            1:57.662  + 1.079   16
11.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:57.722  + 1.139   18
12.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth      1:57.894  + 1.311   20
13.  Vettel         Red Bull Racing        1:57.943  + 1.360   17
14.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:58.399  + 1.816   13
15.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1:58.782  + 2.199   11
16.  Petrov         Renault                1:58.880  + 2.297   13
17.  de la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari         2:00.250  + 3.667   18
18.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari         2:01.388  + 4.805   11
19.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth        2:03.680  + 7.097    8
20.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth         2:03.848  + 7.265   21
21.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth         2:03.970  + 7.387   15
22.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth                             2
23.  Senna          HRT-Cosworth                                3
24.  Chandhok       HRT-Cosworth

 

[Alex.]

I hope Lotus are holding back on purpose. F1 will be stupid if they are this slow at the race.

Edit: Why have Virgin/HRT not come out yet? Stupidty, surely?

HRT were still building the cars. They've done very well to even get to Bahrain.

It's not like they have 2 fully ready cars and are just sitting there.
"Shall we go out and do some laps then?"
"er, let's see what's on the TV"
"Oh cool F1!"

 

[Bram Turismo]

It's still early to tell, but Force India look very promising already 👍

 

[Ardius]

I'm now reading elsewhere that Senna's HRT apparently lost a piece of the car on track? Did anyone catch that?
I know the mirror fell out of Kovalainen's Lotus (as well as a hydraulic line burning him!).

I actually quite like the HRT's livery from onboards, the red wing looks quite nice from those shots. Shame the car looks terrible to drive. Chandhok is screwed if he doesn't get some running today.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Chandhok is screwed if he doesn't get some running today.

Hispania were treating first practice as a shakedown. I wouldn't be surprised if they spend most of this afternoon and tomorrow doing more laps than anyone else.

They're going to have a slow start to the season. In fact, I probably wouldn't be too surprised if they don't hammer down and start really racing before Barcelona.

 

[Ardius]

Doesn't change the fact Chandhok needs running...he is less prepared than Alguesuari was last year in a team with no experience, with an untested car and no previous data to go off to help with setup, strategy or anything.
Maybe HRT are treating it like practice....but they still need to run the car to gather data and their driver's are not going to be giving very much feedback currently.

With the car setup how it is now, I wouldn't be surprised to see either drive bin it either into the barriers or into another driver, it looks a wreck. If they don't get their setup work done now, they cannot change the car during qualy and the race. Even if they are treating the race as a practice session, what meaningful data can they get running a bad setup and putting the drivers in a situation they need their full concentration on? I mean, Senna is not terrible but he appeared to have trouble driving the car and keeping track of the cars around him, he almost clobbered Buemi at one point earlier!

They seriously need to do some laps in the next session, same goes for Virgin too.

 

[Kutscher80]

Yeah, Force India with Sutil is surprisingly good. Let´s see what the rest of the "F1 - Weekend" will bring...

 

[Tired Tyres]

Hamilton has just gone into the pits saying that his rear tyres are shot after 4 laps. They are the harder type.

 

[Sureboss]

HRT were still building the cars. They've done very well to even get to Bahrain.

It's not like they have 2 fully ready cars and are just sitting there.
"Shall we go out and do some laps then?"
"er, let's see what's on the TV"
"Oh cool F1!"

Maybe we should give them a cookie then?

They're making a mockery of the pinnacle of motorsport, it's utterly farcical.

 

[Stevisiov]

Maybe we should give them a cookie then?

They're making a mockery of the pinnacle of motorsport, it's utterly farcical.

They are making 'the pinnacle of motorsport' interesting. I for one am glad they made it to the grid at all.

 

[Sureboss]

How are HRT making it interesting? If they're within 8 seconds of the pace on Sunday I'll eat my hat.

 

[Ardius]

How are HRT making it interesting? If they're within 8 seconds of the pace on Sunday I'll eat my hat.

Its not all about the front runners, ya know. Its also interesting to follow the uphill struggle of the new teams and drivers, F1rejects.com is proof that it is in fact an interesting aspect of Formula 1.
I like to see sport, not just winners, but also competitors who try. Ok, so shouldn't applaud them for finishing 20th or whatever and give them a medal. But its not stupid to praise a new team for trying, we want more teams in the sport and we have to put up with them being off the pace for a while.

HRT have come in rather rediculous circumstances, but even so, lets not bite their heads off before they've had a chance to prove what they've got.

 

[Sureboss]

I like seeing the back markers do much as well as anyone, but they aren't back markers, they are F3 pace.

 

[Soundtrack]

It sure takes time and money (fortunately a bit less now) to succeed in Formula One, and even if you have those there is absolute no warranty you’ll ever get at the top. We should at least respect those humble teams for entering the arena 👍 and keep in mind the uncomfortable and unfriendly welcome they received from their “competitors”.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I like seeing the back markers do much as well as anyone, but they aren't back markers, they are F3 pace.

Actually, they're faster than a GP2 car. Oliver Turvey's fastest lap this morning was thirteen seconds behind Adrian Sutil's FP1 time. Bruno Senna was eleven seconds slower. Ergo, Hispania is faster than a GP2 car ... just.

 

[Alex.]

Maybe we should give them a cookie then?

They're making a mockery of the pinnacle of motorsport, it's utterly farcical.

No, we should give them a break. Just because we don't have Minardi anymore doesn't mean every other name coming into the sport should be perfectly set up. I mean, for christ's sake Virgin's front wing fell off almost straight away. You gotta cut these guys some slack, they were given 6 months to build cars from scratch. Which they have managed to do.

 

[Fastas]

I managed to catch the two sessions today and what a joy it was to see these cars again.

It's certainly looking like the Mercedes power unit is the one to have but I was surprised by the Renault performance generally. That is except for Red Bull who, inexplicably seem to have reliability issues....again. This really knackered them last year and of any top team, I would of thought these guys would be onto it, but were not.

Rosberg is looking like he has the bit between the teeth but the story of the day for me is Mclaren. Firstly the 'rear wing staller' device that has very cleverly enraged the rest of the paddock, secondly and, to me at least, the amusing comment from Lewis that his tyres were off after four laps.

I love the way the teams react to new developments and 'tweeks' that some teams add. It was funny to see the whole paddock up in arms over the 'rear wing staller'. Like non of them have anything better to do over a three hour period other than stalk the Mclaren garage trying to get more information and moaning to the press and FIA that it is unfair. It must really detract from their own efforts to consider this an issue.

The video footage was superb and every little detail was picked up on the cars and any incidents that occurred. When Lewis pulled into the pits, did anyone look at the many seconds of footage of his car pulling up and then being wheeled back into the pits and say to themselves, 'yeah, those tyres look really worn out?' I think not.

Finally, I was really impressed with the Lotus, apart from looking sweet, they got plenty of laps in and, of the new teams, they are the ones who look like they know what they are doing, good luck guys.

Roll on tomorrow.

 

[Sureboss]

I just don't think this is the place, or time, for these mistakes and painfully (and potentially dangerous) slow cars to be improving/testing. I think there should be a rule brought in that all teams have to complete x amount of testing before the season. I reckon 2,000 hours per driver, which is about 15-20 hours of testing, track pending.

 

[Fastas]

I just don't think this is the place, or time, for these mistakes and painfully (and potentially dangerous) slow cars to be improving/testing. I think there should be a rule brought in that all teams have to complete x amount of testing before the season. I reckon 2,000 hours per driver, which is about 15-20 hours of testing, track pending.

The BBC 5-Live team did raise the issue that there had been a technical meeting of some kind to consider re-instating the 107% rule. I would not be surprised to see it evoked some time soon or, to some effect.

 

[SaberFire]

I just don't think this is the place, or time, for these mistakes and painfully (and potentially dangerous) slow cars to be improving/testing. I think there should be a rule brought in that all teams have to complete x amount of testing before the season. I reckon 2,000 hours per driver, which is about 15-20 hours of testing, track pending.

You've been listening to Murray Walker too much lately, haven't you?

 

[Fastas]

You've been listening to Murray Walker too much lately, haven't you?

To be fair, I see the point however, I don't think these new teams are entirely to blame. The delay in signing the Concorde Agreement by the major teams coupled with the economic pressures have made for a uniquely difficult situation for these teams to enter.