2011 EUROPEAN GRAND PRIX.
Venue: Valencia, Spain.
Date: Sunday, 26 June. 2011.
Lap length: 3.367 miles.
Race laps: 57.
2010 winner: Sebastian Vettel. (Red Bull).
First grand prix: 2008.
Sign-up to the Formula1Race Email Club and get an email with the race details a day before the practice sessions start for each race!
THIS INFO IS A ROUGH GUIDE ONLY.
Based on UK BST!
BBC is the best place to be. Please Visit the BBC Sport Website (click-here) for session times confirmation!
European Grand Prix Valencia, Spain, 24-26 Jun. 2011.
Friday 24 June: Practice one - 0900-1030. DONE!
 |
| EnterF1.com |
 |
| EnterF1.com |
F1 News... The BBC locks themselves out of their commentary box! Ha ha ha, I don't believe it! - Practice 3. ON NOW! Red faces all round!
 |
| EnterF1.com |
The Pole Position view on these practice sessions. Drivers are going out looking for their best sector times, obviously setting up and tweaking their cars with each run. However, I think there is a lot of diversion and misdirection going on between the teams.
All of the teams who have raced here before, know what they need to do, how to set up their cars etc. Its just this tweaking of the set up, in line with current track conditions. They can predict also what the other teams are going to do, roughly what their times are going to be and keep a note of the other teams progress.
Its almost like a kind of espionage, because each team will know what the other teams are bringing to the track in terms of tires and fuel usage, drivers abilities, (like who wouldn't like to have Schumy driving for them in the rain)? And specific car top speeds and handling abilities, although all these factors are so closely matched between the teams, a few hundredths of a second gained or lost here and there makes all the difference at the finish line!
My point is, that the teams will keep an eye on competitors tire usage and exploit that information, like where teams conserve tires so that they have new sets ready for the start of the race. The teams will even do this to the detriment of not doing useful practice laps. This will be a race managers decision, if he or she thinks that the final performance will benefit greatly from those practice laps.
The benefits of having new sets of tires ready at the start of the race, will always get more weight than trying to gain a second in a sector just prove they can. I think teams will even deliberately misdirect other teams by putting in fast sector times in two sectors and deliberately appear to mess up or hold back in another sector.
Alternating all this till they have good sector times, but an official poor final lap-time.
Knowing what they can do in each sector, but not tying it all together so that it is not obvious to other teams is all part of the deception. The time to surprise everyone is coming soon, in final qualifying 3. This is where the real action is and can often dictate the final outcome of the race.
I'd like to see a return to more man and machine, bare knuckle racing!
Its good that we have more overtaking now, due to the new rules and equipment allowed in cars, like DRS. However, without wanting to deride safety issues, I'd like to see a return to more man and machine, bare knuckle racing. A return to refueling, different tire manufacturers to choose from, then perhaps take away all those driver controls, of altering the brake balance from corner to corner etc.
I don't think there wouldn't be any predictable races in that event! But I don't think this return to more man and machine, bare knuckle racing will ever happen!
Saturday 25 June: Qualifying - 1300. DONE!
 |
| EnterF1.com |
Sunday 26 June: Race - 1300. DONE!
 |
| EnterF1.com |
Michael made a big mistake! He forget to:-
'KEEP ALL THE BITS ON THE CAR'!
Michael made a big mistake, (like he said in the after-race interview), it was his own fault! He knocked his own front wing off. If not for that, Schuey might have easily finished in the points - no doubt! I think that mistake was more to do with Schuey wanting to be competitive and get up tight behind the car in-front as he took the corner rather than a basic misjudgment on his part.
Maybe Michael should have remembered his own advice in this interview with Coulthard at Canada.
At turn one he said; 'The challenge is to go through here, make positions
and 'KEEP ALL THE BITS ON THE CAR'!
During the race David Coulthard remarked how Schuey overtook him one race of yesteryear, even though Michael only had three wheels on his car and no nose cone! Saying that Schuey still has what it takes! - Well done BBC and much respect to David Coulthard! Well done to Lewis Hamilton for a beautiful overtaking move on Schuey, I'm sure the BBC will put up a separate video of that move!
The driver of the race for this F1 fan, really has to be Vettel, for being so strong and consistent in this race. The racing conditions were not ideal, since the track temperature caused problems for many drivers.
Interestingly note that some teams did not have enough down-force to stop the rear tires from overheating. Re, less down-force, means that the car slides and squirms about more during cornering and this puts more heat into the tires.
My point earlier, about having different tire manufactures. In the after race interview, we've just heard Mark Webber say that he, Alonso and Vettel had a close race, since they all had similar race issues like tire wear and all came in to do tire-changes at about the same time. If we had different tire manufacturers with different compounds and varying reliability designed for different circuits, then we would have more interesting races.
Let competition between manufacturers drive the research and development of the race tires and I think that we will get better tires, variable use and applications for those tires and thus better and less predictable races.
TAGS:- 2011 EUROPEAN GRAND PRIX, 2011 FORMULA ONE RACE CALENDAR, BBC F1 Coverage, F1 GP, Formula 1, Formula 1 GP, formula one championship, Formula One Grand Prix, Formula One Race,
No comments:
Post a Comment