Unless the unlikely happens and the car turns out to be crap again.

There will be some bit of that, but...

Which will the 2010 NON KERS Maclaren be more like - the 2009 Brawn, or the 2009 Maclaren? I think it will be more like the 2009 Brawn.

No KERS will be a massive change for Lewis - it changes so many things about the car
Also narrower front tyres will change balance.
And much heavier cars, especially early on will change the cars considerably.

The only change that will help Lewis is the no tyre warmers, as he may cope a bit better with cold tyres.

Sure, knowing the team will help, but I think it won't be nearly as much of a problem as some drivers have had joining a new team.

Hmm - losing KERS - I wonder how much that will set Mclaren and Ferrari back again - it seemed to take forever for them to tune everything to work with KERS, and now they have to do it all again in reverse - and they don't have much relevant previous data to draw on, as it will be first time for them with slicks and no KERS. Worst case we could see Mclaren and Ferrari way back like the first half of 2009.

It could be Jenson vs Lewis - who will get the first point...

Tyre warmers have not been banned.

Set them back? I think it's KERS that ruined their chances in the championship... not having them would be a benefit, one less complication

Yeah. No KERS will make no difference. That's why noone is taking it up anyway (not banned by rules AFAIK). Tyre warmers - I did hear there was something happening with that....

There was, but now there isn't.

I would consider tire warmers as essential safety item in preference to american flying start in which drivers have couple of laps to warm up (something we do not see from standstill position). Without it we could have tonnes of wipeouts right at the start.

Yeah. Tyre warmers aren't a racing advantage so much as a safety necessity like you say. Would have been silly to ban them.

Your comment makes no sense. Ross Brawn is apparently upset, and the rumour is that there was decent money on the table from Brawn/Mercedes. He's done it to prove himself - admirable in my view whether he gets his but kicked or not.

Ben

One does have to wonder how they managed before tyre warmers, and how so many other series manage quite happily without them.

Series and average speeds?

Rumour is that the offer was sizable, eventually, but the damage was likely already done with their "Can't pay any more" statements when he wanted to get close to his pre pay-cut level.

How about GP2? Only just below F1 speeds.

Not bespoke rubbers though. Off the shelf tyres (albeit for GP2)...erm.hang on. I need to research this.

This might be truth, and I do not know how they managed that. Probably the same way as they managed all equipment from those years without all safety features that were added later on, especially shell. I have witnessed pretty nasty wipeouts at Indy 500 on cold tires, which made me to think that risk of that kind is not needed, especially when warm tires hardly add any advantage other than allowing rapid immersion back into a race. With cold tires you need to take it easy initially, and not everybody is easy on the foot in such moments.

I'm not sure you can compare Indy with F1 though. The very nature of the corners at Indy makes it harder. I honestly do not believe we would see mass wipeouts in F1 if tyre warmers were banned.

You really think that changing from driving with KERS to without will make no difference? Also, noone is taking it up because they agreed not to - its clearly a speed advantage.

No KERS will mean learning a new car for Lewis. Every time anyone has made the transition to a KERS car they have a big adaptation phase. I see no reason why they won't have to go through some sort of adaption to learn a non-KERS with-slick heavy car. Sure it won't be as big, but I think it will be as big as Jenson adapting to the non-kers Mclaren after driving the non-kers Brawn.

And the car will have problems too - all the knowledge that Mclaren have about braking with slicks, and traction - was with KERS - in 2010 it will be without, and that will mean they are behind the teams that never ran KERS, in their knowledge of how to set up the cars. Whether it will really hurt them, or just a bit we'll have to see - I think it will be significant enough to keep them off the front for a few races.

At least Vettel won't be able to moan about the 'magic button' anymore

I thought that was clever stuff from Vettel. Good mind games from him. "You're only beating me because of that - just wait until next year"

I loved Felipe Massa's response at the Germany podium presser to the "special button" remark.

Ok. I'm back. I've done my research. Beleive it or not I have guy here in Cumbria that works in GP2 admin and another for Bridgestone. KERS I still stand by, makes no difference. The tyre warming thing, is as Clatter has said is unnesecary (god I wish we had a spell check here) , it's for the spectacle. Extra hot tyres through tyre warming provide faster grid starts for all. Better first lap battling, first corner duels etc. Speed off the grid is all tyre warming is for. Tyre blankets in F1 mean faster grid take offs, keeps F1 above the rest. Not any other reason... or so I'm told.

What was that?

He's got no excuses now

Said he would trade KERS for Vettel's aero, which annoyed Vettel.

Vetty doesn't need excuses...

Well he did last year

That damn knock on the head again

Most of the tracks have corners that they won't have been charging kers at, so I don't think it'll be a problem to develop brakes for 2010. And on the upside they have the space and experience of the raised CoG from the kers system that'll be given over to fuel now.

For the drivers, Lewis will miss the boost but that was only in a couple of places per lap. And there's the simulator.

Jense will have to get to know Mark Slade, that'll probably be the biggest adjustment I suppose.

Cos he didn't want to blame his team, which made huge mistakes. They lost 2009 at Hungary, I still stand by that.

180!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great response

Even if they are off the pace let´s say -0,3-5 sec in Bahrain, they still can win the title. We saw how strong they are with development

Umm - tyres cool down when the car is moving slowly or stationary.

The two cases when you have tyres fresh out of warmers are:
- Before doing the parade lap
- Before leaving the pits after a tyre change

In the parade lap case, the tyres are out of the warmers for what - 3 minutes? before they are used at racing speeds, and they cool down. Its partly (mostly?) the driving on the parade lap that keeps them hot - and if they started cold, they would end up hot (ish)

In the pitstop case, the tyres are out of the warmers for 3 seconds before they are used at racing speeds (take off from box - though then have pitlane limit).

So the time warmers matter most is when rejoining the race after a stop, not the starting grid. I wonder if the warmers make any significant difference to the actual grid tyre temperature - maybe they are only warmed before the parade lap to stop the cars crashing while parading?

Well maybe that's why they work like buggery to keep the temps up on the parade lap. Don't see that so much in other series...

I see it differently.

KERS was proven not to be a speed advantage in an F1 car of 2009 vintage. BMW and Renault dropped it, Ferrari saw very limited success with it, and McLaren saw some success after a massive development push combined with it being used by one of the fastest (the fastest?), most adaptable drivers on the grid.

The simple fact is that the KERS teams over-estimated its value because it turned out that 80bhp for 6.6 seconds was never going to overcome the comprimises to run the system - The bulky sidepods with no/limited undercutting (so important when it comes to feeding the upper diffuser and rear wing elements), the high CoG, the lack of ballast adjustment, the rearward weight distribution etc.

So, I actually think that McLaren will have a bit of a heads up for the 2010 season because a lot of the comprimises of running KERS translate to the 2010 spec cars:

Narrower front tyres = rearward weight distribution

Full race tanks = Bulky sidepods + higher CoG etc.


And as for the braking issue - KERS only typically charged up for a few corners anyway. The rest of the braking was done "normally".

Good point. I think also that KERS is detrimental for looking for the right set-up. I can imagine it is too tempting for drivers and engineers to put less wing on the cars so they can gain an advantage on the straight. And that lower wing will screw them in the slow corners... For instance, I think that no one but Hamilton would have won races in the McLaren. Hamilton is very good in throwing cars around slow corners. Sometimes to his own detriment.

yeah. Lewis style works in many scenarios, but perhaps a fatter fuel load requires the smoother style to avoid excessive tyre wear. He's hard enough on them as it is.

An interesting quote from Ross B on Autosport:



Looks like keeping Rubens (instead of going for Senna) was a major benefit to Brawn GP this year, while Button isn't as reliant on the perfect set-up as some have suggested. Maybe there's hope!

I have to say that I did a double take at that. Jenson himself has said that driving around problems is not his "forte".

a lot of the problems I FEEL is to do with jensons race engineer and crew. He can only tell the engineer the problems and its up to the race engineers experience/skills in setting up the car for JB. This is where Jock clear and rubens were great at. I feel Jensons side of the garage did let him down a few times with crap set-ups

I would tend to agree with on some occasions, but its a team sport, and essentially when it comes down to it, the driver is the one, and rightfully who will get the blame for a poor result.

They liked the idea of slapping on more front wing to fix a problem. How often did we hear that from him and his crew? A few other things such as strategy calls bugged me with Button and his side. Abu Dhabi being the recent one. Once it got darker and the cooler temperatures played a part, logic dictates that a car which uses its tyres very well will work better on the softer option than the harder one (as proved by Jenson's final stint), I felt that day once Jenson came in for his first stop he should have gambled on the softer of the two tyres. He lost alot of time in that 2nd stint on the harder option, and had to gain all that back in the last stint. imo had he gone softer for the 2nd and final stints he would have been within touching distance of Vettel.

Thats an extreme example I know. However I still stand by my point, it comes down to the driver mainly. It may have been Shovlin who was the weak link (compared to Jock) but its upto Button to recognize that. He got pretty friendly with Shov and I guess it came to the point where anything he said Jenson 100% believed, and why shouldnt he??

I think that also brings up another interesting point, could this be another reason why Jenson chose Mclaren?? He would never noticed the problems himself, and maybe the only way to find out was to completley diverge from the confort zone ;-)!

He's defo going to get a different type of service at McLaren. With all due respect to Shove, those guys really are the best (when they don't fall into the trap of over-analysing things).

May i just say iam happy to find this thread a pleasant suprise with minimal bashing and very informative posters like Harry and Chezrome

Thanks guys and hope it remains this civil even next year between JB and Lewis fans.

I think you might be asking a bit too much there mate, but we live in hope

I don't know. We could all go a long way towards helping by not reacting to flames and trolling and reporting posts instead.

This has been a public service broadcast on behalf of the mod party.

That's very kind of you. And TBH, I cannot see why things won't remain sensible between the two sets of fans. Bar the odd rabid fanboy, the trouble will come from "fans" of other drivers (no names eh?) who will come onto this thread to stir shit and rant their usual bile against Hamilton, or keep going on about how Button is somehow "not worthy" etc.

Like Buttoneer said - we just need to report them.

Oh I see. If we criticise Hamilton and feel Button is not worthy we must just shut up then?
You´re not a McLaren fan who happens to be British by any chance are you?

You know that's not what I meant.

British fans


Wont last as soon as Lewis starts beating Button vice versa the trouble starts

It won't ever get as bad as having kimi fans blaming everyone from schumacher to alonso when massa was destroying raikonen

I think just like Jenson and Lewis, we'll all get on just fine and share good and bad points in a helpful manner as it will be in the team... at least until (if) it becomes down to being between the two for WDC. (Which actually I don't think it will). I started this thread because I think 2 British champions in the same team is gonna be a revealing thing... It will also be so on this board.