WTF was Chundok doig there?

Stewards (or Whiting) did a terrible job today.

Apparently they do



It's a stupid rule, but it's there. The real question is whether a few bits of carbon fiber were dangerous enough to call the SC in the first place. We've seen races where more debris was produced on the first corner and no SC was deployed.

OK, I see your point. But, much as I hated that second SC period, there were substantial bits of carbon fiber on the track, and in wet conditions with drivers often taking untypical lines, a punctured tire or more dangerous stuff could have happened.

Absolute mistery with why 2nd SC was deployed. Other than to spice up the show... Without it Kubi could have scored 3rd with pee stop if needed.

Anyway, great result for him, considering ho many positions he lost at start. BTW Petrov gained again at start!! Congrats to Vitaly to bring home points after eventful race. I think this race will put 'pay driver' label to rest.

The last part of the race was intern tyre management.

Guess what, according to my old VCR Alonso didn’t jump the gun. Just watched it in slow mo. Its just a disgrace, but what can one do, I hope they will show a flag to Hamilton. Good race by Renault.

The replay showed he did jump the start, it was a deserved penalty.

Very good start of Vitaly, unlike Kubica, too much wheelspin or clutch problems? Great drive from Petrov, but second SC screwed everything.

Yes, Robert's start was rather slow but the rain made up for it and put him in a good position for a podium before it was denied to him by the artificial safety car.

Yes, my fault. Guess its time to get rid of my VCR.

Kubica said that he lost the podium thanks to second SC, he don't understand why they deployed it. He struggled with cold brakes, he had big problems under braking, and nearly lost the car couple of times. He probably didn't have any problems at the start, just poor start.

Robert Kubica - 7th: "It was an exciting race today and it's good to have scored some more points. At the start of the race I made a bad start and lost a lot of positions, but we made the right decision to stay out on slicks when it started to rain and I was able to move up through the field into third place. However, the critical moment of my race was when the safety car came out, which ended my hopes of a podium because I lost the big lead I had to the cars behind me. So although I'm happy to finish fifth, I still feel a bit frustrated to have missed a podium."

Vitaly Petrov - 7th: "I'm happy to finish my first race in Formula 1 and to score my first points. It was a difficult race and it wasn't easy to make the right decisions today. In the beginning, when it started to rain, some drivers came in for intermediates, but we decided to stay out on slicks, which was the right decision. Then I kept talking on the radio with the team to decide when we would change to intermediates, and again we got the timing right. When I changed to my second set of intermediates, I knew it would be important to look after the tyres, but we didn't know if it would continue raining or if the track would dry out. But I kept pushing, the engineers told me that I had good pace, and in the final laps I had some good overtaking moves, especially with Schumacher and Webber, to gain some more places."

Eric Boullier, Team Principal: "To get two cars in the points today is a great result for the team and I'm very pleased with our performance. To see Vitaly score his first points is fantastic, especially in such spectacular style with a fighting drive where he showed great pace. It's good for him to have a race distance under his belt and I'm sure he will take a lot of confidence from this excellent result. Robert, too, had another brilliant race, and didn't make a single mistake all weekend. I also want to pay tribute to the team who have worked so hard recently, both here at the track and back at the factory in Enstone. They have not made any mistakes all season and have made great calls with the strategy: today's result is a great reward for all their efforts."

Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer: "What an exciting race and another strong performance from the entire team. Robert drove an excellent race and we can be happy to have picked up some more good points with a strong fifth place finish. It's great to see Vitaly score points today and deliver such a mature drive. In the closing stages he did an excellent job to look after his intermediate tyres and it was very rewarding to see him overtaking much more experienced drivers. However, we're a little disappointed because we were in third and fourth places before the second safety car period. Without that, we could probably have finished on the podium."

Rémi Taffin, Head of Engine Operations: "Two cars in the points today and a superb performance from both drivers, especially Vitaly who showed good, consistent pace in very difficult conditions. He also overtook lots of drivers today, including a certain former world champion. Robert drove another faultless race and has scored some more important points. As a team there were no problems during the race, which went very smoothly, and we can be pleased to have maximised our potential to come away with fifth and seventh places."

Well before the race if the team had been "offered" a 5th & a 7th place would we have accepted?
I know the 2nd safety blew things for Robert especially ( Vitaly too, as the pack would not have closed), but some BIG pluses for the team
Hopefully everyone can get home and have a well-earned rest.
Barcelona in 3 weeks and Monaco the week after.
What will we do in the meantime?

Excellent result but race pace wasn't very good. Mercedes was faster. Not to mention McLaren.

Must have been sitting on his lap.

Hello , i am new here , comming from pf1 , ofcourse i'm going to support Renault F1 and Robert Kubica , also i will keep my eye on Vitaly

Great Result today for Renault F1, this season reminds me about 2008 after dull 2009

GO RENAULT !

PS:

that's just great information

I heard on the USA broadcast of the race that Petrov was told if he did not score by midseason he would be out of the team. Can anybody confirm this?

I tell you I was holding my breath when everybody pitted for the 1st round of intermediates. Thank goodness I there are smarter people working at Renault and planning of pit strategy.

Big thumbs to Vitaly for getting the monkey off his back.
Kubica gets thumbs up again.

Big thumbs up to the strategy team!!

Hello

http://www.sport.pl/F1/1,96297,7784729,F1_..._rewolucji.html

Kubica about Barcelona update: "We'll bring another updates to Spain, but it won't be a revolution. Just a few improvements that should give us another crucial tenths of a second. Besides, all the teams will do the same and Mercedes announced they will bring whole package of changes, actually a whole new car."

About the race: "It was a quite good race for me, although I didn't manage to start properly and lost a few positions at start. But then we made a right decision to stay on track and don't change the tires. Later all went ok, till - I don't know why - safety car came out on track. I had quite good rythm, well, maybe not perfect, but I had a big advantage over faster cars in the back, like about half a minute over Hamilton. Anyway, the stewards neutralized the race after all. Strange, because I saw no specific reason on track for a safety car to come out, but it happened and I lost a place on the podium.
At the end of the race I had problems with braking, because the brakes were too cold. I fought with it in the second part of the race, and once or twice I nearly lost the car, so I decided to safely bring the points home. I was fifth but it doesn't change the fact that generally I have hard luck in China. Once I was leading and the car broke, now I could be on podium but it didn't work out."

Whoever calls strategy, be it race team or AND drivers, gets a BIG today.
Renault has a great team, pit stop mechanics, race engineers, factory personnel, VITALY and ROBERT.
Come on WASP, sting a little MORE , ahead of the Red Bulls, Schumacher and Massa.
PRIDE and RESPECT for the early season progress compared to 2009

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uplo...shan_2010-3.jpg

Look at the left endplate, the part of upper deck is lost.

and the fact to come on hotter track will give a boost to R30, this car is such snail into cold weathers!

Petrov getting confidence, and new parts and impressive developpements gets renault all hope for the future

better view of barge boards:
http://motorsport.nextgen-auto.com/gallery...a-17apr/372.jpg

Good spot! It also looks like the airbox intake is damaged, but it seems that it's only the yellow paint that came off.

@rf1paddockpass:

Airbox intake was damaged when the car was craned out of the gravel trap on Saturday morning. It was repaired as well as possible but the car was a bit battle scarred as it headed into qualifying...

Oh you tease you!

Thanks for the info. I was away for the weekend but I managed to see the race in a hotel lobby, so I missed q3...

Think I saw that F-Duck somewhere before. Hope we are not in for a new Spy-gate. Renault really does not need another scandal right now.

, they are really bored in China

You mean bored, I presume. Hello BTW

I don't know whether this drawing has already been linked in here, but the diffuser on the Renault is really monstrous. Not only it looks like a triple decker actually, but look at the huge inlets and the longitudinal flaps helping to manage the airflow there:





Apart from being easy on its tyres, I wonder whether this diffuser design is the reason why the car isn't as competitive in qualifying as it's on long runs. In the latest Autosport Mark Hughes is speculating that the more extreme the diffuser, the more prone it's to stall in qualifying when the car is light on fuel hence has a high ride-height. It's interesting because together with the McLaren, the Renault seems to have the most extreme diffuser solution mounted on its back. And both teams somehow always look more competitive in race trim than in quali.

China GP Podcast is available:
http://my.renaultf1.com/profiles/blogs/che...-the-chinese-gp

shh! fixed


PS: i think there was a pic with Renault diffuser some pages ago , Pic was taken after Vitaly gearbox faliture , you can see more details there

Edit: Yup .. http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?show...625&st=4200

3 weeks to go.

Maybe they will get new fuel from Total.

Hope so!

Will Red Bull get the same fuel? Or is it just Renault?

Is the webisite confidential renault working for you guys? For me it doesn't.

it is, but nothing new there

Both R30 finally in home
http://my.renaultf1.com/profiles/blogs/the...uch-down-at-the

I just listened to the chinese podcast and there are some bad news in the last 2 minutes, Renault will bring only small updates to Spain, while others will bring huge packages. Probably Force India wont overtake us, but we will stay as the 5th car in Spain, i expected more

Renault may only need a small upgrade. After all, they've had something new for each race so far. The other teams haven't really introduced as much as Renault have. Plus, a bigger upgrade doesn't guarantee better performance - just look at the new kit Brawn put on their car for Silverstone last season. It was big ... and it was bad.

You're right, but even if the teams in front get their updates wrong and we bring a small update, say 2 tenths we'll still be behind them as the 5th team and that's the best scenario, i was hoping to catch at least one of the big four...

Considering that Renault were the second team to get both their drivers across the line in Shanghai, I don't think there's too much to worry about in that respect.

Renault people were saying for some time that they won't introduce anything bigger than usual in Spain. Well, I guess a product of three weeks works at factory will be slightly bigger than, for example, Malaysia update. I wonder about other than aerodynamic updates though. They had said the suspension will be changed for Barcelona, and rightly so given Renault's problems there in the winter tests. Maybe this "small updates" term is related only to aero bits?

P.S. Don't forget there is this rumored lubricants update

I heard 2-3 months ago that ultra big update will come in Canadian GP, but maybe it's only a rumour.

I also red somewhere that there will be BIG update at Canadian GP.

Yeah, it was at the same time when they said that there is big update for Barcelona. So I wouldn't expect so much.

Some quotes of Alan Permane about Kubica (from Autosport magazine I guess):

"He's without doubt the hardest-working driver I've ever encountered."

"He will be at the track until well after midnight, even if he's racing the next day. He wants to go through and understand everything. He's always making suggestions, always wanting to know what is happening. He's very demanding, always on your case. As an example, he drove the great race in Australia to finish second but afterwards he had a list as long as your arm of stuff he wasn't happy with."

"He's made a lot of changes to the power steering and the brakes. Over the winter he's been very clear about what he wants from the steering, with different weighting at different speed corners. This is quite a long lead time item and we've made one iteration but he's still not 100 percent comfortable with it and we have another new one coming. With the brakes we've been playing around with different size-master cylinders and pedal positions to get him the feel he needs. Again, we're getting closer but he wants more."

"I knew he was quick, but what surprised me apart from amazing work ethic is the consistency. He just hasn't put a foot wrong, in winter testing and in race weekends, not so much a single spin - other than when he was hit at the first corner in Bahrain. He's totally on it from the word go, yet does not make mistakes. He was brilliant under pressure from a faster car in Australia. In Malaysia fourth was the best result that was achievable - and he got it. Just as second was the maximum in Australia."

"Give any quick driver a quick car and he'll be right there and we're working very hard on giving Robert a quick car. But he's more than just that. His attitude just makes things an awful lot more rewarding for everyone in the team - especially those guys sat at laptops all day. There's no downside with Robert."

it's always nice to read such things