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There’s no pausing for breath in this hot
summer of Formula 1. Even though the
situation in both championships is not what
was hoped for back in the winter, work goes
on flat out at Maranello on developing the
150° Italia with a view to making up the
performance gap that has developed over the
past few months. |
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There’s no pausing for
breath in this hot summer of Formula 1. Even though the
situation in both championships is not what was hoped
for back in the winter, work goes on flat out at
Maranello on developing the 150° Italia with a view to
making up the performance gap that has developed over
the past few months.
The European Grand Prix produced Ferrari’s best result
from the first eight races of this year, which is
obviously a good thing, but it is definitely not the end
product. Fernando Alonso’s second place and Felipe
Massa’s fifth confirmed what was already clear from the
two previous races in Monaco and Montreal, but it is
still not enough, as the next challenge is to try and
have a car that is equally competitive at tracks where
aerodynamic efficiency is the key factor, such as
Silverstone which hosts the next event, the British
Grand Prix which is the ninth round of the season.
The Scuderia will bring a few updates of an aerodynamic
nature to England, but it would be unrealistic to expect
these to overturn the current rankings. There is no
magic wand, no one has one, so the recipe is the same
for everyone, work, work, work. Silverstone will see the
change of rules applied by the FIA concerning the use of
exhaust gasses: for now, no one can be sure if this will
be significant factor and the situation will only begin
to get clearer on Friday during the two free practice
sessions. In the meantime, everything possible is being
done to be as well prepared as possible for this round,
working on every area of development. The drivers will
also be on the front line, adding their input in
technical meetings and at the wheel of the simulator:
today and tomorrow, Fernando will be at the factory with
Felipe taking over in the second half of the week.
The Valencia race threw up some interesting points: for
example, for the first time this year it paid to stick
longer with used tyres rather than bring forward the pit
stops, when it was a case of switching from the Option
to the Prime. That was clearly the case in the duel that
was one of the highlights of the afternoon, between
Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber, with the Spaniard
gaining over a second and a half on the laps when he
still had the Softs, while the Australian had just
fitted a new set of Mediums. The job was completed by
the Ferrari mechanics who produced a perfect pit stop in
2.9 seconds, with an overall time including driving off
of 3.2.
On the subject of pit stop times, it is worth noting
that there are various factors which have a significant
influence on them. For example, the times shown over the
television pictures come via a photocell buried in the
road surface within the pit stop area: when the car
stops, the photocell links up with FOM-supplied
transponder fitted inside the car and the timing then
begins. Clearly, depending on the position where the
driver stops, the link between transponder and photocell
can be less than perfect and that can give rise to a
difference of up to half a second, either plus or minus,
from the real time. It goes without saying that all
teams time their own stops themselves to try and analyse
every aspect of the operation in the minutest detail in
order to improve and to find the tenths of a second that
can make the difference.
Another useful element in having an objective view of
what the mechanics do, is to watch what is going on in
the neighbouring garages at the time of the pit stop.
For example, at his first stop yesterday, Fernando had
to hit his mark while the Mercedes and McLaren mechanics
were also out in pit lane on the left and right sides of
the Scuderia Ferrari pit. This obviously led to a
slightly longer 4 second stop from the car coming in to
going out. There is also an undoubted advantage in
having the first garage, which comes as a reward for
winning the previous year’s Constructors’ title, or the
last one in pit lane. There is one final point that can
be used by observers and that is the overall time spent
in pit lane, a parameter that can be influenced by
factors such as traffic. Looking at yesterday’s race,
the total time spent in pit lane for the top three
finishers are all within just over one second: 1.01.151
for Webber, 1.01.778 for Vettel and 1.02.164 for
Fernando. Of course, in Maranello, there is an awareness
that improvements must be made so that incidents like a
broken left rear wheel nut that cost Massa four seconds
are not repeated: in this case it was a reliability
problem, not human error.
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