Another race is building in prospect at the end of what has been quite an eventful early season break - give them three weeks off from racing and they start shouting at each other. First off we had Vettel determining Narain Karthikeyan was an idiot for the collision in the Malaysian rain, then the Mercedes DRS system has elicited more complaints from the teams with specific concern coming from McLaren. Which is a little odd, considering they already have the fastest car, and the Mercedes system only really works during qualifying when the DRS can be used at any point during a lap and then during the race they fall back where they will not be involved in McLaren's race.
On top of that, there is a whole mess of political things going on in the world of Formula One, surrounding the possibility of cancelling the Bahrain GP for the second consecutive year, based on several security issues regarding instability in the region which has simmered down since last year. But the teams seem convinced that the race won't go ahead as it is deemed not entirely safe to stage an event of such a scale in a potentially unstable country. As there is no official decision the blog will assume the race is on unless told otherwise and will make preparations - which only really means checking I have a virtual version of the track loaded into the simulator.
All those things aside there is a race coming up in the next couple of days might be best to turn attention to that from now on, and the Chinese GP should be an interesting event, last year it was the pivotal in the development of the season. When the tyres effectively claimed their first race victory, and the race contained more strategy then a game of connect four, ending in a confusing Sunday report. Of course this is one of the more entertaining settings as China offers a very vibrant culture and some of the best food to go with it, albeit often all to sadly a significant way beyond the budget of Blog HQ.
The Track
The Shanghai circuit is the second of the Tilke tracks on the calendar so far, and there are quite a few parallels that can be drawn from Sepang in comparison between the two layouts. The structure all the way from turn one to turn 12, follows the same pattern as the Malaysian GP circuit right down to the level of irritation of the first couple of corners. But this layout takes the concept of the decreasing radius corner to the ultimate extreme, the track almost spirals round back on itself - why would you even create such a thing. That corner layout would only work on a drifting track or a an arcade style computer game, and certainly doesn't work in an F1 car - might give it a go in smaller powered touring car spec series as it may be more compatible there.
Outside the torment of the first sequence of corners the rest of the track is rather decent, offering both a mix of challenging driver corners with overtaking points at both ends of the layout. The hairpin at turn 6 can be considered the first major overtaking zone of the lap, where any mistakes coming out of the opening complex can be capitalised on. There is a chance of making a pass into turn one, but the small breaking zone requires a level of co-operation from the driver on the receiving end of the overtaking manoeuvre. But the most effective element of the track for overtaking lies at the end of the long back straight where the DRS activation zone it placed. This is the slowest point of the circuit, positioned at the end of the fastest part of the track, which opens out plenty of opportunity for position changes and as the AI during the track video proved it also presents a decent location for some mayhem and contact.
There are some other flaws present in this design - other than the turn one/four sequence - and that is the overall flow of the circuit, it was designed using a Chinese character as a starting point. Normally you would assume that a track would be designed for the driving challenge it presented and the potential for competitive racing rather than the character 'Shang'. Here lies the problem, a similar one that presents itself in Malaysia where the track is designed for it's aesthetics and the visual spectacle is presents instead of it's practical usage. Could be seen as a reflection on humanity as a whole where how something looks is placed well above anything else but that is one long angry rant that could go on for a long amount of time and things would be thrown all around blog HQ in a rather disgruntled fashion. So I'll move on and reveal the track video for this weekend.
Further developments have been occurring in the filming department, as I now have a full current mod for the new cars with the forehead protrusions on the nose section and all the updated liveries, the new vehicles also are posting representative lap times on the current trackpack. So even though I did break the sim in the middle of the week after a FIA GT3 mod interacted badly with one of the existing carsets and things went rather wrong. However a quick re-install and everything was running once more and this is the most recent video from blog HQ.
What to Expect
As the season progresses we can slowly build up a more complete picture of how things are going to play out over the course of the weekend because the formbook that was rightly discarded out the window only to be washed away in the monsoons of Sepang is being gradually re-written. It is becoming apparent that McLaren is the top performing team of the season so far with Red Bull running in second place, however this weekend Hamilton has been handed a five place grid penalty for a gearbox change. Which is rather odd as the change has been completed before the first session of the weekend gets underway in the morning while the folk in this timezone would normally be sleeping.
The battle to be the third fastest team of the weekend become a very interesting one, as Mercedes, Lotus and Ferrari are all running on a similar pace, only a couple of tenths would shuffle a driver to the bottom of the list and into the clutches of the mid-field. In Malaysia for example, Massa was three tenths behind Alonso and got relegated at end of Q2. For qualifying session Mercedes are likely so place higher up then their pace actually represents on the basis of their special wing device which improves qualifying pace. Then of course there is the Lotus team who will be looking to get at least one car into the top five and should place ahead of Ferrari but behind the qauli pace of the Mercedes.
As for the mid-field there is a split beginning to form on the higher speed tracks within this section of the grid, both Williams and Sauber seem to be the lead two teams, certainly as One-Stop Perez demonstrated so effectively in Sepang. While Force India and Torro Rosso are a couple of tenths further back and given how competitive this part of the grid it's easy to get shuffled a long way down the grid and into the first relegation place in the first segment of qualifying.
Down at the very bottom of the grid, we can pretty much assume that the same order will reveal itself as Catherham are definitively ahead on pace, with Heikki leading Petrov simply because he has more experience in the team and with the car. Next up we will have the Marussia team where Glock will be the lead car ahead of Charles Pic under normal circumstances, and at the back HRT will be fighting to qualify once more. Having only made the start in Sepang by a matter of tenths so I wouldn't imagine their appearance under the starting lights on Sunday morning is a secure position.
Blog Weekend Predictions
Top ten finishers.
1 - Button
2 - Vettel
3 - Hamilton
4 - Webber
5 - Alonso
6 - Raikkonen
7 - Grosjean
8 - Kobayashi
9 - Massa
10 - Perez
Qualifying Battle
Red Bull - Vettel
McLaren - Hamilton (before penalty)
Ferrari - Alonso
Mercedes - Rosberg
Lotus - Raikkonen
Sauber - Perez
Williams - Maldonado
Force India - Hulkenberg
Torro Rosso - Ricciardo
Caterham - Kovalainen
Marussia - Glock
HRT - De La Rosa
So there we go, everything is now set up for what can be expected to be another entertaining weekend where one can assume the strategy component will outweigh the on-track action as it did last year, where the only retirement was a wheel failure on a Torro Rosso. Previous years have seen the race affected by some inclement weather conditions. Conditions that have cost Hamilton a title in the pit entry gravel opening the door for Raikkonen, and have seen a high score for Force India fall apart when aquaplaning into a fence towards the end in 2009. This time who knows what the weather is going to unleash but under normal circumstances it could be a little processional on the track, except in the DRS straight.
It is also the first weekend where the race and all the trimmings will be aired on the good old BBC, so there will be no tracking off to the east to borrow a TV with the frankly inferior SKY coverage, although I shall be heading for another outside broadcast this weekend in the early hours of the morning. It will also be interesting to see how Ben Edwards manages the live commentary, I am expecting good things as he was very competent when covering the BTCC over on ITV4, and a slight loss to the TOCA package but a nice replacement for the stolen Brundle. It will also be interesting to see how the grid walks work out as Eddie Jordan will be competing for the same interviews as former BBC commentator Brundle.
Overall is should be another entertaining weekend here at blog HQ and this is farewell from me, as I shall now go and drive the virtual blog nascar at virtual Daytona because running three wide at 200mph is always fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment