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Sebastian Vettel had pole position here last year

(Onboard video from last year here)

Heavy shunt for Mark Webber last year climbing over Heikki Kovalainen and flipping over, Kobayashi with his loving moves passing Alonso and Buemi in the last 2 laps. Sebastian Vettel wins.

2010 Results here

(Official race edit video here (you need to log in to view))


2011
Top news for this race:

Alonso predicts strong Valencia race, and Im sure they will do so.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/92495

Valencia race debut for medium tyres.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/92496

Single DRS detection point to remain.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/92476



Dont really know what to expect from this one. I belive this will be close between RedBull, Mclaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault.

Good Stuff, bring it on. Hope Button does well

Allthough DRS is fakish racing wise I think for this track it's clearly for the better, although the single detection point is fia lacking common sence IMO.

It looks like it will be sun all weekend so tires will be a huge factor

Quote from aroX123 :

It looks like it will be sun all weekend so tires will be a huge factor

Yes, like, without them the cars would probably not move.

And the chassis would rub on the ground.

Quote from tristancliffe :

And the chassis would rub on the ground.

Marbles. Small marbles or round logs (preferably pine) and the driver would bring the last log back to front while pushing the car.

The sparks would give us a good show however.

Track is very dusty in FP1. Lots of brake zone issues for drivers so far.

I just posted in the main F1 2011 thread that Red Bull are running the Silverstone spec engine map. Vettel is way down the timing screen, and Ant noticed his car sounded flatter than usual. I feel RB are quite worried about their pace come the new rules. The Qualifying pace might not be there for them.

live stream anyone pl0x?

Quote from Rudy van Buren :

live stream anyone pl0x?

http://www.vipbox.tv/watch/269 ... nd-prix---practice-2.html

Koba had an interesting line through the last corner.

Quote from spankmeyer :

Koba had an interesting line through the last corner.

KOBAYASHI STYLE!

Pretty excited to see Webber vs Hamilton vs Massa and Button vs Schumi vs Rosberg battles for quali. Unfortunately it looks like Vettel is once again having an upper hand in quali, but Nando should be ok for the race.

Looks like it will be a good qualifying. From the practice sessions, they each have different sections where they have different strengths.

I have a sneaking suspicion we might see steering wheel changes during the race. If not tomorrow, then Silverstone.

Yeah, quite good qualifying it was. McLaren once again showed pace out of nowhere for quali, but Webbers last lap effort was surprising.

Not much has changed just the gaps from the Redbulls to everyone else has closed by like 6 tenths.

Sauber did horrible today, and Sutil seemed to give himself a bit more credability.

Quote from Mustafur :

Not much has changed just the gaps from the Redbulls to everyone else has closed by like 6 tenths.

Shouldn't you have said nothing has changed?

I think that some clever shenanigans are going on. The changing of engine maps between qualifying and the race have been removed, but that doesn't prevent a team changing the map during the race.

I'll stick my neck out on this theory - Red Bull will do a short first stint, and change steering wheels on both cars during the pit stops.

Charlie Whiting tweeted this:
"The last time a German captured this many poles was 1939"

I lol'ed

https://twitter.com/#!/charlie ... /status/84609660723789824

EDIT: Actually its not the real charlie whiting. but still pretty funny.

Anything special happened? I slept in, figured I'd catch FP3 and quali on racing-underground afterwards. Of course, they're offline now

Quote from Squelch :

Shouldn't you have said nothing has changed?

I think that some clever shenanigans are going on. The changing of engine maps between qualifying and the race have been removed, but that doesn't prevent a team changing the map during the race.

I'll stick my neck out on this theory - Red Bull will do a short first stint, and change steering wheels on both cars during the pit stops.

Not so sure. The steering wheels don't contain the maps, and it takes about 2 minutes to change the maps in the SECU. We'll just have to wait and see...

Quote from tristancliffe :

Not so sure. The steering wheels don't contain the maps, and it takes about 2 minutes to change the maps in the SECU. We'll just have to wait and see...

You're right, they don't normally, however, if they were to include a game cartridge style loader inside the wheel, then a live load could feasibly be achieved while they stay in one particular map mode after the pit stop. That 2 minute load time can be done while on the move. Plug 'n' Play if you will. I don't see anything to prevent this happening.

It'll be interesting to see how it pans out. There seems to have been a little too much attention paid to steering wheels lately, so something is afoot.

I doubt they change the maps during the race, its qualifying where they had the high engine map settings, in the race it would be unsuitable for the engine and fuel loads they put in the car.

Quote from Squelch :

You're right, they don't normally, however, if they were to include a game cartridge style loader inside the wheel, then a live load could feasibly be achieved while they stay in one particular map mode after the pit stop. That 2 minute load time can be done while on the move. Plug 'n' Play if you will. I don't see anything to prevent this happening.

It'll be interesting to see how it pans out. There seems to have been a little too much attention paid to steering wheels lately, so something is afoot.

http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public.nsf/055CFD424959A061C1257870003A02F0/$FILE/1-2011%20TECHNICAL%20REGULATIONS%2008-03-2011.pdf

8.2.1 suggests that the ecu is so standardised device that you can not take the memory storage part of it and put it on the steering wheel or anywhere else. So you'd need to change the ecu (or the part of the unit storing the engine maps) during a pitstop to be able to do that. The ecu is a sealed unit after all.

5.18 allows to change the ecu without penalties. Probably during the race as well.

http://www.speedgoat.ch/resources/pastevents.html
Doesn't look like you could just open that up and move the memorychips to the steering wheel or somewhere else. Or at least it doesn't seem very practical.