Quote from NSX_FReeDoM :

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.

Oh, that's brilliant, I LOL so hard.

Quote from Mustafur :

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.

I doubt it also.

A more likely work-around is to have a 3D engine map which only applies the "extreme" map when the fuel level is very low (eg. only enough fuel for two flying laps), and less demanding maps for higher fuel loads.

The teams are allowed 2 base ignition maps, and these can only be changed by the driver while the car is stationary for at least 3 seconds. A pit stop qualifies here. The new ruling prevents the teams from reprogramming the engine maps between qualifying and the race. ie an aggressive map used for qualifying, must then be used for the race. A qualifying map could potentially cause reliability problems, and fuel consumption would be much higher. Red Bull seem to have had a very good qualifying pace, but come the race, and particularly after the first stop, they seem much slower. This may or may not be due to the reprogramming that was allowed.

It takes approx 2 minutes to upload the ECU maps from a laptop connected via an ethernet link. We know the ECU and the dash are sealed units which communicate over a CAN2.0b bus, however, I cannot see anything to prevent a connection over ethernet from the steering dash as well. If, and this is highly speculative on my part, the ECU could be reprogrammed during the race without the need for an external laptop connection, then the first part of the race can be run on the qualifying map, and then switched to the softer maps during pitting. At least 2 pit stops would be needed, the first to select an intermediate map and change the software over, and the second to switch to the softer race map.

This is just a gut feeling, and checking the regs, original specification of the ECU, and the attention being paid to steering wheels lately make me suspect a loophole might have been found. The race will reveal if any of this is true.

Another question/prediction to throw into the mix, and to show I'm not just RB bashing - Ferrari will make another perfect start today. How do they manage that, some kind of legal launch control? hmm...

Nice conspiracy theory there, but that would mean they have to stop really early, after perhaps only 5 or 7 laps.
Now take a look at the gap to McLaren and Ferrari, it's .4 on a track that's exactly the same gap as last year when they did not use the fancy exhaust system (funny enough, top 5 is starting in exactly the same order as 2010). So I'm not dismissing it completely, but I say it's highly, highly unlikely to happen.

Webber is so getting suckered out of the way again, especially because of KERS this year. I'm predicting a good long Alonso vs Hamilton battle for this race, which hopefully Hamilton will not destroy with a stupid move as it's been forever since we had these two in a close ontrack action! Webber might get them back thru pit-stops though...

Quote from Squelch :

The teams are allowed 2 base ignition maps, and these can only be changed by the driver while the car is stationary for at least 3 seconds.

what about the "20" modes selectable on the steering wheel? personally, i think they should just ban all that stuff.

but back to valencia... why am i not surprised that vettel is on pole again...

Quote from bunder9999 :

what about the "20" modes selectable on the steering wheel? personally, i think they should just ban all that stuff.

There are 2 base ignition modes plus 11 selectable ignition/fuel modes that can be selected at any time.

I'm looking forward to plenty of overtaking today. Hopefully while all four wheels are on the track.

Vettel is just beast damn.

shumi driving along at full speed with a broken wing...

"I cant go any slower"



Edit:

"This is as fast as I can go now"



Yep Lewis, thats what happens.

Great teamwork. Never ever do what the team sais, lol.

At least he was careful with start, which kind of ruined my prediction, but even if he did, obviously he couldn't race Alonso.
Anyhow we've seen a nice Webber vs Alonso battle instead, where I got really surprised how sleepy Webber was when Alonso got in his tow!

Now, we could say credits to Ferrari for strategy work, but seriously they messed up Massa's race, for no good reason. Obviously Alonso is always pitting a lap later than others, which is known since Malaysia and they insist on having him pitted first, which ruins Massa's race, when he could easily pit a lap earlier than Alonso. Trying to use him to back Webber up was the stupidest idea ever, as it just can't work with DRS and he could have taken some good points of Hamilton. I love the team, but for love of god, just let the guy race!!

Yeah, doesnt really matter in the end. Ferrari, or Alonso anyway, were clearly faster than McLaren today. 4th place is the best they could achieve.

Anyway, I think we saw today that even DRS cant make a shit track interesting.... Pretty procedural race... Was hoping Alonso could reel in on Vettel in the last stint, but RBR had plenty more in reserve to fend him off.

Kinda getting tiring this Vettel / RBR dominance now.

Vettel won! What a surprise!

What a boring race imo.
None of the big guns had real battles, pffft.

Not as much action as I expected. Some nice battles further down the field but overall a fairly processional race.

Happily I was completely wrong about the steering wheels, and nothing appeared to be amiss.

of course DRS can't make it interesting when you put the line in middle of the straight...

Screw it, just get rid of it altogether.

Pisses me off so much when FIA consider dropping / swapping out classic tracks like SPA for these abominations...

Highlight of this race for me was the poo I took between laps 34 en 37. It's like the football saying about playing against the Germans. You race for an xx amount of laps and at the end, Vettel wins.

Valencia living up to its name. BORING. Now i realise why i never go there.

Please, get rid of that crappy race track for next season, please...

what a yawnfest that turned out to be.

I am not enjoying F1, no disrespect to SV. But no competition is not what I would call real racing.

Mclaren, always on the back foot and lots of excuses. With their technology and money, they are a very sad F1 team.

i think this is the first race that wasn't thrilling to watch. imo anyways.

Quote from Rhygin :

Mclaren, always on the back foot and lots of excuses. With their technology and money, they are a very sad F1 team.

It succedes every year to bore me into sleep. It seems like an awesome track to hotlap on, but for watching on tv, it's just stupid.