F1 Season 2012: Random Reactions from Jerez

F1 2012 commences with six world champions on the grid, new regulations, more bans and Pirelli again. You don’t want to flex your muscles too quickly when it comes to analyzing this sport. But there’s nothing to stop us from having some fun at the expense of the Top Guns’ plans before the 2012 season starts, is there? Here’s what we learned, or in some cases, should have learned, from last week’s pre-season test at Jerez.

RED BULL:

Let’s call it the inception of deception for Red Bull. How can Adrian Newey have some fun with his close competitors during the testing?

He starts by unveiling a freakish RB8 that is pitch black in colour, with an enterprising bodywork & ridiculous exhaust system. They run this car, an absolute featherweight, with a special blend of jet fuel on board, in Jerez. The entire RBR pit crew watches the Red Bull 2012 car top the time sheets while they dig into tubs of popcorn during the 1st test. They enjoy the scenery while Ferrari, McLaren & others attempt to copy the car by integrating the design into their cars for the 2nd test. All set!

We reach the Barcelona Test. Now, the RBR team showcases the real RB8.What’s that you hear in Italian? “Qualcuno si prega di chiamare il 911!” (translation: “Somebody.. please call 911!”)

FERRARI:

Their complaints have been coming thick and fast for years now. This year the drivers gripe about the troublesome wind tunnel at Scuderia, while their technical director defends his not-so-innovative suspension design. However, Fry insists that the team’s decision to include pull-rod suspension at the front of the car as well as the rear is not causing any problems.

Last season, the prancing horse struggled in qualifying as they were not able to get heat into their tyres, especially with the harder compounds. So this year, Ferrari hire Bridgestone’s former F1 chief Hirohide Hamashim to fix that. Genius plan!

Now that their tyre temperatures are addressed, all that Ferrari needs is to improve their aerodynamics and reliability.

McLAREN:

Whitmarsh isn’t happy with the way the 2012 rulebook defines the front-end treatment of the cars, with lowering of the nosecone max height. Most teams have incorporated a significant step between the nose and cockpit to comply with the latest rule inclusion. McLaren, however, has revealed its 2012 machine which doesn’t have a step in the nosecone. The only reason I think they did that is because for McLaren, aesthetics come before performance! With the banning of blown diffusers and re-sitting of the exhausts, what McLaren will do this year is anybody’s guess.

Word is that they have tried to work hard to mitigate the problem, but the fact remains that it’s a lost technology and they can’t reinvent it. With no diffusers, they will need to take grip off the front and try to offload it to the rear somehow. It’s true that McLaren may possibly have found a semblance of a solution, as their exhaust was camouflaged and people saw a strange bulge at the rear of the engine cover.

Having said that, launching a car with dummy plastic exhausts isn’t a sight that many fans would be excited to see, is it?

LOTUS:

The team is very optimistic this year, for a lot of reasons:1. Kimi is making his F1 comeback after two years away competing in the FIA World Rally Championship.2. There is no snow, no trees & no navigator in F1. So Raikonnen has nothing to bang into.3. It’s a new car, and it’ll be called Lotus now! (how does that help, exactly?)4. Our test driver is a now a paid driver.5. Unlike 2011, the engine exhaust will blow towards the back of the car this year and not into our owndriver’s nostrils.

In all seriousness though, Lotus does have a real advantage: although the Renault engine has about 15 HP less than others, its drivability and fuel economy make the Renault engine a winner in isolation. The reason for that is simple: it needs lesser fuel to run the race distance! So much so that Renault-powered cars can start races with 15 -18 litres less fuel in the tank than their competition – and that makes a huge difference.

PIRELLI:

In 2011, Pirelli supplied F1 teams with a total of 34,000 tyres. They claim that their tyres covered over 180,000 miles in testing and racing, without suffering a single manufacturing failure. Maybe they should ask Christian Horner if he agrees that Vettel’s heartbreaking tyre failure in Abu Dhabi was down to the Red Bull set-up.

This year, Pirelli wants to make real changes for closer racing. If all goes according to plan, there will be a smaller gap in performance between the soft & the hard tyres. Their aim is bring down the 1.5-second difference between compounds to around 0.8 seconds. Meanwhile, they are also working on a revolutionary mechanism to boost drivers’ confidence in their slow-hard tyres.(Heads up – FIA doesn’t like this second one).

From a trusted source inside Pirelli R&D: “To improve track performance, every driver would get a complimentary copy of the Pirelli calendar to read during the pit stops.”

All said and done, we know that in Formula 1, you’re only as good as your last race win. So why not just get warmed up for the 2012 season and enjoy each race as it comes!