FIA sets new engine mapping restrictions

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: New FIA restrictions aim to stop teams getting around 2012 ban on exhaust-blown diffusers.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

FIA in engine-mapping clampdown (Autosport)

“Although moves to outlaw blown diffusers have already resulted in teams being forced to run with periscope exhausts in 2012, there have been mounting concerns that some outfits are still trying to exploit loopholes in this area of the regulations.”

Kubica ‘months’ away from return (ESPN)

Robert Kubica is still ‘a few more months’ away from being able to return to Formula One, according to his doctor.”

Sauber’s mantra for Indian GP: Pujari to bless cars, drivers (Indian Express)

“The Sauber F1 team will have their Ferrari-powered cars blessed by a pujari at the team’s paddock next Friday ?óÔé¼ÔÇØ the day before qualifying.”

Mercedes F-Duct Front wing (ScarbsF1)

“What are Mercedes doing with this wing? It seems the potential for the wing could be either to increase downforce, cut drag or alter a handling imbalance. This latter use might be to overcome problems with the 2011 chassis and the driving styles of the teams two drivers.”

Formula 1 to see ‘new’ Lewis Hamilton in 2012, says dad (BBC)

Anthony Hamilton: “You’ve not seen Lewis Hamilton yet, you’ve seen a young Lewis Hamilton. Now a new Lewis Hamilton is coming.”

F1 players set for a courtroom drama (FT, registration required)

“For Mr Ecclestone, the trial will mean uncomfortable public scrutiny of his unconventional deal-making methods and his substantial wealth.”

Lucky fan gets the drive of a lifetime (McLaren)

“Johnnie Walker today provided Djordje Simic from Serbia with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, when he took the wheel of the 2008 Championship-winning Vodafone McLaren Mercedes F1 car at Silverstone, after winning the Johnnie Walker ‘Drive of a Lifetime’ competition.”

Comment of the day

Not a lot of people were impressed by Red Bull’s zeal for getting Mark Webber second in the drivers’ championship:

There’s no way that this works out well for Webber. If he starts doing better, it could imply that the team actually weren’t fully behind him this season, and if he doesn’t improve then it’s a case of even with the team’s support, he can’t get the job done.

Are they trying to ruin his confidence?
xxiinophobia

From the forum

  • Vitantonio Liuzzi, Mika Salo, Jan Magnussen, Sebastien Bourdais, Christian Klien and Gianni Morbidelli are among the past and present F1 talent racing in the Gold Coast 600 this weekend

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On this day in F1

Fernando Alonso won the world championship for the second time by finishing second to Felipe Massa in the Brazilian Grand Prix five years ago today.

Michael Schumacher bowed out from Formula 1 with a battling recovery drive to finish fourth behind Jenson Button.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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49 comments on “FIA sets new engine mapping restrictions”

  1. Doesn’t this mean Sauber have an unfair advantage for India?

    Still, I bet no-one will be complaining if we see Kobayashi or Perez towards the top…

    1. The first race winning innovation Newey hasn’t thought of all year – getting his cars blessed by a Hindu Priest.

      1. Word has it that Newey has his carbon fibre elements fabricated by Thor and his hammer.

        1. Does Thor have an autoclave?

    2. I assume this is happening on Friday because cars can’t be blessed under parc fermé conditions?

    3. I always thought they were a bunch of fakirs

    4. I wouldn’t take that as an unfair advantage though, any team could have thought of it and asked for it.

      Would be really fun if we saw Sauber now getting a podium in India because of it!

  2. Bad news about Robert, bad news for Renault. Even if he can get back to driving some time in 2012, he will now miss car development, which leaves the team with the “far from best” choice of Petrov and Senna for that.

  3. Keith, I’m not sure if you have been notified of this; the V8 Supercars have unveiled a trophy in memory of Dan Wheldon awarded to the best performing international driver in the event he was going to compete in this weekend.

    1. I second your “wow”

    2. Considering the number of cars the guy passed at the start with his helmet barely on and gloves hither and yon, maybe Webber should be a little less prepared for the starts, just an idea.

      1. Well, when Webber started so far back, his starts were not so bad either. It’s when he starts at the front that he goes backwards :p

    3. The round-up; a place for fun and totally off-topic videos! I love it! Great find. :)

  4. The Wall Street Journal has revived the New Jersey GP for 2013 story, and says a press conference will announce the race on Tuesday: http://t.co/BwRsoDKD

    1. So we’re getting a Noo Joy-zee Gron Pree, huh?

      1. Big question is who will be knocked out from calendar..it seems by 2014 two current circuits should be out..(if bernie sticks to his point of max 20 races per calendar). valencia & ??

        1. Well, Korea isn’t happy with their race, and given that they pretty much locked the circuit up the day after the 2010 race and didn’t re-open it until the day before this year’s event with none of the proposed development in between, Bernie could probably drop them without much fuss.

        2. I welcome every race replacing Valencia. Now it would be Nice if they hired populous for this one

          1. Valencia is still under contract, @verstappen – it can’t just be dropped on a whim.

          2. Also (and I meant to include this in the previous post), employing Populous will not automatically make the circuit “better”. Populous would still be bound by the same rules and regulations that Hermann Tilke has to play by. And that’s before you even consider the way the race in New Jeresy would be a street circuit, and therefore there would be even more limitations imposed on them, because they would only be able to use existing roads. There is already a proposal floating around (though no indication as to who penned it.

            Hermann Tilke is not the problem. The rules on circuit design are. Everyone attacks Tilke because he designs the actual circuits, but only a handful of people bother to ask why his circuits are so reviled. It’s not a lack of imagination, or a love of boring racing that drives him to design circuits the way he does. It’s the rule book that is the problem.

          3. Seriously, are you Tilke’s agent or something PM? Most fans dislike Tilke’s circuits and many of the same think Populous did a good job at Silverstone. No wonder they want Populous to have a crack at a full-blown circuit to see if they can do better.

            As I keep saying, the regulations concerning safety, run-offs, lap length etc. do NOT constrain him to make virtually the same corners and corner/straight combinations over and over and over again.

            take a look at the proposal for the aborted circuit at Flins-Les-Mureaux. It does have that squiggly bit (although I don’t know of any elevation changes) and one of the corners looks like it has tightening radius – although that would be more of a consequence of lining up properly for the next corner, rather than for the sake of it – but apart from that it would have been a nice, flowing circuit with plenty of traditional corners to make up for a few Tilke copies. Probably not the best for overtaking – Turn 1 would probably space the cars out anbd I don’t know how fast the one preceding the long straight would have been – but at least it would be nice and different.

          4. Seriously, are you Tilke’s agent or something PM? Most fans dislike Tilke’s circuits and many of the same think Populous did a good job at Silverstone. No wonder they want Populous to have a crack at a full-blown circuit to see if they can do better.

            I’m not saying that Tilke is the be-all and end-all when it comes to circuit design, @Icthyes – only that removing him would be treating a symptom rather than the underlying disease. If Populous got the job, they would be bound by the same rules as Tilke is. But if the rules governing circuit design were changed, then both Tilke and Populous (or whoever else got the job) would have much more design freedom, allowing for much better circuits. I, for one, have no objections to letting somebody else have a go at circuit design – but I don’t want to see their potential wasted because they are bound by the same rules as Hermann Tilke.

          5. Even if Tilke is not the main reason many of the new circuits are bad, how are we going to know for sure if he keeps getting awarded all the design work for new circuits?

            It’s the problem in any field with a single supplier — sure they might be doing an OK job, but what’s the yardstick for comparison? And how do you know if they’re overcharging or not, if there are no competing designs?

            Open tenders for new F1 circuits / renovations, I say. If Bernie doesn’t like that, it’s time to get rid of that man — haven’t we had enough of his family’s obscene parading of dirty money?

    2. It will be interesting to see what they call the race.

      Maybe in a nod to history, the 2013 United States Grand Prix East?

      1. @ed24f1 I imagine it will be laden with sponsorship like the rest to be honest. Though i’m sure the guys in Austin, TX will be keen to see some reference to it being in the East.

      2. United States Grand Prix East is certainly an idea, but I can think of a few possibilities:

        New York Grand Prix or Manhattan Grand Prix, though these would be controversial since the race won’t actually be in New York or on Manhattan.

        Atlantic Grand Prix, kind of like the old Pacific Grand Prix (which would pave the way for the Pacific race to be revived).

        United States Grand Prix, with Austin becoming the Grand Prix of Texas.

        New Jersey Grand Prix, but that lacks the glamour of a few other possible names.

        Lenapehoking Grand Prix, named for the Lenape Nation (the Native American people who lived in New Your and New Jersey); Algonquin Grand Prix is another possibility, though names based on Native American land recognition might be controversial (recognition of traditional aboriginal ownership of land is a big thing here in Australia; I don’t really know how recognition of Native American land is done in the United States).

        Overall, I think I like “Atlantic Grand Prix” the best.

        1. I think the Austin GP deal is for a 10 year US Grand Prix, so that option would be out of the equation.

          I think the Atlantic GP or the NY grand prix would be fine. Or the Hudson GP?

          1. “Atlantic” probably fits best. I don’t think many Jersey-ites would like being referred to as New York, and nor do I think many New Yorkers would like New Jersey being described as New York or Manhattan (even if the circuit is partially located in West New York, New Jersey). And I think the Hudson is too small a land feature to be the title of a Grand Prix. So “Atlantic Grand Prix” would be best, with the European Grand Prix possibly being renamed the “Mediterranean Grand Prix”.

          2. It’s still New York City though, isn’t it? So they might be able to swing the NY GP name because of that, or NYC GP.

          3. @matt90 – I’m afraid not; the Hudson river is the border between the states of New York and New Jersey.

          4. @prisoner-monkeys
            I see, I thought the City itself rather than the state extended at least a little into New Jersey on that side of Manhattan, but clearly not. However, over half of the circuit (the north half, from mid Old Glory Park northwards) is in a town called West New York, which could be used for the GP name perhaps.
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Census_Bureau_map_of_West_New_York,_New_Jersey.gif

        2. Alconquin is in Canada

        3. Yeah, out of those I’d choose USA East or Atlantic.

          I would put money on them going for New Jersey GP though.

    3. Autosport picked up on it as well and deems it likely it will be announce on Tuesday.

  5. Apparently, Force India have signed Nico Hulkenberg to a one year race deal for 2012 with an option for 2013, replacing Adrian Sutil as Paul di Resta. If the car is good, this may take Force India to new heights. I cannot wait for a team made up of two of the most promising rookies from the past two years, Hulkenberg and Di Resta!

    1. Paul di Resta’s team mate*

    2. Apparently, Force India have signed Nico Hulkenberg to a one year race deal for 2012 with an option for 2013, replacing Adrian Sutil as Paul di Resta.

      Yesterday’s news, I’m afraid.

      1. A shame really if this story is true – Sutil gets the job done IMO, and he and di Resta are a good/solid partnership.

        The second best pairing after Button and Hamilton in F1 for me. My prediction then is less total points for FI in 2012 with plenty of temper tantrums from Hulkenberg and one very odd 4th-6th place finish.

        And I’ll have to come up with a new Name and a new favorite driver! What to do? No more cheering for the weird, Campy doesn’t know who Keira Knightley is Sutil.

        1. You have got to be kidding.

    3. Just have a feeling that replacing Sutil is a bad move by Force India. He has been with the team for ages, and has done a pretty solid job. At the beginning of this year, he wasn’t too impressive, but he has found his stride recently, and has been doing a better job than Di Resta recently.

      Hulkenberg is a bit of a wild card, I do not know how much we should be reading into his practice session timings.

    4. Fingers crossed!

  6. I think we might be reading a little too much into the Webber situation. Of course they would like to seal 2nd in the championship, who wouldn’t? I would just call it encouragement and nothing more.

    1. Vettel is for helping Webber how? is he going to crash into anyone who is in Webbers way and take them out

      1. He might voluntarily move over for Webber, as Hakkinen, Mansell etc. have done in the past – although that would be a long shot, and I think he’d only do that at the last race if Webber needed the points.

  7. I just read that article about the Johnnie Walker competition. Good grief, bit heavy on the PR don’t you think?!

    I thought we would have had a video or perhaps a bit more personality from the race winner but it’s just a bit of a cringe-worthy read to be honest! I’m sure the day was better than it reads.

  8. In reference to the Autosport article…

    “That is part of the fun of the development side. I don’t think there have been any regulations that don’t have them. Our job as F1 designers and aerodynamicists is to seek out potential areas where the regulations are potentially vague and exploit them.”

    This is why the unveiling of the new designs next year will be outrageous levels of fun :D

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