Pirelli, Mercedes, FIA, FOM & a whole load of politics.

Let’s talk tyres, yet again.

This whole Mercedes/Pirelli test controversy from Spain is about political games, not about Mercedes gaining any advantage at all. Its about the FIA and FOM facing off each other to expand and drag on what happened back in 2010 with the Michelin vs Pirelli decision.
Mercedes are the mere scapegoats that other teams want them to be in order to get lucky in some way and garner some points and/or testing mileage.
From my understanding, there is no controversy as such. Mercedes have gained no advantage from the test as according to Pirelli’s information (confirmed by Ross Brawn too), Mercedes had no identity of the tyres being used or the compounds being tested. It was a bit of a blind test in that, as far as Mercedes go, they only provided the car, driver(s) and the support personnel. They did not collect any tyre specific data.
What is going on now is, the FIA want to assert their power over the FOM and might try to use this to penalise Pirelli and (maybe) disallow them from being the supplier next year on grounds of technical breach of regulations.

When Pirelli were announced as the new supplier at the end of 2010, a part of the (somewhat odd) statement from the FIA read:

“..the sole supplier will undertake to strictly respect the sporting and technical regulations implemented by the FIA”

This might be relevant to the current situation as anybody can guess what it could mean.

FIA (or at least Jean Todt) wanted Michelin but the commercial rights holder wanted Pirelli. Bernie won that round. Who has the power over decision on tyre suppliers still remains unclear. The FIA sure wants to have a strong say in it.

Pirelli didn’t want to garner any more negative publicity or storm over tyres and hence kept the test out of media knowledge, but, it seems to have backfired.

We might have some news in Montreal.

What changes in the F1 regulations this season?

Changes for 2013

Some key changes in the FIA regulations for the 2013 F1™ season.

Formula 1 is a constantly changing, constantly evolving sport. Things are never idle here. Even when an F1 car is parked, its almost breathing. Development is virtually non-stop all round the year and most of it happens while the action is off air and it seems uneventfully holiday-ish in the world of F1. New parts for F1 cars are almost produced every 7 minutes, 7 days a week, all through the year. To keep pace with the competition, there’s no other way this could be done. Its relentless and that’s one of the biggest challenges of the sport.

With all this development, that comes from a bunch of some the most talented & clever engineers in the world, there has to be someone overlooking and administering the whole exercise. That someone is the FIA. They also lay down the ground rules for the competition and a new set of regulations (the formula) are put forth before the start of every new season.

Recently, the FIA announced some detail changes to the rules for the next two seasons:

• From a technical perspective, the 2013 rule changes address some safety precautions as well as allowing for the extra weight of the new generation of Pirelli tyres. The car’s roll structures must meet new standards and new, more stringent crash tests will also be applied. The minimum weight of the car has increased by 2kg.
  
• To combat the use of aero-elastic components the static load test will now be applied to all of each team’s survival cells, and the front wing test will permit no more than 10mm deflection rather than 20mm.
  
• There has also been a change to the procedure when cars cannot return to the pits under their own power at the end of a track session. The existing rules state that each car must be able to provide a sample of at least one litre of fuel; from now on, if one stops on track, it must provide that quantity plus the amount of fuel that would have been consumed while driving back to the pits.
  
• On the operational front, during practice sessions the Drag Reduction System (DRS) can now only be used in the same areas on track as it would during the race. Working hours have also been tightened up, with the personnel curfew now extending from six to eight hours on Thursday night, and the number of permitted exceptions dropping from four to two for the entire season.
  

Countdown begins..

2013

2013 FIA Formula One World Championship™ Race Calendar

#	Date	Race	Venue	Time (IST)*
1	Mar 15-17	Australian Grand Prix	Albert Park, Melbourne	TBA
2	Mar 22-24	Malaysia Grand Prix	Sepang International Circuit, Kuala Lumpur	TBA
3	Apr 12-14	Chinese Grand Prix	Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai	TBA
4	Apr 19-21	Bahrain Grand Prix	Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir	TBA
5	May 10-12	Spanish Grand Prix	Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona	TBA
6	May 23-26	Monaco Grand Prix	Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo	TBA
7	Jun 07-09	Canadian Grand Prix	Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, Montreal	TBA
8	Jun 28-30	British Grand Prix	Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone	TBA
9	Jul 05-07	German Grand Prix	Nurburgring, Nurburgring	TBA
10#	Jul 19-21	TBA	TBA	TBA
11	Jul 26-28	Hungarian Grand Prix	Hungaroring, Budapest	TBA
12	Aug 23-25	Belgian Grand Prix	Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Spa-Francorchamps	TBA
13	Sep 06-08	Italian Grand Prix	Autodromo di Monza, Monza	TBA
14	Sep 20-22	Singapore Grand Prix	Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore	TBA
15	Oct 04-06	Korean Grand Prix	Korea International Circuit, Yeongam	TBA
16	Oct 11-13	Japanese Grand Prix	Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka	TBA
17	Oct 25-27	Indian Grand Prix	Buddh International Circuit, Greater Noida (Delhi NCR)	TBA
18	Nov 01-03	Abu Dhabi Grand Prix	Yas Marina Circuit, Yas Island	TBA
19	Nov 15-17	United States Grand Prix	Circuit of The Americas, Austin	TBA
20	Nov 22-24	Brazilian Grand Prix	Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace (Interlagos), Sao Paulo	TBA

The Random Pallette                                                                                                                               ©2012-13

* TV times will be updated once schedules are officially put out by the regional broadcasters.

# Provisional. (It was supposed to be either the French or the returning Turkish GP, but neither seem likely for 2013 at the moment.)

 

 

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Mercedes: F-Duct Front Wing operated by the Rear Wing DRS

ScarbsF1 explains how the F-Duct front wing might be employed by Mercedes GP AMG for he 2012 season:

Mercedes: F-Duct Front Wing operated by the Rear Wing DRS.

The Bahrain shame and F1

First published on my Facebook profile on Saturday, 04 June 2011. & F1Pulse.com

Okay, so the FIA and Mr E have decided that Bahrain will go ahead and the Indian GP would be pushed to December as the season ending weekend. Whatever that means for the Indian GP, I cannot help but think that this has seriously dented the image of F1 as a sport. There already was enough evidence of criticism towards F1 that it is almost all about money and less about ethics and morality and this decision just takes that thought further into the engraving. Safety issues aside, what answers do the FIA and the old goat have for the human rights’ violations that took place in Bahrain during the protests? Being involved with China has had its share of frowns pointed at F1 and now the Bahrain go-ahead is only going to make that worse.