[motor_breathing]

Newey, yeah good in aerodynamics but his cars were poor in reliability. It might be the 780 page dossier only. Last year during spygate, Luca said, even if Mclaren wins the title some way its a Ferrari win .


Brawn GP continues to impress and here is what Ferrari Boss has to say.

"Until a couple of days ago there was a great equilibrium between the different teams - some expected and some a bit less - and then there was Brawn GP's exploit. Their performance was incredibly surprising and they have to be watched with care."

Source

[FERRO]

wonder BrawnGp is running on fumes or what ? they came late & they top the timings & soon they might win.

it all comes down to one conclusion Honda F1 engine is fat dog, wonder how good Mercedes engines in Honda chassis are performing.

[anachronix]

It might also be to attract their sponsors. Brawn has not revealed the name of the huge sponsorer for this season.

Q2 in Melbourne will give the exact picture.

[Addy]

Finally, the right man Stopped the domination of the BRAWN.

Renault’s Fernando Alonso was the quickest man at Jerez on Monday, ending Ross Brawn’s team’s recent monopoly on the top of the testing timesheets. Alonso finished less than a tenth of a second ahead of Rubens Barrichello after a productive session at the Spanish circuit.

"I'm happy with the day as we did more than a 100 laps which was our target for my final day of winter testing,” said Alonso, who will hand over to team mate Nelson Piquet on Tuesday. "This has been the first time we have run on a really hot track and the information we have from today will be very useful for the first few races, which are usually very hot.”

Ross Brawn had both his team’s drivers in action. Barrichello completed a series of set-up and tyre evaluations and covered 62 laps in the morning. Jenson Button took over for the afternoon and began a race simulation before a gearbox problem brought his running to an early conclusion after 12 laps, leaving him third fastest.

Lewis Hamilton was fourth after 87 laps for McLaren. The world champion’s programme began with the evaluation of a number of new, subtle aerodynamic modifications to the MP4-24, before a series of longer runs to assess the new aero package’s effect on tyre degradation.

The final runner was Williams’ Nico Rosberg, who completed 123 laps, predominantly set-up work, in the FW31.

All four teams continue at Jerez on Tuesday.

Unofficial Monday times from Jerez:
1. Fernando Alonso, Renault R29, 1:18.343
2. Rubens Barrichello, Brawn BGP 001, 1:18.398
3. Jenson Button, Brawn BGP 001, 1:18.892
4. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren MP4-24, 1:19.513
5. Nico Rosberg, Williams FW31, 1:19.783

[motor_breathing]

Ross Brawn said that their pace is genuine, not to attract sponsors. Source

From what Barichello says, it seems that Honda F1 engine was a dog.

Whatever may be preseason testing results, I thing ferrari, mclaren and BMW will be the top teams. Hope that Renault also managed to increase the pony count of their engine to give Alonso a good chance.

[SilentEngine]

Driver with most race wins to become 2009 champion

Formula One racing’s governing body, the FIA, has approved a change to the points systems for this year’s drivers’ championship, which will see the title awarded to the driver with the most race wins. The rest of the standings, from second to last place, will be decided by the current points system.

If two or more drivers finish the season with the same number of wins, the title will be awarded to the driver with the most points, the allocation of points being based on the existing 10, 8, 6 etc. structure. The constructors’ championship is unaffected.

The FIA’s World Motor Sport Council accepted the proposal for the new system from Formula One Management at a meeting in Paris on Tuesday. An alternative proposal to change the points awarded to drivers finishing in first, second and third place to 12, 9 and 7 points respectively was rejected.

Source: formula1 dot com
The Official Formula 1 Website

This is a big decision IMO. this can have some interesting implications as we go into the season.
Doesn't matter how much you score. You can't be champion if you can't win more races than the other guy.

[Addy]

@SilentEngine: Thats exactly true, the person with the most wins is the champ irrespective of the points under his belt. I wish this rule was in place last year.!!!

Better Late Than Never!!! The season has not yet begun but has already got exciting!!!

[SilentEngine]

@Addy,
Last year I guess Massa won 6, Hamilton 5, but then they drove last year knowing the rules, so if the rules were different, the result could have been different.

Anyway, i am happy to see this change. Now the races will be a lot more interesting at the front of the grid.

[Addy]

@SilentEngine: A very good point there. Lets see what happens. Hey do you know of any places where we can watch the races on a big screens on RACE DAY? I was a regular at Leela's till it was stopped.

[kuttapan]

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

@Addy,
Last year I guess Massa won 6, Hamilton 5, but then they drove last year knowing the rules, so if the rules were different, the result could have been different.

Anyway, i am happy to see this change. Now the races will be a lot more interesting at the front of the grid.

Exactly - Hamilton would not have played safe in the last race, neither would Massa have taken the decision bring some points home, instead of winning at all costs approach in couple of races.

2009 should be an epic season in the history of F1. I foresee a new leaderboard.

Can we move the time slider to March 29 please?

[speedzak]

I think the decision to reject FOTA's suggestions completely is just an arrogant move by Ecclestone & Co.

FOTA had spend lots of time, effort and money in the research before they came up with those valuable suggestions. I still think the points system suggested by them was better and less confusing than the newly adopted system by FIA!

[motor_breathing]

I would have been more happy if they implemented 10,6,4,3,2,1 points system. This would have solved the current problem of the 2nd guy not taking a risk of racing the leader fearing a loss of 8 points. The risk vs benfit is not good enough in 10,8,6... system.

Coming to the current scenario, Say at the end of 2009 Kimi has 3 wins, Massa 2 and Lewis 2 and point wise Kimi 60 and lewis and massa >80. We really cannot say Kimi should be the world champ.

Kimi, massa and lewis just used as examples.

[raj.barcode]

The new concept might dent the idea of consistency for scoring points in the whole season and if by going on testing form after first 9 races (probably out of 12) brawn gp decides to play with team order and keep winning (either button/Rubens), the rest of the season will be a big bore

[raj.barcode]

new front wing detail of Renault

[anachronix]

The FIA, Max & the old ***** Bernie are all screwing up my favourite sport big time.

I was thinking they would bring back the old points scoring system.

We will see more team orders from here on.