This Shakedown is all focused on Formula One.
I owe you this, because while we were in Long Beach for
America Le Mans and Indy car racing last weekend, F1 was
doing it up in China.
At the same time, the rest of the world was wondering WTF
with the biggest racing series on the planet, the F1 circus,
ignoring the human rights issues that define Bahrain,
that cancelled last year's GP race, announcing via Bernie
Ecclestone and FIA leader Jean Todt that it's business as
usual in 2012 and the Formula One Bahrain race will go on as
scheduled this weekend.
And by that I mean Bernie will be accepting the
multi-multimillion dollar sanctioning fee check, despite
the riots, the arrests, the hunger strike, the economic
repression of one class of peoples versus another, and oh
yeah, the religion thing.
Go Bahrain.
That's what they're chanting in the Bahrain streets, right?
No.
But hey, the actual F1 racing is also worth discussion too.
China showed us that some 2012 teams are figuring it out.
Can you say McLaren and Mercedes?
Other teams are close, but not quite,
Lotus, Sauber, Red Bull.
And others are going to Bahrain with the common bond
of crisis, Ferrari.
But Ferrari's concerns are technical, not human rights,
unless you count Massa, who needs to get his racing right,
or there will be riots in a few Maranello team meetings.
But what China really showed us is the team that's making
the strongest impact on winning in 2012 is the team of
tire guys over at Pirelli.
Tire management is what's winning races.
So today let's talk about the Mercedes F1 team and their
dark shadows W-duct technology.
Let's do a comparison of the China and Bahrain tracks to
preview this weekend's race.
Let's dive into the tire management keys to winning.
And yes, I need to do a special comment on the
politics and business controversy
of racing in Bahrain.
So stay tuned to see if I go all angry rant as you probably
expect, or surprise you with some balanced perspective.
I mean, I am the adult in the room here at Drive.
See?
No hoodie.
Let's start with lessons learned from
the Chinese F1 race.
That track is a power circuit, and a top speed track with its
two long straights.
So we saw Mercedes engines rule.
The Mercedes F1 team has created for themselves a v-max
advantage with their W-duct that uses both the rear and
front wings to reduce drag.
Let's see if I can simplify what's going on here.
Down force is good.
Aero drive is bad.
Too simple?
Hang on.
Drive happens on the backside of the wing via turbulence,
air detaching from the surface, separation, all that
blue stuff.
And obviously, just flip this airplane wing over in your
mind to make it a race car wing.
To prevent the draggy turbulence, if you can flow
some air onto the blue area, into the blue area, I guess
you can clean up the flow and reduce drag.
Reduced drag means more miles per hour.
The prior year's McLaren F-duct did
that to the rear wing.
DRS, the driver-activated movable Drag Reduction System
rear wing flap, creates the same drag reduction now,
albeit in a different way.
But the benefit is the same, so Ross Brawn built the
Mercedes car to have an air duct on the rear wing end
plate that gets exposed when the driver triggers DRS.
This sends air through pipes built into the car, then
through the front wing supports to the front wing
planes to clean up separation and reduce drag
up front here too.
Only Mercedes has it for now, so top speed advantage to
Rosberg and Schumi.
The controversy is you can't have
driver-controlled aero devices.
Ross says W-duct is not.
The driver legally controls the F1-rules-allowed DRS.
The W-duct to the front wing is passive.
Bernie wants Mercedes to agree to their
new Concorde agreement.
Fans want to see Schumi do well.
So the W-duct is now ruled legal.
Too conspiracy theory for you?
Whatever.
Because as valuable as the W-duct is, I suggest Mercedes
getting a grip on tire management and degradation for
an entire race distance was maybe more important to them
to getting that China win.
So let's talk a bit about tire management strategies, because
everyone in F1 now knows tires are the difference makers to
winning or losing, as much as any other element of car
design, driver talent, or team operations.
And yet, tire management needs to call on all three of those
to make it happen.
So here we go.
Set aside for a minute the issue of two different tire
compounds that you need to run during the race, and focus on
the fact that Pirelli is designing the tires to degrade
in performance significantly over the life of a tire stint,
like up to two to five seconds slower from when they are
fastest, all for the show, to create more
passing during the race.
So a car design and set-up that does not torture the
tires to get to the speed that's needed allows the tire
to work at a higher speed level longer.
And drivers like Jenson Button and Vettel, who don't torture
a tire with a lot of hard inputs, are an asset.
And a team that can craft a race strategy of when to pit--
and now let's talk compounds--
and which tire compound to run when during the race, well,
all of that together, car, set-up, driver, pit strategy,
can create a maximum performance portfolio of laps
over a race distance that will win the damn thing.
By the way, think of pit stops as wanting to be the one to
pit first to set yourself up to be the first in the queue
when all the other cars you're racing against stop.
That's what Webber was trying to do and did early in the
China race versus McLaren.
Especially watch for who stops first in that final stint as
the race winds down.
Plus, you need to still factor in stopping to clear traffic
or to avoid it when leaving a pit stop reentering the race.
It's all mega strategy and heavy duty math calculations,
something Lotus and Kimi almost got right in China.
Back to tire management.
The 2012 Petronas Mercedes was fast but abusive on his tires
until China.
Rosberg showed they now have it all figured out.
Schumi, for want of a pit stop that didn't bolt on the tire
properly, was going to drive home the point times two.
Let's compare the Bahrain track to China--
and we're going to find there are more than a few
similarities--
and help us set-up for watching this Bahrain race.
And as such, Bahrain is going to be another big change for
Mercedes to win, for McLaren to stay at the front, for
Lotus, Sauber, and Red Bull to compete for podiums, and for
Ferrari to wish that Bahrain was canceled.
Here's a top line of why Bahrain and
China tracks are similar.
Average lap speeds are in the 205 to 210 kilometer per hour
range, Bahrain at the lower end.
Remember, 100 kilometers per hour is 62 miles per hour.
Both tracks have multiple big straights, but Bahrain's are
not as long, so top speeds being 303
kilometers to 318 for China.
Average cornering speeds are 129 for Bahrain, 134
kilometer for China.
Bahrain is 65% full throttle.
It's only 62% throttle for China, because China's kind of
required more throttle balancing
in those fast corners.
Both tracks run soft and medium Pirelli compounds.
Both are similar in down force needs.
But Bahrain will be dirtier, with its desert sand, and much
harder on brakes, with 12 braking events,
versus only 8 in China.
So let's pick Schumi to fight off Hamilton and Button to win
the Bahrain race, unless Vettel picks the exhaust down
force kit that Webber had in China to get him closer to P1,
and/or Kimi and Lotus figure out their tire strategy and
not fall off from the podium it looks like they had locked
up over there in China.
Wouldn't that be a really cool victory stand with Mikey and
Kimi on the podium?
Time to attack the monster eating up the headlines and
distracting all of us from this racing?
Why is F1 even in Bahrain racing?
If you read the news stories, and I want you to, you know
the landscape is politically charged, highly controversial,
and potentially damaging to all if things get really
stupid this weekend in Bahrain.
First, the Bahrain is human rights, plus the natural
choice of humanity to opt for democracy versus oppression.
Spurred by last year's populace events across the
Middle East, like in Egypt, the Sunnis of Bahrain moved to
question their Shia leaders of 200 years.
Their frustration was one of human rights, economic rights,
and looking for a chance for hope.
But it degraded into conflict, arrests, killings.
The PR spin is now in full effect on both sides.
And it may be really unclear to get an accurate idea of
what is going on.
So I'm watching and reading the reporting of journalists
on the ground to understand the reality of Bahrain.
Know that F1 opted out of last year's race for safety
reasons, not out of protest or solidarity.
And F1 is going back this year under the same rationale.
They say it's now safe in 2012.
And since to F1 and the FIA sport and politics are
separate issues, the Bahrain internal strife is not to them
an F1 issue.
And that's the world in which we live.
Truth and reality aside, our modern civilization postures
this separation, this forced choice
of business or humanity.
Now I'm sharing a link to the Joe Saward F1 blog, because
he's been writing a lot recently about Bahrain and the
history of sports business crossing into politics.
And don't slam the drivers and the teams for not protesting
by sitting out the race.
Their contracts are really strong and maybe they see the
same separation of business and politics.
But I am bothered by how the Bahrain rulers have rebranded
the race with a campaign called "Unified, One Nation in
Celebration," when clearly that is not the case.
And you know that Bernie has once said he doesn't care
about the fans in the stands, how many.
That's a local issue.
To him, his sense of F1 is putting the show on TV and
pushing it out to the biggest global audience he can.
Global to Bernie is F1.
And that became the trigger in my head to not rant against
F1, but to think, what if F1 is smarter than we think?
You know how I'm going to get slammed here for talking about
politics when you guys just want to talk racing?
Well, what if Bernie and Jean Todt know that better than me
and know enough not to take an official F1 position on
Bahrain politics?
Hell, they deal with so many governments such side-taking
would be a bad move for them, bad business too.
And what if they know that the Bahrain regime will protect
the safety of their F1 teams, drivers, and personnel, and
that the Bahrain populace has already stated they are not
fighting F1, but their rulers, so F1 will not
be physically harmed?
So knowing all that, what if F1 said, rather than we
protesting, let's show up and focus the world's attention on
Bahrain, and give this human rights struggle the global
visibility it deserves?
That, thinks Bernie and Jean, will be our human rights
contribution.
And in my opinion, they would not be wrong.
Plus, they get to pocket the checks and maintain the
integrity of their F1 contracts all across the
globe, because at the end of the day, that's their world.
Besides, they have their own unrest within their world.
Can you say Concorde Agreement?
And Bernie wouldn't like it if outsiders meddled in that
rights fight.
See the logic?
But what do you think?
And as we record this, the media has made a big deal of
one incident and activist anger seems to be turning
toward F1 for the next three days.
And I hope F1 did not trade the safety of their people for
Bernie bucks.
So if you were a racer, what would you do?
Would you go to Bahrain or would you stay away in
solidarity?
I'm anxious to read your comments.
And I'm praying that when we report on this weekend's
action on next Monday's Shakedown, I'll only be
talking about the racing.
Peace.
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