Turkey preview - Qualifying update

Red Bull and Brawn share the top two rows on the grid. I'm attempting a different format for displaying the grid, and please forgive it. The gap listed is that between the driver and the man who finished directly in front of them, gaps in bold are beneath 0.1s, showing where things were close.

It is a 58 lap race (as are quite a few, these days) and so 1/4 distance is 14.5 laps (3 stops, equally spaced), 1/3 distance is 19.3 laps (2 stops equally spaced). However, the lack of faith in the soft tyre this weekend is such that Alonso and Vettel are probably taking a short first stint on softs, before 2 stints on hards. The one-stoppers might in fact 2-stop, if any repeat of Melbourne/Monaco happened, to avoid over-using the softs.

Predictions to follow in next post

Thursday Practice

The tag will say Friday, but that is just for consistency's sake. Monaco being so special, "Friday" practice happened yesterday. Simple post, this, to gauge gaps between teams, it will look at total laps, fastest time and the difference between the sessions.

Session 1:
Brawn - Barrichello- 1:17.189 - 0.000 - 26+28 = 54 laps total
Ferrari - F. Massa - 1:17.499 - 0.310 - 31+30 = 61
McLaren - Hamilton - 1:17.578 - 0.389 - 26+30 = 56
Williams - Nakajima- 1:18.000 - 0.811 - 29+27 = 56
Renault - F. Alonso- 1:18.283 - 1.094 - 31+36 = 67 (Piquet ran lots of laps)
Red Bull - Webber - 1:18.348 - 1.159 - 22+16 = 38 (Vettel engine blown,no penalty)
Toro Rosso - Buemi - 1:18.695 - 1.506 - 37+31 = 68 (Buemi ran more laps than anyone else)
Force India-Fisichella-1:19.534-2.345 - 28+24 = 52
BMW - Robert Kubica- 1:19.560 - 2.371 - 20+23 = 43 (Kubica had mechanical trouble)
Toyota - Timo Glock- 1:19.698 - 2.509 - 24+28 = 52

Session 2:
Williams - Rosberg - 1:15.243 - 0.000 - 45+43 = 88
McLaren-Hamilton-1:15.445 - 0.202 - 35+45 = 80
Brawn-Barrichello- 1:15.590 - 0.347 - 41+36 = 77
Ferrari - F. Massa - 1:15.832 - 0.589 - 42+43 = 87
Red Bull - S. Vettel - 1:15.847 - 0.604 - 33+27 = 60
Renault - N. Piquet - 1:16.286 - 1.043 - 43+39 = 82
Force India-A. Sutil- 1:16.675 - 1.432 - 38+45 = 83
Toyota-Jarno Trulli- 1:16.915 - 1.672 - 43+45 = 88
Toro Rosso-Buemi- 1:16.983 - 1.740 - 48+48=96
BMW - N. Heidfeld - 1:17.109 - 1.866 - 40+2 = 42 (Kubica blew his engine early on)

You'll notice how much quicker the 2nd session was compared to the first. Saturday will be quicker still. Drivers in bold beat their teammates in both sessions. Remember, though, that Thursday is worthless in F1 (except for sponsors).

Tyres: Super-softs and softs have been brought here, as an exception to the "2 compounds apart" rule, which will reduce the need for leading teams to run on softs in Q1. This will further empower them to 2-stop, on fresh tyres throughout (2 stints on super-softs, 1 on softs, I think). Weaker teams will 1 stop and put the longer stint on the soft (harder) tyre, to avoid problems faced in some years.

Weather: looks like it will be clear and dry, which spoils the fun somewhat.

The grid and weights

Going into qualifying, Brawn and Barrichello were confident of pole. Coming out, Button was surprised by it. Were those comments designed to affect Red Bull's strategy? Who knows, however, given the FIA's release of the weights of the cars, we can assess performance in final qualifying.

As usual, the grid is displayed below by row, with the odd numbers on the left (pole listed first) and with my estimate of first pit stop lap (based on fuel consumption figures from Williams) in brackets. KERS cars are highlighted in bold.

Front row: Button (16) Vettel (18)
2nd row: Barrichello (17) Massa (20)
3rd row: Webber (18) Glock (16)
4th row: Trulli (20) Alonso (15-16)
5th row: Rosberg (25-26) Kubica (22)
6th row: Nakajima (29) Piquet (30)
7th row: Heidfeld (29) Hamilton (32)
8th row: Buemi (30) Raikkonen (28)
9th row: Bourdais (26) Kovaleinen (21)
Back row: Sutil (29) Fisichella (20)

It is a 66 lap race, so 16 laps represents a straightforward 3-stopper, whilst 22 is the equivalent figure for a 2-stopper. However, given the apparent slowness of the hard tyre, expect some to have long stints on softs to avoid using hard tyres for more than they have to.

Given all that, expect everyone to start on softs, for Massa to lead into turn 1, for Vettel and Webber to pit on consecutive laps (their weights were identical). The top 8, plus Kovaleinen and Fisichella might all 3-stop, but nobody will 1-stop (if they did, Piquet or Buemi might start on hards, then use softs for 36 laps, which is surely pushing things too far).

Predictions for tomorrow's result in next post (expect it at 19:15).

Theissen on Bahrain strategy

Auto Motor und Sport have an article (in German) where they ask Mario Theissen about BMW's terrible performance. He says that after qualifying a lowly 13th and 14th they'd "tanked up, put on the hard tyres, and hoped for a safety car."

This is the sort of risk that Piquet took in Germany last year and was probably the right thing to do, since they wouldn't (probably) have been able to do anything else from where they were, in the 7th best car.

However, Bahrain is not the sort of track where a safety car is likely (I don't rememebr any) because of its massive runoff areas and clear sight lines.

Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The article also mentions an aero-upgrade for Barcelona. But they all say that.