In the sunny Valencia enjoyed Kamui Kobayashi and Pedro de la Rosa a smooth first day of practice for the Grand Prix of Europe. It was necessary to find the right balance for the car to optimize brake stability and to gain experience with the two compounds of Bridgestone tires on the street circuit. However, the residue on the top 10 but was again quite large.

“We now have a huge program processed and everything went very well,” said Kobayashi, the 14th with 1.623 seconds gap was. “The new aerodynamics package we need to work on the car balance. It is quite reasonable, but we have to analyze lots of data from today and I am sure there is in it even more. This morning I took the route less polluted than expected . faster tire wear was an issue in the first practice, but in the afternoon, no more. ”
Pedro de la Rosa was 15, was just fractions of a second slower than his teammate. “We have during the day made many changes to the car, to prepare us for tomorrow’s qualifying,” said the Spaniard. “Mainly we have focused on the braking stability. Both tire compounds have on the warm asphalt works pretty well and I did not expect to difficulties, as we have had in Canada. I am today for the first time went on this course. It took a few laps in order to familiarize myself with to catch properly especially the many break points, but I liked the track quickly. ”
“Today, we are no technical problems with the cars,” said technical director James Key had, “and that was good, because in both sessions we had much to do. Adapt We had the car set to the new aero package. This is the first step, to make the car lighter mobile. Basically, we have already found a direction that we can track for tomorrow, but today we must look at all the information evening and see what measures we can implement. ”

He continued: “We still have to work on consistency. If you look at the sector times look, they do not reflect truly reflect the lap times. We need to ensure that drivers can get out of a complete round of the best from the car. We have some areas have made progress and in others still to be done. ”

(TMS)

After the not very successful weekend in Canada is at Renault in reparations from Valencia. Then do it in Montreal, failed to make ground on Mercedes, but considers the silver arrows were not even going, it will run better in Spain. The R30 has been upgraded to catch up in the Spanish port city with new parts. Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov, who won there in GP2 already are confident at least for the weekend.

Kubica looks at the layout of lines similar to Montreal. “The biggest difference between the two circuits makes the asphalt. In Montreal, the new pavement proved to be extremely slippery. In this regard, should the tar in Valencia offer a higher level and play for us in the cards – even if the playing field equal for all” believes the poles, the speculation with a higher grip levels: “It is also in Spain, at a road course, we count on Friday again with low grip, in the course of the weekend but should be always better – especially in the framework more racing series at the Start walking with their tire wear should also create a firmer track. ”
Both Kubica and Petrov swarm in contrast to their colleagues about Valencia. “I was not only because of my GP2 victory of good memories of Valencia. I know the track inside out in terms of braking points, racing line, which curbs you can run over any problems and how the tires will behave in the race. Of course, that is in a Formula 1 all represent something different. But my starting point will be better than in Canada, “says the young Russian.

His Polish team-mate, it looks like this: “I know that many drivers assess this differently, but for me, I can say I like the track. The mixture of street circuit and a modern Grand Prix circuit makes the thing from my point of view so interesting. The basic layout reminiscent of the many rather slow corners at the Grand Prix of Canada. As in Montreal, it is in Valencia in the first place on a high braking stability and traction for accelerating out – and this should be our Renault R30. ”
Aerodynamics important than in Canada

However in Valencia, aerodynamics more into play, so Kubica: “We will go with a higher degree of aerodynamic downforce at the start than in Canada, yet comes to the aerodynamic efficiency is very important: As many as four times per round, we penetrate into very high speed ranges before. ” Petrov for the beloved Valencia comes after the disappointment of Canada just right. The Russian said, however, that he has learned from the weekend in his teaching overseas.
“First of all, I am of course aware that I have undermined during the race bug”, there are self-critical and Petrov said: “At the start I have made too much risk when I saw the grass beside the track in line with my incorporated. They paid off Unfortunately not, instead I was given a drive-through penalty. However, it was important to finish the race and collect more information – especially about the handling of the tires in different conditions. This experience I will help in the future, in certain situations better . respond ”

The focus at Renault but at the moment the duel with Mercedes. The French want to finish the season fail before the silver arrows. 29 points separate the two teams currently work from each other. For Kubica, the distance “to the stables, which are currently at the top is not so huge. But we must still make up a lot of ground. And so we will only succeed if we continue to work full steam ahead and improve ourselves constantly.”

The Pole is certainly top-motivated: “If it goes for me, after we beat everybody, not just Mercedes.” The new parts on the R30 will bring about change. “I wonder how much the car improved and if I need to adjust my driving style,” said Petrov, who also assesses other strong teams, “In Montréal Force India was very fast. We must see that we can beat them . In addition, enjoys the duel with Mercedes currently the highest priority for our team. “

Before the race on the Ile Notre Dame in Montreal to face the teams on two main questions: Is it early in the race to a safety car period? Which tires should start the race? Sam Michael, Technical Director of the Williams team, explains his thoughts, which he makes in this regard before the clock start at 18 GMT.

“We have not yet decided whether we will start on the hard or soft compound,” said Michael. “There are two different approaches. If one assumes that there will be in the early stages of the race a Safety Car period, take the soft tires, to have used them and they runterzubekommen again.”
“If one does not believe that it is not the safety car comes out, you might want to be on the hard compound to be able to drive around for two long stints,” said Michael further. The Grand Prix of Canada would be one way or another for at least a two-stop race, because you could not possibly survive due to high tire wear, with only one tire change the distance of 70 laps.

Williams is with Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg the two best-placed driver who may choose their tires before the race, free. Michael would therefore not exclude that we could possibly send its pilots with different strategies in the race to be prepared for all eventualities.
But a look into the past leaving Michael to assume that safety car driver Bernd will turn out Mayländer with high probability during the race. “The likelihood of a safety car deployment is very high. It was always like that. We had been in 19 races Safety Car periods, sometimes up to four per race.”

There are many indications that this in this year’s race will hardly be otherwise. “Now we have six more cars on the grid and to two types of tires that will be hard to drive due to the strong graining – all of which increases the probability of safety car interventions,” said Michael concludes.

As we already know, the changes of the regulation will cause the F1 cars to have approximately 100 kilos more at the beginning of the race in comparison to the past.  In addition to this, there are a series of challenges the F1 designers are facing; brakes’ wear, steering wheel’s, weight distribution and tire wear.  Any team that tries to solve these problems will go through difficult times, specially at the beginning of the season, until it’s updated and solutions are found.

 ¿What are the possible solutions?

 The starting point for most of this year’s F1 designers is the prohibition to fill up the fuel tanks.  Instead of cars with a maximum weight of 660-700 kg in the beginning of the race and 605 kg at the end, variation will be greater this year.

 This will not only affect the time per lap, but several other aspects:

 Brakes

 The cars’ brakes will have more presence this year because, carrying more weight, they will have to work harder and the pilots will need to decelerate harder with their cars full of fuel.  The designers will have to do things well so that the single-seaters brake correctly during the whole race and suffer the least wear possible.

 Likewise, they have to face all those who will use the same brakes as last year’s (size).

Last year there were serious problems with the brakes. For instance, in Singapore when Mark Webber crashed due to lack of them, a few minutes after the team had warned him through the radio that there was a problem with the brakes and should go back to the boxes.  The problem to be worked out by the engineers is indeed important.

 Height

 Another problem for the designers is the great weight resulting from the amount of fuel which will cause the single-seaters to be higher at the beginning of the race.  For an optimum performance, cars have to be as low as possible, but as the weight of the fuel decreases their height will increase since there will be less mass pushing the cushion springs down.

 During the last two seasons when filling up was not allowed in the F1 -1992 y 1993-, many teams solved this problem using the active suspension technology, which can be programmed to compensate the lowering amount of fuel through a progressive reduction of the single-seated height.  However, two clauses on the current norms prevent the use of these systems, leaving the option that the mechanics manually adjust the speed’s height during the stops at the boxes.  Then again, this may be too complicated and takes a lot of time to do.  Is it possible that they’re studying the way to simplify this?

 As has been the case since 1994, the teams that race with very low cars risk wearing out their drag blocks (also known as "tables").

 With the fill up ban, the teams now have to adapt to the best performance possible.

 Hence we have to take into account the different engines’ types of fuel consumption; a real challenge.  This year, many cars will have Cosworth engines which performance is a mystery.

 Weight distribution

  Reduction of the front tire’s width combined with bigger fuel tanks imply many changes on weight distribution.  The front tires will be 25 mm thinner in 2010 than last year.  So, while in 2009 designers used to move the weight distribution towards the front, it’s possible that this year they try to move it backwards.

 This might also produce a reversion of the trend to have less distance between axles that we witnessed last year.  In addition to this, this season, Bridgestone will have to supply more lasting tires capable of enduring more weight-wear.

 Rear diffusers

One of the greatest technical achievements of 2009 has been the double diffusers.  The teams might use them again in 2010, even though the FIA is looking for its ban in 2011.

 They offer an increase of the so very valuable aerodynamics downforces and it’s quite unlikely that any team runs without them, this year.  Even though, according to the USF1 technicians’ statements, who declare to be swimming against the tide, we might be surprised.

In 2010, the design engineers will have to work hard again, because the air flow around the rear part of the car will be compromised due to the larger fuel tanks which will demand that the place of the radiators is changed.

Ferrari has confirmed to have integrated the oil reservoir beside the gearbox to give more space to the fuel tank.