Fresh F1

It took two hours to change KERS yesterday. The electric engine is placed right underneeth the oil tank and is connected to the crank shaft. The batteries weigh more or less 25 kg and are placed in a 12-15 cm high carbon fibre boot which is as wide as the area of the fuel tank and is placed inside of it.

BMW
Nick Heidfeld complained about traffic: ”Not in my fast lap but in the outlap. Barrichello came near me so rapidly that I had to move aside. Later on he was in front of me and I wasn’t able to go as fast as I wanted in order to get the tyres in the operating window. That’s annoying because the track kept getting faster and I wasn’t able to exploit that.”

On the decision to use KERS: ”The simulations (between using the device or not) were not clear. Therefore I wanted my feeling to decisive. I feel better with KERS. It gives a few advantages. Firstly the fact that you’re able to power boost at the beginning of a qualifying lap, secondly the start of the race and thirdly the fights.”

”You can very well simulate the laptimes when you have KERS on board having it switched on or off. However, the problems start when you need to calculate how the car reacts when the KERS elements have been taken out. This changes the centre of gravity of the car and then the consequences are hard to predict.”

With 692 kg of fuel Heidfeld has the heaviest car on the grid: ”That’s the only advantage starting from P11. You can freely choose your fuelload.”

What’s the prefered type of weather ? ”I wouldn’t mind rain.”

Theissen on lodging an official complaint against the double-decker diffusers: ”At the end of the day it doesn’t make any difference whether three or four teams decide to protest. Only for judicial reasons it was important that someone complained here. It’s to make sure that (the case at) this race will be treated by the appeal court in the exact same way as the case from Melbourne. We were already prepared to protest in Melbourne therefore we’ve taken up this role now. And the three teams that have already protested in Melbourne have supported our complaint in written form.”

The double-decker diffuser is said to bring 0.5 seconds. So if those diffusers will be banned then the gap to those teams will be dramatically reduced: ”But obviously we’ll only be satisifed once we’re at the front. But in any case it would change things completely. We would find ourselves in a good position.”

The teams in question defend themselves saying the complaining teams could have come up with this idea themselves: ”It’s not a matter of having this idea, in fact it’s been on the table several times and has also been discussed by the Technical Working Group. And because of these discussions we simply assumed that the diffuser is not in the grey area but outside of the regulations.”

Regardless of the decision that will be taken on the 14th of April, BMW Sauber has started working on a similar design: ”We’ve started developing something like it, eventhough, like before, we don’t think it’s in the spirit of the rules. It costs a lot of money and we rather not go this way but we simply don’t have any choice. We have to develop it in case you will definitively be allowed to use it.”

”You certainly don’t come up with a well working overall solution. I wouldn’t bet my life on us having this solution by the time of the Spanish GP. To be honest, I don’t know either where we are in this respect. After all, it’s a lot more than just the development of a diffuser. It has an influence on the entire aerodynamic concept. This requires a whole lot of development work and at the moment I cannot tell when we will be ready with a solution that is better than what we have now.”

A word on the current grid situation: ”It’s good to have fresh teams and fresh drivers at the front. It’s good to sometimes have someone else up there. A Formula 1 car is the most complex piece of machinery that you can imagine. So it’s inevitable there are grey areas. You cannot couch such a complex piece of machinery. But when there’s a situation like this on then it’s necessary to react quickly to get it under control.”

Red Bull
It’s interesting that Red Bull is doing very well without having a diffuser like that  ( and also without KERS ) : ”They’ve shown that in Melbourne. We have to look at all the fuel loads to see what all the times are worth. (But having a double-decker diffuser) makes for a very dominant effect, we’ve seen that in Melbourne but here even more.”

On the field being much tighter due to the new regulations: ”Between the first drivers and the last ones there were 1.4 seconds. For years there used to be 5 seconds in between that. At some stage we even had the 107% regulations denying anyone that qualified outside this percentage to take part in the race. At this track 7% would be 7 seconds and there would actually have been teams that wouldn’t have made it. So you can see how extremely close the field has moved together.”

”With (only) 1.4 seconds seperating 20 cars, the form of the day as well as the smallest of mistakes, either from the set-up or from the driver decides whether you’re at the front or at the back. That’s why you should be a little cautious interpreting the qualiying result. After all both Red Bull drivers, having a conventional diffuser, are in front of Kubica. That says it all really.”

Sebastian Vettel set the third fastest time but will have to start from P13 tomorrow. Normally you’d be hoping of rain but this of course is Malaysia… ”At Jerez we did a race simulation in the wet. But rain here isn’t rain. Really the whole sky falls down on you.” The confirmation of Vettel’s words came an hour after qualifying had ended: there was a cloudburst above the circuit and the sky turned as dark as night. Anyway, in case it stays dry the sun isn’t to pose as much as a problem as it did in Australia: ”In the evening the sun isn’t so low here. Therefore the visibility is better.”

KERS 
The KERS teams are not really up there: ”That goes to show that KERS still has a smaller influence compared to the aerodynamics and the tyres. Nevertheless KERS brings something, especially at this track. Just compare the first sector times between KERS-equipped cars and non-KERS-equipped cars. And when you look at the differences in topspeeds at the long straight then there’s a difference of 8 km/h.”

”Even if the KERS would be neutral over a lap, which it isn’t, then you would still have the strategic advantage of being fast on the straights or being able to defend your position having a weaker car. During the race that’s significant. But the influence from KERS is in the area of 0.3 seconds whereas the influence of having bad aerodynamics or the wrong tyres is in the area of 0.5 to 1 second.”

In Sepang BMW Sauber thought about not equipping Heidfeld’s car with the device: ”Yesterday we carried out a comparison. In the morning he used it, in the afternoon he didn’t. We did that because we wanted to have a direct comparison and because wanted to try whether we could really do it in between two practice sessions, taking the entire system out óf the car that is.”

”At the end of the day, on the basis of the data, Nick said he’s faster with KERS. Up to Q3 Nick was fast but then he hit traffic on his outlap which prevented him to prepare his tyres. Therefore he didn’t have the necessary pace in the first half of his flying lap.”

Kubica is to have KERS in the car as soon as possible as well: ”It’s our aim to prepare the car with KERS for him. This implies both development work to KERS as well as to the car. The problem is his weight and the resultant lack of ballast to outbalance the car. It’s not that KERS is causing the problem. I think he’ll use KERS over the course of the season in order to be able to drive at the front.”

Theissen doesn’t dare to predict how the rest of the season will go: ”You can’t make any predictions about the season, at the moment you can’t do that at all. Things could change completely at any time, it’s much too close.”

The season has only just started but we’ve had a lot of scandals and rows already, the Hamilton-Trulli story being the last one. ”At the moment Formula 1 is certainly not presenting itself in the way we want it to. Therefore I hope we will soon leave this situation behind. But Formula 1 has always lived by unpredictable things and irregularities. The discussions that publically come to life about this simply belong to it. But at the moment it’s too much.”

However, Theissen approves of the outcome of the Australian GP being changed once more a week later. ”Evaluating a situation and coming to another verdict on the basis of new knowledge I think is very good. But to have three or four parallel cases goes much too far. And we have to get back to the point in which someone the one driver that is standing on top of the podium has really won the race.”

On starting the Australian and Malaysian GP later during the day having more tv viewers: ”Safety ranks first, then come the tv viewers. The logistics can be adjusted to that. In Melbourne the problem of the low sun was simply not thought about, that’s a problem.”

”Here in Malaysia the rain is probably the biggest problem. A little delay would make the race come to an end because then it’s dark already. It’s to start the race later on but in this case 16:00 would have been better than 17:00 - and that’s what our Malaysian friends tell us as well.”

Toyota

Timo Glock will start from P3: ”I’m not happy with my attempt in Q3. Somehow I didn’t get a feeling for the grip with the new tyres in my first flying lap.”

On messing up the Friday practice sessions but once again making up for it overnight: ”It was like in Melbourne. We need quite a while to find the optimal set-up. I had incredible problems braking into middle-fast corners. The set-up changes that were carried out overnight have paid off, especially mechanically.”

Gass: ”We are very happy. We expected to do well here. Yesterday we had some problems but we improved the car overnight. Things look very good for tomorrow now.”

Brawn GP probably still is a bit better: ”On each track and under all circumstances they’ve showed to be doing well. There don’t appear to be problems when they put more fuel in the car. Therefore we shouldn’t expect them to massively drop off but we will in any case give our utmost and try to fight them.”

Both Toyota drivers have the exact same weight but Trulli was 0.417 seconds faster than Glok: ”Jarno likes this track a lot. He already scored some good results here. I hope he can continue that.”

Williams

Rosberg: ”After the good times from the practice sessions I was a little dissapointed. We’re simply too slow. Today both cars from Brawn GP and Toyota were faster than us.”

There’s room for improvement though: ”There’s still a whole lot more to get out of the car.”

On the race: ”The podium is possible. But we’re not going to win. Brawn GP is too strong for that. I hope for dry weather. But we would also be strong in the rain.” During testing Williams already had some practicing in the wet: ”We know how to modify the car for it.”

On not having a KERS car nearby: ”They’re too far off and shouldn’t be a problem.”

Force India

Sutil: ”Today we worked well. We had no problems and this is all that’s in the car. We could hardly have done any better.” The German has the same objective as last Sunday: ”Having a good race and making it to the end.” On the straights the VJM002 is actually very fast, which may help overtaking other cars: ”Everything’s possible. I’m still positive.”

Brawn GP

- Button: ”We’ve never driven with the car in the rain. That could become a whole new experience and I’d rather not undergo that during the race.”

”I had expected Ferrari to be stronger and I was also afraid of Red Bull. On Friday the car wasn’t optimally balanced. We had to put in a bit of mental work to improve the car. That’s the difference to last year. Nowadays, when we change something we notice it on the car. Last year you could do what you want but things always remained the same.”

When it stays dry then Button reckons Brawn GP will have the advantage: ”Our car is among the few that brings the hard tyres up to temperature. (Trulli: ”We don’t have a problem with a the hard tyres either.”) This can be decisive when it gets cooler in the evening.”

Barrichello: ”I have more fuel on board than Jenson but that doesn’t explain the big gap between us.”

The Brazilian ended up on P4 because the same happened to him as in Melbourne: ”With more fuel on board the car started to understeer. This especially hindered me in the middle-fast corners. I had to wait ages before I could hit the accelerator.” And then there’s the 5 place grid penalty: ”Now I’m behind a KERS car. It can take a long time before I move forward.”

Courtesy AFCA(AtlasF1BB)