Rivals’ warning for Red Bull in opener

Revamped Formula One season gets underway today.

KARACHI:

McLaren and Ferrari threw down the challenge to the world champion Red Bull team in yesterday’s practice for the season-opening Australian Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne that takes place tomorrow.

The Red Bull pair of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel dominated first free practice with Webber clocking a best lap of one minute 26.831 seconds, before Jenson Button led a McLaren one-two in the late afternoon hit-out.

Button, bidding for a hat-trick of Melbourne victories in tomorrow’s race, clocked 1:25.854, just 0.132 seconds ahead of 2008 world champion Lewis Hamilton.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was lurking with the third quickest time, indicating that the 16-time constructors’ champion team will be thereabouts in the first race.

Local hope Webber, bidding to improve on his best placing of fifth in a 12th attempt at winning his home Grand Prix, said Ferrari and McLaren looked in good shape.

Button pleased with car

Button, who is bidding to equal Michael Schumacher’s record of three consecutive Australian victories at Albert Park, was encouraged by McLaren’s advanced showing.

“Today showed that we’ve got reliability, which is great,” said Button.

“That’s something we’ve not had all winter so to have a car that runs for as many laps as we want is very satisfying.

Season underway after changes, rescheduling

The Formula One season is all set to kick-off and promises to be one of the most exciting in the sports’ history, with a number of changes introduced to make the racing much more entertaining.

The 2010 season was one of the closest fought seasons, with four drivers in contention for the title till the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi.

Yet, criticism was levelled at the sport for not being entertaining enough for the audiences.

Changes

Three significant changes will be introduced this year which aim to make races much more entertaining by improving the overtaking process and making race strategies an important component.

The regulation and tyre changes look very promising in making the sport much more entertaining.

And it should not be
forgotten that five world champions will be lining up on the grid this year to battle it out for the title in the form of Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton, Button and Sebastian Vettel. (WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING FROM AFP)

Movable rear wings

Last year, McLaren introduced the ‘F-duct’ which allowed their drivers to stall the rear wings to reduce drag and provide a superior straight-line speed. F-duct has been banned this year but drivers will now be able to control the rear wings. Pressing a button will flatten out the rear wing, eliminating the drag produced and will provide additional straight-line speed to the car.



No double diffusers

The Formula One Administration has also banned the use of double diffusers this year. The device, pioneered by the Brawn GP team (now Mercedes), was blamed for making the cars extremely aerodynamics reliant and thus making overtaking difficult as trailing cars were affected by the hot air.



KERS

The Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) and the power boost system will make a comeback in 2011 after being ditched in 2010. The device was used effectively by McLaren and Ferrari but had a negative effect on the handling of the car which ran the system.

This year’s systems will remove handling bias as the cars which would not run the system will have to carry excess weights to mimic the weight of the system. The system stores energy when the car brakes and converts it into electrical energy. This energy can be utilised and provides an additional 80 hp for the duration of about six seconds per lap.





Tyres

The biggest change has come in the form of the official tyre supplier. Pirelli will replace Bridgestone as the sole supplier and were tasked with producing a tyre which degrades at a much faster rate. A set of tyres is now expected to last about 15 to 20 laps which means  at least three to four pit stops in every race.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2011.