Sometimes F1 confuses me. Recent examples would be the recent steward interventions, the introduction of the winner takes all points system, and Max Mosley's recent assurances that F1 does not need Ferrari.
Yet sometimes F1 downright aggravates me and leaves me begging the question why almost an entire series filled with some of the biggest car companies in the world cannot get one component of a car right? Why has KERS been such a problem?
On one hand the issue seems fairly obvious, it's a question of weight. Weight affects everything in motorsport, decreasing acceleration, braking power and putting more strain on the engine and tyres. The KERS equipment is a weighty device which adds considerable ballast to a finely balanced rather edgy machine.
Therefore, KERS is a piece of kit that must not only be designed to save weight but also not effect the balance and speed of the car.
Not only this, but is the development of KERS is seen as an important step in the direction of energy conservation. F1 is at the forefront of developing KERS for all forms of motorsportand transport and this continues on from the recent messages F1 has been sending out about the importance of looking after the enviroment, so far with Honda and the "earth" car. However, the pinnacle of motorsport has been unable to balance KERS and performance.
One way the teams have tried to combat the drawbacks of KERS is to shed weight off the drivers. Over the winter only the wiry Kazuki Nakajima gained weight. This weight reduction has turned F1 drivers effectively into motorised jockeys but failed it seems to solve the weight issue.
However this does not seem to be the crux of the KERS problem. Surely it's the performance (or mainly lack of) thus far during the race weekends.
Of the nine teams planning to run KERS this year only four teams have done so, and only three of which have run KERS on both cars. This hardly encourages the smaller teams to introduce KERS. However, while the small turnout for KERS has been an issue, its relative lack of performance has been a hammer blow.
KERS is designed to give a 6.7 second boost of power to the engine of the car per lap. It uses up the excess energy from the brakes in order to recharge a cell to provide the engine with this power. Therefore, this gives a car kitted with KERS a significant advantage at the start of a race or when attempting a pass on a long straight. However, so far this supposed advantage has not offset the overwhelming problems.
Ferrari have had a disastrous time with KERS, with the failure in Malaysia on Kimi Raikkonen's car being the "highlight." Furthermore they've seen very little performance advantage with the exception of the increased acceleration at the start. Thus far Ferrari is averaging less than a point per race this season.
Indeed Ferrari's strongest weekend was arguably when they didn't use KERS, in China, when Massa was running well in the points before reliability problems cost him.
Of the other three teams that have used KERS only McLaren have seen a net gain. Renault have been solidly mid-pack thus far and BMW-Sauber have struggled with the weight issue so much that Robert Kubica has been unable to effectively use KERS at all.
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