Bleacher Report - Articles by Tom Hines

Ferrari Suffering from the Mystery of Momentum

Tom Hines — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:15:19 -0400

In the final millimetres, success, and so failure, in sport is all about momentum. It’s an intangible and invisible thing, but when a sportsman manages to trap some of those attitude-bending fumes in a racquet-bag, boot-room, or race garage, the wins that follow have a feeling of inevitability about them.

Roger Federer is still a more complete tennis player than Andy Murray, but if they were drawn to play tomorrow, I’d back the shouty Scot every time. He’s got the momentum between the two. In a similar vein, I had the privilege this season (and I use that word in it’s purest sense) to be in the stands at White Hart Lane when the final whistle went on Spurs’ 1-0 victory over Chelsea.

I’m a nervous, pessimistic football fan, but there was something in the buildup to that game, something in Spurs’ recent re-acquaintance with winning and Chelsea’s stuttering form that made me sure my boys were going to beat the title-tilted Champions League contenders. The momentum made it inevitable.

Going Nowhere

Dash quickly half way around the world and several shades across the sporting spectrum, and it is still momentum, or lack of it, that has polarised the fortunes of Brawn GP and Ferrari.

Despite the alphabetical inconvenience, Button, Barrichello, and Brawn are F1’s indisputable A-Team right now, they hit the ground at pace in Barcelona and have been speeding up ever since. Meanwhile, Ferrari are anchored to the foot of the constructors championship, casting jealous upwards glances at the likes of Red Bull, Williams, and Toyota, who have all so easily overcome the inertia of zero-points.

The red cars have had a couple of hellish race weekends this year, and had it not been for lie-gate, diffuser-gate, and the Brawn GP fairy story, the big news would be of a waning super power, riddled with poor decision-making, a lack of engineering imagination, and reliability issues.

The fact that the new team belonging to the man who master-minded Ferrari’s glory days is now the darling of the sport, only highlights how sluggish the prancing horses are these days. Sending Kimi out onto a dry Sepang circuit sporting full-wets was an arrestingly risky and daft thing for Ferrari to do, and would have been utterly unthinkable five years ago.

Substitute the Finn for Shumacher, then equip Brawn with the mandatory red fleece and transplant him back to the Ferrari pit-wall. Now, try to imagine the same call being made and the left side of your brain will laugh the right side clean out of your skull.

And while Kimi was busy laying down more rubber than a Durex salesman, Ross Brawn was measuring out his strategy to perfection, holding Button until Rosberg pitted and then unleashing the Briton for two stellar laps, getting him in and him out again on the right tyres and in P1.

Nothing New

Ferrari’s team principal, Stefano Domenicali, has admitted that Ferrari’s struggle with the F60 is partly down to the relatively limited time they’ve had developing the car after last year’s title battle went down to the last race of the season.

But let’s not forget that Massa would have had the championship engraved and on the mantelpiece before that last race had team mistakes in Canada, Singapore, and Italy not cost him significant points hauls. The accuracy and infallibility of the team was already on the slide 12 months ago. They had lost their momentum before the F60 was even sketched out.

Martin Whitmarsh has also cited the lengthy ’08 title race as the reason why his McLaren team’s MP4-24 is struggling for pace, but taking their on-track performances in isolation, even McLaren are rolling with much more of that magic momentum than Ferrari.

Hamilton’s finishes in both outings this year have exceeded expectations and, under race conditions, he has been able to eek out enough pace and control to mix it with the mid-table teams—even that seemed unlikely after the preseason.

McLaren will improve further, as will Ferrari. They both have enough talent, money, and desire to creep their way back up the tables, but with testing and wind-tunnel time so sparse this year, it will take a couple of months at best before they can roll up close behind the momentum-masters at Brawn GP.

Wayne Kerr and Toro Rosso's April Fools

Tom Hines — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:30:13 -0400

Thought the F1 room might appreciate the following April 1st Sepang Preview press release that Toro Rosso sent around this morning. No doubt the headline would have April-fooled some journo's out there, but hopefully they would have realised it's a gag by the time they got to the name of Toro Ross's head of KERS...

Nice effort from the Red Bull junior team - who said there was no personality left in F1.

The following is word-for-word what they sent out:

MALAYSIAN GRAND PRIXVIEW

SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO TO USE KERS AT SEPANG CIRCUIT

Although it wasn't planned to introduce KERS until later in the season, recent

progress made at our Faenza R & D facility means that Scuderia Toro Rosso

will now use Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems on its cars in Sepang, for the

second round of the World Championship.

In  the  interests  of  maximising  car  reliability  in  the  high  temperatures  and

humidity usually encountered in Malaysia, the KERS systems will not actually

use  the  recovered  energy  to  boost  engine  power  in  the  usual  fashion.

Instead, the teams plan to use KERS as a sophisticated DCA (Driver Cooling

Aid.)

"We  are  indebted  to  Professor  Hugh  Masterby-Jerrkin  of  Imperial  College,

London  for  his  department's  assistance  in  moving  this  project  forward  so

quickly," commented  Wayne Kerr, Toro  Rosso's Head of KERS. "While the

team was racing in Melbourne, we came directly to Kuala Lumpur to evaluate

the system in real conditions and for this we were given invaluable help by

the Thermal Energy faculty of the Kuala Lumpur Polytechnic, particularly the

head of department, Doctor Ku Lin 'Ng Phaan.

Kimi, KERS, and the End of an Era? F1's 10 Biggest Questions in '09

Tom Hines — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:42:14 -0400

It's no overstatement to say that the 2009 F1 season has more uncertainty and subplots attached to it than any that the sport has seen for over 20 years. Not since turbo charged engines were banned in 1989 have such fundamental technical changes thrown the established order up in the air, and as the speculation intensifies ahead of the Aussie GP over how they'll land, here are the ten most pressing questions of the 2009 F1 season.

Begin Slideshow

Why the Proposed F1 Points System Would Be Very Bad News for the Sport

Tom Hines — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 07:59:44 -0400

It’s a pretty elusive balance that F1 has to strike between evolving and alienating. Seven years ago, when we were deep in the Shumi/Ferrari age of excellence, hundreds of thousands of race fans spent hundreds of thousands of Sunday afternoons baying for rule changes that would reacquaint the sport with overtaking, excitement and unpredictability.

Early this week, when the FIA announced plans for a “winner takes all” way of deciding the title, message boards, forums and blog sites erupted with indignation and vitriol against what was in reality, a tiny change to F1.

In the main, these weren’t objections to the theory behind the rule change, they were much more fundamental revolts against the principal of it.

The general gist being “Why are they tinkering with our sport?” “It ain’t broke so don’t fix it,” and “we don’t want changes made just so numpties can find the sport more accessible.”

Numpties
I’m sure the following conversation is familiar (often with a new girlfriend or boyfriend who is trying to understand why you’re sitting inside on a sunny Sunday, glued to the TV and cultivating a vitamin E deficiency):

Pastey F1 fan: “If the chap in the red car finishes three places ahead of the chap in the silver car then the chap in the silver car must come at least two places higher than the chap in the red car in the next two races, but not finish lower than fourth next time out otherwise he can’t win the title.”

Bemused other half: “Gosh. It’s a bit complicated isn’t it?”

Pasty (slightly frustrated) F1 fan: “Not really. You just have to know what’s going on.”

Simply saying whoever wins the most races wins the title does make that whole thing that bit more accessible, but as we saw from this week’s reactions, it does so at the cost of alienating F1’s heartland.

F1 die-hards love the intricacies and the subtleties and the plethora of permutations that a season can throw up.

The winner takes all change meanwhile would have appealed to, and attracted more casual, more fickle fans.

The problem with fickle fans is that they have a tendency to bugger off just as quickly as they arrive!

And when the fickle fans move on to sport's next shiny thing, they leave behind a big void, and an alienated hardcore.

Hands off, it's ours
It may be because the politics in F1 are so public that we feel like we have more of a claim to the sport, it may be that hardcore F1 fans have to invest more time than most into understanding the intricacies of it, or it may just be that we’re all a bit obsessive and geeky.

But whatever the reason, the F1 heartland stakes a huge claim to it’s chosen sport and the governing bodies need to respect that at every turn.

It's not that F1 fans don't want new-comers to the sport, it's that they don't want new-comers at the cost of the sport's integrity.

Spectacular moments of competition is what everyone wants from F1, and it’s the attractive power of that which F1 needs to put its faith in. Get that right and you don't need minor changes to attract fickle fans.

Don’t tinker. And never sell out your heartland.

Kimi Raikkonen Will Be the Champ...unless Global Warming or Germans Stop Him

Tom Hines — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 05:57:55 -0400

As Felipe Massa stood on top of the podium in Brazil last year, beating his chest and blubbering his way into the hearts of right-thinking sports fans the world over, his teammate Kimi Raikkonen probably felt a bit embarrassed by all the emotion.

There was a whiff of Mussolini in the way that Massa plumped out that puggish bottom lip, hand on heart, thirty feet above throngs of adoring, flag-waving fans with their nationalistic fever.

Meanwhile Kimi had been slipping into failure for months prior, in an altogether more elegant, understated, and Nordic manner. The Iceman's title challenge had melted away long before the fervour of abrupt defeat stoked up Massa's Latino fire.

The 29-year-old Finn has since become F1's herpes—everyone knows what he can do, but no one really talks about him. We've all been preoccupied with Ross Brawn's new role as fairy godmother , McLaren's ongoing battles with physics, and the FIA's machinations over whether Kimi will secure his second world title by virtue of points or race wins.

Kimi?

That's right, Kimi's second title. Just as dreamy as the 2008 Ferrari was for Massa it was equally as frustrating for Raikkonen. It suited his driving style about as well as Bernie Ecclestone would suit a pair of French knickers and a peep-hole bra.

But the '09 machine is shaping up to be an entirely different prospect, Ferrari will be up there at the end of the season but it will be Kimi leading their charge this time around.

A lighter back end, rear tires that go off quicker than the fronts and about 15 percent less downforce than last year, mean that precision driving will be everything and oversteer will be king. This, makes for a machine more suited to Raikkonen's driving style than Massa's preference for understeer—a key reaon for his form in the '08 car.

Also if we get a few wet races, God help the Brazilian, the instabilities of the '09 cars will be exaggerated in the rain, and as Massa proved last year at Silverstone, he's not at his most comfortable on wets.

It's ironic that a sport trying so hard to push it's environmental credentials for the sake of popularity, is that much more exciting when it rains—and wetter European summers are one of the predicted symptoms of climate change.

Title challengers

Kimi will of course have challengers for the title and if we do get a dose of downpours it could suit his rivals.

Typically, the Brits will do well in the rain. We are used to it after all. Hamilton's mastery in the wet is one of the most blissful sights in modern F1, and Button's exceptional car control means that with a decent machine under him this year, he'll take some beating on reduced grip.

If the rain doesn't add an extra aspect of unpredictability (as if we needed anymore this season!) then it could be good old German inexorability and planning that bars Kimi from his second title.

BMW have had this year earmarked for their title push since their entry as a team owner in 2006. They are so dedicated to this plan that they sacrificed a title winning position last year in order to throw development resources at the '09 car.

With that kind of devotion, a nose ahead in the KERS race and a team principal whose moustache looks better engineered than Force India's car, Kubica and even Heidfeld should also not be discounted as possible title contenders.

What McLaren's Barcelona Paint Job Tells Us About Their Testing Troubles

Tom Hines — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:10:42 -0400

There's been a fair amount written in these pages about McLaren's stalling preseason test times, and as final preparations continue in Barcelona, the outfit that powered Hamilton to the championship last season is again well off the pace.

As far as McLaren were concerned, there were two eye-catching aspects of the Barcelona outings—they were consistently a second or two off the pace, and they finished up with gaudy, fluorescent green paint spattered on the top, side and floor of the car.

Using paint to show how air is flowing over an F1 car is nothing new, and fairly standard practice for F1 teams, but for McLaren to be doing it so close to the start of the season, and in public is unusual. And it gives us a couple of clues as to what problems they might be trying to overcome.

Dodgy airflow

The fluorescent paint trick allows you to visually trace airflow over the entire length of the car. The aim is to get a nice, smooth, uninterrupted stream of air.

If there are traces of the paint pooling or building up anywhere then it shows a break in this smooth flow of air. Conversely it also identifies points where the airflow is leaving the surface of the car, both of which indicate an aero problem.

So, the first thing that can be inferred from McLaren indulging in a bit of high-speed Spanish redecoration is that they are having problems with the airflow over the top or bottom of the MP4-24.

A situation that would be consistent with the fact that they are still switching between the '08 and '09 rear wings.

Secondly, and this is the interesting bit for me, McLaren aren't a team that readily admits to too many problems or weaknesses (remember how strongly they denied a rift between Hamilton and Alonso even when every single F1 fan in the world could see what was happening), so for them to so clearly show in public that they are battling aero issues is unusual.

Out in the open!

Normally this kind of testing is done on closed circuits, in the wind tunnel or by computer simulation (not least because global marketing managers don't take too kindly to paying top whack for sponsorship space, then seeing their logos get sneezed on at 200mph by a fluorescent green nose cone).

The fact that McLaren feel the need to carry out this kind of testing in public, at race circuits, suggests that an inconsistency between wind tunnel figures and on-track performance is forcing them to.

In reality testing is testing, nothing more. Just as I wouldn't expect Button to win in Australia despite his showing on Thursday, I also don't expect McLaren to be as far back as their times this week suggest. Let's not forget that just a month ago Hamilton was topping the time sheets in Jerez.

One thing is for sure, though—the paint job shows there are still some touch-ups to complete before McLaren are ready for the off.

Bruno Senna Won't Be at Honda Next Year: A Good Thing for Him and for F1

Tom Hines — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:08:06 -0500

So, Bruno Senna is heading for the DTM with Mercedes and won't be racing a Formula 1 car next season.

There'll be no Senninho on the grid, no dewy-eyed laments from journos around the world about the Senna name returning to F1 and no enormous and unfair weight of expectation with which to batter a promising young sportsman or with which to embarrass a sport still in need of integrity.

Honda's (or Brawn Racing, call them what you will) decision to stick with Frasier look-alike Rubens Barrichello and the listless but perfectly stubbled Ray-Ban mannequin Jenson Button is good for F1 and good for Bruno.

With the swashbuckling Hamilton winning his first world championship at just 23, some of the most radical technical remoulding in recent years and the likes of Kubica, Vettel, BMW and Red Bull snapping at the heels of the establishment, F1 is genuinely unpredictable again, and on the verge of becoming a meritocracy!

To hand a race seat to a man who has only been racing for four years but happens to have the surname Senna would only have distracted from the real stories that will be played out this season of shifting powerbases and an emerging generation of excellent racers.

Senna would have failed to make an impact at Honda this season, just as Button and Barrichello will with a scratch car that has benefited from no on-track winter testing.

It does not necessarily have anything to do with driver talent; the car just won't be ready or competitive.

And to the casual observer who has heard the inevitable hype there would have been about Senna returning, his failure would have been more evidence with which to charge F1 with that age-old criticism of nepotism and elitism.

It's also good news for Senna. Barrichello only has one or two seasons left before rheumatism starts interfering with his paddle shift, and in that time, Ross Brawn will have a chance to make a real impact on the team.

It is a fair assumption that if all goes as planned up at Brackley, the car and team will be in even better shape this time next season, and that time Senna will have another year of very competitive racing under his balaclava.

If he does have the talent for F1, it will only be better honed by a year in the DTM, and racing with the manufacturer that is supplying Brawn's outfit with engines leaves the door to F1 gaping open for next year.

We've seen it in other sports where the likes of Michelle Wie or Theo Wallcott have had too much expected of them too soon and it damages their development.

So for the sake of the sport and the sake of a driver who is a thoroughly nice guy and nephew of a great, I'm glad that Bruno is being forced to play the long game. Good luck to him.

Five Future Stars of F1

Tom Hines — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:07:17 -0500

GP2's tag as Formula 1's feeder series has been well earned. In the four years since it arrived on the motorsport landscape, the FOM-backed championship has delivered no less than seven drivers to F1. The series can already boast to be Lewis Hamilton's last stop before becoming world champion, and as the 2009 line-ups take shape, over one third of the confirmed grid is made up of ex-GP2 drivers. Nico Rosberg (Williams), Kazuki Nakajima (Williams), Timo Glock (Toyota), Sebastien Buemi (Toro Rosso), Nelson Piquet Jr (Renault), Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren) and Hamilton (McLaren) have all graduated straight from GP2 to F1. But who's next? Here are five current GP2 drivers who have the potential to be F1's next bright young thing.

Begin Slideshow