yeah, Toyota arent using it, possibly planning on going the season without it infact.

The 3rd 'all in' team was Renault... so basically its the bottom 10 if anything

Quote from PaulC2K :

oh, and they mentioned in the BBC commentry that the issue of the lack of visable indication had been brought up to the FIA (or whoever it would be) to show who was using it and who wasnt...

Good to hear that at least some people in F1 are finally waking up... Published car weight after Quali is another long overdue step that they want to do for the first time tomorrow.

Of course that's still a far cry from Nascar where they can screen overlay multiple moving cars with live telemetry and have onboard views of all incidents from all involved cars immediately after the incident, not months later on the season review DVD, and played in real time, not pointless slo mo.

I could go on but at least F1 is beginning to respect their viewers a little bit.

Looks like those that are using KERS are using Ion Lithium batteries (same stuff that mobile phones, laptops and the Tesla Roadster use) while Williams was the only team to try and get a mechanical energy storage to work (less weight than batteries) but failed. Bosch seems to have a mechanical system ready but AFAICT nobody bought it...

Two other concepts that had been thought of but it looks like nobody tried are super capacitors and fluid pressure storage.

woot williams

couldnt have hoped for a better FP result

Rosberg knows Melbourne very well

Concerning the KERS-usage, the commentators here seemed know rather well who used it and who didn't.. They even spotted Massa using the button with his right hand in the exit of some turn (unless it's again the same bs it used to be and they have no idea what they're talking about and in fact Massa was on the radio to the pits :shrug

But yeah, the promise was a detailed overlay about KERS-usage and team radio conversations of all the teams. Where were they?

More goodies on the BBC red button and website, they're showing full replays of both practice sessions (with 5live commentary) plus a little preview feature with DC talking about the rule changes and Webber visiting the bush fire victims

Quite impressed with the coverage so far

Quote from J.B. :

Looks like those that are using KERS are using Ion Lithium batteries

lifepos actually which barely contain any lithium and are fairly safe to use

Quote from Shotglass :

lifepos actually which barely contain any lithium and are fairly safe to use

Just had a quick look at the Wikipedia article. It says energy per mass is lower than with normal Li-ion cells. So what might the advantages be for F1? Safety? Do you know if they are all using this type of battery?

im certain that mclaren use ones built by a123
the big advantage is that you can charge them at up to 4c without damaging the cells and probably a lot more if you only want to use them for 1 1/2h before throwing them in the bin
also you dont really need to worry about balanced charging and all the other rubbish that you have to consider with liions or lipos
and best of all from my rc experience and a friends brothers experience with soft airs the discharge curve is about as good as can be

dammit, couldn't find any streams so couldn't watch it. Thats sucks. Does anyone have a replay of it? anywhere i can get it?

Lipos are used a lot in RC because of weight vs output. I've not heard of anyone prefering anything else at least when it comes to planes and helicpoters. They like slow recharges though and are prone to catching on fire if the discharge rate goes over their limit. I'm guessing recharge rate is almost as important as discharge rate with KERS.

EDIT: ^ check your pm

Quote from aroX123 :

dammit, couldn't find any streams so couldn't watch it. Thats sucks. Does anyone have a replay of it? anywhere i can get it?

Hamilton was almost dead last. That's all you need to know.

If your a McLaren fan the only faint glimmer of hope you've got is that last year BMW spend FP1 and FP2 a good couple of seconds off the pace not looking all that good. Somehow I doubt McLaren will have the same impact tomorrow.

Good to see Rosberg up there. Always like the fact he didn't always use his name to shortcut his career and proved he could race in anything

Though Button seems to be moe than comfortable in that BrawnGP. I haven't see him use so much circuit to place his car for 2-3 years now.

Its good to see 4 teams near the top that weren't there last year. In fact the big three last year arn't looking that good in practice.

Just what we need

Did anyone else notice that Ant was less the complimentary about Bruno Senna? He didn't say anything direct but considering his inside connections at BrawnGP it appears they may not have been impressed with his performance as we were led to believe. I thought he did OK but hey ho.

What I am hearing though that is some teams are already looking at pay drivers once again. It's a shame because F1 recently hasn't been TOO bad in that respect but it could be returning. It will be fairly obvious IF what I hear comes true who's paying to play.

God.... McLaren are getting slaughtered and tramped on..... Pain to watch, i guess this season is the one where we suffer and give those teams that suffered last year the lead.

Quote from DevilDare :

God.... McLaren are getting slaughtered and tramped on..... Pain to watch, i guess this season is the one where we suffer and give those teams that suffered last year the lead.

Yay, McLaren failure

BrawnGP and BMW ftw.
Gotta wake up @ 7:50AM tomorrow to watch Qualifying, cant wait

We? Why do people insist on referring to sporting teams as 'we' when they don't work for them, haven't worked for them and, in all probability, never will work for them.

McLaren are great at refinement engineering, but obviously less good at blank sheet design from scratch. That means they'll catch up though, so don't be too surprised to see podiums by the European races and wins by mid-season.

Williams have surprised me a lot!

Indeed, while we've all been giving Brawn all the attention, Williams have snuck up under the radar, funny that just a week ago people were writing them off completely.

It'll be inetersting to see if the rule changes even do anything at all to encourage overtaking.

looks like being really interesting this weekend. my biggest worry is reliability for some teams. brawn have had to rejig their car for an engine and transmission it wasn't designed for so i wouldn't be surprised if stupid things like fluid or electrical connections fail on them. red bull appears to have a few problems judging by vittel's practice sessions which makes you wonder if it's going to be another case of newey concentrating on performance and tight packaging over practicality. also if the soft tyres do go off as quick as it appears then we could see some really wild drives on them when they grain. add in the fact that at 2/3rds distance the air and track temps will probably be like they were for the last 1/2 hour of the second practice and you potentially have the recipe for an action packed last part of the race.

Quote from DevilDare :

God.... McLaren are getting slaughtered and tramped on..... Pain to watch, i guess this season is the one where we suffer and give those teams that suffered last year the lead.

I guess that's what happens when you don't have the technical details of one of your competitors to borrow ideas from.

Anyway, as we all know FP counts for less than nothing. Some teams are doing low fuel runs on new tyres, others are doing race fuel runs on older tyres, people will be trying out their KERS strategies etc. The cars still look ugly, IMO.

[quote=amp88;1114730]
Anyway, as we all know FP counts for less than nothing. Some teams are doing low fuel runs on new tyres, others are doing race fuel runs on older tyres, people will be trying out their KERS strategies etc. quote]

...and Hamilton was clearing up the rubber his team mate left on the track a few seconds ahead of him. At least that's what it looked like he was trying to do, everytime I saw him he was weaving about in an odd way.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

...and Hamilton was clearing up the rubber his team mate left on the track a few seconds ahead of him. At least that's what it looked like he was trying to do, everytime I saw him he was weaving about in an odd way.

I think he was actually crying so much he couldn't hold the wheel straight...

Does anyone know what channel the F1 will be on for live qual in the uk since i can't find it anywhere.