Most liked posts in thread: F1 - 2012

McLaren have decided the other teams had the right idea and their car's nose needs to be a bit higher after all. They can't easily rebuild the chassis though to raise the underside (too much redevelopment, crash tests, etc) so no broken nose, they just pulled the nose up at the end to get as much flow to the underside as possible. I see they also added a few little winglets on top of the side pods and there's a strange new ridge sitting across the front of the chassis behind the nose. There are undoubtedly quite a few other alterations to go with this new aero philosophy but I think these are the most obvious.

 

Thanks, I missed that. It'll probably go away then after practice.

 

They're from practice in Spain. Here's another:



They tested the new nose first in Mugello and apparently decided it works because they took it to Spain.

 

Hamilton's Spanish Grand Prix pole position hanging in the balance (Autosport.com)

 

Hamilton demoted, Maldonado inherits pole position.

Hamilton's penalty is a bit severe IMHO; "excluded" from qualifying and will start last.

Yes, it was a breach of the rules to stop on the track without an emergency and yes, he did that because they decided he wouldn't have made it back with the required full liter of fuel for testing and yes, that means they broke one rule to avoid breaking another and yes, they could have avoided the issue by putting more fuel in the tank. They broke a rule or two, I get it.

I still think dropping him all the way to the back -- even behind Karthikeyan who requires a waiver to run because he missed the 107% mark -- is extreme. It's because he doesn't officially have a qualifying time since he was "excluded" but it seems like there ought to be another option like just excluding him from Q3.

Oh well, Maldonado and Williams on the pole! After Williams' poor run last season that's an unexpected result regardless of the reason.

 

Huge fire breaks out in Williams garage (GPUpdate.com)

Warning, there's a race-result spoiler in this post-race story:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9QLET_u1DA[/ame]

 

Williams working to determine cause of fire, FIA says 31 people treated in total (AutoSport.com)

Pastor Maldonado helping out during the incident:

 

After 5 races, not only 5 different winning drivers but 5 different teams! And we still have Kimi who seems to have a good shot at a win.....two weeks to Monaco.

 

A bit of video of the Williams fire from the other side of the pit box.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ5SotvBjYw]WILLIAMS BOX EXPLOSION - GRAN EXPLOSIÓN EN MONTMELO - YouTube[/ame]

 

Lots of equipment damaged in the fire:

Williams overwhelmed by rivals' help (Autosport.com)