The Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is a part of 2009 Formula 1 regulations. and the also the top topic of these days. Forget for a while about its relevance to road car development. Let’s look instead how it may affect the Formula 1 teams. Events of past few days suggest that it may affect F1 significantly.

Several teams face obvious problems. Red Bull had to call the fire brigade and evacuate their Milton Keynes factory after KERS tests resulted in smoke and steam all over the place. Few days ago a BMW Sauber mechanic felt the KERS impact himself. He received electrical shock after touching the KERS testing F1 car during the pit stop in Jerez.Yesterday John Howett, Toyota team president, expressed his doubts that the KERS technology will be ready and safe to use when 2009 season begins. He suggested that most of the teams are struggling with KERS development. There have been even reports of a potentially extremely dangerous by-product of exploded KERS batteries - the arsenic poison.

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F1Wolf

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Rumours keep flying around (and there will be more) but at the end there are only 20 places on the grid and even less if one aims for race wins … Same as last winter everybody again waits for Alonso’s next move. He however does not really have anywhere to move to. There simply isn’t anywhere to go for most of the drivers. That is unless someone makes a room and starts the big shuffle. At the moment it seems that we may have a period of silence before 2010 driver market storm hits. Here is how I think the not-much-changed line up will look in 2009:

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F1Wolf

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I believe it was during Saturday’s Free Practice Live Blog that the debate turned to a lack of proper high speed tracks. As Keith from F1Fanatic mentioned, basically Monza is the only traditional high speed track left on the calendar. Some guys said that with the 305 km limit on the race distance the races on high speed tracks would be rather short (meaning higher speeds and same distance). Well exemptions are possible. We have slow track in Monaco where the race distance is only 260 km, we could as well have a high speed race over longer distance …

This short debate finally brought me to the post I had in mind for a while. Back in May, after the Indy 500 race, I started a thread at the F1Wolf Club forum on the possibility of having a Formula 1 race on a proper oval track. There are different opinions on the former F1 track at Indy but I always looked forward to that race. The sight of the F1 cars going around the final banked corner (see the photo above) and then charging down the long straight used to be one of the higlights of the season. (The rest of the track was boring but that is a different story). Now Indy F1 race is gone and the closest we get to banked corner is Turn 13 in Shanghai …

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F1Wolf

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I have been checking out the FIA website and I realized that the 2009 Sporting and Technical regulations have already been published. Both documents are quite long (43 and 63 pages) so it would take some time to spot all the changes Max and company made. After a quick read it is clear however that there are still some amendments to come. Not much is changing in the sporting side, all the major changes are in technical regulations:

Here is some very basic summary:

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F1Wolf

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Last week I was interviewed for the radio show Pit Stop with Kenny James on Power 98 FM in Singapore. The interview was over the phone and here are the bits of the show that somehow include me.

Why did I have to pick Force India as a possible winner in Singapore in case it is a wet race ? Hey, but if that happens remember who said that .

F1Wolf

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I do not want to say this was the best race of the season but it sure was entertaining. We could see some serious racing with overtaking up and down the grid, we had a safety car following a crash (luckily without any serious injury), we could see a serious strategy blunder and impressive recovery from it and 2 Brazilians on podium, one of them being Piquet jr. !

McLaren dominated the weekend from Friday but the close fight between Massa and Hamilton in qualifying promised some possibility of a fight for the race win. At the end we had a fight but more thanks to McLaren getting it wrong than Ferrari getting it right. Lewis Hamilton pulled away right from the start and Massa never looked like a serious opposition. Early on even Kovalainen was a threat but after few laps Massa pulled away from him. Not sure why because Heikki was not that much more heavy than Massa. In the meantime Hamilton managed to build a decent lead in front.

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F1Wolf

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It looked way too easy when Hamilton passed his team mate after his second pit stop. The presenters at the Star TV studio were rather ironic after the race saying that there are “no team orders in F1″ , the whole bar where I was watching the race was full of boos. So were there team orders or is Hamilton that much better than Kovalainen that he simply made that look that easy ? At the end, it did not take him that long to overtake Felipe Massa …

So were there team orders or not ?

n

Photo: Daimler Media

F1Wolf

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There was only one correct fastest lap prediction, and not too many people expected Vettel and Piquet to make it to top 8. it goes without saying that no one placed Piquet at 2nd place . So the points were rather low this time and 16 was the most popular score. It is very close at the top. The current standings can as usual be found on the left sidebar or on Prediction Game page.

19 - stew, Fisheye
18 - Ben, brabhamburger, Ram, igi
17 - deaddogsmoking, Ozzi, Draconte
16 - Klokan, Steve Robertson, zblkhwk, kotenok, mcw3, shaun, Rob The Flying Dutchman, xxMarinaxx
14 - blazena, Queen Bee, fatfish, Luis Miguel Sainz
13 - F1Wolf, Arun
12 - nieuwe
11 - Rich

F1Wolf

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Lewis Hamilton managed to overcome apparent strategy blunder and won the 2008 German GP at Hockenheim. Nelson Piquet climbed up to the podium for the first time in his F1 career scoring also the first podium of the season for Renault. Felipe Massa finished 3rd. First time since 1991 Belgian GP (when Senna won and Piquet sr. finished 3rd) there were 2 Brazilian drivers on podium .

The race was affected by safety car following Timo Glock’s violent crash. Glock looked a bit shaken after the crash but seems to be OK.

2008 German GP result:

1. Lewis Hamilton - McLaren - 1:31:20.847
2. Nelson Piquet - Renault + 5.586
3. Felipe Massa - Ferrari + 9.339
4. Nick Heidfeld - BMW Sauber + 9.825
5. Heikki Kovalainen - McLaren + 12.411
6. Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari + 14.483
7. Robert Kubica - BMW Sauber + 22.603
8. Sebastian Vettel - Toro Rosso + 33.282

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F1Wolf

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Welcome to Live Blog coverage from 2008 German Grand Prix. Join the debate below !

This live blog has now finished. You can replay it inside this post.

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F1Wolf

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