Renault may be going "safe" for Brazil, but it seems the boys in red are going for broke...
Following his title-denting engine failure at Suzuka, Ferrari's Michael Schumacher returned to driving duty at Jerez on Wednesday to test the weapon of choice for his last GP in ten days.
According to sources, the German - who must win in Brazil in order to stand a chance of the championship - topped the field of nine with the aid of a special-specification engine.
Because it must last only one grand prix rather than the usual two, the V8 has been re-mapped to produce an extra twenty horse power.
Ferrari's unique approach to Interlagos contrasts starkly to that of Renault, who intend to play it safe in order to guarantee Fernando Alonso at least eighth place and a point.
Also of interest in southern Spain is the much-vaunted head-to-head between Pedro de la Rosa and GP2 champion Lewis Hamilton. De la Rosa won out on Wednesday with a quicker time by three tenths.
Meanwhile, on the shorter 'south' circuit at Silverstone, heavy Northampton rain prevented Renault's Nelson Piquet from doing much more than a few sodden installation laps.
Venezuelan GP2 driver Ernesto Viso, however, had to brave the conditions ahead of his Friday drive for the Spyker team in ten days time.
If no miracle happens for Ferrari, (ie, Alonso not finishing) M.S may at least end his career with a win. But on the other hand...
Could be another KABLAMMO!!!
The blues isn't about making yourself feel better, it's about making other people feel worse.
Another weapon of choice is I'm going to take my Ferrari flag with me to this bar, where I'm watching the race. C'mon, Michael, beat Fernando! You've already done that twice *hint*, remember? Hehehe...
Ferrari has now determined the cause of Michael Schumacher's championship-denting engine failure at Suzuka.
It is understood that the German rarely smoked to a halt in Japan due to a failed intake valve.
Engineers at the Maranello based squad, however, have put the failure down to an isolated materials defect, meaning that a significant change or remedy in Brazil is unlikely.
Felipe Massa's pre-race engine glitch in Shanghai is also believed to have involved a damaged valve, but it was apparently a different failure.
Ferrari sources, meanwhile, ruled out the theory that Schumacher's final pit stop at Suzuka - including overheating - could be linked to his failure.
The blues isn't about making yourself feel better, it's about making other people feel worse.
While everyone has been reporting about the effect of Michael Schumacher's Ferrari engine failure in Japan, there has been very little discussion about the cause. What is odd is that there was a failure when Ferrari's reliability has been astonishing in recent years. The last time we saw Michael suffer an engine failure in a race was back at Indianapolis in 2001. One cannot judge much from this fact although it does show that Ferrari has impressive quality control - which would suggest that any failure is unlikely to have been down to finger-trouble or human error. And yet an engine failed and indeed, if one looks back, another engine failed in China where Felipe Massa had to take a 10-slot drop on the grid after his V8 had to be changed in practice.
This year there were new V8 engines for everyone in F1 and many teams had problems early on, including Ferrari, which had to change two engines after the Bahrain Grand Prix after problems were discovered with the pistons. Modifications were made and there was no further problem until May when Massa suffered an engine failure at Paul Ricard after just three time laps in a test. That may have been due to the engine having a lot of mileage. After that we have no record of any problems until China. In the same period, however, power outputs were pushing quietly upwards with engines revving faster and faster.
When that happens the chances of failure increase exponentially as the engines are achieving more than they were designed to do. As a result of this, there are sometimes problems which do not seem to have obvious causes - because the fault lies in the design and cannot easily be traced to one components nor identified from dyno testing because they may only occur when there are a particular set of circumstances and there are many variables that need to be assessed to pinpoint the problem. That may mean that further infrequent failures can occur if the engines run in the danger rev zone.
The knock-on effect of this is that teams must be cautious when running the engine into the rev ranges where problems can occur although with the current rules teams can turn the engines up and down to ensure that the chance of failure is minimised. Thus an engine may run up to (and perhaps over) 20,000rpm in qualifying but will not use the same kind of revs in the race, unless it is absolutely necessary.
Ferrari has said very little about the failure in Suzuka. It was a top-end failure of the engine and there was no warning at all. Only the team knows whether Michael was running in a danger zone when the engine blew. Rival Fernando Alonso was going very quickly at the time and Ferrari might have been taking a calculated risk. The laps before the failure occurred were very important as the two frontrunners were both doing their final pit stops and although Michael had a decent advantage before the stops, it was rather better afterwards. Perhaps in achieving that little extra gap the engine was pushed too hard.
The good news for Ferrari is that this problem - if indeed it is this problem - will disappear next year as the FIA has decided on a 19000rpm limit which means that teams that are finding themselves in danger zones will be able to drop back to a level at which they know that their engines will not fail them.
The bad news is that teams which have a reliable power advantage may lose it, while those who are taking risks at the same revs will be safe.
The blues isn't about making yourself feel better, it's about making other people feel worse.
Ferrari has nothing to gain from playing it safe in Brazil and we hear that the Italian team is heading to Interlagos with its V8 engines tweaked to much higher levels of revs in an effort to power Michael Schumacher to victory. This is possible because the engine Michael will use will be a new one and will not have to last for two races, which means that the team will be able to run it harder. If it holds together Michael will be in a position to win the World Championship if Fernando Alonso fails to score, if it blows up the team has lost nothing as there is only a slim hope of winning the Constructors' Championship. Schumacher dominated testing last week in Jerez de la Frontera and rival teams are indicating that Ferrari was running 20,000rpm on a regular basis.
There is still a question mark over whether it was this approach that led to Michael's engine failure in Japan or whether the team has upped the revs since then.
The blues isn't about making yourself feel better, it's about making other people feel worse.
Wouldnt it be funny if Alon-so-gay had an failure in his bulletproof engine? And Schumi went on to win....by miles...with Massa second...and Fisi out...giving both titles to Ferrari!!!
BleedingGums wrote:Ferrari has nothing to gain from playing it safe in Brazil and we hear that the Italian team is heading to Interlagos with its V8 engines tweaked to much higher levels of revs in an effort to power Michael Schumacher to victory. This is possible because the engine Michael will use will be a new one and will not have to last for two races, which means that the team will be able to run it harder. If it holds together Michael will be in a position to win the World Championship if Fernando Alonso fails to score, if it blows up the team has lost nothing as there is only a slim hope of winning the Constructors' Championship. Schumacher dominated testing last week in Jerez de la Frontera and rival teams are indicating that Ferrari was running 20,000rpm on a regular basis.
There is still a question mark over whether it was this approach that led to Michael's engine failure in Japan or whether the team has upped the revs since then.
It would be great if we could have at the same time finally a rev counter with an onboard of the Ferrari. Just to see the 20'000rpm barrier brocken !
Im sure the 20,000 barrier has been broken by Williams (Cosworth) earlier in the year.......JJust found a comment pre Monza from Simon Corbyn who was Head of F1 Engineering Cosworth (at the time)
"At last week's test with WilliamsF1, we completed the final validation of a very aggressive duty cycle on the latest Series 6 engines and this will now be available for both Mark and Nico at the Italian Grand Prix. Cosworth will therefore be able to run maximum engine performance, including the 20,000RPM rev limit, for all key laps in qualifying and for a significant fraction of the race.
* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left
“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)
* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
It might be a first for Ferrari. They've had incredible reliability for the last 5 years in Formula 1, there's no reason why Ferrari can't win this race. What kind of revs have Renault been running this season?
