Analysing the refuelling ban

Tony Dodgins looks ahead to life after the refuelling ban in 2010 and assesses the affect it will have on qualifying and the racing next season The jury still seems to be out on whether next year's refuelling ban is a good thing.
I remember well how controversial its reintroduction was in 1994. Men such as Ron Dennis had serious reservations and thought it was inevitable that sooner or later we'd have a serious incident in the pits. That was reinforced when a relatively trifling spillage created a conflagration around Jos Verstappen's Benetton at Hockenheim.

Vaporware is a term associated with Silicon Valley startups that are not quite what they claim to be. USF1's first major sponsor was a huge coup: YouTube... Or at least that's what everyone thought at first. The truth was somewhat less exciting as you will remember, Chad Hurley, one of YouTube's founders had agreed to invest in the team, an unknown amount of course. In reality once the news went out about YouTube there was little effort to really clarify the situation and that's perhaps understandable for a startup looking to attract attention.


Fast forward to the end of the 2009 season and we start hearing conflicting rumors of the health of some of those new teams who are to step in and fill the gaps left by Toyota and Sauber. USF1 in particular has been at the center of a lot of talk. Yes, they showed pictures of CNC machines and autoclaves but, frankly, they could have just as well been pictures from anywhere.


Then came the announcement that USF1 would not, as was their founding principle, hire American drivers. This was blamed on the delay signing the concorde agreement and on the fact that no available American driver possessed, or is in a position to be approved for, an FIA superlicense. OK right.


Before the final GP in AbuDhabi there was the announcement that USF1 had chosen as a European base of operations, Motorland, a motorsport complex in Aragon, Spain. That is great, where are the trucks, hospitality facilities, tooling, crew...


But what I think really got people talking online is the clip the Speed TV crew (of which Peter Windsor is a part of) slapped together for their Abu Dhabi broadcast.


Ostensively a visit by commentator Steve Matchett to the USF1 headquarters in North Carolina, it struck many as odd, especially the section with the computer modeling. Take a look...

http://axisofoversteer.blogspot.com/...vaporware.html

(video inside link)




Of course you cannot expect a company to show you their secrets but from that clip it looked to many like USF1 has a different sort of secret to hide.


This week we have a quote from World Champion Ross Brawn about how USF1 has yet to crash test any of their components, "For a beginner that's strange" said Brawn. The same report has Peter Windsor as the only person at a recent FOTA meeting who questioned the rule preventing teams from selling their entry spot.


If it turns out USF1 will not make the 2010 grid was it correct of SPEED TV and Windsor to create segments that perpetuate the illusion there is any fire behind the smoke? Maybe that's what David Hobbs' double take was really about.



http://axisofoversteer.blogspot.com/...vaporware.html

Peter Windsor has denied reports that USF1 will not be ready for next season, following claims that the team has yet to start crash testing and could be for sale.

"The report seemed to come out of Switzerland/Germany, the land of BMW Sauber," sporting director Windsor told GPWeek, referring to the fact that the Hinwil-based team has not yet been granted entry into next year’s championship.

Windsor said "several" components for the 2010 car have been "successfully" crash-tested, and that more tests will take place this and next month.

He denied he recently voted in favour of having the ability to sell USF1's entry, and also shed doubt on the context of quotes attributed to Ross Brawn, where the Brackley-based team's boss seemed to question whether USF1 will be ready to debut next March

"Back in the real world, we're re-furbishing some trucks we've just bought from Brawn," said Windsor. "As for USF1 Team, I can only repeat what Ken (Anderson) and I have been saying ever since we signed the Concorde Agreement: our slot is not for sale under any circumstances and we will be racing, and giving it 100%, from Bahrain onwards."

http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headline...09132443.shtml