[CAT] Scratching Post

Yeah I fell for and and yeah I laughed.

If you're not British or a F1 fan you might struggle with this one though.

Yeah the KERS is interesting but I think the massive aerodynamic shakeup has had the biggest effect. The likes of Mclaren and Ferrari have been caught cold.

My biggest gripe is the heavy penalties for having to change parts on the cars. I hate seeing the top guys being relegated 5 or 10 places just cos something went wrong in practice or qualifying.

You mean the incident at the end of the Aussie GP with the safety car?

Basically the safety car was out and so there's no overtaking allowed. Thing was, Trulli, who was in front of Hamilton fell off the track. Under those circumstances Hamilton is allowed to pass (Obviously). Hamilton, rightly paranoid about the FIA's penchant for shitting on all things Mclaren, asks his pits if he needed to give the place back. They said yes. So he did. Upon getting back they realised they'd dun fucked up and so lied, saying that Trulli had overtaken under safety. Trully was duly given a penalty - Right result but a nasty piece of work from Mclaren and Hamilton. One they were rightly busted for.

Hamilton apologises, the guy who made the call is sacked and now there is the possibility that they'll throw the book at Mclaren. Seems a shame but it was a manky bit of subterfuge on their part so they probably deserve it. Hamilton just did as he was told throughout.

Kinetic
Energy
Recovery
System

Basically it recovers the energy from braking from either a dynamo (which charges a battery, which powers a motor) or transfers it to a flywheel (which then transfers it back to the wheels). It's either Williams or Mclaren that has a flywheel. The rest run on batteries.

[Note - It doesn't recover energy from the brakes themselves but from the engine under braking]

It adds, IIRC, about 80bhp to the power output, or about 10% extra. You get a few seconds of it per lap (I forget how much - About 5 seconds or summat). As you cross the start/finish you get it replenished. As you can imagine, a 10% increase is more than enough to attempt an attacking move or prevent someone attacking you. It also helps immensely from standing and rolling starts (ie. safety car).

Thing is, as you can imagine, it weighs a fucking ton. All F1 cars have to weigh the same including the driver but not the fuel so it doesn't add weight as such but it does restrict what you can do with your ballast and the big heavy drivers struggle to accomodate it alongside their own bulk (witness the fact that some teams have 1 guy with, 1 guy without - The guy without is a big fat bastard). All this means that despite drivers hating going up against a guy who has it the top runners are not using it. Basically you're sacrificing out and out pace all round the track for having a nifty boost.

Ferrari are running it and running it well. Should they get their shit together with the rest of the car we may see it having an impact. Thus far it hasn't really made a huge splash.