Conference krakar::f1

	Now it's rumoured that Ferrari will start the season using
	last years car possibly because the old engine won't easily
	fit into the new car.

	-John

  All of this makes you wonder about the benefit of completely
  re-designing the car every year. In the motorbike racing world there
  is a lot more emphasis on developing the current bike year on year and
  completely new bikes would tend to run by a third test rider or
  developed in a national series before being used in GPs or World
  Superbike races.

  This means that you quite often have competitive bikes that are maybe
  3 years old but have been steadily improved rather than starting from
  scratch each year. Surely with F1 car a similar philosophy could be
  used with much of the car being retained to the next season. 

  Rgds, Steve.


    Saw the full 2-week report on testing at Jerez this morning on TF1.
    
    As already noted the new Ferrari engine could not complete any of the
    300km tests. Team will be using last year's V10.
    
    Stewart could not put more than a few laps before the new Ford Zetec
    V10 suffers oil pressure problems. Jackie Stewart was very anxious and
    very nervous.
    
    The Arrows FA18 is suffering lots of problems. Major one is with the
    Yamaha engine which John Judd was chartered to work on improving the
    reliability. Seems he still has a very long way to go.
    
    Jordans are doing well. The chassis works better than last year's. The
    Peugeot V10 is very healthy. Fisichella faster than Schu Jr by a good
    full second. This is no surprise.
    
    Similar positive remarks on the McLaren MP4-12. The car behaves much
    better than last year's. David Coulthard suffers from the new driving
    position where the drivers are lying very low.
    
    Benettons are very advanced. Berger was overall fastest man on the
    track ahead of Williams' man Frentzen. No hassles. Tuning work is
    progressing well.
    
    As a summary for the 2 weeks one could say that Benetton dominate,
    closely followed by Williams, McLaren, Jordan and Ligier. Ferrari,
    Arrows and Stewart will obviously have a lot of work to be ready.
    The new Williams is going very well and HH Frentzen is very happy about
    it although one of the new Renault RS9 V10s broke after completing
    350km. The new engine is lower and lighter (11kg) than last year's RS8.
    
    

    Just seen a report on last week's testing in various places (Jerez,
    Barcelona, Estoril).
    
    The Benetton team continues its ground work on every single bit of the
    car. Both drivers record impressive numbers of laps and excellent lap
    times.
    
    The Williams team is only starting its tests sessions, so no lap
    records. No failures either.
    
    The good surprise comes from the 2 guys below:
    
    Giancarlo Fisichella likes the Jordan and its Peugeot engine. With
    qualifications setup he was immediately in the fastest lap times. In
    race setup he found the car extremely easy to drive and to control.
    Sounds like Ralfie is going to have a hard time. Giancarlo is certainly
    one of the most promising champions of tomorrow.
    
    Olivier Panis and the new Ligier JS45 are going faster and faster. Just
    like the Benetton team, they are trying to break every bit. They have
    gone through several GP simulations at very high speeds (Barcelona).
    This beautiful story ended saturday when the front suspension collapsed
    on Olivier in the fast right hander at the end of the Barcelona pit
    straight. JS45-01 is badly hurt. JS45-02 and -03 will be injected in
    the testing process later this week. 

    Re the Williams at Barcelone, I read in Autosport that in its first
    shakedown test it went 1.8 seconds faster than Hill's qualifying time
    at the GP.

	I heard that Williams have suffered a gearbox failure (gearbox
	is new for 97 car).

	-John

    More news from Jerez in testing yesterday (10th)
    
    Alesi set the the quickest time this year in his new 
    Benetton, he clocked 1:21:01, with his team mate
    Berger 6 100ths slower.
    
    Villeneuve was third quickest in the FW19 coming in
    at 1:21:25
    
    cheers
    
    mark
    
    p.s. maybe the rework for Benetton could work this year!!!!! 

    Well, it's probably too early to draw any conclusion, but the fact that
    the new Benetton started testing very early compared to the new Williams
    being available just now ... It's obvious that everyone at Benetton are
    very enthusiastic.
    
    I did not post last week's times from the 3 test circuits. Besides
    Fisichella and the new Jordan-Peugeot, Panis and the new Ligier-Honda
    the other pleasing results were from Stewart Grand Prix. Rubens
    Barrichello managed some very fast laps. Let's hope they get the engine
    to run well for a GP distance. 

    Williams (Villeneuve) did a 1 18.36 at Estoril yesterday. This beats
    the previous unofficial record set by Mclaren and Ferrari last week by
    over a second.

    
    re .last
    
    Berger did a 1:18.6 earlier in the day in the Benetton - his new lap
    record didn't last very long.... 
    
    Hill took pole with a 1:20 last year - I thought the FIA were trying
    to slow down the cars!
    
    Richard.
    
    

    Apparently, Olivier Panis has been shattering the lap record at Magny
    Cours. Tyres, engine, or track conditions...?
    
    Edward

    Possibly the rubber.  As shown in Indy car racing over the last two
    years, Bridgestone is so far ahead of Goodyear it isn't funny. 
    Goodyear's only hope is that it rains a lot in Europe this year, as
    their wet tire is still superior to the B/F product.

    George 

    The Jordans are having a lot of minor problems with the engine-chassis
    interface, hydraulics, etc ... The 2 drivers (Schumacher Jr and Fisi-
    chella) have been able to do a lot of testing lately, but no room for
    fast laps.
    
    The new Renault Sport RS9 engine has completed more than 5500km in the
    Fw18B and Fw19 and 2600km in the Benetton 197. A new sub-version is
    scheduled for Melbourne, in light of this extensive test period.
    
    The Benetton B197 is well designed according to its drivers. There's
    one big problem yet to solve: the brakes, already better than last
    year's but not to top team standards according to Alesi.
    
    The Williams boys have been going through a long detailed list of
    tests, including some endurance. Villeneuve would now like to be given
    a few 'fast' laps. Last week's lap times were done in race conditions
    not qualifications (probably because they don't want to show too much
    to the competition).

    The combination Panis + PGP JS45 + new Honda engine + Bridgestone tyres
    seems to work well. Because of the truck dribers strikes in Spain the
    PGP team has decided to comntinue working in Magny-Cours instead of
    trying to reach Estoril. 
    
    Panis has been able to record several laps, the fastest being 2.7
    seconds faster than last year GP pole position time. The JS45 shows big
    improvements over last year's Ligier. The new Honda engine is much more
    torquy than the previous one. The Bridgestone tyres are evidently much
    faster than last year's Goodyears.
    
    On the Bridgestone-Goodyear topic: on the wet Jerez track the Ligier
    boys were lapping 6 (yes SIX) seconds faster than the fastest Goodyear
    driver (the Benettons). The Bridgestone camp must be praying for wet
    races this year.

	Less than two weeks to go and the teams seem to be just about
	finished testing in the warmth of Iberia. Apparently a lot
	of them will be going to Silverstone later this week for 
	final tests prior to shipping for Oz.

	I've been keeping a note of the times set at Estoril, the
	most used circuit, and for what it's worth these are the
	leading results -

	Villeneuve 	Williams	1'18.36
	Berger		Benetton	1'18.66
	Frentzen	Williams	1'18.69
	Alesi		Benetton	1'18.75
	Schumacher_M	Ferrari		1'19.66
	Coulthard	McLaren		1'19.80
	Irvine		Ferrari		1'20.29
	Hakkinen	McLaren		1'20.35

	Last years pole (Hill) was 1'20.33 so there's clearly been
	a lot of improvements mad and no doubt they'll go faster
	yet.

	-John

What has happened with the Sauber team?  There was some talk about problems 
with the engine supplier earlier, but there has been nothing since?  Are 
they a viable team?

Jeff

	Sauber have been very quiet but were at Barcelona last week
	where Herbert put in a time faster than the Williams had 
	managed some time back.

	-John

    Could someone remind me what the rules are about test tracks. How many
    can be nominated by a team? Do they have to be FIA registered circuits?
    
    		thanks in advance,
    			Jon.

    The Williams team has been testing in Magny-Cours with all 3 cars and
    both drivers. Each car was given a full shakeout. At the end of the
    work period Villeneuve and Frentzen were allowed some quick laps.
    
    Result: fastest lap by Villeneuve in 1'16"xxx, to be compared to Panis
    in the Prost JS45 Honda in 1'13"xxx.
    
    Panis beats Villeneuve by 3 seconds !
    
    The cars will now return to the UK and be packed in order to leave
    Heathrow to Australia on Sunday.
                                    

    The Tyrrell and Arrows teams have been using Silverstone as a test bed.
    
    Tyrrell are doing well with 4000km recorded. 
    
    Arrows are a complete disaster, unable to complete any series of laps. 
    The last problem reported is a faulty data acquisition system, which 
    reported inaccurate data. The Tyrrell team is reported to be smiling 
    and saying things like "wait until they solve all their problems with 
    electronics, data acquisition system, hydraulics, gearbox, etc ..., 
    then they'll have plenty of time to observe the power/reliability of 
    the Yamaha engine, we know what we are talking about!"
                       

    Ferrari continue to stress the new F310B chassis and engines. The
    result is a Mugello lap record by M. Schumacher. Then while Michael was
    flying to assist his wife Corinna with their second child, Eddie Irvine
    broke the lap record.
    
    The new engine 46/2 will not be used for the 1st two races.
    
    Despite the lap records Michael Schumacher reported that the F310B is
    basically wrong. The traction is poor, the balance is wrong, etc ...
    but obviously both drivers seem to cope with it.

RE: .73

Rule 68 of the F1 Sporting Code governs testing.  It reads:

68) With the exception of private testing, which may be arranged by 
the FIA on the day preceding practice at an Event being held on a 
circuit for the first time, no testing is permitted :

a) on any circuit outside Europe except general testing organised by 
the Commercial Rights Holder;

b) on any circuit during the seven days preceding race day at each 
Event except for a shakedown test not exceeding 50 km which must be 
supervised by the relevant ASN ;

c) on any circuit between the last Event of the Championship and 1 
December ;

d) on any circuit which has hosted, or will host, an Event during the 
Championship year other than those hosting the British, French, 
Italian and Spanish Grands Prix ; 

e) at sites which are not currently approved for Formula 1.


So you can't test outside Europe except at general testing sessions 
arragned by Bernie.

You can't test at all between the end of the season and 1 December, 
or during the 7 days prior to the race, except for shakedown tests 
supervised by the host ASN for the GP in question.

You can't test on any circuit that is to hold a GP except for (this 
year) Silverstone, Magny Cours, Monza, and Barcelona.  I think the 
Estoril testing is allowed because the Portuguese GP is still on the 
calendar as "provisional".

You can't test on any track that isn't approved for F1.  Presumably 
Marianello has such approval.  Jerez and Paul Ricard certainly do.

--PSW

    Most teams are now in Melbourne, with the exception of Williams and
    Prost who have done some last minute running-in at Magny-Cours. They
    should be on their way by now.

	Villeneuve has gone much faster at Magny Cours but didn't
	quite match the time Panis set some time ago.

	-John