hrd-hr30

Even so, that's no reason not to balance as far as I can see. Start with unbalanced wheels and you might get one that's 130g out like mine. That would definitely be noticeable on the front of a car. If you balance it with 130g of weight, when it moves it might go out of balance a bit. It may or may not be noticeable, but it's definitely not going to be as bad as 130g out of whack.

Does anyone in the paddock think Maldonardo is as good as Hamilton? Don't get me wrong, i'm not suggesting he is. I'm not suggesting anyone else said he is either. Not even between the lines. I'm just asking a completely random, meaningless question for absolutely no reason. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about here either, so don't ask me wtf I'm on about - that would just make it obvious to everyone that your mind is far too closed and your perspective far too limited from your all or nothing view of the world to ever possibly understand the deep, complicated nature of the question.

I hate the idea of pay TV too. Thankfully this race is on at a reasonable hour and the local pub has enough screens to show both the cricket final and F1 race live on FOX. I guess I'll just have to have a steak and a few beers this weekend! hehe sounds better than streaming to me!

maybe because tyres should be balanced? I notice they also marked it, presumably so they can see if they need to rebalance or remount after a prac/qualy session. That F1 wheel has 45g on it in that location. Might have more on the other edge. I reckon they'd notice that at 300km/h if it weren't balanced. Most tyre shops will balance to 5g on road cars, because any more than that is noticeable at road speeds even with much greater unsprung mass. I looked at the wheel/tyre on top of my pile under the house. It had 130g of weight on it. Haven't had problem with it going out of balance. but to be honest, even if it does move a bit, it's going to be better than it would have been with no balance weights. I wouldn't like to start with a wheel that's 130g out of whack. So I think I'll keep doing what I do - balance.

Why would you ask that in response to Renault's comments? The only logical conclusion is you thought Renault (like FIFA in your analogy) were trying to clear themselves of any blame - that's not reading between the lines. It's what you actually said. Which would be suggesting (as you went on the ask) that their engines were not the problem, would it not? No, I'm pretty sure I was not reading between the lines there. But the obvious answer is no. Not even Renault thnk their engine is on or near par with Mercedes. They said that in the articles you were responding to! Why did you ask that? I guess three question marks wasn't enough to make it clear I was asking in disbelief (rather than telling)... But you did say "RBR's compromises to accommodate an engine down on power" so I don't think you can really accuse me of reading between the lines again when I said 'you think RBR developed their car over the winter with massive compromises"!

If anything, the less power you have, the more you'd want to optimise every ounce of corner speed you could! The real reason the Red Bull chassis and aero isn't as good as years ago is the technical staff they've lost. Or maybe they've never been any good at making downforce without drag...

why do these blokes bother balancing their tyres? 2014 Spa F1 GP: 2013 indian GP:

and I like it when the actual line you referred to says engine and driveability are 2 of the 3 factors affecting the performance, but you read between the lines that the engine is on par or close to par with the Merc engine... and go on the blame the engine for the chassis problems as well! lol you think RBR developed their car over the winter with massive compromises on the presumption that the Renault would still be down on power??? So they were hoping at best to be a mid field runner? If Renault turned out to be the best engine this year, they'd have made all these chassis/aero compromises for nothing and would be holding the car back. Best case scenario would be they got the slow engine they developed the car for and might have been able to just beat that Sauber? i don't think that's how F1 teams that want to be up the pointy end develop their chassis and aero. They'd build the best thing they could and hope they get the engine they need to make it competitive. Anything else is aiming for mediocrity.

Yeah, I saw it it. Thought it was OK. What are you going to say in 3 words? It is filthy hot and humid there. Today for instance: 09:00-12:00 32deg 75%humidity feels like 45deg!!! http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=f1;sess= From memory, Grosjean's 3 words were "Rain at four pm"...

"Our figures have shown that the lap time deficit between Red Bull and Mercedes in Melbourne was equally split between driveability issues, engine performance and chassis performance" makes you think they are trying to clear themselves and suggest their engine is on par or close Mercedes? That's some massive reading between the lines mate

I don't know how you get that from those articles! Renault are clearly not suggesting their power unit is on-par with Mercedes. They're simply saying the RBR chassis isn't either.

Nico having a laugh with a fellow countryman is not going to hurt his place in the team. He knows from Mercedes favouring Hamilton in each of the on-track incidents and the team orders incident last season that he's No2, even IF earning basically half what his teammate gets wasn't already enough of a clue...

you do realise Nico and Seb are just joking around... They're both German and probably get along alright. It would be pretty dumb to think Merc might give away any trade secrets to Seb and his notepad lol

hehe - Renault are getting sick of Red Bull's shit: http://www.grandprix247.com/2015/03/24/renault-its-hard-to-have-a-partner-red-bull-who-lies/ http://en.espnf1.com/redbull/motorsport/story/195405.html Word is Red Bull pushed Renault into changes ahead of their development schedule for Melbourne. So it's pretty poor form Christian Horner saying, “I have no idea how they [Renault] have managed to f*ck it up so badly”!!! Renault on the other hand says, "Our figures have shown that the lap time deficit between Red Bull and Mercedes in Melbourne was equally split between driveability issues, engine performance and chassis performance."

Honduh to run in limp-home mode again and see if they can get lapped more times than at Melbourne? It's good to set a realistic target you can improve on from the last race. And that would be alot better than the much more likely Double-DNF in Malaysia's heat.

Ferrari were even slower in a straight line than Renault last year and claim to have made 70bhp over the winter while still saving 10 of their 32 tokens. Their car is now the fastest in the speed traps - obviously a mix of drag and power, but they're not exactly hurting for power now and are more than a match for Williams. Renault made up heaps of ground during last season. By the end they were about 40bhp down from what I read. Renault claim to have gained over 50bhp since the Barcellona test while saving 12 tokens for a mid-season upgrade. They have the most tokens up their sleeve. The problems with power and driveablitiy at Melbourne they're blame on the software. They can fix that without using tokens from my understanding. So they should be able to unleash that extra power they have up their sleeves as soon as they sort out the software gremlins. That should put them in the game with Ferrari and Williams. Then they have the most tokens left of anyone to upgrade during the season on top of that... But I doubt they'll catch Mercedes in race pace because the Merc's aero performance and fuel economy is just too good IMO. Alan Jones would be on your side that RBR have the best chassis though - if that makes you feel any better.. hehe Mercedes also claim to have made 50bhp over winter. Seems to be the magic number... Who knows how true any of these claims are, but it's all we've got to go on. But they claim their real strength is in high speed corners now.

I learnt the hard way. Bought a pair of bargain secondhand 275 Z214 C51 "Mediums" for the back of the Soarer, only to find they were harder and less grippy than the 245 NT01s I had on there. I had NFI about the Hankook compounds at the time, but "medium" sounded like what I wanted for sprints. Wrong! They'r enot that old and had almost new tread, so at first I thought they might just have been cooked or heat cycled too many times. But a mate who runs C70s told me about the compounds... At least it was only $100 bucks wasted. I bumped into the Hankook rep up here at a hillclimb and he explained the C70 "softs" as really being medium compound and the C50 "medium" is really a hard compound. C90 for Hillclimbs. C70 for Sprints. C50 if you want to do a 3hr race!

I think the focus on the engine as the entire reason for the Merc's speed is wrong. A third of the rest of the grid have the Merc engines, but none have got close to the Mercedes' lap times on any aero tracks. Williams is the only one that has matched them at times. They certainly had the straight line pace to match or beat Mercedes, so it's not that Merc are handing out lesser spec engines. But Williams can only keep up in terms of lap times on a few tracks where bhp and straight line speed matter heaps more than aero. And Ferrari now have plenty of power as well - I thnk they had higher trap speeds than the Mercedes engined cars! It's the Chassis and aero that is Mercedes real advantage IMO.

the other teams need to do as good a job as Mercedes. or the fans need to stop expecting parity type racing in a non-parity formula where they push the limits of engineering and each take slightly different directions...

I'm going to mark mine for future track days and see what happens...

are they moving that much every time you track them? Fronts I assume? braking would generate multiple times the linear G of accelleration.

Surely it's not normal for semis to slip on the bead in a road car? Fronts or rears or both? I've used plenty of lower quality semis like Toyo R888, Federal FZ201, Nitto NT01, and some have taken a fair bit of weight on slightly bent rims - my old Regas on the 180 were a bit fiddy cented... Never noticed any of them going out of balance.

Ferrari had more money last year too... Ferrari will beat Williams, because Williams can't strategy. And they have a much stronger driver pairing. I really feel for Alonso. Toughed it out with Ferrari for years and put in some incredible performances in a dog of a car, then they push him out and all of a sudden the Ferrari is quick. The only 'big' team left for him to get a seat with turns out to be the slowest car on the grid, which is no real surprise - they were the slowest Mercedes powered team last year by a long way. He has a big stack in pre-season practice. And now he's down one engine without even having driven the car yet this season!

Can't really blame the token system. Ferrari caught up with the Mercedes powered Williams under the token system. Renault just aren't getting the job done!

the thing is "racing" does not mean "overtaking" there were races going on between all the Ferraris and the Williams, Nasir and Dan and Jenson and Perez which was kinda lol-worthy