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The Imola First Practice thread!

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Comments

  • Petroltorque
    Forget it. Jordan are out of reach. Saw qualifying the cars undriveable. I have not got a clue what the problem is. But one thing's for sure its not a simple setup problem. If it was that they would have run more laps in practice.
    Looks like they need to return to the wind tunnel and see if their calculations are right.
    The mission statement for the design office should have been to produce a neat, nimble chassis thats easy to setup.
    Since 2002 we have ended up with a car thats progressively worse than its predecessor.
    It puts paid to the concept that all you need for a competitive car is a powerful engine that was being argued here.
    Thats not to say that you can't turn the present situation around, but that going to take weeks in the windtunnel and thousands of miles of testing. If we see the age old routine of bolting bits on the car at the following races, they might solve the problem for the 2008 season.
  • MinardiP1
    It certainly needs time in the tunnel, lots and lots of time and then lots and lots of testing.

    Let's hope they get good weather next week at Mugello and lets the actual race drivers spend the majority of the time in the cockpit rather than the useless-as-shit Nissany and rookie Chinese guy. :rolleyes:

    I reckon both gys need to rack up at least 120 laps each over the 2 days for the test to have any worthwhile benefit.

    Cancel lunch, we've got stuff to sort out. :mad:

  • Minardus
    Stoddart said to atlas that they hope to know the car better in Canada and USA and maybe then the will get close to the Jordans:spank:
    At F1racinglive.com:
    Stoddart targets a race finish
    While aiming for Jordan's pace longer term

    High hopes for the new Minardi PS05
    Minardi team principal Paul Stoddart has admitted that he would be 'ecstatic' if either of his cars reaches the finish of Sunday's San Marino Grand Prix. The team has introduced a new PS05 car for this weekend's event and are confident that in the longer term it will move them ahead of closest rivals Jordan.

    The car continued to set the slowest times in practice on Friday at Imola, just a few miles down the road from the team's factory, but Stoddart knows things will improve and he is simply hoping to get to the chequered flag.

    "If we get a race finish, I don't care where it finishes, I will be over the moon," said Stoddart. "I expect to lose both cars fairly early in the race because they haven't been tested."

    "I won't be disappointed, and neither will the team, if that is what happens. If you have a completely new car you have to learn it, and the engineers are learning. So if one of them finishes the race I will be ecstatic. One car had only done 39 laps before it got here and the other car had never ever run, we didn't finish it until five o'clock on Friday morning. But there is some real encouragement in that car."

    "It won't translate into times here because we are learning the car still, but in certain areas, in particular the engine, new gearbox, there are so many parts of the car that show promise.

    "I am convinced that, if not before, by the time we get to Canada and the USA we will have learned the car well enough to be achieving what the car's potential is, and we think it is capable of beating Jordan."

    Minardi will run a test in Italy next week to continue development on the car but Stoddart admitted that due to budget constraints they will have to treat the upcoming races as tests to move forward.

    He added: "When we get to the next race in Barcelona, the Friday we will write off as a test day but Saturday we should be somewhere and the race will definitely be reliability focussed.

    "But by the time we get to the double fly-away we will expect to have caught up. We needed to find a full two seconds to match Jordan and that is massive, but I think we will get it."
  • MinardiP1
    Got news for you Paul - after Jordan's testing last week, you need about 3 seconds. :(
  • silverghost
    That car is not in the ballpark, untested or not. I'd go and support another team myself, like MattR - unfortunately, that's not an option for us real fans, so I'll have to shoot myself instead.
  • TheDriver
    It puts paid to the concept that all you need for a competitive car is a powerful engine that was being argued here.
    That's bull, or at least not what I've seen. On the contrary, I remember people mentioning Renault often as an example of how you can do well with a mediocre engine, provided that the chassis is great. The same people have been pointing to Toyota *cough*Brunner*cough* for evidence that a splendid engine does not make up for a botched up chassis.

    Your misinterpretation arises from the fact that people were satisfied that our engine would finally be up to scratch. However, nobody said that everything would be just a free lunch after that. No, it was the general opinion that 'if the chassis comes out right, we can do quite well now that we aren't 80hp down on power'.
  • Minardus
    Got news for you Paul - after Jordan's testing last week, you need about 3 seconds. :(
    What's worse is that they're building the EJ15B!!!!

    [Edited on 24/4/2005 by Minardus]
  • Petroltorque
    Driver, the example I was thinking of was the 88 lotus compared to the 88 MacLaren. Identical Honda V8s. One team wins 15 out of 16 races, the other is nowhere. BTW, I have absolutely no complaints with the Cosworth TJ.
  • minardibrasil
    Minardi make a bad time. However, I believe the work of Minardi to improve the PS05.
  • Carthorse
    As a complete layman-there seem to be three major problems at the moment:-

    - Gear shifts
    - Braking
    - Downforce

    The first two of these could be solvable without massive investment. Presumably the brakes need not be massivley different than last years and a new gearbox is apparently coming next week. I guess that these two factors could impact heavily on lap times?

    As for downforce I have the impression that this is where a low budget will always hita nd there is only so much to expect. I am not giving up hope just yet.
  • Jello_Biafra
    The problem with the gearbox is appearantly interfacing with the new Cosworth. I'm still unclear on whether this is the new box or not. As of Tuesday they were starting with the old box but Paul claims that the new one is running...

    Downforce and braking are directly related. The aero balance is off and this causes unstable braking..

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