EmptyQuarter

A lot of the answers to your questions are going to involve how teams best 'manage' their tyres. In order to promote more 'exciting' racing, the tyre manufacturer, Pirellli, have for the past couple of seasons been asked to create tyres which wear out super fast, in some races lasting no more than a handful of laps before the car is forced to pit for a new set. The result of this is that races have been less predictable with cars and drivers swapping positions more easily in the past, but in a lot of peoples' opinions, at the expense of a more understandable race narrative.

1. So far this year, the Mercedes (Hamilton's team) has been great in qualifying, but tended to fade during the race because of the team's inability to manage wear on their car's tyres as well as other teams like Red Bull and particularly Lotus. Most pundits would have expected the same to have happened this time, but Hamilton got the job done because (take your pick) ...

1. He's a former world champion and a total boss.
2. He's finally fitting in at his new team and has gained a better understanding of his car.
3. He's all fired up after breaking up with his Pussycat Doll girlfriend.
4. Mercedes are still benefiting from their sort of illegal, but maybe not, Secret Tyre Test!

3. There are set regulations which is why all the cars look pretty similar at a glance, i.e, they're all about the same size, they have open wheels and wings on the front and back, so it's all about how the teams interpret and push the limits of the regulations to gain an advantage. There are constant back and forths with teams putting new bits on their car and rival teams protesting it, finding it's legal and then copying it.There will be a different 'personality' to the cars as teams focus on a particular area of performance, so for instance, the Mercedes has amazing straight line speed compared to the Red Bull, but the Red Bull has way more grip in slow speed corners.

A great can most definitely get more out of an under-performing car and of course a poor driver can put it in the wall on the first lap, so the driver definitely matters. But it's also true to say that without both a great car and a great driver, you're unlikely to be earning a championship.

As a rule of thumb though, you want Adrian Newey designing your car.

4. Basically you can make one move to defend your position, so no weaving about. You're also entitled to maintain your racing line into a corner.

5. There's a DRS Detection Zone and a DRS Activation Zone. If you're one second behind a car (any car, not necessarily the guy in the position in front of you, meaning drivers can make use of lapped cars to get their DRS on) in the Detection Zone you can hit the button and it'll work in the Activation Zone. There have been times when cars have been able to use the DRS when they're not supposed to, but I'm not sure if whether there's a penalty associated with it.

DRS can also be used whenever you want during qualifying.

6. Pirrelli have multiple tyre compounds and will decide ahead of time, which two compounds to take to a a race. The teams then have an allotted number of tyres for practice, qualifying and the race. During the race, both compounds must be used at least once. Traditionally this results in qualifying on a softer tyre which is faster over a qualifying lap and changing to the harder tyre for the majority of the race for better durability. All of this is dependent on the car, the pit stop strategy, and the track, the weather, so there are no hard and fast rules. How a team plans to run the race and how well the driver can implement the strategy is part of the fun of the sport.

In a wet race, none of the compound stuff applies, and cars will use full wet tyres or intermediate tyres. When it rains everything gets crazy and way more fun.

7. The drivers are in contant comunication with the pit wall through a mic in their helmet. I think the company who produce the F1 broadcast (the feed that TV stations then pick up and commentate over) have people listening in and pull out the odd interesting sound bite here and there. The on screen graphic which shows the gear changes, acceleration and braking inputs and g-forces is really awesome too.

8. Generally if you gain or fail to lose a place because you leave the track, you're expected to give the position back. If it's to avoid an accident or up for debate who was at a fault, the team will probably get on the radio to the stewards and ask if they have to give the place back.

9. Red Bull love their coded messages. Ferrari just speak in Italian.

Drew, if you need convincing that this stuff is awesome, (maybe not as awesome as it used to be but still pretty great) there's an apocryphal fact that F1 cars have so much downforce that you could drive them upside down on the ceiling!

(Also go read about Mercedes' Secret Tyre Test!)

I'll miss you Ryan. Thank you for everything.

Very cool to hear Patrick is joining the site.

Making stuff is fun. I'd love it if someone did something like this with the Lego licence.

When is it on in Swatch internet time?

" what i did to get it was edit the list i made and then save it  "

My family had a CPC 6128. Brilliant machine and home to the first game I ever completed: Dan Dare - Pilot of the Future. I had a little help from the map my Dad had drawn out on graph paper! Those were the days for sure.
 
Amstrad > Commodore > Spectrum ;)

You can float there. I think the cutscene kicks in before you have to land.

I was super excited about this until I got the part where it's just for North America. Someone tell Paul Barnett to show a little love to his fellow countrymen that own Macs.

Wow. Horrendous!