F1 Aussie GP

[ACiD303]

The fact that the FIA awarded the tender to McLaren eliminates Ferrari-bias from them. It's a clear conflict of interest awarding it to the McLaren Group.

Funny how all the other teams engines work fine with it

Ferrari and Renault unsurprisingly were the biggest opponents to the standardised ECU, and didn't have the easiest time last year testing the new unit. In addition, during the whole espionage saga the last thing they wanted was to call some McLaren Group employee round to have a "look" at their systems.

Not to mention McLaren-Ferrari and McLaren-Renault relationships have never exactly been rosy, so cooperating with each other making the ECU work must've been as fun as slitting your wrists with a rusty coat hanger.

Ferrari and Renault used Magnetti Marelli ECUs - which Pat Symonds praised as more sophisticated so there was bound to be some teething problems on getting their more advanced features out of the ECU...how that can, or even why it should, be proved is irrelevant now, but the same ECU was used by Ferrari and Renault from 2004-2007 - which cars won the Championships in those years? It's a small part, but every thing comes together in Championship winning cars.

(For those interested there's a technical comparison between the ECU units at Renault Rockets - 2008 in our sights already: The ECU. - but it's very rough comparison)

The McLaren ECU was BOUND to come up at some point this season. It's going to be another tough year for McLaren if they do well ;-)

[this_is_gav]

It's an independent team working in an independent area which supplied other teams prior to the standard ECU and who gives the new ECUs to the governing body who allocates the units randomly. The McLaren group only manufacture the hardware. Microsoft (them again) program the software. I suppose the evil empire are against Ferrari too?

In truth, Ferrari never blamed the ECU for causing any failures. They said there was a conflict which they claim has already been rectified for Sepang this weekend. In the quotes I've read they never directly mentioned the ECU either, only implying that it was one of the parts causing this so called conflict.

Perhaps if they'd tested this unit more rather than using both this and the Magneto Marelli units over the winter, they'd have avoided this embarrassment of a race.

[pauldarkside]

"I'm going to knock 3 bags of sh*t of out of the little b*stard "

Certainly made me chuckle when I heard it.

As said, a cracking opener to the season and I hope the rest are as eventful Watching it live? Not a chance at that time of day! Besides, it still feels live when watching a bit later - avoiding the news/radio/internet is a must though.

[this_is_gav]

Ferrari are confident that their engine problems that marred their Australian Grand Prix were a one-off, after getting to the bottom of what caused their dramas in Melbourne.

The Italian team suffered a double engine failure on Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen's cars at Albert Park, and flew the power units back to their Maranello base for analysis of what caused the malfunctions.

This work has established that the higher-than-expected temperatures in Australia contributed to a fuel-feel problem, which in turn led to a failure of the intake valves of the engines.

A Ferrari spokesman told autosport.com in Malaysia: "It was a fuel-feed problem partly related to the hot temperatures in Melbourne. It provoked a failure of the intake valve on both engines.

"It wasn't a quality control problem, nor was it a cooling problem. Obviously, you can't change these engines so we will work hard on improving the mapping, but we're confident this was a one-off."

Ferrari have also rubbished any talk that their problems were related to the introduction of the standard ECU in Formula One this year.

"It was not an ECU problem, although the new units do mean we have to learn new methods to operate the engine," added the spokesman.

Nothing to do with the ECU. Media FUD as usual, reading between the lines.

[99Flake]

Just as an aside, the BBC have the F1 rights from next season, twas on the morning news. So pleased, looks like the 'proper' Fleetwood Mac theme will be returning.

Plus no more damned adverts.

Woo Woo

BBC SPORT | Motorsport | Formula One | Formula One to return to BBC TV

[sleepyhead]

Everyone should know, the media adds its spin on things.

[pauldarkside]

Just as an aside, the BBC have the F1 rights from next season, twas on the morning news. So pleased, looks like the 'proper' Fleetwood Mac theme will be returning.

Plus no more damned adverts.

Woo Woo

BBC SPORT | Motorsport | Formula One | Formula One to return to BBC TV

Yay, hope it makes it onto their HD channel!

[Salazaar]

Just as an aside, the BBC have the F1 rights from next season, twas on the morning news. So pleased, looks like the 'proper' Fleetwood Mac theme will be returning.

Plus no more damned adverts.

Woo Woo

BBC SPORT | Motorsport | Formula One | Formula One to return to BBC TV

Great news! I hope they pinch the commentary team as well though, they're quite good at the moment.

[bigblue]

Great news! I hope they pinch the commentary team as well though, they're quite good at the moment.

Dear God, nooooooo ! First thing that came to my mind when I heard about the Beeb getting it back was "Great, no more James Allen". Don't mind Steve Rider, really like Martin Brundle, can't stand Allen.