Sauber must adapt to regulation changes for 2004
The new C23
By Jamie Makin (19/1/2004)
January 19 2004
The start of every Formula One season brings about a host of changes to the technical and sporting regulations and 2004 is no exception.
Sauber will have to work hard in a short amount of time to adapt and thrive under these new regulations. Some will help them, while others may provide some difficulties:
Each driver has to make one engine last the entire race weekend, which totals approximately 800 km. If he switches to the spare car for any reason, his race car engine must be transferred to the spare car. A driver who changes engines will lose ten grid-positions from his qualifying result.
Despite a string of engine failures in 2003, Sauber has historically had some of the best reliability of all the teams. When Massa's engine blew during the Belgian GP in 2002, it was the first Sauber engine failure during a race in four years. This reliability record eclipses even Ferrari's outstanding record. Every team will be starting fresh with a new engine this year, so it is anybody's guess who's will come out on top. Sauber and Ferrari are both likely to do well based on their past history, but pre-season testing should shed more light on this matter. Already rivals BAR and McLaren have had difficulties with their new engine. As the old saying goes, to finish first you first have to finish. Sauber could find themselves in a position to move up the field and score points through the attrition of others if their engine is as reliable as in past seasons.
Automatic gearboxes are now banned. Cars must be equipped with semi-automatic gearboxes, where a driver upshifts and downshifts with paddles mounted behind the steering wheel.
This rule affects both the design of the car and the skills its driver. For Sauber, the cost and effort of designing a new gearbox has been eliminated by the fact that they are using the Ferrari 7-speed gearbox. The "automatic" gearboxes used last year upshifted automatically, but still required the drivers to downshift manually. So the real challenge will be for the drivers to learn to maximize their upshifts. Almost two months of testing lie ahead before the start of the season, and the drivers will surely be acclimated to the new gearboxes by then.
Launch control is banned. Traction control will still be allowed. There are some concerns among teams that this rule will be difficult to police.
Sauber's launch control software in 2003 was admittedly not the best, even allowing backmarker teams Jordan and Minardi to pass them on several starts. As long as their drivers can make good manual starts, this rule will most likely be beneficial to Sauber. Developing an effective launch control system is expensive and this is another thing that Sauber will not have to spend money on now. Fisichella started racing in Formula One in 1996 when launch control was banned, and spent most of his years in the sport doing manual starts. Dusting off these old skills should not be difficult for him. It will be somewhat tougher for Massa having debuted in 2002, the year that launch control was officially reinstated. He will have to work hard to learn to have good starts and could lose ground to the more experienced drivers in the early part of the season.
Rear wings will be limited to a maximum of two horizontal elements. Rear wing end plates must be extended an additional 100 mm towards the rear of the car. Engine covers must be extended as well. The goal is to cut downforce on the rear of the car, thus reducing cornering speeds. A fringe benefit of this rule is that teams now have more room for sponsor logos on the rear of the cars.
To design a successful car under these rules, the airflow over the rear wing must be carefully controlled to increase downforce. With Sauber's new wind tunnel, they should be in a better position than most teams to evaluate this change and tweak the car to make the most of it. However, the wind tunnel is still several weeks away from use and Sauber has already stated that they do not have the manpower to put in the number of hours that other teams do. So, despite having the best equipment, Sauber stand to lose ground to the other teams in working around this rule. Sauber would be well served in putting the extra bodywork space to use by selling it to sponsors, which in turn could generate the funds to spend more hours in the wind tunnel.
"Heathrow Agreement" testing, where teams could opt to limit private testing in exchange for two additional hours on the track Friday of race weekends, has been abolished. Private testing during the season will be limited to 48 days, with an unlimited amount of days available after the season ends.
The abolishment of Friday private test sessions will definately hurt Sauber. Having opted out of it for 2003, the team quickly began to regret the decision after seeing how it benefitted rivals Renault and Jaguar. Sauber had not planned exceed the allowable private test days this year, so they were going to sign up for the Heathrow Agreement as there was no downside to doing so. Peter Sauber has expressed great displeasure that this option is no longer available to them.
During Friday practice sessions, team ranked 5th through 10th place in the constructors' standings may run a third car with a third driver. The third driver must not have participated in more than six grand prix's during the last two years. The third car may run in a different livery if the team chooses.
While on the surface this sounds like a great replacement for the Heathrow Agreement, Peter Sauber has declared that his team will opt to not run a third car. The reason is there is no real benefit to be gained because of the third driver rule. Although Sauber employ the young Neel Jani as their test driver, his lack of experience does not allow him to provide the team with the required feedback from this session. Sauber may reconsider this decision if funding can be found for it though.
Friday Qualifying has been eliminated. There will now be two qualifying sessions of one lap each on Saturday. In the first session the drivers will run in the order they finished the previous race. Cars may be worked on and fuel added after this session. Drivers will run the second session in reverse order of the results of the first session. Cars must run with race fuel and tyres and will be impounded in parc ferme conditions after this session. There will be about half an hour between sessions in which to work on the cars, so teams must prepare their race setup quickly. Slower drivers are likely to have the least amount of time for work on their cars.
Sauber and fellow privateers Jordan and Minardi fear this new format will be detrimental to them, because the time they have to turn their cars around between sessions will be far less than what the larger teams have. For example, if Ferrari's Michael Schumacher wins the prior race, he goes out first during the first session. Assuming he puts in a good lap, he will run last (or nearly last) in the second session. This would give Ferrari upwards of two hours to make any required repairs or setup changes to Schumacher's car. But say Sauber finishes in the lower ten in the last race, then qualifies poorly in the first session, they would have to run near the beginning of the second session. This could cut their turnaround time to as little as half an hour. The true effect of this change can only be known after seeing how Sauber performs against the competition this year. Essentially better performance equates to more time between sessions giving Sauber an added incentive to place well during the race and the first qualifying session.
There will be no more drive-through penalties for racing accidents. The stewards will review the incident after the race giving the teams and drivers a chance to present their side of the story. If a driver is still deemed at-fault in an incident, he will receive points against his license. Three incidents could lead to a one race suspension for the offending driver. Details of this system are still being worked out by the FIA.
This rule will only matter to Sauber if their drivers become involved in any racing incidents. But if, or more likely when, this happens it will give the team a fairer shot negotiating their way out of a penalty. Under the old system, a penalty applied during the race did not have a chance to be appealed.