This week's Grapevine brings you information fresh from the paddock on: Spicing Up the Show Sauber's Step Forward

Spicing Up the Show

Looking to continue the move towards entertaining the television-based masses, it seems the powers that be are considering yet another change to the weekend format - this time, looking at the feasibility of night races.

It is not unusual for the Formula One circus to face temperatures in excess of thirty degrees, with track temperatures normally running far higher than the reported air temperature as the surface is usually in direct sunlight, so it is not news that none of the teams particularly enjoys it. The conditions are uncomfortable for the crowds, the mechanics and the drivers alike, whilst the cars themselves are substantially more likely to fail from cooling related problems - with drivers overheating and making mistakes through fatigue being almost as popular as blown engines and blistered tyres.

Getting away from the teams, it is far from unheard of for track surfaces to get too hot to withstand a full race. The lateral pressures exerted by a Formula One car cornering at speed are fairly considerable, but even more impressive is the five gravities worth of retardation they generate into the braking zones. Little surprise that a surface close to its melting point is threatened with breakup!

Clearly, if the track, cars or drivers are looking likely to fail over the course of a race distance, any rule change that reduces the risk of failure has the potential to be introduced under the safety rules, whether or not the teams agree with it. This offers the FIA a route to mandate a change to the start times of practices, qualifying and the races, should they wish to push something through.

In practice, however, a change as significant as pushing back the race into the evening - effectively introducing night racing - is not so simple. Obviously, Formula One cars do not carry headlights, so there would have to be the adequate lighting around a circuit for the drivers to see properly. The impractical alternative is for the teams to fit light packages on their cars, but implementation constraints mean that there are some awkward obstacles in the way. The first questions that arise are of how and where to fit lights, what to do if they fail, and what the inclusion does to the car's integrity. The issues are sufficient that the teams, as a whole, would rather put up with racing in early afternoon heat than in the dark.

Of course, the agenda is never that simple. In the quest for maximising the television figures, normalising the start time of the races is a significant step towards simplifying the schedule so that the average punter knows when to switch on his television. The existing idea of starting at 14:00 local time is also particularly inconvenient for negotiating contracts with broadcasters, who far prefer events to be packaged into regular time slots. If the 2pm start were pursued, a race in Bahrain will appear to run two hours early, compared against the European events, so the a late start was negotiated. Even more marked, should India finally get an event on the calendar, they would run four and a half hours early, so a six-thirty (local time) start would be required: depending on the time of year, this takes the race into the evening.

Ironically, bucking the trend to look for a late starts from Asian events, whilst Shanghai is even further East, and would apparently run seven hours early, in this case, the search for a consistent world-wide start time is not adequate, as running the event at 21:00 local time is decidedly questionable. The obvious alternative is to run half an hour early in order to match the timing for the Japanese event a fortnight later, though there is considerable pressure from broadcasters to run with the later time.

Fixing the Calendar

It looks like the annual rumours of Sauber discovering a significant improvement in performance is starting its rounds, in the wake of speculation they would run a Ferrari F2003-GA back end next season.

The new version of the car is expected to resemble an evolution of this year's model, give or take a handful of fairly important improvements - the biggest of which is set to eliminate the car's relatively evil handling when it is not set up perfectly: apparently, a consequence of inadequate torsional rigidity. What's more, it took most of the season to come to that conclusion, as the aerodynamics also failed to perform according to predictions, masking the issues with the chassis.

Clearly, both issues need to be addressed in the new car, or the team is looking at a year of tussling with Jordan for the privilege of buffering Minardi from the rest of the grid. Fortunately, the new wind-tunnel resolves the aero calibration issues, whilst the designers seem to have identified ways to improve the construction of the monocoque, increasing rigidity whilst removing nearly half a kilo of mass (though less charitable rumours are suggesting that they identified these new techniques from the blueprints to Ferrari's F2002, which have allegedly made their way to the Hinwil office).

As it happens, there is some argument for using Ferrari's technology, at least around the engine, which is an integral stressed member in the construction. Many of the issues from last season's chassis apparently stemmed from this area: the chassis in front of the engine had some limited twisting movement, independent of the gearbox. The revised construction fixes that.

Of course, there's more than that to the revised car. The new specification Ferrari engine apparently offers Sauber a choice between considerably improving the cooling, or detuning the unit to prevent heat build up from eating into its anticipated life span: accordingly, they are still looking at multiple shapes for the side-pods, as they attempt to accommodate different radiators. Funnily enough, considering Ferrari made a step forward in radiator technology last season, Sauber are hoping to improve their cooling potential to the tune of fifteen percent, without significantly increasing the size of the sidepods. About half of that improvement is due to increased airflow through the sidepods, and the remainder from improved heat transfer from the new technology.

Being realistic, the new Sauber is not expected to make life difficult for any of the front runners. The engine is good, but it's not as good as the one that will power the 2004 Ferrari, or the BMW in the Williams. Whilst apparently as powerful, it is not as efficient as the Mercedes unit in the McLaren, and the car's aerodynamics are expected to lag behind all of the above. However, if the new design does what last year's failed to do, and performs as the designers expect, and the wind tunnel results predict, then the team believe this car is a serious contender for leading the midfield.

Mind you, it is worth mentioning that Sauber's new signing, Giancarlo Fisichella, has heard all this before, even if it was about a yellow car last time. It is no surprise to discover he is not the only one reserving judgement until the car makes an appearance!