"The revolution of buttons" by Heikki Kulta

Na edição 50 do Podcast, que foi gravada esta semana e vai ao ar amanhã, nós falamos muito sobre a questão dos botões e o jornalista Heikki Kulta escreveu exatamente sobre isto esta semana.

Ao lado está uma foto do volante da Ferrari de Kimi Räikkönen, de 2007 e ele tinha 24 botões. Hoje, o número dobrou! Dá para acreditar?!

The revolution of buttons

Turun Sanomat 15.3 2011 19:00:57

My oh my, where have we come when even the youngest F1-stars - the Playstation-generation - complain that the steering wheel has too many buttons.

Sebastien Vettel says out straight that the pleasure of driving with the world's greatest cars suffer when the controlling of all buttons require too much attention.

For as long as - over 30 years - when I have been writing F1-stories they have always nagged that there aren't as many overtaking places in F1 as there is in karting. The guys making regulations have again and again come up with new ideas to correct this flaw but you can count with two hands per year the amount of spectacular battling situations.

This year they try to overtake with the combination of the adjustable rear wing and KERS, which means that the driver has a few more important buttons on their steering wheel and more flashing lights than before.

Because the wing can be used only on a distance of 600 meters, this artificial aid will certainly work when the one driving ahead of you drives for one reason or another 1-5 seconds slower. But if the difference is only 1-2 tenths then there won't probably be more overtakings than before.

Although Kimi Räikkönen doesn't drive in F1 anymore he himself doesn't believe that the rear wing only will help in overtaking because the braking distance is too long when compared to the one ahead. They would have to cut the aerodynamics a lot more so that the one chasing you could get more near without the current turbulence effect.

The amount of places for overtaking is still track-wise. On old time circuits like Spa and Interlagos there has always been a lot of battling situations. On street circuits like Monaco, Valencia and Singapore you don't get past no matter how much or how often your wings would move.

This year they have increased the tyre consumption a lot. We can expect some surprising moments but in a way without the overtaker's special merits. If a top car's tyres are outworn then the laptime will drop 5 seconds which means that even Hispania can overtake Ferrari.

But let's not complain beforehand. We can expect a great championship battle again when he have five world champions driving in the serie.

Turun Sanomat

HEIKKI KULTA

Fonte: Turun Sanomat/Tradução para o Inglês: Nicole

Beijinhos, Ludy