Turkey 2009: Post-Qualifying Car Weights
2009 Season

Turkey 2009: Post-Qualifying Car Weights

Oliver White
6th June, 2009
23 comments
4 min read

The post-qualifying weights of the cars competing in the Turkish Grand Prix have been (not quite) published by the FIA, and from the data provided we can see who did well during Saturday’s running and who did not. Also, from this data and Williams’s reckoning that a normalised distance of 5km around Istanbul Park requires 2.49kg of fuel, we can work out that the 5.338km circuit would use 2.66kg of fuel. Taking away the minimum car-and-driver weight of 605kg, plus 2 laps (5.32kg) for grid forming and margin, we can have a guess at when each of the drivers will stop first.

Turkey 2009
Post-Qualifying Car Weights

Car Weight
Kilograms

Fuel Weight
Kilograms

First Stop
Estimated Lap
1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 649.5 39.2 15
2. Jenson Button Brawn 655.5 45.2 17
3. Rubens Barrichello Brawn 652.5 42.2 16
4. Mark Webber Red Bull Racing 656 45.7 17
5. Jarno Trulli Toyota 652 41.7 16
6. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 658 47.7 18
7. Felipe Massa Ferrari 654 43.7 16
8. Fernando Alonso Renault 644.5 34.2 13
9. Nico Rosberg Williams 660 49.7 19
10. Robert Kubica BMW 664 53.7 20
11. Nick Heidfeld BMW 681.5 71.2 27
12. Kazuki Nakajima Williams 680.4 70.1 26
13. Timo Glock Toyota 689 78.7 30
14. Heikki Kovalainen McLaren 665 54.7 21
15. Adrian Sutil Force India 668.5 58.2 22
16. Lewis Hamilton McLaren 696.5 86.2 32
17. Nelson Piquet Jr. Renault 689.6 79.3 30
18. Sebastien Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso 686.5 76.2 29
19. Giancarlo Fisichella Force India 688.5 78.2 29
20. Sebastien Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso 701 90.7 34

Sebastian Vettel is a little lighter than both the Brawn pilots, but there is only one lap in it to Rubens Barrichello and two to Jenson Button. Interestingly, Jenson Button managed to out-qualify his team mate with a heavier car, indicating that Barrichello wasn’t entirely happy with the handling of his BGP 001. The rest of the top-ten is fairly standard, with Kimi Raikkonen Nico Rosberg and Robert Kubica being the heaviest. Although Fernando Alonso sticks out a little as being light in comparison to those around him – I’d expect Alonso to make up a place or two at the start.

Heikki Kovalainen and Adrian Sutil in P14 and P15 respectively have very similar fuel loads. This should make for some interesting viewing tomorrow, as Lewis Hamilton lost out to Sutil in qualifying, the Force India pilot making his Mercedes-powered car go faster than the similarly powered McLaren. If Kovalainen cannot get away from Sutil, then I fear there may be trouble on the horizon for the Finn.

Nick Heidfeld, Kazuki Nakajima and Timo Glock could be attempting a two-stopper, each having enough fuel to get to around the halfway mark. Also going for the mid-race point before stopping are Lewis Hamilton and Sebastien Bourdais (the two heaviest on the grid) and possibly Giancarlo Fisichella, Sebastien Buemi and Nelson Piquet Jr.

The starting tyre choice for the two-stoppers will depend on what the track temperature does tomorrow afternoon. As we saw in qualifying today, the track could easily pass the 45°C mark, which is the recommended limit Bridgestone have imposed on the soft compound. Interestingly though, the track cooled slightly as qualifying progressed, indicating that the two-stoppers may want to start on the hard and move to the soft.

23 comments

  • The top 10 can’t fill up anymore, to the declared weight, after q3 right? So if somebody (like I think Kimi today) did a lot of laps in q3 he will have to stop earlier than the declared weight implies?

  • The top 10 can’t fill up anymore, to the declared weight, after q3 right?

    Oooh, that’s a good point. Previously I had always assumed that the drivers would each run pretty much the same number of laps in Q3 – 2 runs of 3 or 4 laps. But Kimi was out first today, although I’m not sure if he did do more laps than anyone else. I’ll see if I can find though.

    Good spot Kathi, and to think the post isn’t even complete yet!

  • damn that was quick ollie!

    Was about to check time-stamps in Google Reader against Autosport, but then remembered I posted ahead of time and added the table in afterwards. But yeah, it was pretty quick – taking a race off must’ve helped! And having a spreadsheet with all the formulas in place helps to speed the math side of things up a little. 🙂

  • and to think the post isn’t even complete yet!

    Didn’t mean it as criticism to your entry. It was just a question. 🙁

  • Didn’t mean it as criticism to your entry. It was just a question. 🙁

    I know. I didn’t intend for that to be taken as a comment of being criticised, I know you weren’t criticising. I was surprised that anybody found enough reason to comment when the real data for the post wasn’t even up yet. But you managed it by pointing something out that I had never considered before – it’s all good, I promise! 🙂

  • when do they weight the cars? i’d presumed it was after the end of the q3 session, otherwise the estimated laps would include the six laps minimum to do two runs!

  • OK 🙂

    Next question: Rubens did 5 laps and Jenson 6. Who used more fuel?

    Jenson has more laps but 4 of them were slow(er) in/out-laps.

  • Thanks for these tables. Cannot find confirmation on the web but the weights published are the weights as they are now in parc ferme. So what they are is what they are. But then the lap calculation needs to also take into account that some, such as the red cars, are much heavier on fuel than others. Going to be a spiffing race mind!

  • Ollie, do you have details of who was on which tyre during quali somewhere on the site?

    I don’t, but don’t think I haven’t considered it 🙂 For Spain i was trying to figure out a way of doing it as well as other posts (the recording of the info is the hardest bit). I’ll think about it again before Silverstone.

    And yeah, I wanna know who has what tyres left for the race, and who set what time on what compound in qualifying.

    Does anyone else know of a source for this info? Y’know, temporarily, before BF1 becomes the source. 🙂

  • But then the lap calculation needs to also take into account that some, such as the red cars, are much heavier on fuel than others.

    This is very true (that the cars have different fuel consumption rates), but there is only so far I can realistically take it. I chose Williams’s data because they were the first I found, via F1Minute. I could dig out info from all 10 teams and tailor their estimated first-stop-lap to each team, but that would take far too long.

    You are right though, bigphil, it isn’t 100% perfect. And of course, a safety car, early pitstop due to damage (and a sly glug o’gas) or rain would completely throw the prediction out of the window. As would a change in strategy by any of the drivers.

  • Thanks Ollie 🙂

    Does anyone else know of a source for this info?

    Afraid not, I was wondering if there was any way that info could be incorporated into the fuel-adjusted grid but I have failed outright in trying to get hold of it.

  • I was wondering if there was any way that info could be incorporated into the fuel-adjusted grid but I have failed outright in trying to get hold of it.

    I’ve been wanting to do a fuel-adjusted grid ever since I saw the Beeb do it for this season. But like you I suspect, I would want it to incorporate everything and be a proper ‘who the bleedin’ hell is fastest’ grid.

    Oh how I long for next year and no more stoopid fuel issues interrupting qualifying. Funny how it’s taken the FIA several years to revert on this [race fuel level] idea. Normally they cotton on to their errors quite quickly and fiddle it mid-season. I would say they live and learn, but that would be a blatant lie.

  • The top 10 can’t fill up anymore, to the declared weight, after q3 right? {Kathi – 20 comments ago}

    The declared weight is taken after Q3 ends, so that shouldn’t be a factor. This is also why the FIA can check the weights of the Q3 participants with certainty instead of having to calculate whether they did more/fewer laps than expected.

  • when do they weight the cars? i’d presumed it was after the end of the q3 session, otherwise the estimated laps would include the six laps minimum to do two runs! {alan – 10 comments ago}

    It’s done after Q3 and, in the case of those not in Q3, after they’ve fuelled to their content – there is a time limit of, I think, 30 minutes for this because they can do the weighing of the 10 Q3 entrants while waiting.

  • And yeah, I wanna know who has what tyres left for the race, and who set what time on what compound in qualifying.

    Does anyone else know of a source for this info? Y’know, temporarily, before BF1 becomes the source. {Oliver White – 6 comments ago}

    Sorry, I don’t know for sure either. I have enough trouble manually tracking what the Force Indias are on without trying to do it for others.

    An all-weekend tyre thing would be useful, since the allocation for tyres begins in FP1 on Friday. However, I think we’d have to rely on Bridgestone being bothered to tell us rather than collect the data ourselves.

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