Shocking

The FIA's introduction of the Kinetic Energy Recovery System, or KERS, is not going as smoothly as expected especially after a BMW mechanic received an electric shock from one during testing in Jerez, Spain earlier today, the mechanic only suffred an injury to his left arm.

The KERS system which is basically a new boost system that is powered by heat will be introduced to Formula 1 in the 2009 season,but there are still some bugs to work out though. Big bugs. The incident at Jerez isn't the only problem teams have had. Red Bull Racing last week had to evacuate part of their faclitiy after a battery test of the KERS system went horribly wrong. The teams are now very concerned about introducing the KERS system with all that issuses that have devleoped.

Toyota team boss John Howett spoke to autosport.com in Hockenheim about the issues: "I think all of these issues have been on the table from the beginning. So you have voltage issues, you have the battery issues; you have the cost of registering the batteries to transport them. People who use high-speed rotating flywheels have also got issues there.

"The perception of KERS is very simple, but the execution is incredibly difficult and the road car applications are completely different from a race car. Whereas the motor, the control unit, the battery, and the basic concept is similar, the actual sophistication and needs of a road car are completely different from what we are having to develop in Formula One. So there is a big difference"

Lets just hope that these problems get fixed before somebody becomes a roast duck.

BMW Mechanic Escapes KERS Scare [Autosport.com]

Tire warmers to stay in F1 for one more year

The FIA have decided to keep tire warmers in Formula 1 for one more year. The original plan was for tire warmers to be banned after the 2008 season, but with slick tires being introduced next year the FIA decided to change their mind and give help the teams cut costs and be able to race competitively and calm fears about the amount of crashes happening on cold tires. Though Bridgestone, which supplies the F1 teams with tires, has opposed a keeping tire warmers saying that the rubber should be strong enough to not have so many crashes.

One option that has been suggested to substitute tire warmers is that of introducing a minimum tire pressure rule, but Honda boss Ross Brawn and quite a few others think that enforcing the rule will be impossible. Brawn had this to say to autosport.com during a recent interview: "You can run tyres for sure without blankets, lot of formulae do, but we are a particularly competitive formula and if you don't run blankets with tyres you need to have a minimum pressure control."

"We haven't worked out how to do that and that was the big concern – how to introduce it fairly and effectively for all the teams? And how do you avoid the massive overhead of policing it?"

"The TWG (Technical Working Group) said it wanted to keep tyre blankets because it could not see a solution to controlling minimum tyre pressure, and that was a big worry. So the option of having blankets was the easiest. And interestingly tyre blankets are not prohibited in testing, so for efficiency of testing we will almost certainly be using tyre blankets in testing. So we will have had them in testing and not racing."

FIA scraps plans to ban tyre warmers [Autosport.com]

Bridgestone rejects delay of tire warmer ban

Bridgestone has rejected the delay of the ban of tire warmers in Formula 1. The Formula 1 teams wanted the delay of the tire warmer ban until 2010 as they have concerns about the safety of the drivers who will have to get use sudden change of being cold slicks at the beginning of a session whether it be practice, qualifying or the race itself.

Bridgestone quickly rejected the team concerns finding them to be nonsense. Bridgestone's director of motorsport tire development Hirohide Hamashim believes that the concerns are absolute bull and that the teams actually have something else in mind on why they don't want tire blankets to be banned.

"Bridgestone has said to the FIA that we have confidence in (producing) a good specification of tyres, in terms of grip and handling, without tyre warmers. The real concern is minimum pressure," said Hamashima. "They worry about minimum pressure. We suggest a minimum pressure to teams because we would like to keep tyres safe, but some teams will take a risk - and cheat. Other teams are worried about that, so they would like to keep the tyre warmers."

Bridgestone will have a test next month in Barcelona to decide what kind of tires they will use in 2009, but the tire change won't stop the concerns of the drivers over safety. Williams' driver Nico Rosberg says that the Grand Prix Drivers' Association may have to get involved in the matter.

"It's not racing, it's survival," Rosberg said about the difficulties drivers experienced on their first lap out of the pits on cold tyres. "It's just survival out there, and that's ridiculous, it's not racing. They have to do something on the tyres to improve that. It's not the way it should be. You can have cold tyres, but not like that."

Bridgestone rejects tyre warmer ban delay (Autosport.com)

FIA to clamp down on movable bridge wings

The FIA have forced teams like McLaren to stabilize their movable or flexible bridge wings on the noses of their cars in time for this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix.

Along with McLaren; Renault, Toyota, Williams, Red Bull Racing and the Torro Rosso team are all running a flex wing on their nose. All teams will have to have something on thier noses that will keep the wing stable. Renault is the only exception because they have always had something on thier nose to keep the bridge wing stable.

The FIA worries that these flexible wings will be a big advantage at tracks like Montreal, which the F1 circus is racing at this weekend, which high downforce is a key factor into winning the race. The FIA has also had to deal with flexible wings in the past. In 2006, before that year's Canadian Grand Prix, the FIA had to introduce slot-gap separators on the cars so the flexible wings on the back of some cars would not turn into some kind of advantage.

FIA moves to avoid bridge wings (Autosport.com)