Formula One news

Albert Park engine preview

Melbourne offers a good test for engines with the latest generation V8s operating at full throttle for 66 per cent of the lap. However, the secret of a good lap time depends not on peak power, but on good torque to help launch the car out of the slow corners that connect the succession of straights. This is particularly true of turns 14, 15 and 16, which are all low-speed corners where the car tends to understeer making it difficult to get on the power early. 

A well balanced car with good torque will therefore find time in this last sequence of corners. Engines must still last for two consecutive races, but engine use remains unrestricted during the Friday practice sessions.

Melbourne has traditionally been a two-stop race and is likely to remain so this year. The main strategic change for 2008 prevents the top ten cars refuelling after the third part of qualifying (Q3). This is designed to remove the unnecessary fuel-burn phase of qualifying and is likely to see the front running teams running shorter first stints in the race. 

But those teams in the lower reaches of the top ten will need to be wary of the threat from eleventh place onwards, where no fuel restrictions apply, allowing the second half of the grid to choose their optimum fuel load.

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