From: aghao@sersun2.essex.ac.uk (Aghanya O A)
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport
Subject: F1: Italian GP Q2 Report
Date: 12 Sep 92 13:31:17 GMT
Reply-To: aghao@sersun2.essex.ac.uk (Aghanya O A)
Organization: University of Essex, Colchester, UK

Hello again.

The second qualifying session was rather uneventful, and there was very 
little improvement in times, and hardly any changes in position.  The sun was
out, but that didn't seem to help - maybe it wasn't humid enough for the cars
to produce optimum power. 

In the morning warmup, Mansell had been fastest, from Senna and Alesi, but
Alesi had had a coming together with Gianni Morbidelli at the Ascari chicane.
Jean was on a flyer, and Morbidelli was in front, but had moved over to the 
right to give Jean the line for the left hand entry into the corner.  However,
the Ferrari driver repaid this courtesy by losing it under braking and smacking
the Minardi with his right rear, which was instantly sheared off.  Both drivers
were, thankfully, unhurt.  The Ferrari was running almost *no* wing at all -
it must have been a missile down the straights!

Anyway, Karl Wendlinger, Michael Schumacher, Andrea De Cesaris and Martin
Brundle were the first to join the circuit at noon (1pm local time).  Karl
immediately got down to business, improving to 18th with a 1:25.755.  
Schumacher also improved his time, but stayed 5th.  On his next flying lap,
he lost his Benetton going into the Ascari chicane, and ended in the gravel
trap with 10 mins gone.  He ran back to the pits and climbed into the spare.
Patrese briefly came out, but after a couple of touring laps, left the circuit
again.

Damon Hill, the now unemployed Brabham driver (and Williams chief test driver),
was a guest of the TV station, and gave useful insights into the characteristics
of the Williams team and car.  When asked about the performance of the Williams,
he said that at a circuit like Monza, the active suspension made the ride 
smoother, but also meant that the driver had to do more work in the cockpit in
terms of steering input.  Apparently, the victorious Peugeot 905 sportscar has
power steering on it, and John Watson suggested that that might be a direction 
that F1 teams might go down in the futre to lessen the driver's physical load.

Meanwhile, Christian Fittipaldi was trying to improve on 27th place, and
JJ Lehto improved his time, for 20th.  Schumacher came out in his 2nd car
after 20 minutes, followed by Senna, but not for long.  Senna had a massive
blowup at the (yes) Ascari chicane.  McLaren were running a passive 
configuration again, both Berger and Senna having expressed displeasure with 
the behaviour of the active MP4/7 at the limit.  Damon Hill talked about this 
phenomenon when he said that a driver (naturally) relies on the feedback from 
the car to know what is happening at all times.  Unfortunately, the active 
system attenuates some of that feel, and which makes it harder to drive it at 
or near the limit, because you are not quite sure what will happen.  John 
Watson suggested that that might explain why Patrese was slower than Mansell, 
because Rico is less willing to take the car to the ragged edge, where the 
active system comes into its own.  He gave the example of the ground effect 
era, where you got more benefit in terms of downforce, the faster you went, 
because the downforce increased as the square of the speed.  Thus Mansell, who
was prepared to take the car further to the edge, derived more benefit in terms
of increased performance from the active car.  I suppose it would also suit
drivers like Alesi, Senna and Schumacher.  Senna described the McLaren system 
as "too active" after using it on Friday.

Hakkinen improved to 8th place, and Schumacher deposed Berger for 5th with 25
mins gone.  Jean Alesi came back out, and was 0.2s faster than Mansell at the
1st split, 0.5s slower at the 2nd, and finished with a time of 1:23.429 to stay
3rd.  He carried on, but made a mistake under braking for the 1st chicane and 
backed off.  Berger was also out at this time, and running hard.  He retook
5th from Schumacher.  Alesi was steadily working his times down, with a 
1:23.333.  We stayed in-car with him for one mind-blowing lap - over the kerbs,
sideways out of corners, flashing past slower cars, hands *working* at the 
wheel all the time (even on the straight!), for a 1:23.099.  He gives his car
a jolly good workout, take it from me!

With half an hour gone, Senna and Mansell emerged, with Nigel, on his 1st
flyer, -0.1s on the 1st split, +0.1 on the 2nd split, but making up time in
the last part of the lap for an lap time of:22.672.  On the very next lap
he lowered that once more to 1:22.361.  The leading order at this time was 
Mansell, Senna, Alesi, Patrese, Berger, Schumacher, Boutsen, Brundle,
Capelli, Herbert, Gachot, Comas, Alboreto, Grouillard, Herbert and De Cesaris.
Mansell came in once more, with Senna, both Ligiers, Schumacher and Gachot out
on the circuit.  Senna's 1st flying lap had him at +0.2s at the first split,
+1.2s at the second split, and 1:24.122 over the line.  Brundle and Capelli
came back out again, as did Mansell after 45 minutes, to set a 1:22.221 on
his 1st flyer, and slightly slower on his second one with a 1:22.282.  He then 
called it a day there, climbing out of his Williams in the pits.

Capelli made it up to 7th and was still running, as Alesi came back out with 10
mins to go.  Berger improved to 1:23.553 and was still running.  Schumacher was 
was also running, and set a 1:24.831.  Patrese improved his time, but stayed
4th, while Alesi was on another flyer.  It looked as though he had had some
more wing put onto his car on his last entry into the pits, as it seemed more 
smooth and settled.  The last 5 minutes of the session descended into farce.

First de Cesaris spun and the first chicane after a massive blowup, spewing
oil and water onto the course, then Brundle speared off backwards into the 
gravel at the Ascari (!) bend.  Finally, Berger and Alboreto had a 
disagreement in the straight leading up to the Parabolica, and were busy 
brake-testing each other, swerving all over the track while Alesi, Schumacher 
and (someone else) were approaching at speed.  That ruined Alesi's lap.

With 3 mins to go, Patrese was trying hard, as were Alesi and Capelli.
Herbert vaulted to 13th, 2 places and a few 10ths behind his teammate, and
Alesi, Patrese and Schumacher all decided to have one last gasp attempt, with
all of them meeting with failure, and Alesi aborting before the end.  Non
qualifiers were Christian Fittipaldi, and Stefano Modena.

The leading order was

1  Mansell	1:22.221
2  Senna	1:22.822
3  Alesi	1:22.976
4  Patrese
5  Berger
6  Schumacher
7  Capelli
8  Boutsen
9  Brundle
10 Gachot
11 Hakkinen
12 Morbidelli
13 Herbert
14 Lehto
15 Comas
16 Alboreto
17 Wendlinger
18 Grouillard
19 Suzuki
20 Tarquini

Once again, I'm sorry I can't provide full times as well, but the things 
are on and off the screen so fast, it is all I can do just to get the names!!
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the reports.  Also hope we have a good race
tomorrow. 

Cheers,

	Obi.

PS. Go Nige!! :-)

===============================================================================
    .-----,   .           !    Obi Aghanya
   /     /   /        @   !    Fault Tolerant Systems Research Group
  /     /   /----,   /    !    Dept. of Comp. Sci, University of Essex
 /     /   /    /   /     !    Colchester  CO4 3SQ,  UK
(_____'   (____'   (__    !    EMAIL : aghao@essex.ac.uk
       (Waterloo in '92 - for Ayrton! :-) [Told you so! :-)]
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport