F1 Mid-Week Roundup: Red Bull KERS, Pirelli shock and more McLaren updates

"The team just simply did not have KERS"

5. Red Bull and KERS

After the dominance of Sebastian Vettel in the Australian Grand Prix qualifying, questions arose about how he did this seemingly without the use of the Kinetic Energy Resource System. Stories appeared all over the net (including this site) about rumours of a "compact" or "start-only" KERS that allowed the team reliability, reduced weight and better braking balance. However, after the Australian Grand Prix, which Vettel won, it turned out that the team just simply did not have KERS. Christian Horner said that it was too unreliable at that moment but the Milton Keynes based team will be running the boost system in Malaysia in a week and a half. What will be interesting is that the Red Bull was lighter in Australia than the McLaren yet had more tyre wear. When Red Bull apply this extra weight will the car find it self in a worse condition than with out KERS?

4. Pirelli tyres

The introduction of the new Pirelli's did not cause an all out spectacle in Australia this weekend, however they did show glimpses of excellence. Seemingly the most interesting "mix-up" was Sauber's rookie Sergio Perez managed to go the entire race with one stop! This mixed the top 10 up quite a bit until both Saubers were disqualified. But the main story this week is that Pirelli will be reconsidering the tyre colours that signify which type of tyre it is. The only colour that was clear was the "soft" tyre which was yellow. This was clear to see at high speed but the hard tyre was next to impossible to work out. In a dry race this is not a problem, whoever has yellow tyres is on soft and whoever is on a indistinguishable colour is on hard. In wet races though it will be hard to work out who is on intermediate and who is on full-wets. Let's hope they adopt a striped approach like Bridgestone last year.

3. Further McLaren updates

McLaren's come back from what seemed to be a dismal winter testing was astonishing in Australia but they have not stopped there. The team will be bringing a new diffuser to Malaysia. In a rush to replace their "Octopus" exhaust system the team did not have time to manufacture a proper diffuser instead opting to build one quickly out of titanium which obviously gave the car some more weight. In Sepang the team will be bringing a carbon-fibre diffuser similar to that of the astonishingly quick Red Bull. The British team will be hoping that this will bring them ever closer to the Red Bull duo and keep them in the fight till the very end.

2. Red Bull wing flex

No F1 season is complete with out a bit of controversy  and this year, rather unimaginatively, we face the same issue as last year; flexing wings. The phenomenal pace of the Red Bull has once again lead to accusations of having an illegal front wing. Again after trailing though some videos on YouTube of Australia it is possible to see some movement on the wing but then I am no engineering expert. I am sure we will have the same circle as last time. Teams throwing accusations whilst Red Bull pass all tests. We will keep an eye on how this pans out.

1. Raikkonen joining NASCAR

But above all the stories this week one shocked me the most. 2007 Formula 1 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen will be moving from the World Rally Championship to the American NASCAR later this year. It seems that the Finn has gotten bored of another type of motor sport and wants to put his talents elsewhere. I for one think good on him for doing what he wants to do and not giving in to management of fans. But on the other hand "COME BACK TO FORMULA 1 KIMI!"

Posted by Sean Russell - Follow him on twitter @SeanRussellF1.

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