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The FIA now publishes the weights of each car after qualifying on Saturday.  Those cars that make it through to the final qualifying session must use the fuel they qualified with while the rest of the field may refuel before the race.

Below is a graph showing the actual top ten qualifying times as well as those times adjusted for the weight of fuel each car is carrying.  The graph assumes a standard lap time cost of 0.3 seconds per 10kg of fuel.

From these weights we can see that pole sitter Vettel is fueled lighter than Button alongside him while on the second row Barrichello is fueled lighter than the Red Bull of Mark Webber.  This could be good news for both Button and Webber tomorrow as their adjusted times are quicker than the cars alongside them.

Massa’s hopes for another victory look even more remote when we see that his team mate Kimi Raikkonen outqualified him despite carrying more fuel.

The one man that looks very out of place is Fernando Alonso.  His eighth place grid position was only possible because he was fueled lighter than anyone else on the grid.  He can expect a challenge from Rosberg and Kubica during the race.

2009 Turkish Grand Prix car weights

Image: Renault

While today’s qualifying session for the Monaco Grand Prix was a disappointment for Lewis Hamilton, who hit the barriers in Q1, it was pole number four for fellow Brit Jenson Button.

Below is a graph showing the actual top ten qualifying times as well as those times adjusted for the weight of fuel each car is carrying.  The graph assumes a standard lap time cost of 0.3 seconds per 10kg of fuel.

While the order looks roughly correct, it does seem like Sebastian Vettel is a little out of position.  He has the lightest car on the grid and his adjusted time is slower than his team mate Mark Webber’s who is a couple of rows behind him in eighth.

The graph does show how good Kimi Raikkonen was, though.  He was the only driver to really match the pace of the Brawns and it wasn’t because he was running light.  With his KERS equipped Ferrari on the front row, he will be a definite threat to Jenson Button’s race on Sunday.

Image: Brawn GP

Back in March, Oliver White at BlogF1 posted an interesting comparison of pre-season testing times from 2008 versus those of 2009.

In those numbers was a hint of the dominance to come from Brawn GP and the relatively poor performance of McLaren’s MP4-24.  But they were also a bit misleading in that the second best improved team was BMW followed by Ferrari, neither of which have impressed much this year.  Red Bull, currently second in the Constructors’ Championship, did only marginally better in the comparison table.

Last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix marked the start of the European F1 season which is traditionally the time when teams introduce upgrades to their cars.  In fact, in previous years, many teams would only release their new car when they got to Europe, choosing to run the previous season’s car for the opening flyaway races.

So with most of the teams bringing updated cars to Spain there was a lot of talk of improvements in lap times.  BMW’s upgrade was the most radical, attaching a new rear wing, front wing and a completely redesigned nose.  BMW team boss, Mario Theissen, said they were hoping for a half second per lap improvement.

But are the cars significantly faster now than they were at the beginning of the year?  As the teams all tested at the Circuit de Catalunya in the winter we can compare their times set in testing with their times set during the Spanish Grand Prix weekend.

Below is a table comparing the fastest time set by each team at the Barcelona test in February to their fastest time set during the Spanish Grand Prix weekend.

To be honest, I’m a bit confused by the results.  It shows that all the teams except McLaren posted slower lap times at the Spanish Grand Prix than they did in testing.  In fact Brawn GP were the second biggest losers in the comparison despite dominating the race last weekend.

Perhaps this kind of comparison is not really valid but if BMW claim their car is now half a second a lap faster shouldn’t they have been able to at least match the time they set in testing?

If anyone has any ideas about how to interpret these results, I’d love to hear it in the comments.

Image: BMW AG

The proposed 2010 F1 Sporting Regulations will ban refuelling during the race.  This means that next year we will see a return to ‘proper’ qualifying where all cars run as light as possible to go as fast as possible.

As it stands now, those cars that make it through to the final qualifying session must use the fuel they qualified with while the rest of the field may refuel before the race.

In previous years this meant you could never be sure if a fast qualifying time was genuine or whether they were showboating with a light fuel load.  However, since the FIA started publishing the car weights after qualifying we can determine the relative performance of the top ten grid slots.

Below is a graph showing the actual top ten qualifying times as well as those times adjusted for the weight of fuel each car is carrying.  The graph assumes a standard lap time cost of 0.3 seconds per 10kg of fuel.

The graph shows that while Jenson Button is quick, Vettel was even quicker and Massa’s adjusted time is almost identical to Barrichello’s.

It’s going to be a battle between the Brazillians on the second row into the first corner!

2009 Spanish Grand Prix car weights

Image: Getty

The FIA now publish the declared weights of the cars at the start of the Grand Prix.  Those cars that made it through to the third qualifying session are weighed directly after qualifying while others have their weights declared by the team shortly after the session.

The top ten cars must use the fuel they qualified with while the rest of the field may refuel before the race.

As every Formula One car weighs the same without fuel (605kg), knowing the weights of the cars allows us to predict when drivers will have to stop and also whether the time set in qualifying is indicative of race pace.

Below is a graph showing the actual top ten qualifying times as well as their times adjusted for the weight of fuel they are carrying.  The graph assumes a standard cost of 0.3 seconds per 10kg of fuel.

The graph shows just how fast the Toyotas are.  Even allowing for the fact that they are carrying less fuel than the Brawn GP cars, Jarno Trulli’s fuel-adjusted time was about half a second faster than Jenson Button.  Will Toyota score their first Formula One victory on Sunday?