Alex Zanardi expects a tough season

Alex Zanardi expects the new rules on handicap weights won’t be in his favor. All drivers in the same brand car will have the same balast weight, which will punish the slower works drivers more when their team mates are successfull. “I am not looking for excuses but I have to admit that this season is gonna be tougher than ever for me”, Zanardi says.

“The real problem for outsiders like myself, will anyway be the cancellation of all the weight handicaps given until last year due to the harvested results and the scored points”, Zanardi continues to say.

Last year’s system of handicap weights was better for Zanardi, he admits. “As races went by, fighting against high-ballasted drivers became a slightly easier challenge. But spectators had their problems in working out who was really the most handicapped driver of the group!.”

The new handicap rules will make the challenge harder for the Italian driver. “Weight will always be the same for drivers of the same brand. Regulations say that, if necessary, the weight of all cars of a brand would be updated after evaluation of the average qualifying performances of the two best drivers. This will obviously tend to give values along the lines of the noble concepts of sport (the best always in front) but will take away a chance from those like me that was struggling to get up there with their resources alone.”

Despite all this, Zanardi is convinced that the new rules won’t stop him from having a chance at success. “I am convinced that I can have my say and I reckon that in case I could get the same satisfactions obtained in the last seasons the new regulations will increase their value even further.”

Last week we reported that Zanardi will be driving a car with a sequential gearbox this year. The old system with the previous gearbox hindered Zanardi in some occasions, like at Macau. The change in gearbox is not something worth mentioning according to Zanardi. “The new sequential gearbox is working fine, but it’s not something that should be on the news. At the end of the day a lot of racing cars have it and the technology is relatively easy.”

“Anyway, BMW Motorsport, after building it did not invest too much time in tweaking it, especially in terms of power cuts during shifts. Everything is based on stopping electrical flows to the plugs for a bunch of milliseconds necessary to allow the shift without having to release the gas manually. This seems like a pretty easy power cut but, in reality, this influences quite a lot shift speed, engine push and gearbox’s life.”

“Developing all this within a few testing days, alone and without a clear starting point is not easy but I am confident and hopeful in the good job done. The gearbox will not award us with chronometric advantages. On tracks like Vallelunga, for example, there is not a big difference in performances between the H shaped, 5 speed gearbox and the sequential with six. Clearly, the second version and the thirty handicap kilograms imposed by rule can end up with worse performances.”

“On other tracks one goes much faster at the end of the main straight. To do that you have to keep your gears more spaced. In these situations, like at Curitiba, the advantage of an additional gear balances the ballast and gives something more in situations like the start (from idle) of race two, overtaking, traffic in the first corner and all those messes in which I usually put myself.”