On Thursday I went karting at the Kurburgring again, this time with a carrier bag holding my shoes, earplugs and a spare pair of gloves. My brother didn't kart this time but he and Dad spectated. The staff on reception remembered us well from last time. It turned out they'd even read my blog and liked it, which was nice. 

The briefing this time focused more on the correct lines to take around the circuit because the marshal leading it reckoned I could improve if I could get my lines right more consistently. Given that my times on my previous visit had ping-ponged to some extent, I could understand that line of thinking. To this end, one of the other marshals offered to show me the correct lines.

For the first 20 minutes of my allotted half-hour, I had company on the track. Two other people were already there when I headed out. The marshal was not among them. I got going and tried to get into a rhythm. This happened surprisingly quickly. The first lap was not a complete embarassment and the second one a 34.518 - faster than all but 6 of the laps I'd done on my previous visit.

The next seven laps showed slow but steady improvement, apart from one where I lost the rhythm of the lap entirely. I was faster than the other two karters on circuit and was gradually catching them.

Lap 9 of my run involved a big jump in performance. Having previously done 34.4s, I went down to 33.424, which was 0.4 seconds faster than my previous lap record. I was getting close to one of the other karters and starting to plan how to do the overtake...

The next lap was even faster (33.301) and I was nearly on the guy's rear bumper as I noticed another karter join the track a short way behind me. Knowing that overtaking was forbidden into the banked Karusell, I tried to take a cautious approach into the hairpin. Unfortunately I forgot to take into account that karts don't steer so well when driven slowly. The driver in front of me had a poor line into the turn and was slow coming back onto the power. We both crashed, leaving the somewhat bemused marshal looking back at us with "What did the pair of you think you were doing?" body language.

It took a while for us to get going again. So what do I do next? Crash at the same corner next lap, all by my little lonesome! After that, the marshal caught up with me and I was able to follow him for a few laps. My times went all over the place - as I tried to learn the improved lines for different parts of the circuit, I would lose track of what I was supposed to be doing for others. It's difficult to track another kart closely and maintain quality of driving in your own kart simultaneously. Eventually, I turned in a lap that was considered acceptable and the marshal motioned for me to go past.

A few minutes later, everyone left the track except me because I had 10 minutes more to go. This was going to be a great opportunity to put what I had learned into practise. Except that my fingers were getting tired. I was struggling to turn the kart. I responded to it by slowing down, which of course made the kart gradually less responsive to the turning I was managing to do. I ended up stopping for nearly 4 minutes to let my fingers recover.

After I got going again, I nearly matched my previous fastest time and managed to consistently be within 0.4 seconds of that time on the other laps. I could feel things were much better after my break. On the penultimate lap, I thought something in the glove had worked loose, but carried on regardless - no sense stopping again...

After the chequered flag, I had a "debrief" with Dad and my brother.  They reckoned I hadn't managed to get everything right on a single lap; every time there was at least one corner where I'd made an error. If I'd managed to string my best corners together, they reckoned I could have been over a second faster. Still, the "acceptable" lap turned out to be 33.104 seconds. An improvement of 0.6 seconds on my fastest lap and 1.88 seconds on my average (non-crash/break) lap was good work.

The "debrief" got interrupted when I got round to removing my gloves. Nothing in the glove had got loose. I had simply got a thumbnail-sized blister on the base of my right hand, which had popped. I heard motorsport was dangerous but that wasn't quite what I had in mind... Just to make it worse, I'd left my first-aid kit in my karting bag at home. Good thing the reception staff had plasters.

I am now the 7th-fastest woman to have driven at the Kurburgring, just 0.6 seconds slower than one of the members of staff. Just in case anyone thinks I should replace Felipe Massa, I should point out that there is a junior who, despite using a kart with less than half the engine displacement of the kart I used, has a fastest lap 0.195 seconds faster than me. Clearly I have targets at which to aim...

Just after lunch today, Dad, my brother and I went to the Kurburgring in Sutton-in-Ashfield. Never mind the punny title - it was the first time I'd karted in a while and as a bonus I would get to compete against my brother! He has had some road car driving experience but between the sessions I've done at Elk Karting and the one at Amen Corner, I've got slightly more experience of karts.

The reception was nice, with race-themed chairs and friendly staff. Our luck was in because it turned out that Thursday afternoon is "happy hour", so there was a discount on the karting. One downside became apparent immediately; it was noisy, largely because there were petrol karts on an indoor track. This was an issue for me as I have sensitive hearing. I'd brought earplugs but the staff provided some as well.  The other issue with using petrol karts indoors is ventilation, though the place didn't have much in the way of fumes in the air.

The briefing was not the usual set-up of someone standing at the front of the classroom going through the rules. It started that way, with a staff member pointing out the basics as well as briefly explaining circuit-specific things like where different rooms were and the evacuation procedure, but then we were left watching a video with the rules on there. If I'd been a first-timer, I do wonder what would have happened if I hadn't understood the video properly, but fortunately I've karted before and the rules were only slightly different for the Kurburgring. The big circuit-specific rule was that the banked Karusell Corner/Turn 2 was a half-speed corner with no overtaking permitted.

This banked corner was the big "selling point" of the Kurburgring; a square hairpin with a very uneven surface unlike the rest of the track surface. The bank was steep enough that it was impossible to see what was on it from the spectator area, but there was a marshal position inside the corner in the (likely) case of someone getting it wrong.

The corner was important but it wasn't the most important one on the circuit. That was the double-apex Turn 6, which had a deceptive amount of run-off and invites two major faults - excessively early turn-in and excessive entry speed. I found the early turn-in issue to be quite a fault in my driving during the early stages, resulting in two small crashes. Once I got myself out but the other time I had to wave a marshall over to help me.

The excessive entry speed problem was more noticeable in the group that raced before my family descended upon the track. Two karters in particular had a tendency to try going full-pelt through the first apex, slam on the brakes, skid, barely make it through the second apex... ...and get passed by the karter who'd gone wide and let them make their mistake. Apart from the times the karter who'd gone in too fast simply found the barriers and had to get help.

The karts in question have 270 cc, which is as much as a single-engine arrive-and-drive kart can be expected to do. The circuit is also fairly new, so we're talking about karts in a reasonable state. For the first five laps, I also missed the barriers. With that in mind, note this:

• The Kurburgring is 450 metres.
• My first lap was 62.343 seconds.  
• This is a rather stately 16.147 mph. 

  My first lap round the track may be the slowest one of the day (and certainly was as of the time I left the track).  My next three laps were nothing special either because I was still learning the track. This involved nearly stopping the kart at each corner because I was figuring out apexes and braking points. I even had to apply the brakes a little on the flat-out Devil's Elbow/Turn 1. My brother was long gone, having passed me halfway round the first lap.

Apparently Dad, on the sidelines, was getting worried that I might not be enjoying myself. Admittedly, the point in the opening lap where I got cramp in my right foot was no fun at all, but it wore off (the cramp not the foot) and fun started to creep in. Then I suddenly went 4 seconds faster than my previous lap - and 27 seconds faster than my first one - to put in a respectable 35.932 second lap. That was more like it :) This gave me more confidence - perhaps more than was warranted. Next lap, I spun at the second of three hairpin corners called "Mirabeau" (or Turn 8). There was no Monaco-esque crane, only the need to wave over an ever-willing marshal. My brother crashed at the same corner later in the lap, which made me feel better and got me within half a lap of him.

I'd almost caught my brother again when I had the first of my crashes at Turn 6, followed by another crash in the second Mirabeau hairpin two laps later. So much for getting a rhythm and now my brother was threatening to pass me again.

Fortunately, something had clicked in my head. I pulled out a string of laps in the high-35 to low-37 second range, gradually getting better until lap 23. Then I had another breakthrough and did 7 of the next 8 laps within a second of one another, the fastest at 34.008. The one lap that wasn't was the lap I caught my brother. He was beginning to get tired and make mistakes. I spent much of one lap following him (his basic technique was good) but when he made an error of concentration at Turn 3 of the following lap, I cut to the inside and overtook him. He retired 3 laps later due to tiredness and spent the rest of the session with Dad, watching me.

I was worried for a time that I'd missed the chequered flag signal because I didn't see any indicator that proved I should be the only kart on track. It was only when I saw Dad and my brother not waving their arms round trying to get me to notice them that I worked out everything was OK. Whereupon I crashed at the double-apexed Turn 6. Oops.

That was my last major error of the session. I turned in a series of reasonably consistent laps. There was a lap in the high-35 seconds, two in the low-36 seconds and then 8 of the last 9 laps were within half-a-second of one another, in the high-34 seconds and very-low-35 seconds. 

There was something a little bit different about the other lap, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I was still very happy as the chequered flag was waved, though - I can't see times from the kart but I could feel a pattern beginning to settle into my muscles. I cruised round one last time, parked the kart and scrambled over the barrier separating kart from staff. The staff member who met me (who'd also initiated my safety briefing) told me I'd done very well. I assumed she meant I'd behaved well and not been a complete embarrassment to anyone, so I said "thank you" and went to Dad and my brother.

Who then pointed me to the timing screen. It's a good system that clearly indicates best times, recent times by everyone on track and a leaderboard of times for the day. I'd beaten my brother (whose time of 34.408 seconds was itself very respectable), which was hardly a surprise given I'd had the unfair advantage of 16 more laps. The odd thing was that I had the fastest time of anyone who'd come to the track today. Especially odd when the staff member who'd said I'd done well observed that a lot of the others had previously visited.

That lap which felt a little bit different? It was 33.755 seconds, beating the next-fastest time by 0.289 seconds. Turned out that it was fast enough to get onto one of the leaderboards. I am officially the 15th-fastest woman at the Kurburgring in terms of fastest laps - all of those with better times having set them on second or subsequent visits. Yippee!

On discovering this, we collected our timesheets, returned the borrowed kit and left to tell Grandma what had happened. She said she never wanted to be my passenger in a road car. That's fine by me as it is unlikely I will even have a road licence any time soon ;)

I very much want to go again - and hopefully this time warm up a little quicker! Until then, my brother has the consolation of having a faster average time than me... 

Today's blog entry was inspired by a ;remark by Andy Hone at Sidepodcast's   F1 photographers versus the democratisation of media

Do you honestly think that if the gates are open to anyone they  will go to obscure places on the circuit? No not a chance they will all want to be at the prime locations and it will just be even more uncomfortable for everyone.

I have deliberately not clarified "they" in the quote as this itself appears to be a point of disagreement. Suffice to say for the purposes of this entry, it's photographers wanting to take photos of F1-related things who don't currently get trackside access to do their photography.

The broader problem sparking this comment can be separated into separate pieces (links below go to specific comments so you don't have to wade through what at times was a very heated argument):

1. There  aren't enough photographers in place to record every important events at Grands Prix
2. There are sufficient photographers for the idea of extra ones to cause tension bordering on fear  
3. The main thing that causes 2), other than potential loss of livelihoods, is doubt over the quality of the incomers
4. The market for blog photography is heavily underserved
5. The situation described in 4) applies despite the likes of Paul-Henri Cahier making inroads into the sector  
6. The market is starting to use other methods to bridge the market gap alluded to in 4).

What we have here is a classic disruptive market opportunity. There's an information gap (1), a demonstrated resistance to the most obvious remedy from current providers (2), a barrier that could be removed to lower that resistance that the current system doesn't help remove (3), customers for those who exploit the information gap even if they aren't 100% successful (4), proof that it doesn't have to be an outsider who serves the market (5) and signals that the window of opportunity will close by itself if not appropriately exploited (6).

That last point is important. Without it, the resistance to the idea of providing for the bloggers' market would make provision there a niche at best. There's a reason why point (5) mentions only Paul-Henri Cahier. With it, the needs have to be served - by the current providers of photos if they're willing (with the potential for suitable recompense), by newcomers (or by piracy) if not. 

The experiences of other intellectual media (music, writing, movies) has shown that underserved markets will find ways of satisfying their needs. What F1 photography needs is a method of serving those needs in an economically satisfying way that respects the list of limitations and conditions given previously?

Wonder if tiered passes would work? The photographers with a excellent and extensive track record would get a particular level of pass (call it gold for the sake of this discussion) that would allow them to access all areas and have priority in any location.

Less experienced photographers who'd nonetheless demonstrated their skill could have a different pass (silver, maybe) that would allow them into any photographer-suitable trackside area (though perhaps not the paddock, which invariably seems to be full) but only if nobody with a gold pass was there at the time. If anyone with a gold pass decided to go there afterwards, the silver pass people would be asked to leave (extra marshals may be required to help, but at Grands Prix that shouldn't be too much of a problem). 

Newcomers could get a further different pass (bronze) and be assigned a spot in a place where past experience showed neither gold nor silver pass-holders went. Allowance would be made for the occasional gold or silver photographer who wanted to take photos from there. It would be especially useful for those photographers who are only able to reach one or two circuits in a given calender, because these would be the ones getting the least practise at shooting F1 and having them in set places would enable better scrutiny - not just of quality but of behaviour. 

Photographers would move up and down the scales based on what they were producing and the audience they were getting. I would anticipate the bronze-silver transition to be primarily done on quality and the silver-gold one to be mainly based on how many people and from how wide a range of sources were looking at their content.

The system would give newcomers a chance to prove themselves and perhaps to experiment with the photography model for bloggers and other places that need low-quality images, allow the experienced people to get "the shots" and go where they see fit, and also provide a method for transitioning between the two states as people get more confident in their skills and perhaps want to have a go at getting the big time.

No system is going to get everyone who wants to be a F1 photographer through the gates, nor need it do so. What this system does is meet a demonstrated need/desire in the market while still maintaining the quality of F1 photography and also not changing the system so sharply that current practitioners have no chance of competing. Yes, the current brigade will need different skills to thrive, but that's a different blog entry altogether.

Contents

In Article 28, "Homologated parts" has been dropped from the title after being added in 2010. Seems quite odd, since I had expected there to be some homologated parts.

Article 16

The stewards have been granted wider-ranging powers under Article 16.2. Stewards may now issue post-race time penalties of any length for an incident under Article 16.2 c). Reprimands, exclusion from results and one-race suspension have also been included, though all three of these powers were already granted to the stewards under the International Sporting Code. The reprimands in particular were already commonly used. However, the one-race suspension has to be for the next event, which was not previously the case (before the suspension could be applied at any time, which was useful because it allowed time for teams to appeal against unfair uses of the power).

The only completely new power is the ability to issue post-race time penalties of any length. However, the new specifics of the suspension power worry me.

Article 20

A dramatic number of additions have been made to Article 20. In 2010, there was only one sentence: "The driver must drive the car alone and unaided". Now there are four paragraphs. Therefore the following actions have been formally banned:

- Actions that could hinder other drivers
- More than one blocking move per straight
- Leaving the circuit boundaries (defined as four wheels beyond the track edges, kerbs being outside the edges)
- Rejoining the track in a dangerous manner
- Rejoining the track having gained an advantage from leaving it
- Ignoring blue flags

Those of you who have been following F1 for a while will notice that all of those things were already prohibited. This is because they are in the International Sporting Code, with the exception of defining kerbs as not being part of the circuit (it's left to the interpretation of individual series). The additions strike me as pointless repetition.

Article 22

It has been decided that "chequered flag procedures must be respected" in testing. Technically speaking, testing isn't subject to the International Sporting Code, but red flag procedures already had to be respected. It's a sensible addition, but not one that's likely to change anything.

Article 23

There have been several changes of wording in Article 23.1 a) - "shall" has been changed to "will", the first "is" becomes the grammatically-improved "will be" and the second "is" also becomes "will be", which not only corrects the tense but also the number. Pedants everywhere will rejoice.

More importantly, Article 23.1 a) now says the "fast lane" in the pits cannot be more than 3.5 metres. In wider pit lanes, this will give the mechanics considerably more room in which to work.

Article 23.1 d) has a paragraph for the order in which cars should queue up out of the pits. They must queue up in the "fast lane" only, in the order they got there, and leave in the same order unless a car is delayed. It does not clearly answer the question of what happens if someone chooses to do a practise start.

The reference for the circumstances in which equipment can be left in the pit lane has been corrected in Article 23.1 h). It's permitted only if a car has to go to the pits between the pit lane closing and the start of the race.

An important change has been made to Article 23.1 j). Teams must provide a way of knowing when a car was released from a pit stop. This must be visible from the front of the car (implying that both the driver and the on-board camera must be able to spot this indicator). As a result, expect many fewer near-collisions in the pits and less work for the stewards to do when it comes to deciding who was wrong in the remaining cases.

Article 23.2 allows the pit lane to be closed for safety reasons. An example of when this might be done is if a car has broken down in such a way as to block the entire pit entry. Cars can still enter the pits, but only for essential and obvious repair work - perhaps to replace a puncture or a broken front wing. How that would work with the above example is unclear, but the power may still prove useful.

Article 25

Article 25.1 has been updated to indicate that the current tyre manufacturer (Pirelli) will be the sole supplier until the end of 2013.

Tyres will be considered used once they've left the pit lane according to article 25.4. Since that was already being applied in F1 on an informal basis, nothing will change, but codifying informal rules into demonstrable regulations is generally a good idea.

Articles 25.4 a) and b) have been reworded to give the FIA technical director responsibility for allocating tyres to drivers in practise sessions.

A paragraph has been inserted to deal with those situations whereby a race ends prematurely but some drivers haven't used both compounds of dry-weather tyre (assuming that driver also hasn't used a wet-weather tyre). Any driver in that situation will receive a 30-second time penalty, which is the equivalent of a stop/go penalty. Completing a normal-length race while only using one dry-weather compound (and no wet-weather ones) still means exclusion.

Article 26

Cars in Q3 will no longer be weighed during the session due to a modification to Article 26.1 a) 2). It's not clear any cars were ever weighed in the 10-minute version of Q3, but it's a good safeguard.

The reason cars in Q3 definitely won't be weighed is because Article 26.1 a) 5) makes it compulsory for all cars in Q3 to be weighed at the end of the session, either with the driver on board (as per Q1 and Q2 weighings) or separately (as per post-race weighing).

Article 28

Gearboxes must last five races instead of four due to a slight change in the wording of Article 28.6 a).

If a driver cannot start a race, does not have a substitute starting the race for them and the reason is not a penalty from the stewards, that driver is allowed to have a new gearbox next race, just the same as they would have done if they had started but failed to finish. Several parts of Article 28.6 have been modified to account for this, but it is Article 28.6 a) which rules the change in.

Dog rings on gearboxes may be changed if a gearbox changed is required during the first day of practise. This will give a little bit more flexibility to teams in the latter part of the season because they can use different gearboxes for the first day's running that are not part of the main sequence.

Article 28.6 f) will allow one additional change of gearbox outside the permissions granted without penalty. This is similar to the exemption granted for the first engine change in 2007 and could signal a transition to the "X gearboxes a season" system currently in use for engines.

Importantly, Article 28.7 has gone. Teams are now allowed to change their survival cell, wheels and crash structures whenever they like after the first race of the season, subject to normal crash testing if it's a survival cell or crash structure. Hopefully, this will prevent a repeat of the F-duct situation, where the inability to modify the monocoque meant teams were using any old hole anywhere in the cockpit for the devices, to the detriment of usability and potentially safety. Also, large differences in the handling of the wheel specifications should be easy to resolve - Ferrari got an advantage on other teams from having a particularly unusual wheel psuedo-fairing that could not inspire any improved efforts from elsewhere all season.

Article 29

Article 29.3 has had the indent removed for consistency reasons. No difference to anything on track, but much more pleasing to the eye.

Article 30

A new Article 30.3 has been inserted. Unnecessarily slow, erratic and dangerous driving is banned at all times. The International Sporting Code already bans all of the above, but this echoes and emphasises the wording used for the Article 40.5 regulation covering proper driving conduct behind the Safety Car.

More importantly, all driving between the pit exit and pit entry (defined by their respective Safety Car lines) must now be done in 145% of the fastest whole-lap time set in the first day of practise. In practise this will typically mean that nobody can do a lap in more than 150% of the time the fastest driver lapped. This appears to be designed to prevent people from trying to get severely damaged cars to the pits, doing particularly thoughtless mass blocking or doing really slow in- or out-laps (or really slow formation laps, for that matter). Laps in wet-weather running are also affected but the margin is so big that an honest lap that was too slow would indicate the session should be stopped for wet weather reasons. Note that if a slow lap is due to a problem on the main straight or in the pits (such as stalling), that delay wouldn't influence anything because of the pit straight being ignored.

Between 10 and 4 hours before the start of first and third practises, nobody from any of the teams may be at the circuit. Each team is allowed four individual exemptions per year (that is to say, four people can work overnight for one race each, or at one race a four-person squad could be present at night). It is difficult to work on a car with only four people, so all but the most urgent and straightforward all-night shifts for mechanics have now been banned. Finally people associated with teams can (usually) be assured of a half-decent night's sleep!

Article 34

Under Article 34.1, wheel fasteners may be attached and removed in parc fermé. Pitot tubes may be covered and uncovered in parc ferme but only if a change in the weather has been declared.

Article 35

The compulsory autograph signing session is now at a time and place determined by each individual promoter and does not have to happen on the first day of practise. Procedures will also be determined locally. It will be interesting to see what is done with the new freedoms.

Article 36

The 107% rule in qualifying can be found in Article 36.3. Drivers whose fastest qualifying lap is more than 107% off the fastest time set in Q1 will only be allowed to start at the discretion of the stewards and no appeals (either way) will be permitted. The stewards are at liberty to decide the order if multiple people miss the 107% benchmark and get re-admitted in the same race.

Article 38

Drivers on their formation lap will have to keep to the pit lane speed limit until they pass the pole position slot, according to Article 38.6. It's not entirely clear to me why - wasn't "greatly-reduced speed" precise enough?

An entire paragraph has been removed from Article 38.8. Cars delayed on leaving the grid may now overtake at any time prior to the pit entry in order to resume their original starting position.

Article 40

Article 40.5, which used to ban slow, erratic and dangerous driving behind the Safety Car, has been re-worded... ...but is still redundant in the face of the new Article 30.3 (and, technically speaking, the International Sporting Code that preceded both). The only difference is that behaviour that "could be deemed" dangerous is banned behind the Safety Car, while at other times only driving that is dangerous is banned.

Article 40.7 has had a couple of clauses reworded with no apparent change to their effects on the racing.

The phrase in Article 40.9 requiring the Safety Car formation to be kept as tight as possible after the Safety Car has left the scene has been deleted. This may be due to the massive pile-up in China.

Article 40.11 continues to have the clause whereby last-lap Safety Cars are not followed by green flags for the last few metres of the race.

The last two paragraphs of Article 40.14 have been modified to account for drivers being allowed to resume their previous positions on formation laps (and condensed into one paragraph in the process).

Article 42

The second paragraph of Article 42.6 has been modified to take into account the new permission to resume previous position on formation laps.

Conclusions

Most of the changes made this year are minor and repeating what already exists in the International Sporting Code. However, some important changes are hidden among them. Wider pit lanes will be nice but the mechanics will be happier with the fact that most of them won't have a single "all-nighter" all year.

Methods of identifying when a release was done should increase pit lane safety. Minimum lap speeds on track through all sessions could get interesting. However, the change I like the most this year is that the horrible homologated survival cell regulation has been thrown away.

Hopefully future years will feature less cosmetic alteration and more of the type of red-tape paring seen with the removal of certain homologated components.