Formula 1 thread

[tifosi77]

If this year's LM24 didn't float your boat, how about an hour of classics at la Sarthe?
[youtube][/youtube]

[dodint]

Did you see that mid-90s hyper/racecar gathering that was posted on Jalopnik a few days ago?

mmmm, longtail McLaren F1 GTR, and Lister Storms.

Added your vid to the watch later list so I can watch it on the TV.

[tifosi77]

Five McLaren F1s...... I don't think I've seen that many total in my life.

And this is behind the Autosport paywall, so apologies if no one can read the full story. (Quoted most relevant bits)

Ferrari F1 team needs more integration says chief Marco Mattiacci

The various strands of the Ferrari Formula 1 team still need to work more closely together, despite sharing a single Italian base, according to new team principal Marco Mattiacci.

The former CEO of Ferrari North America has conducted a thorough review of the Scuderia's working practices since taking over from Stefano Domenicali ahead of April's Chinese Grand Prix.

The high levels of cooperation between Mercedes' separate engine and chassis bases at Brackley and Brixworth are considered crucial to its success this season, suggesting a team like Ferrari - with a single base in Maranello - should also have had an advantage under this year's new rules.

But Mattiacci refuted this suggestion when quizzed by AUTOSPORT.

"What you say is counter intuitive; [that teams based] all in the same place should be faster than people that are [separate]. It is not necessarily [the case]," he said, when asked by AUTOSPORT why teams with separate chassis and engine bases, such as Mercedes and Red Bull, might be making faster decisions than Ferrari.

"It's not just the decision of process, it is the way people cooperate with each other.

"It is not because if you have different geographical areas that necessarily [you] should be slower than teams in the same building like we are.

"We are working very much on that area. We have to be more reactive, and we have to be more integrated."

I find it interesting that when the team was organized by a an Englishman and a German (Todt was more FIA stuff) they were practically unstoppable for nearly a decade. Once they left, Montezemolo embarked on a conscious effort to re-Italianize Maranello. And the result is that the team is now every bit the headless chicken it was through the 80s and much of the 90s.

[tifosi77]

Massa talking about Sergio Perez:

I will think twice, because I believed him would not move his car, I believed him. You can’t believe now when somebody who is paying so many penalties and causing so many problems, you can’t believe… I will not trust him anymore, definitely. When I will be behind him again I will think about three times where I need to go because I don’t know what he is going to do.

Translation: Don't worry, Force India. All you have to do is make sure Perez qualifies ahead of me, I won't try and pass him.

I get the sentiment he's expressing. But that's just a really dumb way to say it.

In other news, the Austria stewards have been empowered to reexamine the Perez penalty. It seems the Canadian stewards came to their decision before ever speaking with Perez (he was still in the hospital), and Force India successfully lobbied the FIA that his statement would constitute 'a new element' of evidence that might sway the decision.

The fact that they are arguing this so vehemently is kind of annoying. Perez swerved in the braking zone - suck it up and move along.

[Shyster]

Just got in the previously owed copy of Rapid Response: My Inside Story as a Motor Racing Life-Saver by Dr. Stephen Olvey that I ordered from AbeBooks.com. Olvey was one of the main medical officials for USAC / CART / IndyCar for many years. I have a crystal-clear memory of Dr. Olvey announcing Greg Moore's death at the California Speedway CART race in 1999. I'll provide a review after I get into it.

[tifosi77]

Dr Olvey gave my cohort and me a personal tour of the CART Medical Unit at Laguna Seca in 2003. Very gracious man.

He and Dr Terry Trammel are, imo, the two most important figures in motor racing after Bernie Ecclestone..... probably more important, as their work was responsible for actually saving human lives.

The book is a pretty good read, btw. Gets a little sensationalistic at times, but provides a good look behind the scenes of what being a medical professional amidst a motor race is like.

[dodint]

Formula One 2014, put a fork in it, it's dead.

2015 isn't looking so good either, standing restarts! will fix it all! How about spark plates, and exhaust trumpets!

Throw some more hybrid crap in there too while you're at it.

[Shyster]

Finished up Rapid Response, and it's a great read. Agree about the importance of Olvey and Trammel. Along with Sir Sid Watkins in F1, they were the primary impetus for the tremendous strides in safety in motor racing from the 1980s on. It also made me rather sad to read, as the book covers what IMO was the pinnacle of open-wheel racing in the U.S. You look back at seasons like, say, 1999 when CART had 16 teams, 5 chassis (Penske, Reynard, Lola, Eagle, and Swift), 4 engines (Ford, Mercedes, Honda, and Toyota) a tire war between Firestone and Goodyear, and 36 drivers started at least one of the 20 races on the schedule. But the CART/IRL split was already working to tear down open-wheel racing, and it's a hollow shadow of itself today. And despite all that B.S. Tony George spun about creating a more "American" series, most of the racers in the IRL today aren't from the U.S. I greatly look forward to the day I get to read that man's obituary.

[tifosi77]

It's hard to imagine how FTG could have done a worse job in a leadership role in American open wheel racing. And it just boggles my mind how utterly petty the whole thing was; he was snarked off that the Indy 500 didn't have its own voting representation of CART's board of directors (despite the fact that the race was still sanctioned by USAC), so he told the team owners to eff off and he'd create his own racing series. And he ruined the sport in the process. Don't forget - CART had better TV ratings in the U.S. than NASCAR even 3-4 years after The Split. And it's hard to believe that in 1993 there were more F1 champs on the CART grid (Fittipaldi, Andretti, Mansell) as there were in F1 (Prost, Senna).

The CART team owners were not blameless, however. It must be pointed out that at the time all this turmoil was fomenting, not a single CART team owner elected to so much as test Jeff Gordon, never mind offer him a race seat. I've always felt that Gordon had the stuff to race in F1, and if he had three or four years of big-time single seater racing in CART, he'd have done well in Europe. I mean, hell... if Jacques Villeneuve could win a freakin' title.......

That said, CART of the 1990s remains the single greatest racing spectacle I have ever witnessed. I like to point to the Bonneville 400 effort the Honda F1 did in 2006. They took a highly modified (altho still apparently race-legal) Honda F1 car to Bonneville in an attempt to set a 400 kmh (248.5 mph) average across a 1-mile track. The best they did was 393.613 kmh..... which is only 244.580 mph. I say 'only' because Gil de Ferran qualified for the 2001 California 500 at Fontana at a speed of 241.428 mph in an unmodified Reynard-Honda. And Champ Cars of the day routinely hit 260 mph in the draft during races.

The only thing that comes close to that was the Group C prototypes of the 80s and early 90s, which were truly bonkers machines. Perhaps the coolest racing cars ever, imo.

[tifosi77]

God dang it...... now I'm in a bad mood.

[Shyster]

God dang it...... now I'm in a bad mood.

Sorry. I feel the same way every time I think about it. That racing was awesome. The cars were fast, the drivers were great, and the racing in CART was much better than the F1 parades (some things never change).

[tifosi77]

The FIA World Motor Sport Council met today to finalize the 2015 Sporting Regulations. And.......

F1 to use standing race restarts from grid in 2015

Safety car periods will be followed by standing race restarts from the grid next season, Formula One's governing body announced on Thursday.

The measure, which replaces rolling restarts, is aimed at making grands prix more exciting but has been criticised by some drivers.

"I understand the start is one of the most exciting times for the fans but it sounds very extreme and I hope it's not going to be done. It's going too far with things," Mercedes' championship leader Nico Rosberg said at last weekend's Austrian Grand Prix.

The enormity of this cockup will be revealed in the fullness of time. But if Nico Rosberg is griping about it, you know you've well and truly done something stupid; he actually has spoken favorably about medals for wins, sprinklers to make all races wet, and the sound of the current gen cars.

[dodint]

Yeah, I embedded that in my mini-rant above. Maybe you've foe'd me. *shrug*

[tifosi77]

Yeah, but it wasn't official until today. I was still holding out hope that the WMSC would see the light and not overthink things once again.

[dodint]

tif,

I love Road Atlanta as well, but isn't Watkins Glen (Boot) the closest thing to Americas Spa?

[tifosi77]

I'd say our closest analog would be Road America at Elkhart Lake. It's half a mile longer, has three monster straights, and has perhaps the best corner in North America - the Kink. The Glen does have the history, tho, and I like the fact that the elevation change there is more in the corners rather than on the straights.

Truth be told, they're both great race tracks, and I'm probably exhibiting my CART-bias again.

[CBear3]

Boot is great, but to rival Spa in length and speed it's got to be Road America.
I've only been around The Glen as a spectator, but did Skip Barber at Road America (so I'm probably biased there too). But besides the kink, Hurry Downs is an amazingly underrated section, and TV doesn't illustrate just how off camber it feels. The run from turn 3 to turn 5 along with the trip through Kettle Bottoms after the Kink is very much enclosed in the trees and feels more like I'd imagine the older sections of Spa.
The Glen feels much more antiseptic by comparison.

[dodint]

I put in for a job in Wisconsin this morning, yet I'm still 3hrs away from Road America. Probably bad juju, right?

Disagree about The Kink. It's only difficult in high end machinery. Cliche as it is, The Corkscrew at Laguna is at least a ride for everyone. I watched a guy on Youtube do it in a big wheel. Hell, I'd argue The S's at VIR are more fun than The Kink.

[tifosi77]

I've driven through the Corkscrew....... well, let me say that accurately...... I was driven through the Corkscrew in a rodded out Focus SVT that was being pedaled by a CART pace car driver. (At the time, all their pace car drivers were women, which I thought was kind of cool) They only went about 7/10ths on those Fast Laps, but you still got a good ride. The thing about the 'Screw is that the approach is totally blind and you actually aim the car at a tree when you turn in, because the corner itself is completely unsighted until you apex the left. But it's much more fun to watch cars go through there than to actually run the corner. It's only dramatic if you get your braking wrong, or if your name is Bryan Herta.

Rainey Curve is a much better corner. It's fast, but it feels like it goes on forever, the camber is all screwy cos you're going downhill, and the track is crazy bumpy even a foot or so off line.

Highlight of the lap was being overtaken by Mario Andretti in a Corvette doing a VIP lap for someone.

[CBear3]

I've driven through the Corkscrew....... well, let me say that accurately...... I was driven through the Corkscrew in a rodded out Focus SVT that was being pedaled by a CART pace car driver. (At the time, all their pace car drivers were women, which I thought was kind of cool) They only went about 7/10ths on those Fast Laps, but you still got a good ride. The thing about the 'Screw is that the approach is totally blind and you actually aim the car at a tree when you turn in, because the corner itself is completely unsighted until you apex the left. But it's much more fun to watch cars go through there than to actually run the corner. It's only dramatic if you get your braking wrong, or if your name is Bryan Herta.

Rainey Curve is a much better corner. It's fast, but it feels like it goes on forever, the camber is all screwy cos you're going downhill, and the track is crazy bumpy even a foot or so off line.

Highlight of the lap was being overtaken by Mario Andretti in a Corvette doing a VIP lap for someone.

My father did a school at Laguna, and he'd echo that sentiment. Once you get past the blind entry and the fact that you have to drive at a tree, the Corkscrew got rather mundane. Rainey Curve and T10 at the bottom of the hill after that had a consistently higher pucker factor.

[tifosi77]

No love for the British GP? I thought it was an excellent race, and the battle between Vettel and Alonso was highly entertaining.

But this week also marks one of the in-season test sessions, with the teams getting some added running at Silverstone. Lotus was running with a developmental 18" tire.




If I'm honest...... I kinda like it. And going from the squat 13" tires they run now to low-profile rubber would be as big a change (if not bigger) than the overhaul in the engine regs this year. With the fatter sidewalls, the tire itself is pretty much the bump suspension, the leaf springs just controlling rebound. Cut that sidewall in half, and you fundamentally alter the way the cars behave in the corners. I think it's an interesting idea.

[MRandall25]

Those wheels look like wheels tuners put on their car to "bling" it up...

Finally getting around to watching the British GP today.

[tifosi77]

Here's your daily dose of mildly off-putting.

[youtube][/youtube]

The only sound in the video is wind noise.

[Sigwolf]

There's some tire squeal, too. I imagine it's going to prove quite difficult to get fans in the stands for silent auto racing...

[Shyster]

Compared to the sound of the new turbo V-6s? I think I'd take the silence. And they're not totally quiet. From YouTube they make a high-pitched whine under acceleration.