Sport The Formula 1 Thread

[Halkyon]

I don't mean this as a dig at you chaps having a friendly chat about old Grand Prix cars n' all, but am I strange in finding the old cars to be... mildly repellant? They might be interesting from a technical point of view, but they were also covered in tobacco sponsoring and people got killed in them, not really pleasant.

[Blu3Flame]

I think Mike Gascoyne needs restarting.

[CouldBeWorse]

Aerodynamics were in their infancy in 1976. only 5 years earlier they had wings on big tall sticks

And on similar note the Deltawing is racing in this years Le Mans with support from Nissan.

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/03/13/nissan-backs-deltawing-racecar-headed-for-le-mans-w-video/

Interesting to see how it performs.

[RFT]

I don't mean this as a dig at you chaps having a friendly chat about old Grand Prix cars n' all, but am I strange in finding the old cars to be... mildly repellant? They might be interesting from a technical point of view, but they were also covered in tobacco sponsoring and people got killed in them, not really pleasant.

Yes. Yes, you are.

:-)

Or, to put it another way, It's like a sword, suit of armour, or a fighter plane. all weapons of war, but all still, often, beautiful. And you can;t look at those cars without feeling a huge respect for the brave men who drove them.

WRT the air intakes on the Ferrari - previously to 1976, F1 teams had learned the benefit of ram effect and were placing large airboxes above the drivers' heads. unlike the current regs, these were light fibreglass parts that sat above the rollhoop (which didn;t have to be as high as it does now). a couple of incidents of these coming off in rollovers lef to them being bannedand the rule of no bodywork higher than the rollhoop was introduced. hence the NACA-style air intakes on the Ferrari, and the twin intakes at drivers' eye-height on the lotus (McLaren employed a similar solution),

[probeater]

And on similar note the Deltawing is racing in this years Le Mans with support from Nissan.

http://www.autoblog....e-mans-w-video/

Interesting to see how it performs.

Looks like one of those special cars out of ridgeracer . I foresee more companies doing this as the price of developing highend technology drops and unless the fia stops trying to impede the technological progress of f1 it won't be long before other classes of car are faster than f1.

I'm looking forward to the 4 cylinder turbos next year, it seems archaic to have the current engines which use n/a running at high rpm, it sounds nice but its not as efficient as having less cylinders running at less rpm but with higher boost pressure.

[Jonny5]

It's turbo V6's next year isn't it? The teams pushed back against the 4 cylinder engines I believe.

[marsh]

Sorry, I could have sworn non F1 banter had been outlawed in these parts?

The delta concept has sparked some interesting debate on pistonheads, ranging from the car falling over in the corners to it taking off merc style when it rides a bump to nissan getting in on the act to become an F1 engine supplier. With it being piwered by a 1.6 turbo I suspect that's part of the reason.....

[Dudley]

And on similar note the Deltawing is racing in this years Le Mans with support from Nissan.

http://www.autoblog....e-mans-w-video/

Interesting to see how it performs.

It's a bit difficult because it's not actually following the rules of any class (Hence #0) but it's a 1.6l Turbo with 300hp and they think that it should be ahead of all but the very quickest petrol LMPs.

nissan getting in on the act to become an F1 engine supplier.

Nissan already is an F1 engine supplier, they're basically Renault. There's even Nissan sponsorship on the Red Bulls.

[wev]

Surely it's going to have issues steering though, that front end looks incredibly narrow.

[mexos]

Cough. F1 thread, cough.

Personally I think it looks great. But it doesn't look like a racing car, more like a balsa wood prop for a Batman film. Or a world speed record car. At least it doesn't look as dull as the rest of the LeMans prototypes.

[marsh]

Surely it's going to have issues steering though, that front end looks incredibly narrow.

Apparently the masses of ground effect going on underneath makes up for it's apparent inability to corner. That and the drive one wheel, brake the other means it's not as bad as it should be.

Ref the renault nissan thing, yes you're right although I thought renault had bought into nissan rather than the other way round. With renault in deep financial shite, it seems odd that nissan are making these kinds of investments wouldn't you say?

[mexos]

Love Kov's new helmet.

Looks even beter along side the worst ones. Like...

Yuk. Looks like he should be doing NASCAR.

GLOCKDOGLOL. IT'S NOT 1990 ANYMORE!

Fuck me that's grim! My eyes, etc. Some of the worst typography I've ever seen on DiResta's lid. They might as well have used comics cartoon, would have looked more professional. This is for F1 for fecks sake, not a kart race in Essex!

[RFT]

Surely it's going to have issues steering though, that front end looks incredibly narrow.

There are a few factors at play that means it'll be fine turning, even without the ground effect.

There's very little weight on the front wheels - they don;t need much rubber.

the fact that the front wheels are a long way from the C of G means that there's a long lever arm effect, meaning the tyres dont; have to generate as much force to create a turning moment.

Thirdly, the fact that they're close together means that the effect of body roll, in terms of Load Transfer is minimised. a "wide" car is primarily being turned by the outside front tyre and the inside front tyre doesn;t make much of a contribution. having the tyres close to the centreline means that they're both working closer to peak efficiency. they essentially act more like a single tyre.

Cough. F1 thread, cough.

Personally I think it looks great. But it doesn't look like a racing car, more like a balsa wood prop for a Batman film. Or a world speed record car. At least it doesn't look as dull as the rest of the LeMans prototypes.

That pictures is of a Balsawood prop - it's just the show car. the real car looks a little more purposeful (it's less rounded, more chiselled).

I was sceptical about the deltawing until I was watching a Sidecar race on motors one quiet afternoon. what the Deltawing is, essentially, is a racing sidecar outfit with sidecars on each side (compensating for the lack of a moving passenger). if a sidecar can turn, so can the Deltawing.

[wev]

The passenger on a sidecar is there to act as weight distribution, to stop the thing tipping over at high speed, the Dela Wing would work differently to that (if you're going to take an interest in Sidecars, watch the mad bastards go around the TT course, it takes balls to do it on a Motorcycle, but you must have a screw loose to be a passenger on a Sidecar going around it!)

[Dudley]

Ref the renault nissan thing, yes you're right although I thought renault had bought into nissan rather than the other way round. With renault in deep financial shite, it seems odd that nissan are making these kinds of investments wouldn't you say?

Nissan have made no real investment, the actual car has nothing to do with. I'm not even sure they actually built the engine.

[RFT]

Point is - the sidecar only needs the passenger because it;s only got the outrigger on one side. put one on the othe side and it wont; flip over (conversely, one will quite happily turn in the direction away from the side the passenger's on without a passenger.

My son's best friend's dad is a sidecar racer (driver, not passenger) and does the TT every year. we were quite worried when we heard about the fatality last year...

Nissan have made no real investment, the actual car has nothing to do with. I'm not even sure they actually built the engine.

Nissan have given the team a lot of funding (they'd have to get naming rights).

The engine is a highly modified version of the WTCC "Global Racing Engine" built by RML for use in the WTCC Chevrolets, but it;s been heavily changed at Nissan's expense (mostly to make it lighter, it's not a stock-block like the GRE version any more).

[Meers]

Reminds me of

[marsh]

Nissan have made no real investment, the actual car has nothing to do with. I'm not even sure they actually built the engine.

Becomming official partner and putting an engine closely related to the engine in a nissan juke is going to require a certain amount of cash? The chassis is related to that of an lmp1 car. So even all america racing can't claim to have totally built the car from scratch.

[Sidewaysbob]

At least it doesn't look as dull as the rest of the LeMans prototypes.

You sir.... are dead to me now ....

I know its a few years old, but it's still a lola

and the new Toyota hybrid is loverly.

[Meers]

Don't worry Bob, Mex has always been a bit of an anti-GT type.

[mexos]

Ahem...

[Dudley]

engine closely related to the engine in a nissan juke

The engine is a highly modified version of the WTCC "Global Racing Engine" built by RML for use in the WTCC Chevrolet

So which of you is wrong?

[Meers]

Slag.

Hey, we should get started with that co-op session of ours from Melbourne onwards! Got time tonight?

[JohnC]

About the cornering of that DeltaWing someone was wondering about, the wikipedia page says it actually has marginally faster corner speed than a 2009-2011 Dallara IndyCar.

Also says it had it's first track appearance for a shakedown a couple of weeks ago.

[Dudley]

Yep, there's video around if you look.

[myoozikk]

Annnnnnd back to F1...

Mercedes appear to have the new must have innovation, deemed legal by the FIA as well...

Merc have a duct in the front wing that feeds through the car to a F-duct in the rear wing that is activated by the DRS flap exposing the F-Duct exits. All very very clever & will be exceptionally useful in qualifying. More detail below. I don't think they are the only team with it. Could explain the Red Bull nose duct as well.

http://scarbsf1.word...-rear-wing-drs/

[Sidewaysbob]

I wasn't sure how it worked, they're using the DRS flap to open a hole which directs air back to the front wing which then stalls the air as it did with the f-duct.

Which is fine for qualifying, where they can use the DRS all the time, but not much use in the race where front and rear balance mean nothing in a straight line.

Is it just to try and gain a spot or two in qualifying ?

[wev]

Is that what the big hole in their nose cone is for?

[myoozikk]

Big plus in qualifying for sure. Less during the race, but would make them very effective if they are in the DRS zones.

I don't think it's a golden bullet, but like Mclaren's in 2010 the other teams will need to copy it & won't have a system as optimised as Mercs.

[Sidewaysbob]

They trialed the system last year and i don't think it worked too well for them. We'll see, but i don't think it'll be that big a deal. It's not like a blown diffuser that every team had to have and those without it were at an obvious disadvantage.

I think it'll work for Mercedes because they have a car that isn't balanced too well in the high speed corners when the DRS is open. so they've had a think and come up with a very clever solution to a particular problem they have. The other teams will probably not build new cars just to cram in a air way from back to front. they'll mean a new crash test and a lot of cash.

Mercedes did suffer from poor qualifying last year, due to a car that couldn't get it's tires working together at the same time on a qualifying run. I think this is a very specific solution for them.

Maybe if Mickey is on pole for the first 6 races they'll have a look, but i think the Sauber has more interesting areo detail, than this smoke and mirrors effort. When Newey says his favorite car on the grid is the sauber, you stop and look at them.