Most liked posts in thread: F1 - 2011

I still can't believe how well McLaren are doing. They were so far behind right up to the end of testing and then they came out nearly neck and neck with Red Bull. I figured Melbourne might have been a slight aberration and they'd fall back a bit in Malaisia but Sepang quali proved me wrong again.

I think it's interesting how they caught up too. Unlike Ferrari who seem to have been relatively conservative in design but reliable and now need to develop aggressively, McLaren started out with an aggressive design that was unreliable. The biggest reliability problem they said was their complex "octopus" exhaust and when they backed that off to something more conservative for the sake of reliability (along with a few other tweaks, obviously) voila, suddenly they're nipping at the Bulls' heels.

 

Yes it was, but like Matchett said "I'm sure Torro Rosso didn't want us to see that ..." You can bet they're not only pissed about the fasteners letting loose and losing the panel.

I wouldn't have thought of gold as "heat reflective" (re Matchett's comment), certainly not more so than other options.

 

The fact that it's used effectively doesn't make me less confused about why it works. The problem is I couldn't get the phrase "gold reflects heat" to sit well on my brain. As a metal it conducts heat well, better than aluminum, so it didn't seem right to think of it as a barrier to heat by any method.

I had to rub the little gray cells together a bit to bring the old physics and thermodynamics memories back to life. It's really just a matter of semantics. We're talking about "radiant heat" here (a term that would cause my old Profs to cringe) which, as electromagnetic energy (like infrared), can be reflected. Then it's all down to absorptivity and emissivity characteristics of different materials and polished gold is as good as it gets.

 

Don't know about the rest of you but I enjoyed the race, even without rain. How about Petrov's wild ride? That could have had a MUCH worse ending!

 

I've watched it a few times at different speeds and his wheel was still firm until he landed directly on top of the curbing so hard he bounced high enough to get air a second time for 3 of his 4 tires. As he left the track it looked a little like his steering input might have been not making it through 100% to the front wheels but the column was at least solid and in place until he bounced off the curbing.

 

Ummm, taking a chance with this one, made me chuckle...though I admit a few references are a bit inside-(British)-joke-ish to me...

by Maurice Hamilton, author of twenty books, including 'Williams: The legendary story of Frank Williams and his F1 team in their own words: The Greatest Story in British Motor-racing Told by Those Who Were There'

Statue of limitations (grandprix.com)