Most liked posts in thread: F1 - 2012

Steve · Jun 24, 2012

If anyone missed the race, the whole thing - pre-race, race, and post-race - will be re-broadcast in a few hours on Speed starting 2AM Eastern (Mon) / 11PM Pacific (Sun).

Nathan · Jun 26, 2012

Maybe some Jersey residents can make Bernie an offer he can't refuse...

Fresh doubt has been cast over whether next year's Grand Prix of America will go ahead as planned in New Jersey.
Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone told BBC Sport the race would "definitely" not happen, before saying that it would if the track were ready in time.
Race president Tom Cotter insisted the track was ahead of schedule.
But on Saturday, when asked by the BBC News Channel's Inside F1 programme if New Jersey would happen, Ecclestone said: "No. Definitely, no."
It is the second time in two months the F1 chief has expressed reservations about the race.
"We'll have to see, I need to go and have another look," Ecclestone said. "What I've seen up to now, and what's been going on, I'm not quite as sure as they are.
"If they can get it completed and confirm to us it will be done, for sure, they'll be on the calendar."

minimark · Jun 26, 2012

Is this Goundhog Day?

....some a body not a greasing Bernie's pockets enough

Minidave · Jun 26, 2012

Yeah, yeah......just Bernie up to his old tricks....he said the same thing about the track in Texas, and they just had to add 15K more seats due to selling out.

They still have a lot to do in only a few short months tho, hope they don't look like Korea did when they had their first event.

Steve · Jun 27, 2012

The title is a bit misleading. As far as I know nothing is officially "on hold," just posting because they mention the kind of challenges to be met. On the surface it seems like it would be a lot easier to set up a street circuit than to build a new track from scratch in the middle of nowhere, but that's not necessarily true if the streets weren't built the right way, etc.

New Jersey F1 Race On Hold, Street Circuit Not Ready (MotorAuthority.com)

by Nelson Ireson | Jun 27, 2012

Formula 1 racing in the U.S. has had a rough time over the five years since its ignominious last appearance at Indy. The Circuit of the Americas is rapidly shaping up as the new center of American F1 racing, but there is--or was--hope that a New Jersey street circuit might soon join it.

That hope appears to be dashed for the 2013 season, however, as Sebastian Vettel has rated the proposed circuit as "nowhere near ready" after a preview drive, and Bernie Ecclestone has now told the BBC (via SpeedTV) that the event would definitely not be on the 2013 calendar--with a proviso that if the necessary improvements are made, it will be added back on to the agenda.

The problem with the New Jersey street circuit appears to be the surface itself. Low-slung, aero-sensitive F1 cars can't tolerate much in the way of bumps, dips, and other imperfections, and the main issue appears to be amount of crown to the road surface--something that's not easily changed.

Add to that the need for as many safety allowances (run off room, catch fences, barriers, curbing, etc.) and the expensive, time-requiring hurdles for the New Jersey event look difficult to overcome in the next year.

With an extra year to make changes to the street surfaces and get the rest of the event up to speed, however, the event seems likely to make the 2014 calendar under the 10-year agreement signed in late 2011.
Click to expand...

ScottinBend · Jun 27, 2012

So.....Vettel to Ferrari?

Did Sebastian Vettel Just Sign A Three-Year Deal With Ferrari?

Steve · Jun 28, 2012

Overheating caused Renault's Valencia failures on Sebastian Vettel and Romain Grosjean's cars (AutoSport.com)

By Jonathan Noble | Thursday, June 28th 2012, 13:54 GMT

Sebastian Vettel and Romain Grosjean's retirements from the European Grand Prix were both caused by an overheating alternator, engine supplier Renault has confirmed, but the French car manufacturer is still uncertain about why the parts got too hot in the first place.

Renault has conducted a detailed examination of the Red Bull Racing and Lotus engines that failed in Valencia, and its conclusion points to the overheating parts cutting the electrical supply to the power units and forcing both drivers out.

But despite knowing what caused the engines to shut down, Renault is conducting further tests this week to work out why the overheating issue reared its head in the first place.

Renault Sport F1 deputy managing director Rob White said: "We've checked over the parts thoroughly now and it seems that there were no obvious reasons for the failure, so we are conducting further tests on the dyno at Viry to replicate conditions and double checking the findings."

White said that investigations had concluded that the failures were not related to the mid-race safety car period - and in fact Vettel's engine actually lasted longer than it would have done because it had a few laps running slower than normal.

"We had evidence that the alternator on Sebastian's car was showing signs of overheating before the safety car period, but the slower speeds prolonged its life expectancy slightly," he said.

"Of course, when Sebastian went back up to racing speed the problem stepped up again and the result is now well known. With Romain's car, the problem occurred very suddenly some laps after the safety car had been withdrawn."

Renault plans to implement some changes to the alternators for the next race at Silverstone, as well as using another supply batch in case that was a factor in the problem.

"We are looking at several solutions," explained White. "The first is to use another batch of alternators for Silverstone across all our clients, or a slightly modified design.

"We are also looking at returning to an older specification of alternator from 2011. Then we are working across all our partner teams to potentially introduce some mechanical and cooling solutions, or changing a few settings on acceleration maps so the running is less severe.

"All of these will be in evaluated between now and Silverstone, plus we will also look at everything after Friday running and see what additional measures we may need to take."
Click to expand...

Zapski · Jun 28, 2012

Back in college I had a 1984 Renault Alliance. Between 1987 and 1993, I had gone through several alternators in that thing.

This is no surprise to me. I would call it a feature, not a bug. Especially the "failing-at-the-least-convienient-time" part.

Thinking about it, it also had a removable steering wheel that only required a bit of pressure to take off. Hmmmm.....

Steve · Jun 28, 2012

Part of a Q & A article on the same subject (RW = Rob White from Renault):

Q. Has this type of problem happened before?

RW: This has never happened with the Lotus team before. We had one issue with Red Bull over winter testing but this was because we were pushing the car and the engine to the absolute limit to find out how far we could go. Once we had signs of issues, we went more cautious with the settings. We did have one issue with Vitaly Petrov's car in Monaco but when we investigated the problem, we found that the alternator in question had completed over 4,000km and was due to be serviced very shortly. As a result we decreased the amount of time between alternator services to a much lower figure. We felt that this was a sufficient measure.

Q. Were the two that failed at the end of their lives?

RW: No, in fact they were brand new parts, which points to the fact that this may be an issue with a particular batch of alternators. Both had been shaken down on the dynos at Viry for approx 400km and completed FP3 and qualifying without any issues and then failed suddenly in the race. Both had completed less than 1,000km.

Q. Is the alternator a Renault-built part?

RW: Yes it is a Renault part. We use various suppliers for the sub-internals but we build the alternators so we are responsible for the integrity of the part. We are now working with all the suppliers to make sure we can get to the root cause of the problem and ensure it does not happen again.

Q. What kind of counter-measures or safeguards are you going to put in place now?

RW: We are looking at several solutions. The first is to use another batch of alternators for Silverstone across all our clients, or a slightly modified design. We are also looking at returning to an older specification of alternator from 2011. Then we are working across all our partner teams to potentially introduce some mechanical and cooling solutions, or changing a few settings on acceleration maps so the running is less severe. All of these will be in evaluated between now and Silverstone, plus we will also look at everything after Friday running and see what additional measures we may need to take.
Click to expand...

Steve · Jul 2, 2012

This is a very cool video rendering of the evolution of F1 cars from 1950 to 2012, and all in less than 50 seconds!

Again, very cool!

[ame=http://vimeo.com/43233380]Evolution of the F1 Car on Vimeo[/ame]

ScottinBend · Jul 2, 2012

Now that was cool ! !

Nathan · Jul 2, 2012

That was darn good.

Nathan · Jul 6, 2012

Holy Doughnuts Batman! The Lotus F1 Team’s sponsorship department must be delighted – the team will be notching up some serious PR points at the British Grand Prix this weekend – they have Batman on board! But will we be seeing Kimi RÃ¤ikkÃ¶nen and Romain Grosjean in black rubber suits?

Steve · Jul 6, 2012

Nope, not yet. :biggrin5: Maybe they're saving the rubber suits for the race...

The Red Bull are doing something unusual this weekend as well. Their cars retain the usual color scheme but they look a little off for reasons you can't understand without getting a close look. The different colored areas are made up of tinted photos of people who contributed to some charity (can't remember which).

Steve · Jul 6, 2012

LOTS of rain at Silverstone so far.

British GP public car park pass holders told to stay away on Saturday (AutoSport.com)

By Edd Straw and Simon Strang | Friday, July 6th 2012, 19:58 GMT

Silverstone has 'strongly advised' fans holding public car park passes for the British Grand Prix to stay away on Saturday because of the on-going traffic chaos caused by unprecedented levels of rain.

While those who have pre-allocated park-and-ride passes will be able to attend as planned - as well as those already in camp sites or within walking distance - Silverstone managing director Richard Phillips warned that fans with public passes may be turned away.

The move has been made to protect the grass car parks in the hope that there will be no such restrictions in place for race day, after significant traffic problems on Friday led to many fans not being able to get into the circuit.

It is estimated that as many as 30,000 fans could be affected by this decision.

"We are strongly advising anyone with a public parking ticket not to come [on Saturday]," said Phillips.

"What we can do tomorrow is accept people that are in park and ride. People who are camping or who can walk in are fine. There are a lot of categories and paddock-ticketed people that go into the centre and will be fine to get in.

"There will come a point [tomorrow] - and that's why I am dissuading people now - where we will probably stop the traffic on the Dadford Road [the A43] and push them straight through past the circuit. And I don't want to do that.

"The people that didn't get in today, we are offering refunds to and anybody that doesn't get in tomorrow will get a refund."

Phillips blamed the problems that arose today on the rain, which led to grass car parks that had not been intended for use on Friday being opened.

With numerous vehicles unable to gain access to camp sites, the decision was taken not to use the car parks on Saturday so that they will be fit for Sunday.

"Yesterday, we had quite a good day with the sun shining," said Phillips. "The car parks were in a reasonable condition and we announced that we were going to go to an amber situation just in case and use the hard standing car parks if we could and keep off the grass.

"What happened today is with the rain also came a lot of campers that didn't come in yesterday. They didn't come in to camp because of the wet weather, they came in caravans and Winnebagos and couldn't get into the campsites as the campsites were waterlogged and wouldn't let them in. So they were being turned away.

"We tried to accommodate as many as we possibly could but the damage was started by then. We had to abandon just parking on hard standing because we just had to get traffic in as best we could.

"We broke into a lot of the grass car parks. As a result of that, we have basically lost 50 per cent of our parking."

Phillips underlined his hope that these measures would allow all those holding tickets for Sunday's race to attend, but could not guarantee that this would be the case.

"I am not sure at all," he said. "I would have to see where we are tomorrow and we may have to have another chat tomorrow about Sunday.

"At the moment we have to do our damndest to make sure that people that do come tomorrow are looked over the best we can and on Sunday hopefully everybody [will be]."

For further information if you are planning to travel to the British Grand Prix, visit www.silverstone.co.uk
Click to expand...

Nathan · Jul 6, 2012

Ya know...you'd think those Brits might be used to a bit of rain.

Steve · Jul 6, 2012

Yup. :wink:

But here's the problem, unpaved parking areas.

Nathan · Jul 6, 2012

Defender 90's for all!

Steve · Jul 7, 2012

The parking problem won't improve today, rain is currently playing havoc with qualifying. Red flag half way through Q2!

Steve · Jul 7, 2012

Weather forecast for the race tomorrow: high of 67 deg, 70% chance of rain...

Forums

Most liked posts in thread: F1 - 2012

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Nathan Founder

minimark Well-Known Member

Minidave Well-Known Member
Lifetime Supporter

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

ScottinBend Space Cowboy
Supporting Member

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Zapski Well-Known Member

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

ScottinBend Space Cowboy
Supporting Member

Nathan Founder

Nathan Founder

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Nathan Founder

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Nathan Founder

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Useful Searches

Most liked posts in thread: F1 - 2012

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

Nathan Founder

minimark Well-Known Member

Minidave Well-Known Member Lifetime Supporter

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

ScottinBend Space Cowboy Supporting Member

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

Zapski Well-Known Member

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

ScottinBend Space Cowboy Supporting Member

Nathan Founder

Nathan Founder

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

Nathan Founder

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

Nathan Founder

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Minidave Well-Known Member
Lifetime Supporter

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

ScottinBend Space Cowboy
Supporting Member

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

ScottinBend Space Cowboy
Supporting Member

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator

Steve Administrator
Staff Member Articles Moderator