A bit of irony when one considers all the complaints about the gentleman drivers at the24hr of LeMans in recent years, and the danger it presents at that level of racing... And now we may have a Gentleman...er...check that, an adolescent driver possibly in the highest form of racing there is, F1... Money talks, and racing in F1 takes a whole heap of it.....
Those of you that were doing their maths to see if the tire testing helped can now have a lot more maths to chew on. A simple quantitative metric for assessing the strength of a junior drivers’ career It’s a long way to the top… | f1metrics Sit back, it's a long read, has all kinds of facts and figures in it too.
Some interesting analysis in there. I wonder whether any of the teams do this sort of quantitative work to cut through the buzz and general impressions.
Sadly it's really no different than the early days of Grand Prix driving when it was all Gentlemen Drivers. Professional teams were something of a rarity, and two of them were state-funded propaganda for the Germans. So now we're going to get what's essentially a state-funded propaganda team for the Russians it seems. The only difference is that the Russians will probably just take an old MIG 19, turn the wings upside down and nail some wheels to it.
Don't forget there were Gentlemen Teams too, to some extent. The last flowering was probably Hesketh Racing in the early 1970s (with James Hunt driving), who seemed to race with the principle that coming first in the races was a secondary team objective, with throwing the best parties and having the most fun as the main team objective. Heroic stuff, until the money ran out.....
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY2Bjo9Hfu4]Hesketh Racing and Alexander Hesketh (When Playboys Ruled the World) - YouTube[/ame]
Poor Jenson Button... I think I understand Lewis wanting to leave better now. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=888kSm8UdCI&feature=player_embedded]Santander Student Current Account - Pour Student - YouTube[/ame]
He must have seen that they were just going to forfeit this year and work on the new car for 2014....
Hey, you don't have to watch frequent TV adverts involving Jenson and Checo! I can't work out whether Jenson just won't try to act the parts he's given or if he really is a monumentally awful actor. Either way, the adverts are cringe-worthy.
This is very good. Humorous look at how to identify F1 drivers. I particularly like Grosjean's A humorous look at how to identify F1 Drivers | The F1 Poet - Ernie Black
A quick breakdown of part costs on F1 cars. I won't be buying one any time soon.... How much do Formula 1 cars cost? - F1 news | MSN Sport UK
Interesting to see how technical directors think about the big changes coming to the cars next year. Also a good simple summary of the changes. Here's a snip, see their discussion via Q & A at the link below. Future vision: Engineers discuss 2014 changes (formula1.com) Click here for the interview.
And here I thought the Russian that bought his 18 year old college daughter an $80 million penthouse in NY had money...
I hadn't noticed that before. That seems kind of bogus to me, to be honest. Adrian Newey must be pitching a fit on that one.
I think the gearing and mapping are probably a bigger challenge than they're letting on. Not bigger than the cooling, aero, etc, but still a bear to get right. They haven't had traction control for some years now but they've all done things to make it easier for the drivers to manage power application and it seems like there must be a number of engineers trying to figure out how to make that work in the new package, esp given the unknowns. It's not just about changes in peak hp and torque, the curves will be very different, plus needing to account for the effects of that not insignificant extra 160bhp both instantly and intermittently applied at the push of a button and the much greater regenerative effects on braking. The whole thing has to feel very much like starting over. Natural inclination must be to try to incorporate all the tricks you've already learned and developed and they're frustrated at every turn because of the interrelated effects of all the changes. You can see a sign of it when Smith tries to answer the question about whether the cars will look different. Can sense that he wants to try to package everything within an already familiar aerodynamic profile.