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Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 11:07 pm

Inkerman wrote:

It's not the same since they banned cigarette advertising.

apparently there was once a famous advert showing an f1 car with the caption 'small family car'
the sponsor was durex

Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 11:21 pm

^^ Those were the good old hippie days. Now they're promoting Virgin's on the side boards. Laughing

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

Not Formula 1, but a Formula 3 car made out of carrots, potatoes and other vegetables, it runs on chocolate and vegetable oil Cool

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090505/tuk-race-car-gets-chocolate-power-6323e80.html

Quote:

A racing car which is powered and built from natural ingredients including chocolate, carrots and potatoes has been unveiled by researchers at the University of Warwick.

The scientists have built the competitive Formula 3 car - which can still do 125mph around corners - to show how much can be done with environmentally sustainable technologies.

The "WorldFirst Formula 3 racing car" runs on fuel made from waste chocolate and vegetable oil, has a steering wheel derived from carrots and other root vegetables, a flax fibre and soybean oil foam racing seat and bodywork made from potatoes.

The researchers based in the university's Warwick Manufacturing Group and the Warwick Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre said the car met all the Formula 3 racing standards except for the engine fuel as competing cars currently cannot use biodiesel.

The car is the world's first Formula 3 racing car designed and made from sustainable and renewable materials and is now ready to drive, the team said.

Dr Steve Maggs, of the research team, said embracing the "green is great ethos" meant working throughout the construction chain from the raw materials used to the final disposal of the car.

Project manager James Meredith said: "It's been very exciting working on the project and important for our team to develop a working example of a truly 'green' motor racing car.

"The WorldFirst project expels the myth that performance needs to be compromised when developing the sustainable motor vehicles of the future."

Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 7:46 pm

Scam Patroller wrote:

Quote:

which can still do 125mph around corners

And on the straight too, no doubt. Please delete your post before some fecklestone sees it. Next thing we know he'll appoint Fred Flintstone to be his successor.

Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 12:51 pm

Were back up and running, I'm currently watching Practice 2 live from Barcelona.

The Brawns are still quick, Button was fastest in P1, though Nakajima's Williams is currently quickest. Piquet, who's job is under threat has just binned it. The Mclarens are 9th and 11th atm.

Ferrari continue to be pants, Kimi just said on the radio that his KERS has packed up again. Meanwhile, BMW have chucked their KERS in the skip (hopefully for recycling Smile

)

Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 1:58 pm

Button giving driving lessons again. Brawn's leaded the pack, followed by the Red Bulls. Ferrari screwed up again, first in a miscalculation during qualifying, in the race Kimi's car died, and they sent Massa away with too little fuel which cost him two places Shocked

.. Hamilton was lapped by the winner, that must have hurt.

Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 7:38 pm

Quote:

As for the engineering/software question? The one thing you can be sure of is that it isn't down to the skill of the driver. Not when someone as mediocre as Button can win 3 out of 4 races.

Slightly, think of it this way:

Give any driver a crap car and he will be crap regardless of his ability.

Give a crap driver a good car and the most likely he will improve but still not win anything.

Give a good driver a good car and he will most likely win.

Don't judge someone as crap just because they were only give crap cars in the past. The best cars still need a good driver to win just as the best drivers need a good car.

And judging by recent performances, the Brawn and the Red Bull teams both have cars of near equal quality.

Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 10:51 pm

I agree fully with HitchHiker. It's the combination that counts. That, and team tactics of course, the extra pitstop for Barichello didn't exactly turned out the way it should .. he was the fastest on the grid in qualifying this weekend, but ended second. (Not too sure if Brawn planned it that way though, maybe it's more important for them to have Jenson get the maximum points for the championship)

Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 8:25 am

Rubens looked shell shocked after the race, he still couldn't see how he's lost the lead. If they ban refuelling next year, strategey shifts will become a thing of the past. Ross Brawn, of course, is a master of the art.

After the traditional Ferrari pantomime, it must have hurt Massa to have to save one laps worth of fuel in the last 4 laps, at the expense of 2 places. He did well to get over the line though. Watching WSBK from Monza, Ben Spies ran out of fuel in the lead, halfway round the last corner. Crying or Very sad

Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 12:20 pm

I'll be happy to see the back of pit stops unless they are needed to sort out punctures or collisions.

They should allow unlimited Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) which gives a short boost effect when needed and is used at the discretion of the driver.

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 2:53 pm

HitchHiker wrote:

Give any driver a crap car and he will be crap regardless of his ability.

Give a crap driver a good car and the most likely he will improve but still not win anything.

Give a good driver a good car and he will most likely win.

I don't agree. Look at Hamilton and Kovalainen. Hamilton has finished in the points 3 times (4 if you count his dq) but Kovalainen has just managed one. Qualifying-wise Kovalainen is nowhere near Hamilton.
The fact is that Hamilton is just a better driver and he makes the performance of the McLaren look better than it is. Kovalienen is probably a truer indicator of the car's ability.
Good drivers can make crap cars go better.

The same goes with Button. I honestly reckon that the Brawn is just so good this year, you could put anyone in it and they would win. I disagree with the statement that a crap driver would just improve. Put a granny in a Porshe up against a boy-racer on a moped and the granny will probably win.
Take a look at Button when he was driving a crap car though and you'll see that he never really pulled out anything special - he never managed to exceed that car's limits as Hamilton does with the McLaren.

Nah. I can't rave over Button. An average driver in an excellent car. I'm not saying that it's anything new, but in the past few years it's tended to be good drivers in good cars who've taken the championship. It's been the top teams and they've always had the top drivers (money talks). This year it's the team that's going to win the championship for the driver - not a combination of both.

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 3:28 pm

The Brawn's (and Redbulls) are superior. I agree with that totally. Put Hamilton/ Massa/ Raikonen/ Alonso in one of these and they'll win every race and even lap the number 2 driver on most occasions. It sure looks like the teams are making the difference.

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 3:53 pm

This page will give you an idea of what I'm talking about and is interesting if you like the statistics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenson_Button

If you go down the bottom and look at the graphs you can click on the team that Button was driving for that year.
Apart from Villeneuve (who was retiring) and Sato (who was just starting out), Button has been outpaced by his team-mates. Fisichella, Ralph Shumacher and Baricello all out-perfomed him.

The weird thing is that Button has been driving with Baricello as his team-mate for 4 seasons (they were at Honda together). This is the first season where Button has been consistently better. My take on it is that the car has been designed around Button - he was the guy who gave it the shakedowns:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brawn_BGP_001

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 4:45 pm

^ might be a psychological aspect also .. Jenson outperforming himself, feeling great in a superb car, compared to Kimi (or Massa) driving an astonishingly uncompetitive Ferrari.

You being a statistics freak Question

: can you distill the best driver on the grid at the moment comparing with former drivers/ teams?

My guess is still Hamilton or Alonso (just a gut feeling)

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 5:08 pm

I'd go with Alonso by far. He's driving a piece of shit but still holding his own and he has a proven track record. Can't stand him myself but there is no denying that he's one of the best.
I'd love to say Hamilton but he hasn't been around long enough.

The one that has disappointed me is Mark Webber. Again, a cracking driver. Always had mediocre cars but always got decent results. Then, the one year he gets a decent drive, he's outshone by his team-mate (Vettel).
Plenty of time in the season left. Maybe he'll come good.

Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 9:14 am

The FIA are doing everything that they can to screw the sport.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8058903.stm

Adolf Mosley's attitude is that Ferrari can go stuff themselves. It just goes to show how out of touch he and the FIA are with the sport's fan-base and with it's very ethos.
If the big teams step down, then what is F1? It's certainly not the best motor-sport as it won't have the best competitors. Just like last year's crackpot points idea, the two tier system is a joke. All they're interested in is getting more teams to compete and more money into the FIA coffers. They don't give a shit if those teams are second-rate as long as they can pay up to the cap limit.

If it comes about, Ferrari's question "Wouldn't it be more appropriate to call it Formula GP3?" are the truest words spoken.

What gets me is that F1 has been running pretty smoothly for the last 50 years (the only time it really had problems was during the civil war which Ecclestone played a big part in). Now all of a sudden, a flurry of the daftest ideas seem to be put forward or implemented. It's almost as if the FIA is working on a time limit to purposefully destroy the sport.

Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 4:36 pm

I missed the qualifying sessions today, but it's great to see 2 Ferrari's back in the top 5 starting grid for the race tomorrow. The Monaco circuit is one that separates the boys from the men they say. The smallest mistake is enough to write off their cars, because there's little or no run off space. Of course Jenson has the better car at the moment, but it takes big balls to be fastest on the grid even then on a non forgiving circuit like that. Too bad for Lewis parking his McLaren the way he did . Nice also to see Kimi waking up from his hibernation.

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 2:53 pm

I just read that Prodrive are entering next year, with a view to branding the car Aston Martin in 2011.

A MOCKUP of what that car could look like in the Gulf livery that Aston ran at LeMans.

Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 3:50 pm

^ Aston Martin in F1 would be great.

All FOTA teams signed up for next year after all (under certain budget conditions) as well as Lola and Prodrive .. Rumours go Toyota and Renault are going to back out eventually because of the economical crisis, and ING backing out as Renault sponsor.

Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 1:55 pm

Jenson on the onboard radio after finishing first place: "You guys built me a monster of a car." They sure did. The Brawns are insuperable.

Coming Friday FIA will publish the team entrance list for 2010. Seems the FOTA teams are exploring the possibilities for creating a whole new racing class themselves. Total chaos.

Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 4:56 pm

However good his car is, Jenson didn't make a mistake all day, unlike his lighter and faster rival Vettel, who got to turn 9 on the first lap before he cocked it up and let JB by.

I noticed Vettel didn't say one word to Webber after the race.
Paranoia is setting in with Rubens who is wondering why thing only go wrong on 'his side' of the garage.

Hamilton has got used to the idea that his car is an uncompetetive dog, and will remain so all year whatever he says or does, and took his now customary thrashing with good grace and humour, unlike previous outings where he was monosylabilic as he chucked his toys out of the pram. Character building stuff, as all his life he has had the best car/go cart/Pussycat Doll/whatever.

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 10:11 am

Mosley breaks the impasse between FOTA and FIA. Brilliant. All the FOTA teams have to do is to enter for 2010 unconditionally. Rolling Eyes

Quote:

“Under the International Sporting Code (Art. 66) we cannot now change the published 2010 rules unless we have the consent of all the competitors who have entered,”

Linky

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 1:12 pm

It's official, KERS (the kinetic energy storage and recovery system) is toast next season, and not just when Kimi's catches fire again.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8088272.stm

McLaren were hoping to be the sole supplier next year, now it's abandoned, please can they take it off now and chuck it in the skip, like Renault and BMW?

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 3:39 pm

Roycropper wrote:

I noticed Vettel didn't say one word to Webber after the race.
Paranoia is setting in with Rubens who is wondering why thing only go wrong on 'his side' of the garage.

Yes I found that rather amusing! Just before you get on the podium? No, on the podium? No lol

As for Rubens, what a face that was! one very unhappy bunny

Quote:

Hamilton has got used to the idea that his car is an uncompetetive dog, and will remain so all year whatever he says or does, and took his now customary thrashing with good grace and humour, unlike previous outings where he was monosylabilic as he chucked his toys out of the pram. Character building stuff, as all his life he has had the best car/go cart/Pussycat Doll/whatever.

hahaha well said that man!

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 1:08 pm

The FIA vs FOTA saga continues. FIA press release

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