Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Formula 1 2010

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #31
    According to a couple of sites Michael Schumacher will be driving for Mercedes next year

    ABC Sport - Schumacher returns to F1: report

    Comment


    • #32
      Originally posted by SpykerOwner View Post
      According to a couple of sites Michael Schumacher will be driving for Mercedes next year

      ABC Sport - Schumacher returns to F1: report
      I just herd the same thing!! Glad to see him back!!

      Comment


      • #33
        Schumacher, Brawn and, at the top of the system, Todd. They put the band back together
        Rijk

        Comment


        • #34
          It is official now. The question is: can he win the title against all the youngsters?

          Comment


          • #35
            It is Brawn with Brains should be good for the F1, now their is something the old guys with Money can support...

            Comment


            • #36
              Interesting article, because I didn't found Bahrein the most exciting race either
              Associated press article on F1
              Here's hoping Formula One gets even more boring

              JOHN LEICESTER
              Published: Today

              PARIS (AP) - With luck, the deadly dull Bahrain Grand Prix was not an unfortunate one-off but the first in a parade of mind-blowingly boring races that will ruin the Formula One season.

              Because a complete lack of racing spectacle could be just what is needed to finally force the remarkably conservative sport to swallow its medicine and accept radical changes that would a) enable cars to actually overtake each other and b) give fans what they want, which is races consistently worth watching and not the bus-like procession of vehicles seen in Bahrain.

              Of course, not all races this season will be quite that bad. Occasionally, there will be rain, which makes things more interesting. But, one hopes, not too interesting.

              "It's like climate change, it's got to be bad before it can get better," says Peter Wright, a veteran F1 engineer and consultant to motorsport's governing body, the FIA. "It's got to get bad enough for people to actually have the real will to do things that they wouldn't normally do."

              Fundamentally, F1 lacks the essential ingredient for an absorbing spectator sport: unpredictability. The sad truth is that many people within the F1 industry have long known that the cars, as they are now designed, are not really very good at overtaking each other. But they've been reluctant to do much about it, mainly because the teams spend so much money on their cars that they don't want to shake things up too much.

              F1 has long talked about the need to make overtaking easier, it has even had groups studying the problem, but it has not made this its absolute priority. The boredom of Bahrain was no fluke. It was another sign that the F1 emperor has no clothes, that having the fastest, most expensive cars does not make the formula the pinnacle of motorsport, as it claims.

              "The root cause is that the cars are not good racing cars, the formula is badly designed," says Tony Purnell, who led the former Jaguar team and helped devise last year's failed FIA attempt to cap F1 budgets. "The will to please the public really isn't there."

              "The sad thing is that there are solutions but no one is really brave enough or forceful enough or probably convinced enough that they will do anything about it," he says. "When they look at the politics of change they all just groan and say 'Well, I don't want to fight that battle.'"

              Quick fixes being suggested following last weekend's season-opening debacle - such as shaking up the order of the cars by making them pit twice during a race - aren't the longer term cures that are needed.

              Asking Bridgestone to make things more interesting by supplying tires that either don't work so well or quickly fall apart isn't the solution, either. Drivers who lose out because they are poor at managing their tires will only complain, making the Japanese manufacturer's products look bad. It would also only be an artificial way of hiding F1's fundamental problem of racing cars that, as blindingly fast as they are, still struggle to overtake.

              One of the big reasons for that is aerodynamics. F1 cars are designed so that air passing over and through them forces them downwards. That downforce glues the cars to the track and, in turn, helps make them fast, not least because it allows them to race super-quick through corners without spinning off.

              But F1 cars work less well when their airflow is disrupted - as it is when they find themselves in the windy wake of another car.

              In that situation, only if the car behind is far quicker than the one in front - nearly 2 seconds per lap faster, says Wright - can it overtake. And F1 teams employ armies of engineers and spend millions to make sure that their rivals don't have such a performance advantage. The result too often is a very expensive stalemate.

              Eradicating downforce and making F1 cars slower is a nonstarter. Fans and teams would likely rather quit. But there is a range of other possible solutions, some more complex than others.

              Circuits could be altered to make overtaking easier, possibly by changing corners and even inclining them so that two cars could race through them at the same time. Wright says the FIA has a group looking at this and quizzing drivers about what makes some tracks more conducive to passing maneuvers than others.

              Another possible remedy that Purnell says was discussed at a meeting on overtaking hosted by the FIA last November would involve installing electronics that would alter cars' aerodynamics when they are tucked behind another car and enable them to overtake more easily.

              Alternatively, cars could get a power boost, like the KERS system some teams used last season, that drivers could deploy once or twice a lap to get them past cars in front.

              One idea championed by F1 commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone would introduce short cuts at circuits that drivers could take a few times to get past cars in front. Initially, it seemed ludicrous but much less so after Bahrain.

              Whatever solutions F1 adopts have to involve more than mere rule-tinkering. The outcome of races must become far less predictable. Overtaking must be made easier, although not too easy. F1 is not and should not be NASCAR, with cars racing around with their noses stuck in each other's exhaust pipes. It is a delicate balance, but surely achievable for a sport with F1's financial means.

              With seven-time champion Michael Schumacher returning this season to race against the likes of Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, F1 promised thrills. It talked the talk. Now, it must walk the walk or stand accused of fraud.

              ___

              John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester(at)ap.org.
              The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do

              Comment


              • #37
                I agree, but the teams need some time to work out strategy battles. The sophistication of F1 makes that you are fighting over a few 1/1000th of a second, so passing will remain difficult. Even taking out downforce will only set back the development temporarily.

                There is a five second difference in lap speed between the beginning and the end (fuel weight). I think they will figure out how to use that difference.
                Rijk

                Comment


                • #38
                  Well I'm with him for the best part of it. Personally I would like to see F1 remain at the technical forefront of racing. It is and has always been about who could engineer the fastest cars, by any means possible, within the regulations. The regulations were there to safeguard safety. Otherways the cars would have 100000 bhp and no drivers in them to allow for higher cornering G-forces. Only in recent times though, the regulations have silently gained the purpose of making the sport pleasing to watch for the audience, which was originally drawn to the sport because of the spectacle and speed. This spectacle and speed was a result of there not being a whole lot of really restraining regulations. In trying to make the sport more appealing to watch, these regulations continiously slow down the cars, trying to provide better overtaking possibilities. The teams respond by investing more in aerodynamics, to be as fast as possible, which has as a side effect that overtaking becomes more difficult.

                  So in short: Up til now regulations to improve the sports popularity have worked against themselves.

                  My advice is: Set the engine displacement to, say, 1.5 litres, make them run on bio diesel and let the teams develop them freely. Then, differences between the engines will cause difference in speelds between individual cars, resulting in more overtaking.
                  also, it gives the sport back it's credibilty when it comes to it being the pinnacle of (engine) technology.
                  In terms of Aerodynamics, get rid of (most of) the regulations there too. Then, aerodynamicists will engineer a way around the problem of dirty air. By the way, back in the day when cars employed ground-effect, I heard no-one complain about dirty air.
                  It must be clear that a driver must be present in the car, driving it without a jet-fighter suit. This automatically limits the cornering speeds.

                  Finally: I'd love to see more than one tyre manufacturer. Back in the day of Michelin v. Bridgestone, both companies were pushing the envelope of what's possible in tyre construction, true F1 style. Sure, there were some accidents because of it, but that's just what happens when you're at the cutting edge (I vaguely remember exploding engines in the far past). All these things contribute to the spectacle, which is wat viewers want in the first place!

                  just my $0,02

                  Comment


                  • #39


                    + YouTube Video
                    ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      007

                      ... James Bond used to have a button to eject the passenger .
                      Last edited by amzamz; 16-04-2010, 18:15.

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Originally posted by amzamz View Post
                        ... James Bond used to have a button to eject the passenger .
                        Ah yes, Bond's DB5 in Goldfinger... The one what with the gadgets was actually a modified DB4 vantage which was Aston Martin's prototype for the DB5. For the close-ups they used a 'real' production DB5. (There were also 2 promo DB5's, one of which I believe is at the Louwman collection)
                        The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Allright so I just read the news that Snoras Bank has just struck a sponsor deal with Renault F1.

                          [speculation mode]We know that Snoras' owner is a good friend of VM's, and that VM has stated before he wouldn't shy away from an opportunity to join F1 once more, provided things are better sorted. We also know that Renault really has nothing to do with the Renault F1 team, apart from the name, and that the team is owned by a consortium. This consortium might be interested to sell the company, as it's not looking to spread its own brand awareness. So maybe just maybe, these are the first signs of Spyker/Saab re-entering the pinnacle of motorsport via Snoras Bank. I'm interested to see where this leads. [/speculation mode]

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Of course it is pure speculation but nevertheless very interesting. Sounds good to me

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              sounds interesting it would be nice to have spyker back in f1, if it happens they'll hopefully have some better results. btw. one of the renault drivers - vitality petrov - is russian, that could mean that alexander antonov maybe will give some money?

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Cabooze View Post
                                s btw. one of the renault drivers - vitality petrov - is russian, that could mean that alexander antonov maybe will give some money?
                                I think that already is the case
                                Attached Files

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X