Formula One ( F1 )

That was fucking awesome! I'd watch a season of that.

Just been reading this article on the Telegraph's website about drivers complaining that the fatter ones are suffering a disadvantage.

I was surprised by this since I always thought F1 cars were so light that they needed to run ballast to make the 642kg (including driver) minimum. There's no mention of it in the article, but does it come down to being able to chose where to put the 10kg of extra weight that the lightest driver's cars have to carry?

Yep. All the car/driver combinations are the same weight. The only difference is the lighter drivers carry more ballast to play around with. Media making a whole lot of fuss out of a small matter. Mostly thanks to Martin Whitmarsh's daft comments about not wanting to hire Hulkenburg due to his weight. Seems daft as first of all, I can't see Hulkenberg foaming at the mouth at the prospect of a McLaren drive given their performance this season, secondly he's about the same weight as Button, their number 1 driver.

Actually, for 2014 a lot of teams are really struggling to make minimum weight. I wouldn't be surprised if many cars ran with no ballast at all next year. I think the drivers concerns are justified.

Yep. All the car/driver combinations are the same weight. The only difference is the lighter drivers carry more ballast to play around with. Media making a whole lot of fuss out of a small matter. Mostly thanks to Martin Whitmarsh's daft comments about not wanting to hire Hulkenburg due to his weight. Seems daft as first of all, I can't see Hulkenberg foaming at the mouth at the prospect of a McLaren drive given their performance this season, secondly he's about the same weight as Button, their number 1 driver.

Ah, but Button carries the weight of being a former world champion.

Interesting conspiracy theory regarding Vettel's performance...

http://blog.axisofoversteer.com/2013/10/so-how-is-red-bull-running-traction.html

It's a good theory. Probably true.

Odd that Vettel has it and Webber doesn't.

That's almost the least odd thing ever.

That's almost the least odd thing ever.

This.

More verbal diarrhea from Benson:

Raikkonen won the 2007 world championship with Massa in fourth place. 
              The following year, the Brazilian finished second - one  place above the Finn - **before Raikkonen finished sixth - five positions  ahead of his team-mate - in their final year together.**

Great comparison there, nothing said about the fact that Massa sat out the second half of the season due to being twatted by a spring. At which point Massa was leading the team battle by 22 points to 10. In 2007 Massa finished 16 points behind Raikkonen, in 2008 Massa finished 22 points in front.

Damn.

R.I.P. Maria De Villota.

Very sad news.

Indeed, RIP. It seems it came quite out of the blue?

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/10/red-bull-f1-traction-control/

Wired's take on the traction control.

This is truly terrible news.

Clearly not the traction control issue.

RIP.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/24504983

McLaren show that they are serious about getting back to winning ways - by poaching one of Red Bull's chief designers, Peter Prodromou. Should be very interesting what fall out happens. Red Bull won't be pleased.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/24504983

McLaren show that they are serious about getting back to winning ways - by poaching one of Red Bull's chief designers, Peter Prodromou. Should be very interesting what fall out happens. Red Bull won't be pleased.

Has this story appeared anywhere else? Why are not journalists credited with the story? If it were written by Eddie Jordan or Gary Anderson I would be more inclined to believe it, but Benson works for the beeb, and as has been pointed out many times on this thread he does talk shit therefore this story could well be a load of bull. I will need to see it written up by a journo or pundit that I trust before I believe it. That said McLaren do need to sort their shit out and this guy could be a pretty good candidate as a lot of their problems recently have been aero related.

So, anyone still think Hamilton made a shit decision? Is a (soon to be increased) 200 point lead enough?

I don't think he made a bad decision - McLaren clearly haven't produced competitive enough car and he could probably see that, even with his limited knowledge. He needed to move on and Mercedes were probably the only team who'd be willing to bend over backwards for him.

More importantly, of all the engine manufacturers (Renault, Mercedes, 'Rarri et al) which has the history of building smaller engine units and boosting the shit out of them?

I think Mercedes will struggle next season, even though the reports all point at them "concentrating on development of the 2014 season..." - which roughly translates to "not good enough this year..."

Who was the king of the small capacity turbo way-back-when?

Honda and Renault spring to mind, with BMW being powerful but splitting the block too often.

The other question is whether that pedigree translates to the modern era, given the new regulations- the fuel they used in the old turbo-era was barely a kissing cousin to pump fuels of the time, for example.

I think the electronics may be the defining factor- given that some of the speculative articles which I have read talk of the kinetic energy system being interfaced directly with the turbine shaft, braking and speeding it using the battery energy reserve.

This last point sounds crackers to me- my old, estate road car spins it's turbine to 150,000 rpm regularly.

Renault and have consistently (in modern times anyway) squeezed a lot of horses out of engines by turbo charging them to near death and if I recall correctly, (where's lynx when you really need him?) Honda even turbo charged a motorcycle in the late seventies.

When Mercedes want their road cars to go quicker, they just shoe-horn ever increasing capacity engines into their cars.

Now I know that F1 development isn't remotely similar to that of the road car, but there's got to be something in that small engine block knowledge, no?

From 30 years ago?

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering too- 30 year old cutting-edge tech vs. modern day should be interesting.

The challenge isn't getting fuel and air into the combustion chamber - it's getting it to burn rather than exploding/detonating, which is the exact same challenge that faces a turbo charged road engine.

In road car design you just go richer and richer to stave off det, whilst trying to get the charge mixture as cool as possible- water injection etc.

I'm running with Renault...

I'm waiting for Honda's return after they have had a year of being able to check out the competition!