The Official 2013 F1 Thread...

[liftnot]

Lets face it, F1 is de only auto racing worth to watch as its the pinnacle of auto racing on every level and it should stay that way. Too bad/so be it if no one can come close to beat Adrian.....the same way when Brawn was at Ferrari with MS.....but we know MS was impressive at his 1st race in a Jordan!!!...then Benetton.... going after Senna on THAT day. Button/Webber were mid packers at best until joined Brawn/ McLaren/RedBull......Fred has shown us he can wring the neck out his Ferrari for a podium finish and so is Kimi who is cool as hell and the only man on the grid says whats on his mind,or lack of, instead of the usual corporate answers from the rest. Nothing against Vettel, (I have his jacket), just curious what he can do in a different car but i think he is too smart to leave Adrian.

My bucket list took me to F1 race twice at Phoenix where I saw Alesi in a TYRRELL!! passed Senna and vise versa. Was able to get close to all the pits AT the garage door and admired the only Yankee engineer Steve Nichols working for Ferrari thinking why not me. Many drivers walking back to their hotels, in their driving suits.....alone!! with no fans around. Granted, its a track for the redneck as I parked myself next to the fence the whole race, but thats all we had.

by the same token, I understand the tire compound can be finicky, C'mon man, lets have French Croissant vs. Japanese Sumo to make things more interesting. As the cars gets more advanced, the driver become more and more ride along. Their passing skills from lower class are now aided by sexy high tech KER/DRS..etc. Sure, the days of heel-&-toe, double clutching...etc are long gone...drivers with fire in their stomach can no longer say what they want w/o facing fines or get fired.

Heck, I am not into bikes that much and I have seen people killed on bikes, I have a 125cc Zuma(Ding!) and I feel close to God every time I ride even going @40mph cuz if I crash, I may become an organ donor. MotoGP has no downforce, not as high tech as F1, sounds slightly better than NASCAR, but the competition is fierce and the skills/crazy riders rubbing elbows and knees are just insane at that speed. I am gonna drive a F1 car some day(Ya right!) but not enough ______ to try a MOTO GP bike. I am still learning who is who. #46 trying to come back is quite a story. All the drama and cast of characters makes it more exciting lacking tech and strategy vs F1. Can you imagine if Senna was alive and making a come back?? or still kicking everyone's butt?

 

[bboxer]

This are all good observations but to relegate the role of these top world drivers to ride-along is IMO somewhat of an exaggeration. I understand the rather simplistic observations and driver valuation the general public has but it takes way more considerations to really evaluate a driver's worth.
It is a real shame Nichols later went to Jordan and Jaguar and tarnished the great acclaim he received for designing the MP4/4 with Gordon Murray.

That being said, your Phoenix experience brings back memories. I spent the 1990 race in the pits and remember the moment when the pass happened. I have a painting of that Alesi pass hanging on my home office wall.

 

[Blackhorse06]

With all this talk of Pirelli leaving the sport because not enough testing time with the new cars. I had an idea. Why not let Marussia and Caterham do the tyre testing for Pirelli. They are both almost 2+sec off the pace and would they really be getting that big of an advantage. Why not make a rule that states "the 2 lowest placed teams in the constructors championship will participate in ALL pre-season tire tests." and let the tyre manufacturer and the FIA help pay the cost. Let see if that could even up the field a little more.

As for the reason Seb always wins; Yes he is in the BEST car, but thats how it always is. Let's not forget that he scored points in his very first race with BMW Sauber and won a race in the Torro Rossa. While he will never be better than Senna in my opinion he IS very good

 

[Jean Girard]

Agree 100% with your post Blackhorse. Wow.

I came to this thread expecting a bunch of Vettel booing and was pleasantly surprised.

 

[NSXrebel]

Agree 100% with your post Blackhorse. Wow.

I came to this thread expecting a bunch of Vettel booing and was pleasantly surprised.

BOO Vettel! BOO!

 

[liftnot]

It is a real shame Nichols later went to Jordan and Jaguar and tarnished the great acclaim he received for designing the MP4/4 with Gordon Murray.

That being said, your Phoenix experience brings back memories. I spent the 1990 race in the pits and remember the moment when the pass happened. I have a painting of that Alesi pass hanging on my home office wall.

Great Pix Tino!! sure is one with a story behind. Nice to know you and I were among the 30k:frown: fans there(maybe even less). There were fans cheering for homeboy Eddie Cheever!!

Now the season/pressure is over but we still have many races to go. but to them, its more parties in the hotel than fighting on the track.
The "ride-along" analogy is similar to a fighter pilot, we all know you must have mad skills to get there, otherwise......

Didn't someone ask Senna who impressed him as a driver?....he said some English dude name Peterson?? during his F3 days? I can't recall.
F1 technology is so protected, we wont' know what it is for a long time. w/o Minardi speaking up, how would we know Vettle engine sounded different and even if he is right, we can only guess how it work at best and come up with "best guess" without having Adrian spilling the beans. F1 technology/secrets are hard to come by. A buddy of mine works for TRD and had a chance to play with their 2008 F1 car that came to Laguna Seca. Two things he noticed, the engine needs to be warm-up externally to bolt onto the tub, their ITB, as us ricers call it, has flaps like a door opening and closing with no loss of air volume. Pretty neat set up.

Senna tested a Penske PC21 but there were no story after that. my guess is the car is at least 450lb heavier than his McLaren, its a pig to drive in comparison. Besides, NASCAR money was not as big as it is now or else we wouldn't have 2 F1 defects trying to win driving in circles.

 

[Jack Sparrow]

Can it be 2015 already? I need Ross to join McLaren, Honda, and Jenson in 2015.

 

[NSXrebel]

Can it be 2015 already? I need Ross to join McLaren, Honda, and Jenson in 2015.

Fnck yeah!! Give Button another winning car!

But next year should be great with Kimi and Fernando at Ferrari! Together, hopefully they put a stop to this Vettel nonsense!

 

[Sandro]

Fnck yeah!! Give Button another winning car!

But next year should be great with Kimi and Fernando at Ferrari! Together, hopefully they put a stop to this Vettel nonsense!

I'm afraid will be hard,cheef Lotus Renault already said that RB has advantage for 2014. tough to beat.But maybe with more luck will see.
Don't like Merc but hope Mclaren and Lotus will do better cars for next year especialy Mclaren.

 

[Blackhorse06]

The Vettel RedBull Newey combo is very impressive! Did anyone else notice they were running Flow-Vis on the right side of the car in Friday practice. Even now they are still learning and developing that car! The modern age of F1 is amazing. There are a lot of teams that have 3D printers at the track that can churn out parts that the factory designs with info collected during the session!

BTW Liftnot: The idividual Senna spoke about was a man named Terry Fullerton. He was Senna's partner in his Karting days. Karting was the one World Championship he could never win. I really believe that bugged him till the day he died.

The Penske test was more of a motivational tool aimed at Ron Dennis and McLaren to get a contract done. IMO I don't think he would have taken that seat even if the contract with McLaren did fall through. It did one thing! It woke all the other Penske drivers up. Senna went the quickest in the "Un-Official and Un-Timed" laps.

 

[Miner]

So far there are 3 of us who admit (possibly claim) to have attended the US GP at Phoenix. As the attendance was like 30 or so, and I was with 2 friends, i think we accounted for 1/6th of the crowd cheering for Cheever on the podiium!

Miner

 

[Blackhorse06]

Make that 4. I attended all the Phoenix races. But I was never a Cheever fan;I was always pulling for Ayrton! I still remember hearing the Brazilian fans chanting Ole Ole Ole Ola SENNA! I also remember getting very humbled by my wife. I gave her a hard time about buying ear plugs. I am a tough guy I can handle the noise! NOPE! First car that went screaming down Washington Street at full song just about doubled me over. Headed straight to the ear plug booth! LOL

 

[liftnot]

The Vettel RedBull Newey combo is very impressive! Did anyone else notice they were running Flow-Vis on the right side of the car in Friday practice. Even now they are still learning and developing that car! The modern age of F1 is amazing.

BTW Liftnot: The idividual Senna spoke about was a man named Terry Fullerton.

It did one thing! It woke all the other Penske drivers up. Senna went the quickest in the "Un-Official and Un-Timed" laps.

That's it! its Fullerton. Ha Ha! Did not know he was the quickest he must knew he had the right to be the quickest and didn't want to be the 1st of the losers......even in a car he never drove b 4.....WOW!

So far there are 3 of us who admit (possibly claim) to have attended the US GP at Phoenix. As the attendance was like 30 or so, and I was with 2 friends, i think we accounted for 1/6th of the crowd cheering for Cheever on the podiium!

Miner

You're right, it was not 30K people....i have a few x-tra zeros. I must had too much to drink seeing triples.

First car that went screaming down Washington Street at full song just about doubled me over. Headed straight to the ear plug booth! LOL

Ohhh that sound.....one of the few wonders in the world:smile:....may it not disappear soon in my life time.


Perhaps some of you can explain the bold in simple english see how close we know their secrets. (from F1.com) Seems to me the wording is backwards.

"One theory being talked about in India to potentially explain Red Bull's performance advantage related to the front section of the car's floor, commonly known as the 'tea tray'. A wooden plank runs the length of the floor and to regulate ride height the rules state that this may not wear away by more than 1mm over the course of a race. Unusually, recent thermal imaging footage of the RB9 showed the skid plates at the front of the tea tray getting very hot at low speeds. This led to suggestions that Red Bull might have found a way to attach the tea tray such that heat expansion in the materials used in its mountings raise the tray by 1 or 2mm at higher speeds, when increased downforce is naturally compressing the car closer to the ground. This would mean the team could run a lower front ride height at low speeds without wearing the plank excessively, and achieve a more constant gap between the tea tray and the ground through a wide range of speeds. FIA checks on the car found nothing illegal."

 

[bboxer]

The 1981 Las Vegas GP in Ceasar's parking lot probably had a lower attendance than Phoenix! Yet I was also there and thoroughly enjoyed it. Its not always the racing, for me; my 1990 Phoenix experience was the most memorable and best remembered for what happend off the track than for the racing. I wont bore you with the details.....

The enigmas of F1 secrets are still alive and well. I have read or heard about secrets and cheating ever since i became a fan in 1967 (shows my age!). Just today I was talking about pit stops heading to sub-2seconds with a person who reminded me that many years ago, one of the teams (probably the Italian master cheaters) secretly used helium instead of air to power their Paoli wheel guns to gain a few nanoseconds since helium flows faster. Once they were discovered, the trick made so much sense that everybody adopted it including the FIA.

 

[Ritesh]

Can it be 2015 already? I need Ross to join McLaren, Honda, and Jenson in 2015.

AMEN!!! This year has been just been a complete waste at Mclaren. The only thing positive is that Perez looks like he is getting in a groove the last few races.

 

[nsxsimon]

anyone know why Vettel pitted so early in the Indian GP last weekend ? I think he pitted like lap 02 ? Do we know why ?

 

[Blackhorse06]

To get off those crappy Options that he had on. He pulled out a big enough lead to pit a little earlier than everyone else on the Option tire. Everyone for the most part pitted within 5-7 laps.

 

[myhui]

Ross Brawn going to McLaren to work on their Honda engined cars in 2015? If so, he should join as early as possible, maybe early 2014, so that while he won't be responsible for the 2014 effort, he will be working full time at the factory to make sure the 2015 car is a winner.

Here is an update.

29 October 2013 Last updated at 10:01 GMT: BBC Sport : Ross Brawn to leave Mercedes at the end of the current F1 season

Quoting that article:

Brawn and Mercedes have failed to reach an agreement on a role in which he would have been happy to stay at the team, sources close to Mercedes said.

Mercedes will now be run in tandem by their two executive directors, Toto Wolff and Paddy Lowe, along with non-executive chairman Niki Lauda.

Both Mercedes and Brawn refused to comment on the development.

Brawn moving to Honda is considered unlikely by some insiders, who say he had grown frustrated with certain aspects of working with the company when he ran their F1 team in 2007-8, particularly dealing with Honda management and repeated trips to Japan.

Claims Brawn will move to McLaren, though, are incorrect, according to sources.​

 

[sadlerau]

Here's a little snippet of just why Red Bull have been so dominant!

http://plus.autosport.com/premium/feature/5672/tech-video-the-secrets-of-red-bull-dominant/

Question - the video keeps referring to these developments on Vettel's car, but Webber's doesn't get a mention. Surely Red Bull have not been running a separate development programme for Vettel??? Aussie paranoia creeping in?

 

[Stephen@NCAutoUSA]

Here's a little snippet of just why Red Bull have been so dominant!

http://plus.autosport.com/premium/feature/5672/tech-video-the-secrets-of-red-bull-dominant/

Question - the video keeps referring to these developments on Vettel's car, but Webber's doesn't get a mention. Surely Red Bull have not been running a separate development programme for Vettel??? Aussie paranoia creeping in?

I bet they probably develop both cars and equip them the same, but the decisions on what actually gets done is in Vettels favor and compliments his driving style more then Webbers. That's just a wild guess though.

 

[Miner]

Here's a little snippet of just why Red Bull have been so dominant!

http://plus.autosport.com/premium/feature/5672/tech-video-the-secrets-of-red-bull-dominant/

Question - the video keeps referring to these developments on Vettel's car, but Webber's doesn't get a mention. Surely Red Bull have not been running a separate development programme for Vettel??? Aussie paranoia creeping in?

The link sends me to a page requesting subscription to the service. Could you boil down the article into a few sentences, please?

 

[sadlerau]

The link sends me to a page requesting subscription to the service. Could you boil down the article into a few sentences, please?

It's a video only, but I'll try and boil it down over the weekend as there are a myriad of minor/major detail changes for each race.

 

[Miner]

Unbelievable how much faster Vettel is than everybody.
Miner

 

[RYU]

Seb was very impressive.

Though, i'm really pulling for MBZ to win the Constructors over Ferrari! Is it true that Ferrari's problems over the years has been because of faulty Wind Tunnel data? Really? Sounds like a cop out.

 

[bboxer]

I was a little surprised at the lack of posts relating to yesterday's GP but then again, I am a newcomer to this Prime racing forum.
"He silenced his critics"; an expression that would explain it.

I think we are not only witnessing a champ at work, but we may be lucky to be seeing a legend in the making. He is that good.
And BTW, Regan, it is a Driver's Championship first, and a constructor/team battle second. It always has been.