Things are a little hectic at the Duck U Bookstore these days.  We're a month away from the start of the new school year, there's very nearly three tons of books being delivered to the store over the next few days, we're starting to see the first ducklings coming in to buy said books... and there is no store manager.  She got promoted to a bigger store that was 10 minutes from home (instead of the hour-long drive each way she did to work at the Duck U Bookstore), and her last day was this past Tuesday.  That leaves yours truly in charge...

...of a trained part-timer who has limited availability and two brand-new temps who are still learning how to use the cash register.  Eep.  A new manager is expected to be selected by the first week of August, but even in the best of cases it's going to be somewhat hectic around here for a while.  It's only been two days, but I'm already roughly a day and a half behind on the manager stuff... or at least, that's the way I feel.  Oh, and there's a registration day for incoming students on Saturday, it's going to be 95 degrees outside for the next week, and every single road and most of the parking lots at Duck U have been scraped to the foundations in preparation for resurfacing next week.  And my knee is making unpleasant sounds and hurts something fierce.

-Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, Ep02

I'd like to hide in a futon too.

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I greatly enjoy watching Top Gear.  Clarkson, May and Hamster Hammond play off each other incredibly well, leading to great hilarity, at times reaching Monty Python levels of humor quality.  Then of course, there's the cars, and the envy... after all, they've got the greatest job in the world, and they know it, and they don't take it for granted.

Which makes the "highlight" of this past Sunday's episode so excruciating to talk about.  You see, this week they put a F1 Star in the (old) Reasonably Priced Car.  In the past, they've had Mark Webber, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, amongst others, hop into the Suzuki Liana and turn a few laps on the Top Gear Test Track.  The last F1 driver to appear was Rubens Barrichello, and we all remember what happened that time... and the t-shirts he had made up.  But this time, there was a different feeling in the studio... a feeling of dark menace.

Which turned out to be entirely appropriate, for when he was younger he cavorted and gamboled with Slappy Schumacher itself.

He is now a couple of years older, and instead of a kart, he now drives this:

...and I began to weep.  Can I never escape from the menace of...
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It doesn't happen often, but once in a while the planets align and someone smiles upon my humble submission... and lo, the greenlight does shine!

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Rules changes that may have been aimed directly at the Red Bull team didn't seem to slow them down at all in Quals.  But what would actually occur when the lights went out at Silverstone?  Would Ferrari kick Vettel to the curb?  Would McLaren make a remarkable comeback from a depressing qualifying stint?  Or would the rain come bucketing down like it did during practice, throwing everything into a tizzy?  THIS is your F1U! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Great Britain!

*LIGHTS OUT:  While it wasn't raining when the race began, just a few minutes before the back half of the track had been in the middle of a downpour.  Up at the start/finish line however the track was pretty much dry.  The entire field was on Intermediate tires, and with the way the weather had been at Silverstone for the past two days, nobody was sure if they'd have to change to full wets, move to slicks, or stay on the Inters, perhaps as soon as the end of Lap 1.  The weather was just that weird.  When the lights went out, polesitter Mark Webber made one of his patented Lousy Starts^©, allowing his teammate, Seb Vettel, to rocket by him in a repeat of a scene we've seen all too many times this season.  Meanwhile, Ferrari's HWMNBN began living right behind the Australian driver, not quite able to get by but not letting his opponent get away.  Behind them, everything is thrown into a cocked hat.  McLaren's Lewis Hamilton picks up three places at the start, and by the end of the second lap is up to fifth, passing his teammate. 

*AND SO ON...: By Lap 10, it's clear that the track is just about ready for the normal slick tires... on the racing line at least.  Slappy Schumacher, fresh after discovering that wet pavement is slippery and misplacing his front wing somewhere in the side of Gandalf Kobayashi's Sauber, becomes the first to try the regular tires, followed by half the field on the next lap.  A few laps later, both Lotuses are out with problems with their Renault engines.  As these may very well be the first engine failures of the entire season, there is immediate thought that the new rules against the "throttle trick" are causing overheating.  On Lap 25, Gandalf pulls over, his engine cooked to a lovely shade of golden brown. 

*PIT MISFORTUNES:  Two weeks ago in Spain, all 24 cars that started the race finished, only the third time in the 61 year history of F1 that has ever occurred (the last time was in 2005).  A lot of that can be put down to the sterling work by the pit crews.  Not this race.  Kobayashi was handed a 10 second stop-and-go penalty for being released unsafely into the pit lane, taking with him a Force India airhose in the process.  In an unrelated incident, Force India's Paul diResta on lap 26 stopped for new tires... and discovered that the team had teammate Adrian Sutil's ready for him.  The screwed up pitstop cost him nine places, dropping from seventh to 16th.  We'll talk about what happened to Jenson Button later.  But then came the big mistake.  On Lap 27, Vettel pits from the lead with 2nd place HWMNBN a few seconds behind him.  Ferrari got their man in and out in a hurry, but the Red Bull mechanics had problems with an airgun.  HWMNBN, who was some seconds behind the young German champion at the beginning of the pitstop, sweeps by before the Red Bull driver has all four tires on and takes over the lead.

*CONTINUING DEVELOPMENTS:  At this point, the order is HWMNBN, Lewis Hamilton and Seb Vettel.  It still stands that was on Lap 32, but the Ferrari driver is a full seven seconds ahead of second place Hamilton, who has Vettel all over his rear wing.  Astonishingly, the Red Bull can't get past the obviously slower McLaren, allowing the Ferrari driver to open an 11 second lead in the space of a few laps.  Obviously frustrated, the Austrian team called their driver in for a pit stop on Lap 37, hoping that fresh tires and no McLaren in front of them will make a difference.  In response, Vettel turns in the lap of the day and when Hamilton came in for tires on the next lap, his mechanics take 0.2 seconds longer than Vettel's; this, combined with the lightning-fast out lap, allows the reigning World Champion to jump Hamilton on the pit exchange.  On Lap 40, HWMNBN pits from the lead for the final time, and when he rejoined the race still in the lead, it became clear that the churchbells would be busy in Maranello. 

*AND THEN...:  All a race driver wants to do is go fast.  That's what he does, after all... what else IS there to racing, when it comes right down to it?  So imagine what was going through Lewis Hamilton's head on Lap 44.  He's in third, having passed Ferrari's Felipe Massa to get there, but he has Mark Webber coming up behind him fast, and Seb Vettel is merely a couple of seconds ahead.  Of course he's going to want to run like the wind, right?  Then came the call from the pit wall: "Lewis, we need to conserve fuel if we're going to finish the race."  It appears that McLaren, gambling on a slower, less fuel-intensive wet race, didn't put enough gas into his car for the surprisingly quick-paced (mostly) dry race they got.  Two laps later, Webber cruised by the drastically slower Hamilton, kicking the 2008 Champion off the podium.  By Lap 49, another threat emerges: Felipe Massa's Ferrari has gained over seven seconds in three laps and appears to be drooling at the opportunity in front of him. 

*THIS IS THE END:  Much to everybody's surprise and delight, Hamilton might not have been the only one with fuel problems.  Mark Webber was making up time in huge gulps on Seb Vettel, maybe for the same reason the McLaren had slowed, or perhaps because the German's tires had gone off.  Whichever reason it was, on Laps 50 and 51, the two teammates begin to go at it hammer and tongs.  Only a slightly dangerous blocking maneuver kept the Aussie behind Vettel.  Back at the Red Bull pit wall, team principal Christian Horner has a heart attack and dies.  Recovering quickly, he immediately says enough of that.  The forceful radio call goes out on the final lap: "Mark, maintain the gap."  It turned out that Webber had been ignoring similar calls for a few laps to have a go at his teammate, but that final, failed, attempt brought the team's foot down... and with the rules against team orders being removed this season, nothing will happen to the team.  Of course, this is the team that last year got quite holier-than-thou when Ferrari told Felipe Massa that "(HWMNBN) is faster than you."  "We would never issue team orders under any circumstances," I believe was the gist of Horner's quote back then.  Yeah, about that...

*FIN: Whatever little dramas were going on behind him bothered HWMNBN not a whit, as he sailed across the finish line some 16.5 seconds ahead of the two Red Bull drivers for his first win since the 2010 GP of Korea.  His teammate however, he was locked in a tooth-and-nail fight for fourth with Hamilton.  The McLaren pilot was doing an incredible job of keeping the ridiculously faster Ferrari behind him until the last sequence of turns.  Then the Brazilian made his move to the outside of the Brit.  The two bumped twice and Massa was forced into the run-off area outside of the final turn.  A balls-out sprint ensued, with Hamilton crossing the line 0.024 seconds ahead of Massa for fourth place, bringing to an end a surprisingly eventful race.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE:  HWMNBN.  From hounding Webber at the start to keeping his head as people nicked places off him in the pits, the Spaniard stayed as cool as the other side of the pillow all race, and it paid off in spades with a dominating victory... but one that never really seemed all that dominate.  Do it again and we here at F1U! will begin to believe it, though.

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  Ferrari.  From a miserable start to the season to nearly getting a 1-4 result, the red team from Maranello have got to be feeling pretty good right now.  Whether their sudden speed is a result of the new rules changes or from improvements in the car is a topic for another day.

*MOVE OF THE RACE:  On Lap 14, Jenson Button was hovering just behind Felipe Massa in 6th place as the two raced down the Hangar Straight.  Conditions were... um... dicey, to say the least, but that's the sort of track that Button enjoys racing on.  Into the 150mph Stowe corner they went, with Button making his move to the outside of the Ferrari.

Massa, despite a slight speed disadvantage, took some umbrage with this attempt and kept pushing the 2009 Champion farther and farther outside, until finally Button wasn't driving on the track at all, but on the painted section just off the circuit.

Somehow, Button managed to keep the car gripping the surface (unlike Gandalf Kobayashi in Friday's P1) as they raced down to Vale.  When Massa slid out to the racing line for the turn, Button pounced.

Barbecuing his front-left tire with his late braking, Button zipped past as the two entered Vale, and while Massa attempted a counterattack in Club, the McLaren had too much speed built up and ran away, bringing a truly professional pass to a close.  Well done, here's the MotR!

*MOOOOOOO-OOOVE OF THE RACE:  It seems appropriate that, given all the pitlane problems the teams had today, that the worst move of the race will be going to a pit crew member.  On Lap 40, Jenson Button was coming in for his final set of tires.  He was in fifth place, and had an outside shot at a podium position if everything went right.  Instead, everything went very very wrong.  The front-right air gun seemed to have a problem going from "loosen" to "tighten" as the old tire came off promptly, and the new tire put in place.  As the other three tires were bolted down however, the front-right gunner tried to lock the tire on the hub, and couldn't.  Immediately, he dropped the gun and began reaching for the backup.  The chief mechanic, also known as the "Lollypop Man" for the paddle-shaped "stop/go" board he wields, took the frantic scramble for a new gun to mean that the tire was safely attached, even though the usual notification for that is a neon-glove-covered hand held vertically above the tire.  The lollypop was lifted, and away went Button, exactly as he's supposed to do.  Before he got out of the pits, though...

Amazingly the tire never came completely off the hub, though only by the barest of margins.  He still had to park the car however, and the team was fined after the race for an unsafe release, to the tune of €5000.  From 5th to out, and a decent chunk of change to boot?  Yep, that's a Moooooo-ooove to the Lollypop Man!

*SELECTED DRIVER'S QUOTES OF THE RACE:
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Once more, this time with feeling, it's Saturday Night Tunage with your host, DJ Wonderduck.  I wasn't sure I was going to do the Tunage this week, but whilst at work on Friday the instore music system managed to blow my mind... forcing me to inflict the pain share the joy with you!  I'm sure you'll appreciate the "stacks and stacks of red hot wax" I'll be layin' down for your enjoyment, so lets get started!

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Rain clouds above Silverstone for the Qualifying session for the 2011 Grand Prix of Great Britain are a normal sight, but the storm clouds in the pit lane gave hope that perhaps, just maybe, the Red Bull dominance may have been broken by the blown diffuser ban.  So, was it?  Here's the provisional grid:

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Ah, to be in England in the summertime... just don't forget your umbrellas, raincoat and galoshes.  Other than a fifteen minute long stretch in P2 right at the end, what we had was the textbook definition of a wet track at Silverstone.  Very wet.  Nearly "boat racing" levels of wet.

While watching the most highly skilled drivers in the world look like they've never even heard of a car, let alone actually drive one, was mildly entertaining, it did nothing to answer the burning question of the day.  That being, of course, what effect will the Open Throttle ban have on the myriad racers and particularly the nigh-on unbeatable Red Bulls?  Since the heavy rain made even the relatively simple task of keeping the cars on track nearly impossible, nobody knows what's going to happen once they have a dry track under them.

There's been a clarification of the ruling from the FIA.  It turns out that the ban isn't actually a total ban.  Instead, the teams can keep the throttle open about 10% instead of at full force.  Legendary Announce Team tech guru Steve Matchett did a great job explaining how this trick works.  In essence, when the driver takes his foot off the "make noise" pedal, thereby closing the throttle, the engine changes modes.  Instead of burning fuel in the classic "suck-squeeze-bang-blow" routine of the internal combustion engine, when the throttle is closed the engine becomes a highly efficient pump, accelerating nothing but air through the exhaust pipes and over the diffuser, thereby keeping the downforce at a constant.  Just how the teams accomplish this neat trick is an exercise for the tech nobbins out there.  That also explains just why the FIA declared the trick a violation of the "movable aerodynamic device" rule.  The pistons are moving, after all! 

Now that the FIA has taken 90% of the benefit away, the teams are screaming that they should be allowed to have 20% of the trick.  Or 25%.  Or whatever number that's greater than 10% that they feel like throwing out there.  It's all somewhat farcical, except the teams actually have something of a point here.  As I mentioned before Valencia, the cars that use the Constant Throttle trick were designed with it, meaning that it's required to keep the cars stable and safe.  At least, that's how their argument goes.  The fact that they can make this change without rebuilding the entire rear end of their cars makes me think that perhaps it isn't as critical as the teams would like us to think.

Or maybe it is.  In P1, Gandalf Kobayashi got his Sauber a little squirrely on some of the astroturf edging the front straight.  He got sideways, hit a bump, and once again we discovered that, under the right conditions, F1 cars really can fly.  Short distances, and not well, but they can.  Alas, when he returned to earth, the right-side wheels dug in, and this resulted:

To me, there's no worse accident than one where a F1 car gets upside down, unless it's one where the car is tumbling, and that's very nearly what we got here.  Would the increase in blown diffuser downforce had made a difference here?  No, as Gandalf had his foot down as hard as he could given the conditions, given that he was accelerating off the final turn.  Just mere luck kept him from the grim tumble.

Quals in the morning, maybe it'll be dry then!

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July 8th, 2005, was a rather nondescript day.  Nothing of any real importance occurred in the world that day, truth be told.  It was just a day like any other.  But in a corner of a small but growing blog domain-cum-empire run by an evil magical girl in Australia, a duck with a penchant for writing about Formula 1 and anime quietly moved his site from the cesspool that was Blogger to MuNuVia. 

It was six years ago today that Wonderduck's Pond was born.

The Pond has come a long way since those humble beginnings, and if it wasn't for the marvelous people I have as readers, it never would have blossomed the way it did.  You folks have been here for the good times and the bad, and it is much appreciated.

Never would have thought six years ago that I'd still be doing this stuff, but that's how it works sometimes.  Now, let us all put on the silly party caps and have some cake!

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So there's this little British motoring show you might have heard of called Top Gear.  On the show, the three presenters, Jeremy Clarkson (the big one), Richard Hammond (the small one) and James May (the slow one), are allowed to get their mitts on some of the world's most exciting cars and do things with them that would make most people soil themselves with fear or excitement.  Or both.  It's been around for 17 seasons, and amongst other things they've attempted to launch a Reliant Robin into space (and failed), driven a rocket-powered Mini down a ski jump, tried to destroy a Toyota Hilux (and failed), driven to the North Pole (the first to do so in history), taken a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport to 258mph, discovered that a Ford Fiesta make a good Higgins Boat, and created a blender powered by a V8 (it can blend bricks!).

All of which sounds like something of a good time.  But in their most recent episode, which aired this past Sunday July 3rd, the lads got to do something any racing fan would give up body parts for.  Y'see, for this episode they were testing "hot hatchbacks" in their usual fashion: each chooses a car, then they do some ridiculous challenge or two, this time in a small Italian town. 

This, they accomplished with their usual level of humor.  Then to test how their cars drove in real-life situations, they were told to motor from this little Italian town to a small French fishing village.  Which you may have heard of.

As they were in the hills above Monaco, an eerie, almost spectral moan could be heard emanating from the town below.  Clarkson got on his radio to the other two with "Lads... I think the race is on!"  Hammond: "What race?"  Cue Clarkson wanting to strangle his two co-workers.

Their next challenge was fairly simple: turn three racing laps on the Monaco Grand Prix circuit (on Friday, the "quiet day" of the Grand Prix weekend).  Clarkson, a long-time F1 fan, immediately tracked down David Coulthard's Chin, Mark Webber and Rubens Barrichello for advice on how to best drive  around the circuit. 

Hammond and May, neither of whom are F1 fans in the least (despite Hammond having driven a F1 car and calling the experience "mind-blowing"), spent the day and most of the night at a party located here:

...and not finding out anything at all about the circuit.  They did speak to a very nice driver named Tim O'Glock, though.

Finally, their moment on-track came.

I hate them so very much, as do pretty much all right-thinking motorheads.  After all, they had the entire Monaco circuit to themselves for 10 minutes or so.  Bastards.

Seriously though, if you're a F1 fan, you owe it to yourself to track down a copy of this episode.  It's really quite special.  As Top Gear is the world's most downloaded TV program, it shouldn't be hard to find.

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If Monaco is the glamorous soul of Formula 1, and Monza the basic essence of Formula 1, Silverstone Circuit, home to the 2011 British Grand Prix, is Formula 1's beating heart.  Let's take a look at this, the track where the very first official F1 race was held:

There's been some changes made since that bright day in 1950 when Giuseppi Farina brought his Alfa Romeo 158 across the line for the first ever F1 victory.  Heck, there's been some changes since last year, when they debuted the new "Arena Circuit".  Take a look:



You see the change?  They've moved the start/finish line!  Before, Copse was Turn 1, now Turn 1 is Abbey, which leads into the new part of the layout.  Of course, they've moved the pit lane and the speed trap as well.  Actually, moving the speed trap makes sense: it's now at the fastest part of the track, the Hangar Straight, just before braking for Stowe.  It'll be a bit confusing now, I expect.  For years, you came out of Woodcote, one of the faster turns in F1, for the blast to the finish line... now you're coming out of Club, which is not one of the faster turns in F1.  Copse used to be the best first turn in F1 save for Spa's La Source.  Now it's the "just" the lead-in for my favorite sequence of turns: Maggots-Becketts-Chapel.  I'd kill to have a good camera and a position right where the number "13" is located on the 2011 track map... oh, the pictures one could take.

But I digress... and I note that I'm accidentally repeating my comments from last year's F1 on TV! entry for Silverstone.  That's the problem with this sort of preview... I've been doing it for nearly six years, eventually you run out of original things to say about a circuit.

Well, the Legendary Announce Team is paid to say original things!  They'll be bringing us their usual sterling coverage of the race weekend, starting off with Friday's 1st Practice session, streaming on speedtv.com from 4am to 530am.  P2 will be live on SPEED itself from 8am to 940am.

Saturday brings us streaming coverage of P3 from 4am to 5am, leading up to the live broadcast of Quals on SPEED, airing from 7am to 830am.

Finally, the race itself will be on your local FOX affiliate from 11am to 1pm.  All times are Pond Central, of course, so add a hour for those of you who live in Jersey, subtract one hour for people who live on top of the Rocky Mountains, and take away two hours for those of you near the Pacific Ocean.

Of course F1U! will be proving that you don't have to be witty or clever to provide writeups about a Formula 1 race weekend!  See you then!

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Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  May we all enjoy these rights today!

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Another Saturday night, another Saturday Night Tunage with me, DJ Wonderduck, spinning the music of my life out into the vast reaches of the intertoobs for the pleasure of you, my readers listeners.  It's almost like I'm back behind the mic at one of the various radio stations I used to work for, with one major difference: I can play what I want!  No more playlists making the music decisions for me, I'm stickin' it to The Man, go crazy folks riot in the streets woo!

Or, y'know, not.  Because rioting in the streets isn't... well... very nice.  And you're likely to be hit by a car.  I don't want you to be hit by a car, and would feel bad if my choice of music made you want to go out into the streets and riot without looking both ways first.  If you do feel an overwhelming urge to riot in the streets after listening to Saturday Night Tunage, please let me know so I can adjust my choices of music to something less riot-inducing.  Saturday Night Tunage may have been in contact with peanuts.  Saturday Night Tunage has been known to cause reactions in people with an allergy to asparagus.  Do not taunt Saturday Night Tunage.  If Saturday Night Tunage lasts for four hours or more, please contact your doctor. 

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Did HRT's team principal Colin Kolles once have a bad tikka masala or something?  Last year, the weekend before the 2010 British Grand Prix, the team jettisoned Cowboy Karun Chandhok from its lineup for Sakon Yamamoto.  Today, the weekend before the 2011 British Grand Prix, HRT demoted Narain Kittylitter into their reserve driver slot, replacing him in the race seat with Australian Daniel Ricciardo. 

A heckuva birthday gift for the to-be-22-year-old, who's birthday is Friday.  Ricciardo has been behind the wheel of a F1 car before, as he's been a Friday driver for Toro Rosso.  Somewhere, NKOTT (Jaime Alguersuari) is breathing a sigh of relief.  Ricciardo had been looming large in the shadows as the Toro Rosso driver had a lousy beginning to the season, leading many to believe that he'd take over NKOTT's seat.

Back at HRT, it's no surprise that everybody expects to see Kittylitter behind the wheel again, conveniently in time for the first Grand Prix of India... particularly because TATA Motors, India's largest automobile maker (and the world's 4th largest manufacturer of trucks and 2nd largest maker of buses) sponsors the team.  Yeah, Narain'll be back, no question.

Meanwhile, the guys over at Force India have to be muttering bad things about HRT, wouldn't you think?

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The year is 1904 and James Arbuthnot Fisher had reached the absolute pinnacle of his career.  After fifty years in his chosen profession, he was arguably the most powerful man in the world.  You see, James Arbuthnot Fisher was better known as "Admiral of the Fleet Sir Jackie Fisher, First Sea Lord."  As such, he was the commander of the British Royal Navy, the strongest military force under the sun, answerable only to His Royal Highness, King Edward VII. 

In the past, Admiral Fisher had shown two interesting traits: an innovative mind, and a love for anything fast.  Some 10 years earlier, he had essentially created the class of ship we now know as the destroyer.  Now he had the power to push through his greatest idea yet: a battleship armed with nothing but one size of large-caliber guns.  She was to be named HMS Dreadnought, and her very existence made the rest of the world's battleships obsolete at a single stroke.  Obviously well-armed, well-armored, and (of course) fast for her time, the Dreadnought was a marvel. 

And then he had to go and create a companion for the Dreadnought design.  The concept was a good one: a ship able to chase down and kill commerce raiders in independent action, and able to act as the eyes of the battleline in a fleet action.  It was to be able to outfight anything it could outrun, and outrun anything it couldn't outfight.  To do this required two things: high speed, and high firepower... a tall order, even for today's technology.

For the early 1900s, there was only one solution... take away weight.  In essence, what Admiral Fisher wanted was to build a Dreadnought-class ship, but without all that pesky armor.  And, being First Sea Lord of His Majesty's Royal Navy, what Admiral Fisher wanted, Admiral Fisher got.  What he got was the HMS Invincible, the world's first battlecruiser.

Weighing the same as the Dreadnought within a couple hundred tons, the Invincible carried eight 12" rifles in four twin turrets.  While this was two guns fewer than the Dreadnought,  better positioning of the two wing turrets allowed them to fire to their opposite side.  As a result, she could fire the same strength broadside as the bigger ship, which had only six guns on the center, and two wing turrets that could only fire to their respective sides.  The Invincible had 31 boilers driving four turbine-powered shafts, generating anywhere from 41000 to 46000 shaft horsepower, nearly twice the shp of the Dreadnought.  As a result, the Invincible could make 25kts, and nearly reached 27kts during builder's trials.  Her larger cousin could only make 21kts.  But all that speed came at a dramatic cost.


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The weather in Valencia was gorgeous as the 24 cars took to the grid, but would the sun shine on the polesitter Seb Vettel?  Or would someone show him the greyness of loss?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2011 Grand Prix of Europe @ Valencia!

*NOPE:  As the lights went out, Red Bull's Seb Vettel leaped from his slot on the grid and headed for the hills.  By the end of the first lap, he was well over a second ahead of his teammate Mark Webber, who was being hounded by Ferrari's HWMNBN.  From there, it was just a pleasant Sunday drive for the reigning World Champion, who went on to win with a grand total drama amount of zero.  10 seconds behind him was HWMNBN, who was 17 seconds ahead of Mark Webber's ailing RB7.  Nearly 20 seconds later, Lewis Hamilton's McLaren sauntered across the lane, followed five seconds later by Ferrari's Felipe Massa.  The man currently second in the world championship race, Jenson Button, finished the race in 6th place, exactly one full minute behind Vettel.

*THE BAD OLD DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN:  It wasn't all that long ago that we'd go entire races without seeing anything other than red hot pitstop action!!!  We've gotten spoiled, what with all this newfangled passing and excitement and on-track racing for position that we've had this season.  It took the efforts of a Valencia street circuit to show us what F1 used to be: mostly unexciting.  We here at F1U! are dyed-in-the-firesuit traditionalists, always have been, but we can do without a return to the past in this particular case.  F1, get rid of this miserable excuse for a track, please.

*FIRST EVER: F1 has been around for over 60 years.  It's seen some amazingly dominant drivers (Schumacher, Senna, St Fangio the Quick), but never before have we seen a run like the one Seb Vettel is on.  We're eight races in, and in those he's not finished lower than 2nd in any of them.  That's never been done before.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE: NKOTT.  The Toro Rosso driver started 18th on the grid and finished 8th.  He must have done something right.

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  Red Bull.  In a race that was entirely decided in the pits, Red Bull consistently took tires off and replaced them in amazingly quick times.  Late in the race, where a mistake in the pits means lost time that could cost a driver a position or two, they got their men in and out in 3.2 seconds each.  Everybody else were around 3.4 or 3.5 seconds.  Yes, that's the sort of action we had today... red hot pit stop action!

*MOVE OF THE RACE:  When we're watching a race, the F1U! cohort is positioned with notebook in hand, ready to record anything of importance that occurs for easy reference later.  For Canada, there were six pages of notes, some with clarifying notations on the back of the previous page.  For Monaco, there were four pages.  For this race, there were two.  Not two pages, two notes.  Total.  One of them is for the DRS-assisted pass of Webber by HWMNBN on Lap 21 for 2nd place.  The other one is for Slappy Schumacher's pass of Adrian Sutil on Lap 15.  Neither was particularly exciting, dramatic, or even all that important.  Slappy gets the nod because he did his with his front wing dragging on the ground after he ran into The Red Menace as he exited the pits at the beginning of the lap.  Yay?

*MOOOOOOOO-OOOVE OF THE RACE:  Other than Slappy taking his own nose off on Lap 15 (see above), there really weren't any stupid driver tricks today.  So instead, here's Adrian Sutil with a pair of gag glasses.


*(VERY) SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
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Posted by: Wonderduck at 01:31 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1

When one team does everything right, it's what everyone aspires to, but it makes for a dull season.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 26, 2011 01:38 PM (+rSRq)

2 Eh. We've had some great racing this season even if it wasn't for first place. Just not last weekend...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at June 27, 2011 02:49 PM (pWQz4)

3 Aside from F1 I like endurance events & the 24 of The Green Hell was great this year. Look at this http://rumors.automobilemag.com/files/2011/06/2011-Porsche-911-Nurburgring-24-Winner-02-623x389.jpg and note what's keeping the right front together, all hail the Duck!

Posted by: von Krag at June 28, 2011 10:22 AM (VGXAE)

4 The racing world runs on speedtape.

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 28, 2011 05:32 PM (6nDnY)

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You've waited all week, and now it's finally here!  DJ Wonderduck is back with the third installment of Saturday Night Tunage, music to either get you in the mood for whatever event you have planned on this first full day of the weekend, or to provide you with a soundtrack for the evening! 

But enough of me jabbering away, let's get on with the tunage!  Maestro, if you please...?
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A beautiful day at Valencia for the Qualifying round of the 2011 Grand Prix of Europe.  Would the rules changes make a difference, would it be much ado about nothing?  Let's take a look at the provisional grid:

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So it was another dull practice session today, lots of cars just turning laps.  HWMNBN was fastest in P2, just ahead of Lewis Hamilton, Seb Vettel and Slappy Schumacher.  All four were separated by less than 6/10ths of a second, so it truly could be anybody on pole... if you put any stock in practice session times, which I don't.

However, this race will be the first with a new set of rules.  The FIA stepped down from on-high and decided that teams are no longer able to adjust electronic engine mapping between Quals and the race.  This actually makes sense.  Once Q1 begins and a car crosses the pit-out line, it is then considered to be in parc ferme condition and only the most minor changes can be made (wing settings, mostly).  After a car is eliminated from Quals (or makes it through Q3), the teams are basically unable to even touch the chassis.  Yet prior to this weekend, they could hook up a computer to the car and reprogram the Electronic Control Unit, basically telling the engine "hey, we want you to work this way now."  No longer.  There are pernicious rumors going around that this trick is one of the major reasons Red Bull has been so good in Quals: they had found a particularly hot combination of settings on their ECU.  It probably wouldn't last a full race distance without causing the engine to grenade, but it didn't have to: they could just change it to something more suitable for Sunday.  I don't know that I entirely believe it, yet it's awfully strange that their Renault engine outperforms RENAULT'S Renault engine.  Guess we'll find out on Saturday.

But that's not the only rule change coming down the pike, oh no.  Many teams have been doing some very clever things with their diffusers this season, directing their exhaust gases over it to get extra downforce.  Now, this seems counter-intuitive: you get the most powerful exhaust stream when you're accelerating, which is when you want it the least.  Conversely, when you're braking for a turn, you want more downforce, but you've probably got your foot off the throttle at that time, meaning less exhaust and therefore less downforce.  The engineering boffins have figured a way around this however, and now have a "constant flow" exhaust.  In effect, the same amount of exhaust is blown out the tailpipes, no matter how hard you're pressing the go-fast pedal.  If you've watched any races this season, you've surely noticed the flatulent sound that the Mercedes and McLaren make when they brake for a turn... that's from the constant flow exhaust kicking in.  At the beginning of the season, the FIA was fine with this, but they changed their mind a few races ago... effective at the next race (Silverstone), this technological trick is banned. 

As you can imagine, the teams are screaming bloody murder about these (mostly unprecedented) mid-season rules changes.  Particularly with the constant flow exhaust, their argument is that the removal of these things will make the cars much less balanced, and therefore less safe.  They have a point; F1 cars are remarkably sensitive to any changes in their aerodynamics.  While unlikely, it's not impossible that, say, the Red Bull chassis (for example) will become flat-out dangerous without this extra downforce.  Still the FIA is going ahead with it, and the teams much follow suit.  Please note that the Renault's forward-facing exhaust is not included in this... though if they're running the constant flow technology through it, that is.  The British GP might be even more interesting than normal.

This is going to be the first race where the hard tire will be the new medium compound rubber, which Pirelli has reformulated to last somewhat longer than it used to.  As we've seen in the past, however, the hard tire is still trending around 1.5 seconds slower than the softer rubber.  I suppose I really should use the phrasing that F1 uses to describe the tires: "Prime" for the harder tire and "Option" for the softer.  It might make it less confusing to... well, just about everyone.

Just like in Canada, there are two DRS activation zones, but only one detection zone.  The detection zone is, essentially, the bridge between Turns 9 and 10.  The activation zones are from just after Turn 11 to Turn 12, then from 14 to 17.  Once again, this means that someone can pass using DRS in the first stretch, then continue using the movable rear wing to create a bigger lead without fear of response.  I'm sure you're wondering just why they don't have two detection zones... as are we all.  Nobody knows for sure (and the FIA ain't tellin'), but the common wisdom appears to be that there's a problem on the FIA's end, either in the detection software or the actual computer.  Guys, here's an idea... spring for another computer, maybe a nice quad-core with more than a gigabyte of RAM.

Quals in the morning, see you then!

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While we wait for my brain to function long enough to complete the battlecruiser post, I figured I'd give you folks a treat... another Mystery Ship contest!  Here's tonight's contestant:

Name the ship, win a post!  Operators are not standing by to take your call.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:41 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 Arrgh!  Why did you post this so late on a weeknight?  I have work tomorrow! 

Other than what appears to be a workshop or offices built on top of a pre-Dreadnaught battleship or cruiser, I've got naught so far...

Posted by: Siergen at June 23, 2011 11:27 PM (/P7QN)

2 The best I can come up with the USS Kearsage or Kentucky after conversion to a barracks or receiving ship.  I can't find any photos or write-ups for this, but several bow details seem to match.

And now, a few hours sleep before I need to go to work....

Posted by: Siergen at June 23, 2011 11:49 PM (/P7QN)

3

The bow looks like WWI.

I assume that the part at the rear that sticks out on the side is a latrine, right?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 23, 2011 11:52 PM (+rSRq)

4 USS Prairie State (IX-15), better known as USS Illinois (BB-7).

Posted by: flatdarkmars at June 24, 2011 01:39 AM (zxqxC)

5 flatdarkmars does it again.  Name your post, sir, or should I just do another one as usual?

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 24, 2011 06:24 AM (n0k6M)

6 Why did they feel the need to leave all that steel buried underneath an office building for thirty years?  Couldn't they have used all that armor-quality steel in some more productive fashion?

Posted by: Mitch H. at June 24, 2011 09:31 AM (jwKxK)

7

Mitch, that's simple: it's not an office building.  After the USS Illinois was changed to the Prairie State, she was also converted to become an armory ship.

That armor is, presumably, containing cordite, shell and shot by the thousands of tons.  It probably wouldn't do much good if it all went up, but it's likely better than nothing.

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 24, 2011 09:53 AM (OS+Cr)

8 Hmmm your topic is... something to do with German surface commerce raiders in either the 1st or 2nd World War... I'll leave it fairly non-specific so you have some latitude to pick something interesting.

Posted by: flatdarkmars at June 24, 2011 12:13 PM (zxqxC)

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I have a post in the works about battlecruisers, but it's proving to be a lot more complicated than I expected.  Throw in the severe thunderstorms that have been dodging around Duckford for the past couple of hours, and I've been flummoxed at every turn.

Don't worry, however... it's coming soon.  These two'll make sure of it.

Yup.  I'm scared, I am.  Eek.

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