June 30, 2008
F1 on TV: Britain!
After the snoozefest of Mangy-Curs, we find ourselves in jolly olde England this week, at one of the truly
great F1 tracks: Silverstone. Like many tracks of long history, Silverstone was built at the site of a WWII air base; in this particular case, the home of No 17 Operational Training Unit flying the
Vickers Wellington bomber. In fact, the runways are still extant and can be made out on the track map quite clearly, and Hangar Straight is called such because it used to run along the row of hangars that serviced the airbase.
Silverstone is a very fast track, even after all the attempts to slow it for safety's sake. As an example, the original track layout did not have turns 8 and 9 (meaning it was a straight run from a gentler Stowe to Club), and turns 12 thru 18 didn't exist either, meaning Woodcote was run at a much higher speed than it is now.
Silverstone has my favorite complex of turns, the Maggots-Becketts-Chapel sequence. If you want to see just how nimble your average F1 car is, this is the place to do it. They run through it as if they were slotcars, zip-zip-zip!
Unfortunately, Darth Ecclestone wants to do away with Silverstone, and has been threatening moving the British GP to some other location like Brands Hatch (which is a fine track in it's own right... but it's not Silverstone). Fortunately, his efforts have thus far come to naught, and we'll enjoy this wonderful circuit for a while yet.
As an humorous aside, on Grand Prix race day Silverstone becomes the UK's busiest airport, as many spectators fly helicopters into Silverstone Heliport. Indeed, for some time it was touted as the World's Busiest Airport on race day, with flights arriving every 15 seconds.
Well, except for our British readers, the rest of us will have to make do with the telly. Fortunately, the good folks at SPEED and FOX will be bringing us their usual excellent coverage.
This coverage begins on
Friday, July 4th, from
7a to 840a, with SPEED's live coverage of Friday Practice 2. Will we see a resurgence of BMW this weekend, or will the Red Team and the Glare On Wheels continue their recent dominance?
If you are to race at Silverstone, you first must qualify, and SPEED will bring it all to us.
Saturday, July 5th, from
7a to 830a, we get plausibly live coverage of the Quals session. Nine out of the past 10 races have been won by Ferrari (five times) or McLaren (four), and it all starts with the quals.
Finally, the race itself will be shown on FOX in tape-delay,
Sunday, July 6th from
12n to 2pm. Will BMW play the part of Renault (the one team to win here in the past 10 years that isn't Ferrari or McLaren)? Heck, will RENAULT play the part of Renault? Will it be a Red Car Walkover? Will the Glare On Wheels rally on their home track? Will Lewis Hamilton win his biggest race ever? This is where and when we find out!
If you can't catch the race on FOX, SPEED will replay it in it's entirety
Wednesday, July 9th from
1130a to 130p. Don't miss it!
All times Pond Central; add one hour for East Coast, subtract two for San Francisco, and add 12 kilopascals and a blanket for the South Pole.
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I was just looking at that on Google Earth, and that map isn't very accurate. It makes turn 7 look a lot sharper than it really is.
I feel relieved looking at the photos, because not only does this look like a fast track, it also looks like a safe track. There are nice big empty flat areas for anyone who misses a serious turn. For instance, if someone blows turn 8, which I bet is known to happen, there's nothing in front of him but grassy fields. The kitty litter for turn 11 is nice and wide. And all the turns in the 13-16 section have nice big sand traps.
And turn 1 is (what's the opposite of "sharp") smooth enough so that I bet there isn't the "let's take out four cars immediately" thing that happens at the start in so many races.
(And I bet that the town of Silverstone is more comfortable than that hole in France.)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 30, 2008 10:15 PM (+rSRq)
2
Gah. I wish I could identify those five cars running the southern portion of the track.
The red car, seemingly in the lead, is in the middle of Club. The black car in Vale looks like some kind of boxy K-car based on the shadow it's casting, but I think that's probably from a huge park-bench sized spoiler. Another red car is just coming out of Stowe. The yellow car (a Lotus maybe?) just about to pass under the bridge on Hangar Straight is also casting a boxy shadow. The last red one isn't far behind. Almost has a Ferrari shape to it.
Posted by: Will at July 01, 2008 09:20 AM (WnBa/)
3
YAY -- A holiday with F1 coverage.
Posted by: Mallory at July 01, 2008 10:44 AM (3sife)
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By the way, what has the Dark Lord got against Silverstone? Why would he want to change it?
I guess that's a stupid question; no one knows what evil thought reside in the brain of the Sith Lord.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at July 01, 2008 07:09 PM (+rSRq)
5
Steven, it's all about money. Darth Ecclestone wants more for his races (see: United States, Grand Prix of). He also thinks that the British GP would have a bigger turnout somewhere else.
Yes, he's a moron. But a wealthy one.
Regarding Turn 7 and the trackmap, eh, it's close enough for what I paid for it. Oh, and the opposite of "sharp" in racing terms is usually "gentle."
Posted by: Wonderduck at July 01, 2008 10:18 PM (UdB9M)
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June 21, 2008
NHRA Driver Scott Kalitta Killed.
Story
here.
From what I'm hearing from ESPN2, which was televising the qualifying rounds of Sunday's event, the NHRA SuperNationals in New Jersey, the car overran the runoff area (the "
kittylitter") at the end of the dragstrip, but I haven't seen it, so I don't know for sure.
Sorry,
Steven.
UPDATE: Okay, I've seen the video (no, I'm not linking it), and it's not pretty. Kalitta was just about at the end of his run, and he was timed at 300mph, when, I assume, his engine blows, enveloping the car completely in fire. It was so bad that when his 'chutes deployed, they were already aflame. The car goes off the end of the track, through the kittylitter, and into a wall. For what it's worth, the dust kicked up when the car goes through the gravel prevents the camera from seeing the final crash, but the fireball that results is quite visible.
Before you wonder, I gather that beyond that wall is a highway or four-lane street. The runoff area looks very, very small, way too small considering the speeds funnycars and dragsters can hit. And whomever thought that having a dragstrip that ends just short of a street might have something to do with this accident.
Not being familiar with other dragstrips, though, I can't really say if the track at Englishtown has a smaller-than-normal runoff area. I'll bet it is, though.
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Damn.
It's a dangerous sport, but in fact the NHRA has a very good safety record compared to other forms of motor racing (measured in fatalities per race).
But it is dangerous, and the drivers know it. And Funny Cars are the most dangerous of all.
Oh, crap.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 21, 2008 10:13 PM (+rSRq)
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I just took a look with Google Earth. That track is .7 miles long, from the far rear to the barrier. By comparison, the track at Las Vegas is .85 miles long before you hit a barrier. The Gainesville Raceway is .93 miles long, and if you overrun the end it looks to me like you end up in a lake, which is not the worst thing that could happen to you if your ride is burning.
On the other hand, the track at Pomona is only .75 miles long.
I doubt it mattered. I don't think it was the crash that killed him. From the photo and the description, he probably died from the fire and would have even if he hadn't hit the wall. There's only so much a firesuit can do for you, and you have to breath something.
That's the reason Funny Cars are the most dangerous ride, even compared to Top Fuel. In Top Fuel now the engine is behind the driver and there's armor plate between them. If the engine burns, the wind carries the flames away from the driver, and if it explodes the armor protects him.
But with Funny Cars there's no such armor plate as far as I know, and with the engine in front of the driver, if it burns the flames go right back onto the driver.
Also the short wheelbase of a Funny Car makes it easier to lose control, but that wasn't a factor in this tragedy.
SuperStock also has the engine in front, but they're not operating at the kind of power levels that Funny Cars use, and they're not burning nitromethane. I don't think I've ever heard of a SuperStock engine exploding like that.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 21, 2008 10:35 PM (+rSRq)
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I'll admit I don't know the difference between SuperStock and Funny Cars... they both look the same to my level of casual knowledge. I DO know I've never seen a car catch fire like that and stay burning.
I can't believe I'm going to argue this point, but my guess is that the crash did, technically, kill him. No question the fire didn't help matters, and who knows what would have been the result if the car had stopped before the wall, but from the time the car catches fire to the time the car hits the wall is only eight seconds. Firesuits are designed to last longer than that, and that's one helluva head-on crash.
Over at the FARK thread on the crash, a commenter who says he's raced at that very track says "
But yes, E-town is a deathtrap. There's no space to scrub speed after
the line. Even worse (and more dangerous) is the exit lane is a 90
degree turn to the left about 60ft past the god damned finish. The
track itself is usually well maintained.. but the layout is just stupid."
Take that for what it's worth.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 22, 2008 12:41 AM (AW3EJ)
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SuperStock is the original drag racing. What you got is a classic hotrod, and with a bit of work they could be made street legal. They run on gasoline. The car bodies and frames are similar to normal cars. The driver gets in using a standard on-the-side door.
Funny Cars look a bit like a real car, but it's all illusion. The body is one big fiberglass piece which is shaped and painted to look like a standard car body. But inside the structure and drive train are entirely different. The driver gets in either through a hatch on the top, or by having the entire body propped.
Funny Cars run on nitromethane, and the engines are so powerful and have so much torque that one big danger with them at the start is that the car could do a wheelie and go over backwards. As a result, the rules require them to have an assembly that sticks out the back to prevent wheelies. SuperStock car engines don't have that kind of power, and no such gizmo is needed to protect them.
The record quarter for Top Fuel was 4.428 seconds. The record quarter for Funny Cars was 4.659 seconds. SuperStock was about 8.5 seconds.
Speed record for Top Fuel is 336 MPH. For Funny Cars it's 333 MPH. For SuperStock it's 136 MPH.
So the differences are quite dramatic.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 22, 2008 02:05 AM (+rSRq)
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Firesuits are designed to last longer than that
It depends on what's burning, and how much of it. To get the kind of flames we see in that damned picture, the fuel tank must have gone up. And a nitromethane fire is going to be a worse than a gasoline fire because it's largely self-oxydizing. Bad as gasoline is, a gas fire is partially throttled by requiring air flow in order to burn.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 22, 2008 02:19 AM (+rSRq)
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F1 Quals: France 2008!
Then there's that whole "I love Formula 1 racing" thing too, I suppose.
With those words echoing in my head, I managed to pee the recording of today's Quals for the French Grand Prix straight down the leg of my firesuit. No, I didn't set the time on my VCR wrong, I didn't set it
at all! I realized that miserable fact at 805am, in the middle of my morning shower.
I caught the last two minutes of Q3, which was enough to get some impressions from the Legendary Announce Team. To be specific, there seemed to be no energy whatsoever at Mangy-Curs, as if the matter was never in doubt. Which seems right, considering the results. Here's the provisional grid:
Pos |
Driver |
Team |
Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
1 |
Kimi Räikkönen
|
Ferrari
|
1:15.133
| 1:15.16
| 1:16.449 |
2 |
Felipe Massa |
Ferrari |
1:15.024 | 1:15.041 | 1:16.490 |
3 |
Lewis Hamilton |
McLaren-Mercedes |
1:15.634 | 1:15.293 | 1:16.693 |
4 |
HWMNBN |
Renault |
1:15.754 | 1:15.483 | 1:16.840 |
5 |
Jarno Trulli |
Toyota |
1:15.521 | 1:15.362 | 1:16.920 |
6 |
Heikki Kovalainen |
McLaren-Mercedes |
1:15.965 | 1:15.639 | 1:16.944 |
7 |
Robert Kubica |
BMW Sauber |
1:15.687 | 1:15.723 | 1:17.037 |
8 |
Mark Webber |
Red Bull-Renault |
1:16.020 | 1:15.488 | 1:17.233 |
9 |
David Coulthard's Chin
|
Red Bull-Renault |
1:15.802 | 1:15.654 | 1:17.426 |
10 |
Timo Glock |
Toyota |
1:15.727 | 1:15.558 | 1:17.596 |
11 |
Nelsinho Piquet |
Renault |
1:15.848 | 1:15.770 |
|
12 |
Grizzly Nick Heidfeld |
BMW Sauber |
1:16.006 | 1:15.786 |
|
13 |
Sebastian Vettel |
STR-Ferrari |
1:15.918 | 1:15.816 |
|
14 |
SeaBass |
STR-Ferrari |
1:16.072 | 1:16.045 |
|
15 |
Nico Rosberg |
Williams-Toyota |
1:16.085 | 1:16.235 |
|
16 |
Kazuki Nakajima |
Williams-Toyota |
1:16.243 |
|
|
17 |
Jenson Button |
Honda |
1:16.306 |
|
|
18 |
Rubens Barrichello |
Honda |
1:16.330 |
|
|
19 |
Giancarlo Fisichella |
Force India-Ferrari |
1:16.971 |
|
|
20 |
Adrian Sutil |
Force India-Ferrari |
1:17.053 |
|
|
I have no idea what happened to the BMWs. Seventh for Kubica is bad enough, but 12th for Heidfeld? That's awful. Both Williams are behind the Toro Rossos? That's embarrassing. Note that Lewis Hamilton has a 10-spot grid penalty coming for his "ramming speed" manuever in Canada, and Rosberg has a (ridiculous) 5-spot penalty for his bumping of the already dead McLaren in the same incident.
So, there you go. Quals are in, Ferrari is dominating, this looks like a blowout-in-the-making... unless it rains.
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June 20, 2008
F1 Practice: France 2008!
Over time, I've come to the realization that practices for F1 teams are actually... dull. The main reasons I watch them is to refamiliarize myself with the circuit (after all, for the most part we only see these tracks once a year), and to make sure that if something horrible or fantastic happens, I know about it (fortunately the bad stuff doesn't occur that often).
Then there's that whole "I love Formula 1 racing" thing too, I suppose.
The main thing I gleaned from today's P2 session was that the race on Sunday has a chance of being interesting. The removal of traction control from the cars has made this very flat, very smooth track very, very ungrippy. There were a lot of visits to the kittylitter and runoff areas today as the drivers struggled with the asphalt-like-glass.
I also learned that there's a 60% chance of thunderstorms at Mangy-Curs on Sunday. That would go a long way towards making the race interesting, all on it's own.
Finally, I discovered that the curbing at Mangy-Curs might have replaced Montreal as "the deadliest curbs in F1." They're nowhere near as high as they were at the Circuit Gilles Villenueve, but there's an interesting thing going on here. Since the track in France is
so flat and smooth, the teams are running their cars very, very low to the ground. After all, there's no bumps to worry about, so get the bottom of the car as close as possible to the asphalt and improve the aerodynamics under the car.
But to get a fast lap around Mangy-Curs, you MUST use the curbs. Do it right, and it's a beautiful display of what the blend of man and machine can do in the quest for speed. Do it wrong, and... well, you're Adrian Sutil:
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for flying Kingfisher Air.
I'm Adrian Sutil, and I'll be your pilot today.And just like
Montreal in 2007, somehow he didn't break the darn thing on landing. They build 'em tough down there in the Force India garages!
Not so much in the McLaren pits, though, where both Heikki and Lewis broke bits off their chargers (Hamilton a strake off his diffuser, Heikki the dip on his front wing) by going over curbs and into the kittylitter.
So until Saturday's Quals, just remember: when all your wheels are on the ground, this is GOOD. Wheels in air? BAD. Can't steer well then.
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What you call "the kittylitter", it's gravel, right? Something like pumice, maybe? The point of it being to resist a rolling car going through it, so as to slow it down before it hits something tall and unyielding?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 20, 2008 10:56 PM (+rSRq)
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Right. The composition of "kittylitter" varies from track to track, depending on what they have to work with. In Bahrain, for example, it's mostly sand. In France, it's gravel. In Germany, it's ground-up French rifles (*rimshot*).
For a long time, gravel-traps were the best way to slow down a car before it hit something "tall and unyielding", usually a tire barrier or armco. "Best" being a relative term, of course... it grabs tires a lot better than grass, but it leaves a lot to be desired. Somewhere in my collection, I've got a clip of a car sliding off the track, hitting the sandtrap moving laterally, and cartwheeling side-over-side before ending up upside down... with the roll hoop/air box above the cockpit buried fairly deep into the sand. How the driver escaped that one is beyond me.
For the most part, kittylitter is fading away. F1 brakes being what they are, it's just not as safe as a big asphalt runoff area. Some tracks with a lot of space have both on some of their high-speed turns: Turkey's turn 8, for example, has a huge expanse of asphalt with a substantial gravel-trap (dyed blue for some unknown reason) beyond it. Nobody has reached the gravel yet, though Mark Webber gave it a good shot in 2007... backwards.
And sometimes, kittylitter just doesn't do the job at all. Consider
Heikki Kovaleinninninnie's crash in Spain this year, when his left-front wheel broke. He speared right through the gravel like it wasn't even there, then buried his car up to the cockpit in the tire barrier. If there'd been asphalt there, he would have still hit the wall, sure, but his brakes would have had more of a chance to slow him down.
The loss of graveltraps, though, would deprive us of moments like
Felipe Massa getting caught in one that's just a foot or two longer than his Ferrari.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 20, 2008 11:24 PM (AW3EJ)
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June 17, 2008
F1 on TV: France 2008!
From the rip-snortin' good times of Montreal, we find ourselves back in Europe for the French Grand Prix.
*crickets*
Yeah, it hurts for me to read that, too. Unless it rains, the French GP is usually a really dull, slow-paced parade. In France. In
rural France. To give you an idea of where Magny-Cours is in France, it'd be like having a Grand Prix somewhere in eastern Iowa (without the flooding)... with a very very small town hosting.
The good news is that the 2009 French GP is going to be held somewhere else, perhaps in Paris. No, it won't be at the track used for the 24 Hours of LeMans (which is a real shame; a seven mile course with a straightaway nearly as long as the entire track length of Monaco? With a F1 car? Sign me up!), alas.
But, for this year, Magny-Cours is what we've got, so lets look at the track map, shall we?
The predominant feature of Mangy-Curs is slow turns mixed with obscene hairpins. Just when it seems like there's an opportunity for a passing manuever there's another stinkin' bend in the road. Turn 1 is the alleged best passing location.
A few years back, the track was reprofiled to add a chicane (turns 16/17) to help increase passing. While that didn't work at all, it did shorten the pitlane to the point that running a three-stop strategy is actually quite workable at Mangy-Curs, and Slappy Schumacher won in 2004 (I think it was) using an unheard-of four-stop plan.
So expect lots of red-hot pitlane action. Whee. And our friends, the Legendary Announce Team, will be there for all of it.
Friday, from 7am to 830am, we'll have LIVE coverage of Practice 2 on SPEED.
Saturday, from 7am to 830am, there'll be plausibly LIVE coverage of Quals, also on SPEED. Will Robert Kubica take a second pole? Will Ferrari and McLaren scrape their jaws up off the floor after BMW's win at Canada? Will home team Renault actually get on the podium? It all starts on Saturday!
Sunday, the actual Grand Prix of France will be shown on FOX, from 12n to 2pm. That's tape-delayed, by the way, but at least it's the SPEED announce team. For those of you who can't stand the 'Big Four' networks, the race'll be replayed on Wednesday from 11a to 130p on SPEED.
All times, of course, are Central.
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I just took a look with Google Earth. That town can't have a population of more than a couple of thousand. It really is out in the sticks. France doesn't get a lot more rural than that. I wonder why they built a race course there? (Probably because land was cheap.)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 17, 2008 08:32 PM (+rSRq)
2
1500, one hotel. It's so far away from anything that the teams despise going there. The track was originally built for a race-driver school back in the '60s, I gather. The French gov'ment decided to pump a lot of cash into it as a way to boost the economy of the very rural region.
It didn't particularly work, I guess, since there's still only one hotel. I gather going there on race weekend would be like going to the Super Bowl at a modern domed stadium... but there's only a two-lane dirt road leading to it.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 17, 2008 08:55 PM (AW3EJ)
3
I was wondering about that. It did seem as if the roads there were rather narrow for the kind of traffic I'd expect for race weekend.
There is another bitty town on the other side, but it's even bittier, and probably doesn't have a hotel at all.
This reminds me a bit of the Pendleton Roundup, one of the great rodeos of North America. Ordinarily Pendleton OR is a rather sleepy town, albeit a hell of a lot bigger than this one. Ordinarily it has a population of about 17,000. For the Roundup, the population approximately doubles for a couple of weeks. A lot of the visitors bring trailer houses or motor homes with them, and of course rodeo cowboys don't generally expect the kind of opulence that I would suspect is considered pretty routine for F1 drivers and teams.
Also, it's better served by the road system. I-84 goes right through the middle of it.
About 30 years ago I went to the Roundup one year. My roommate and I drove out there and waited at the booth for people to show up with unneeded tickets to sell, and we each picked one up. It didn't turn out to be possible for us to sit together, but that wasn't a big deal. A lot of fun, even if I did get sunburned.
...probably more fun than watching this race, from the way you describe it...
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 17, 2008 09:15 PM (+rSRq)
4
I'm wrong. According to Wikipedia, the 17,000 people of Pendleton host about 50,000 visitors for the Roundup. Which means the population quadruples.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 17, 2008 09:18 PM (+rSRq)
5
I'd love to watch a F1 race at the track; the atmosphere must be amazing... even at a track like the one at Mangy-Curs. It's the whole watching a dull race on TV thing that blows.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 17, 2008 09:25 PM (AW3EJ)
6
And yet we in the US don't rate a race. Not to mention that there's currently no French Drivers! (uh, no Americans either, shhh...) I'm sure they could find a nice spot of land here in my neck of NJ to host build a track, wedged nicely between New York and Philadelphia, with D.C. only a few hours away... To that end they could go back to Watkins Glen.
The Vegas rumors were nice, I don't see why that couldn't be as big as Monoco celebrity wise...
Posted by: Buttons at June 18, 2008 03:00 PM (VjS5e)
7
Is there anything that no one will add to Wikipedia? It's got an article on the 2009 F1 season.
The number of races listed as confirmed or suspected is absurdly long. Another race at Indy is listed, but I bet not.
What I thought was more interesting is that they're going to impose a spending cap on the teams. It wouldn't include driver salaries and engines.
I wonder if transportation and lodging would be included in the budget? It can't be cheap to move the team and all its equipment all over the world, presumably by air.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 18, 2008 06:04 PM (+rSRq)
8
I just remembered something else I wanted to ask about. If you've got a track where passing is particularly difficult, then there would seem to be little benefit to having a light car, and you'd be best off going with as few pitstops, and as heavy a fuel load, as you could manage.
Certainly if you're running a 3-pit or 4-pit race, each pit stop will be shorter because you're taking on less fuel. But overall, 4 pitstops will take more time than 2, so you'd be better off with 2.
What am I getting wrong here?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 18, 2008 06:07 PM (+rSRq)
9
Okay, I just took a look at that wiki for the 2009 season. Amusing, and about as speculative as it's possible to be. The only thing that can really be taken as gospel from it is confirmed races. Yes, even the teams list is up in the air (don't ask, I don't want to get into it until some more news comes out).
I'm only going to assume that transport costs will not be included in the budget. You're right about it not being cheap, that's for sure. In the European part of the calendar, they use trucks to move about from race to race. The teams also have what they call mobile homes that are about as high-tech as their cars. For the overseas races, they fly the cars and staff, but most everything else is shipped (literally) ahead of time.
Regarding the pitstop conundrum, Steven, I'm going to have to write a full post on that one.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 18, 2008 07:17 PM (DcSb+)
10
Not to mention that there's currently no French Drivers!
Sebastien Bourdais (SeaBass) might take issue with this assertion.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 20, 2008 09:01 PM (AW3EJ)
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June 08, 2008
F1 Update: Montreal will NOT be delayed!!!
My picture firmed up around lap 20 of the 70 lap race! Unless is goes to hell again, there WILL be a F1 Update today!
And it's gonna be a doozy!
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I guess so! I just saw a news report, and now I really do think Kubica has a decent chance to win this one.
(What in hell is there a red light there for, anyway?)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 08, 2008 12:43 PM (+rSRq)
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F1 Update: Montreal will be delayed.
Okay, here's the story. There's bad weather around The Pond, and my local Fox affiliate is taking it on the chin. I've got a weak signal via my satellite-based system (provided by the apartment complex), so about half the time, I'm looking at the race thru a bunch of static and double-images. The other half of the time, I've got no picture at all. Unless it strengthens up quickly, I'll be having to watch the race via download or on Wednesday night, after SPEED runs the replay.
Sorry about that.
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Man, sounds like one hell of a storm!
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 08, 2008 11:46 AM (+rSRq)
2
Where would you have downloaded it from? I'd like to know where I can keep watching the races after FOX stops.
Posted by: pxcasey at June 08, 2008 03:34 PM (fuJmb)
3
PX, I'm a member of MotorWorld.net, they have torrents for the races. It's the ITV (British, in other words) broadcast, but I enjoy the contrast to Speed Channel's Legendary Announce Team.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 08, 2008 04:18 PM (AW3EJ)
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June 07, 2008
F1 Quals: Montreal 2008!
Nailbiter time! The rain never came, though the skies were gray and there was a distinct crosswind that was causing quite the problems for some drivers. On top of all that, the track, which had been patched and resurfaced in some places during the offseason, was being ripped up by the cars and their incredible levels of grip. This, combined with the slightly higher-than-expected tire wear, made it seem like it HAD been raining in a few of the turns, simply because of all the rubber "marbles" and loose tiny chunks of asphalt lying around. The track marshals actually had to sweep the track clean between the Qual sessions.
Of course, they won't be able to do that during the race. If it DOES rain on top of all that, we'll be lucky to have ANY car take the checkers.
Before we can go racing, though, we have to have qualifying. Lewis Hamilton's McLaren is sitting on pole, after an astounding lap at the final possible time. He had been at the top of the charts all throughout Q3, until the BMW of Robert Kubica, late taking to the track for one reason or another, set out and knocked him off pole with a time of 1:18.498. When Raikkonen and Massa couldn't answer, and Kovalaninninnie couldn't get his McLaren to cooperate, it looked like we'd have another case of "Pole on pole action". Then Hamilton, who looked like he had done everything he could with his McLaren, set sail on his last run. And what a run it was! It was almost like he had traction control running or something, because there were no bobbles, not a tire put wrong, great acceleration out of the hairpin (something Massa's Ferrari had problems with all day, with wheel-spin and a twitchy-looking car under braking), and hitting every corner perfectly. He wound up his lap over
six-tenths of a second better than Kubica, a lifetime in F1 terms.
Raikkonen's Ferrari could do no better than third, right alongside the surprising performance of HWMNBN's Renault. Nico Rosberg's Williams looked quite quick in getting 5th, ahead of the struggling Massa. The second McLaren of Heikki Kovaleininninnie was a disappointing seventh. Whether it was the car or the driver has yet to be determined. Grizzly Nick Heidfeld is probably wondering just what he's doing wrong, putting his BMW eighth on the grid. A HUGE disappointment, considering where his teammate is. The biggest surprise of the day, however, has to be Rubens Barrichello in the Honda. Ninth may not sound like much, but for Honda F1 this year, it's almost as good as a win, and it's the first time Rubens has made it to Q3 all season. Mark Webber is 10th, with no time set in Q3; like his teammate, David Coulthard's Chin, in Monaco, Webber spun and damaged his car at the end of Q2 and was unable to take to the track.
The rest of the provisional grid:
Pos
|
Driver |
Team |
Q1 |
| Q2 | Q3 |
1 |
Lewis Hamilton
|
McLaren-Mercedes
|
1:16.909
|
| 1:17.034
| 1:17.886 |
2 |
Robert Kubica |
BMW Sauber |
1:17.471 |
| 1:17.679 | 1:18.498 |
3 |
Kimi Räikkönen |
Ferrari |
1:17.301 |
| 1:17.364 | 1:18.735 |
4 |
HWMNBN |
Renault |
1:17.415 |
| 1:17.488 | 1:18.746 |
5 |
Nico Rosberg |
Williams-Toyota |
1:17.991 |
| 1:17.891 | 1:18.844 |
6 |
Felipe Massa |
Ferrari |
1:17.231 |
| 1:17.353 | 1:19.048 |
7 |
Heikki Kovalainen |
McLaren-Mercedes |
1:17.287 |
| 1:17.684 | 1:19.089 |
8 |
Grizzly Nick Heidfeld |
BMW Sauber |
1:18.082 |
| 1:17.781 | 1:19.633 |
9 |
Rubens Barrichello |
Honda |
1:18.256 |
| 1:18.020 | 1:20.848 |
10 |
Mark Webber |
Red Bull-Renault |
1:17.582 |
| 1:17.523 | no time |
11 |
Timo Glock |
Toyota |
1:18.321 |
| 1:18.031 |
|
12 |
Kazuki Nakajima |
Williams-Toyota |
1:17.638 |
| 1:18.062 |
|
13 |
David Coulthard's Chin
|
Red Bull-Renault |
1:18.168 |
| 1:18.238 |
|
14 |
Jarno Trulli |
Toyota |
1:18.039 |
| 1:18.327 |
|
15 |
Nelsinho Piquet |
Renault |
1:18.505 |
| 1:18.393 |
|
16 |
SeaBass |
STR-Ferrari |
1:18.916 |
|
|
|
17 |
Adrian Sutil |
Force India-Ferrari |
1:19.108 |
|
|
|
18 |
Giancarlo Fisichella |
Force India-Ferrari |
1:19.165 |
|
|
|
19 |
Jenson Button |
Honda |
1:23.565 |
|
|
|
20 |
Sebastian Vettel |
STR-Ferrari |
no time |
|
|
|
Sebastian Vettel comprehensively destroyed his Toro Rosso in the Saturday practice with a wreck that had tires flying everywhere. He did so much damage, as a matter of fact, that the team couldn't even salvage the monocoque, and are currently building a new car around the spare cockpit they are allowed to bring to the track. This is not a huge thing, they shouldn't have any problem with that, but it does take time. As a result, he could not take to the track for Quals and will be forced to start from the pit lane. Jenson Button, 19th on the grid, suffered a gearbox problem and withdrew to the pits with five minutes left in Q1.
Rain is still in the forecast, the track is breaking up, the top of the grid looks like someone was drawing names out of a hat... I'd say there's a good chance of a heckuva race tomorrow. If it's anything like the Grand Prix of Canada was last year, it'll be a doozy!
Posted by: Wonderduck at
01:48 PM
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1
It's really nice to see other teams really putting up a challenge to McLaren and Ferrari. Having those four cars always at top of the qual every race last year was really dull.
Man, track conditions really must have deteriorated considering how everyone's times got slower later in the day. Usually you'd expect them to get faster, as the drivers got more familiar with the course.
I wonder what Hamilton's secret was, given the way he managed to do half a second better than everyone else on all three rounds. I'm still rooting for Kubica, though. I wanna see him win one.
Come on, rain!
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 07, 2008 03:33 PM (+rSRq)
2
You think Hamilton was running with a light fuel load again? Think he'll do another 3-pit race tomorrow? That would explain a lot.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 07, 2008 03:38 PM (+rSRq)
3
Steven, the biggest reason that the times got slower from Q2 to Q3 is the fuel load. Q2 usually has the fastest times as everybody is doing everything they can to get to Q3... that includes carrying just enough fuel to do an out lap, a hot lap, and their cool-down lap. Call it fuel for ten miles.
During Q3, though, the cars have to have their race fuel on-board, PLUS whatever they need to use in Q3. Call it enough fuel for 30 laps (race fuel + qual fuel), or maybe 90 miles more or less.
That extra weight is a decent percentage of the car's overall weight... and therefore, they're slower. The track condition did have something to do with it as well, no question about it.
As to how Hamilton ripped off that pole lap? It's quite possible that he's running less gas than Kubica, perhaps hoping for an early safety car.
Ferrari might be gambling on wet weather for the race. They were six or eight km/hour slower than the McLarens thru the speed traps, and I think they've got more wing on, thinking it'll rain. If that happens, they'll run away with it. If not... well, you see the results from Massa.
If anybody is running low fuel, it's HWMNBN and Rosberg.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 07, 2008 03:55 PM (AW3EJ)
4
As much as I like to see Hamilton get the pole position, I was really hoping Kubica could hold onto it.
Posted by: Mallory at June 07, 2008 04:58 PM (WJ2qy)
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June 06, 2008
F1 Practice: Montreal 2008!
Men with nerves of steel and lightning reflexes. Multi-million dollar machines packed full of the highest of high-tech equipment. Incredibly powerful engines screaming at deafening volume.
But enough about the Duckford AirFest, which began this afternoon (look for USAF Thunderbird pictures tomorrow and Sunday!). We're here to discuss today's 2nd Practice session at Montreal.
*pause*
Well, that about covers it. I wish I could say there was excitement a-plenty, but there really kinda wasn't. Sure, I'll mention that Felipe Massa's Ferrari rolled to a stop with a steering wheel flashing enough error messages to look like the legendary
blinkenlights, and that Robert Kubica had fast lap until the last minute or so of the session (odd for a BMW to be fast in practice), and that Lewis Hamilton had to dodge a marmot in the Casino Hairpin, but other than that? Nothing. Lots of high speed, lots of frantic braking (and loads of brake dust billowing out of the wheels), but... meh.
Quals tomorrow.
Oh, nearly forgot: rain is expected all weekend. *evil grin*
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June 02, 2008
F1 On TV: Montreal 2008!
This week, the F1 Traveling Circus makes its lone stop in North America for the Grand Prix of Canada. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve has gotten an off-season facelift in the wake of last season's
nightmare crash of Robert Kubica, with a modification of the walls that contributed to the accident. The towering launch-ramps they called 'curbs' have gone as well, replaced by something more humane.
Houston, we have liftoff...
This is a good thing.
The track is known as the roughest on the calendar on brakes. A long, relatively narrow circuit, it has some very long runs at high speed, followed by heavy braking, rinse, repeat.
Track-map brought to you by Allianz: "We do things with other people's money."
For the record, Kubica's accident took place roughly around the location of the red arrown between turns 9 and 10, more or less.
Turn 13, the second half of the chicane leading to the start-finish line, is also the location of The Wall of Champions, so-called because of all of the drivers that have gotten the turn wrong and smacked the barrier just beyond it. Of course, with the curbs reduced, maybe that won't happen as much now.
Either way, we'll get to see it all, thanks to our friends at SPEED and FOX. Yes, that's right, we're now in the part of the season where coverage will be broadcast on the big network. Prior to last year, this was when fans across America would be driven to applying ice-picks to their eardrums by the miserable announcers (anybody remember
Derek Daly's "crashing" fiasco?); thankfully, Fox is the parent network of SPEED, and therefore The Legendary Announce Team will be doing the call of the race. The only difference will be that Peter "Smarmy" Windsor won't be doing his usual grid-walk. What a shame.
SPEED, however, starts us off with LIVE coverage of Friday's second practice session from 1p - 230p. Let's see if we have another
near-thing with marmots throwing themselves at the tires of Toyotas!
Saturday brings us plausably live coverage of the Qualifying Session from 12n - 130p on SPEED. The track seems custom-made for a Ferrari pole (of course, these days all tracks seem custom-made for a Ferrari pole), but McLaren does seem to be showing signs of life again, so who knows?
Sunday, though, coverage moves to FOX with the Grand Prix of Canada itself, from 12n - 2pm. SPEED will bring us a replay, complete with pre-race coverage (and Smarmy's gridwalk) on Wednesday, June 11th, from 1130a - 2pm.
So we go from the narrow confines of Monaco to the high-speed racing of Montreal... might be fun!
Posted by: Wonderduck at
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1
Those sloping curbs were not well-conceived. What were they expecting, anyway?
What is that big blue area in the middle of the right part of the track? If someone made turn 12 and missed turn 13 they'd go right into it. A hill? a lake? a sand trap? Why's there a wall there?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 03, 2008 12:29 AM (+rSRq)
2
If you enter "Circuit Gilles Villeneuve" to Google Earth, turns out there's a user-entered shortcut to it. I just took a look, and that blue area is indeed water. So they put a wall there because crashing is better than drowning? That's all I can think.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 03, 2008 12:32 AM (+rSRq)
3
Temporary seating is put up between the Wall and the
Lac de Regates on race weekend, if I remember correctly (someone correct me if I'm wrong!). But if someone completely blew the chicane and the wall wasn't there, they probably COULD make the lake.
As to why the lake is there in the first place? The Ile de Notre Dame is a man-made island, created for the 1976 Montreal Olympics. You can probably guess from the name of the lake what event was held there.... The track came along two years after the Olympics (in fact, this is the 30-year anniversary of the circuit). You work with the terrain you have.
And the curbs were/are like that to PREVENT people from ignoring them. Of course, if you screw up you get launched anyway (or, like American Scott Speed in 2005, you wind up high-centered on one of them), even if you're not ignoring them. Nobody said F1 is easy.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 03, 2008 06:54 AM (AW3EJ)
4
YAY!!! A race that's on at a decent time of day here in the U.S.
I'll miss Smarmy's grid walk (just kidding); wonder who they'll get for Fox?
Posted by: Mallory at June 03, 2008 07:01 AM (3sife)
5
Mal, the gridwalk will still happen, we just won't get to see it until Wednesday. Fox is just jumping right into the formation lap, like as much.
Regarding the "temporary seating", I was wrong. There's an access road there for emergency crews to get to any car that wrecks on the straightaway.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 03, 2008 07:04 AM (AW3EJ)
6
There's no way there could be seating there, because there are trees just behind that wall.
Actually, for my money, there are entirely too many trees around the course. Turn 3 is another one like that. There's a wall with a forest behind it. Turn 7 is kind of scary, too; you miss that one you either hit trees or you end up in the river.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 03, 2008 01:52 PM (+rSRq)
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