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I believe Wilson had a nerve trapped wearing the HANS device (rather long chap he is) combined with the seatbelts. I also think it was McLaren who shared their solution (to put a belt under the device as well to prevent the device hurting the driver. Barrichello also suffered from it around the Brazil GP I believe. There was also some dispensation row about it.

As far as I remember Alonso had a fever that day, that's why he had some issues after the race.

Yeah, some tracks the DRS is just too far. I know it's hard to predict how much the cars need for it, so I'm not really harsh on my critics about it. But I'd like to see they at least trying to narrow the DRS advantage just for them to get side-by-side into the corner. At Suzuka in the wet was perfect. But maybe because of the wet track, that was some challenge.

Just don't want more aero-dependence, like Scotty said. The less aero the better for me. As far as we don't need DRS anymore or the minimum. More mechanical grip on the other hand. And more power, like the 1000hp turbos are nice ideas.

This is the thing that is slightly frustrating- DRS at some tracks really helps, at others it makes the racing too easy, yet there's not been an acknowledgment on this from the FIA. Most DRS zones now appear to be set, which is a shame, as now in its fifth season it should have been refined properly.

Clearly Monaco is the anomaly, but it'd be good for the FIA to come up with a different zones/solutions at different circuits. Putting the DRS zones at the best place on the circuit for overtaking remains pointless - at circuits such as Spa, Montreal, Interlagos, you don't need it where overtaking was already prevalent.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

DRS zones is the worst of the whole concept. DRS should be allowed everywhere plus increase the gap to 2 seconds and allow it after one lap. The leader always get's away cleanly and has a gap bigger then 1 sec after 1 lap.

I agree with Webber, but as long as Bernie is there, the right thing will not be done. Don't count on Jean Todt, I haven't even heard anything of him since he replaced Max Mosley. Say what you want about Max, at least he tried something. Jean Todt is invisible.

And how about cancelling pit stops alltogether? It cuts the risk of injuring people a lot and the racing then must happen on track...

They don't race on the same tracks, so there is no way to compare laptimes. But I would be very surprised if F1s were a match for the Indycar when it comes to cornering. Even if the F1s would lap faster, that would be because of DRS and the much bigger torque and power(700HP or Indycar versus F1's 850HP)


Yeah, I don't like SC and NOLA was probable one of the biggest farces ever, when it comes to a race. But, about Alabama, specifically, there was only 2 wasn't it? Of which one of those were due to a brain fade by the reigning champion.



As I already said, there is no way to compare laptimes. But taking GP2s which are 6s off and have 100HP less than Indycar and likely quite less downforce, I would guess Indycar wouldn't be more than 2-3s off F1 and that's because of F1's higher straight speed. Indycars, at least visually, corners much faster than F1 and that's what I was refering to(specially in race trim).

Imo, there is a very big difference when you corner better, gets draft and pass than simply wait for the DRS zone, where your car will be artificially 20kmh faster(simply because you pressed a button), and you will swap position almost in an automatic way. Following closely still demands a lot from the driver. DRS much less!

You can play tricks with the words all you want and label everything as "artificial", as well, so that F1 doesn't look bad. It won't make it all the same, to me.

Just one quick example of an epic overtaking(unfortunately, replays/cameras were very limited back then):
https://youtu.be/yWfy6cPzBnA?t=1h28m
Nowadays, we're all quite busy but if you have 8 minutes free(watch it until 1.36), you can delight yourself with this absolutely amazing racing(you probably already saw it, so just a reminder). It just doesn't get much better than that Ayrton's attempts were brilliant but Nigel was so good defending it. Then, finally, Senna, and not many others could, under similar condition, pulled an awesome maneuver which got him the lead. The tyre life was the same for both and I don't think Mansell could be saving fuel during it because he pitted for new tires and started beating the shit out of the car, lapping 4s faster than Senna, and almost won the race.

And this all happened in Jerez, where nowadays I would say even MotoGP would struggle to put on a good race.

Note that I didn't even come up with Hungaroring 86 where Piquet did the most amazing pass ever, imho.

Oh well, only after I wrote all this that I realized you wrote "late 80s" Will not delete it now


He represents the thinking of the people responsible for writting the rules. They are all simply conforming to the current situation

If you have 7 minutes free, can you please tell me what is not pure in this? What is the trick for this amazing racing?
https://youtu.be/ayaxJZTB5UM?t=35m Watch it untill 42 minutes
On this first attempt, Duval does a very good job in the S1's fast corners and manage to put himself in a position to outbreak Webber, but he was not yet close enough and had to compromise the exit speed of the corner. Mark was able to repass him, as a consequence.

On the following lap, Duval does an even better job at the S1's corners and get's very close to Webber so that he, Duval, is not compromised getting into the long straight. Webber almost repassed him again, as Porsche had more straight line speed that year(now is even bigger), but Loic did a great job at the breaking.

The next two laps, you see the same PorscheXAudi battle but, this time, Lotterer can't quite do the same thing with Dumas. He got quite close once but not enough take the position in the hairpin. The drivers are the main factors to the battles in LMP1. If you work your lines on the corners, you can get closer or not to the other car. It also involves each driver's own ability to feel the car and get it that little bit closer in the chase moment. Duval chose a very clever line through T6 and that, among his other skills, determined his overtaking chance afterwards. Mind you, this is not a fanboy arguing. I rate Lotterer far higher than Loic but the Frenchman did a better job there, possibly in combination with Dumas being better at defending than Webber was(but that's speculation).

I could keep several other examples from Silverstone's 6h from this, or the past year. Purism is still possible, FIA should look into ways to regulate the cars so that aerodynamicists couldn't be designing a car to create big dirty air behind. Otherwise you compromise the speed of your own car.

Unlike Indycar, LMP1's doesn't have spec aero(diffuser aside) and you would think they would also design their cars to make it harder to be overtaken. It seems they don't do it in WEC because that will affect the speed of your own car, ie, the optimal aero design, for ACO's regulation, does not involve creating dirty air behind.

But sorry for my troll in the F1 thread. I'll stop with it

Just one more thing, and sorry for the OT, was tyre degradation really high in Alabama? I didn't watch it with English commentary so it was not mentioned. I thought the reason for Rahal being so much faster, in that last stint, than Newgarden, Dixon, Castroneves, Hunter Ray was that they were all short on fuel and having to save it. I mean, Graham was on qualifying mode there for around 20 laps and his tyres(which were the softer) never seemed to go off. He even made the fastest lap of the race very close to the end, iirc.

I've always felt a big part of the problem with DRS is the way its implemented & the lack of trying anything different with how/where its used.

Putting it on the longest straights in places where we traditionally saw a good amount of overtaking without it is always going to result in DRS making things too easy. It should be put on shorter straights to encourage overtaking in places where it wasn't always possible before.
Using Shanghai as an example, We always got overtaking down the long straght into the hairpin so putting the DRS zone there & having it as long as it is is silly. On the other side however the DRS zone on the start/finish straght works fairly well as thats a place where overtaking wasn't always possible before.


If there going to stick with DRS & ignore the better solutions like P2P, They need to experiment with it more & look at putting it only where its needed. If they did that & we saw less of the easier push of a button passes then it would get less criticism.

Nobody reveals offical downforce values but it's very likely Indycar produces more downforce, nowadays, because the diffusers' sizes are roughly the same but Indycar's wings are far bigger as well as agressive on angle of attacks. BTW, F1 is no heavier than Indycar, so if they had more downforce they would corner faster. Maybe my eyes are trickering me and it's difficult to say it precisely because they don't race at the same places but take Audi R18 for example. It takes Beckets at 220kmh, on race pace, while Mercedes is a bit under that even on qualifying.

About power, Indycar has no more than 700HP while F1 is said to be 850HP:
from Indycar.com

http://www.indycar.com/Fan-Info/INDYCAR ... ifications

Listen up everyone... Artur Craft is right. End of discussion. End of thread.

FFS

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Australian GP on 3rd April next year still as season opener. Kinda late start isn't it?

I don't even bother reading, now enough time or patience, even less to make a decent response.

The provisional calandar is out already?

Not quite

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/118705

April 3rd start is pretty late, but nothing like the mid 60's, when Monaco was the first round in late May!!!

thought it was South Africa in early january, then 2 or 3 months without racing

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

No, South Africa was the finale at the end of December.

Edit: My bad, in '65 it was held on 1st Jan, then the next race was Monaco in May. That's just insane.

saw on that link that some began in may, but in those years they had less than 10 races during the season and drivers took part in several others championships like Tasman series and Formula 5000

starting a bit late can be good, if they have a good testing schedule and less back to back races

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

It was held on Jan 1st because it was delayed. It was supposed to have been run in late December to finish the 1964 season.

But then travelling wasn't easy at the time hence the big gap between the races?