TBK-Light.com

Hard hit for Pippa into the pit wall

if that happens during the race...

I think you're right about it not being ready to lift until hitting the wall. I think the removal of the left front and collapse of the right front left it able to pivot up along the nose, which would normally be unlikely. I'd touch ALL THE WOOD and say fluke, but still...

Pippa's sizeable recreation of my every attempt of this track with the CART Factor mod:

https://vid.me/F0xI

yellow out for Sato stalling on the road course.

228.9 IN DRAFT by Townsend Bell

Helio Castroneves already back in the car

Hawksworth & Coletti just about crashed in turn 1

Helio back on Track.. Good To See!!

230.121 MPH - Carlos Munoz

Munoz 230.121!

Have they even upped the boost yet?

_________________
-Joe.
Atlanta United FC | Cincinnati Reds | Atlanta Falcons | Tennessee Titans

Nope. That comes on Friday.

Joe and Chris, how much speed do you think they'll gain from the boost? 4 to 6 mph possibly?

Last year the fastest lap (pre-boost) was 227.166 by Helio. On Friday the fast lap was 230.522 (Carpenter). The fastest lap of the entire weekend was Aleshin's 232.917 on Sunday morning practice (day 2 of Time Trials), which was obviously a tow lap in cool morning conditions. The fastest lap run completely alone was Hinchcliffe's 231.618 on his first lap of the Fast 9 on Sunday.

So with the fastest pre-boost lap on an open track (and thus likely aided by some level of tow) being at 227.166 and the fastest clean air lap of 231.618, that's in the low range of your 4-6 MPH increase window.

But, that was with the old aero kit. It makes sense that it might just be mid-230s this year but I have no clue how the new aero kits would react.

Has Munoz had a draft?

yes, the fastest lap without a tow was a 226.4 by Scott Dixon from what I remember reading earlier.

Obviously whatever they claimed to try hasn't worked very well so far...

I've never been a subscriber to the "indycar airbournes are just the same as any other series airbornes, it's just part of the risk of the sport" theorising.
Especially since we know the series used to mandare so high downforce levels for entertainment reasons the crew chiefs used to raise the nose into negative rake which made an airborne incident a hell of a lot more likely.

However as I said before in my oddly predictive post were into a new era now and a new aero package and higher speeds brings with it its own set of unforseen problems, albeit we may be backing into the same aerodynamic problems as before, albeit by naturally chasing higher speeds rather than a series mandate to improve the show.

The initial speculation I've read is that they'd have a much better time keeping these cars on the ground if they removed the wheel guards, which is pretty ironic considering the reason they're there in the first place is to prevent wheel to wheel contact from launching the cars In the air.
But then as we saw at long beach a few years ago or with dario's career ender, They don't seem to do much in the regard either, they're better St defending against really low speed wheel rubbing power/Montoya at St pete style. ...

Hopefully the next generation of chasis will be more like the indy lights car in that regard, which has no room for wheels to interlock but is a much more elegant solution.

_________________
RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

eh well heres why the car flipped apparently
http://www.racer.com/indycar/item/11673 ... ar-flipped