Motorsport Off Topic Thread

[robbiemc]

I was at FOS yesterday and it was a brilliant, varied day.

We all did laugh when the McLaren P1 GTR broke down on the way to the start line They just can't catch a break

Other than that all the usual suspects were impressing, but the Mazda 787B was a must-see, and I'm very glad I've witnessed it in person.

 

[Skeeter]

Live coverage from Goodwood FOS on motorsTV over the weekend if anyone is interested.

Several offs at molecomb though which really seem to mess up the schedule.

It's a brilliant event and I love it. But for all its merits, the format of the hill is not conductive to the sheer volume of cars the want to put up it now. They need a dedicated return road back to the padocks from the top of the hill, allowing much more cars and avoiding having to pause for cars to come back down, which will avoid squeezing the program so much as soon as anything happens to delay it.

 

[robbiemc]

It's a brilliant event and I love it. But for all its merits, the format of the hill is not conductive to the sheer volume of cars the want to put up it now. They need a dedicated return road back to the padocks from the top of the hill, allowing much more cars and avoiding having to pause for cars to come back down, which will avoid squeezing the program so much as soon as anything happens to delay it.

This was very evident on Friday. I was chatting to one of the organisers who told me that they've changed how they stage the cars this year. The result is that they're trying to have too many cars by the start line, and the inevitable traffic jam ensued. In fact at one point they were parked two abreast all the way from the start line back as it was just too packed.

Still great day, but the current F1 teams wern't very well represented with the most modern cars being the 2013 V8's from Ferrari, RB and Mercedes. Good as they are, I'd have liked to have seen the 2014 Hybrids there. I guess all the teams are a bit stretched with the testing last week perhaps.

 

[MagicBoy]

The F1 rules effectively preclude running 2014/2015 F1 cars at Goodwood. Unless they chose to use one of the couple of heavily restricted promotional days they get. Teams are free do as they wish with 2 year old and older cars.

 

[Skeeter]

Plus their probably isn't that many running cars from last year even out there. If you assume that any customer engine teams cars no longer have engines in them your only left with Ferrari and Mercedes. And in total they probably have no more than 2 or 3 2014 chassis each which are probably already in museums or on display elsewhere.

 

[robbiemc]

The F1 rules effectively preclude running 2014/2015 F1 cars at Goodwood. Unless they chose to use one of the couple of heavily restricted promotional days they get. Teams are free do as they wish with 2 year old and older cars.

I thought it was just current year cars that they couldn't run due to it being classified as 'testing'? 2014 power-units are obviously the same rules, but the teams have made extensive changes...anyway I thought they had relaxed the rules slightly on these 'demo' runs as the teams are unlikely to actually gain anything meaningful from running 1.6 miles twice a day!

I guess there are the costs associated with the complexity of them of course, and with testing last week and British GP next week maybe there was no desire to stretch resources.

Maybe DIce could offer some insight?

Skeeter, why last years customers cars not have the power units? Surely the manufacturer wouldn't have any use for used units? All the older cars retain their engines, so why would it be different now? (not being argumentative, just a question )

 

[MissChief]

Take the case of Lotus. Wouldn't the Mercedes Engineers just love to have a poke around a Renault engine on the off chance they've done something Mercedes never thought of or can use on their own engines?

 

[MagicBoy]

Teams are permitted to carry out no more than 15,000km of testing with a current car (or previous year’s car) in a single calendar year.

 

[Skeeter]

I doubt very much that the teams own the engines. Almost every recent car F1 you see on display will have no engine. The manufacturers are far more cautious about letting their engine out into the wild any more.

This was different to back in the day when you could just buy a DFV off Ford and it was yours. Modern engines would also require engineers from the manufacturers in order to run them.

 

[robbiemc]

I doubt very much that the teams own the engines. Almost every recent car F1 you see on display will have no engine. The manufacturers are far more cautious about letting their engine out into the wild any more.

This was different to back in the day when you could just buy a DFV off Ford and it was yours. Modern engines would also require engineers from the manufacturers in order to run them.

But I'm talking about (specifically) the cars running up the hill at Goodwood, obviously these aren't static displays. The Williams FW13B was running up the hill on Friday which was running the 3.5 litre Renault V10. It appears to still be in the car and (as I witnessed) required 10 people to get it running on the friday, so although current PU's are fiendishly complex, F1 cars have required teams of technicians to get them running for years.

So presumably Renualt 'owned' that engine, so how is/was it allowed to be used in the Fw13B today? Is it just a different engine? A different version? I'd certainly like to know how these things work.

I have concerns about how the (ultra) complex current Power Units can be run in these demo cars in the future, it would be very sad if the fans will be denied seeing these cars ever running in these events.

Again, if D!ce can comment on how the heritage cars are run, I'd be interested.

Originally Posted by https://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/championship/inside-f1/rules-regs/Testing.html
Teams are permitted to carry out no more than 15,000km of testing with a current car (or previous year’s car) in a single calendar year.

Quite generous then. So running up the 1.16 mile Goodwood hill, say twice a day for three days isn't going to put a dent in that; its less than 12kms! I can understand the teams not using this years cars due to the risk of damage/breakage, so why not last years?

Grr..I need to know

 

[Skeeter]

Sorry, I meant it would need engineers from a permission perspective, rather than just needing clever people. I.e. I doubt Mercedes would let Williams run a recent car up the hill without having some of their own guys there.

Historic F1 will die, as more recent cars are more controlled. I've never seen anything newer than around the mid 80s in historic racing, and seen very few more recent cars in demos. The latest was probably a late 90s Benetton I saw at Brands a few weeks back. The controls on engines and the teams no longer flogging them off in sales limits the availability. Just look at Marussia, you could have bought the whole team, cars, factory and everything in their auction, but no engines.

There is a shift and it will mean very few historic cars from around the 90s onwards will be run in demos by people other than the team owners themselves. And any that do will be using either different or heavily detuned engines maintained by specialists. This is even more the case with the 2.4 V8s and the V6s as they all go back to the manufacturer and will likely not come back out again.

But in terms of running V6s, the rules prevent them running anyway. In 2016 you may see some 2014 cars.

 

[robbiemc]

Seems a massive shame seeing as the Le Mans Porsche 919 was at Goodwood this weekend running up the hill (amongst others).

 

[JRS]

I was reading the Eddie Jordan Q&A on the BBC site earlier, and he said something that I thought was quite interesting:

"McLaren boss Ron Dennis sacked ex-team principal Martin Whitmarsh. But Whitmarsh never did the job of running that team as badly as Dennis is doing it now."

Now, I'm going to freely admit to bias here - I've got absolutely no love for Ron Dennis, and barely any respect for him. I don't think he's a very good manager these days (if he ever was), I think he's made some utterly boneheaded decisions in his career at McLaren and I think the team would be better off with pretty much anyone else* in charge. So for once I find myself agreeing with Eddie Jordan, which I believe is one of the harbingers of The End Times™.




* - including Eddie Jordan himself

 

[Skeeter]

At least Rons screw ups have been pretty massive meaty things. Whitmarsh was just an endless stream of pathetic weakness.

 

[sunama]

Whitmarsh started off well.
He wanted a team which was as strong as possible.
He already had the 2008 champ.
He then hired the 2009 champ.
In 2010, he ensured that he had the 2 drivers who had won the most recent World Drivers Titles.

Unfortunately as time progressed, he wanted to play happy families and he wanted to keep this above winning.

Unfortunately, in sport, especially F1, winning is basically everything. And Whitmarsh seemed to forget this towards the end of his tenure.

In 2012, I would've started using team orders and began to put my eggs into the basket of one of the drivers, from mid-season onwards. This would've ensured that McLaren got the title. They had the best car, afterall. Instead, they allowed their 2 drivers to fight it out, each taking points off of one another and as a result, got beat.

I stated that they needed either Vettel or Alonso - unfortunately now that Alonso is in the team, they have given him a car which is making up the midfield and going backwards. This year is a write-off but McLaren have not recognised this. They continue to bang their heads against the same brick wall and are getting the same (poor) results.

I saw the Honda switch as a bad move, before the end of last season and it boggles the mind that nobody at McLaren saw it or put a "Plan B" in place.

I'd already be in talks to switch to Merc engines this year, so next year, we could hit the ground running and attack the Merc cars. For 2016, I'd do my utmost to get Alonso a car which was no more than 0.2s/lap slower than the Merc. Then tell Alonso that he is the best driver in F1 and he needs to show this and beat Hamilton.

At their current trajectory, McLaren are not only writing this season off, but they are also writing next year off and while they persist with Honda, could languish in midfield for the next 3-5 years.

 

[MarcLister]

I'd already be in talks to switch to Merc engines this year, so next year, we could hit the ground running and attack the Merc cars.

The second part of this sentence is why the first part won't happen. Mercedes wouldn't want to go back to McLaren having recently left them and certainly wouldn't want to give a 'rival, if you can call McLaren a rival anymore, a top engine with which to beat Mercedes' own team.

And if Mercedes did re-supply McLaren with engines, McLaren would need an almighty chassis to get anywhere near Mercedes. I can't see that happening for a few years with McLaren seemingly unable to get a good car out of the box in pre-season testing.

 

[Skeeter]

Yeah. Mercedes have been the best engines in F1 for the last 10 years. McLaren had one in the back of their car for 9 of those 10 and claimed only a single championship.

 

[leaskovski]

But I'm talking about (specifically) the cars running up the hill at Goodwood, obviously these aren't static displays. The Williams FW13B was running up the hill on Friday which was running the 3.5 litre Renault V10. It appears to still be in the car and (as I witnessed) required 10 people to get it running on the friday, so although current PU's are fiendishly complex, F1 cars have required teams of technicians to get them running for years.

So presumably Renualt 'owned' that engine, so how is/was it allowed to be used in the Fw13B today? Is it just a different engine? A different version? I'd certainly like to know how these things work.

I have concerns about how the (ultra) complex current Power Units can be run in these demo cars in the future, it would be very sad if the fans will be denied seeing these cars ever running in these events.

Again, if D!ce can comment on how the heritage cars are run, I'd be interested.


Quite generous then. So running up the 1.16 mile Goodwood hill, say twice a day for three days isn't going to put a dent in that; its less than 12kms! I can understand the teams not using this years cars due to the risk of damage/breakage, so why not last years?

Grr..I need to know

Williams run their own motors as they have a big collection. If you follow Dicky Stanford on twitter he regularly posts about getting them up and running. Maybe tweet him, he might reply.

 

[JRS]

I'd already be in talks to switch to Merc engines this year, so next year, we could hit the ground running and attack the Merc cars. For 2016, I'd do my utmost to get Alonso a car which was no more than 0.2s/lap slower than the Merc. Then tell Alonso that he is the best driver in F1 and he needs to show this and beat Hamilton.

So tell me, O Wise Oracle Of The OcUK Motorsport Forum™, why in flying ****-land Mercedes would supply engines to McLaren in this weird reality of yours?

They've clearly got the best driver in F1 right now sat in their own cars, so they don't need Alonso in the fold. They've clearly got a decent aero team, so don't need McLaren's bunch. Supplying engines to McLaren would offer almost nothing at all, beyond the faintest possibility of the dolts in Woking cocking up, designing a world-beating chassis and ending up beating the works cars.

 

[MarcLister]

They've clearly got the best driver in F1 right now sat in their own cars, so they don't need Alonso in the fold. They've clearly got a decent aero team, so don't need McLaren's bunch. Supplying engines to McLaren would offer almost nothing at all, beyond the faintest possibility of the dolts in Woking cocking up, designing a world-beating chassis and ending up beating the works cars.

I think that sunama was saying that McLaren have Alonso and need to get him the best car by making a fantastic chassis that, once Mercedes give McLaren engines, will give Alonso a car capable of only being 0.2 seconds a lap slower than a Mercedes. Alonso's talent will then eradicate that 0.2 seconds a lap deficit and make Alonso/McLaren world champions.