Motorsport Off Topic Thread

*caution - some pimping will be in the following post*

I've just got round to installed the Official F1 2013 Android App - It's expensive, but was damn useful last year.

This years has been significantly improved. For once, the menu works on the tablet I use when in landscape *which is worth it in itself!*, but the best addition is more versions of the timing screens. The best of which shows the tyre the driver is currently on, how many laps he's been on that tyre, the gap to the car in front, the last time through the speed trap, the sector times he's doing and the overall lap time. There's also a screen that just shows the the current and historic tyre information, which could be useful for FP sessions.

Yup, it's £24... but this year, I think it could actually be worth it.

I have no connection with the guys who do this app, I just bought it.
 
Skeeter said:
The silver comes from Mercedes and the red from Vodafone, so with the potential loss of both over the next couple of years there could be a complete re-image of the McLaren team.

All the road car launches and press releases, and the GT3 car release have been in various shades of orange, so maybe we will see that? Telmex's corporate colours are black blue and white though.
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Isn't Japan's traditional racing colour white? In which case if Honda do supply engines I think it would like good mainly white with touches of blue and black for Telmex. Pretty much like the above but substitute the silver for white.

When the rumour went around that McLaren would be making their own enginers for 2014 onwards I hoped it was true so they could be orange. Shame they stopped using it in testing too.
 
Psycho Ned said:
Report by the BBC on the price of Grand Prix tickets puts Silverstone as the third most expensive (for the cheapest ticket).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21561123

One thing I can't fathom on that report is Brazils cheapest ticket is £229 :eek: that can't be right surely I'd imagine a lot of Brazillians don't earn that in a month! Yet it's one of the best attended races by fans.
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While not cheap, I believe British Grand Prix tickets are competitively priced and offer good value for money.
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Excluding Brazil (quite surprised by their prices) and Abu Dhabi (slightly understandable considering the pure awesomeness and extravagance), I fail to see how Silverstone is "competitively priced and offer good value for money". He has a point about comparing to other show case events but not much to stand on compared to other circuits. This just sounds like the 2011 Champions League final all over again. It appears that the cheap tickets is going up £15 a year (need a source as I only got this from a comment), does that seem appropriate?
 
F1 is possibly the least fan-friendly and value for money cross-border motorsport I can think of, and that's been the case for a while. Not exactly news - the TV eyeballs are what the key investors/FOM want. Maybe when governments stop subsidising it and\or the sanction fee descends from the tens of millions, that might change, but I'm not holding my breath.
 
Personally I've no problem with the pricing. For the amount you pay you get a full day's worth, multiple support events plus the F1 action itself.

Considering the amount some PL clubs charge for 90 minutes of football, I think it's OK.
 
Spunkey said:
£24? :eek:

I'd consider it at £10 - or even if it was £24 for multi-season use, but other wise no way. Shame though as it sounds really useful.
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there is/was a live timing website that worked on a phones browser, I cant remember what it was called though.

I used to use it on my computer instead of the official one
 
this_is_gav said:
I think they've only used it 3 times. 1997 (perhaps the West livery was still being finalised), 1998 and 2006 (no idea if there was a reason those times).
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The most recent one was after they lost the West sponsorship and didn't have a title sponsor. Thats when they first used the chrome with the most dominant (although not a title) sponsor being Jonny Walker, and then during the season Emirates (I think?) airline joined which added some red, and then in 2007 Vodafone became title sponsor and the red stayed.

They seem to use Orange when changing livery, so we might get another orange one for testing at the start of next year if they change sponsor.

But I agree with Greboth, the likely choice looks to be white with some black and blue, sort of like recent Saubers.
 
xibinim said:
Excluding Brazil (quite surprised by their prices) and Abu Dhabi (slightly understandable considering the pure awesomeness and extravagance), I fail to see how Silverstone is "competitively priced and offer good value for money". He has a point about comparing to other show case events but not much to stand on compared to other circuits. This just sounds like the 2011 Champions League final all over again. It appears that the cheap tickets is going up £15 a year (need a source as I only got this from a comment), does that seem appropriate?
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There is a 10% yearly rise in race hosting fees, so there is a 10% rise in ticket prices too :(.

Silverstones pricing is a hang over from the many millions of £'s they spent on renovating the track to enable them to keep the GP.
 
Psycho Ned said:
Report by the BBC on the price of Grand Prix tickets puts Silverstone as the third most expensive (for the cheapest ticket).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21561123

One thing I can't fathom on that report is Brazils cheapest ticket is £229 :eek: that can't be right surely I'd imagine a lot of Brazillians don't earn that in a month! Yet it's one of the best attended races by fans.
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That's not news. The last race I went to was at Magny Cours. Worked out cheaper to fly to France for the weekend than go to Silverstone.

The Vodafone thing was coming a while back. They've not renewed a number of sponsorship agreements in Motorsport catagories like V8 Supercars and other sports like Cricket IIRC in the last couple of years.
 
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Psycho Ned said:
Report by the BBC on the price of Grand Prix tickets puts Silverstone as the third most expensive (for the cheapest ticket).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21561123

One thing I can't fathom on that report is Brazils cheapest ticket is £229 :eek: that can't be right surely I'd imagine a lot of Brazillians don't earn that in a month! Yet it's one of the best attended races by fans.
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And you'd be right in a way, the average Brazilian does earn more than that but for us out here it's upto 50% of a months salary for the ticket....
 
Blackvault said:
Thanks, I only dip in and out of this tread every so often.

Blackvault
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Ive just read my own post back, and appologies if it sounded abrupt - it wasnt intended that way :)


That Timlex McLaren looks absolutely vile!!! (but it seems like a logical choice given Perez)
 
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I personally can't see the chrome staying if they move away from Mercedes. It has no ties to McLaren, and while Ron likes to say its 'part of the team identity', they have gone back to using a lot of orange recently in other McLaren activities.
 
Someone was asking about the 2014 engine regs earlier.

Charlie Whiting had a press conference earlier, this is a chunk of the transcript - pinched from @somersf1 blog *as I couldn't be bothered to re-format it myself :D *

Question: On next years rules each driver are allowed to have 5 power units for the year, so if one turbocharger blows, one power units is gone but are you allowed lets say because there is still the engine left and the KERS (ERS) are you allowed to transfer the parts to another engine?

Charlie: In principle yes, this is still the subject of some discussion but the idea is that the driver doesn't necessarily have 5 power units. He has 5 engines, 5 Turbochargers, 5 MGU's and 5 ES's (Energy Stores).... I think we have 6 different elements to the power unit, so in other words the driver can use 5 different turbochargers and when he uses a 6th he will be penalised (we aren't quite sure of the penalties yet, but it'll probably be something like a 2 or 3 place grid penalty) Then you'll get a small grid penalty for each of those elements but if you change a complete one it'll be a 10 place grid penalty. I do have to emphasize that this is not the finished article yet and is still being discussed with the teams but the principle as I say is to split it up into 5 or 6 distinct elements in order that do change element you'll only be penalised on that elements 6th usage.
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So essentially... they haven't set the rules fully yet... :rolleyes:
 
Flibster said:
So essentially... they haven't set the rules fully yet... :rolleyes:
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I dont see why its so bad they havent set the finer rules for next season yet?

Even up to the end of Feb next year it makes little difference imo. The teams /engine suppliers etc have to prepare exactly the same (as long as the 5 doesnt change and it doesnt suddenly become 7 or something or if they were still thinking about normal aspiration / capacity etc)

(I hope it goes that way with 6 different elements all interchangable and penalties to match)
 
I can see why they are not keen on transferring a single 'engine' rule to a single 'power unit'. A minor turbo failure that can be easily switched would mean they would have to bin a perfectly good engine and MGU.

While the technology is in its infancy they need to allow for failure of smaller components, so I can see why they would want to split them out.

And just to pick Charlie up on something, the ES (batteries, basically) are not considered part of the 'power unit' in the 2014 regs.

Also, this rule would be in the Sporting regs, not the Technical regs.
 
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