Shame Formula 1 is now essentially 'canned racing'.
Kubica best time today finally 
But yea, this had no sense!
Otherwise, lol@massa on fire ! He's so unlucky this guy...
But yea, this had no sense!Otherwise, lol@massa on fire ! He's so unlucky this guy...
This is gonna prevent people from trying to pass anywhere else... I guess you now won't see drivers trying to surprise their opponents in tricky places, Kobayashi style... That's quite sad.
Another interresting point:
Quali is gonna be busy times
why not just let them use it anytime they want?
I mean if both of them can use it on the main straight, so the pass isn't "artificial"... the car in front would be using the wing too. So passing would come down to the driver's skill and ability to use the wing flap as soon as possible to gain the max speed down the straight. There would be more variety of speeds down the main straight, since drivers would use the wing differently at slightly different speeds, thus passes would be more frequent but by no means artificial. And using the wing differently in the technical bits of the track could make some very exciting passes and different lines through corners.
or is my reasoning faulty?
problem I can see is it would be terribly tiring to work the wing the entire race as well as everything else that needs to happen.
I mean if both of them can use it on the main straight, so the pass isn't "artificial"... the car in front would be using the wing too. So passing would come down to the driver's skill and ability to use the wing flap as soon as possible to gain the max speed down the straight. There would be more variety of speeds down the main straight, since drivers would use the wing differently at slightly different speeds, thus passes would be more frequent but by no means artificial. And using the wing differently in the technical bits of the track could make some very exciting passes and different lines through corners.
or is my reasoning faulty?
problem I can see is it would be terribly tiring to work the wing the entire race as well as everything else that needs to happen.
The whole point of these wings is to create artificial overtaking not negate it. From a purist's point of view I think the whole thing is a complete joke. But F1 isn't a purist's motorsport. As Sunday afternoon entertainment for 2 hours it will be fun, but is it proper motorsport? 
talk about a tightly packaged rear end!
Damn, the cars look so much better without the sharkfin styling
my first thought was a bad joke now getting worse but given how artificial the whole rear wing idea is then making it only available for those 600 m at the end of the main straight sort of makes sense,
basically their saying you have to have got a conventional "tow" onto the straight to get into the 1 sec window and then you'll get an enhanced slipstream effect just as you come towards the braking area, rough calculations seem to show that if you allow say 100m for the braking area that means at 300 kph you'll have about 6 seconds of lower wing before you start slowing.
a speed increase of 18 kph gives you an advantage of just 30 m travelled in that time compared to the car in front if you ignore the time it takes to gain that speed advantage. 1 second behind at 300 kph puts you aprox 80 meters behind the car in front so you won't get there unless you are a fair bit closer, say at most 2 tenths behind when you enter the overtaking zone which is where abouts a tow that is almost good enough in the past has often left a car, just that bit short of the time to attempt a pass. obviously if the wing gives a greater speed increase then it's easier but at these figures the best you could achive with 18kph and 2 tenths behind is probably less than a car length lead when you start to brake.
add in the fact that being at the end of the straight makes positioning for the corner important so a leading driver can defend by going to the inside and it's actually looking like it may require a good run onto the straight followed by a good tow that gets you under the other car's gearbox and then being brave enough to make the pass and defend whilst being on the outside line for the bend. this may, just may, actually produce some good driving rather than totally artifical passing.
basically their saying you have to have got a conventional "tow" onto the straight to get into the 1 sec window and then you'll get an enhanced slipstream effect just as you come towards the braking area, rough calculations seem to show that if you allow say 100m for the braking area that means at 300 kph you'll have about 6 seconds of lower wing before you start slowing.
a speed increase of 18 kph gives you an advantage of just 30 m travelled in that time compared to the car in front if you ignore the time it takes to gain that speed advantage. 1 second behind at 300 kph puts you aprox 80 meters behind the car in front so you won't get there unless you are a fair bit closer, say at most 2 tenths behind when you enter the overtaking zone which is where abouts a tow that is almost good enough in the past has often left a car, just that bit short of the time to attempt a pass. obviously if the wing gives a greater speed increase then it's easier but at these figures the best you could achive with 18kph and 2 tenths behind is probably less than a car length lead when you start to brake.
add in the fact that being at the end of the straight makes positioning for the corner important so a leading driver can defend by going to the inside and it's actually looking like it may require a good run onto the straight followed by a good tow that gets you under the other car's gearbox and then being brave enough to make the pass and defend whilst being on the outside line for the bend. this may, just may, actually produce some good driving rather than totally artifical passing.
I'm loving the look of the cars at the moment. Hopefully the shark fins won't return.
Shark finns:
http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/2011/0/814.html
Also the mclaren soon to be revealed
http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/2011/0/814.html
Also the mclaren soon to be revealed
Mike Gascoyne talking BS again
"If you get a situation like you had in Indy, where they put in the Handford-wing and everyone could pass everyone, you just sat there the whole race trying to be second on the last lap - because then you would win. That was pretty rubbish – so they got rid of it."
No Mike, That's not a relavent analogy. Indy never ran that wing, and it made for a spectacle...which is what the FIA want. Okay, maybe not 67 lead changes in a race (Hello Monza 1971!), but they want to make it more exciting. I applaud that. (FYI Mike, Indy on road courses was pretty damn awesome too. Cleveland 1997/1999 for instance). But I think a balance has to be made between spectacle and gimmickry
I just hope that Kobikaze keeps his driving style.
"If you get a situation like you had in Indy, where they put in the Handford-wing and everyone could pass everyone, you just sat there the whole race trying to be second on the last lap - because then you would win. That was pretty rubbish – so they got rid of it."
No Mike, That's not a relavent analogy. Indy never ran that wing, and it made for a spectacle...which is what the FIA want. Okay, maybe not 67 lead changes in a race (Hello Monza 1971!), but they want to make it more exciting. I applaud that. (FYI Mike, Indy on road courses was pretty damn awesome too. Cleveland 1997/1999 for instance). But I think a balance has to be made between spectacle and gimmickry
I just hope that Kobikaze keeps his driving style.
I dont think a driver can change his way of doing things in that short time
Fair point. If only Kobi had a RBR ride...
1 of the 2 reasons I am looking forward to today (the other being england v wales) Though with that 'cover' over the car it looks like an lmp car.
The wings seem stupid and is an artificial way of creating overtaking but i suspect that the same drivers will keep on winning so results probably wont change much.
The movable wing adds a sense of artificiality in much the same way a push-to-pass button does. We might see more passing, but it devalues the truly great (albeit few) manouvers because they become just one out of several rather than THE moment of the race.
I do get tired of the procession, though.
No doubt Alonso would have found his way past Petrov more easily with this system.
It's just a shame that rather than address the fundamental problem, they chuck this gimmicky work around on.
I do get tired of the procession, though.
No doubt Alonso would have found his way past Petrov more easily with this system.
It's just a shame that rather than address the fundamental problem, they chuck this gimmicky work around on.
It's tricky. I don't think F1 has ever been particularly exciting as a pure race spectacle ever. These gimmicks are probably the only way to introducing more overtaking. If they did change the core reliance on aero grip to mechanical grip it may not improve things. Take karts as the extreme example of 100% reliance on mechanical grip. You still get a lot of terribly boring races. You get a lot of brilliant ones too, but even the perfect racing machines can often produce dull races. Especially if they were 2 hours long instead of the usual 20-30 minutes.
I don't like the gimmicks because it's not proper racing, but it's F1 - aka showbiz.
Better production values can increase excitement. Just compare 5Live commentary with BBC1 last year. The same race could have two totally different feels. Same with the bikes when Eurosport produced FAR more interesting viewing.. Take Nascar and American Football as well. They can be incredibly boring but the yanks somehow know how to make them interesting.
http://mclaren.com/livefromberlin/ Its on! dunno wtf is happing tho, shows many people having racing car parts around.
ahhh I see now, they arrive with no car then all the people come and they will build it now
ahhh I see now, they arrive with no car then all the people come and they will build it now
different 
well at least we know where the exhausts are pointing
well at least we know where the exhausts are pointing
haha this is weird.
wonder if they'll carry a driver out as well
interesting nose assembly and shape of top of the sidepods
I like it though i dont understand german :>
very different sidepods
It's just that it's rare in any lesser class for the dirty air to be such a hindrance that somebody lapping a second or more faster cannot get close enough to pass the slower driver ahead of them. It's not only the aero, of course, the ridiculously good brakes turn all but the biggest braking zones into too short a section to outbrake anyone.
It's probably as much down to the lower tiers getting faster and faster as it is sheer technological advancement. Fastest laptime=pinnacle of sport. Fast laptimes don't make the racing entertaining, but F1 can't do anything for the sake of entertainment that will make the laptimes slower than competing or feeder classes, even if it would be more genuine than the gimmicks they're keen on trying.
Odd side-pods on the Mclaren.
Formula One Season 2011
(1339 posts, started )
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