Dubs posted:

the problem is noone gives a poo poo if ferrari wins anymore

RBR is the new F1 posterboy and gets the rules bent on it's whim.

Ferrari aren't being spoonfed wins anymore

gret posted:

We should do Team Principals too so I can do Claire Williams.

George Zimmer posted:

I'll do a team bio or a driver bio. Hell I'll do a track bio.

1500quidporsche posted:

So that Honda seems like a helluva engine. Alonso will definitely be 2015 WDC.

Dudley posted:

Looks like the Hulk might have landed a seat in the 3rd Porsche at LeMans.

Multi-discipline F1 drivers are back. This is excellent.

https://twitter.com/NicoHulkenberg

Ghost of Mussolini posted:

Everyone please remember that at least 20% of your driver bio must be about you respective driver heir and/or amusing hates

Carbonate posted:

If anyone is interested, I could type up some stuff about marshaling and vehicle recovery or whatever for next year's thread?

I've flagged 5 GP's (and tons of regional stuff, both on stand and in race control) and have been a corner chief the last two Canadian GP's I've worked, so I should know enough to write something up...

autism chariot posted:

and lets not forget Stirling Moss, who gave up a WDC by being a gentleman.

gret posted:

No mention that Cojocar was promoted from the janitorial staff to team director?

keevo posted:

http://instagram.com/p/wJtACdw7qq/?modal=true

"Serendipity - the #1 formula one race car driver in Japan the #1 collector of rare Japanese chips and snack foods #1 hottest white girl in Japan, all 3 happen to be in the same room in Japan and all 3 are the biggest perverts in Japan and that's no easy feat"

Kamui "The Pervert" Kobayashi

CratSock posted:

And yeti.

CratSock posted:

And yeti is still popular somehow?

ukle posted:

BBC are semi-confirming the rumours that VW are looking to come into F1, they are carrying out a feasbility study looking at how they could enter.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/30336569

One key point -


So that's them hosed then, if they do actually enter.

An open letter from Team New Zealand posted:

nadir (98 comments) says:
September 26th, 2013 at 11:02 pm

The “automatic levelling sysytem”

Its not computer based its (in principle) a very simple mechanical system and TNZ either didn’t think of it or couldnt make it work. Here’s how it works (I’m slighlty sketchy on some of the exact detail but here goes):

The prohibition on stored power means you cannot use stored power to apply a force on rigging or the dagger boards. So when Dean Barker wants to alter the angle of the foil he yells out “Hydro” and the grinders grind. He uses a little toggle switch on the steering wheel to drive an electrical linear actuator (that is a small motor that applies a force to the hydralic valve that sends hydrualic power to the ram which works on the dagger board to provide a force that moves it forward, thus altering the angle of attack of the horizontal part. TNZ thought OTUSA used the same system until late August when OTUSA asked the race committee to approve a system they had for altering the angle of attack of the foils. The OTUSA system was innovative in that the valve was connected directly to the hydraulic ram and the electric actuator connected (obviously) directly to the valve. This means on Oracle there is a direct linkage from the hull to the actuator to the valve to the ram to the dagger board box (which tilts with the dagger board inside it). Th real innovation is that the dagger board moves and acts on that actuator which opens the valve and self corrects the angle of attack as long as their is pressure on from the grinders. Spithill still provides human intervention in the same way as TNZ with a toggle switch to set the position he wants but the Oracle setup then self corrects around that position.

So when OTUSA asked for approval it was given in several parts. One part was the self leveling system as a an entire concept, the other was the fact that there is now an electrical motor (which uses stored energy) connected to the foil which is outside the intent of the rules. But the electronic actuator is only capable of applying a force of 75 lbs, and in the range Oracle were using it (just to open/close a valve) more likely around 20 lbs. This is what TNZ protested – that OTUSA were using stored energy to apply force to a foil – not that the self correcting system as a whole was outside the rules as it is clearly not so long as stored energy is not used to move the foil. TNZ made the argument that if there was no hydraulic pressure, then OTUSA could apply force to the dagger board with the actuator. The RC said that was a nonsense as clearly the actuator – only able to apply a maximum of 75 lbs pressure and more likely 25 lbs could not influence the foil at all given the tons of pressure acting on it when in use. TNZ may have been technically correct but in practice – no effect, and I think the RC relied on another rule that allowed incidental or trivial exceptions to the no stored power concept. OTUSA had been using this system for a long time – they didnt install it during the final when they used the delay card. They obviously did other things – redistribution of weight and reprfiling of the bows the two most obvious things, but the self levelling system was not new. This is obvious as TNZ became aware of it in late august and put their protest in on about Sep 3 i.e., before the Americas Cup races started.

The way it was explained to me was that TNZ missed a trick on the self levelling and didnt have the time resources or a spare boat to crash develop it. Also, Oracle apparently got lucky because they designed their boat as a non-foiling upwind boat as they thought it impossible to get sufficuent extra speed from foiling, given that the foiling boats have to travel 10 or 15 degrees lower into the wind (i.e covering more distance) than a skimming boat. Downwind was fine, but OTUSA built a boat that couldn’t foil upwind – which meant a less strong boat as the risk of falling off the foils is greater than going downwind. SO OTUSA optimised their boat for upwind skimming not foiling – you can see it is much sleeker and has less cross section. Then when they discovered they could foil up wind they had a significant windage advantage in the leg that counts – upwind and went foiling anyway. TNZ also designed their boat so that the hull provides some lift to help foil on the more difficult upwind leg – Oracles doesnt. The hull providing lift also incurs drag.

Americas Cup is and always has been a tech race as well as a sailing race and resources win. I suspect TNZ may have realised some of their shortcomings but could not change their development path whereas Oracle could throw away a bunch of work and go off in a different direction if necessary. We did bloody well to get as close as we did, but a tech race is like boxing – a good big man will always beat a good small man.

One other anecdote I saw in print was a story by a computer consultant who worked for Oracle on a contract to do hull modelling using simulations. He said they were constrained by a lack of sufficient processing capacity – that is remarkable given the sort of resources Oracle could mobilise and shows how high tech and costly the Cup has gotten.

dev null posted:

.5 rounds up

be nice wicka posted:

as a mclaren fan i'd like to be the first autist to note that the font of the mclaren honda logo they introduced a few weeks ago has changed:

old:



new:

1500quidporsche posted:

If I was Alonso I'd probably break the ice with a couple of jokes about taking Ferrari technical documents when I left.

Moxie Omen posted:

McLaren will out cheat Ferrari in 2015, calling it now.

Wirth1000 posted:

1500quidporsche posted:

You would think going into their 3rd consecutive year of designing their car from scratch McLaren would be pretty good at it.

Brainwrong posted:

It would seem he still is.