Five ways to improve F1


Emerson Fittipaldi in his heyday © Sutton Images
In an interview in the Times, former world champion Emerson Fittipaldi’s outlined his five-point plan to enhance Formula One. Cut costs “They spend a fortune in wind-tunnel testing alone. Reduce costs and the slowest teams would catch up and make it more even.” Limit downforce “They need to reduce enormously the downforce in the cars, the only way to bring back overtaking. We need more mechanical grip so that you have longer braking areas, can set up the car coming out of a corner, get in the slipstream and then overtake.” Close the pitlane “When the safety car goes out they should close the pitlane. Now it’s just a lottery.” Lift ban on team orders “It is a very stupid rule. It’s why they are called teams, it’s why they have two cars. If a driver is leading in the championship, everything has to go in his favour. What is wrong with that? It’s so easy for teams to camouflage their orders anyway. All they need to do is tell one guy on the radio he has a problem with his brakes. They can bend the rules very easily. In the old days they would even swap cars, so why do we have this ban now?” Retain traditional grands prix “These places are the soul of racing. The Americas are under-represented. We have Canada back, but there is no USA, no Argentina, no Mexico. We need to stay in the heartlands.”

Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/11/five_ways_to_improve_f1.php

Jorge Daponte Anthony Davidson Jimmy Davies Colin Davis Jimmy Daywalt

Massa threatened with jail over team orders


© Getty Images
Brazil’s F1 fever may have overstepped the mark after a local prosecutor threatened Felipe Massa with a six-year jail term if he “defrauds” the sporting public by letting Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso past at Sunday’s grand prix. The story, reported by a local paper and picked up by the Daily Telegraph, is the latest of several anti-Massa reports to emerge from his home country since the team orders controversy at the German Grand Prix earlier this year. The Daily Telegraph's Tom Cary reckons that Massa simply isn't living up to his home crowd's high expectations.
“A public raised on a diet of Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna were simply appalled and saddened in equal measure by Massa’s apparent lack of ambition.”

Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/11/massa_threatened_with_jail_ove.php

Alex Caffi John CampbellJones Adri·n Campos John Cannon Eitel Cantoni

Webber ‘will threaten’ Vettel in 2012

Bernie Ecclestone has stated his belief that Mark Webber could be Sebastian Vettel’s biggest rival for the title this year. Check out our review of Red Bull in 2011! Webber failed to win a race last year of course, but Ecclestone is convinced that the Australian will improve, threatening his Red Bull team-mate along the [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/WvCtgq-iUMQ/webber-will-threaten-vettel-in-2012

Luiz Bueno Ian Burgess Luciano Burti Roberto Bussinello Jenson Button

Lola goes into adminstration as buyers sought

Legendary racing car manufacturer Lola is set to go into administration after hitting a cashflow shortfall. The company says that the decision will provide an opportunity to secure fresh investment or find a new owner. A statement from Lola Group … Continue reading

Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2012/05/16/lola-goes-into-adminstration-as-buyers-sought/

Eric Brandon Don Branson Tom Bridger Tony Brise Chris Bristow

'34 Ford 3-window Coupe - Keepin' It Simple - 05-14 Additional Photos

’34 Ford 3-Window Coupe based on the Revell SnapTite kit.
(more pictures below)

This was a quick and casual build to take a break from my anything but quick and casual 27 T project. It was inspired by a pair of builds over on the TRaK board: Bryce Michelmore’s Jake’s Tribute ’34 Ford 3-window which was derived from the Revell Snaptite kit, and by Dakota John White’s super simple and clean white chopped Deuce Sedan highboy. Of course this build isn’t as detailed, ambitious or finely executed as either of those great models. My thought was to keep the number of changes to a minimum and use as many parts as possible from the Revell ’34 Ford SnapTite kit that was the basis for this project. At the same time I wanted to avoid much of the contemporary street rod flavor of the kit.

 I started by removing the gas tank. Then I lowered the front axle about 4 scale inches and lowered the rear axle about 2 scale inches. I replaced the rear tires and wheels with a pair of mag wheels from an AMT ’36 Ford kit, capped with some 10.5” M&H Dragmaster slicks courtesy of Ma’s Resin. At the front I used a pair of MPC Funny Car kidney beans with Modelhaus spider caps and really sweet skinny funny car front tires from Speed City Resin. I liked the kit bench seat so I thought I‘d keep it for my parts box and swapped in a pair of bench style bucket seats I had lying around. The headlights are Revell ’32 Ford items and the taillights are from an AMT’49 Ford. Other than that the build is OTB SnapTite all the way, except I glued everything together.

 When I started building it I had all kinds of ambitious plans, but as I went along I kept simplifying and homing in on what I thought was right about the basic kit. Once I had the stance dialed in and had chosen the wheels I remembered Dakota  John’s “less is more” Deuce sedan and how much Bryce had gotten out of the basic SnapTite kit with his Jake’s Tribute car and decided I would take a minimalist approach. I had already painted the car Duplicolor Wimbledon White with plans for louvers, contrasting trim paint and various decal schemes. But suddenly, confronted with the clean look of the white-with-chrome-and-black combination I decided to keep it basic. I’ll go for far more ambitious builds with future projects based on this kit since I like the overall look of the body and think it makes great raw material.

Thanx for lookin’,
B.

 

Source: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/thread/1016199.aspx

John Cordts David Coulthard Piers Courage Chris Craft Jim Crawford

How McLaren got back to the top

Amid the widespread astonishment at how Fernando Alonso has found himself leading the world championship after two races despite driving the worst car Ferrari have produced for nearly 20 years, it has been somewhat overlooked that McLaren are topping the constructors' championship.

Victory for Jenson Button in Australia, two third places for Lewis Hamilton and two front row lock-outs have demonstrated that the MP4-27 is not only the best-looking car on the grid, it is also the fastest.

This is quite a turnaround from the last three years, when McLaren have been off the pace at the start of the season, putting their title challenge on the back foot before it had started.

The man responsible for this turnaround is McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe, who is in charge of the team's design and engineering.

A likeable, down-to-earth character, Lowe says "relief" is the first emotion he feels as a result of this impressive achievement after three years of struggling in vain to keep up with Red Bull.

He says: "There is a lot of pressure - people going around saying what you need to do is deliver a car that is quickest at the first race, as though we hadn't thought of that, you know?

"You go and estimate what you think that involves with no certain knowledge and then you go and try to deliver it. It's tough."

McLaren driver Jenson Button tackles a rain-swept Malaysian Grand Prix. Photo: Getty

Ask Lowe how McLaren have ended up with the fastest car at the start of a season for the first time in four years, and he'll tell you there is no "magic".

In reality, there are several factors behind McLaren's ability to leapfrog Red Bull this year and stay ahead of everyone else.

McLaren had a successful winter that was not affected by reliability problems with the car, as had been the case in 2011. That meant they could spend pre-season perfecting what they had rather than, as Lowe puts it, "fighting fires".

Equally, Red Bull appear to have been more badly affected than most other teams by the banning of exhaust-blown diffusers, last year's must-have technology, which the world champions are widely believed to have exploited more effectively than any other team.

For McLaren, starting 2012 with the fastest car is the culmination of a three-year battle to return to the top that began with the disaster of 2009, when they started the season more than two seconds off the pace.

That was the result of Hamilton's intense title battle with Ferrari's Felipe Massa in 2008 - which deflected resource away from both team's new cars - as well as the introduction of the biggest regulation change for 25 years.

McLaren recovered well in 2009 to win a couple of races later in the season, once they had adopted the 'double diffuser' that caused controversy at the start of the year and led to Brawn's championship win.

In 2010 they moved forward, but were still only third fastest behind Red Bull and Ferrari; and in 2011 they leapfrogged Ferrari but were still behind Red Bull.

At the same time, there was a re-organisation of the technical department undertaken in 2010-11, which has taken time to settle down.

"We came out (in 2011) pretty much in the same place we had been at the end of 2010," Lowe says. "So Red Bull had made decent progress over the winter and so had we.

"You have got to do not only what your competitors have done over the winter but then a bit more and then some to generate a lead over them.

"But that is difficult when there aren't fundamental changes in the rules for the car.

"You'd need Red Bull to go on holiday for a month, and then if you were working to the same general output you'd catch them up, but obviously they don't do that so you've just got to push it."

The same thoughts were going through the minds of the bosses at Ferrari. But whereas Maranello responded by undertaking a major change in design philosophy - which has backfired, notwithstanding Alonso's win on Sunday - McLaren realised this would be a mistake.

"In general you are going to be reluctant to say: 'I need to tear this up'," Lowe says.

"Here and there we were quicker than a Red Bull and we were certainly close to them when we weren't.

"The car performance at that point, given also there is not a big regulation change, is a consequence of a great deal of hard work. So it's quite rash to throw that away in too many areas rather than just build on it and iterate further and further.

"That doesn't mean you're not constantly looking for new ideas and trying to make them work. (But) you have to make very sure that whatever change you make is going to be better."

Lowe's contention that there has been no miracle at McLaren, just good, solid development work, is backed up by the fact that other teams have clearly made even more progress compared to Red Bull than they have - such as Lotus and Williams.

In pointing this out, Lowe betrays the natural caution of the F1 engineer - an approach that is understandable when, as Malaysia proved, even having the outright fastest car is no guarantee you will win the race.

Hamilton stepped down from the bottom step of the podium on Sunday to tell the waiting media he needed to find more race pace to capitalise on his strong qualifying form.

Lowe's "new challenge", it seems, has already arrived.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/03/lowe_confident_of_mclaren_succ.html

Alberto Ascari Peter Ashdown Ian Ashley Gerry Ashmore Bill Aston

Massa under pressure to raise his game

A seemingly routine story on Ferrari’s website has underlined the fact that Felipe Massa is coming under ever increasing pressure to perform. The Scuderia’s post-Barcelona report spoke of Massa’s “drop-off” and said that the team is “expecting a change of … Continue reading

Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2012/05/14/massa-under-pressure-to-raise-his-game/

Jaime Alguersuari Philippe Alliot Cliff Allison Fernando Alonso Giovanna Amati