F1 Fanatic round-up: 12/3/2010
Our first live blog of the year is coming up shortly for free practice one in Bahrain. Until then, here’s today’s round-up:
Links
Q & A with Martin Whitmarsh (Autosport)
On McLaren’s radical snorkel/rear wing design.
McLaren Snorkel: How it works (Scarbs)
More on the snorkel.
A New Code of Practice (Viva F1)
“It’s a remarkable turn around for the FIA after years of Max Mosley, the FIA and WMSC being pretty much interchangable terms for the same thing. Is the FIA finally starting to act like a proper professional body rather than some kind of private members club?”
Prost joins stewards for Bahrain (Autosport)
My first reaction was a sarcastic “great, because he never did anything dodgy which he got away with.” Being more reasonable, it would be hard to find many successful ex-F1 drivers who didn’t have a few controversial moments in their careers.
Comment of the day
Here’s Hallard’s prediction for what will be the biggest political story of 2010:
Zoran Stefanovic kidnapping Jean Todt, and demanding a place on the grid in a very poorly-translated ransom note/press release. Mark my words…
Hallard
Happy birthday!
We have three F1 Fanatic birthdays today – best wishes to Monkzie, Daniel and Garf
On this day in F1
The Jaguar team started their first race on this day ten years ago. The outfit only lasted five full seasons before Ford sold them to Red Bull.
Ned Flanders said on 12th March 2010, 0:20
Haha, great prediction Hallard! I have a feeling Peter Windsor might get implicated in this scandal as well. He’ll offer Stefanovic 100 USF1 toasters to secure Todt’s release, on the condition that Todt allows USF1 to race in 2011. But upon release Todt will stab Windsor in the back and have his old pal Max Mosley take Ken Anderson hostage in a dingy London dungeon instead.
No, seriously. Nothing would surprise me in F1
wasiF1 said on 12th March 2010, 0:55
Can’t start laughing Hallard.the best way to treat us on this day when the season starts.
LAK said on 12th March 2010, 0:56
I was extremely lucky today to visit the paddock in Bahrain! :D Here are a few photos I managed to snap! Check them out here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47930768@N04/
K said on 12th March 2010, 1:23
I like the nice clean sponsor-less helmets of the Sauber drivers, I think most sponsors logos ruin car liveries and helmet designs.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47930768@N04/4426137670/
luigismen said on 12th March 2010, 5:34
yeah, but the cash makes people happy
LAK said on 12th March 2010, 0:58
LOL Hallard! Well..we never really know what will happen in the crazy world of F1, this actually doesn’t seem too far away haha
LAK said on 12th March 2010, 1:00
Happy Birthday Monkzie, Daniel, and Garf, you can’t have a better present than the season starting!
inc0mmunicado said on 12th March 2010, 1:19
http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pressreleases/wmsc/2010/Pages/wmsc_110310.aspx
This is what the VivaF1 link was commenting on. What on earth is the FIA doing extending the F1 points system to all its other major championships? (not just open wheel ones either!)
Prisoner Monkeys said on 12th March 2010, 2:20
I think Jean Todt wants confirmity across every series under the FIA’s banner. It makes sense because he doesn’t want to do what Mosley did and put too much emphasis on Formula 1 and leave everything else to its own devices.
SloMo said on 12th March 2010, 1:39
Can anyone link the to pictures of the snorkel on the car and more importantly the exit location of the airflow that it diverts to the rear wing to stall it so i can understand slightly more how it works?
Prisoner Monkeys said on 12th March 2010, 2:31
There are no pictures of the exit, and for two reasons:
1) McLaren doesn’t want anyone seeing it becaus it offers an advantage and the other teams will eventually try to make their own; the longer McLaren can keep them from doing that, the better it is for McLaren.
2) It’s my understanding that McLaren are actually using their shark fin for that. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that all of the teams with shark fins have very thin connections – except for McLaren. Theirs is very solid, very pipe-like, which we now know is a part of the system.
The way it works is like this: air is picked up by the snorkel and run down through the monocoque. It passes the driver, goes around the engine, down through the shark fin and terminates on the rear wing. The rear wing contains a narrow slit between its two planes that the air is channelled through in such a way that it reduces drag by “stalling” the rear wing.
McLaren have literally turned their drivers into a part of their car. As the snorkel channel passes through the footwell, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton can manipulate the system by using their bodies – specifically their left feet – to block an opening in the pipe. Have you ever seen a vacuum cleaner that has one of those sliding hatches on its pipe? It works like that. When the hatch is open, the vacuum is inefficient, but when you slide the cover back over, it picks up suction power.
You might ask why McLaren don’t just cover the hole in their channel all the time. The answer to that is that the system only really works for straights. While it allows them to pick up as many as an extra six miles an hour on the straights, the air flowing over the rear wing negates the properties of the car that it needs to turn properly. But because it’s an aerodynamic device and having a switch to control the opening in the channel would be considered a moving part and therefore illegal, it falls to Button and Hamilton to work the system on their own.
ajokay said on 12th March 2010, 9:35
I always thought the McLaren sharkfin had volume to it, and now we know why.
Tango said on 12th March 2010, 9:36
Brilliant explanation PM! Man are the McLaren guys ressourceful!
dsob said on 12th March 2010, 10:56
Outstanding explanation of the system, PM. I like yours better than the GP Update article.
Okay, now, stay with me on this, folks…Formula 1, the pinnacle of motorsport, the cutting edge in automotive technology……
‘How’s that modified wing system work, Joe?’
‘Oh, simple as can be. Driver jus covers this here hole with his foot, or let’s her flow’
I’m literally laughing hard enough that tears are rolling down my cheeks as I type this. The new wing system is operated by the driver covering or not covering a hole in a pipe. ROFLMAO :)
Hallard said on 12th March 2010, 16:38
The McLaren snorkel design certainly is ingenious.
It’s too bad Kimi didn’t sign on with McLaren this season…he could have used it to keep his ice cream cold during a race :)
garyc said on 12th March 2010, 21:23
There are pictures on F1Technical.net. The air isn’t fed to the slot gap between the main plane and the flap, but into a bleed slot approx. 1/3 of the chord from the leading edge of the flap.
rfs said on 12th March 2010, 2:18
So I hear Vettel’s nicknamed his RB6 “Luscious Liz”…
macahan said on 12th March 2010, 4:17
that is the case yes. He announced it on his website as well was announced on the RBR website and their community site Monday. An article with an interview of Vettel is also on the F1 main site where the naming was brought up.
dsob said on 12th March 2010, 11:08
Just doesn’t have quite the ring of ‘Kate’s Dirty Sister’. I’ll always miss that car.
macahan said on 12th March 2010, 6:32
30 minutes to FP1… The tension.. Even the red deamons err I mean Ferrari seems to have to back to school blues “Here we are! Just half an hour to the green light of 2010 season. The team is right now doing pitstop practice in the pitlane.”
geo132 said on 12th March 2010, 6:41
lol Hallard, that was unexpected !
Anyway, just 20 minutes left for FP1. Happy Season everybody! :)
Hallard said on 12th March 2010, 15:09
My first comment of the day. Boosh!
PJA said on 12th March 2010, 16:44
Autosport reports that Damon Hill is set to be the on the panel of Stewards at two Grand Prix this year, probably Monaco and one other.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82053
Calum said on 12th March 2010, 19:25
Prost will be impartial, racing for Ferrari & Mclaren in his career.
Salty said on 12th March 2010, 21:51
I like the ‘guest’ steward idea, but only if the rest of the panel is sensible and static to provide consistancy. The openess is applaudable, but needs to be backed up with equally logical appointments of permanent stewards. Inviting FiA reps who have never been to a race, let alone sat behind a wheel, to make decisions on racing ‘incidents’ is a lamentable anachronism that needs to be fixed now.
And in the spirit of openess, they need to ensure that all the data is publish alongside their reasoning, not just a terse one-liner on FiA headed paper. This is a multi-million dollar business and the biggest global championship in the world. Needs more professionalism from the FiA, not the teams, they know how much it costs and do have to deal with the real world.
Monkzie said on 16th March 2010, 22:01
YES!!! Happy birthday to me! I know it’s very belated, but I’ve just recovered from my b’day celebrations! Have a great F1 2010 season everyone…
Chaz said on 22nd March 2010, 16:38
Many thanks ‘Scarbs’ for illuminating the snorkel issue…