safeeuropeanhome

Forum Replies Created

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 175 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #306470
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    My definition of a top team would be a team with a car that can win races on pace. So that would include the Lotus cars of 2012 and 2013. I would therefore omit Bottas from that list. That Williams is not a race winning car unless things go wrong for others. It was Mercedes and Red Bull last year, Mercedes and Ferrari, in Vettel’s hands at least, this year.

    Honestly? My answer would be Alonso. He deserves more than two titles. Other that that, Hulkenberg. I have always been underwhelmed by Bottas.

    #306423
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    I thought I’d do a little comparison about the relative dominance of RBR vs Mercedes. People say Vettel had a dominant car in 2011 and 2013, but it was really only dominant in his hands. People can question whether or not Rosberg is a better driver than Webber.

    RBR dominance 2011 and 2013 seasons

    Vettel: Race wins: 24/38
    Poles: 30/38

    Webber: Race wins: 1/38 (1!)
    Poles: 6/38

    RBR wins: 25/38
    RBR poles: 36/38
    RBR 1-2 finishes: 7/38
    RBR Front row lockouts: 12/38

    Mercedes dominance 2014-present

    Hamilton: Race wins: 19/33
    Poles: 18/33

    Rosberg: Race wins: 8/33
    Poles: 13/33

    Merc wins: 27/33
    Merc poles: 31/33
    Merc 1-2 finishes: 18/33
    Merc Front row lockouts: 22/33

    #306273
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    And of course so has Massa. Germany 2014 at the first corner with Magnussen.

    #306272
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    Raikkonen has: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/87566

    Not a single seater, but still.

    #303863
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    The fan car wasn’t immediately banned as goes the story. They would have let it compete for the rest of the season before banning it for the year after. But as Cristian says, Mr Ecclestone had bigger goals than just winning GPs at that time. This excerpt is from “Lunch with… Gordon Murray” which can be found on the motorsportmagazine.com.

    Then, in a major deal by Ecclestone, Cosworth power was replaced by Alfa Romeo’s flat-12 for 1976. The Italian engines were heavy and thirsty, and the BT45 never won a race, although in BT45B form in 1977 John Watson had several strong drives, culminating in a near win at Dijon. For 1978 the BT46 included another Murray innovation, surface radiators – thin panels disposed along the sides of the monocoque to reduce frontal area – but the car overheated.

    Gordon’s solution was sensational: the BT46B fan car. This had a conventional radiator mounted horizontally over the engine, cooled by a gearbox-driven fan at the back of the car. The engine bay was shrouded and sealed by flexible skirts running on the track, so that not only was the radiator fed with air but also the car was sucked down onto the ground, giving hitherto undreamed-of levels of downforce. Two BT46Bs appeared at the Swedish GP at Anderstorp in June and, to the consternation of every other team, Niki Lauda ran away with the race.

    “The car was legal as the rules stood then. Article 3.7 said: ‘Any device whose primary function is to have an aerodynamic influence on the performance of the car has to be firmly fixed.’ So I had to ensure that more than half of the air was cooling the radiator. After the race the FIA sealed the car in the truck at Anderstorp and then came to the factory with an anemometer. They got us to run the engine, and measured the flow of air through the fan and through the radiator. They found that 60 per cent of the air was for cooling and 40 per cent was for downforce. Not its primary function, you see. So the FIA wrote to us and said, ‘The car is legal, but it’s using a loophole in the regulations. In next year’s rules we’ll close that loophole, but you can use it for the rest of the season.’

    “But Bernie – I didn’t understand this at the time – had his eyes on bigger things. He was working on getting his foothold in the Formula One Constructors’ Association and launching himself towards what he’s doing now. He reckoned the uproar was in danger of collapsing FOCA completely. So he asked me – he didn’t dictate – he asked me to fit normal radiators to the car. I was very pissed off, but I agreed.”

    #303146
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    @keithcollantine I wasn’t aware of that, so I just did a bit of digging and apparently they ran it in Japan and Australia on Brundle’s car at the end of ’93.

    #303114
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    The 2012 Williams is an interesting case because at some tracks Maldonado was genuinely quick. He qualified in the top six on six occasions, and in the top three on four occasions. However during the races he often had incidents or bad reliability (in Singapore for example) that meant he didn’t score anywhere near as many points as he should have done. And Bruno Senna was just consistently slow during the whole season. We can only wonder what was the true potential of that car if Williams had had a real top class driver.

    #303109
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    @bullfrog The ’84 Monaco Grand Prix is the famous half point race won by Prost, where Ayrton Senna and Stefan Bellof were both catching before the race was red flagged.
    Keke Rosberg won the ’83 Monaco GP, but that was in the Williams FW08C which still had the normally aspirated Cosworth engine. Keke did win in the car you describe at Dallas ’84 though, so it is still a good candidate!

    #303058
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    @fastiesty Interesting link. I see someone mentioned the Benetton B195 there. Now the car won the driver’s and constructor’s championships in ’95 so it was clearly fast, but I have read before that the handling of that car was pretty poor and that it was an extremely difficult car to drive. Obviously not the worst Grand Prix winning car, but maybe the worst title winning car? If you look at onboard clips of Michael Schumacher from that time he is really wrestling the car, and it does not look easy to drive at all. Gerhard Berger famously said the ’95 car was undriveable when he joined Benetton for ’96.

    The Ferrari ‘Cadillac’ that Gilles Villeneuve won two races with in 1981 is definitely a good candidate.

    #303024
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    Just make the video extremely long and include all of them :P

    Surely no underdog collection would be complete without mentioning Gilles Villeneuve winning at Jarama in 1981 in a Ferrari that was more a tractor than a racing car. Although it had a powerful engine.
    For championship underdogs then look no further than Kimi winning the title in ’07 and Prost in ’86.

    Senna in the Toleman was Monaco ’84 @dragoll.

    #302972
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    Anyone seen this before? Apparently a one off livery for Keke Rosberg at Estoril 1986. Not only sacrilege to have a non red and white Marlboro Mclaren but the paint job is also quite ugly.

    The 1993 Ligier is also a shocker.

    #302954
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    Lewis Hamilton was very unlucky in 2012. He ended up only two points ahead of Button in the standings, but that does not represent the quality of his driving that season.
    Vettel was unlucky in 2010 despite winning the title. As fans I guess we were lucky he suffered some bad luck. If his car had been more reliable he would have won the title a lot more comfortably.

    #302869
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    Yes you are right it is radical. I understand plenty enough what you wrote, thanks, and I think it is ludicrous.

    Your points for overtaking scheme is significantly worse than double points. At least that was only for one race, this would change the entire fabric of what motorsport (notice the word ‘sport’ in there) is all about. It would be the gimmick to end all gimmicks. Under your scenario, what would there be to stop teams with a demonstrably faster car deliberately qualifying further back on purpose? If you get points for overtaking, what would stop that from happening? It would be a complete farce.

    You mentioned above that you need a race with as much action as Hungary to not get bored… Somehow, I don’t think you’re watching the right sport. Dragoll’s comment was perfect. For me it’s enough to watch the best cars in the world driven by the best drivers in the world and see who is fastest. I don’t need a classic race every other weekend to keep me entertained. That is why I would like to see the cars being made more difficult to drive, then we would really see who is the best and at the same time you’d see more mistakes (which is what you want) without resorting to a ridiculous gimmick.

    The first car over the finish line wins. If someone drives off into the distance from lap one then that’s fair enough by me, they have the best package and did the best job. Excellence should be rewarded, and it should be hard to overtake in Formula One. That is why I dislike DRS, and it’s why I find artificial, overly complicated gimmicks such as this pie in the sky idea that you have ridiculous.

    #302861
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    Points for overtaking? Is this some kind of wind-up?

    All I can say is I am glad that the powers that be haven’t suggested anything quite that silly just yet (although double points wasn’t a million miles away.)

    #301997
    safeeuropeanhome
    Participant

    The first partnership between Williams and Renault. I also liked Williams-BMW. And Jordan-Mugen Honda.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 175 total)