F1 Fanatic round-up: 20/5/2010

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Absolutely no nudity in today’s round-up. Probably…

Links

Peter Sauber on saving his team (Autosport, subscription required)

“Roughly speaking, our current budget is the same as in 2005. In those days we had Ferrari engines [as, ironically, the team does now], and in Petronas we had an engine sponsor. If I take the money paid to Ferrari [by Petronas] for engines, and add that to our then-budget, then we were about where we are today – except we now pay for engines directly.”

Pick you classic Grand Prix – race seven (BBC)

A pity they couldn’t include either of the two earlier races they wanted to, but a good selection here as usual. My choice is San Marino ’81.

Comment of the day

Several commenters were unimpressed with Toyota’s explanation for why they weren’t coming back to F1. As Byron R put it…

A complete cop out. In the USA Toyota has entered into every other form of motorsport NASCAR to NHRA. I have never seen a 500 cubic inch nitro-breathing Toyota or a 350 V8 carburated Toyota engine.

Simply they couldn’t win and never would. Hard to be a front runner when they are always borrowing someone else’s design. I’m sure a 5,000 bhp top fuel engine is relevant to any road car…
Byron R

Happy birthday!

Hens love roosters, geese love ganders. Everyone else loves today’s birthday boy Ned Flanders!

On this day in F1

The Dijon-Prenois circuit held its final F1 race today in 1984.

This short, undulating French track produced a lap time of less than 59 seconds when it was first used in 1974. A slightly longer version was introduced but by the time of the last race there the turbo F1 cars were lapping it in just over a minute.

Dijon is, of course, best remembered for the epic battle between Gilles Villeneuve and Rene Arnoux in 1979. If there’s anyone left who hasn’t seen this before, you’re in for a treat:

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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58 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 20/5/2010”

  1. Happy birthday Ned

  2. Haven’t seen this mentioned elsewhere, but Alain Prost will be taking part in the Race of Champions (a little track racing comp, for those who don’t know) in November (along with the likes of Vettel and Schumacher)

    http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/formula-1-news/235137/prost-to-make-race-of-champions-debut/

    And also, happy birthday to Ned :D

  3. Ned Flanders
    20th May 2010, 0:24

    Hehe I get a birthday song! And for anyone who doesn’t know what Keith’s on about try this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTCTrlREBeU&feature=related

    1. I used to love this song, but i’d rather live in a ranch than still listen to this:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEcQLxYb_5g&feature=related

      1. look’s like somebody’s the teacher’s pet… happy bday!

    2. Happy Birthday. Love that song, but my personal favorite jingle has always been Cletus’ theme. “Some folk’l never lose a toe, but then again some folk’l. Like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel.”

    3. Happy birthday neighbourino

    4. Sush Meerkat
      20th May 2010, 8:25

      Happy Birthday Ned! have a great one fella.

      Thank goodness you put that youtube video up because I almost wished “Geese loves Ganders” a happy birthday.

    5. Happy Birthday Ned! Haha cool you get rhyme! Enjoy your day :)

    6. Happy Birthday Neddy ole’ boy!!Hope you have a great day!

  4. Ned Flanders
    20th May 2010, 0:24

    Back to F1… That Villeneuve vs Arnoux battle was very good, but I still maintain that Massa vs Kubica at Fuji 2007 was the best F1 battle of all time (that I’ve seen at least). How they didn’t collide at any point is beyond me. Incredible stuff

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qjQiOJpHBM

    1. That is always worth another watch! Great stuff. I know its no Suzuka but we had a good couple races at Fuji

    2. How come I don’t remember that? Fantastic.

      1. I don’t think Kubica vs Massa was anywhere near as good, both of them regularly used the run off as a cop out. Still impressive under the conditions though!

        1. Ned Flanders
          20th May 2010, 10:53

          I suppose so, but I still find it incredible to watch

        2. don’t think it was always a cop out they had no where else to go on 3 ocasions great battle one of my favorits.

          1. Massa vs Kubica was just amazing. Ok, Villeneuve vs Arnoux was also great, but not as great as Massa vs Kubica in my opinion.

          2. When Massa and Kubica leave the track though, it’s because they know that they’ll still be able to keep in touch with each other by doing so. There are a couple of occasions where either driver could simply have chosen to back off a bit and stay on the track properly. Massa gains an enormous advantage by using the run off on the final corner and I think it makes the validity of the battle a bit iffy. During the Villeneuve Arnoux battle, they both go off and lose time but are still able to recover and mount a challenge again fairly quickly, which I think is the way it should be.

    3. What’s most amazing about that is Massa got away without penalties. He simply clobbers Kubica off track 4 or 5 times.

      Contact is typical of a Massa overtake though. Even when he was massively faster than Kubica. He was going 3 seconds a lap faster a just before their battle.

      I forgot how Massa ended up behind Kubica. Did he spin off? Massa actually had a great race coming from the back of the field after a first lap incident. He lost some places with his last pitstop, but then he suddenly he was back in the midfield.

      1. Ferrari had fitted inters but weren’t allowed to so they had to pit for full wets behind the safety car. Felipe also had a drive trough penalty after overtaking Heidfeld behind the safety car before the pitstop as he had spun and lost a position.

        1. Forgot to write, the race started behind the safety car. By the way Kubica pushes Massa of the track in the last corner, so why not punish him as well? Because it would only be stupid. (Pushing Glock to the grass in Monza is apparently fair…)

          1. When a driver comes from BEHIND and rams into another driver is different from the LEAD driver keeping the racing line yes.

  5. Stupid sexy Flanders! Happy Birthday!

  6. Happy Birthday Ned!

  7. what an absoulutely brilliant piece of F1 history, that video is great to watch.

    happy bday Ned!

    can someone explain to me how turbo charged engines are relevant to modern road cars?

    1. As governments all over the world are sponsoring fuel efficient “green” cars, people buy more and more of these because there cheap. And a small engine uses less fuel than a big one. But a small engine also has less power, so they slap on a turbo to move the (way to) heavy cars of today. For example Volkswagen has a lot of turbo charged engines in its line up.

    2. The next generation of average family hatchbacks will have downsized turbo engines, eg a 1.2 turbo putting out the same power as the 1.6 it replaces, but more efficiently. For Mondeo-size cars, a 1.6 turbo may well become the norm, and this is the format WRC engines are moving towards. So there is some appeal in harmonising the formats.

    3. Smaller displacement, so less fuel usage. More torque at lower RPMs, so less fuel usage again. Don’t have to rev it to high RPMs to make the drive fun. Many other things.

      1. It’s a bit complicated and risks pedantry, but smaller displacement turbo engines only use less fuel at low throttle openings (and when cruising at a steady speed). When the turbo gets going, they burn the same amount of fuel as a larger engine, because the air:fuel mix must stay (largely) the same ratio.

        If the turbocharger is pushing twice the amount of air into the cylinder as “usual”, you need twice as much fuel.
        Given that F1 engines are largely driven at wide-open throttle or no throttle, I personally think going to turbocharged engines on environmental grounds is a bit dubious. But if it makes them happy…

        1. [pedantry]

          Although it is true that the air-fuel ratio is the same in a turbo engine as a normally-aspirated one (as close to stoichiometric as possible), the turbo engine will create more power from that mixture (because of higher cylinder pressure), hence the improved efficiency. Turbo engines have better volumetric efficiency than normally aspirated ones because they recycle heat energy from the exhaust that would otherwise be wasted.

          [/pedantry]

  8. That video, all I can say is, WOW

  9. Happy birthday Ned, planning a party to celebrate?

    The video is a nice present, how would we love to see battles like that on track more often.

    1. Ned Flanders
      20th May 2010, 10:14

      Thanks! I suppose I’ll just go out and drink some alcohol (but hopefully not too much!)

  10. Happy birthday Ned!

    A friend of mine from Oviedo send to you his best wishes also.

    1. Ned Flanders
      20th May 2010, 10:16

      Thank you… and your friend too! Although if he’s from Ovideo he’s probably an Alonso fan, which is a no- no with me!

  11. The Toyota point pulled from the comments is valid, Toyota do race in all sorts of series in the States with varying degrees of success. However Toyota never built a Top Fuel engine, these are rarely if ever built by traditional automotive companies, not least because they are a single cam pushrod engine based on a 1950’s Chrysler. All Toyota did was s[plash their cash on carbon fibre bodies that barely had a passing resemblance to the road going counterpart.

    1. True. The manufacturers rarely have anything to do at all with the chassis and engine. It’s all about promoting the outer body image, even if most of it is merely done with decals.

  12. East Londoner
    20th May 2010, 8:20

    That is the greatest battle of position ever in F1! How they did not take each other off is a mistery!

  13. East Londoner
    20th May 2010, 8:22

    That is the greatest battle of position ever in F1! How they did not take each other off is a mistery! That was actually the race were a turbo car won for the first time, but is overlooked because of theclassic battle for 2nd.

  14. Happy birthday Ned!

    A great little tidbit to add to the Villeneuve-Arnoux battle is that after the race they got hold of the TV footage and sat in a tent in the paddock with a load of reporters watching it over and over and having a laugh and a joke about it!

  15. Happy birthday, Ned. Hope it’s an enjoyable one!

    It’s really too bad a position battle like that couldn’t happen with today’s cars. They’re just too fragile.
    Even so, if it could happen, the media would be going absolutely ******* over it, worldwide, and probably for months.

  16. happy birthday ned!

  17. Auguri Ned, but it being your bithday must of confused you. How can you say the Massa battle was better than this.

    1. Ned Flanders
      20th May 2010, 10:26

      It’s amazing! They swapped position 8 times in half a lap, and there were 4 occasions where they were just millimetres apart- yet they didn’t collide. Brilliant driving from the pair of them

      The annoying thing for me though is that as I watched this race on a recording, and it cut out half way through the final lap (because the race passed the 2 hour limit), I never actually got to see this exciting moment ‘live’. Very annoying…

  18. Love the classic races. I was actually watching some really REALLY old stop motion footage of Monaco on Youtube from around the 1930’s. It inspired me to make this video of this years race :P

    http://wtf1video.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/silent-film-monaco-2010-highlights/

    1. Haha! I love it! :D

    2. Wonderful! Well done you.

  19. Nathan Bradley
    20th May 2010, 11:02

    Happy Birthday Ned! :)

  20. “as, ironically, the team does now”

    amazes me how often even professional journalists confuse irony with coincidence.

  21. Gotta say i respect toyota’s points:
    -America is one of its biggest markets, i believe at one point recently(before throttle-gate) the Toyota Camry was the best selling car in the US
    -competiting in every US motor sport for years would still be less than a seaon on F1, its simply better value
    -F1 is more irrelevant to the road technology due to complete lack of relevance between an F1 car and a road car, whereas as mentioned above even if only a mildly related silhouette or stickers on a stock body, a saloon/drag/stock car is more like a toyota Camry
    -F1 engine development is just as restricted as NASCAR and the like, and both have reached relative plateaus in what is achieved with comparable BMEP values and mean piston speeds (Nascars actually faster @27ms vs F1s 24-25ms) BUT MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE!

    Arguably there was some technology transfer from the F1 engine department to the “F” department for the LFA and lesser so the ISF, but realistically they could’ve done that without running an F1 engine department for 8 years.

    Still a shame though, i forgot how cool the TF109 looked. I believe Toyota along with Ferrari and others should be making cars to 2010 ACO LMP1 rules or adapting the LFA/599/612 to GT1 and owning the GT world championship, toyota have a great team @ cologne that have built a car practically capable of wining le mans, the Toyota GT-one (99-01 i believe) and for a fraction of the cost of an F1 season they could run a 3+ year programmme leading to an LMS/ALMS title and/or Le mans win with technologies a lot more relevant to a road car.

    1. THIS!

      That is where I really see a correlation between Race cars and Road Cars. The GT/Le Mans series. Toyota with their LFA would make a great GT class car. I am also hoping for them to get back into the JGTC witht the LFA or next-gen Supra.

  22. Best “racing” clip is of Patrese in a Honda Civic Type-R with his wife as the passenger:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIhGJyLR6TI

    Skip to 2 minutes into the clip for her to really start enjoying the ride :)

  23. on a different note…. i work as a receptionist at coca cola uk headquarters, and to people from the mclaren team came in and had a meeting with the uk CEO…. maybe a future sponsership deal?

    1. soz i meant two :S

    2. Interesting… I see Coca-Cola have dropped their title sponsorship of the Football League:

      http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/1004828/Coca-Cola-replaces-Football-League-title-sponsorship-new-deals/

  24. Some news on the forum front: finally managed to get a test installation working on the new server. Next step is to see if we can get all the data across from the old forum onto the new one. If that works then we should be sorted! Will keep you updated on the progress.

    1. Ned Flanders
      20th May 2010, 16:59

      Nice one! Life just hasn’t been the same since the forum went down…

      1. Oh man. IF this site had a forum.. My work productivity would drop below 10% for sure.

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