Ponderbox

[dr-baker]

Formulae 1 and 2 were originally called Formulae A and B.

Formula 3 was originally called Formula 500 before being renamed Formula C and then Formula 3.

Formula 4 was always Formula 4, but could reasonably have been called Formula D if it was around in the late forties.

Can we start saying Formula 5 instead of Formula E now? I certainly will.

But FE does not fit into part of the chain of series that drivers pass through on the way to F1.

Oh wait. Took me a minute...

[Francis23]

Am I the only one who noticed just how much the front of Palmer's Renault crumpled?

Quite dangerous when you consider the crash wasn't high speed

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

Am I the only one who noticed just how much the front of Palmer's Renault crumpled?

Quite dangerous when you consider the crash wasn't high speed

Now that you mention it, it does look like it penetrated into the bulkhead or safety cell or whatever it's called. It must have come pretty close to his feet, any further and he could have been dealing with broken bones. I hope it isn't a sign of weakness of the chassis (which had to pass the crash test). Although, perhaps it was meant to crumple that far and no farther, I don't know. Perhaps someone with more technical knowledge of the cars can chime in.

[Bobby Doorknobs]

I think we need to bear in mind that Palmer did suffer two impacts: the first one when he hit the barrier on the main straight dislodged the nose, while the second one at Sainte Devote was what took it off altogether.

[Peteroli34]

Could Manor beat Sauber to 10th in the constructors?

[Bleu]

Could Manor beat Sauber to 10th in the constructors?

For sure. Those two teams are in a situation where one lucky race can decide it.

[Nessafox]

Could Manor beat Sauber to 10th in the constructors?

For sure. Those two teams are in a situation where one lucky race can decide it.

In a lucky race, they could still even beat Renault if Renault keeps on having bad luck/crashes/jolyon Palmer.

[Peteroli34]

Forgetting a lucky race what about on pace alone or are Sauber just a little bit too far ahead.

[Nessafox]

Forgetting a lucky race what about on pace alone or are Sauber just a little bit too far ahead.

On the circuits with long straights, it looks like the Manor has the upper hand qua pace, but on slow and medium tracks, the Sauber is defenitely better.
Altough Saubers financial situation is worse than Manors, i doubt Manor will be able to bring updates that are enough of a leap forward to bring Haryanto in a position to battle the Saubers, so they'll have to bet on Wehrlein in maybe only 3 races this season. So the odds are against Manor.

[Aguaman]

I mean let's be serious.

[Peteroli34]

With the Le Mans 24 Hour race got me thinking would a Formula One car as is complete a 24 Hour race.

[WeirdKerr]

With the Le Mans 24 Hour race got me thinking would a Formula One car as is complete a 24 Hour race.

they would need to fit headlights or run the race at Abu Dhabi or north of the artic circle in Midsummer also driver swaps mid race..... but could be interesting....

[dr-baker]

With the Le Mans 24 Hour race got me thinking would a Formula One car as is complete a 24 Hour race.

they would need to fit headlights or run the race at Abu Dhabi or north of the artic circle in Midsummer also driver swaps mid race..... but could be interesting....

How many cars per entry would be needed to run an FE race for 24 hours, I wonder? At least driver changes would be easier, you could have the next driver in the other car ready to go, before the other driver enters the pits.

[Peteroli34]

With the Le Mans 24 Hour race got me thinking would a Formula One car as is complete a 24 Hour race.

they would need to fit headlights or run the race at Abu Dhabi or north of the artic circle in Midsummer also driver swaps mid race..... but could be interesting....

Ignore that fact they dont have lights i mean physically would it be able to last a full 24 hour race. You could have a F1 endurance race normal WEC races are 6 hours, how about a Six hour F1 Race. Driver swaps and all but would/could it work.

[Ataxia]

With the Le Mans 24 Hour race got me thinking would a Formula One car as is complete a 24 Hour race.

they would need to fit headlights or run the race at Abu Dhabi or north of the artic circle in Midsummer also driver swaps mid race..... but could be interesting....

Ignore that fact they dont have lights i mean physically would it be able to last a full 24 hour race. You could have a F1 endurance race normal WEC races are 6 hours, how about a Six hour F1 Race. Driver swaps and all but would/could it work.

I wouldn't expect so; there'd be parts within the car that are designed on the very limit for a two-hour race, and it would be a miracle for them to undergo the stresses that the car experiences for twelve times longer than they're designed for. It *might* be possible, but some components would have to be redesigned, especially those within the engine which experience a huge amount of load during a race.

[CoopsII]

I mean let's be serious.

He is a good looking lad,no question, is that what you're telling us?

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

they would need to fit headlights or run the race at Abu Dhabi or north of the artic circle in Midsummer also driver swaps mid race..... but could be interesting....

Ignore that fact they dont have lights i mean physically would it be able to last a full 24 hour race. You could have a F1 endurance race normal WEC races are 6 hours, how about a Six hour F1 Race. Driver swaps and all but would/could it work.

I wouldn't expect so; there'd be parts within the car that are designed on the very limit for a two-hour race, and it would be a miracle for them to undergo the stresses that the car experiences for twelve times longer than they're designed for. It *might* be possible, but some components would have to be redesigned, especially those within the engine which experience a huge amount of load during a race.

You're right, the cars are engineered to last not much longer than a race distance according to Steve Matchett. I don't know how many miles get put on a chassis/tub in an F1 season but that's probably the only part that would have a chance to last 24 hours, maybe some body work. Certainly engines and gearboxes wouldn't even come close.

[tommykl]

Ignore that fact they dont have lights i mean physically would it be able to last a full 24 hour race. You could have a F1 endurance race normal WEC races are 6 hours, how about a Six hour F1 Race. Driver swaps and all but would/could it work.

I wouldn't expect so; there'd be parts within the car that are designed on the very limit for a two-hour race, and it would be a miracle for them to undergo the stresses that the car experiences for twelve times longer than they're designed for. It *might* be possible, but some components would have to be redesigned, especially those within the engine which experience a huge amount of load during a race.

You're right, the cars are engineered to last not much longer than a race distance according to Steve Matchett. I don't know how many miles get put on a chassis/tub in an F1 season but that's probably the only part that would have a chance to last 24 hours, maybe some body work. Certainly engines and gearboxes wouldn't even come close.

I can't say I know this from hands-on experience, but it's all about trade-off. Every team has a budget, after all. If a team had the money to build a new tub every race that would be faster than it is over a few races, then they probably would. As it turns out, though, building a new tub takes time and is very expensive.

The things that are designed to barely last a race will be the relatively cheaper bits. The bits you can afford to replace every two weeks. The bits where you can shed a significant amount of weight while staying in the rules, diminishing the life span as a result.

In short, F1 cars and endurance cars are built with different philosophies in mind. If you were to take the WEC technical rulebook as is, but made the races the length of a Grand Prix, those cars would be much faster, and would last about as long as the F1 cars.

[Izzyeviel]

I used to dislike Seb, but I see stuff like this, and i've grown to like him whilst he's been at Ferrari. What a difference a change of scenario makes.

https://youtu.be/4g1xEIXDwwI

[Aguaman]

I used to dislike Seb, but I see stuff like this, and i've grown to like him whilst he's been at Ferrari. What a difference a change of scenario makes.

https://youtu.be/4g1xEIXDwwI

Getting away from Red Bull politics does wonders. Also I feel like Ferrari is Seb's team but in RB it was Marko's team. If that makes sense.

[Izzyeviel]

Today I discovered Fernando Alonso only has one pectoral muscle. Which other F1 drivers past & present have bits and pieces missing from their bodies?

[Nessafox]

Today I discovered Fernando Alonso only has one pectoral muscle. Which other F1 drivers past & present have bits and pieces missing from their bodies?

I thought Beltoise had some problems with his arm, but i'm not sure if there was actually something missing.

And well yeah... the paralympic hero Zanardi...

[Bobby Doorknobs]

Today I discovered Fernando Alonso only has one pectoral muscle. Which other F1 drivers past & present have bits and pieces missing from their bodies?

I thought Beltoise had some problems with his arm, but i'm not sure if there was actually something missing.

Yeah, Beltoise suffered restricted movement in his arm after breaking it in the 12 Hours of Reims in 1963. Didn't affect his chances of going on to F1 though (if only we could say the same of Kubica ).

Alan Stacey competed with an artificial leg and had to get creative to pass medical examinations for races. Mike Hawthorn also had kidney problems and even lost one, though as a plus this meant he was medically unfit for National Service (a big talking point when he became famous at Ferrari was his so-called "evasion" of conscription), so he could keep racing, though he hadn't long to live, 1959 road accident or not.

And then there were other drivers who had their careers ended by loss of key body parts: Zanardi, as previously mentioned, Helmut Marko lost his eye, Sandro Nannini lost part of his arm...

[girry]

Not to forget Archie Scott Brown.

[AndreaModa]

Didn't Stephen South have part of a leg amputated?

[tommykl]

Didn't Stephen South have part of a leg amputated?

He did, but it was that accident that ended his career.

That said, I believe I read somewhere (though I may be wrong), that F3000 driver Dino Morelli couldn't perceive depth at all.

From there comes the question: do we know of any F1 drivers who are/were colour blind?

[Aguaman]

Didn't Stephen South have part of a leg amputated?

He did, but it was that accident that ended his career.

That said, I believe I read somewhere (though I may be wrong), that F3000 driver Dino Morelli couldn't perceive depth at all.

From there comes the question: do we know of any F1 drivers who are/were colour blind?

To be honest other than Chris Rogers (cricketer), I don't know any athletes that were colour blind at all.

[AdrianBelmonte_]

Rhodesian driver John Love had the same problem as Beltoise

[mario]

Didn't Stephen South have part of a leg amputated?

He did, but it was that accident that ended his career.

That said, I believe I read somewhere (though I may be wrong), that F3000 driver Dino Morelli couldn't perceive depth at all.

From there comes the question: do we know of any F1 drivers who are/were colour blind?

To be honest other than Chris Rogers (cricketer), I don't know any athletes that were colour blind at all.

Although his particular sport is not considered a form of athletics, the snooker player Peter Ebdon is colour blind. You would have thought that to be a major handicap in a sport where the player would need to be able to clearly distinguish between the different colours, but it didn't stop him becoming a world champion.

[Peteroli34]

Didn't Stephen South have part of a leg amputated?

He did, but it was that accident that ended his career.

That said, I believe I read somewhere (though I may be wrong), that F3000 driver Dino Morelli couldn't perceive depth at all.

From there comes the question: do we know of any F1 drivers who are/were colour blind?

While not an F1 Driver Paul Newman was colourblind couldn't be a navy pilot because of it but had a racing career

[MorbidelliObese]

What were your misconceptions about Formula One when you started following this sport?

Returning to this question, a distant memory has come back to me of my brother telling me about F3000, and me thinking there were 2,998 other racing formulae between F1 and F3000 in existence.

Yeah, I was about four or five at the time...

Glad I'm not the only one! I remember watching a British F3 race on TV once and afterwards they were interviewing the winner (it was either Kelvin Burt or Oliver Gavin, can't remember exactly which), talking about how their aim was to move to F3000 the following year and I remember thinking "bloody hell that's a bit of a step down!"

EDIT: And along similar lines I remember thinking that future reject Philippe Adams was going to be one to watch for the future, because around the same time I remember him being the front runner in British F2, which was the only series I was aware of with the "F2" name so I thought it must be quite important. Yeah I was quite young

[Rob Dylan]

At the halfway part of the season, I had a look at the season results so far, and I saw a few interesting things.

- Kvyat has only scored 2 points since that podium back in China.
- If Perez keeps up these consistent points scoring positions, he's threatening the 'best of the rest' 7th position in the standings this year ahead of the Williams drivers.
- If Vettel keeps up these poor race weekends, he's in serious danger of dropping to 6th in the standings, and judging by the ever-quickening pace of the Red Bulls, this could be imminent.
- For some reason it feels so long ago that Ricciardo was on pole at Monaco. I'd genuinely forgotten that he was on pole then, because we have barely seen him since.
- McLaren are getting more good results and more finishes, but they're just as frustratingly inconsistent as they were in producing results as last year.
- Grosjean has scored all of Haas' points this year.
- After Pascal's point, Renault must be thanking their lucky stars that Magnussen got those 6 points back in Russia.

[good_Ralf]

- McLaren are getting more good results and more finishes, but they're just as frustratingly inconsistent as they were in producing results as last year.

At least they've already outscored their 2015 tally.

[Ciaran]

I wonder what might have been had Mazda entered F1 with a rotary engine some time in the 80s (either with a turbo twin-rotary engine during the turbo era, or a NA triple/quadruple-rotary engine from 1989 onwards). Wiki says that the 787B's engine had the potential for 900hp, but it was detuned for endurance, and on top of that it had relatively good fuel economy. Granted, had this happened it would have been banned by the next season.

Sticking with a Japanese theme, I wonder why the Japanese Automobile Federation never tried to emulate the Aurora F1 series. They had their own endurance championship (the All-Japan Sports Prototype Championship) and their own F2 (later F3000, later still Super Formula) series, so why not?

[solarcold]

So, I have stumbled upon this web service txti.es and I liked it SO much that I decided to start my small project for fun with it. I will share some exclusive and undoubtedly true F1 news there and see how it goes.
(Aside from that, check out the entire platform: it lets you make really beautiful, simple and clutterless webpages).

My plan is to make it hopelessly rejectful in both looks and content!
http://txti.es/f1

UPDATE: twitter account added https://twitter.com/f1newspepper

[AndreaModa]

I wonder what might have been had Mazda entered F1 with a rotary engine some time in the 80s (either with a turbo twin-rotary engine during the turbo era, or a NA triple/quadruple-rotary engine from 1989 onwards). Wiki says that the 787B's engine had the potential for 900hp, but it was detuned for endurance, and on top of that it had relatively good fuel economy. Granted, had this happened it would have been banned by the next season.

Sticking with a Japanese theme, I wonder why the Japanese Automobile Federation never tried to emulate the Aurora F1 series. They had their own endurance championship (the All-Japan Sports Prototype Championship) and their own F2 (later F3000, later still Super Formula) series, so why not?

Mazda would have been really cool. Their Group C cars are some of my all-time favourite racing cars in general.

My guess is the reason Japan didn't have their own F1 series was primarily because at the time of the British series, there was very little Japanese involvement. By the time they really got going in terms of involvement in the late 1980s, the cars were too complex and cost too much. In addition, you'd also have to consider that most F1 cars ended up back in Britain as most of the teams were here, so it was relatively straightforward to pick up second-hand chassis if you wanted.

[Bobby Doorknobs]

I wonder what might have been had Mazda entered F1 with a rotary engine some time in the 80s (either with a turbo twin-rotary engine during the turbo era, or a NA triple/quadruple-rotary engine from 1989 onwards). Wiki says that the 787B's engine had the potential for 900hp, but it was detuned for endurance, and on top of that it had relatively good fuel economy. Granted, had this happened it would have been banned by the next season.

I may be gravely mistaken, but I think rotaries were banned from F1 by the time the Japanese motor industry became a global competitor in the 1970s, so there would not have been much incentive for Mazda to get involved with one of their famed designs. Also, turbocharger + rotary engine = serious reliability issues

EDIT: Okay, a bit later than I thought - 1982 as part of the Concorde Agreement.

[Ciaran]

Sticking with a Japanese theme, I wonder why the Japanese Automobile Federation never tried to emulate the Aurora F1 series. They had their own endurance championship (the All-Japan Sports Prototype Championship) and their own F2 (later F3000, later still Super Formula) series, so why not?

My guess is the reason Japan didn't have their own F1 series was primarily because at the time of the British series, there was very little Japanese involvement. By the time they really got going in terms of involvement in the late 1980s, the cars were too complex and cost too much. In addition, you'd also have to consider that most F1 cars ended up back in Britain as most of the teams were here, so it was relatively straightforward to pick up second-hand chassis if you wanted.

I suppose you have a point regarding the ever-increasing complexity of F1 cars during the 80s there - for starters, the Aurora F1 series didn't have to worry about turbocharged cars. However, Kojima Engineering were still going into the 1980s (albeit in F2), so I wouldn't have put it past them to supply cars for such a series. Couple that with the economic boom Japan was going through at the time, I'd say such a series would flourish until that boom becomes a bust around 1990.

[mario]

I wonder what might have been had Mazda entered F1 with a rotary engine some time in the 80s (either with a turbo twin-rotary engine during the turbo era, or a NA triple/quadruple-rotary engine from 1989 onwards). Wiki says that the 787B's engine had the potential for 900hp, but it was detuned for endurance, and on top of that it had relatively good fuel economy. Granted, had this happened it would have been banned by the next season.

Sticking with a Japanese theme, I wonder why the Japanese Automobile Federation never tried to emulate the Aurora F1 series. They had their own endurance championship (the All-Japan Sports Prototype Championship) and their own F2 (later F3000, later still Super Formula) series, so why not?

As Simtek notes, as rotary engines were banned back in 1982, Mazda could only have entered a rotary engine right at the beginning of the 1980's.

At that time, I don't think that they had yet developed a turbocharged rotary engine, although they were using the 13B rotary engine in sportscar racing for the RX-7. However, it should be noted that was, I believe, a normally aspirated engine and also capped at just 1.3L - that therefore meant that the power output was substantially lower than that of the Cosworth DFV, let alone the early turbocharged engines that were becoming more prevalent at the time.

[johnston21]

Can't we just be friends?

http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/171 ... co-rosberg