CarlosFerreira wrote:mario wrote:But on a serious note, does he really believe that he can beat both the Lotus and Virgin Racing entries, bearing in mind that both of the other entries have proven that their cars work and have both got upgrades in the pipeline (both are bringing new bits to Bahrein, and Lotus is currently working on its Barcelona package for the European leg of the world championship)? Somehow, I doubt that very much - where's the publiciocrap meter when you need it?
Went through the roof, that's why you can't find it... I must say I take everythong Kolles with a pinch of salt. He always seemed to be involved in all the problems in Midland/Spyker - although the fact there was no money around to help things along probably made them no favours. And back then he had a penchant for sweeping confident statements. Anyway, take my own opinion of Kolles with a pinch of salt as well, the avatar should explain why.
Like the car, as I like the Virgin.
Looks fast while stopped, which is nice. Funny how they both look shorter than the McLaren, for instance. I know (have read) that the Williams this year has a shorter wheelbase because the team developed a short-than-everyone-else gearbox; maybe the XTrak that comes attached to the Cosworth engine is shorter as well? And maybe that's why these cars have a different nose?
Also, interesting to see how the CFD "computer says no" Virgin looks to similar to at least another car on the grid.
The publiciocrap gets even worse - so bad, it almost becomes good:
http://en.espnf1.com/campos/motorsport/story/10231.htmlThis quote is the one which I am most amused by:
Bruno Senna wrote:"Lotus and Virgin were in Barcelona just a good second faster than the GP2 cars, of which Dallara has indeed all the data," he wrote in his column for Motorsport Magazin. "And we should be faster according to their calculations right away, at least two seconds faster than the GP2 cars."
How on earth can you make a reasonably valid judgement based on comparing your car - which has not actually been tested - against your rivals by comparing how fast they are against a completely different racing car? Especially since you have no idea what the fuel loads of the other teams actually was.
If the previous statement sent it through the roof, this one has sent it halfway into orbit.
Now, I don't want to disparage the capabilities of Dallara - for what it is worth, I accept that they are highly respected in the motorsport industry - but this does seem to be asking a bit much from them.
It is true that the Mclaren is quite long, although that is probably slightly exaggerated by the fact that the recent Mclaren's (the MP4-22, 23 and 24) have had relatively short wheelbases compared to most, and so the lengthening will be most dramatic. As for thw Williams, I am a little surprised about the shorter gearbox, since the FIA does limit how thin the gears can be, and the overall length of the casing, to prevent excessive spending in this area.
From the technical regulations:
9.6.3 No forward gear ratio pair may be :
- less than 12mm wide when measured across the gear tooth at the root diameter or any point 1mm above or below the root diameter. Above this area each side of the gear teeth may be chamfered by a maximum of 10?. In addition, a chamfer or radius not exceeding 2.0mm may be applied to the sides and the tip of the teeth ;
- less than 85mm between centres ;
- less than 600g in weight (excluding any integral shaft or collar). If an integral shaft or collar is to be excluded the mass of this may be shown by calculation assuming the gear to be 12mm wide and the shaft geometry to be the same as that where slide on gears are used.
(Available here
http://www.fia.com/EN-GB/SPORT/REGULATI ... nship.aspx )
I accept that perhaps they have been able to make some packaging changes, but I am wondering how much shorter they could have made the car. More likely is that they have modified some of the ancillaries, such as the lubrication system, the removal of the fuel flap opener and so on, in order to save on space - but either way, they have done a good job.