Formula One

[OFSO]

Formula One has had its day. Killed by averice and big business. I am proud to say I have watched every race for years, but will not miss it.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Formula One has had its day. Killed by averice and big business. I am proud to say I have watched every race for years, but will not miss it.

+1

[Capetonian]

I watched religiously until about 15 years ago, now if it were going on outside my window I probably wouldn't watch.

[TheGreenGoblin]

I have just watched those two Fangio clips again and one of Jim Clark and ask you to watch the economy of style...

The two best drivers of all time in my befuddled mind.

I admire Fangio more because he wasn't killed, loved women as he loved cars and died bored like the rest of us.



Sorry I meant this Jim Clark...

[TheGreenGoblin]

[G-CPTN]

Williams up for sale.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Williams up for sale.

Not surprising and I am worried that the delectable (married sadly) Claire Williams will be canned.

Claire Williams.JPG (25.1 KiB) Viewed 288 times

[TheGreenGoblin]

A very interesting interview with a genuinely "nice" South African, Godon Murray.

[tango15]

I would be sorry to see Williams go, as such. Frank was ever curmudgeonly, but perhaps he had his reasons. Of all the staff of the racing teams, I found them the most pleasant to deal with. The fragrant Clare is a very pleasant and intelligent lady.

[Capetonian]

Quite a good article in today's Telegraph about the farce that F1 has become before it was defiled by tossers with earrings and cockney accents.

From straw bales to driver punch-ups: 25 sights you no longer see in Formula 1

When was the last time you saw a driver in a moustache losing control of a circular steering wheel and crashing into bales of straw?

This is the third part in our series on sports nostalgia. Click here to read about 25 sights you no longer see in cricket and 25 from rugby union. Let us know which features of Formula 1 you miss most by leaving a comment below

The Formula One World Championship marks its 70th anniversary this year and it has been a story of evolution ever since that first race.

Plenty of developments have been welcome - particularly those that saved countless lives over the decades. There have been marvelous technical innovations from the sharpest minds the sport has produced. Some changes have resulted in a loss of mystique and romanticism around the sport while others leave you wondering why they were ever there in the first place.

1. Cars that look like cigarette packets
We can all agree that the days of tobacco promotion in F1 being gone is a good thing for public health. But you cannot deny that it gave us some excellent liveries over time: the JPS Lotuses, the Marlboro McLarens and even the Rothmans Williams.
French Grand Prix...Ayrton Senna drives the McLaren Honda MP4/5 during the French Grand Prix on 9th July 1989 at the Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet, France

2. Manual gear changes
It is nearly 30 years since semi-automatic paddle shift became the norm. A great system for drivers but something was lost when the gear stick disappeared. Watching a car being threaded through the barriers at Monaco by a driver with one hand on the wheel, another on the gearstick was one of the sport’s finest sights.

3. Insanely long tracks
Spa-Francorchamps is mightily long by current standards at 4.352 miles but it is a far cry from the near nine-mile long beast they raced on until 1978. And there is no forgetting the 25km, 160 turns of the Nurburgring Nordschleife – at least not for anyone who has driven on it.

4. Drivers giving each other lifts
A staple of classic F1 imagery. Driver A breaks down on track towards the end of the Grand Prix, Driver B stops and gets his mate to hop on, acting as a free taxi back to the pit lane. This last happened in 2017 but is much lesser spotted these days.

5. Straw bales and oil drums for barriers
A development that few will call for the return of. What do we need to save a metal motor vehicle travelling at 150mph from certain tragedy should the worst happen? Straw, of course.

6. Refuelling foul-ups
The Ferrari pit crew fails to get the fuel hose of the car of Ferrari Formula One driver Felipe Massa of Brazil as he speeds away after a service during a pit stop during the Singapore Formula One Grand Prix on the Marina Bay City Circuit in Singapore, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2008. The Singapore Grand Prix is the first ever night Formula One race

When in-race refueling was banned in 2010, we lost a big chunk of jeopardy from grands prix. The hose being stuck or worse – like Felipe Massa driving away with his still attached in Singapore – would bring pure panic in the pitlane. It is much safer now without the dramatic infernos — but much less exciting.

7. Driver punch-ups
Senna and Irvine, Mansell on Senna, Piquet and Salazar. As far as fisticuffs go, the genuine fight has disappeared from F1. Max Verstappen calling Esteban Ocon a p---- and giving him a little shove in the pit lane after a crash in the 2018 Brazilian Grand Prix was as close as we have come in recent times. Tame.

8. Cars breaking into a million pieces (and then bursting into flames) on impact
Another one that we can be thankful for.

9. Trackside spectators
Like driving without seatbelts, fans standing mere feet from the action seems utterly incongruous to any modern notions of safety. It is not as though people in the 1950s were immune to damage from a car ploughing into them at great speed, is it?
Spectators

10. Drivers being punished for small mistakes
The rare gravel trap is still clinging on but modern runoff areas are so vast and free of penalty that they allows drivers to get away with mistakes that would have ended their races in past decades.

11. Drivers’ helmets
Unless they are out of the car, that is. The halo has almost put an end to being able to recognise a driver in the cockpit from his lid and has also robbed them of part of their on-track identity…

12. Good driver helmet designs
…but that might be just as well given the legion of truly awful and confused designs that plenty of the current grid are sporting. So many lines, designs and different colours; most are just a mess. Less is often more. See: Graham and Damon Hill, Ayrton Senna, David Coulthard, Mika Hakkinen, James Hunt. Even Pedro Diniz for heaven’s sake.
General view of the helmet belonging to McLaren Honda driver Ayrton Senna of Brazil before the US Grand Prix at the Phoenix circuit in Arizona, USA. Senna finished in first place
Now that is a strong helmet design Credit: Pascal Rondeau/Allsport

13. The trackside waving of the chequered flag
From the right camera angle this always looked perilous. In the grainy black and white shots of the 50s and 60s the flag often appeared to be brushing against the driver’s face. But even in colour in the 90s it looked utterly thrilling. Imagine having that job.

14. Racing in monsoon conditions
Yes, we still have wet races. But the tendency these days is that if it is damp enough for wet tyres then there is no racing. This is a recent development. Re-watch the Japanese GP from 2007 at Mount Fuji or the 1998 Belgian GP and you will marvel. Half power-boating, half F1.

15. Spare cars
No longer can drivers wreck their cars at the start and return to another ready-made one if the race is red flagged. It is a bit of a shame but if it stops them being so careless in the first place…

16. Awful pay drivers making fools of themselves
F1 still has drivers who bring substantial sums of sponsorship money but by and large they warrant a place on the grid. The days of Ricardo Rosset failing to qualify, six seconds off the pace and two seconds away from his team-mate are, thankfully, over.

17. Excellent facial hair
The moustaches are seldom seen (though Sebastian Vettel did a good Nigel Mansell impression last year) and the beards are a bit underwhelming. Sideburns are non-existent. The hirsute achievements of John Watson and Harald Ertl may never be seen again.
Nigel Mansell, driver of the #5 Canon Williams Renault Williams FW14B Renault poses for a portrait during a test session for the Grand Prix season in February 1992 at the Silverstone Circuit in Silverstone, Great Britain
Nigel Mansell's famous moustache Credit: Pascal Rondeau/Getty Images

18. Beautiful cars
F1 is F1 and I will always love it. But there has not been a remotely good looking car since about 2009. And even then, they were a long way from the sport’s aesthetic peak of the early 1990s. Take the Jordan 191, for example. Stunning.

19. Pre-qualifying
A few decades ago, so many cars were turning up to F1 races that drivers had to qualify to qualify. And even then there was no guarantee of a place on the grid. At the 1989 British Grand Prix, there were 39 potential entries for 30 grid slots. Poor Volker Weidler finished 3.5 seconds away from pre-qualifying leader Bertrand Gachot’s time and nearly six seconds from the eventual pole time.

20. Laurel wreaths on the podium
F1’s new owners are keen to capitalise on its decades of heritage, so it could be time for these to return. To hell with the sponsors on overalls, bring back laurel wreaths.
Jackie Stewart...Jackie Stewart wins the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, 19th July 1969. The Duke of Kent presents him with his trophy.
Podiums ceremonies are not what they used to be Credit: Reg Burkett/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

21. Real flags on the podium
The current podium set-up looks so low-budget and tacky. The virtual flags are lame. What was wrong with slowly raising them up as the national anthems play, fluttering in the Sunday afternoon breeze? Was it too much of a burden to transport a handful of flags around the world? Really?

22. Grooved tyres
They looked quite neat in the 1960s and 1970s but awful when they returned for the 1998 season. Thankfully they only stuck around for another decade or so.

23. Three-or four-wide grids
A Look Back At The F1 Dutch GP. Phil Hill, Wolfgang von Trips, Graham Hill, Richie Ginther, Ferrari 156 Sharknose, BRM P48/57, Grand Prix of the Netherlands, Circuit Park Zandvoort, 22 May 1961. Start of the 1961 Grand Prix of Netherlands in Zandvoort

The standardised two-by-two formation has been in place for some time, but in the past things were a lot more varied. Sometimes 4-3-4, sometimes 3-2-3. Perhaps when the action returns this could be something else to consider. It might mix it up a bit at the start, anyway.

24. The classic, uncomplicated, circular steering wheel
Driving an F1 car has become so complex that a mind-boggling array of buttons, dials and switches are there at the drivers' fingertips. Drivers are more like pilots these days

25. A team other than Red Bull, Mercedes or Ferrari on the top step of the podium
It has been 139 races since a team outside of the “big three” won a Grand Prix – when Kimi Raikkonen did so for Lotus at the 2013 Australian Grand Prix. A fairly damning indictment of the current state of F1.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Quite a good article in today's Telegraph about the farce that F1 has become before it was defiled by tossers with earrings and cockney accents.

This is calculated to infuriate you...

Take the option to watch on youtube.

[ian16th]

26. Engines in front of the driver.

[G-CPTN]

Mercedes engine chief to leave.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Mercedes engine chief to leave.

I see that Cowell is being replaced by that well know German, Hywel Thomas!

The spirit of Alfred Neubauer lives on (in Wales)....





Good to see so many brilliant British engineers in F1.

[Pinky the pilot]

I have seen the film, and as one who 'was there' (as pit-crew), I found it extremely true to life.

Well worth watching.

G-CPTN; Some stories please!

[Wodrick]

F1 technology dribbles down to road cars

MGU - H

[llondel]

OK, that's impressive, unless someone's added an extra zero in there. I've done a gas turbine driving a generator at up to 100,000rpm, capable of 40-80kW output but this is twice as fast. Knowing what our development process was like, and some of the interesting early test runs, I bet they had fun.

The turbocharger runs at 170,000rpm.

[PHXPhlyer]

170,000
I noticed that too.
I think an extra zero snuck in.

PP

[Wodrick]

I've seen that number before, I'm sure it's right, fair bit of material technology going on there. it's a tiny turbine.

[ian16th]

How fast has Dyson got electric motors running these days?