F1 (Formula 1) Racing Topic

[Pretzel]

I am really enjoying that this season there is some legitimate competition to Mercedes. It's clear that both Verstappen is incredibly talented and the Red Bull is incredibly difficult to drive well, but at least this year there is somebody besides Hamilton/Bottas who is legitimately competing for wins each week and the overall title.

I'll readily admit I'm not much of a Lewis Hamilton fan simply because it gets boring watching the same guy win for so long, but I'm really enjoying seeing him get the chance to properly display his talent again in a way that hasn't really happened since 2018. Wire-to-wire victories are impressive, of course, but admittedly not much fun to watch especially when nobody else even has a chance. Seeing him race on more equal footing is fantastic because it gives better perspective on just how good he really is as a driver.

That said, I'm still strongly anticipating next season's regulation changes. I was so disappointed when they were postponed another year, but now that more teams have long-term certainty (McLaren, Aston Martin, Red Bull/Alpha Tauri, Williams, basically everybody other than Haas is in their best financial position ever compared to the last 3-5 years) it will be even better since hopefully we aren't at risk of seeing teams bail entirely if they don't have a good design philosophy from the get-go. If the increased ground effect helps cars follow and race one another, as predicted by simulations, it will be fantastic even if the pecking order largely remains the same (unlikely).

[iacas]

It's kinda crazy, but at the same point… you can kind of approximate this with some of the more advanced simulators.

[onthehunt526]

  On 5/18/2021 at 11:51 PM, iacas said:

It's kinda crazy, but at the same point… you can kind of approximate this with some of the more advanced simulators.

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I don’t know a whole lot about F1... all I know is the cars turn better and handle better and are faster than NASCAR cup series cars (that’s debatable though, because I think if you have the air intake the same at all tracks including Talladega and Daytona)  I think on ‘Dega where you can carry more speed the F1 car would still win but it would be close. 
 

I do know that F1 cars turn both ways equally well, and NASCAR Cup cars tend to struggle a little more with the right hand turns (usually bus stops in NASCAR), where in F1 the seems to only have to brake going into to the first part of the chicane and have more acceleration coming out of the chicane.

I think Cup Cars rely more on the setup, and F1 is more driver... but you can have a great car in the Cup series and still DNF.

[iacas]

I don't think that F1 is more about the driver at all. That's one of the biggest things I dislike about F1 - how much the car matters.

[onthehunt526]

  On 5/19/2021 at 12:58 AM, iacas said:

I don't think that F1 is more about the driver at all. That's one of the biggest things I dislike about F1 - how much the car matters.

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Why’s that? Is it because the cars are built like a jet on wheels? Do you think it take’s less skill to drive a F1 car than a NASCAR Cup series car?

[iacas]

  On 5/19/2021 at 1:40 AM, onthehunt526 said:

Why’s that? Is it because the cars are built like a jet on wheels? Do you think it take’s less skill to drive a F1 car than a NASCAR Cup series car?

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I'm not sure how you got that from what I said.

A guy who had never won a point in two years in a Williams car should have won the first (and only) race he did in the Mercedes were it not for not only one but two massive issues (the wrong tires were put on his car, requiring another immediate pit stop, and he got a puncture then).

Maybe 90% of F1 is the car. Only 10% is the driver.

But, also, I think it takes more skill to drive an F1 car than a NASCAR car.

[billchao]

  On 5/19/2021 at 1:40 AM, onthehunt526 said:

Is it because the cars are built like a jet on wheels?

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F1 cars aren’t jets on wheels. Quite the opposite, actually. Lots of downforce.

Jets have wheels, btw 😜

[Pretzel]

I'd also wager that an F1 car would quite thoroughly thrash a NASCAR Cup car on any track in the world.

Without restrictor plates the NASCAR Cup cars are limited to 670 horsepower. F1 cars peak out at over 1,000 horsepower. The minimum weight for a NASCAR Cup car is 3,400 pounds, while F1 cars weigh only 1,631 pounds. That's nearly twice the power in half the weight, not even counting the grippier tires, additional downforce, and stronger brakes.

[onthehunt526]

  On 5/19/2021 at 3:05 PM, Pretzel said:

I'd also wager that an F1 car would quite thoroughly thrash a NASCAR Cup car on any track in the world.

Without restrictor plates the NASCAR Cup cars are limited to 670 horsepower. F1 cars peak out at over 1,000 horsepower. The minimum weight for a NASCAR Cup car is 3,400 pounds, while F1 cars weigh only 1,631 pounds. That's nearly twice the power in half the weight, not even counting the grippier tires, additional downforce, and stronger brakes.

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They don’t use restrictor plates in NASCAR any more the intake is just smaller at ‘Dega and Daytona... and it’s 750 horsepower without restrictions... Though you can probably get closer to 800 or so if you took the skirting off and made the bodies more in line with the way that they were pre-1988, in the current generation of car. In response to the Bobby Allison crash at Talladega in the spring of 1987, they added the skirting, restrictor plates and reduced airflow to slow the cars down at Super-speedway races. 

 

Lewis Hamilton went around Daytona in a test in 40.320 seconds. Which by my math is ~231 mph. (45.000 is 200 mph at Daytona) Bill Elliott went around Talladega in 1987 (this was before the engines were 750 hp) in 44.988. 212+ mph. You put his qualifying sort of set up in the Car of Tomorrow... you’re talking the F1 car would probably still win, a 3 lap race around one of the big Tri-Ovals... but it would be closer than one may realize. Open up the NASCAR a little bit and you’d be surprised how fast they are.

[iacas]

I think you're drastically under-estimating F1 cars.

And the truth is that you're having to say "open up a bit…" and they're still not to an F1 car, so…?

[onthehunt526]

  On 5/20/2021 at 12:32 AM, iacas said:

I think you're drastically under-estimating F1 cars.

And the truth is that you're having to say "open up a bit…" and they're still not to an F1 car, so…?

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They aren’t an F1 car, no. But I think you’re underestimating NASCAR Cup Cars... if you took NASCAR’s regulations off of a car... 900 HP wouldn’t be out of the question... neither would 250 MPH....

[Pretzel]

  On 5/20/2021 at 3:30 AM, onthehunt526 said:

They aren’t an F1 car, no. But I think you’re underestimating NASCAR Cup Cars... if you took NASCAR’s regulations off of a car... 900 HP wouldn’t be out of the question... neither would 250 MPH....

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900 horsepower and 3,400 pounds still pales in comparison to 1,000+ horsepower and 1,600 pounds. Power to weight ratio is still more than 2x in the favor of the Formula 1 car, with an F1 car having much more flexible aero packages for reduced drag (on ovals) or increased downforce (on road courses). Even swiss-cheesing the NASCAR chassis to save 1,000 pounds doesn't put it in the same class as an F1 car, but that's perfectly okay. They're different cars for different purposes.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Pretzel

[onthehunt526]

  On 5/20/2021 at 4:34 AM, Pretzel said:

900 horsepower and 3,400 pounds still pales in comparison to 1,000+ horsepower and 1,600 pounds. Power to weight ratio is still more than 2x in the favor of the Formula 1 car, with an F1 car having much more flexible aero packages for reduced drag (on ovals) or increased downforce (on road courses).

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I agree... the F1 car definitely would have a higher ceiling than a NASCAR. Hell a Lambo is faster than a stock car.

[Vinsk]

Damn…that’s a fast crew.

[iacas]

  On 6/19/2021 at 3:40 AM, Vinsk said:

Damn…that’s a fast crew.

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Red Bull commonly has sub-2.0-second pit stops in F1.

Red Bull must give them wings.

https://youtu.be/U1MnVvVRkSk

[Pretzel]

  On 6/19/2021 at 3:48 AM, iacas said:

Red Bull commonly has sub-2.0-second pit stops in F1.

Red Bull must give them wings.

https://youtu.be/U1MnVvVRkSk

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Best part about this pit stop is that they did more than the pit stops in the videos above.

Not only did they change the tires, they also adjusted the front wing at the same time on both sides. All in under 2 seconds still.

[iacas]

Speaking of fast pit stops…

FIA to force F1 teams to slow down their pit stops · RaceFans

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The FIA is to introduce new rules forcing F1 teams to slow down their rapid, two-second tyre changes during races.

 

"Mercedes complained about Red Bull pit stops. The current internet theory is that Red Bull personnel are anticipating wheels being fully sealed on cars rather than reacting to the sensor saying the wheel is on the car, hence why they are so fast. So the person in charge of signaling to the lollypop person is reacting before the sensor is actually “on”. I guess they’ve analyzed the reaction times by pit personnel and compared it to scientific studies on human reaction time. Explains why Red Bull is so fast, they don’t react to sensors they anticipate them. From a safety perspective makes sense why that’s a no-no."

[Pretzel]

Here's several technical directives in a row aimed directly at Red Bull, and yet curiously the incredibly flexible Mercedes front wings that have been protested since race 1 remain ignored by the FIA...

I'm honestly pretty sick and tired of the FIA at this point, because it's become increasingly clear that they heavily favor Mercedes. The entire transition to turbo-hybrid V6 engines was primarily at the behest of Mercedes, who had already been developing similar systems and had an experience advantage. Despite introducing incredibly complex new engines, the FIA also made sure to add a token system that limited development and fixes for these complex systems to help ensure the team with the most experience (Mercedes) kept a large advantage. Mercedes was given secret tire tests using current-year chassis in an era where test time is severely limited or banned entirely. In 2017 Ferrari started to burn oil in the same way Mercedes had since the start of the turbo-hybrids, and the limit was reduced for every team besides Mercedes (0.9l/100km for other teams, 1.2l/100km for Mercedes) because Mercedes fitted their last engines early, ran a lap to make the engines "officially used", and then continued using their old engines again until it was time to switch for real. In 2018 the FIA made last-minute tire changes that were requested by Mercedes for multiple races, because the team had difficulty with the standard spec of tire. In 2020 they were allowed to continue to use DAS for the remainder of the season, despite banning it for future seasons and making it impossible for other teams to implement based on both cost caps and chassis homologation regulations.

Now these sudden changes once Mercedes finally has a legitimate competitor. It's such a departure from the past where the FIA worked to keep the teams more evenly matched with regulations that targeted top teams rather than their competition. No kind of targeted regulation is fair to any of the competitors in the sport, but at least when they were aimed at the dominant team it meant that snooze-fests with one team winning everything for nearly a decade never happened. Now the FIA is hell-bent on keeping Mercedes as the only team capable of winning a WDC/WCC for the foreseeable future.