formula 1 maggots

[4matic]

The 50kg weight make the cars look beefier and better imo. More like Indycars.

[Ski to Be]

I suspect they are still loud, just not in the "tingle in your balls" sort of way you get at 19,000 RPMs.

Even ALMS cars at 10,000 RPMs are loud, but they just don't have the tingle of last years F1 cars.

I have read 2014 is 30+ Decibels quieter than 2013. Part of going to the race for me is the F1 sound. Otherwise I can watch it on TV and see a lot more.

[PNWbrit]

It's certainly pretty dramatic from the grandstands. I'd like to hear a similar comparison of them in a braking zone or coming out of a slow corner.

Although it's not as if the 2.4 V8s sounded anything other than just painfully loud. The V10s weren't much better either.

[4matic]

It's certainly pretty dramatic from the grandstands. I'd like to hear a similar comparison of them in a braking zone or coming out of a slow corner.

Although it's not as if the 2.4 V8s sounded anything other than just painfully loud. The V10s weren't much better either.

No earplugs and headsets in 2014 portion of vid. I hate wearing earplugs at a race.

[PNWbrit]

No earplugs and headsets in 2014 portion of vid. I hate wearing earplugs at a race.

There is a certain irony in the "we demand more noise" crowd having almost certainly been wearing ear defenders.

F1 engines started to sound like just noise when the revs went up to crazy levels, back in the post turbo, new-pneumatic valve springs + semi-auto gearboxes. I can remember one distinct British GP around then when it just became painful to watch the cars on track without earplugs. Shortly after that you couldn't even listen to the FM transmitted commentary with earbuds. Then it got to the point where your F1 headache would take days to disappear.

[hutash]

I wear both in earbuds and headsets so I can listen to race radio and still have hearing at the end of the day. It is not the loud noise that I like, but the feel of the high revs. At the Canadian GP we were sitting in the front row at the pit exit, so they hit full throttle right in front of us about 15 feet away. Yeah it was loud, but more importantly it sent a vibrations down your spine that was great to experience.

[PNWbrit]

Understood entirely.

But I don't think all is lost.

Maybe it's just different.

Each morning of the Melbourne grand prix weekend, at around 7am the two-seater 3-litre V10 Minardi would blast around the circuit, Zsolt Baumgartner at the wheel giving passenger rides.

Many of the beleaguered Lotus mechanics had only gone to bed at 6am so they were probably less than impressed, but for the city in general that soundtrack has always been a statement that F1 is in town, its own aural signature.

Even from half a mile away you could follow Zsolt's progress corner by corner as that huge blanket of hardcore high-pitched F1 volume bounced off the surrounding buildings. On Sunday it's doubtful whether the whole grid of the new age V6 turbos made as much noise as that old Supertec V10.

Yet close-up, it was a fascinating multi-faceted noise. From trackside in a braking area you'd hear the whistle and whine of turbo and cam gears, the rumble of resistance as torque was taken from the rear axle and fed to the battery, you'd hear part-throttle hesitancy and then a beautifully cultured V6 howl. It was the low volume that made it possible to distinguish the various phases, just as you'd also hear the occasional squeal and chirrup of tyre - or what they were saying on the PA, or the question the person sitting next to you was asking.

As they flashed by at enormous speed on the straight - visibly quicker than the V8 cars ever did - the mixture of mechanical, turbo and electrical sounded pure space age, actually very like the pod race soundtrack in the Star Wars Phantom Menace film.

The lower volume also somehow enhanced the Doppler effect as they came past you because no longer are they simply very loud all the time; now they feel as if they are exploding out of a vacuum into your dimension and out again. As the drivers then stand on the brakes and the rear end begins to twitch and float menacingly, they really do look as if they are wrestling with wickedly potent and wayward machines. This is somehow made more menacing by the lack of volume.

But that's just my take. That of most fans is very different. They loved the old blanket of ear-piercing volume. Already plans are being made to pump up the volume at some stage during the season.

It's a difficult dilemma because on the one hand there has been a fan backlash against the artificial and inauthentic triggered by the double points final round and including also DRS wings. But on the other, many of those same fans so against that would now like to see the engines made artificially louder. There's a balance to be struck, but in the meantime just why are the latest engines so much quieter?

An internal combustion engine converts the chemical energy contained within the fuel into motive power. But only about 30% of the fuel's latent energy gets used for this. Most of the rest is lost to heat - ie 70% of that potential power goes straight out the exhaust. Using the exhaust heat to drive a turbo which compresses the air being fed into the engine means a big chunk of that energy is recapture

With a turbocharged engine there is far less energy being pumped out of the tailpipe. Therefore there is far less sound. This is the dominant factor in the reduced volume, though not the only one. The engine itself is smaller by one-third, meaning there is less physical moving mass to make a sound and then there is the six-into-two-into-one exhaust arrangement, as demanded by the regulations. This forces the harmonics to be resolved within a single tailpipe.

Martin Brundle was quoted as having the same opinion of them in the latest edition of Motorsport magazine. (which is particularly excellent example this month if you can get hold of a copy)

Maybe it's not just volume either. The old group C rotary Mazdas were unbearably loud. And didn't give off any pleasing vibes.

[Ski to Be]

Props to Merc for letting their drivers race to the finish. Very Senna /Prost-ish. What a drive by Hamilton to hold off Rosberg on his mediums. One of the best races Ive watched in a long time. DR > Vettel. It makes me wonder how good Vettel actually is in an average car. If Ferrari can get their issues worked out there will be a lot of teams evenly matched behind Mercedes.

[spook]

saw an article that said schumacher was having moments of something -- not consciousness but well i don't remember but it seemed to represent a possible change though not necessarily an improvement. how's that.

[PNWbrit]

What an incredible race.

[hutash]

What an incredible race.

I loved the analogy that the twin tusks of the Lotus was like an elephant flipped a predator.

It was a great race, one of the raciest in a long time. It seemed like somebody was always trying to pass someone else somewhere on the track rather then just play follow the leader. It was also fun to watch all the intra-team racing.

[PNWbrit]

I loved the analogy that the twin tusks of the Lotus was like an elephant flipped a predator.

I was thinking fork lift.

Maybe Lotus could get some sponsorship from Komatsu?

Some interesting politics too. Todt's budget cap plans look dead in water. LDM's demands for rule change get short shrift. Talk of Bernie/Red Bull buy out of rights following their talking down value of show. Bernie's German trial to start soon.

[Vt-Freeheel]

The last race was interesting as two different races. Race 1 between Mercedes drivers for the win, Race 2 with the mid pack fighting for points.

Ferrari makes a big change as the first head rolls, with Domenicali "resigning"

http://www.formula1.com

[PNWbrit]

"if some idiot with the chequered flag had not waved it a lap too early, Lewis Hamilton’s race time over 56 laps in Shanghai would have been 1h36m52.810s. Compare that to last year and the year before and you will see that the race took about 26 seconds longer than it did in 2013 and 2012. Not even half a minute. In percentage terms, therefore, there was a loss of less than half a percent in terms of performance. In contrast, this result was achieved using around 33 percent less fuel."

Impressive stuff.

[hutash]

The Prius is the future of F1.

[4matic]

The Prius is the future of F1.

Or Porsche 918. It's what the manufacturers want. They want a platform to develop and broadcast a vision.

[PNWbrit]

The Prius is the future of F1.

More likely this..... using some type of fuel cell rather than (AFAIAA) the glorified lap top batteries that FormulaE does as at present



It'll be interesting to see how long it'll be before the current F1 regs filter down to road cars.. the turbo generating electrical power for instance?

Edit:

Once again the defendant will please rise...



I am!

[4matic]

Once again the defendant will please rise...

Bernie must be a former F1 driver.

[PNWbrit]

BBC's Panorama weekly news show ran a special on Ecclestone's likely evasion of more than £1bn in UK taxes.

Probably won't remain up for long before BBC blocks it

"Bernie Ecclestone Lies, Bribes and Formula One"

[PNWbrit]

[Mazderati]

^ Movie was great the other night.

[PNWbrit]

[bigAK]

His favourite football club pays tribute:

[PNWbrit]

Never heard this before. By Pat Symonds who was his race engineer at Toleman in '84.

"From that first season there are a few races that stand out and while everyone talks about his second place in Monaco, the one that stood out for me was Dallas, where he crashed out, but we came out with such a special story from that race. The car was reasonably competitive there, so we expected to have a good race but Ayrton spun early in the race. He then found his way back through the field in a quite effective way and we were looking for a pretty good finish but then he hit the wall, damaged the rear wheel and the driveshaft and retired, which was a real shame.

The real significance of that was that when he came back to the pits he told me what happened and said "I'm sure that the wall moved!" and even though I've heard every excuse every driver has ever made, I certainly hadn't heard of that one! But Ayrton being Ayrton, with his incredible belief in himself, the absolute conviction, he then talked me into going with him, after the race, to have a look at the place where he had crashed. And he was absolutely right, which was the amazing thing! Dallas being a street circuit the track was surrounded by concrete blocks and what had happened - we could see it from the tyre marks - was that someone had hit at the far end of the concrete block and that made it swivel slightly, so that the leading edge of the block was standing out by a few millimetres. And he was driving with such precision that those few millimetres were the difference between hitting the wall and not hitting the wall."

[Mazderati]

The Marlboro livery is all time.