If manufacturers were serious about developing racing technologies that could be used in road cars then they would seriously look into racing electric cars. There some development in battery capacity and charging could actually be transferred into a car that we should be considering taking seriously. I have seen small clips of the first electric car Grand Prix at Pau and think that it has a lot of potential. I don't think, like Bernie, that race fans turn up for the noise and the noise alone. I like the noise of Formula 1 cars, but I also love the much quieter Formula 1600 cars. I don't think too many people fell out of love with the almost silent Audi Le Mans cars and I don't think racing fans would be anything but excited to see electric cars raced hard by good racing drivers on good racing circuits.
It makes me laugh all this talk of Formula 1 teams developing technology for road cars. I was reminded of this during this weekends German grand prix. Renault was having to decide whether to run forward or rear facing exhausts and it occurred to me how little a Formula 1 car has in common with a real car. Formula 1 engines turn over at 19,000 revs reasonably comfortably and so there is a big benefit in spitting the exhaust out over the floor and pushing the car into the ground. Normal road car engines do not rev in the 19,000 range and so the blown diffuser technology has 0 relevance to anything except Formula 1 cars. The same can be said for double diffusers, F-ducts, mass dampers and DRS yet manufacturers will always pretend that they are in the sport to develop technology for the average Joe like you and me. Does anybody believe this? Do people think that Mercedes builds a better road going V8 engine because they happen to build a good Formula 1 V8 engine? Apparently people are that stupid otherwise the teams would have put up less opposition to transfering to 4 cylinder turbos. Instead we are heading to V6 turbos so that stupid people will believe that Formula 1 technology will trickle down into their cars and they will have V6 turbos in their road cars designed by Norbert Haug. It seems to me that a car designed to transport you and your family to work and back in one piece and a car designed to shoot a skinny midget around a race track as fast as possible don't have much in common and we should stop pretending they do.
If manufacturers were serious about developing racing technologies that could be used in road cars then they would seriously look into racing electric cars. There some development in battery capacity and charging could actually be transferred into a car that we should be considering taking seriously. I have seen small clips of the first electric car Grand Prix at Pau and think that it has a lot of potential. I don't think, like Bernie, that race fans turn up for the noise and the noise alone. I like the noise of Formula 1 cars, but I also love the much quieter Formula 1600 cars. I don't think too many people fell out of love with the almost silent Audi Le Mans cars and I don't think racing fans would be anything but excited to see electric cars raced hard by good racing drivers on good racing circuits.
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I touched on this a bit after the Valencia valerium-fest. But I think tracks can say a lot about the country they are hosted in. This was clear this weekend at Silverstone. I love the Silverstone circuit. I find it uniquely English. It didn't originate from tons of money but with a little improvisation after the war. It was simple, efficient, cheap maybe, but it worked. All great English qualities. Oh and it rains a lot there.
Australia has a race in the park in truly laid back Australian style. The only more Australian way to do it would be to hold the race at the beach or in a pub. Suzuka is technical, distinct, fast and full of crazy Japanese people, just like Japan. As a side note Fuji is none of these things so I'm glad we are staying the hell away from there for the time being. Hockenheim used to be very German. It was all about whose engine worked the best. Never mind this damn steering input nonsense lets just see how fast they can go. The old Avus circuit took this even further to the extreme. The Bahrain track is forgettable just like the country. Honestly, who knew where this country was before the race started. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is always fun, fast, and unpredictable just like the city where I live. Spa-Francorchamps is lonely out there in the forest and often forgotten by Bernie just like the rest of us often forget that the country is there. Interlagos is different, bumpy, and a great party to close the season just like the carnival country it sits in. Monza was built for crazy Italians in crazy Italian sports cars to live crazy Italian lives. Monaco is a seaside, casino side, concrete side race through a ton of money. France never works. Races in the USA never work because they get tacked on to great racing tradition like the piece of poop that was held in Indianapolis or tacked on to a marketing scheme like the race at Ceasurs Palace. But Americans never catch on because Americans don't care about what is happening in the rest of the world. They are perfectly content with their own racing, their own football, baseball, and basketball to be bothered with anything else. As long as they get their oil Americans don't pay much attention to the rest of the world. You might notice that I haven't mentioned any Tilke tracks except Bahrain for being crap. This is because tracks that TIlke makes don't say anything about the country they are in. The Chinese track might be in the form of a lucky dog turd symbol but nothing about the atmosphere, the setting, or the track says anything about China. The opposite in fact because China is the most populous country in the world and yet the stands are always empty. |
TonyI am a race fan. I cannot claim to be an expert on anything, but as a fan I am apparently the most important part of the sport. So I assume everyone wants to hear what I have to say. Archives
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