#mclaren lost a bunch of engineers to ferrari

[formula-fun]

I was literally saying back in June that Max seemed like he didn't want Daniel as his teammate again tho because all his life hed said he wouldn't want Charles as a teammate and then suddenly he DID and was saying it could be fun and then Charles was talking to Red Bull execs a lot and all of a sudden there were rumors that Ferrari was rushing to resign him a year early and then his entire energy changed and he was way more chill at races and didn't seem to care so much when Carlos beat him and was happy to sacrifice his own points and be a team player because he had the security to do so!!! because he'd already resigned even though it hadn't been confirmed, but they couldn't confirm it because it would bring up questions about carlos they weren't ready to answer!!

and then it came out that Christian and Helmut were in a power struggle and Christian wants Daniel back in the team and Helmut doesnt and Max is siding with Helmut who has always had final say on decisions like drivers because he's known for being a really really good talent scout and he was one of the parties that was interested in signing Charles while he was with Sauber, and he'd accept Lando instead and Max would accept Lando instead because he said that back in June, but Christian wants Daniel, and Max is smart ok, max is pr trained and he grew up in this team and he knows how to throw his weight around. Max threatens to retire at 31 when Red Bull doesn't pay him enough, and apparently now he threatens to sign with Ferrari at 31 because Red Bull don't give him one of his chosen teammates. i saw this through the power of prophecy it came to me in a dream its all coming together. this drama has been months in the making and i know its source. apollo kissed me square on the lips

[vro0m]

vro0m’s rewatch - 28/288

2008 Hungarian GP

Recap + gifs!

It’s round 11, we’re on the grid where it’s hot and dusty.

McLaren front row I think? Yes, Lewis on pole! The commentator talks about how he made everyone wait for him for a few minutes to start the drivers’ parade and arrived “bouncing” down the stairs all confident and claims it’s a psychological game he’s playing. (I mean, maybe he’s just happy and had something to do or whatever?) Lol, Damon Hill is commentating this weekend and says yeah, that’s exactly it and maybe there was a good reason for him to be late but the effect is the same : it shows others that he stands out. (I bet he stands out for a couple other reasons to begin with, like the fact that he’s Black and very good at his job.) All the journalists are very preoccupied with the possibility of Kovalainen and Lewis crashing into each other for some reason.

Formation lap.

And they’re racing!

Oh wow, Massa jumped from the 3rd place and overtook both McLarens right away. Very impressive. He even locked up in the process but still made it.

10 laps in, Lewis 2.2 behind which isn’t a massive gap but it will all come down to how much fuel they have.

Lap 17, Massa pits from the lead. Lewis has to push now. Oh but he pits only one lap later... He leaves with slightly more fuel than Massa did though. He’s in 6th now. Not great. A little while later, Raikkonen and Alonso pit from in between them and we’re back on square one, Massa 3 seconds ahead of Lewis.

Lap 30, no change. Lewis is 3.6 behind and slower than Massa. Bourdais’ car caught on fire in the pit lane so they covered it in foam and sent him back out?

And now another fuel fire with Barrichello? Damon Hill says it’s the third of the race, I’ve only seen two but I admit I wasn’t paying close attention. Oh, it was Vettel’s RedBull right at the beginning of the race, and he had to retire. There’s probably gonna be some investigation to figure that out.

Lap 40, Lewis now 5 seconds behind. HE’S OFF THE ROAD! Left front puncture! Ohhhhh no. He’s getting to the pit lane. It’s dramatic, you can see all the cars passing by as he does. They’re putting him on the supersofts which is weird because it’s super hot and there’s a bunch of laps to go. He’s now all the way back in 11th. On the replay, we see he really didn’t do anything particular to get that puncture, it just kind of happened as he was in the middle of the track. However, one thing that comes up frequently is that he tends to overwork his tyres. I guess he learned a lot since then because now his tyre management is one of his forte imo.

Lap 50, Lewis is who knows where cause they never fxcking show the standings. 8th.

Lap 60, 10 laps to go, he’s up in 6th. Oop, as Sutil brakes in a corner there’s a literal cloud of black dust that comes out from his brakes and he has a puncture. In the meantime, Lewis has spent more time than anyone else on the supersofts that weekend and that’s a bit worrying for the end of the race. The broadcasters talk again about pushing or lifting up.

3 laps to go, Massa has an issue! Smoke at the back of the car! He’s stopped on the track! Oh that’s so unfortunate. It’s now Kovalainen first, Glock second, Raikkonen in third slowing down as Ferrari probably tells him to look after his engine.

And it’s the end of the race!

It’s Heikki’s first win! Also great job from Glock finishing second after his terrible crash in the last GP. Lewis is 6th but still leads the WDC. As Kovalainen goes past, he claps and gives him the thumbs up.

Lewis says he salvaged the best of the worst and that last year they lost a whole championship because of a puncture so it’s nothing new to him. He says it was a bit disappointing seeing Massa go past at the start but he just did a better job than him and he’s happy for Heikki.

Also it’s better if he and Glock get the points rather than the Ferraris anyway.

[flatspot]

right, here we go, lads. '08 season rewatch, inspired by k doing '10.

have seen none of these races since watching them live so i've got really no idea what i'm in for.

australia (this took me 13 days to start and a further 7 hours to watch)

yellow helmet my beloved i miss you

wondering why lewis's car number was 22 and then remembering mclaren got dsq from 2007 oop

these front wings are something else

i simply have no memory of force india existing back in 2008 this bodes well for the rest of the season

"massa is going to be the danger man here today" - he's p17 at the end of the first lap after dropping the car and driving into the wall so. we'll come back to this

i see the home gp curse has hit webber, we've lost 5 drivers and it's been 2 laps

complaining about not being able to follow cars..........lads i've got some bad news for you

i miss the sound of these engines. i remember no details about the races but i remember the noise and the names being shouted over the comms

me sitting here like lewis has an 8.5 second lead but i can't say anything good about it because i might jinx the result. you know. of the race that happened 13 years ago (i should have looked up the podium before i came into this but why not stress myself out over a grand prix that already happened in a year i know he won the title)

they keep saying how they're pleasantly surprised by the earth honda after what it was like at testing and i'm just like. maybe wait a few races before you say that

things i'm glad we don't have anymore: refueling pitstops

seb sounds so very german

i don't like rosberg as it is but if i have to listen to an entire season of martin pronouncing his name as nick-o i might lose it

raikkonen on old tyres vs. kovalainen on full fuel - fight

interesting, i did not know some of the teams opted out of broadcasting radio messages back then

"i expect felipe to take full responsibility for this, and if he doesn't, i'm gonna kick three colours of shit out of the little bastard" don't hold back coulthard tell us how you really feel

dskjds raikkonen just. forgetting you actually still have to brake for the corner, even when overtaking. oh and now massa's retiring for no apparent reason. what a shit show ferrari are having

we're not even halfway through this race and we're down at 12 runners. i don't even know what's happened to half of them

oh and we've just lost another one, right out of the pits

"it's certainly spectacular to watch" admittedly there has been a lot going on tonight that has been distracting me but. i'm not sure i'd describe this race quite like that

the 'onboard' graphic is better than the one they introduced in 2009. that's all i got for you atm

raikkonen goes off the road himself followed immediately by glock launching into the air and doing pirouettes down the straight???

barichello driving off with the fuel rig still attached while the pit lane is actually closed for refueling?! it's all kicking off with 13 laps to go

lewis was very lucky pitting right before this final safety car, they've really lost out with everybody bunching up before they opened the pitlane

the safety car has literally just come in and we've somehow lost another car, i genuinely cannot even tell you how

"you've got to have a substantial problem in order to retire the car, i suppose you could just stick it in the wall" this is the pinnacle of motorsports apparently

aaaand ferrari has finally lost their second car from the race with 4 laps left, can't say this hasn't been coming

dskjdfs and now barrichello is going to be disqualified you cannot make this shit up

ANOTHER CAR IS GONE WHAT ON EARTH WE ONLY HAVE THREE LAPS LEFT

after all of this, am i really going to have to watch a rosberg podium, for the love of god

"faultless" it really was from lewis, oh my GOD he's so british on the radio

6 drivers finished out of 22, that is. well it was a slow burner, but what an opening race

well my original closing statement i wrote with 15 laps to go was going to be 'only 11 drivers finished, there were 3 safety cars, and yet i could not tell you anything of significance that happened by the end of the race so. snoozefest might be unfair but certainly not a classic'

in hindsight, turn this on around lap 40, and you'll be sweet. finished with a bang.

[eddiejpoplar]

BMW M2 Competition comes fifth in Top Gear’s Speed Week

There’s a common adage in sports that there’s no such thing as a moral victory in a loss. Meaning, if your team loses but played well, they still lost. There’s no such thing as a moral victory if your team loses, no matter how close the game was. And, most of the time, that’s true. However, I’m gonna say that the BMW M2 Competition deserves to celebrate a bit of a moral victory after Top Gear’s Speed Week, where it came in fifth place.

Why does the BMW M2 Competition get a moral victory, despite coming in fifth? Because of the company it holds among the top five and some of the cars it beat to get there.

First, let’s talk about what Speed Week is and some of the cars that the M2 Comp beat out just to get into the top five. Despite its name, Speed Week isn’t entirely about speed. So it’s not the fastest car that wins but the car that’s most enjoyable to drive, in all circumstances — both road and track.

Prior to selecting the top five, the M2 Competition was running against cars like the Aston Martin Vantage, Porsche 911 GT2 RS and Lotus Exige Cup 430. Yet, it beat all of those cars out. That’s right, the M2 Comp beat the 911 GT2 RS and Aston Martin Vantage, both of which are faster, more expensive and, on paper, more exciting. It also beat the Lotus, which is basically a track-day special.

So what cars took the BMW M2 Competition down? There are four of them, obviously. Which car was in fourth place? The Ford Fiesta ST. If that seems crazy to you, that a Fiesta could take down a proper M Division product, think again. The Fiesta’s tiny size, pugnacious attitude and superb handling (also the lowest price of the bunch by far) make it the sort of car that just begs to be driven. Third place went to the McLaren 600LT, the go-faster version of the 570S. It’s a sensational driving, mid-engine supercar whose only flaw is that it needs extreme speeds to really reach its driving potential.

Second place went to the Ferrari 488 Pista, a 710 hp mid-engine, hardcore supercar that can reach 60 mph in less than three seconds. According to TG, the Pista was very close to winning outright, as it’s an astonishing car to drive, if it weren’t for the first place winner — the Alpine A110.

The reason we’re talking about this is because the Alpine is a car that BMW, and the rest of the industry if we’re being honest, needs to learn from. The A110 is a car that prioritizes lightness and fluidity above all else. Its steering is pure, its chassis dynamics are balanced and playful and its suspension is supple, even lending it a bit of body roll. We haven’t driven the Alpine, as it isn’t offered here in America, but it’s said to be the sort of car that baffles its driver with its incredible fluidity and balance. It’s driving at its purest.

And it’s made by Renault. Not BMW or Mercedes-Benz or even Porsche. Renault. If the plucky French brand that isn’t even sold in the second largest car market in the world (America) can make a car like the Alpina A110 and justify it with the bean counters, then BMW can as well. BMW needs to look to the A110 and realize that making something lightweight, simple and balanced is far better than just adding power, grip and aero. When BMW makes something lightweight, it ends up being a torture chamber on the inside, with a stripped out cabin and suspension hard enough to compress spinal discs. The Alpine isn’t that. It’s dynamic and engaging and thrilling, all while being supple and easy to live with. Learn from the French BMW.

[Source: Top Gear]

The article BMW M2 Competition comes fifth in Top Gear’s Speed Week appeared first on BMW BLOG

from Performance Junk Blogger 6 https://ift.tt/2qFHfFI via IFTTT

[junker-town]

F1 results 2017: Sebastian Vettel wins Monaco Grand Prix, plus full finishing order

The Monaco Grand Prix heated up at the end, but a Ferrari one-two finish was always in the cards.

Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari won the Monaco Grand Prix, going from second place in qualifying to yet another win on the season. Vettel finished ahead of polesitter and teammate Kimi Raikkonen, who took second place in the race, giving Ferrari a one-two for the first time this season.

Vettel and Raikkonen exchanged places when the latter took his pit stop. He took it early, and after doing so, Vettel set the fastest lap of the race and got all he could out of his tires. Vettel eventually pit and came out in first and made himself well clear of

Valtteri Bottas took his pit stop on Lap 34, shortly after making it past Jenson Button, a back-marker. Bottas didn’t struggle getting past Button, while both the Ferrari drivers ahead of him did. But at that point, Bottas was more competing with Max Verstappen of Red Bull.

Verstappen went in for his pit stop to try and undercut Bottas, but he was unsuccessful. Bottas came out just ahead of Verstappen, comfortably covering the undercut.

At that point, Raikkonen came in for a pit stop and rejoined the race in third position. Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo had yet to pit, and at that point, Vettel actually set a fastest lap of the race.

Staying out for just a little bit longer ended up being a huge decision for Ricciardo. The Red Bull came in on Lap 39 and came out ahead of both Verstappen and Bottas. On the next lap, Vettel came in for a pit and came out ahead of Raikkonen to be leading the race.

Verstappen came over his team radio asking whether or not Ricciardo had taken a pit stop. His engineer informed him that Ricciardo passed him and Verstappen came back over the radio swearing and calling it a disaster.

Things slowed down until not long after Lap 60, when a safety car caused the grid to bunch up again. Ricciardo was nearly passed by Bottas after the restart when Ricciardo slipped up and nearly lost control of his car. The Mercedes and Red Bulls were scrapping while the Ferrari cars were safely in the top two spots.

Hamilton started from 13th on the grid thanks to a Stoffel Vandoorne crash in the second qualifying session. That crash threw up yellow flags and caused Hamilton to abort his final flying lap of the session. His bid to close the six-point gap between Vettel and himself in the Drivers Championship took a major hit when Vandoorne’s McLaren went into the barriers.

Hamilton slowly worked his way up into the points, making it past Vandoorne on Lap 19 to move into 10th place. By Lap 48, he took a pit stop and came out in seventh position, steadily moving up the points. That’s where he wound up finishing the race.

Fernando Alonso did not participate in the race, skipping it with McLaren’s blessing so he could fulfill a goal of his — racing in the Indianapolis 500. That race also takes place on Sunday, and the recently-retired Jenson Button filled in for him in Monaco.

Button had a solid qualifying session, making it into the third session and going ninth-fastest overall. Unfortunately, Button was also given a massive grid penalty for engine changes made by the team and started from the back of the grid.

Alonso came over the team radio just before the race started and wished Button, his former teammate, well. He also told Button to take care of his car, and the response he received was “Okay, I’ll pee in your seat!” Alonso, of course, laughed and begged Button not to joke about such things.

Pascal Wehrlein of Sauber was the first car to crash out of the race, with his car going vertical on its side up against the barriers, trapping him inside of it until it could be moved. He came over team radio and said that he was okay.

What happened was Weherlein’s car went over the front left wheel of Button, who was trying to cut around the inside of a very, very narrow track. Button also suffered terminal damage to his car and had to stop. A safety car was deployed.

Below is the full finishing order for Sunday’s race.

[ziatechgq1-blog]

My auto is more quick witted than me—and I show signs of improvement gas mileage for it Need beat fuel productivity? Autos will drive themselves, motors will conform to traffic.

In some ways, the entry of the auto around 130 years back spoke to an impairing of transportation. I'm not saying those early autos weren't great designing accomplishments; they were, and keep on being. In any case, your normal steed has a specific insight that your normal horseless carriage needs (and that is before we get to Mr. Ed). Be that as it may, the seeds of progress were sown in Silicon Valley, and many years of Moore's Law has worked its enchantment to convey us to the present day. Eventually, the fate of more fuel effective autos will be a fate of more astute autos—everything from self-sufficient vehicles to motors that explore activity superior to anything we do.

Half and half buildup or expectation?

Consolidating inward burning motors with electric engines may be extremely popular now, yet the thought backpedals more remote than you may might suspect. Back at the absolute starting point of the twentieth century, Ferdinand Porsche (yes, that Porsche) made the Lohner-Porsche Mixte Hybrid. It utilized batteries and a Daimler motor to power electric engines mounted in each wheel center. This game plan, known as an arrangement half and half, utilizes the motor to run a generator, which thusly controls the electric engines and additionally charges the auto's batteries.

There are some hypothetical focal points to an arrangement half breed. As talked about to a limited extent one, customary auto motors need to work under a scope of conditions. This includes configuration bargains like making less power higher up the rev extend keeping in mind the end goal to get worthy execution at lower revs. In any case, if that motor's employment is simply to run a generator, then it can be composed without these exchange offs and run nearer to its crest effectiveness. Electric engines additionally make bunches of torque close right away, so you needn't bother with complex mechanical transmissions that carry parasitic misfortunes with them.Series half and halves initially gotten on in trains and ships. At the point when cross breed autos returned in showrooms almost 100 years after Ferdinand Porsche's anyway, they utilized an alternate half and half outline rationality—the parallel crossover. In a parallel half breed, the electric engine and the gas motor are both associated with the transmission. Toyota was first to showcase with a cutting edge half and half traveler auto in 1997, when the original Prius went discounted in Japan. We needed to sit tight an additional two years for hybridization to achieve this side of the Pacific however. Honda, not Toyota, was first with their exceedingly streamlined Insight. You may even be astounded to discover we looked into the Insight at Ars route in those days. Its new looks drew group and provoked Will Ryu to tell individuals he was going by from the future (you ought to look at that audit regardless of the possibility that it's simply to perceive how far the site's outline has developed since).Two years after the fact, half breed drivetrains were being pressed into more ordinary looking autos, similar to the Honda Civic. We tried that out, as well, and now 10 years after the fact you can purchase half breed adaptations of many "ordinary" autos and SUVs. In spite of the extending business sector, any reasonable person would agree that Toyota's Prius has developed the most half and half mindshare, something market analyst Steve Sexton credits to its unmistakable looks (and in this manner its capacity to motion to others that it has a place with somebody who thinks about the earth).

Mixture drivetrains help make autos more fuel proficient in various ways. For one thing, having an electric engine installed to give additional power means the auto can escape with a littler, less intense inward ignition motor. Also, on the grounds that electric engines are great at giving torque immediately, that motor doesn't require the sorts of configuration bargains generally important to guarantee great execution at lower motor rates. Indeed, the Prius and different mixtures are intended to just utilize electric power at low speed, so drivers ought to see a similar sort of proficiency lift in activity that begin stop innovation conveys.

Crossovers are likewise ready to recuperate vitality ordinary autos discard on the grounds that an electric engine is truly an indistinguishable thing from an electric generator, aside from in turn around. The dynamic vitality that would somehow or another be lost by applying the brakes rather gets changed over once more into electrical vitality for energizing the batteries. Regenerative braking as of late made the jump from the street to the circuit, on account of its appropriation by Formula 1 (there it passes by the acronym KERS, or Kinetic Energy Recovery System). While I'm the main individual to bring up there's in reality next to no innovation exchange from F1 to street autos, in this occasion there's a case to be made. For a certain something, F1 gives a radiance impact to regenerative braking. Alex Bellus, a car investigator at IHS, as of late examined this thought with Ars:

For devotees like you and I, I think crossover innovation has far to go before we'll be tolerating of it. Regenerative braking is consummately fine in ordinary, everyday driving except totally weakens any artfulness a talented driver may attempt to utilize when braking amid an energetic run. Then again, as more execution auto makers grasp frameworks like KERS utilized as a part of F1, there's a genuine probability that even fans couldn't just endure it, in any case hold onto cross breed drivetrains as the innovation improves.Proving his point, Porsche, Ferrari, McLaren, and Jaguar all have mixture supercars set to hit the avenues in the following couple of years. They accompany stratospheric sticker prices—around $1 million each. A Venn graph of "individuals who burn through $1 million on an auto" and "individuals who need to get awesome gas mileage" presumably has a little convergence. In any case, regardless of the possibility that their proprietors couldn't care less about great fuel utilization, governments over the world are beginning consider the idea very important. Europe has set an armada CO2 emanations focus of only 95 g/km by 2020 (this works out to 57.4 US mpg). These auto organizations would prefer not to see their 200 mph beasts administered out of presence, and hybridizing gives them a chance to have it both ways. McLaren still can't seem to discharge a figure for its inevitable P1, neither has Ferrari for its mixture Enzo substitution. Be that as it may, Jaguar's C-X75 guarantees under 99 g/km (55 mpg) and Porsche's 918 will accompany a joined 795 hp while discharging a barely conceivable 70 g/km, or 78 mpg! Socially adequate supercars—who'd have thought it possible?Add daintiness

Obviously, these sorts of fuel proficiency increases aren't simply occurring with electric engines. The following real region being worked on is by all accounts weight. Unbelievable auto originators Lotus' Colin Chapman and McLaren's Gordon Murray picked up notorieties for being over the top about controlling weight. Chapman is regularly cited as having clarified his outline reasoning as "disentangle, then include softness." Murray was similarly merciless about overabundance mass while making the McLaren F1, going similarly as just permitting two thicknesses of washers (and requiring his group to legitimize utilizing the thicker one). Murray might be an extraordinary case, yet over the business everybody's quitting any and all funny business about getting slim.This is an appreciated advancement, considering that autos have become fatter to the tune of around 25 percent throughout the most recent 25 years. Stricter security principles are regularly fingered as the guilty party behind this weight pick up, yet the story is more convoluted. Customer interest for elements like fueled and warmed seats have assumed a part, as have unreasonable motivating forces like the EU's weight-based emanations targets or tax cuts gone by both the Bush and Obama organizations. (I'm sure I recollect a few SUVs phenomenally putting on weight between model years to crush over the qualifying line, yet my Google-fu as of now falls flat me).

Dan Kapp, Ford's chief of Powertrain Research and Engineering, disclosed to Ars the blue oval sees a ton of collaboration between more effective motors and weight lessening. As each model is supplanted by a lighter successor, the more up to date auto can get by with a littler motor with no apparent (or real) misfortune in execution. Furthermore, we're not really discussing littler autos. Without a doubt, when you work the same number of autos every year as Ford, you can't stand to be as fanatical over weight as Murray. Be that as it may, as per Kapp, tender loving care and attentive substitution of materials will empower the organization to drop in the vicinity of 250 and 750 lbs for each car.Using aluminum rather than steel is a conspicuous stride. It's a less-lenient metal to work with, in any case, requiring a more noteworthy scrupulousness and better resiliences amid development. This exactness likewise makes it more costly than steel, consigning its utilization to lower-volume, more costly models like Audi's A8 or Honda's NSX. More modern creation systems and developing industry ability have combatted this, prompting a developing selection of aluminum, though.Ford took in a ton about utilizing aluminum amid its responsibility for, and the following F-150 truck is accepted to make broad utilization of aluminum body boards. This assemble will spare around 700 lbs or 15 percent contrasted with the active model. GM, as well, has enormous arrangements for the stuff. Not long ago, the organization reported a leap forward welding system that ought to minimize expenses. It's not all sauce however, as there are still some critical worries about the vitality required to concentrate it from mineral (and thusly the measure of carbon transmitted as a result).Carbon fiber is another outlandish substance that we'll be finding in more ordinary applications. Carbon fiber composites are to a great degree solid and extraordinarily light, additionally immensely work concentrated to work with. That hasn't been an issue for hand-assembled hustling autos that take weeks to develop, yet it's not as much as perfect on the off chance that you need to produce several autos every day.