A Daily Round up of Formula One news, inside whispers, opinion and comment. Today,
Least surprising news ever: Mallya under pressure for ‘irregularities’
Gary Anderson: How to s@!t on Peter Warr
Pepperidge Farm Remembers
Many moons ago, when the wild buffalo still roamed the prairie freely, I was a young and handsome Hippo. I’m no longer young today. That was a time when F1 used to cook up crazy ideas that several years later would find their way into our cars. In the late eighties Lotus’ legendary Colin Chapman came up with the idea of an active suspension and by 1992 Williams had perfected the idea.
These days Lotus is – okay let’s not talk about that – and the rules are mainly made to say that teams shan’t develop anything for it could cost money that Bernard rather shovel into his own money bunker. What of today’s development will make it into the car of tomorrow? A hideous nose? The hybrid engine? That’s already been there in Toyota’s godawful Prius for years. The reality is – nothing.
Not so with stuff developed at a time when teams weren’t yet nannied at every corner. The active suspension, once developed by Lotus and perfected by Williams can now be found in Norwegian CV90 tanks, built by BAE. It improves their speed by 30 to 40 percent. And no development token were used by BAE, just engineering excellence.
Least surprising news ever: Mallya under pressure for ‘irregularities’
Force India boss Vijay Mallya is a man who makes Monisha Kaltenborn’s business ethics look reasonable, and it is probably not too much a stretch of the imagination that some of the PR disasters, like the coward attacks on fellow strugglers Manor GP came from Mallya rather than the once well liked Bob Fernley.
In India he’s labeled a willful defaulter, which means he’s by default no longer creditworthy. Being shunned by an Indian bank is like being sacked from Waffle House due to one’s appearance or being disqualified from the Idiotarod for lack of intellect. But the embarrassment doesn’t end there.
The ‘businessman’ at the helm of Force India has sold the majority of shares in his booze empire “United Spirit” to food giant Diaego and the latter company’s board is now smelling a rat. The directors of Diaego say there were ‘substantial financial irregularities’ during the sale of shares and demand that Mallya resigns from his post on the board, but good ol’ Vijay refuses to do so.
Citing an “irreversible loss of trust” Diaego boss Anand Kripalu demands that Mallya resign or he will be sacked. Independent auditors have looked at the deal and come to the conclusion that Mallya has acted “dubiously” and “against the law” during several transactions. With possible legal action looming on the horizon, the FI boss insists that he’s innocent and claims the audit report is full of “twisted facts and half truths”.
Hand me the popcorn, will ya?
Mick Watch: Early success
Mick Schumacher, the Eldest son of seven-times world champion Michael has started his open wheel career in style, winning his first race on the first weekend out of karts.
The German qualified 19th and 20th out of 38 contenders for the first two Formula 4 races at the Motopark Oschersleben in Hippo’s old hunting grounds – Saxonia-Anhalt in eastern Germany. In both races the youngster proved that he has quite a good grasp of this overtaking malarkey and finished 9th and 12th respectively.
Since the top ten of race 1 start race 3 in reversed grid order, Schumacher got a front-row start and quickly grabbed the lead and built up a gap. He was getting under pressure from van-Ammersfoort team mate Joey Mawson in the closing stages of the race, but a late safety car secured Schumacher junior’s maiden win.
The pressure and expectations will surely not have decreased. The sixteen year old is supported by his father’s close friend Sebastian Vettel, who is also the official patron of German Formula 4. The four times world champion won F4’s predecessor series Formula-BMW in 2004 for Mücke Motorsport, winning 18 of the season’s 20 races.
Gary Anderson: How to s@!t on Peter Warr
In a Q&A with Autosport, Gary Anderson, former F1 designer and BBC pundit explains one of his funniest F1 moments:
One of the funniest moments happened in the late seventies, when I was with McLaren. Every garage had a toilet, but James Hunt and Brazilian plumbing didn’t go well together. He had an annoying tendency to clog the pipes. Don’t try the following at home.
For reasons that elude my understanding, it was my job as the chief mechanic to unclog the toilet. I taped plastic foil over the toilet and put a hose through it. Then I blasted the drain clear at 100psi. Problem solved – the bog was free and serviceable again.
Lotus – and I mean the original Lotus team – had the box next to us. The next day one of them came over laughing his butt off and we asked what was going on. He told us that the toilet had exploded in Peter Warr’s face while taking a leak the day before.
DN&C is back 🙂
Good Morning TJ13,
Why not finish off your day by joining us on the live stream tonight from 19.50 GMT. Podcast recording starts at 20.00 GMT. The chat room is fast becoming an extra member of the podcast panel.
Use this link
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/13338322
The chat room??? I thought a couple of weeks ago we had established that the chat room is now called ‘The jury room’…. ;-P
Damn right it is Robdin
Join THE JURY on the live stream…. formally known as the chatroom.
I’ve prolly said it before but I reckon much-reduced aero, big sticky tyres and re-introducing bells&whistles active suspension might be a great step toward curing the lack of close racing but keeping corner speeds up. MB have already had Active Body Control on their road cars for a few years now and I’m sure there are plenty of other manufacturers with similar kit.
https://rogerdodges.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/hamfisted-01-sml.png
I like the ‘more power than grip’ concept. So I’m not sure if I like more grip.
But somewhere there needs to be found 10 seconds per lap (on average).
And I know I’ve said this before: I think Total engine freedom would be nice. But with restrictions on joules used. Audi F1 diesel? Google solar/hydrogen? Etc
Oh and customer engines for Max 10 million per year.
Agreed. Make a formula one car a monster again. Like back in the 70’s. Small front tires, enormous at the back. 1200 HP. Less wing. More driving skill. Problem is that people don’t see Übermenschen drive those cars. (Forgive me the therm) they all believe they can do it them selves. And that’s not the point now, is it?
It’s about time we move on from comparing what happened in the 70’s to what we see now. Times has changed, technology has changed, every other form of motorsport evolved has over time.
Not because the current crop of drivers aren’t driving 1000+ bhp monsters, doesn’t mean they’re less skilled than those in the past.
Ok so we give them these behemoth to tame and they do that and make it look like child’s play, them what? Are we then going to ask for more power? Does this increase in power not raises the risk of far bigger accidents with more dangerous and possible fatal accidents?….
I think that more crashes would attract more casual viewers. Cynical, I know and I don’t wish any Harm to anyone. But I think if the perception of danger increases, more people will admire the drivers.
The thing is we, the hardcore fans, know all that. But they want to attract more casual viewers. And they want spectacular things. If you start watching a movie and after an half hour you are bored to death you stop watching… or at least 85% of the people would stop watching. And in the words of Alex zanardi: whether you like it or not crashing is entertainment
So maybe get rid of tarmac run off areas as AJ so un-eloquently argued in an early podcast 😉
Apart from Pastor, crashes are a rarity in F1 nowadays, the last big one was Spa 2012.
Massa and Gutierrez flipping over don’t count?
@hippo…
They do, but seeing how Alonso nearly had his head ripped off, makes those to those 2 look like a mere fender bender.
@ Fortis et al…..No, the last big one was Jules in Japan. Was that dangerous enough for you?
It’s not about crashes, it’s about sliding. To see a driver sliding a car deliberately through a corner is a great thing, it’s what F1 was built on. That display of control and skill is simply gone now, and our respect for the current F1 pilots is diminished as well.
@Gomer. Nah. FIA sanctioned. Doesn’t count.
He was talking non sanctioned accidents…..
Exploding Toilets:
Back around ’91 Our Ship was pier-side in Malaysia, and taking shore services which included 120-150psi fire system water. This got reduced to around 20psi for normal flushing water. During the night the reducer failed.
It was a mixed ship and there was one female Chief Petty Officer who liked to get up before reveille to take care of business in private.
That morning, reveille was replaced by the screams of the CPO, as 120-150psi flushing water hit that fully loaded toilet! Everything within the stall was painted brown. One had to practically lean over the top of those old shipboard toilets.
Of course the screams brought everyone from the chief’s quarters running.
This and Gary Anderson’s story have made my day. Absolute genius!
What were the Schumachers thinking of when they named their boy “Mick”?
On reflection, “Paddy” would have been an even worse choice, for numerous reasons.
Heinz Harald, then?
That would be… um… unfortunate. Corinna Schumacher was Frentzen’s girlfriend before Michael pinched her.
Er, Cherman humour being no laughing matter you have slightly missed the joke….
Soooo, Eddie Jordan Schumacher?
The only problem I see with the budget cap is that as long as the governance structure that F1 has at the moment it makes it impossible to get the budget cap accepted because there are simply too many people involved in the decision making process that represent entities that are against a budget cap. This means that either the strategy group decision structure has to be changed, very unlikely to happen if the strategy group or the World Council are the ones that have to make that decision. Or something like restricting the amount of updates allowed during a season, which also has some aspects that might not be wanted (what happens when you have build a great front wing and don’t need to change it but you’re not allowed to change the part that is causing you troubles because you have already changed it earlier in the season… a tough luck situation or something that should not influence teams).
Maybe an even better idea would be to introduce development tokens. That way teams have the freedom to pour as much money in the R&D behind a part as they deem fit. But there is still a balance between the rich and the poor in that they have the same amount of updates during a year. This would drastically cut down the minimum amount of budget needed to run a team and be sort of competitive. It would also have the benefit that it slows down development making it more difficult for a team to run a way with a championship if they found the magic button. There are undoubtedly also some negative aspect with this idea and the one that comes to mind right now is how much is a development token worth?
Given that the league structures are different inn that each team is a franchise under the title of “League,” unlike their U.S. counterparts, not much of significance in F1 will change until all teams think about “the good of the sport” rather than, “what’s best for me.”
The answers people seem to give are to make new rules and restrictions. This will stifle innovation, unless we are talking about the rich few teams at the top. Surely the simplest answer, which in turn should make things easier for the smaller teams, is a fair disribution of the money. That way the teams at the back have a chance to spend some money on upgrades and developments
instead of “making do” most of the year. Bernie must love all this debate about little tweaks here and there to try and improve things, while nothing gets done about the real cause of the probelms.
Don’t forget growing the pie. Relative to many other Sports, F1 not earning a lot.
Not only growing the pie. What we forget when discussing more equitable distribution of funds is the insane amount looted by FOM and CVC. The percentage grabbed by CVC should be lower than it currently is.
Are you including the amount refinanced out of the sport? Because if you do include that amount, the numbers look truly heinous. Still, there seems to be a basic $30-$40 million gap between what it costs and what teams earn (midfield and backmarkers, natch) exacerbated by the slow payout and suppliers new insistence on being paid up front. Short term, however it’s addressed, that’s the basic issue that needs solving. Long term tho, you’re absolutely correct, structural inequities need to be sorted.
“Being disqualified from the Idiotarod for lack of intellect”, you know a lot of mushers Hippo?
Anderson is back at the BBC? When did that happen?
former designer and bbc pundit
“”What of today’s development will make it into the car of tomorrow? A hideous nose? The hybrid engine? That’s already been there in Toyota’s godawful Prius for years. The reality is – nothing.””
10% wrong
need to get your fact checker working alongside your spell checker for best results. The hybrid technology that Merc and Honda are spending millions on IS NOT hybrid (as found in the Prius) but ENERGY RECOVERY hybrids with the emphasis on energy recovery
The old hybrid tech is simply an electric motor added to an ICE
The tech that guys get paid the big bucks for is to power that electric motor from energy recovered for free NOT from a charging station or from the ICE
I think Merc and Honda would have noticed if they were spending all this money on something the Prius was selling to housewives ‘for years’
less hyperbole more well researched facts work
From our former F1 friends at Toyota…
***
With our world leading Hybrid Synergy Drive®, even braking contributes to the overall energy efficiency of the car. Each time you press down on the brake pedal or decelerate, controllers divert kinetic energy which would normally be lost as heat and noise (or simply wasted), back to the battery for recycling to power the electric motor later on.
***
Am I missing something or is that saying Prius recovers and reuses energy from braking? I don’t think you can plug in a Prius either.
Our friends at Toyota are experts at marketing talk and sales pitch. That fancy sales pitch is actually the tech called ‘regenerative breaking’ (like a poor mans ERS – handbag stuff’
heres an explanation of Toyotas marketing soundbite
“””Regenerative braking, a process for recovering kinetic energy when braking or traveling down a slope and storing it as electrical energy in the traction battery for later use while reducing wear and tear on the brake pads;”””
Now this is a different scale and level from capturing kinetic energy from the rear axle and storing it in any meaningful scale. Kers was like a super enhanced version of regenerative braking but the ERS-K is a world away.
With the Prius the battery is mainly charged by the ICE. its not ‘free’ of fossil fuels like this F1 tech that stores it and uses it for performance.
In the context of the FUBAR I responded to, it is said that FOM are not doing enough to inform the public of the technology, and Merc were said to be dumbing it down by calling their W0 cars Hybrids as it confuses the less capable F1 followers into thinking its old Prius tech. e.g Williams Flywheel energy recovery storage (didnt even race it) is now deployed in road use, the stuff that will be in road cars (already in the 918, P1 and Lala) is the recovery and storage of enough ‘free’ energy to actually add a meaningful % of the energy that powers the car
So in conclusion I respect your understanding of the Prius concept, however to equate the Prius tech with the ERS is astoundingly ‘uninformed’. Honda are interested in having 4 electric engines powering each wheel with fulltime ERS completely independent of the ICE energy source
ALL this ERS tech will end up on road cars – thats why your Hondas are there – for the first time they have a direct outlet for their F1 test bed
saying ‘no Ers tech will end up on road cars, we had hybrid already’ is as silly as saying how can the internet get more useful when its already useful’
or saying ‘a Prius hybrid already solves the problem of saving on fuel bills, who needs a new type of engine that can use less fuel than the Prius yet produce 5x its energy by recovering from the rear axle’
I see. So the point of your posts just here now was to waggle your “F1 technical knowledge” appendage about the place in response to a throwaway line from FH at the conclusion of his DN&C post.
It is certainly my impression that everyone is entitled to respectfully waggle their appendage around here; indeed the site would be far less interesting if judicious appendage waggling wasn’t a thing. However, can I suggest that you do your waggling in a properly-composed, formal post. Educate us all on the intricacies of hybrid technology. Tell us where you think the technology is going in racecars and road cars. Suggested title: “Hybrid? You call that a hybrid??”
As it stands, your posts only make sense to me if I read them from the point of view of you talking to yourself as you dig yourself out of sight down a rabbit hole.
Your last para Roger….it could be contagious……?
the only motivation for the first post is that It really bothers me when i read lazy shallow generalisations dressed as fact
you are free to go down the rabbit hole only as far as it takes you to learn something new, assuming thats why you asked the question
And maybe throwaway lines are easier to digest than digging deep for some, and thats why differing views exist
May I point out that the genre is named “Daily News and Comment“? I think the parts that you have criticized are clearly identifiable as a comment from the author. As such they do not come with any claim of being comprehensive or ‘right’ by anyone’s standard.
100% wrong