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Tarbuster
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right here, right now
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Mar 26, 2018 - 08:44pm PT
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Formula One 2018!
Well, fellow petrolheads, they are at it again!
Yes, this year's Australian Grand Prix is now water under the bridge.
And this first race run on the beautiful Melbourne circuit, with two, count them, TWO opportunities to pass. Woo hoo!
Finishing order, first six: Vettel, Hamilton, Räikkönen, Ricciardo, Alonso! & Verstappen.
What's that curvaceous banister thingy wrapping the cockpit just above the drivers' eyebrows?
Oh yeah, there's been talk about the HALO for a while now. At least there's some rake at the trailing edges, lending an appearance of speed to the whole arrangement (in side view, mind you). Almost reminiscent of the profile of some of the wraparound windscreens from some of the cars in the 50s! Or something. Or is it just a Buck Rogers inspired tack on …
Whatever, in another few races we won't even notice they are there, right … kind of like that off-color line of tiles the roofers installed mid-course on the top of your house.
Well, every season, and even midseason, there are always new aerodynamic oddities and various wind tunnel inspired filigree to ogle. I'm just throwing this rollbar right in with all of that.
TV coverage of the starting grid seems improved, with full-bodied driver's portraits. Or did I miss that from before?
For me, it's helpful in remembering them bad boys, especially the guys frequently established as back markers. (Which, ahem, of course, is most of them).
And you know, like a woman who can read an unlimited array of red lipstick shades, I'm quite serious when I say I think those Ferarri are showing a tad more orange in the tint, no?
Speaking of ORANGE: the papaya orange livery of Maclaren finishing in the top six, now there is a color I can adjust to!
Grosjean & Magnussen and their Ferrari powered HAAS machines looked good at the start. (That changed, and not for the better). Ricciardo actually made a pass somewhere in the mix early on. Max Verstappen, bless his heart, spun out, maybe due to tires, losing a bunch of ground, (most of which he made up, no surprise) and was described by one of the announcers as a man in a hurry. If that's been said before, I missed it! Can we say: apropos?
Well, Vettel pretty much won the race, adding time by speeding along the pit lane exit, whilst everyone else was toodling along under a virtual yellow flag. Now that's excitement … or maybe not.
One of my favorite moments was watching the matched profiles of Toto Wolff and Nicky Lauda as they sat side-by-side, faces alight with an ever-changing array of emotions, overseeing their respective gladiators.
And then, when it came time for the champagne celebration, now that Dan Gurney has left us, did I detect a lackluster spray-display? At one point, when Sebastian pointed his bottle at Kimi, the iceman more or less held out his hand is if to say: oh please ...
Well, even after watching this season's first race almost twice, that's about all the thick-screened sieve fashioned from my rampant, ADD inspired internal dialogue let through onto the heads-up display of my consciousness.
And all cutesy-quippy sarcasm aside, and given that my head to toe tendinitis affliction is moving along as quickly as a hamster in his/her wheel, I'll be here under the hardtop, glued to the rim of the boob tube w/Permatex for front row viewing during all the rest of this year's F1 circus!
 What did you see?
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Tony Puppo
climber
Bishop
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Mar 26, 2018 - 09:18pm PT
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Roy you are on a roll. Awesome seeing the boys again, especially with you at color commentary.
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Mar 26, 2018 - 10:22pm PT
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What was interesting to me to see was how powerful the whole F1 machine really is. Stupid regulations about the speed on track with a virtual safety car versus the speed in pit lane cost Hamilton the race. But nobody seems to be, at least publicly, calling the rule into question.
I can't believe that something isn't happening behind-the-scenes to close this loophole. The fact the everyone on F1 seems to be keeping mum says that they all have a lot more to lose by speaking out. That's a long way from the tire disaster in Indy when only 6 cars took to the grid. Of course in that situation it was more of a driver safety issue.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mar 26, 2018 - 10:25pm PT
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Lewis wuz robbed! Robbed I say! Mr Pundit, you omitted Lewis’ phenomenal qualfying lap
with his car in ‘party mode’! LOL During the race the Merc didn’t seem much faster than the
Prancing Ponies so I say his Q lap was just driving genius.
I have to say the F1 bureaucrats are taking over with the 3 engine rule. That’s insanity.
RUN WHAT YA BRUNG! WE WANT SPEED! (and tracks they can pass on)
Oh, can we have a moment of silence for the passing of the Grid Girls? This PC crap blows.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 26, 2018 - 10:43pm PT
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I ain't no pundit.
I'll leave that to the rest of you bright lights!
>And missed qualifying! Oh the horror, the horror.
Just a color sensitive sh#t-talker over here.
And yes, WTF, OVER, I'll take a knee for the Grid Girls!
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mar 26, 2018 - 10:48pm PT
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Hay, it’s OK to pontificate! It’s what we do at this age! 🤡
FYI, you did see he cleaned their clocks by almost .7 second on his last Q lap?
That was incredible.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 26, 2018 - 10:53pm PT
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No, I didn't see that, Reilly!
See edit just above, concerning qualifying. (Though I do remember mention of Hamilton's engine settings/qualifying situation)
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Mar 26, 2018 - 10:55pm PT
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Reilly,
according to the commentators, it is very hard to pass on the Melbourne circuit. Hamilton had a 15 second lead on Vettel before they started changing tires and all the virtual safety car BS happened. Yes, Hamilton was robbed. For sure.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 26, 2018 - 11:02pm PT
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Yes, Bruce, Vettel himself basically offered up that caveat to his win, directly to Hamilton in front of God and everybody.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Cascade Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Mar 27, 2018 - 12:47am PT
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When it came time for me to learn to drive as a teenager, my parents decided to hire a professional driving instructor for me. I don't think my parents ever realized that he was a retired Indy race driver who was eager to teach me racing techniques. I learned a number of habits from him that have clearly helped keep me alive on the highways as I do a lot of driving. In fact just drove for 12 hours from my boat in Monterey Bay to my cabin in the woods.
So for a little while I dated this girl in my home town of Boise Idaho, who got me further interested in racing. She had an MG Midget and was scary to watch on the autocross course. I taught her a little bit about rock climbing and she sometimes let me drive her car in the autocross. I started reading whatever was available in the library on handling race cars. She had an ex-boyfriend who had been a professional racer and was still hanging around her. He undertook to teach me some stuff about racing so I could drive faster times in her little car.
When our tenuous relationship broke up, my consolation prize was to go sink my savings into a worn-out Austin Healy 100. At the time, I didn't even know how to change a tire. The Healy had a dog clutch and the first thing I did was to race up into the hills and completely destroy the throw-out bearing. With no maintenance budget, I had to learn all about synchronized shifting without the clutch, and drove it that way for months. Between driving to school and local racing, I basically completely rebuilt the car to keep it on the road...just barely...
When I later bailed out of Camp 4 to San Francisco, I worked three jobs and suddenly had money to invest in a new Austin Healy Sprite. I was working the computer floor night shift at Fireman's Fund American, mornings as bookkeeper for Gerry Mountain Sports on Grant Avenue, and bookkeeper/ski mounter for The North Face on Columbus Avenue in the evenings.
Weekends was the race to Camp 4 between Galen Rowell, Frank Sacherer, me and others. I developed a special technique for getting through the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the road through Tracy. The technique was to slip into the curb lane and race past all the traffic. Soon some other eager driver would pull in behind me, at which point I would pull back into the line of traffic and let them go ahead by a good distance. As soon as they attracted the attention of the inevitable cop, I would pull back into line until past the cop and his victim....then repeat...
In 1967 my high school sweetheart and I took a copy of Euelle Gibbons' books and went trekking up the coast living off the bounty of the coastline. Then we hitchhiked across the country to arrive early for the Watkins Glenn Grand Prix in upstate New York. We arrived on a beautiful sunny day following a rain and found the race course and surroundings to be beautifully prepared, but not a single person around other than ourselves. So we pitched our little tent on the grass near the pits building and enjoyed ourselves walking around the race course. Later the next day, still with the place to ourselves, up the highway came three car carrier semi-trucks loaded with race cars, the entire stable of Formula One cars. The truck drivers pulled up to the pits building looking for someone in charge. I was the only one standing there, so they asked me where to put the cars. For want of a better option, I pretended to know what for, and directed them to carefully push the cars by hand and line them up neatly alongside each other in the pits building. Then the trucks drove off leaving me alone with all the cars. I knew a fair bit about the cars from my magazines, so had a couple of hours to do a detailed inspection of the Lotuses, Brabhams, American Eagle, Honda, Ferrari, etc. Then after a while, I started hearing the faint sound of high performance engines approaching at some considerable speed in the distance. Soon there was a collection of fancy sports cars pulling up to the building and the mechanics jump out of the cars saying thank god at least one of us made it here to receive delivery of the cars. I was instantly considered to be one of the gang. So there was no competition between the mechanics from one team to another ... everyone worked together on whatever needed to be done.
So we changed the gearing on the Honda flat 16 gearbox, readjusted the Lotus and Eagle suspensions for this track, etc. Then on the day before the race an official came around to hand out pit passes to each of the teams. Then he got to me and asked what team I was on? Several heads turned my way in curiosity. I said, well, I just happened to be here and haven't signed onto a team. Immediately three team managers came up and offered to take me on. I was in friendly negotiations between Lotus and Eagle, when we noticed my partner had gone off in a corner with tears streaming down her face. It seems becoming a Formula One groupy was not her idea of a good time and I had to make a choice between a job or her. Well I was pretty fond of her, so we settled for carte blanche pit passes to watch the race. Well it was still some sort of a dream come true. So I was fascinated by Jim Clark's technique and went down to the end of the back straight to watch him hit the shutoff point at well over 160 mph. Over dozens of laps his right front tire would chirp at the same patch within about six inches every time ... not sure what that translates into in milliseconds of timing. Graham Hill in the other Lotus was right on his tail for most of the race and they opened up several laps on the rest of the field. Then with a couple of laps to go Jim Clark's right rear top suspension link broke loose and the wheel cocked over inwards at about a 30 degree angle. Graham politely held position behind him while they ran the last two laps at a much slower rate, but still finishing ahead of the pack. Jim Clark managed to keep enough stress off that wheel so it didn't completely tear off the car! Wow, that's technique for you! The crowd went wild!
Following the parties, we continued our hitchhiking and arrived in New York City with about $2.50 in our pockets ... but that is another big adventure story ...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 27, 2018 - 02:25am PT
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Good God what am I doing up at this hour?
Answer: reading that awesome story by Tom Cochrane and searching the web for related jewels!
Now, that is almost totally unbelievable.
I'm sure you feel the same, except that it actually HAPPENED to you. Which I believe!!!
That bit about lining up the cars and being offered a position as a team mechanic: holy moly Batman!
Out-f*#king-standing!!!!! > Ad infinitum. Only in 1967 or thereabouts could such a thing ever happen. Even then, WOW.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
[Click to View YouTube Video]
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Thanks Tom!
Probably one of the best single posts ever on this forum, that is, for the few who actually know what it means.
and please don't give me a retroactive April fools ;-) in a few days!
........................................
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_United_States_Grand_Prix
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Mar 27, 2018 - 11:03am PT
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Edward T I love it. No wonder why we never grow out of that feeling.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Cascade Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Mar 27, 2018 - 12:44pm PT
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The Honda 1967 Watkins Glenn engine made very strange sounds ... sounds like tearing a big sheet of paper ... or perhaps tearing the track lengthwise. The online references talk about a Honda 48 valve V-12 engine being used that year. But I'm pretty sure in that race the car had a Honda flat or H 16 cylinder and I helped swap gears in the gear box on the back end of it. In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't actually count cylinder heads that day. The rated horsepower was supposedly not the greatest, but it developed incredible torque for passing and made sounds I've never heard from another engine ... certainly unlike Ferrari 12 cylinder songs. I loved the way it poured on the torque. Later during the race, to my great disappointment, it started misfiring and making ragged sounds like little pistons were about to fly off in all directions, and John Surtees shut it down. With all those tiny high speed moving engine parts it's a wonder it lasted as long as it did in the race.
So Jimmy Clark died the next spring when a startled pigeon flew into his face on the back straight in Germany as he was going over 150 mph. I don't see online references to the pigeon precipitating Clark's fatal excursion into the trees.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Cascade Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Mar 27, 2018 - 01:11pm PT
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I was just going by memory from articles at the time, supposedly from a spectator witness to the event.
Interesting to see what is available on the net.
Wikipedia says it was Hockenheim in Baden-Württemberg, Germany
I never actually met any of those famous drivers except for Dan Gurney ... it was just one big work space with people milling around working on various tasks on the cars, with me lending a hand occasionally and listening to discussions ... much less formal than when I later was working on Bobby Rahals CART team
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 27, 2018 - 01:32pm PT
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The most impressive sounding engine I ever heard was the V12 powerplant used in the Matra MS120, which I heard being driven by Chris Amon at Ontario Motor Speedway, 1971.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matra_MS120
Sounded much like these two examples:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
In fact, THIS, though the examples above give a better feel for the experience:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
..........................................................
– The F1 Schedule – 2018:
25 March Melbourne, Australia
8 April – Sakhir, Bahrain
15 April – Shanghai, China
29 April – Baku, Azerbaijan
13 May – Barcelona, Spain
27 May – Monaco
10 June – Montreal, Canada
24 June – Le Castellet, France
1 July – Spielberg, Austria
8 July – Silverstone, Great Britain
22 July – Hockenheim, Germany
29 July – Budapest, Hungary
26 August – Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
2 September – Monza, Italy
16 September – Singapore
30 September – Sochi, Russia
7 October – Suzuka, Japan
21 October – Austin, USA
28 October – Mexico City, Mexico
11 November – Sao Paulo, Brazil
25 November – Yas Marina, Abu Dhabi
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 27, 2018 - 02:09pm PT
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Tom,
Just noodling around on Wikipedia, for 1966 and 1967, I'm only finding talk about the V12, as you've said. (Featured in the video above ^^^)
Doesn't necessarily mean you're recollection is incorrect, but here's what they have:
For 1966, to meet the new 3 L specification:
The Honda RA273 was a Formula One racing car used by the Honda team in the 1966 and 1967 Formula One seasons.
The engine was re-designed from the RA272's 1,500cc V12 to a brand new 3,000cc V12 due to the change of regulations before the 1966 season. The new engine was designed by Shoichiro Irimajiri.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_RA273
And the entry for 1967:
The 48-valve V12 engine first appeared in the RA273 at the 1966 Italian Grand Prix, driven by Richie Ginther. In spite of weighing 740 kg (dry), it was capable of spinning the rear tyres at 100 mph in third gear. With cylinder dimensions of 78.0 x 52.2 mm and a displacement of 2,993.17 cc, a target of 400-440 bhp at 12,000 rpm was quoted. The engine used by Surtees at Monza in 1967 was quoted by Motoring News as developing only 396 bhp, but with improved torque and response. The vehicle weight excess over the 500 kg minimum had been approximately halved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_RA300
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Mar 27, 2018 - 02:36pm PT
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More 70s V12 ear candy, this time from a BRM.
(I could get a life, but that wouldn't be as much fun at the moment)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
And, HERE, Tom is an H16 from the 60s, a BRM powerplant used in a Lotus 43, in 1966:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Cosworth were developing a new engine for Lotus, the DFV, to be introduced for the 1967 Formula One season, and in the meantime Chapman made a deal for use of BRM's new P75 H16 engine. The P75 on paper was technically advanced and powerful, and Chapman had hopes that it would power his cars to another successful season.
The first sign of trouble was when the new engine arrived and it required four men to lift it from the truck. The engine proved to be overweight, unreliable and was unable to produce the promised power. The car was supposed to debut at the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix, driven by Peter Arundell, but it was unavailable. Its first outing at the following Belgian Grand Prix ended during practice, when the engine gave out.[3] Both Clark and Arundell then reverted to using the Lotus 33 while the new car's problems were ironed out.
The 43 reappeared at the Italian Grand Prix but retired with gearbox failure. Clark then won the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, the only race win for the P75 engine and borrowed the P75 engine before the race. However, gearbox failure again led to the 43's retirement from the final race of the season, the Mexican Grand Prix.
So here it is, ^^^ evidence of an H16 at Watkins Glen in '66:
Clark then won the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, the only race win for the P75 engine and borrowed the P75 engine before the race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_43
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Cascade Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Mar 27, 2018 - 02:57pm PT
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Playing with speed ...
Piper Comanche 250 with all the speed mods
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SuperTopo on the Web
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Let us know!