25 replies to this topic

[DOF_power]

Surprisingly I expected some sort of a monster or something.

[AleHop]

I bet Alonso could win the WDC with that car, but the R28... Mmmmmmm...

[tifosi too!]

DOF_Renault_BMW, on Jun 2 2008, 10:26 PM, said:

Surprisingly I expected some sort of a monster or something.

It 's a monster go-kart!!!!

[medilloni]

I thought it was going to be a beast too - though Brundle did seem to take it easy compared to the Maserati and the Lotus 49 that he drove earlier, both superb TV.  The Maser must have been a monster because the gas pedal is on the left......... how the hell do you get used to that!?

The program with the McLaren was the shortest so far and I got the impression it was a very tired example, and the gear ratios were way too short.  Amazing to hear him say how well it turned in - visually that's hard to imagine with such tiny front tyres (even with such a wide track) and great big balloons on the back.

EDIT:  I meant to ask, has anyone seen the 'Driven' that's on BBCi at the moment about Graham Hill?  It's probably really old (I'm not a TV fiend), but what an eye opener, great story about the true Monaco King...........

Edited by medilloni, 02 June 2008 - 08:59 PM.

[DOF_power]

>
^ This just reinforces my belief that after WWII the ultimate test of racecraft/control/speed was Group B rally racing. F1 was fun for worshiping or hating them superstar drivers, the crashes and cool tech like ground effects, active suspensions but real deal was rally racing. But even that's gone today.

[dribbler]

medilloni, on Jun 2 2008, 09:47 PM, said:

The Maser must have been a monster because the gas pedal is on the left......... how the hell do you get used to that!?

Cross your legs?


I'm loving Martin's feature, as i'm sure we all are. Was it the '49 when he said "Whooaaa, no, don't try that on me"? Made me laugh out loud that he was talking to it; trying to tame the beast, as all petrol heads would do.

[medilloni]

dribbler, on Jun 3 2008, 07:45 AM, said:

Cross your legs?
I'm loving Martin's feature, as i'm sure we all are. Was it the '49 when he said "Whooaaa, no, don't try that on me"? Made me laugh out loud that he was talking to it; trying to tame the beast, as all petrol heads would do.

Yeah Steve, he sounded like a stand-in for that 'Yeah BABY!' fella - and like you say, I love the way he comes across as a real petrol head.  Did you see the Maser?  Chuck it in to the apex, front wheel waving off the around, the Lotus 49 was serene in comparison - interesting comments about the Cosworth DFV too, how it was far ahead of the car, and looks like it was made for the next era.

Quote

This just reinforces my belief that after WWII the ultimate test of racecraft/control/speed was Group B rally racing. F1 was fun for worshiping or hating them superstar drivers, the crashes and cool tech like ground effects, active suspensions but real deal was rally racing. But even that's gone today.

Good point DOF, Group B was one of the craziest times in rallying history - I wouldn't say it has gone though, yes the cars are far more sophisticated, but most of the conditions they drive in and all of the unknowns of rallying mean they're just a bit special.  Lighten up

[DOF_power]

It was the craziest racing post WWII period.

But the stages are far far shorter, even added togheter. It's becomed a few minutes plus a few more minutes plus a few more minutes.

Where's them 18-20 hours+ of continous hard rallying thru every weather, terrain and conditions imaginable day and night and day again ?!
Walther Rohl's taiming the Quattro or Toivonen of the "Bestia" of Abarth makes Senna's infamous Monaco drive look a 5 year old playing.

Edited by DOF_Renault_BMW, 03 June 2008 - 08:05 AM.

[medilloni]

DOF_Renault_BMW, on Jun 3 2008, 09:04 AM, said:

It was the craziest racing post WWII period.
But the stages are far far shorter, even added togheter. It's becomed a few minutes plus a few more minutes plus a few more minutes.
Where's them 18-20 hours+ of continous hard rallying thru every weather, terrain and conditions imaginable day and night and day again ?!
Walther Rohl's taiming the Quattro or Toivonen of the "Bestia" of Abarth makes Senna's infamous Monaco drive look a 5 year old playing.

Great times DOF, but witnessing great skill is still there if you look for it.

Things will never be as they were, society's gone nanny and pc - they can't sing Ba Ba Black Sheep at my son's school and they can't celebrate Easter 'cos it might upset one friggin family that came from somewhere else, the window cleaner isn't allowed to use ladders in case he's still p!ssed from the night before, I'm a damn criminal and deserve death by Bonga Bonga if I drive over 70mph, if I don't recycle my f**king cardboard I'm an irresponsible-planet-raper and it's getting harder to buy a car where I can turn off the ABS, DSC and other techno-sh!t that spoils the fun - and it's not acceptable by sponsors, manufacturers and everyone else to have people slide down the curtains of life in our sport.

But, it's still a beautiful world.  Smile.  Be happy

Edited by medilloni, 03 June 2008 - 09:51 AM.

[DOF_power]

For me when I was little rally and touring cars was understeering, oversteering, scandinavian flicks car control and F1 was videogamish active ride cars. <br />
I still belive (with the image of the Williams FW14B Renault of Mansell devouring the Spa Francochamps during practice with diabolical clinical precisions) to this day that if it understeers, oversteers and/or shakes and rattles on bumps it's not a real F1. This stuff does not belong here IMO only pure machine laser scalpel precision does and wheel to wheel nose to tail overtaking. I don't like this driver skill drifting smoking tire locking brakes b* in F1, I'll watch rally racing for that.

Edited by DOF_Renault_BMW, 03 June 2008 - 10:58 AM.

[dribbler]

medilloni, on Jun 3 2008, 10:49 AM, said:

Things will never be as they were, society's gone nanny and pc - they can't sing Ba Ba Black Sheep at my son's school and they can't celebrate Easter 'cos it might upset one friggin family that came from somewhere else, the window cleaner isn't allowed to use ladders in case he's still p!ssed from the night before, I'm a damn criminal and deserve death by Bonga Bonga if I drive over 70mph, if I don't recycle my f**king cardboard I'm an irresponsible-planet-raper and it's getting harder to buy a car where I can turn off the ABS, DSC and other techno-sh!t that spoils the fun - and it's not acceptable by sponsors, manufacturers and everyone else to have people slide down the curtains of life in our sport.

But, it's still a beautiful world.  Smile.  Be happy

Just think of all the electricity you would have used, typing such a post. Please be a little more succinct for the sake of our planet.

Now, excuse me, i'm going out for a ride on my 1000cc motorcycle which is tuned quite rich so that it crackles like a bitch when you close the throttle down as it consumes unburned fuel on the overrun. Totally un-PC; it makes horses bolt, Daddies drool and women moist. F*ckin' great.

Sorry, i meant i'm thinking of buying a Smart car.........

[HandyNZL]

My Avatar is an M23, but in F5000 spec

That number 33 Yardley M23 that is in the early shot resides here in NZ and goes on track once in a while.  The Macca Orange car in the avartar gets raced at 80% of the historic meetings here in NZ...it's not so quick, but I think that its more down to the driver than anything else...not like the drivers want to smash up there $NZD300,000+ cars for the sake of 2/10ths!

[DOF_power]

dribbler, on Jun 3 2008, 08:06 PM, said:

Just think of all the electricity you would have used, typing such a post. Please be a little more succinct for the sake of our planet.

Now, excuse me, i'm going out for a ride on my 1000cc motorcycle which is tuned quite rich so that it crackles like a bitch when you close the throttle down as it consumes unburned fuel on the overrun. Totally un-PC; it makes horses bolt, Daddies drool and women moist. F*ckin' great.

Sorry, i meant i'm thinking of buying a Smart car.........

What good didn't banning the active ride cars do to F1 ?!
Cause here's what happened:
- retarding what should have been the most advanced racing cars in the world
- eliminating the relevancy to production cars
- eliminating wheel to wheel nose to tail racing
- killing and injuring drivers and spectators
- increasing expenses

I fail to see the point of wasting of lot of money on retarded cars killing people in boring parades in the name of some 1960s nostalgia B*.  
And guess what, the racing the nostalgic 1950s, 1960s, 1970s sucked form most part as the cars too fast, to fragile and too unsafe for and those tracks made in the 1920s. In fact, with some exceptions, there hasn't been any decent Grand Prix racing since the 1930s.

[HandyNZL]

Farck DOF you are being one miserable old fart.  Since when, for a start, did a (post active ride era) non-active ride / ground effects car in F1 kill a driver? When did one kill a spectator? The only death I can remember is the track marshall at Australia when JV nerfed into the back of someone and one of the tyres broke free.

And the cars of the 60's, 70's and early 80's are engineering masterpieces in their own right and should be regarded as such.  Engineering practises and components evolved so much in the 90's and 00's and it's plainly not fair to say a car in the 70's is any less beautiful than a car in the 90's.

It's like saying their were no beautiful women in the 70's, and they only somehow got beautiful today, what with their more revealing clothes and different hairstyles than in the 70's.

Edited by HandyNZL, 05 June 2008 - 12:52 AM.

[DOF_power]

I honestly can't remember an active ride car killing people (cause they had active suspensions, TC and ABS). I remember the killing begun when they de-activated them. The 94 non-active cars were the ones that killed Ratzenberger and Senna, that almost killed Barrichello and J.J. Letho

As for the cars of the 60s, 70s till 93 I have respect, as they were (much) more advanced for their time than the cars of today.
The problem was that these cars were too fast for most the tracks to allow good racing. Apart from slipstream circuits like Reims, (old) Monza old Spa, AVUS F1 Grand-Prix racing after WWII wasn't really that much better then today.
Drivers like Prost were talking about the (manual) missing gear and/or cooked tires. Well I'm sorry but he was only showcasing just how pitiful the situation became. The drivers of the 20s and 30s (Nuvolari, Carcciola, Rosemeyer) were not gonna wait to 50 laps for the guy in front to miss a gear or cook his tires. The last time proper racing took place on more than a occasional basis was the 1920s and 1930s because that's when the tracks were made and the cars were actually suited for them.  


On safety, the bigger more enclosed c#ckpits, HANS, higher sidepods, longer noses, suspension tiers had nothing to do with the activity or passivity of the cars.

Edited by DOF_Renault_BMW, 05 June 2008 - 05:32 PM.

[Rainmaster]

That M23 looks a beautiful car, but I preferred the feature on the Lotus, and the Maserati is simply amazing!  

[Silver_Arrows]

It would be interesting to see how they compare to modern cars, shame they did not share his lap times with us

[dribbler]

Silver_Arrows, on Jun 5 2008, 08:09 PM, said:

It would be interesting to see how they compare to modern cars, shame they did not share his lap times with us

It would have been irrelevant.

[DOF_power]

Silver_Arrows, on Jun 5 2008, 10:09 PM, said:

It would be interesting to see how they compare to modern cars, shame they did not share his lap times with us

Not good at all. It would make Fittipaldi look like Formula Renault driver at best; Clark would be a Formula Ford champion and Fangio a go-cart great.

Edited by DOF_Renault_BMW, 14 June 2008 - 11:52 AM.

[The Rumble Strip]

Although this was the era I grow up in, I can't help feel that modern cars look better.

[raw]

DOF_Renault_BMW, on Jun 13 2008, 06:14 PM, said:

Not good at all. It would make Fittipaldi look like Formula Renault driver at best; Clark would be a Formula Ford champion and Fangio a go-cart great.

DOF it seems that next level for you is praising driving skills of ancient chariot racers....

btw. You can find few comparisions between pre ww2 cars and first f1 on same track - and guess what - despite their monstrous power pre ww2 cars are much slower. And no wonder - nothing about pre ww2 grand prix racing was comparable to F1 (especially modern) - it just wasn't proffesional sport as it is now so everything (cars, drivers, races themselves) weren't as good. It was something between the very first automotive races and modern racing. Sport in general has been constantly evolving through 20th century and so was racing.
If you'd take for example NBA Champions from 1955 and 2005 - the 50's team would be just trashed. But to say that they were better or worse just isn't fair or make any sense..

[DOF_power]

Fangio broke the Nurburgring record set in 1939 only in 1957, but on some circuits the early 50s cars would be better.

You're wrong about the pre WWII period.
That's when the professional mega teams were created by MB and Auto Union led by people such as Alfred Neubauer.
That when Grand Prix cars were created in wind-tunnels and with advanced aviation alloys (the composites of their time).
The 30s were much more similar to F1 racing from the 80s, 90s till today then F1 racing of the late 40s, 50s, 60s and ealry 70s.
What followed after was the return of the little teams and return of amateurism.

They were improvements after WWII non-the-less, out went the Worm and Rocker Shaft steering in came the vastly superior rack and pinion steering. Then Ferrari used Mercedes De Dion + hydraulic dampers rear suspension layout and took it on step further thru dual links essentially creating the first multi-link suspension.
The suspension layout also helped the weight distribution and so the polar moment of inertia.
These 2 things (steering and suspensions) made a considerable difference, improving the cars and alloying Fangio to "flick the straws" witch wouldn't have been possible with a pre WWII "tank".

[raw]

I've compared pre ww2 to modern f1, not 50's but even so..

yes before ww2, just before nazis did put a lot of money in gp racing and auto union and mb were big teams and their cars were tested in wind tunnels... but even so, the developement was much slower than post-war and aerodynamic features of the cars were not half as good as they could get them with late 30's knowledge.
It's understandable that first years after the war were pretty slim. But then it's started to get going again much faster than before the war and FIA made proper formula regulations and so it started to roll faster - more competitive teams and drivers, faster developement even without such big budgets like pre ww2 etc.
So for me clearly on motorsport ladder of evolution pre ww2 grand prix lies lower than post ww2.

[DOF_power]

The pre WWII pace of developement and refinement wasn't reach until the second half of the 1970s (think grouund-effects, turbos, composites).
And you'd surprised just how advanced those pre WWII GP and Record cars were in terms of aerodynamic.
Auto Union created a ground-effect car only about 40 years before Chapman.
Some aerodynamical solutions of the Auto Union streamliners were used by american hot-roders till today.
The 1937 GP streamliners have reached 380-390 km/k on straights of the AVUS track. They remain till this day the fastest Grand Prix formulae cars ever made.
You're wrong post WWII was a big step backwards in many ways.

Just take a little look here:



And the germans didn't have unlimited subsidies, they were only ~1/10 of the costs.


As to the FIA, the post war formulas were really the product of the organizers/track-owners clubs as FIA had no power back then and F1/GP racing was not the property of FIA (only since 1981 that's been the case).

Edited by DOF_Renault_BMW, 17 June 2008 - 06:04 PM.

[raw]

hmm. You know actually neither I don't have enough knowledge about what exactly they were doing before ww2 or after, neither do you.
To tell who's actually right you had to travel back in time.
My opinion is based about my knowledge about history of 20th century egneenering in general. It's easy to see that all round pace of development is increasing since the beginning. It was boosted up during 1940's because of the war and then boosted again during cold war. The basic theory is in general the same now as it was then. But it's the details and years of research that makes the difference.
I'm not even an engineer yet, but if I was somehow transferred to say 1952 I could change gp history. Not because I'm smarter than the guys from the past but because I have 50 more years of effective experience and I would just know what to do and how to do it.
It just wasn't like everything was invented and developed years ago and now it's just nothing new. There were many wrong ideas. There were good ideas that didn't have a chance to become reality (like with the modern diesel engine for long time). People were learning from their own mistakes for a very long time before they finally achieved something and they still do. But it's easier to find a way out of the woods if there's a wide patch leading to the exit.

[DOF_power]

>
^
There are books, articles, documentaries and museums about pre WWII GP racing and with GP products; witch I actually happened to read, watch and also discuss with other knowledgeable people.
There is an agreement that it took quite a while for that type refinement, attention to detail, professionalism and progress to happen again. The late 40s and 1950s where an incredibly slow era of technological progress, but by 58/59 things where definitely moving.  
For the british and/or american racing this Grand Prix golden era of the 1930s never existed, as they were in a state of amateurism and technological primitivism.

I'm sorry if you don't know, but I actually happen to know something about that.

Edited by DOF_Renault_BMW, 18 June 2008 - 06:47 AM.