How to break F1 lap records with a $50,000 to $100,000 car

[TimD]

Beat everybody WHERE exactly?

[Franklin]

Sometimes WHERE is not a place.

[TimD]

Ah, I see.

I beg your pardon - ambiguity strikes again.

I suppose that strictly speaking, your argument is valid - that Auto Union was the only road-course manufacturer whose cars could outdrag a purpose built sprint car - if I understand you correctly.

But again, it is a question of formulae. It has to be said that a salt lake speedster is not designed to tackle a road course. Because its design is not constrained by the need to go around corners, it is impossible to argue that the road-racer designers have missed a trick by failing to adopt sprint practice.

[Sparky]

Ignoring all the *****in' and snipin' for a moment, I looked at the original thread title, and came up with this.

It's difficult to find a circuit that is unchanged from it's original configuration. The closest I could find is Spa Francorchamps, which also happens to be many driver's favourite circuit.

Taking the 1997 race, Jacques Villeneuve in the Williams FW19 achieved the fastest lap - 1m52.692 @ 138.314 mph.

Going back to 1983, (I believe the earliest possible Belgian event while still holding a direct comparison) Andrea de Cesaris, in the Alfa Romeo 183T, got the fastest lap - 2m07.493 @ 121.930

Now, I'm having some difficulty in establishing a budget for any team in 1983, let alone Alfa, but I can imagine it probably wasn't even 8 - 10% of todays expenditure. Is it possible that teams spent ten times the amount of money to simply reduce the lap record by 15 seconds??

No. What they have done is spend an inordinate amount of money to overcome ever-tightening legislation aimed at reducing speeds.

Of course it would be possible to break lap records with a car as 'cheap' as Franklin suggests but:

How long would it last? Two, three laps?

Does it have to be built to the current F1 Sporting Regs? Oh? Then I'm afraid it can't be done.

As you suggest Franklin, it would involve the use of:

...steering fins, variable incidence wings, suspension mounted wings, fan suction, venturi diffuser sidepods, etc. Add banned mechanical concepts such as asymmetric braking. Drop in a low percentage nitro motor built to run just a few laps.

What would this achieve? As a drag racing fan, you are so obviously in awe of a car that can lap at that speed, ie, be that fast and go round corners quickly.

The two are not mutually exclusive. But it does depend on the FORMULA.

The fact that F1 teams have had to spend sooooo much money in order to be as quick as previous years, is because the authorities are trying to reduce speeds for safety reasons. However much we all hate it, it is a good idea. Had there been no deaths or injuries in the sport since 1950, there would likely be fewer restrictions, and higher speeds. Thus, the teams would need to spend significantly less in order to break todays lap records.

But then todays lap records would be higher, so...

Oh, To heck with it.

Makes sense to me...

[Franklin]

"I suppose that strictly speaking, your argument is valid - that Auto Union was the only road-course manufacturer whose cars could outdrag a purpose built sprint car - if I understand you correctly."

No, TimD, you completely misunderstood me. What I said was that a decade before the rear engine revolution happened in Indy car and F1, hot rodders were already building rear-engine open wheel cars (lakesters) and going over 200 mph with them at Bonneville. The only Europeans who beat the hot rodders to this configuration were Auto Union engineers in the mid and late thirties.

[Franklin]

And as David Coulthard himself said over the weekend, not only are F1 cars (unlike Indy cars) not built to hit walls but if an F1 driver finds himself in a position where he can hit a wall it's because the FIA screwed up.

[Sparky]

[Franklin]

That was Coulthard's explanation of why an Indy car chassis weighs "three times more than an F1 chassis" (which gets me to wondering exactly how much ballast they have to put in an F1 car just to get it up to the minimum weight).

[Sparky]

No, when I said I meant what does Coulthards opinion on vehicle stength have to do with the budget required to go quickly... once or twice (if it can hold up)... and against the current rules?

[yelwoci]

Originally posted by Franklin
That was Coulthard's explanation of why an Indy car chassis weighs "three times more than an F1 chassis" (which gets me to wondering exactly how much ballast they have to put in an F1 car just to get it up to the minimum weight).

FYI The best F1 cars allegedly weigh 440kg with engine, the worst about 480kg.

IRL/INDY cards are heavier 'cos that what the rules stipulate.

IanC

[Slowcoach]

Well PM you certainly did get a few reactions ...... there really is nothing like a friendly and spirited debate - and that was nothing like a friendly and spirited debate ! But seriously(ish) there's a lot of skill , and , for that matter , overtaking involved in golf - for example a good friend of mine was playing recently , when , in trying a daring overtaking maneouvre on a battery powered trolley , rode the banking a little high and turned his golf buggy over....scattering all his clubs and breaking his partner's ankle in the process when landing on him ! Thats without mentioning all the groups I have to let play through whilst I'm looking for my balls in the rough....Anyway back to the plot....
Franklin , sorry but I've never heard of Mickey Thompson either , infact when he was inventing 'fat' tyres I wasn't even born , bear in mind we are talking about something 38 years ago ! And as for the Auto Union thing are you admitting that the guys in drag (or should I re-phrase that) copied the Auto union idea rather than coming up with it themselves for which you deride F1 so much.
Long live freedom of speech ! But lets stay polite to our fellow petrolheads (or nitrousheads)- now there's a point - how much faster would an F1 car be with Nitrous ?

[Sparky]

Originally posted by Slowcoach...

now there's a point - how much faster would an F1 car be with Nitrous?

You know, I asked that very same question... http://ten-tenths.accelerator.org/fo...?threadid=1613

Who knows?

[TimD]

Ah, but don't you see, Slowcoach?

The golf trolley that turned over was designed by idiots. No wonder your poor friend hurt himself when the people who build golf carts persist in using their outmoded backwater technology.

The way to make a more advanced golf cart is to replace the little frilly canopy with an all enveloping tubular roll cage, remove that inefficient and frankly tardy electric motor and fit a General Electric J-79 powerplant from a Lockheed Starfighter, fit wide tyres, so as to be able to roll the greens while moving off from the tee (thus killing two birds with one stone), and of course, vitally, rework all golf courses into 18 greens, all in a straight line, so that the golf trolley does not have to turn any significant corners.

While reworking the golf courses, you should of course eliminate all of those dangerous trees and sandtraps, and replace them with lakes which slow the balls - and indeed the golf trolleys - far more effectively.

It's the way forward. Deep down, you know it's true.

[Sparky]

Originally posted by TimD:

fit a General Electric J-79 powerplant from a Lockheed Starfighter, fit wide tyres, so as to be able to roll the greens while moving off from the tee (thus killing two birds with one stone)

Tim, I suspect you'll be killing more than just two birds with that approach!!

[TimD]

Well, I was always taught that in golf you had to try and score a birdie.

Ay thang yew....

[Slowcoach]

Well I think thats game set and match to TimD......or is it , I think your idea's already been thought of , a couple of years back a guy won a Darwin award after he strapped an F15 jet engine to his golf cart - it may have been a Chevy on reflection but no-one will ever know - because they found a small tangle of metal embedded 400 feet up the face of a cliff a 1/4 of a mile away from where the skid marks ended on the highway - and not an Eagle in sight............

[Crash Test]

My golf kart accident happened when i was at the wheel, and a friend was working the pedals... anyways, i put the beast into forward gear and me mate hit the loud pedal...anyways it wound up wrapped around a tree...

how could this be fixed? DONT LET TEENAGERS BE IN CHARGE OF ANY VEHICLE!!!

OOps, sorry, what was this topic?

[Bluebottle]

I have a friend who solved the slow golf-buggy problem by driving a mini van on the course instead, although it was not during a game but at night, and I believe it was alchohol fuelled as well!
(Don't try this at home kids, he was arrested and fined greatly for this activity several years ago....)

What was the topic again??

[yelwoci]

This may have deviated from the topic somewhat...
..and talking about $olf should be banned!.....

But Franklin has been quiet for several posts.. must be good... unless he's not permitted access to the internet at home!

<vbg>
IanC

[Franklin]

When F1 has gotten so technically restrictive that apparently nobody believes you can't break F1 lap records with a $100,000 car, we would do well to ask ourselves whether there is anything left to attract original and innovative engineers to the sport.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally posted by Franklin
When F1 has gotten so technically restrictive that apparently nobody believes you can't break F1 lap records with a $100,000 car, we would do well to ask ourselves whether there is anything left to attract original and innovative engineers to the sport.

Well, I think we can answer our own question. Because its so restrictive the BEST brains are attracted to F1 for more reasons than money. It presents so much more of a challenge than a regulation free formula.

[Franklin]

If we put Mika Hakkinen and a Mercedes engine in a Minardi chassis and whatever engine Minardi is running in a McLaren chassis, do you think anybody would be raving about the brilliant McLaren chassis design?

[Franklin]

(Some relevant words from E.J. Potter)

"The evolution of stuff like this goes as follows: There is in the beginning a mechanical contrivance which evolves from a practical, useful machine intended to make mankind's work easier. A certain kind of tinkerer can't leave his car, boat, tractor etc. like it is. He has to improve it a little bit. Then somebody sees his work and has to do better. The ensuing spiral generates a vortex of rivalries that escalates all the participants to the point of formal competition or racing...

People like this can never leave well enough alone and eventually someone gets hurt in the process of proving that he is smarter and more daring than the next guy. Word of this gets around, and people want to watch this competition to be on hand when the next accident happens.

Now we need a place for official contests to take place and a promoter to advertise the events and collect the admission fees. So the contestants need to organise themselves to establish rules and standards for the competition, because the promoter ain't the teensiest bit interested in conserving the participants. He wants more gate revenue.

So of course, the smartest and boldest competitors get to be the loudest and most respected when it becomes time to set these rules in stone. By purely natural processes, the rules just happen to fit these guys like a glove, and soon they are winning a majority of the marbles every time.



This gets the attention of the promoters, who are out there beating the bushes for yankee dollars under and over the table to benefit any sponsor they can find with publicity.

Of course any money that trickles down the food chain will stop at the feet of the top guys in each class of competition who will consequently become unbeatable and a vicious loop will come into being that will cause any competitor with even half a brain to fade out of competition before he becomes bankrupt trying to keep up with the big boys.

Now we have less guys getting more money and the spiral escalates way beyond the point of sportsmanship and the reason for the sport is completely lost to everyone concerned.

What? You don't agree? Well, just think about what you saw at the last race you were at. No matter where you were, the pits were full of huge semi trucks with lavish trailers and race vehicles that were mobile billboards for everyone who whould give anything to the owners, or even more obscene yet, maybe the giving was done to the promoters or the sanctioning group. The participants had all modified the looks of their creations to please those with the big bucks to throw around in the name of a tax write-off. Artificial environments and garish costumes have denoted the redlight district everywhere in the world that I have ever seen. Phoniness and how-can-i-impress-you-now pervade the atmosphere so bad it chokes you.

Anybody connected to motorsports today because he loves engines and wants to see how his mechanical skills stack up is invisible in such a perverted atmosphere of people who have sold out everything for the almighty buck, which is therefore the lifeblood of the community that has completely lost its reason for being.





Ingenuity and originality are completely discounted to the point of being shunned and seen as a threat to the peace and progress of the establishment.

WHAT? Joe Schmerd has made an innovation that lets him win?

It doesn't cost anything?

Nobody in California manufactured it?

No contingency prize money?

Well to heck with him.

He's disqualified.

Who does he think he is, anyway?


Thousands of years ago somebody got famous for saying that the love of money is the root of all evil, and he looks smarter and smarter as time goes by. Since I think I'm so smart, you'll suppose I claim to have some remedy for this situation. It so happens I do, and next month I might tell you what it is. This ain't what I think, it's what I know. -- EJ Potter"

[KC]

I have never agreed with the principle that money is the root of all evil. If you are driving and you hit a tree, do you blame it on the tree? No. Money is not evil, it is inanimate. People may do evil acts with money, but that is hardly the fault of the money.

Now, if F1 were to revert back to Formula Libre, it would have died out a long time ago. The costs would have escalated far out of control a long time ago. How much money did Auto Union and Daimler get out of the German government to pursue LSR records in the late twenties? How much did Alfa Romeo get to build the Bimotore to try and catch the two German juggernauts? If you could convert that money into today's money with inflation, I would be willing to bet that the sums are similar. While Formula Libre was definitely interesting for a short time because of the diversity of the fields, the anarchy involved took over. Racecars became too difficult to drive without either killing oneself or bystanders. Rules and equalization formulas took over to establish some sort of sanity and order to the chaos. By your thinking, racing legends such as Colin Chapman, Smokey Yunick, Ken Tyrell, and a host of others are not good engineers because they have to work inside a strict set of rules. I would argue the reverse, because they work inside the rules they have to be more creative than a guy who can just build a bigger motor to go faster.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally posted by KC
I have never agreed with the principle that money is the root of all evil. If you are driving and you hit a tree, do you blame it on the tree? No. Money is not evil, it is inanimate. People may do evil acts with money, but that is hardly the fault of the money.

Now, if F1 were to revert back to Formula Libre, it would have died out a long time ago. The costs would have escalated far out of control a long time ago. How much money did Auto Union and Daimler get out of the German government to pursue LSR records in the late twenties? How much did Alfa Romeo get to build the Bimotore to try and catch the two German juggernauts? If you could convert that money into today's money with inflation, I would be willing to bet that the sums are similar. While Formula Libre was definitely interesting for a short time because of the diversity of the fields, the anarchy involved took over. Racecars became too difficult to drive without either killing oneself or bystanders. Rules and equalization formulas took over to establish some sort of sanity and order to the chaos. By your thinking, racing legends such as Colin Chapman, Smokey Yunick, Ken Tyrell, and a host of others are not good engineers because they have to work inside a strict set of rules. I would argue the reverse, because they work inside the rules they have to be more creative than a guy who can just build a bigger motor to go faster.

Well, having considered the posts up to now and balancing the relative merits(?) of Franklin's "anything goes is best" theory against the extreme restrictions of F1 and other regulated championships which have given us such luminaries as Chapman, Byrne, Penske, Jim Hall and others I find it difficult to contemplate a free for all formula as the way forward. Where's the challenge in that?

So I think your post wraps it up nicely KC.