McLaren Sets New F1 Pit Stop Record: 1.80 Seconds
autoweek.com
autoweek.com
Say what you want about the action being boring at times, but the symphony required to make it all happen is the iceberg underneath what you see the driver doing in the car.
For example, Mercedes hires about 1000+ people. It is absolutely insane how much is happening behind the scenes. It is also a very demanding place to work for everyone involved.
https://twitter.com/McLarenF1/status/1711344933280330123
Do the tires have no bolts, or now is this even possible? Watching it in action, I can't tell what is actually happening to get the wheels off and secure the fresh ones.
Although I think it’s great to see dirt races (I grew up watching late model dirt tracks) I disagree that the super speedways are just driving around in a circle.
One of the major factors of NASCAR was that the engines were built and tuned by the crew and the driver had to be able to push it to the limits over an extended period of time. Mistuning and/or too aggressive driving would blow the engine. The really good drivers knew when to push it over the edge for just a few moments to get advantage.
NASCAR is a funny sport in that it was built around a particular technology around a particular time. The level of innovation the mechanics came up with really drive the sport. But the ICE is in many ways at end of life and it’s obvious they’ll be extinct in 30 years. So I suppose the sport has to evolve itself somehow.
Here's an interesting timeline of NASCAR stock cars. Pretty much the latest gen cars are the only ones that buck the trend.
https://www.nascar.com/gallery/the-evolution-of-nascar-sprin...
However, If you want some racing with actual stock-ish cars, you should check out the SCCA runoffs on YouTube. There are classes for just about everything you can think of, and the coverage is actually pretty good!
Maybe closer a Taycan or something for a modern day equivalent? Though that's in a different price-class than the Hornet was. Is there a tuned luxury car for under $60k today?
Yes there’s certainly more randomness / chaos in oval racing, but it’s certainly not brain dead or simple. Pack racing is also unique across nearly all motorsport disciplines (I’m a bit of a motor sports addict).
There’s certainly things to criticize about NASCAR like there is for all forms of organized competition, but the meme that NASCAR is silly because they “just turn left” is extremely closed minded. Is soccer just kicking a ball around until the other team screws up?
Sorry for the tone, I don’t really mean to direct it at you personally, but more so at the prevalence of this meme. If it was true then stock car oval racing wouldn’t be a thing, it’s simple as that.
Road course racing has all that stuff but it’s also a bit more down to driver skill and less of strategy, IMO. You can drive much more varied in most road racing and still gain advantage versus another opponent who might be technically more perfect or have a slightly better car.
Why did they stick with carbs for so long? Lots of reasons but a few: Fuel injectors allow for more power so giving every car a boost was a delibrate decision - NASCAR already has other speed-reducing technology on purpose. Switching also meant every team spending millions and redesigning their entire engine to take advantage of the new tech. Carbs had ossified so teams were pretty level on this front indepenent of money so switching also would give teams with money money a bigger advantage.
They banned FI after the 1957 Chevy came out with it (FI was not standard in the '57, but enough were produced with FI to qualify as "stock") and dominated NASCAR. One should note that even with a carburetor, the '57 was really good. They kept the ban for tradition I think more than anything else.
When the banned FI, it was still rather exotic, but by the 90s, essentially all new mass-market cars were fuel injected.
Carburetors are rather finicky; they rely on basic physics to maintain a proper fuel-air mixture and doing so over a wide range of temperatures and RPMs is hard. Since fuel-injectors are electronically controlled you can do a lot more with them, so they can maximize power and fuel-economy over a broader environmental range.
Loved those.
Also see https://www.finepowertools.com/drills/f1-wheel-gun/ for some more background
Sometimes they adjust the angle of the front wing for better grip during the pitstop since this can't be changed by the driver from the cockpit (aero elements in F1 are strictly regulated) but it is rare in a race.
The only element the driver can activate is the rear flap for rear wing (DRS) that becomes active during special zones on the track for less drag to make overtaking possible.
Recently Mercedes came up with a clever way of how their cars could corner which was legal and activated by pushing/pulling on the steering wheel.
It was banned the next season though - you can be clever but cheating is not allowed - the loss of face - loss of points and money and prestige is severe now.
Since they all use the same control electronics, the FIA gets real time telemetry send to them to watch for any funky tricks and wind tunnel usage time, and activity like in engine mapping modes (no changes allowed when a race starts) or fuel pump manipulation.
They want teams to be at least on a level field so a smaller team has a realistic change of competing and scoring points like HAAS or Williams.
They have specialised tools to do it too!
Interesting. I had no idea, I suppose because everything happens so fast during those stops. (the ones that do not involve replacing the wing wholesale, which does take a few seconds.) Of course it makes sense that a different tire compound might benefit from a different amount of downforce.