March 2009

F1 2009 Preview: Brawn, Ferrari Fast, McLaren Searching

By: Kyle Lavigne

New rules, new races, new cars, new technology…new season! The 2009 Formula 1 Season will commence this weekend in Melbourne Australia after, arguably, the most radical changes in formula the sport has ever seen.

Sure, we’ve had preseason testing to gauge how teams are doing, but that isn’t always the most accurate of portrayals. In 2001, the Prost team was very quick all through testing. However, that was because they ran the car underweight, hoping their appearance near the top of the time sheets would attract sponsors.

Once the season started, they added weight to the car (to make it legal) dropped to the back, eventually falling off the grid entirely.

Of course, preseason testing is all we have to bank on right now, and many a headline has been made throughout the winter. So, what do we have to look forward to this season? Who might be slated to do what? Who could potentially make headlines (whether good or bad) this season?

Brawn GP: Are they for Real?

It appeared that Formula 1 was dangerously close to losing a second team in less than 12 months (Super Aguri shut down last May). That is, until Ross Brawn (one of the masterminds behind the dominance of Michael Schumacher) formally bought into the outfit.
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They were saved…and that was enough to make us all happy. Surely, they would simply take up Honda’s usual spot near the back of the field right?

Hold on though. They may have gotten a late start in testing, but the BGP001 has been a rocket straight out of the gate, topping several sessions over the past month.

Raise your hand if you saw this one coming. Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone did. But, perhaps it shouldn’t be that much a surprise. Their car has been in the works longer than anyone’s, and Ross Brawn’s technical mastery did touch this piece.

Sure, it is only testing, and we won’t know the full capabilities of the car until Melbourne (or afterward, given the recent Diffuser row). All the same, it is has been a sensational month for Brawn GP, and they have won over many a heart for those who love pulling for the underdogs.

If their testing pace proves truthful, watch for Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello to not only have a resurgence, but to potentially contend for a title.

No one knows what will come of this operation

But one thing is for certain. With a team that was believed to be all but dead, a car always assumed to be as sluggish as the previous chassis, two drivers many believed to have past their best days. The latest start of all the teams, they could be the Cinderella story of the year. What a joy it would be to see them stun the big dogs!

Ferrari Confident, McLaren Confused

As has been the norm, Ferrari produced a very competitive piece. Mother Nature did her best to hinder the team’s development, throwing all things rain and sand at them, preventing them from showing what the car may truly be capable of.

However, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa exude a quiet confidence that suggests they will be strong again this year. One shouldn’t be completely shocked here, as Ferrari is always a team that is near the top of the time sheets.

What is surprising is the obvious lack of pace from the new McLaren. Sure, Heikki Kovalainen did turn the fastest lap of all during the final Jerez session, but the car lingered at the back for so long that it has eyebrows raised in concern over in Woking.

It is very clear that the McLaren is lacking speed, and team principal Martin Whitmarsh has admitted such. However, this could be a test for reigning champ Lewis Hamilton.

Many believe that the truly great drivers can win with a car that is not fast enough to do so; transcending the car’s capabilities by dragging it up the grid has been a defining aspect of the abilities of Senna, Schumacher, etc.

One of the big arguments against Hamilton has been that he has driven one of the best (if not the best) cars on the grid; he is a product of the team, not of sublime driving ability.

This year, he won’t have the luxury of driving one of the best pieces. If he can manage to take the MP4/24 and thrust it into podiums, or even a win, in the first few races, then he will cement himself as a top tier driver whose success is because of his talent, not the car the he drives.

A championship may not beckon this year, but a chance to prove his real worth is. Keep an eye on him and how he handles the adversity to come.

BMW, Toyota Aim for Title, Renault Hope for More Alonso Magic

BMW Sauber has been tabbed as a potential title contender since last year. In each season under the leadership of Mario Thiessen, the German-Swiss operation has set and matched every goal they’ve set out: regular points in ’06, podiums in ’07, and a win in ’08.

Now, they’ve set their eyes on the big prize: a world championship. Like the boys at Ferrari, Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica seem confident that their car will be fast, and their KERS is ready to race, which could give them a huge advantage.

On the flip side, the Renault piece has a fair many naysayers. Many believe (myself included) that the Renault’s successes this offseason (and late last season) were a result of Fernando Alonso’s driving brilliance, and the car’s true pace can be seen from Nelson Piquet’s times.

What’s more, Flavio Briatore is the head of those of challenging the diffusers on the Toyota, Brawn, and Williams cars. So, they may garner more attention from off-track antics than on-track success.

This is a very critical year for the Renault team; ING is pulling its funding after this year, and they’ll need to be fast to attract new sponsors (and keep Alonso, who has been reported to eye a spot at Ferrari). It could be “do or die’ this year for the French operation.

Toyota, Red Bull Eye Improvements

For all the funding each of these teams has had over the years, the results they have produced have been disappointing.

Aside from a simply remarkable 2005 season, Toyota hasn’t done anything noteworthy, a bad statement against them given their lucrative budget. On the contrary, the Red Bull cars have been quick, but they’ve always been very fragile.

However, Toyota says ’09 could (or should) bring a break through win, which is believed necessary in order to assure them a place on the grid permanently.

Red Bull, and Toro Rosso by extension, may have the best looking car on the grid this year, and have certainly turned heads based on aesthetics. Add in Sebastian Vettel’s presence in the “A Team,” and Red Bull has the potential to rocket up the grid this year.

However, the car hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire, and reliability may be a question mark (again). Plus, the Toro Rosso team may fall back, given Vettel’s departure and entrance of rookie Sebastien Buemi.

As I mentioned earlier, the basis for any confidence or doubt in teams is a result of testing, which has proven to be unreliable in the pas. The season remains impossible to predict at this point, and we won’t know, for sure, who is capable of what until Melbourne. However, this year will be a lot of fun to watch.

With that, the 2009 Formula 1 season beckons.

Source: bleacherreport.com

Formula 1’s virtual reality

By: JOE SAWARD

The decision to ban all circuit testing in the Formula 1 season was designed to save the teams money. For the big teams, however, the battle has simply moved from the race tracks to the factories where advanced simulation technology will take over from actual running. Teams these days are using an arfray of different tools to make the cars go faster. These include highly-advanced rolling-road wind tunnels, transient dynos and seven-post rigs. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is developing fast. The goal of all of these expensive items is to ensure that the racing cars are as competitive as possible – and as reliable. But simulation techniques in Formula 1 are now beginning to go far beyond that. Computers crunch away to work out every conceivable race strategy and increasingly the teams are realising the value of what are known as “driver-in-the-loop simulators”. This means that rather than engineers playing with computers, as happens with other simulation, the F1 drivers sit in “virtual” F1 cars and drive them.

There may be a belief that the F1 simulators are simply glorified computer games, which have a limited value in teaching drivers circuits that they have never visited, but the story is much more complicated than that.

Simulator technologies came to Formula 1 first because teams recognised that they could make money by working with computer gaming companies in order to create entertainment for the public. The first racing computer game was Gran Trak 10, a single-player racing arcade game released by Atari in 1974. The first big success was Pole Position, a Namco game in which a player had to complete a lap in a certain amount of time in order to qualify for a race at the Fuji Speedway. If successful the car would race with other cars. As home computers developed in the 1980s the first true F1 game appeared, called Formula One Grand Prix (F1GP), which was released in 1992. Nowadays you can sit at home and drive F1 cars, playing with many different parameters such as the fuel loads, tyre wear and so on. But home computers can only do so much. One may have a steering wheel and pedals, but there are none of the real sensations of what it is really like to drive an F1 car.

Formula 1 engineers began to realise that advanced simulation could be a tool not just for driver training, but also to work on technical solutions and set-up conundrums. Simulation can improve lap times and save time and money by giving the team a way to test without needing to put the cars on the race track. Virtual testing is now a reality.

One of the problems with simulators is that some of them induce sickness because of a discrepancy between the perception of visual motion and the corresponding motion cues. This led engineers to look at ways to overcome the problem and to the development of what are called dynamic simulators, which have the entire hexapod moving around to meet the body’s need for the sensation of real motion.

The bottom line is that there is no such thing as a standard simulator. Each one is a prototype and the most interesting element in their use in F1 is that most of the systems have been developed in-house by the teams, rather than being developed with specialist partnerships. One thing that is clear is that the experts on simulators have also been moving as teams realise the value of what they do not have.

There is general agreement that the two best systems at the moment are the two that have had the most development: McLaren is believed to have spent as much as $40m on its system and used British Aerospace technology, developed for the Eurofighter aircraft. At Woking the driver sits in a full-size F1 monocoque, in front of a large, curved plasma screen. The whole device is mounted on a hexapod which moves around an area about the size of a professional basketball court, in response to the driver’s steering and pedal input. This is the only dynamic F1 simulator in F1 at the moment.

Up to now Ferrari has been using a fairly simple unit, which is housed at the Fiat Research Centre in Turin. The team had recently announced a partnership with the US firm Moog. This will be the very latest dynamic device.

“The dynamic driving simulator is a new step for us in developing virtual tests that give drivers the true feel of a real environment and direct feedback on their actions,” says Scuderia Ferrari’s head of R&D Marco Fainello. “It will support the new breed of tests we are planning to launch.”

What is clear is that the teams believe that the F1 simulators are the most advanced of all.

“I think they are better than the best flight simulators,” says Red Bull Racing’s Geoff Willis. “Those are now more about training and not so much about performance.”

Since the end of 2006 an astonishing 30m Wiis have been sold. They cost around $250, which means that it is a $7.5bn market. The first company to get to the markets with simulation technology as is seen in F1 stands to make even bigger profits. In the meantime money can still be made. Recently the Costa cruise ship line bought a series of F1 simulators from a Dutch company called VESC to try to attract customers (mainly Italians) to its ships.

The fullscale machines, complete with hexapods, are now cruising the world.

Source: grandprix.com

How to Become a Race Car Driver

Car racing is an exciting sport to watch and even more exciting when you are the one racing at dangerous speeds around a track, trying to be first. If you want to learn how to become a race car driver, read the following steps.

Step 1
Decide what kind of car racing you want to do, whether it’s Nascar racing, open wheel racing, drag racing or another type of car racing.

Step 2
Learn all you can about the type of racing you want to do. Read books, magazines, search the Internet and watch races on television and in person. Learn about every aspect of racing, not just driving. The more knowledge you have about racing, the better prepared you will be.

Step 3
Visit racetracks and talk to anyone involved in the sport. Drivers, crew members, mechanics, track officials and owners all have lots of information to share. This can also allow you to make new friends and connections in the racing world.

Step 4
Work at a racetrack or with a racing team. Sell tickets, clean the track, clean cars or car parts, run errands or even become a crew member. Working jobs like these can help you learn even more about racing from different perspectives.

Step 5
Attend one of many racing schools around the country that teaches the type of racing you want to do. Race schools teach you the mechanics, basics and advanced methods of race car driving.

Step 6
Start racing through a school series, which is cheaper than professional racing circuits. You may need a sponser unless you have plenty of financial backing.

Step 7
Drive a race car any chance you get. Every time you get behind the wheel equals more experience and training for you.

Source: ehow.com