April 2009

Driver in Focus: Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel (born July 3, 1987 in Heppenheim) is a German race car driver. He drives for Red Bull Racing having replaced former driver David Coulthard.

Vettel first drove in a proper racetrack when he was 5 and joined the mini class kart league when he was 7. It wasn’t far long that he reached his first victory in Wittgenborn. At 9, he was looking for a long term sponsoring, and joined Red Bull Junior Team.

In the next year, won his first german title and later he achieved many other titles through his 8 years in karting: He won four times the North Rhine-Westphalia Cup, won the DMV Kartmeisterschaft, the Kerpen-Manheim Cup, the Monaco Kart Cup, Kart Paris-Bersi Cup, the ICA Junior European Championship and the German Junior Kart Championship

Motorsports – Making our cars better, faster, SAFER.

By: Peri Witney

But one particular movie stood out because of its plot. The car joins the Monte Carlo rally. As a precocious little kid, I also recall asking my parents what rallying meant? And my mother, who instilled in me the discipline of doing research at an early age told me, “Dear, why don’t you look it up at the dictionary?” That was how I found out about rallying as a sport, which has flourished to this day.

And there are more interesting facts that I have discovered about the sport of rallying. Its origin can be traced back to the 1894 Paris-Rouen Horseless Carriage Competition when people who have their own visions of what a “horseless carriage” should look like entered the contest and winners were ascertained by the judges who rode in each car.

Brain Integration Techniques For Massive Success on Track!

If you are a driver or a coach here is a simple technique that you should know to help you get the best results possible!

1) Brain Integration Technique For Massive Performance Improvement!

This article is going to demonstrate one way that will help your driving immediately – low impact, super easy exercise that focuses totally on the mind and integration of your brain.

Firstly, what’s the basic idea behind brain integration?

Just like we have a dominant hand (either left or right handed) we also have a dominant side of our brain (either left or right hemisphere) and although we can function at a very high level operating from one half of our brain it does not give us the full picture.

That is where brain integration comes into play. If we can activate both the right and left hemispheres of our brain it helps us to get into the zone so that we are able to drive the car at the unconscious level.

Driving the car at the unconscious level is super important for slashing seconds off your lap times. There are several ways to train your brain to react at the unconscious level however today we are going to focus on brain integration.

Below is an activity that will begin to integrate your brain, help you to relax and ultimately reduce your lap times.

Easy Activity 1: Cross Crawls This first exercise for brain integration is very simple and can be practiced anywhere (do it often – a couple of times a day). Especially do it just before you jump in your car for practice or the race.

While standing, raise your right leg, bending it at the knee, and bring your left arm over and touch the right knee. Return to standing. Then raise your left leg and touch the knee with your right hand. Return to standing, and then continue, alternating sides. You will find yourself marching in one place while alternately touching your knees with your opposite hand.

With the exercise you can alternate the pace that you do it at to achieve different results. If you slow it down you will find it puts more stress on your sense of balance, improving it over time. If you speed it up (until you are almost running on the spot), it can be used as a pre-race warm up as well as the all important brain integration exercise.

Brain integration is an essential part of development and co-ordination, it is integral when babies are first learning to crawl as they are also integrating their brain with the cross crawl movement!

Now if you practice these brain integration activities for a minimum of 2 minutes each morning. 2 minutes each evening and definitely for 2 minutes before you jump into the race car, I promise you you will see some astonishing results.

Alright how simple is that? But it is also super powerful!

Practice this exercise – get into the habit of doing it and start noticing the difference!

Source: f1driversecrets.com

F1 new tires explained

You know what they say (or rather Goodyear said in its ad’s in the 60’s) “Where the rubber meets the road.” And that is indeed one of the most critical interactions in F1. Tires have always played a huge roll in F1, and while some new rules have slightly diminished that importance, the talk in the paddock during practice is always about the tires and how to find more grip.

In the past, teams were free to run whatever brand of tires they wanted, provided the size of the tire meet basic requirements. The start of the modern ‘tire war’ in F1 was in 2001, when Michelin entered F1 to challenge the then monopoly of Bridgestone.

In physics terms, all tires work basically the same. The idea is to create a tire that will have high friction in all directions. You need longitudinal grip (along the direction the tire rolls) for good acceleration and braking, and lateral grip (sideways) for cornering. Your typical street tire accomplishes this through mechanical friction. The more rubber that touches the road, the better as far as grip is concerned. So you may wonder why your street tires have various grooves and slots; the “tread pattern”. The street tire is designed with the voids to channel away water (and snow and mud) from coming between the tread block (the part that touches the road) and the pavement, which helps to avoid hydroplaning. Hydroplaning happens when water builds up between the pavement and the tread block, leading to a loss of traction.