Saturday, April 14, 2007

Black Magic

OOPS!

I forgot to mention in the Bahrain practice notes the comments made by Steve Matchett about camber angles. “Professor” Matchett noted that most teams will do very little towards the rear end of the car, about .5 degree negative camber with the majority of tweaking to the front wheels. Teams typically work between 3 to 3.5 degrees negative camber (top of tires tilted inboards towards driver) in attempts to get the tires to stand up in the corners, searching for maximum contact patch adhesion…

Peter Winsor broke in, saying he had a smile (smirk) on his face thinking about all of the RASSCAR viewers tuning in… thinking about how “dare cars” run 10 degrees of positive camber.

And it appears that once again tires are a crucial piece of the performance puzzle as Winsor noted how teams are concerned about getting off the line first.

Interviewing Jarno Trulli about supposed “launch control” which is now banned, Winsor asked who’s the best car currently? Renault responded Trulli. Yet interestingly it was pointed out by various “Techies” (Engineers) that although tire compounds aren’t that different, it’s more important to have the tires at their optimum temperature range to achieve maximum grip.

As Bob Varsha noted, this is why all of the drivers do the burn outs every time they return to the pits prior to being pushed backwards into the garage. A la Top Fuel NHRA style, as “Flat-liners” learned long ago that rubber on rubber gives you the best traction…

(Of course having your “lump” stay together in one piece also helps immeasurably… “Right Jense?”)

Also I found it interesting how the “Heavy Hitters” or “Top” teams typically go out on the “hard” compound tires during “Q1,” wishing to save their allotment of “soft” tires for the final two rounds of qualifying…

And speaking of qualifying, the hubbub over “Louise Jaguar” Hamilton goes on. And I found it quite enjoyable to hear his brother Nick being interviewed by “Peter Webber” as Mr. Varsha nicknamed the effervesent Peter Winsor. It was nice to hear such jubilation from a brother in regards to the superb success his sibling is demonstrating. And how ‘bout qualifying, as “Jaguar” knocked off his teammate Fernando… Who’s NO slouch since he’s the two time defending World Champion!

Yeah I know its only qualifying… But it’s really refreshing to see a teammate giving Alonso a handful, eh?

And the battle of customer cars continues with Renault’s “Fishyfella” barely beating out the real Mr. Webber, with the other tussle being even bleaker. “ANT” (Anthony Davidson) out qualified one factory Toyota and BOTH factory Honda’s…

Qualifying results
Also you may want to tune into or set the VCR for the opening round of this year’s GP2 season. The Bahrain round will air on SPEED prior to the Grand Prix at 2:30 AM (Pacific)

This is the racing series Lewis Hamilton won last year before moving up to McLaren and where many future F1 stars will come from…