42 days and counting... 8^)
Posted on 08/05/2009 7:57:45 PM PDT by Chode
This will be a general purpose thread for F1 news and pings that really don't require a thread of their own.
42 days and counting... 8^)
ping to post#1482 from mykroar on Schuy
Jerez tests are underway.
Sky Sports reports are up on usenet. Torrents too, probably.
Nothing much happened yesterday; little running. Some very strange looking cars out there...Ferrari with some sort of mast on top of the airbox...Lotus nose...WTF???
They showed a few drive-bys to catch the new engine sound. A bit like a raspy street sports car.
Make that the Force India with the weirdest nose so far. Though the two-pronged Lotus is strange as well.
Schumacher ‘blinks’ as he wakes from coma
The German Formula One legend has been in a medically-induced coma since a ski accident in France on December 29th.
On Thursday his manager confirmed he was slowly being brought out of his coma by doctors who were reducing his sedative.
And French newspaper L’Equipe reported on Thursday that Schumacher was now responding “positively” to brain tests and blinked during them.
The paper said: “After gradually reducing the sedation of the patient, the team of Professor Emmanuel Gay [the medic overseeing Schumacher’s treatment] has been doing neurological tests since Monday. During this first stage, the patient blinked.”
Meanwhile, Sky News reported Schumacher was “responding to instructions”.
A statement from his manager Sabine Kehm on Thursday warned that the process of waking Schumacher from his coma “could take a long time”.
“For the protection of the family, it was originally agreed by the interested parties to communicate this information only once this process was consolidated,” the statement added.
After his fall at Meribel ski resort in the French Alps, Schumacher was sedated and cooled to around 35C to ease the risk of further damage to the brain.
Surgeons at Grenoble University Hospital say they decided on the coma after operating on bleeding and bruising in his brain.
They carried out a post-operative scan that revealed “widespread lesions” on both sides of the brain. A second operation, to treat bleeding, took place on December 30th.
PHOTO GALLERY: Schumacher’s career in pictures
“A blow to the head causes bruising, a swelling, which takes place in a confined space, the skull, which leads to pressure on the brain,” Gerard Audibert, a professor of neurosurgery at the University Hospital Centre in Nancy, eastern France said on Tuesday.
He added it was “quite rare” for a coma to be induced for more than three weeks.
Once pressure within the skull has stabilized at a normal level, sedation levels are scaled back and the patient returns to consciousness, but “it’s not unexceptional for a patient not to revive,” Audibert said.
Schumacher dominated Formula One for much of his racing career before his retirement in 2012. He won the F1 title seven times, more than any other driver, and notched up 91 victories between 1994 and 2004.
Maybe he can get double points for Ferrari only!
.
some of them are pretty damn homely, and i do NOT like the sound, at all... but it is what it is, and unfortunately, i don't seeing it get any better
it starts with a blink of an eye... he's tough, he'll pull through
LOL... yup, if he could, he would
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jan/30/michael-schumacher-brought-out-induced-coma
Michael Schumacher being brought out of induced coma, says manager
• Schumacher has been in coma for over four weeks
• Seven-time F1 champion remains seriously ill
Philip Oltermann in Berlin
theguardian.com, Thursday 30 January 2014 06.50 EST
The seven-time Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher is gradually being lifted out of his artificial coma, his management confirmed on Thursday.
A statement released by Schumacher’s manager, Sabine Kehm, said: “Michael’s sedation is being reduced in order to allow the start of the waking-up process which may take a long time. For the protection of the family, it was originally agreed by the interested parties to communicate this information only once this process was consolidated.”
Schumacher has been at a specialist clinic in Grenoble since hitting his head in a skiing accident at the Meribel resort in the French Alps more than a month ago. He was put into an artificial coma after two emergency operations to reduce the swelling caused by severe brain trauma.
Clinical staff have been regularly moving his legs and arms in order to stop his muscles from withering away. Doctors had until recently described his condition as “critical, but stable”.
On Monday the medical team led by Emmanuel Gay had begun slowly to reduce Schumacher’s sedation and conduct a series of neurological tests, according to French newspaper L’Equipe. The former racing driver had reportedly “responded positively” to the tests so far.
Schumacher’s manager said the clinic had originally planned to handle the next stage of the treatment discreetly in order to protect Schumacher’s family. But Kehm confirmed the latest development after the information was leaked to the French broadcaster Radio Monte Carlo on Wednesday.
The process of reducing sedation can take days or even weeks, depending on the strength of medication used. Whether Schumacher can fully recover from his injuries, however, is doubtful. He has stayed in a coma for a relatively long time, indicating severe swelling, probably relating to severe damage, said Peter Andrews, professor of intensive care at Edinburgh University, who is leading the world’s largest trial of using hypothermia to reduce brain pressure.
In Britain patients with head injuries are usually kept in a coma for a week to ten days.
Andrews said he avoided the term “awaken” because it could trigger too high expectations among relatives. “I would expect Schumacher to survive,” he said. “But we won’t know his cognitive ability until at least three months after the injury.”
Doctors will be slowly reducing the sedation over the next few days. If the pressure on the brain increases again, there is a possibility that Schumacher will be re-sedated. The worst-case scenario would be that the patient remains comatose without sedation. A more positive outcome would be a reactive state where the patient can lift a limb or obey basic commands.
“In his favour, we know he’s relatively young, very fit and that he has had a period of consciousness since suffering the injury,” said Peter Hutchinson, a professor of neurosurgery at Cambridge, who has met Schumacher through his role as medical officer at the British Grand Prix.
“But we have to be very open-minded. With an injury like this one, a full return to the previous state of health is unlikely. It would be very unusual if he doesn’t retain some kind of disability”
Sebastian Vettel, the current F1 champion, said: “You pray, you wish, you hope that a miracle will happen and he will wake up as same person he was before.”
Formula 1 legend Niki Lauda left a message on the website of Italian car manufacturers Ferrari, for whom Schumacher won five consecutive titles between 2000 and 2004: “Michael, I follow your development every day, and every day my thoughts are with you. I hope that I’ll be able to talk to you again very soon.”
Investigations by French public prosecutors in Albertville had shown that Schumacher had strayed about three to six metres into off-piste territory before his fall. Hitting a snow-covered rock, the 45-year-old had been catapulted forward and hit his head on another rock about 3.5 metres further down, his helmet splitting on impact.
Lauda is always a class act... it's gonna be a long and winding road for sure
A man
A man and his 52hp diesel Citroen
A man and his 52hp diesel Citroen at the Nurburgring
(nine engines and five transmissions later, he completes the perfect lap)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mBFjHjm0O5M
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/01/30/diesel-citroen-nurburgring-lap-amazing/
damn... i don't know what amazes me more, that the POS didn't blow up again, or that he actually passed somebody!!! i'm surprised they let him drive without a helmet, and why the blurred face?
Ross Brawn retiring.
A bit early at 59 but it is stressful I’d think.
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/02/03/ross-brawn-retiring-from-f1/
damn... 16 championships, hell of a run
In the vicious world of F-1 that really is a stellar career.
100%... of the first magnitude!
now for something completely different...
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/25984458
F1 2014: Testing times for champions Red Bull in Jerez
When does a drama become a crisis? Not yet, in the case of world champions Red Bull and the problems they faced at Formula 1’s first pre-season test this week - but the potential is certainly there.
Red Bull had a nightmare time over four days in Jerez in southern Spain, of that there can be no doubt.
Continue reading the main story
“Even if we go to Melbourne still a bit whatever, it’s a long season. These guys know how to win and I’m sure sooner rather than later we are going to get it together”
Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull driver
While Mercedes, expected to be their toughest rivals this season, pounded out the miles, with Nico Rosberg putting in a full race-distance run on the final day, Red Bull were effectively confined to their garage.
Four-time champion Sebastian Vettel managed only 11 laps and team-mate Daniel Ricciardo just nine before Red Bull packed up at lunchtime on the final day.
By then, Red Bull’s design chief Adrian Newey and team principal Christian Horner had been gone almost 24 hours, back to the factory to figure out what to do next.
Throughout the test, Red Bull and Renault were keen to play down the seriousness of the problem. They were working on fixes, they repeatedly said, and expected to be running the next day.
But it never happened.
By the penultimate night, Renault engine chief Rob White was admitting it would take until the second pre-season test, which starts on 19 February in Bahrain, before a complete solution could be found, but he insisted they should be able to run on Friday. Again, it didn’t happen.
So what is wrong? Well, two main things, it seems.
Firstly, there is a fundamental problem with the Renault power unit, which is affecting all the French company’s teams.
Excessive oscillation in the drivetrain - vibrations, essentially - is preventing the complex energy-recovery system from working properly.
Secondly, Red Bull have, what Horner calls, “chassis cooling issues”.
BBC Sport’s Lee McKenzie and Ben Edwards assess the state of play from Formula 1’s first pre-season test
2014 Formula 1 cars on show for first time in Jerez
These have been caused by Newey’s constant drive to package his cars as tightly as possible to ensures the best possible aerodynamics.
His no-compromise approach has paid off time and again over the last two decades - whether at Williams, McLaren or Red Bull - but occasionally it trips his teams up, as it appears to have done in Spain.
Red Bull were up against it even to get to Jerez - they started their mandatory crash-test programme less than two weeks before going to Spain - and White also admitted that Renault had “created some moving targets” for its works team.
But the problem appears to be wider than a lack of preparation.
The word from inside Red Bull is that these issues, while they may have prevented them running in Jerez, are far from a disaster and should be relatively easy to fix in time for Bahrain.
That may well be the case, but one senior engineer from a rival team said he would be surprised if Red Bull had done enough running to discover whether they had overheating problems. Normally, he said, such things only properly reveal themselves after 10 or more laps of hard running.
The fact Red Bull were encountering problems almost as soon as they left the pits suggests, therefore, a relatively major problem, one that may not be easy to solve with a heat shield here and an extra hole there.
Red Bull team principal (left) talks with driver Daniel Ricciardo (centre) and motorsport consultant Dr Helmut Marko.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner talks to Daniel Ricciardo and consultant Dr Helmut Marko.
It is possible Ricciardo gave away a little more than he intended to when he said on Thursday: “Even if we go to Melbourne still a bit whatever, it’s a long season. These guys know how to win and sooner rather than later we are going to get it together. It’s still early days.”
Indeed it is, but the problem for Red Bull now is that, if they want to be in decent shape for the Australian Grand Prix on 16 March, they really have to find a fix before the next test.
If they go to Bahrain and continue to struggle with fundamental issues that prevent them logging miles, then Red Bull will not be able to learn about the basic performance aspects of their car - how it works at speed, how the tyres behave, how best to set the car up, what its fuel consumption is like and how to control it, and so on.
Meanwhile, their rivals already have a fair chunk of that information from testing in Jerez, where, on an average-per-car basis, engine suppliers Ferrari and Mercedes did similar sorts of mileage.
Such is the complexity of the new F1 cars, with their new turbo engines, energy-recovery systems working off both rear axle and turbo, and fly-by-wire braking, that there was no question of going for lap times.
“The goal was to do a lot of miles,” said Mercedes driver Rosberg. “We managed to achieve that quite well. It’s a decent start.
“It’s a surprise to get so many miles, but we have no idea where we are in terms of pace.”
F1’s 2014 rule changes
F1 2014 rule changes
Be that as it may, there were some very early impressions created in Jerez.
Mercedes look to be in good shape, despite a front-wing failure for Lewis Hamilton on day one, banging in the mileage and always close to the top of the timesheets.
McLaren’s new recruit, Kevin Magnussen, made an assured debut in his first test as a race driver, notwithstanding a harmless spin and a crash on the final afternoon.
And while Ferrari generally kept under the radar - and there may be signs that the car lacks a bit of grip - Fernando Alonso completed a series of impressive-looking runs on the final day.
The double world champion was fastest at various points before ending up second overall behind former team-mate Felipe Massa in his Williams.
Meanwhile, Red Bull were already packing up at the end of a week Horner described as “very difficult”.
Red Bull’s four world titles have not been won at a canter. There have been plenty of problems along the way, many of them created, like some of those in Jerez, by Newey’s vacuum-like packaging. But from the outside this looks as if it could be as big as any of them.
Red Bull and Renault lack neither resources nor brainpower, but they will have to apply both around the clock over the next fortnight to prevent this problem developing some worrying momentum.
No-one expects Newey’s gorgeous-looking car to be anything but quick. But that’s not much good if it doesn’t work.
Additional reporting by Tony Dodgins.
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