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.
F1 has been a de facto fuel economy race since they introduced the 100 kilogram (now 110) fuel limit.
"Everything is what it is, and not another thing."
-- Bishop Joseph Butler, 1752
F1 was created to be the pinochle (sic) of motor sports. Now they've got the cockeyed notion that they can do that and be the paragons of social responsibility.
Which is preposterous. Sports is about entertainment. Entertainment is about escapism, not about lecturing paying customers to be more environmentally conscious.
Besides which, man-made global warming is a hoax. Ach-Oh-Aye-Ecks-HOAX.
And Hamilton is right. When he and Russell were driving identical cars, Russell was faster than Hamilton.
Now that he and Leclerc are driving identical cars, Leclerc is faster than Hamilton.
But it's the car...
*
Then there's other guys who are still digging for fresh dirt.
F1 Oversteer dug into the data and came up with a couple of interesting factoids.
Hambone has scored 31 points in the first five races at Ferrari.
In his worst start of the four seasons he was at the Scuderia, Carlos Sainz -- who was axed so Hambone could have a red car -- still scored 38 points in the first five races ... and that included a DNF!!!
Leclerc and Sainz raced together on 23 weekends. Leclerc qualified better at 14 of those 23 events. Averaged over those 23 races, the difference in qualifying times was just 0.03% of whichever driver's time was faster.
In 2025, Hambone has yet to qualify better than Leclerc and his average deficit after five races is 0.321% of Leclrec's time. Which they categorize as Sainz being 10x better than Hambone (at least in qualies).
If the F1 press keep dragging up these sort of details (F1 Oversteer refers to it as a "Damning comparison between Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz in qualifying"), they might make Ralf's prediction come true.
Lewis Hamilton’s vegan burger company ‘shuts down’ leaving ‘150 jobless’ after recording £8MILLION in losses
F1 CONFIDENTIAL: The incredible inside story of the sport’s most embarrassing day 20 years ago - when only SIX cars started the race and police had to step in to keep stars safe
Revealed: Lewis Hamilton’s ‘secret’ Ferrari clause which could explain the reason behind F1 star’s slow start this season
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/article-14642715/Lewis-Hamilton-Ferrari-clause-F1.html
Gee that’s a shame- maybe he can collaborate with David hogg and start a pillow business
right?
The Twerp Hogg tried to put mike lindell out of business by starting his own pillow business which lasted only a fee months before going bankrupt-
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30 years on and there's really no "smoking gun," no one can say for certain how it happened.
The Italian courts were no help because they generally operate with the same impartiality and blind justice as the OJ trial. Ten years and five trials (the first involving six defendants, including Frank Williams, Patrick Head and Adrian Newey) and the only conviction was in the 2017 trial when Head was convicted of "omitted control," which I gather is the Eye-Tie equivalent professional misconduct or neglect, but is a step or two down from the original charge of manslaughter.
Except at that late date the conviction had no teeth because the statute of limitations had run out six years earlier. The court lacked the authority to so much as arrest Patrick Head, much less sentence him. Which begs the question, why did they even bother holding the trial, unless the sole objective was simply to humiliate someone.
The star attraction at all five court sessions was the broken steering column, but that's because it was the only piece of physical evidence that might have pointed to the cause of the crash. In other words, it not only was "low-hanging fruit," it was the only fruit in sight. And Italian law requires that if someone gets killed in the course of a sporting event, then someone has to be held responsible. So that's what they did.
According to the Death of Ayrton Senna Wikipedia page, the state's prosecutor hired a team of engineering scientists from the University of Bologna to examine the steering shaft and report on its condition. According to the wiki, the head of the group of scientists testified that, "It had been badly welded together about a third of the way down and couldn't stand the strain of the race."
But in an article that ran today at Motorsport.com, another scientist on the Bologna team claimed the exact opposite. He said the weld was okay. In fact, he sought a second opinion from a scientist from another university who was even more highly regarded in the field than he, and the word the other scientist used to describe the weld was "perfect."
There were a number of other problems with the steering shaft that the entire Bologna team agreed on but I can't get past how two scientists could be so far apart on the matter of the weld. It doesn't pass the smell test. Like maybe the prosecution had encouraged the head of the Bologna team to perjure himself because even if someone was convicted, sentence would be suspended.
In fact, when all six defendants got off in 1997, the prosecutor appealed. He tried to get the case reheard and he wanted Head and Newey to be convicted, both to receive 1-year suspended sentences. Which shows you the kind of games the Italian courts play. The prosecutor's request was denied in 1999, in part for fear of F1 boycotting all the Italian F1 circuits.
But Newey hasn't been shy about admitting there were two serious problems with the car, and further admits he and Patrick Head were to blame for both. The steering shaft was one of those. He acknowledges it was botched.
The other was the suspension. 1993 was the final season for active suspension, and Newey admits he hadn't got the conversion to non-active sorted and as a result the car was aerodynamically unstable.
In fact, Newey wrote in his autobiography that the car just wasn't safe to race in.
Which brings us back to, what really caused the crash?
Patrick Head and Damon Hill both have stated publicly that Senna simply bungled the corner.
Michael Schumacher said he had spoken to Senna about how rough the inside line of Tamburello was, but Senna was adamant it still was the fastest line. Schumacher also mentioned that on the lap before the crash, the FW16 was visibly unsettled by following the inside line at full chat.
Head and Hill say it was driver error. Schumacher says the car was visibly upset on the previous lap but Senna chose the same line on the following lap. And Newey admits the FW16 was aerodynamically unstable. Add those three to Tamburello's sinister reputation and what do you get?
An FW16 into the wall?
Newey notes that the camera in Schumacher's car showed that at the moment the crash sequence began, the rear end of Senna's car broke loose first. It wasn't understeering, it was oversteering, and Newey says that couldn't have happened unless Senna was making a powerful steering wheel input. Which means that at that moment the steering shaft had to be intact.
One early speculation was it was low tire pressure owing to the safety car coming out on the opening lap. Low tire pressure combined with Tamburello's bumpy inside line caused the chassis to bottom out. The chassis bottoming out briefly cut off ALL ground effect-produced downforce, and the loss of downforce caused the front end to wash out.
But Newey says that isn't likely because the race had been green long enough to fully warm the tires, so he reckons if he had to pick a single cause, it would be a slow leak in the right rear. Because that gives cause to both the car bottoming out and the rears letting go.
If it had been just Ratzenberger, the response might not have been so profound. Adding Senna to the weekend's body count got everybody's attention. The next season the FIA implemented the skid plank, which effectively prevents the low ride heights of the ground effects cars. And minimum ride height was raised by two inches.
Rear diffuser was made smaller, further reducing ground effects. With the ride height changes they were expecting a 30-40% reduction in downforce.
There were numerous new safety rules, including raising the height of the survival cell, and raising spec weight to allow for all the changes.
And Newey implemented a program at Williams (which has been widely imitated) that all safety-critical components have to be signed off on twice, first by the design engineer and the second time by an experienced stress engineer.
And going back to the crazy Italian laws, you might not be aware but because of them, Senna probably died in Sid Watkins arms before he got him in the ambulance. Which is a far cry from the official story, that Senna died in the hospital.
The same law that says if someone dies, somebody has to get jammed up for it also says that the event has to stop immediately and may not resume until officials have had time to arrive and conduct an investigation into the cause.
Senna crashed on lap 7 of 58. The promoters would have had a duck if they'd had to stop the race to wait on an investigation. But they had had the foresight to equip the paramedics had all the state of the art life support equipment that money could buy.
Sid said that he knew there was extensive brain damage the instant he checked Senna's eyes. And just seconds later, Senna exhaled audibly and Watkins thinks that was when he died.
But Sid's opinion in that regard was of no consequence because it would take an appropriately credentialed Italian doctor to officially pronounce death, and the promoters had taken steps to assure that none were present. And the EMTs hooked up Senna to artificial life support equipment that kept his heart and lungs working until they could get him to the hospital.
Because if Senna had died before they'd got him off the track, the race would have been halted indefinitely. So that's why he died in the hospital.
RIP Ayrton Senna. A great great driver.
thank you.
to me, he WAS FormulaOne...
a true tragedy
Black Sunday.
sadly all it takes is one miscalculation at the ‘right time’ for tragedy to happen- but it seems that it’s not known if a mistake happened or a mechanical failure happened- or an unstable car setup- Wish it hadn’;t happened- the races that he could have had- wow- died too young!
Thanks for that article.
In competitive physical sports, and F1 certainly qualifies on multiple levels, people sometimes come to find death.
That’s all; neither particularly complicated nor interesting.
I consider the The Ayrton Senna Institute, a Brazilian charity focused on improving education, particularly for underprivileged children and young people, Ayrton’ greatest achievement. This charity has made a difference in thousands of children’s life’s.
“Patrick Head and Damon Hill both have stated publicly that Senna simply bungled the corner.”
Sorry- that car veered to directly to the right for it to be driver error...something had to have broken in the car
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/300-per-litre-f1-teams-braced-for-ridiculous-rise-in-fuel-costs-for-2026/
... and the teams are not happy.
But I am. I think it's hysterical. And it wasn't simply predictable, it was preordained.
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