F1 - GP (General Purpose)

Chode ^ | 8/5/2009 | Chode

[Paal Gulli]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Formula One!!

On May the 13th, 1950, 75 years ago today, the first Formula One race took place. The inaugural event of the 1950 season was the British Gran Prix (there's than name again) held at Silverstone.

[Paal Gulli]

Dangit, BBB333, sorry about that. My mistake.

[Paal Gulli]

Colorized video of (parts of) the 1950 British Grand Prix

[Paal Gulli]

Cadillac F1 to be running Ferrari-sourced power plants for 2006.

Who knew?

And they're buying leftovers from Renault to jumpstart their own homegrown engine program.

None of which sounds to me like it will help them sell cars.

[BBB333]

OK by me.

Interesting!

[BBB333]

What units will they run this decade???

Just giving you grief - you wrote 2006!

[Paal Gulli]

"Just giving you grief - you wrote 2006!"

Hey, it's Obamamotors, what can I say? ;-)

[Paal Gulli]

Auto Motor und Sport reported that they had a source claiming that Red Bull used a secret infrared camera to check out the McLaren MCL39's temperatures and found its brake drums (the shroud managing airflow around the disk brakes) were a whole color cooler than anybody else's brake drums. Which means their brake operating temperatures are WAY cooler than anybody else's. And brake heat is a key contributor to tire heat, which 'splains (at least in part) why McLaren's tires are so long-lasting.

What it doesn't explain is how McLaren is doing it.

Piastri's MCL39 was given the full-blown anal exam by the FIA after Myjammy (one of 10 selected "at random") and given a clean bill of health. Which should put to rest the rumors that Red Bull has been circulating since Sao Paulo last year that McLaren was injecting water into their tires so they'd run cooler.

When the FIA announced the results they specifically mentioned that particular attention had been paid to TR 3.13 (Wheel bodywork) and TR 11.5 ("Liquid cooling of the brakes is forbidden."), even stating they had checked "at all four corners" and all was found to be in compliance.

I never understood why RBR was picking on water anyway, since the whole point of using nitrogen to fill F1 tires is that it's completely water-free. It's technically challenging -- and expensive -- to drive all of the moisture out of air, so compressed nitrogen is actually cheaper and more readily available than anhydrous air.

And being completely water-free is important to stable tire pressure because when water converts from liquid to steam, its vapor pressure increases 1700x! And dry slicks spend most of their working day at 210-230°F, so it's certain to reach boiling point sooner rather than later. So regardless whether they're filled with garden-variety air or nitrogen, even a minuscule amount of water in the tires could wreck tire management.

Red Bull's claim also doesn't explain how cooler tires are cooling the brakes, because that door only swings one way. Carbon-carbon brakes can get to 1800°F on the braking-heavy circuits, and they lose their bite if they get below 400°F. So brake heat DEFINITELY contributes to tire temperature, but the other, not so much.

But sometimes someone in F1 comes up with some really SciFi stuff, like the Lotus 56 4WD turbine car, and the Brabham sucker car, so I wouldn't completely discount the possibility that McLaren has magic water. Or Maybe Red Bull knows the secret of making magic water and suspects that McLaren has some of their own.

Anyway, McLaren's Zak Brown took the opportunity to take a dig at Red Bull over the accusations.

[Paal Gulli]

On a whim, I searched the TR and the SR for the term "Dry Ice" and could only find one mention in either, and that was a prohibition against using it in the driver cooling system in the TR. Which got me to wondering, is there a reg that forbids hiding a chunk of dry ice somewhere within the airstream through the brake cooling ductwork so that chilled air emerges?

An article at the-race.com states that after examining Piastri's car, the FIA emphasized that TR 10.8.4 prohibited the use of anything other than air to cool the brakes. I wasn't familiar with that passage, so I looked it up. And I have to say, the FIA's is a pretty twisted interpretation because the way I read it, 10.8.4 makes no mention whatsoever of "cooling" brakes, only of increasing or maintaining temp.

This is the entire unedited section:

10.8.4 Treatment of tyres
a. Tyres may only be inflated with air or nitrogen.
b. Any process the intent of which is to reduce the amount of moisture in the tyre and/or in its inflation gas is forbidden.
c. A complete wheel must contain a single fixed internal gas volume. No valves, bleeds or permeable membranes are permitted other than to inflate or deflate the tyre whilst the car is stationary.
d. The only permitted type of tyre heating devices are blankets that comply with the design prescriptions listed in Article 10.8.5. Any other device, system or procedure (except for driving of the car) the purpose and/or effect of which is to heat the wheels, hubs or brakes above the ambient air temperature, or to maintain their temperature if they are already warm, is prohibited.

I don't see a stinkin' word about "cooling," unless they're ruling is that cooling is a negative heating, which is come pretty contorted logic.

Anyways, I still have no idea how big a chunk of dry ice it would take to provide significant cooling for +/- 100-110 minutes (formation lap to checkered flag). Plus it's bound to make the FIA scrutineers suspicious if only two cars on the grid consistently lost a couple of kilos more weight than all the rest at every race.

But no matter because if the FIA says it's a rule, then it's a rule, at least until it isn't. Remember Red Bull's fuel consumption debacle at Melbourne 2014? I'm still convinced RBR's bench-testing equipment was more accurate than the FIA's was, which means Vettel's car was legal, but that's not how it's written in the history books.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Well, cool IS the absence of heat. Heat is something, cool is nothing.

[Paal Gulli]

"Well, cool IS the absence of heat. Heat is something, cool is nothing."

That works with acceleration but not so much with heat. In fizziks, acceleration can be either positive or negative. The concept of de-acceleration doesn't exist. But the removal of heat is almost without exception called "cooling." And even if it isn't, all heat removal processes necessarily must include a "cooling" phase. No "cooling," no "heat removal."

The 2025 Technical Regulations mentions "cool" or "cooling" 87 times, so apparently it is a term the FIA is familiar with. The terms "negative heat," "negative heating" and "heat removal" appear in the TR, collectively, 0 times.

https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/documents/fia_2025_formula_1_technical_regulations_-_issue_03_-_2025-04-07.pdf

I think they're deliberately misinterpreting the TR just to make their (the FIA's) lives easier down the road (because I think there's a lot of Smokey Yunick in Adrian Newey).

But as I mentioned earlier (and it sounds rather Stalinesque when you phrase it this way), it doesn't matter what the rules say, all that matters is what the FIA says they say.

[Paal Gulli]

There's a post-race article by the staff at The-Race.com titled, "Should latest defeat to Verstappen scare McLaren? Our verdict." Their analysis is that the gap might be narrowing but the McLarens are still better cars and Verstappen is still the better driver. Like Suzuka, Imola is a fast circuit and plays to the Red Bull's strength so today's win doesn't mean that the RB21 has suddenly become the better car.

They liken Verstappen's mission to "a high-wire act" and say chatter in the pits is that he's only remained competitive this long by "sniping" to take advantage of McLaren mistakes. "If you give him [Verstappen] an opening he is like a rat up a drain pipe."

It's been a while since an F1 driver was likened to "a rat," and I don't think Verstappen will mind the association. Nor do I think Lauda would.

But, they reckon, Max isn't likely to be able to continue pulling rabbits (or rats) out of his helmet with sufficient regularity to overcome the MCL39's inherent advantages.

But Monaco and Barcelona might prove otherwise. Those circuits should be more to the McLaren's liking. If they don't pad their lead there, it could be baaaaad news for McLaren. And Barcelona comes the new wing flex regs, which Red Bull expects will be to their advantage.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Heat is a result of molecules moving and colliding.

Cold is a absence of molecular movement.

[Paal Gulli]

"...Cold is a absence of molecular movement."

The absence of molecular movement is absolute zero.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Yes and there is zero heat present. That is what it means.

No just about or almost.

[Paal Gulli]

Regarding the fate of Imola, Planet F1 is reporting that they're only paying a $21 million USD per event hosting fee to the FIA. And the FIA is looking to slough off all the races that aren't paying at least $35M.

The FIA dropping the race at Imola in part is a veiled threat to the Australian GP -- which is only paying $25M now -- to dig between the sofa cushions and come up with another 10 mil, or follow Imola to the scrap heap.

There's an old saying that the only way to make a million dollars in F1 ... is to start with $2 million. The new Madrid race is reportedly paying $52 mil. When you've got people with kind of disposable income lying around, it's F1 policy to forsake the past and follow the money. This is a tactic that the Chrome Gnome often used: find a sucker to bleed dry, milk him for all he's worth, then move on to new victims. Historic and fan-favorite circuits don't matter, all that matters is that the FIA gets fat(er).

That's exactly what happened at Buddh. No one in their right mind who's ever been to India would believe anything as up-market as F1 could ever get a toehold in a location that impoverished and that deeply entrenched in the Third World. Not to mention the socialist government that firmly believes you can make the water in the shallow end of the pool deeper by dipping water out of the deep and and pouring it in the shallow. It might as well have been built in central Mongolia or one of those East African sh1tholes Hambone keeps whining about.

Including the construction of the circuit and the first three year's F1 race hosting fees, the Jaypee Group came up with the $520M USD, and that's all the FIA cared about. Whether it would remain a going concern was, to the FIA, completely irrelevant. It took the Indian investors three seasons to realize the circuit's P&L sheet would remain red for the foreseeable future, so they tucked tail and ran.

It bears mention that Buddh still to this day is the only bespoke motor racing circuit on the Indian subcontinent, which illustrates the futility of the effort.

So it could be that Imola is too cash-poor to afford $35 mil per event, or it could be they're weary of doing business with snakes. There's a lot of prestige in being the host of an F1 event, but you can't feed your Chianina steers on prestige.

[Paal Gulli]

"... Australian GP -- which is only paying $25M now...

Sorry, I got that wrong. The article state's it's the Austrian GP, not Australian, and it's valued at $25 million annually (no mention of it's hosting fee). But the point was that such a low-valued event might not be able to come up with a $25 million entry fee.