Spanish GP 2008

[Moanlower]

DC didn't do anything wrong. Sutil was over optimistic and dived in a gap that wasn't there! DC wasn't to blame in Australia either. Youngsters as Sutil, Piquet or Massa needs to learn whether there's a gap to overtake or not.
You have to back off as long as you didn't put your car completely alongside the one you want to take over.

DC was completely at fault with Massa. If you think he wasn't you need to get your eyes checked or go do some actual racing yourself. You'll see he has the habit of closing the door on people who have the advatage over them, then blaming them for what happens. He needs to either own up to the fact he doesn't race others cleanly or hang up his helmet. And I say that as a DC fan from his McLaren days.

I guess you have no idea what you're talking about..

DC did nothing but taking the raceline. His rear view is almost zero with being tucked in the cockpit and the small mirrors vibrating. As DC said, Massa on the other hand has a much clearer view to how much space there is.

"I was prepared for him to pass me at turn three because the Ferrari has a much better top speed and is a much quicker car. So, if he makes the same choice in the future he will get the same result. I can´t make my car invisible."

I advice you to stick with the go-karts ..

[Ray]

DC didn't do anything wrong. Sutil was over optimistic and dived in a gap that wasn't there! DC wasn't to blame in Australia either. Youngsters as Sutil, Piquet or Massa needs to learn whether there's a gap to overtake or not.
You have to back off as long as you didn't put your car completely alongside the one you want to take over.

DC was completely at fault with Massa. If you think he wasn't you need to get your eyes checked or go do some actual racing yourself. You'll see he has the habit of closing the door on people who have the advatage over them, then blaming them for what happens. He needs to either own up to the fact he doesn't race others cleanly or hang up his helmet. And I say that as a DC fan from his McLaren days.

I guess you have no idea what you're talking about..

DC did nothing but taking the raceline. His rear view is almost zero with being tucked in the cockpit and the small mirrors vibrating. As DC said, Massa on the other hand has a much clearer view to how much space there is.

"I was prepared for him to pass me at turn three because the Ferrari has a much better top speed and is a much quicker car. So, if he makes the same choice in the future he will get the same result. I can´t make my car invisible."

I advice you to stick with the go-karts ..

You don't need mirrors when the guy is alongside you enough to outbrake you. Lewis and Kimi managed to not get in an accident at Monza even though Lewis was WAY farther behind than Massa was from DC. No excuses for his 'preparedness' on that. He just can't stand to be passed fair and square. DC ran him over, and can't admit it. Neither can you. Look at it again and tell me that Massa didn't have him covered. It seems quite odd that DC is the only one that can't see out of his mirrors enough not to get hit. It's a cop out. Most of his incidents of late have been his fault. Seems that everyone else does just fine at being passed but him. I don't care where DC was 'prepared' to be passed, he has to be 'prepared' everywhere, and running someone over is not because you weren't prepared to get passed. It's bad driving.

A legitimate pass happens when your opponent has taken away YOUR choice of braking point and turn in, after that you can choose to race them on the outside or yield. Not cut them off on turn in and say, 'well you should have known, you could see that I wasn't going to give way. Since your car is faster, and I choose where you pass me because having a faster car than mine relieves you of the right to race me, I'll cut you off and ruin both our races.'

And I 'advice' you to see the truth and not what you and DC believe to be the truth. I thought this was racing, not a door slamming contest.

[roost89]

I don't care where DC was 'prepared' to be passed, he has to be 'prepared' everywhere

A racer doesn't need to be prepared everywhere. He's in a relatively speedy car. Eyes look forward when driving a car and not in the mirrors 24/7. If you were prepared to be over-taken everywhere, then what's the point in racing? Just sit in the pits. DC is a good driver and the mirrors in the cars are completely rubbish, as is always said by drivers. Also with the newer high-sided 'head-rests' it makes visibility lesser than it was already.
This one is about today, with DC having the racing-line both times. Why not blame Vettel for crashing out of 3 races on lap 1? and most of all for not finishing a race this season.

Stop having DC as the bad-guy. Even though he's old, he brings alot to the team of RBR and down the line to STR too.

[Ray]

I don't care where DC was 'prepared' to be passed, he has to be 'prepared' everywhere

A racer doesn't need to be prepared everywhere. He's in a relatively speedy car. Eyes look forward when driving a car and not in the mirrors 24/7.

You missed the whole point. A racer does need to be prepared anywhere if there is a much faster car behind them, which he admitted to. And yes I know it doesn't apply to what happened today. I'm at work and I haven't been able to watch the race yet. That being said, I am inclined not to take what DC says at face value anymore after seeing his conduct so far this season. I don't think he's a bad driver or person. I don't believe I've ever said either of those things. He just needs to stop pointing the finger every time something happens to him.

Vettel has been hiot or had a failure of some sort that was outside his control. Not so with DC.

[vyselegend]

Not talking back about previous incidents, today DC was totally clean. He didn't close anything on anyone, for the good reason that he was alone! A competitor behind him (Glock) lost his braking and ended with his front wing colliding with DC's rear tyre, that's obviously the mark of a missed braking... Please all of you DC detractors, admit that you cannot close the door on someone who's behind you.

Though I admit trying the interior on DC is statistically dangerous, lol. Those youngers should learn for it and try to do the exterior instead...

Actually the DC / Glock incident seems less controversial to me than Bourdais /Piquet one, as those two were at the same level when Bourdais closed the door.

This race was quite borring to me, appart for the anxiety after Heikki's hard crash. Every drivers I cheer for had a shitty week end, exept Webber and Trulli who slavagged some solid points.

Is it me or was it a long time ago last time an engine grenaded during a GP?

[Scuderia_Russ]

You don't get to see the angle of the rear wishbones very often, and you can see that the Redbull does indeed get appreciable negative camber gain on the rear during suspension compression. It's a shame the front tires have to deal with such a horrible camber curve, and it is obvious why they run such dramatic static negative camber (I'm surprised they can get on the brakes as hard as they do). Anytime I run 3-4 degrees negative camber on my street car it feels absolutely horrible under braking, not to mention how much I fight with the steering wheel to keep it going straight over the road crowns.

The camber doesn't look that severe to me. Looks similar to satic cambers on both modern F3 cars and sports prototype cars that I have set up lately. What 'street car' do you drive out of interest. Any sort of set up ideas I could give you might not be much use because the only tin top I have ever had on a flat patch was a Pug 106 Rallye which is a bit poxy and has quite a short wheelbase.

[checkered]

By the way, great job Checkered! It was pretty accurate! We did have one safety car lap and Massa had a costly mistake too. I would have liked to see the time gaps between top ten, although going out behind Rubens did hurt Fernando's chances.

Thanks for the

encouragement; though after the first SC episode (and changes in running order off the line) I was pretty content that my work had become largely inconsequential already (as I suspected from the get-go). It's quite likely that mere informed intuition has roughly the same accuracy as this. The most important lesson was the most obvious one; any prediction system needs to be dynamic and able to produce solid probabilities based on a staggering number of interactions. Interesting in theory, but something I'm very unlikely to take up any time soon.

Besides, I scrapped any remaining projections as Kovy plunged into the tyre wall. For a while there the mood was quite horrific indeed. Yes, the monocoque is fairly strong, but anytime the helmet touches any object in a crash it's partly luck of the draw what happens. Fortunately he had the reaction time to release the wheel and retract his legs - if he hadn't, the least amount of injury would've included shattered feet and ankles plus torn or injured ligaments and tendons. The 26 Gs he pulled in crashing was certainly enough to knock him out for a while.

A wheel failure is unusual. When Dennis speculated that a piece of a car or a stone may have gotten lodged between the fairing and the wheel my first thought was that the fairings will be immediately banned on safety grounds by the FIA. It's still possible, I guess, even if it turns out to having been a manufacturing flaw after all. There may be a wider problem emerging though, as Steve Matchett noted that any time a tyre is taken off a wheel, the wheel must be X-rayed for damage before being reused.

[donskar]

As a Ferrai fan, I loved the result.

As an F1 fan . . . the race was a bore in terms of racing (that is, uncertainty as to result). Yes, there were blown engines and some wrecks, but I know that few (if any) of us watch racing in the hope we'll see crashes. Truth to tell, Kimi won the race at the starting line and thereafter was never seriously threatened. Massa, for his part, made an excellent start and secured his ultimate second place at the first corner.

Yes, there were some decent dices in mid-field, but I don't think it's going too far to say that after turn 1, only an accident or mechanical flaw could have changed the 1-2 results.

I'm pulling for a Kimi/Ferrari repeat for WDC and CC, but I do sincerely hope that :
BMW and Renault can earn at least one victory each on merit.
Williams somehow find at least .5 second.
Hamilton continues to be exposed as a mere human
Massa finishes second in the WDC [-o<

[Moanlower]

The 26 Gs he pulled in crashing was certainly enough to knock him out for a while.

Where did you get this number ? 26G is a little low when you consides that they brake with 5G.

I heard that the impact generated approx. 100G.

David Purley survived an estimated 179.8 G's in 1977 when he decelerated from 173 km/h (108 mph) to 0 in a distance of 66 cm (26 inches) after his throttle got stuck wide open and he hit a wall.

During the 2006 Indianapolis 500, Darren Manning backed into the wall. The impact generated over 100g but there was no outward damage to the helmet's shell, however you could actually see the outline of the back of his head in the lining.

[Moanlower]

I just read at F1-live that the impact was measured at 26G.

It looked scary, but luckely for Kovi he shoved almost completely under the tyre barier.

[dumrick]

Actually the DC / Glock incident seems less controversial to me than Bourdais /Piquet one, as those two were at the same level when Bourdais closed the door.

And for me that's the perfect benchmark for Coulthard's previous accidents. Just compare one situation where the cars are at exactly the same level and bang similar wheels (Bourdais/Piquet) with Massa hitting Coulthard's sidepod with his front wheel. I'm sure in either situation the driver in front was unaware of the move, but Coulthard couldn't even rely on peripheral vision to avoid collision (and even if he could avoid, he didn't have to, because he was taking the corner in front and, therefore, the line was his). Bourdais probably couldn't react fast enough to avoid the contact and that was it. A great move by Piquet, though, that deserved a better outcome.

[rkn]

I hate to say it but I think Coulthard is getting both old and desperate. IMO he did the same as in Bahrain, changed lines under braking. There is a gentleman's agreement between the drivers, which says that this isn't allowed. He's had similar incidents in 3 out of 4 races (4 out of 5 if count Brazil 07), and that isn't a coincidence. Also while Webber is fighting in top ten, Coulthard finds himself fighting for 15th to 18th place, I would certainly be desperate...

----------------------------------------------------

I'm happy Kovalainen is okay! It was a pretty heavy crash, but I was amazed to hear he had passed out in the crash. Kubica in Montreal last year had 75g(!). and he was talking to the medics when they arrived...

[Moanlower]

I'm happy Kovalainen is okay! It was a pretty heavy crash, but I was amazed to hear he had passed out in the crash. Kubica in Montreal last year had 75g(!). and he was talking to the medics when they arrived...

The 75G on Kubica was measured during a millisecond. Kovi stopped within 3 meter from 240km/h. Difficult to compare the two.

[Miguel]

I disagree. I think Coulthard wasn't to blame in Bahrein's incident with Button. It seemed to me that, on the dirty side, Button locked wheels under braking, lost tons of grip and then invariably hit Coulthard. If you see the replay, Button was desperately trying to avoid the collision well before the apex. I also think this time is also a racing incident... with more blame on Glock.

Finally, Webber's drive was impressive indeed. Especially since he had basically no run time on either day. It's true that they know the set up by heart on Barcelona but, nonetheless, a truly special effort this time by Mark.

[Ciro Pabón]

Thanks for the data on the crash

I think Montmeló uses the new tyre barriers, more or less explained in Gp.com. They mention that even traditional tyre barriers give you 1/4 the deceleration of simple concrete barriers.

New barrier: the bolts joining the tyres, the plastic tubes and the flat retaining wall are the key


Tomba wrote a nice piece on the monocoque properties during a crash, that you can find here. Tomba also gave a link to Crash.net, "the place for all the crashes".

The figures are a little inconsistent. As explained before, the average deceleration for 240 kph and 3 meters is:

a = (240/3.6)^2/2*3 = 740 m/s2 = 75 G

You could do the inverse: if the car really stopped in 3 meters and you assume the accelerometer was right, then you get:

Speed of the crash= (2 * 3 m * 25 * 9.8 m/s2)^0.5 * 3.6 = 140 kph