Simtek S941

[slotcar]

In 1994 there was the F1 team Simtek S941 HBD6 Ford 3.5 V8?

[747heavy]

Welcome Slotcar,
I´m not sure what your question is, but if you would like some info about Simtek F1
maybe this helps a bit.

http://www.f1rejects.com/teams/simtek/profile.html

[slotcar]

Thanks for your help!

[GTO]

Welcome to this forum slotcar.
I really liked this car. It had a cool looking design & color. The most amazing stat..."The company employed 35 people, the least amount of any team competing in Formula One during 1994, and only 10% of the number employed by Scuderia Ferrari."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simtek

[gridwalker]

Back in 1995, I sat in the 94 Simtek at the Autosport International show ... I thought that it was a great looking machine, it was such a shame that a driver died driving one (and that Roland's death was forgotten in the wake of Senna's death) ...

[sticky667]

more here

http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/con-simte.html

[andrew]

Apparently the 1994 Simtek had quite a good chassis, however is was let down by the engine. Really nice looking car (design and colour scheme) that stands out in my mind from my first season of F1.

Sadly, their season was marred by Roland Ratzenberger's death during qualifying for the 1994 San Marino GP.

More info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simtek

[Richard]

Roland's death was caused by his front wing breaking off. Nick Wirth was designer, owner and team principal for that team. It was unnerving that there was another front wing failure when Wirth returned as team principal in 2010 for Virgin.

Back to OP, yes Simtek was one of the last small indie teams that relied on passion and clever thinking to fight with the much bigger teams.

[FW17]

Roland's death was caused by his front wing breaking off. Nick Wirth was designer, owner and team principal for that team. It was unnerving that there was another front wing failure when Wirth returned as team principal in 2010 for Virgin.

Misconception there!! Roland Ratzenberger damaged the wing running over the kerb the lap before, did not pit for a new wing and crashed when the wing detached got under the wheel.

[andrew]

Confirmed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Ratzenberger

Ratzenberger was killed during qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix at the Imola circuit on Saturday 30 April 1994. He went off-track on the previous lap, damaging his front wing, but rather than come into the pits he continued since he was competing for the final grid spot.[3] The high speed on the back straight, and therefore high wind pressure, finally broke the wing off, sending it under Ratzenberger's car. His car failed to turn into the Villeneuve Corner and struck the outside wall at 195.68 mph (314.9 km/h).

[wesley123]

Am I wrong here or is ´detached´ and ´breaking off´ effectively the same thing here?

[andrew]

Same thing but different methodology.

[lotus7]

Roland's death was caused by his front wing breaking off. Nick Wirth was designer, owner and team principal for that team. It was unnerving that there was another front wing failure when Wirth returned as team principal in 2010 for Virgin.

Back to OP, yes Simtek was one of the last small indie teams that relied on passion and clever thinking to fight with the much bigger teams.

I remember at the time seeing pictures of a weird ( to me in any case ) front suspension design by Wirth . Does anybody have knowledge/piccies of this ?

[gridwalker]

I just went searching for images of that front suspension and found something that I had never seen before : actual video footage of Roland's fatal crash ...

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/597098/ro ... mola_1994/

Although this happened just over half my lifetime ago, seeing this just made me very sad.

[Tim.Wright]

Did you see Senna in that video at the crash scene? After seeing the crash, he commandeered the safety car and drove up there to check on Roland.

Tim