12 posts tagged “formula 1”

..five more days until F1 2008!!

Introducing the versatile..

       ..the musical

              ..Renault V10!!

 

A brief look at one of Microsoft's more diverse projects

If I had to pin a subtitle on last year's F1 rule changes it would be "Search for Reliability".  This year, with the sport-wide adoption of the Microsoft SECU (Standard Engine Control Unit), I would call 2008: "The Wrath of Costs". 

Improved reliability naturally brings a level of cost savings with it, and 2008 extends the multi-race engines to now include multi-race gearboxes.  Adding a standardized ECU to the sport infringes on the car development in a way that has never been done, but it will save development costs.

An ECU controls everything 'electronic' on an engine: fuel mixture, ignition timing, valve timing, driver aids and data logging.  Having a standardized ECU (the SECU) levels this part of the playing field for F1 teams, which helps to reduce costs, but also puts more responsibility on the driver to shine against his peers.

Among bidders to manufacture the new SECU was Magnetti-Marelli, a leading ECU designer for many teams including 2007 winner Ferrari, Microsoft and apparently Macintosh.  Microsoft, teamed with technical partner McLaren, won the bid.  This could have some long-term benefits to road cars as Microsoft isn't known for doing things 'small': I expect to see Microsoft branding under hoods from leading manufacturers within a few years.

What is somewhat alarming, though, is that this is Microsoft afterall.  A company known for putting the role of beta testing in the hands of their retail products 'early-adopters'.  We're usually an 'SP1' or even an 'SP2' away from the product we really wanted. 

Formula 1 cannot afford that.  The sport suffered too much last year from bad press due to the various cheating scandals and a bad decision to award the bid of the SECU would cast considerable doubt on the FIA's judgement. 

The good news is that in testing the SECU appears to be working perfectly, but check out some of these statistics.

Compared to the 2007 Magnetti-Marelli ECU, the Microsoft SECU:

• Has half the power (computationally)
• Has one quarter the memory
• Weighs 35% more
• Eliminates traction control and engine-braking (these were mandated)

It is only three weeks before the first official 2008 race, lets hope that Microsoft Racing 1.0 SP1 is released in time..

 

The Renault R28 Formula 1 2008 contender

Fernando Alonso took the Renault R28 around the track in Valencia, Spain for a shakedown lap and showed the world that aerodynamicists are still willing to stake their repuation on unusual front wing designs.  Although the R28 is using the single-element upper component that spans the width of the wing, along the lines of the successful McLaren design brought out last year, it also has some kind of lower "scoop".  I suspect that this wing addition attempts to improve airflow under the nose and around the lower suspension components. 

Will it work?  Its hard to say.. afterall, Renault doesn't have a CFD supercomputer like BMW has.  My guess is that they'll keep the wing for the first few races and then put something more "conventional" on.

With that in mind, enjoy this tour through the "Weird Front Wing Museum".  And no, these didn't work either...

 

 

 

 

 

 

2008 Red Bull Racing Formula One contender rolls off the assembly line

In my heart, I want Renault to do great this year.  I'm willing to forget about their poor showing last year (in comparison to the year before) and want them to be back into their championship contender status.  But, I just don't see Renault making a comeback in 2008.  If I was a betting man, and I'm not (I don't have the luck needed to be a betting man), my money would be riding with Red Bull Racing and their 2008 contender: the RB4.

 

Launched today in Jerez, Spain, this car is a beautiful machine.  But as anyone who knows F1 understands, there are dozens of factors that make a team into a winner, and many of them are more than just how fast the car is.  The winning team is never whoever is fastest on Sunday; they need to be a total package.  This results in a championship that is really a race of how competitive the team is from Monday to Sunday, from the day the last season ends until the final lap on the final race.

This is why I see Red Bull Racing in 2008 to be 'the best of the rest':

• The drivers.  David Coulthard needs to prove he still has "it".  And I believe that he does still have "it".  Last year he pushed his car to its limits which unfortunately were slightly short of his own limits which resulted in a few DNF's.  He's also highly experienced and among the drivers to be least affected by the absence of traction control.  Mark Webber continues to have good days and bad days, but as the RB4 is an evolution of the RB3 which should improve its reliability, I also expect Webber's 'reliability' to improve as well.
• The engine. There is no doubt that Renault produce one of the strongest, most reliable and most versatile engines on the grid.  They do well on fast circuits like Monza and on hard-driving circuits like Monaco and Hungary.  I see the Renault customer team beating the factory squad because Red Bull has one thing that Renault doesn't: team consistency.  Red Bull has the same design team, the same drivers and the same engine manufacturer.  There is a huge advantage to that, more than most would believe.  Michael Schumacher didn't win his room full of trophies by jumping back and forth between teams (hear that, Alonso?).  He stayed with Benneton, and then Ferrari, through some growth years until they had a winning package.
• The competition.  Ferrari is going to win the championship again.  This is a done deal, we just have to go through the formality of running the races.  Now, its just a race for second place and lower.  McLaren might be second but I could see BMW giving them a run for their money.  Fourth place and down, often called "the best of the rest", is what is left to decide: 
• I already covered Renault and why I don't think they have a chance at fourth.  But, I didn't touch on the driver choice.  Alonso is obviously good, but he is indecisive.  It is not good for his morale or that of his team to know that he might just jump ship again to whoever has the shiniest car next year.  And although there is a 'romantic' desire to see Piquet Jr. do well, I just don't see it.
• Williams have lost their edge and focus over recent years and this will be highlighted in '08 with the rule changes.  I won't say that their driver lineup is "weak", but it is certainly unproven and you can't win a championship without winning drivers.  Also, I do not expect the Toyota powertrain to weather the changes for '08 well.  I'm not basing that on fact, just a gut feeling.
• I like Trulli.  Timo Glock is okay, too.  But they're just not consistent enough to get the most out of the Toyota on the weekends where the Toyota is somewhat competitive.
• Torro Rosso, Honda, Super Aguri and Force India are just too far behind to play that much catch-up in one off-season.

I hope that I'm wrong about Renault, but I doubt it.  I have always liked Renault and I always will.  My dream-car is an R5 Turbo II and I've owned a few Renaults over the years.  But they just don't have the total package to race with the top runners in '08.  However, in '09, I might have a different opinion. 

I hope that I'm right about McLaren falling to third or even fourth, as I don't think the fine and points loss for '07 was enough punishment for cheating.  I think they should have been banned for '08 or at the most allowed to race for drivers-points only. 

The season is close.. less than two months away!  Go Red Bull Racing!  And don't make a liar out of me...

 

The FIA announced that McLaren's complaint was snivelling and whiney, irrevocably handing the championship title to Kimi

At the close of this Formula One season which rightfully handed Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari the driver's and manufacturer's trophies, I thought that we had seen the end of teams being called to question for rule infractions.  However, McLaren found out that at one point over the race weekend, a competitor's fuel temperature was found to be outside of the accepted margin.  From this allegation, they had hoped to call into question another team's race results which would have named a McLaren driver the 2007 F1 Champion. 

 

Coming from any other team, this complaint would have been only barely-justified.  But coming from McLaren who were proven to have cheated by having possesion of their closest rival's car specifications, this complaint came as a slap in the face.  If somehow the FIA had granted McLaren's assertion that fuel temperature deviation warranted a penalty, which would have incidentally handed McLaren's driver the championship, the sport may well have suffered a lethal blow in a year already wrought with off-track political bickering.

Whatever happened to racing?  You know, where the fastest car wins?  I understand that there is a lot of money in Formula One, and if McLaren were able to somehow trick the FIA into allowing their driver to claim the driver's title, they would have kept the "1" on their car (which they didn't earn in the first place, but that's another story).  It looks pretty good to sponsors to have the "1" on the nose of your car, and having the best pit stall isn't a bad thing either.  But at some point, the team needs to take a step back and ask themselves if what they are doing is good for the sport and if it is good for the team. 

I doubt very much that any of McLaren's sponsors would have been proud to claim that "their" car won the driver's championship if it was won on a cheap technicality.  And do you think that any McLaren team member would be proud to sell themselves as "Our driver won the title, but we were last because we cheated".

Congratulations to Kimi and Ferrari.  Both driver and team performed very well this year and the titles were well earned, especially for Kimi who almost missed it again this year.

And to McLaren, shame on you.

 

Formula One history is full of drivers who "should have" won the World Championship.  Arguably, the top-three people who should have, but didn't are Jean Alesi with his bad-luck decisions on which team to sign with, Ricardo Patrese with his association with the fastest teams of the time and his still-standing record for longest F1 career, and last but not least Sir Stirling Moss - "The best driver to never win the World Championship".

 

 

There are those who feel that Kimi Raikkonen is on his way to earning the dubious honor of having a room full of pretty trophies, but nothing on the "Champion" shelf in his collection.  Today, however, the Iceman felt the fire of victory burning still strong and drove a perfect race through very challenging conditions.

With a typhoon warning threatening whether or not there would even be a race, thousands of people already having been evacuated from its path, Raikkonen showed the world that experience can still triumph over youth.  Weather predictions changed regularly throughout the race, causing pit strategy mayhem from the front to the back of the pit garages.  When cars started coming in for fuel but leaving their seriously balding intermediate wet tires still in place, it was pretty obvious that the race engineers were stumped on what to do. 

For experienced racer Raikkonen, this wasn't a huge problem as he'd raced in worse conditions before - he didn't earn the nickname Iceman for how he likes drinks.  However, n00b Lewis Hamilton was caught out between his enthusiasm and his nearly useless tires when he rolled into the pits and drove straight into the sandbox, high-centering his car in the kitty-litter.

 

 

I always like seeing a Ferrari win, and this one means a lot to Kimi as it keeps his chances for the 2007 championship alive.  And as much as I'd like to see a rookie win the championship for the first time in history, Kimi has really earned it.  He has had the worst luck among top-runners for a long time now, but despite all that he keeps his motivation undiminished.

But maybe he doesn't keep his passion alive despite his bad luck, but rather because of it.  After all, it has put him in a position to play sneak-attack on Hamilton for the driver's title this year.  A true winner is defined by having 'the total package', not just being a one-lap-wonder and Kimi is indeed the total package.  Maybe Hamilton will learn from his mistake today and play things a little slower the next time he pits with bald tires in the rain. 

In fact, after today he's still leading the championship, so he might even still win.

But its experience and having the total package that really earns the win, and its Kimi that I'm calling for to take the title for 2007.  Today, Hamilton was fast.  He had pole, had a great start, and kept everyone behind him (until he beached his car).  But in the end, it was expericence and patience that won today.

 

 

Hamilton didn't have to win.  He didn't have to prevent Kimi from passing him.  But, he did need to get three points to clinch the championship.  And in that, he failed. 

 

Canadian Formula One fraught with action

Today's Canadian Grand Prix brought a new hero to the forefront of the world's premier racing series.  Rookie Lewis Hamilton (GRB), who has never finished lower than third in his remarkable, but brief Formula One career ascended to the top step today in a race with intense action and an uncharacteristic four Safety Car periods. 

 

Hamilton displayed an almost computer-like level of concentration in the race which saw only half of the people who started the race cross the finish line 70 laps later.  Lucky to escape serious injury was Robert Kubica who went wide approaching Montreal's famous hairpin.  Kubica went off the track, caught some air, and then went hard into the cement barrier. 

He flipped over several times, losing most of his car in the horrifying crash, then came to a stop with the carbon monocoque laying on its side.  After a few minutes of careful medical attention, Kubica was extracted from the shell of his utterly destroyed car.  At the time of this writing, it is believed that Kubica suffered only a broken ankle.  This injury, while likely to keep him out of the US Grand Prix in Indianapolis next neek, could have been worse if not for the extremely high level of safety standards employed in modern race cars.

 

Second place finisher Nick Heidfeld demonstrated BMW's rapidly improving race package while Alexander Wurz's third place podium finish demonstrated that the factory Toyota team cannot seem to get it together despite their enormous budget, but the Williams-Toyota using the 'customer' engine is able to beat the Toyoya factory team using the same engine.  Also, a big honorable mention to Takuma Sato for driving his Super Aguri-Honda to a very respectable sixth place finish, beating his season-best and showing that you don't need to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at a car to make it go fast.

Formula One 2007 Season begins!

Every year, the gap from one season ending and another starting fresh the next year seems to get smaller and smaller.  Some would suggest that I'm "getting old" or perhaps just losing touch with reality in general.  I prefer to think of it as "time flies when you're having fun".  And I am.  :O)

Humongous "thanks, babe!" to my amazing wife, Laurie, who is working now.. which allows us to afford digital cable on which to watch the '07 F1 Season.  The sport is going to miss M. Schumacher.  I still don't understand how the local Ferrari dealer didn't have a big "Thanks Mike!" sign at the end of last year for all the attention MS brought to the Italian marque.  Some people, including Laurie, will miss J.P. Montoya.  Me, not so much.. especially after the brutal hammering he gave his teammate at the Nascar race in Mexico two weeks ago. 

Good luck to my current F1 hero, Alonso, although I'm not sure why he left Renault.  Fernando, dude.. Renault made that team for you!  How could you betray them?!?  I guess McLaren is a good place to land after you jump from a winning team, but why leave in the first place?

Race on!

This is a long post, but worth the read... I hope!

Just over seven months ago, I left Canada with my fiancée, our cat and our car.  We loaded everything we own into a giant UHaul, strapped the car to a trailer and climbed aboard for a journey into the unknown, just like in Star Trek.  Also, just like in Star Trek, we had a mission: "To seek out new lives and better places of employment". 

At the time we left, our immigration case had ground to halt thanks to our loud and unpleasant neighbors who stole our mail, which included forms from USCIS that absolutely had to be returned.  Even though I didn't know what my immigration status was going to be when I got there, we had decided to move from British Columbia to North Carolina, and once I make a decision, I stick to it.  The day that we left, we were absolutely exhausted from cleaning and loading the truck and it was raining so hard I was beginning to think that we should pack our swimsuits along in the truck with us.  And, it was honestly not easy to leave behind family and the place we'd lived and gone to university for the past four years.  But, our plan was in place and it was time to get the wheels rolling.

Our 2900 mile drive, as estimated by Google Maps, should have taken just a little under two days.  Well, we weren't even close!  It took us seven days to make the journey, not counting our three-day stop in Minneapolis to pick out an engagement ring.  By the time we arrived, we were tired of riding in the truck, tired of greasy restaurants and cheap motels, and our cat was tired of not being able to run around and climb things all day.

The day we arrived was ironically the same dark, wet weather as the day we left more than ten days ago.  Since then, a lot has happened: my financée became my wife, we installed a wood floor in the place where we would be living for the next two years and our cat has found all the best places to climb and hide in our new home.  It has been really great being here with my new family and they've welcomed me as one of their own.  And recently, I began the task of finding work now that my legal-to-work date is closing in. 

I actually like interviewing for jobs, and it was particularly nice to look for work here, as there are so many more career opportunities for people with my skills here than where we left.  I also really like the people - southern hospitality isn't a myth!  However, when they're behind the wheel of a car, its battle-conditions, just like everywhere else.

Today marks the four-week countdown until I can finally rejoin the working-class!  Thanks to a great law firm who has helped us out a lot, my new wife and I are finally at a point where we are saving for a house.  She has already started work because she is American, but the really interesting thing is that we both wound up interviewing for positions with the same company.

Although we were being interviewed for different positions and by different people, we told the company that we were married so that there wouldn't be any surprises if we were offered positions and showed up to work, already in an 'office romance' together.  Luckily, they did not care that we were married and in fact seemed to like the fact they're getting a team.  We were both offered the positions that we applied for and we now both work for a very progressive software development company.  In four short weeks, we'll be commuting to work together, just like we did when we were taking classes in Canada!

Since I've been here, many people have asked me, "Why did you leave Canada?  It's so beautiful there!".  They're right - it is beautiful.  But it's far from perfect.  Not to say that anywhere could be perfect in every way, but for those who asked, this is my "top-ten" list as to why I left British Columbia for North Carolina:

1. Home prices: CBCNEWS: "Vancouver houses prices still highest in Canada".  That quote, from June 2006, states that prices went up a whopping 23.7% in just one year.  The average price: $518,176!  Completely insane, if you ask me.  The average house price in the city where we now work: only $121,575.. just a little cheaper! 
2. Medical system:  Don't tell me the Canadian medical system is free, because it isn't.  It's rolled into taxes, which hides the real costs, so no one can really be sure how expensive it is.  However, taxes are very high in Canada, so it's not too hard to make the connection.  And as for the service, let me share a little experience I had: A few years back I was 'gifted' with kidney stones.  For anyone who doesn't already know, this is a pain level that has few, if any, parallels in human experience.  It's bad, but not life-threatening, so to receive the treatment that would break up the stones, I had to wait my turn.  It was almost two months before I got my turn, and even then I had to get to the machine on my own!  If the machine had been at the hospital in the city where I lived, that wouldn't have been too bad, but I had to go 250 miles, each way, just to get there!  I missed more than two months of work, earning a fraction of my salary while on disability pay and had to go 500 miles round-trip while suffering intense discomfort.  I've had time to investigate the process here in North Carolina, and there are many of these machines in hospitals all over the state.   And, the waiting time would be hours-to-days, not months.
3. Gas prices: Taking into account metric to Imperial conversion and currency differences, the price for a gallon of gas down the street here in North Carolina is $2.38 compared to the same gallon of gas in British Columbia, which is $3.32!  Almost a whole dollar more per gallon for the exact same gas.  For me, that works out to $10 more per tank for gas in BC.
4. Wages:  Although the minimum wage in Canada is higher than in the US, the average annual wage for someone who does the kind of work that I do in BC is $41,000 compared to $62,000 in North Carolina.  The opportunities for advancement are also much greater here.
5. Happiness:  Maybe its the house prices, or the price of fuel or that people have to wait in line for months to have a painful medical condition relieved, but when I'm shopping or at a restaurant or just walking down the street, people just seem happier.
6. Education: 18 of the "Top 20" Universities world wide are in the United States (TIME.COM).  One has to look down to #24 to find University of Toronto for the first Canadian listing, and to #37 to find British Columbia's "UBC".
7. The Avro Arrow:  In the frigid spring of 1959, the Canadian government decided that it was a good idea to destroy the greatest aircraft the world had ever seen.  This incomprehensible action was the catalyst to the 'brain-drain' from Canada to the United States which saw many of the world's finest aeronautical engineers move into the American space program.  Included in the list of expatriates was the brilliant Jim Chamberlin, who became a lead engineer for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft programs.  Incidentally, Jim Chamberlin is a personal hero of mine, not only for his work on the Arrow and the NASA space program, but I also have a personal connection to him since we share the same birthday and grew up in the same town in Canada.
8. Shopping:  24hr WalMart, 24hr Target and 24hr Harris Teeter.  'Nuff said?
9. Car insurance:  When buying insurance in BC, you get two choices: ICBC or ICBC.  In the US, the concept of state-owned insurance is a little too "commie", so insurance is handled as a free market commodity.  The result is better coverage for less money.  Plus, I get to buy insurance from a lizard!  How cool is that?
10. Hockey:  I don't mind the game, but I am a big Formula 1 fan and whenever a race is on at the same time as a hockey game, the race is bumped to a later date or is not played at all.  In North Carolina, hockey is semi-tolerated but racing is BIG!

I truely hope that no one is offended by this.  However, I didn't say anything that wasn't true - so there!  Like I said earlier, no place is perfect in every way so I wanted to put a few things that I miss about Canada:

1. My son.  Goes without saying, but he is #1.  I see him and talk to him often, but moving away from him was the hardest thing I ever did. 
2. My family.  Love you mom, dad, sis, bro-in-law and their kiddies!
3. Friends:  I don't have too many of them in Canada, but you know who you are. 
4. Mountains.  It's really flat here and I used to really like riding into the mountains on my bike to get away from the world.
5. Boxing day.  In the US, its called 'black Friday' and its after the US Thanksgiving.  Black Friday is cool, and has better sales than Boxing Day, but when it's the day after Christmas, its like getting a second chance to get yourself the gifts that you didn't get the day before!
6. Kenna Cartwright Park:  This park has excellent mountain biking trails that I rode almost daily, sometimes twice a day.  Good times..
7. Crispy Cheesers:  Little Ceasar's Pizza in Canada has something called the Crispy Cheeser, which is not made by US-based Little Ceasar's.  They're very tasty, but kinda bad for the tummy!
8. Tim Hortons:  The closest we have here is KrispyKreme, which isn't very close at all. 
9. Fewer churches:  There are too many churches here!  I think everyone should be able to believe whatever they want, as long as they keep it to themselves.  But, its pretty hard to ignore all the church-ey messages that are everywhere, including stuck onto all the exercise machines at the local "Y" that I go to.
10. Relaxed people:  In general, Canadians are pretty mellow people, and that's a good thing. 

There are a lot of other great things about life in Canada, but these are the ones that I will personally miss.  As of today, I join a long list of Canadian expatriates as I have now officially left Canada.  One is never really gone until the Canadian Revenue Agency knows about it, and I've just gotten off the phone with them to tell them that I've gone.  It's an unusual feeling, but not an uncomfortable one, as I've always felt as though I 'fit in' better in the United States, anyways.

With that, I bid Canada a sweet 'farewell'. 

Best of luck to Fernando Alonzo in his new team, McLaren.  This pic is Alonzo getting his first taste of a McLaren on his home turf in Jerez.  Because his contract with Renault does not technically end until December 31, he had to wear a white race suit and helmet.