2016 Abu Dhabi F1 Finale Prediction - Rosberg or Hamilton??

Well it has come down to the wire again for the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi. who will have won the F1 crown by the time the fireworks come out??

The odds are clearly in Rosberg's favour. But this is his first chance to win a F1 World Championship and could potentially, given the fickle nature of F1, be his only chance. Will he buckle under the pressure and make a mistake? Judging from his form to date, I would make the bold assumption of saying yes.

He has successfully taken one race at a time as he has mentioned and that is fine whilst in the midst of a championship but this is the last and deciding race... Will he be mentally strong enough?? I have my doubts. As Hamilton has picked up in the past, Rosberg is a rich kid, the son of an F1 world champion, raised in Monaco... He therefore has clearly not had to fight as hard as Hamilton to get to where he is today - that cannot be denied. Therefore he may lack a level of mental toughness and resolve to do it on his own.

I may be doing Nico a disservice but this is how an independent 3rd party sees it. All the conjecture could be for nothing as reliability impacting either driver could determine the ultimate winner. Also, if Nico didn't drop it in the terrible wet conditions in Brazil maybe he has already shown he is mentally tough enough. We will see...

The Amazing Bluebirds

I came across this picture by Jack Vettriano and whilst impressive in its own right, it relates to an individual and the cars that achieved an even more impressive feat - breaking the world land speed record on a number of occasions. The individual is of course Sir Malcolm Campbell and the picture represents the birth of the first of the amazing Bluebirds.

The story goes that after watching a play one evening by the same name, Sir Malcolm was inspired to christen his own land speed vehicle Blue bird by painting it blue and subsequently achieved a number of land speed records in successive Bluebirds (detailed below).

The first thing that strikes you about these cars is the sheer size of them. They look mighty and imposing even today and so you can only imagine what the impact of sighting one of these behemoths back in the 20s and 30s would have been. They are also quite beautiful in their own way and capture the spirit of a pioneering period where man was seeking to continually push back the limits of what was considered possible. An exciting time for sure, particularly in Britain, where we were determinedly aiming to catch and overtake our European counterparts in terms of motor sporting accomplishment.

What follows is a summary of the amazing Bluebirds:

Sunbeam 350HP - Blue Bird

Napier-Campbell Blue Bird II

Napier-Campbell Blue Bird III

Campbell-Napier-Railton Blue Bird

Campbell-Railton Blue Bird

Ron Dennis deserves a Knighthood...!

Something that doesn't quite add up is why Ron Dennis has not become Sir Ron Dennis...? If I was the British man who has been the driving force behind the second most successful team in F1 behind only the 70 year old Ferrari, for the last 30+ years, I would have thought that, that alone might earn me a Knighthood. The fact that Mr Dennis has also headed up and overseen the growth of the increasingly successful McLaren Automotive over the last 10 years and expanded the expertise of the company into other industries such as Healthcare, through McLaren Applied Technologies, should guarantee to be awarded a Knighthood. The fact that his counterpart at Williams F1, Sir Frank Williams, has been Knighted, only serves to highlight the absence of the title before the name of the other.

So you have to ask why the man has not been honoured in such a way and can only guess as to the reasons. Mr Dennis, is a character that clearly has ruffled feathers in the past and appears to make people either like him or loathe him. I would guess it was one or more of the latter who have managed to block the man from being nominated for a Knighthood. It doesn't take the wildest imagination to guess the likely candidates when looking at Ron's run-ins over the years.

To compound it all, the recent events relating to Mr Dennis' fellow shareholders ousting him from running the F1 team and other parts of the McLaren group, I imagine is just rubbing salt in the wounds. Thankfully, he still holds a 25% shareholding in the McLaren Group and may be able to orchestrate a return to the helm of the Company he clearly loves and has built into the globally respected brand it is today. Others may not be so keen but I say good luck Ron.

Rimac

Ok, well I only discovered about this new electric hyper car manufacturer in the last few weeks when I was doing some research into the fastest electric cars currently available. I had never heard of Mate Rimac, Rimac the company he founded or the Company's Concept One model (see below) but I have been blown away by how developed the car is in terms of both its styling and performance.

The YouTube video that really got my attention was the below, in which a Rimac Concept One is raced against both a Tesla S 90D (the electric car that I had thought was the fastest available) and a La Ferrari. Against both of these, the Rimac doesn't just hold its own but comprehensively outperforms both cars with ease... Now this is a car from a car company that was only founded in 2009, by a guy born in 1988 in Croatia (a country not well known for its automotive engineering prowess) . So the guy isn't even 30 years old yet... Unbelieveable and yet a reality; a guy still in his twenties, has driven the creation of a hyper-car that can outperform the fastest available road going Ferrari, a company founded 70+ years ago.

I think the video shows what an amazing car and achievement the Concept One is and it is scary to see that an even higher performance version has now been created , the Concept S. 

If I was the other super car manufacturers, I would be more than a little worried. The electric revolution looks about to accelerate and take hold and as far as I can see, anything with an internal combustion engine is already obsolete...

McLaren MP4-X

I only just discovered this... the pictures and video (link here) speak for themselves...!

 

 

Article link: http://www.mclaren.com/formula1/inside-the-mtc/mclaren-mp4-x/

F1 New 2017 Regulations

So everyone pretty much knows what the changes are to the F1 2017 regulations; wider cars, wider tires front and rear, wider front and rear wings and proper tyre compounds that will let the drivers push their cars to the maximum.... The idea with the geometry changes to the car and tyres (i.e. everything wider) is to make the cars look more aggressive and menacing - more like real race cars.

 

We even had one team already modify an existing car to match the wider dimensions and strap on a sample of the new tires from Pirelli:

Oh I'm sorry...did I get that image mixed up...??  Let me just correct that, my apologies...

So what we have here, is a look to the future of F1, a bold new vision never before seen ..

Except... we have.

The McLaren MP4/4 above shares a lot of the look of the newly proposed regulations and illustrates that there is nothing new in the 2017 regulations that we have not seen before. The changes will not make overtaking easier (it may make mistakes more costly however) and the only people to benefit from the suggested changes will be the drivers themsleves, as they are going to have a much more physically challenging and demanding vehicle in their hands... Lucky them.

F1's 'new' regulations is just history turning full circle... desperately trying to strike that magic Formula that will make F1 more exciting again. I remember when they narrowed the cars to make it easier to overtake. I remember when they narrowed the tyres to reduce the danger that a loose and flying wheel would represent to spectators and marshals alike (now somehow forgotten). I remember when they added grooves to the tyres to slow the cars down in corners as the cars were judged to have become too fast. All attempts to liven the spectacle of F1 - and now these changes are being, one by one, undone.

I think going back to the 80s style of car is the right thing to do but the only way to really make F1 exciting agian is to reduce the formula's dependency on aerodynamics, by clamping down even harder on what is and isn't allowed and by simplifying and standardising the design of wings and undertrays. This would also, incidentally, bring down the budgets reuquired to run an F1 team; removing the need to run wind-tunnels 24/7 or purchase and use expensive super computers to crunch away at CFD calculations all day and night.

Only then, I believe, will F1 successfully recpature the magic and entertainment they seem so desperate to find of the glory years of Formula 1 in the 80s and earlier.

Roborace....?!?!

The guy (Daniel Simon) who designed this for the film Oblivion....

And this for the film Tron Legacy...

Has designed this...

for a new racing series that will support the various races held across the Formula E season. Looks great except this racing series is Roborace with all teams having the same car but with no human drivers allowed and only AI and algorithms creating the racing spectacle....  Now, unfortunately this is where my excitement (and most probably yours) .... stopped. So what is being proposed here is a battle of the nerds (no offense to those guys involved) to code their way to victory...

I am sorry but this will be about as exciting to watch as watching paint dry... Sure, it may be interesting to watch a race or two just to see how such a thing may be possible (self driving cars racing each other) but as soon as the initial novelty wears off, a Roborace event will be as stale as a 5 week old loaf of bread...

The whole essence of racing is the combination of man and machine... the only thing that makes F1 vaguely watchable these days are the drivers behind the helmets, because the mental / psychological aspect of the battle that takes place between driver and driver is what fans relate to and keeps people interested; How driver's deal with set backs and obstacles throughout a race and a season and their reactions to them is what creates the racing drama.

No drivers = no personalities battling it out to be champion. Sure the coders behind the scenes will be experiencing a few competitive urges whilst they code through the night to stop their car driving itself off the road but this will be mostly out of sight.

For me, the greatest thing about Roborace has been to discover the awesome visual and design work of Daniel Simon Design and realising he has been behind the design and creation of some of the vehicles I have dreamed of actually getting behind the wheel of, like the Light Runner from Tron Legacy and the dragonfly-like flying vehicle from Tom Cruise's film Oblivion. What an awesome job he has, working with the likes of Bugatti and Disney crossing the worlds of motor-sport and film to bring to life his ideas. Dream job anyone...?!

Adrian Newey AM RB Hypercar = Pure Genius

Adrian Newey has been the not so secret talisman of success for F1 teams for the last 20 years and his departure from full time duties at the Red Bull F1 team was always going to be a downer for them, regardless of what team management say. The idea for Adrian to step back from day-to-day duties at the team was to allow him time to work on other projects with racing sail yachts most often mentioned. Thankfully for the world he did this as he has produced what can only be described as a mind-blowingly beautiful and complex new shape of a hypercar in the form of the Aston Martin AM RB 001.

Just when you think that no one can surely produce a more beautiful car than such creations as the McLaren P1, La Ferrari or the Pagani Zonda F, along comes Adrian Newey to make all these so called hyper cars look like 2 tonne gorillas. The level of detail in the various shapes that comprise this car is just mind boggling. It is no surprise to hear that Adrian would analyise parts of the car, section-by-section describing in detail how the airflow would behaves and react to the contours of the car.

In summary, an absolutely awesome car that has raised the bar to new heights that other car manufacturers will now struggle to follow but I will enjoy seeing them try...!

Formula E Adopts Futuristic New Front Wing

I continue to beleive that Formula E is one of the most exciting racing series around at the moment given its focus on purely electric driven vehicles (unlike F1's current hybrid philosophy) and given the still relatively level playing field with respect to car performance across the field (albeit differentials in performance were clearly present in season 2).

One of the key elements that still remains the same is each car's aerodynamic package which helps to immediately avoid F1's largest problem at present - the large dependence of a car's aerodynamice package on its performance and the insane costs incurred by teams by running wind tunnels and super-computers to carry out CFD. This is one element, that if FE remain to keep in place, would allow it to potentially rival F1 in the future in terms of providing a real racing spectacle.

This has not stopped the evolution of the look and feel of the standrad aero' package but the latest changes have not been made to improve performance but to improve the aesthetics of the cars. For this I once again applaud FE and believe it reveals the genius of the series. By developing a more futuristic front wing they have begun a journey into making their race cars look more futuristc than other single seater race cars out there and they can use this element of the 'Formula' as a key differentiator going forward. 

As you can see from the pictures, the new front wing looks amazing and even resembles some of the concepts we saw from Ferrari and Red Bull  for their visions of the ultimate racers. Unfortunately for these two F1 teams, it looks like FE will get their cars closer to the look and feel of their futuristic racers long before F1 ever does.

Formula Renault Single Seater Experience

I have wanted to have a go in a single seater for a good few years now and was originally booked in by my partner for Silverstone's single seater experience. However, after this was withdrawn from Red Letter Days I had to find an alternative and remembering my younger brother's experience at another major British track, I tried to focus on the quality of the single seater as opposed to the track itself and came across the Formula Renault experience.

The look of the  is pretty good and as a entry level to series to motor racing for those going on to F3 and beyond it seemed like a good opportunity to try out my first experience of a single seater race car.

The experience itself was like all track days, relatively short (see the video here) but it was enough to get an idea of some of the differences and challenges to driving such cars. The extremely narrow cockpit, very close pedals and laid back driving position all not letting you forget that you are not driving your daily run around. Unfortunately, despite a 6 speed sequential gearbox, I was limited to a single gear and the track itself was no Silverstone (and extremely short!) but it was interesting with the amount of wandering due to bump steer quite a surprise. I didn't get anywhere near the limit of the car ad probably would have reached mine before that point but it was an interesting experience that has definitely left me wanting more... : )

Formula E Virtual Championship!!!

I only caught wind of this over the last few days but it appears Formula E are pulling off another master stroke at winning over new audiences by launching a virtual championship. The competition requires the ownership of an XBox One and I am guessing a compatible racing wheel (can't be setting competitive lap times on a controller). Unfortunately, I am an owner of neither and will not be able to justify the expense to the other half even if there is a share of a 15 thousand Euro purse up for grabs... : ( I would definitely be purchasing both right away if I had my way...

The format appears to be four rounds and utilises the Forza 6 game as the basis of the championship to which the Formula E cars were recently added. More details can be found in the following links:

Formula E website

The Verge

One lucky lady...

I came across this Youtube video several weeks ago and enjoyed the unique insight into how the super rich get their driving fix! What an amazing car the FXX K is and what an experience to be able to take one to the track on one of Ferrari's specially arranged trackdays and Spa no less! Oh how the other half live. To say I am envious would be an undertstatement.

To top it all, this car belongs to a certain Christine Sloss, who I had absolutely no idea who she was when I first watched this video but very quickly found out. Oh to be married to a Google executive - those guys are obviously making some serious money.

Good for Christine though as she looks to be the real deal, apparently lapping very respectable lap times at Fiorano when she first went to try out her yellow FXX K (which is in addition to the trackday only Ferrari 599 XX she already had in her possession). 

 

The yellow was at first a little shocking but after a while looks pretty cool and looks to be a trait of the Sloss family car collection which includes a La Ferrari in the same colour too.

As I have said before, when you see a lady all decked out in overalls you know she is dressed as such because she is investing in a hobby she is obviously taking seriously as opposed to a guy who buys the overalls to try and look the part (whilst not necessarily being the part). I have a lot of respect for Ms Sloss as she clearly is the real deal...! What a lucky lady to have the opportunity to enjoy her hobby at such a level as this.