F1 gurus lead a revolution in car design

Formula 1 is undergoing a quiet revolution.

In two years' time, the cars that line up on the grid for the start of the 2013 season will be vastly different from those that raced in 2010.

Governing body the FIA has already announced that the current 2.4-litre normally aspirated V8 engines will be replaced by 1.6-litre turbocharged versions with integrated energy recovery systems.

Now, BBC Sport can reveal that, driven by this big change to the engine regulations, the cars will also undergo their own huge revisions.

To the casual observer, they will still look like F1 cars and, importantly, will still go like them. But within the limitations of an open-cockpit, single-seater racing car with exposed wheels, they will be very different from current machines.

Gone will be the huge, snowplough front wings that have been required since the last major change of rules. Gone will be the high, chunky rear wings. Gone, too, will be the high-revving shriek of the engines.

In their place will be a car with much smaller front and rear wings and the much flatter, lower-pitched sound of a lower-revving turbo.

And critically - although largely invisible - there will be a shaped underfloor, replacing the flat bottoms that have been on F1 cars since 1983.

The 1982 Ferrari - a 126C2 - also possessed a small front wing

The 1982 Ferrari - a 126C2 - also possessed a small front wing

These external changes reflect a major change in the philosophy behind the cars and, as with the turbo engines, it is a case of back to the future. As the 1980s dominate the latest High Street fashions, so F1 is borrowing from technologies last seen then and updating them for the 21st century.

F1 last saw turbo engines in 1988. The last time cars had shaped underbodies was 1982. Those were the days of 'ground effect', when designers created huge amounts of aerodynamic downforce - and high cornering speeds - by accelerating the air under the car through the use of curved underfloors to create a 'venturi effect'. This was enhanced by the use of 'skirts', which sealed the underbody and prevented air leaking out of the sides.

We are not talking about a return to those days but the general principle is the same. Just as the cars in the 1979-82 period had small front and rear wings, so will the cars of 2013 and beyond.

The difference now is that whereas in the late 1970s and early '80s aerodynamics in F1 cars were still relatively in their infancy and designers were simply chasing as much as they could, now they are highly refined. And the men behind the proposed new rules are using the underfloor of the car to create efficient - but strictly limited - downforce.

The FIA recognised that if it was to make such a major change to the cars, it needed to be done as effectively and credibly as possible. So to help draw up the new rules they asked two of the most respected and experienced designers they could find - Patrick Head and Rory Byrne.

Between them, Head, the engineering director of Williams, and Byrne, now retired but formerly of Benetton and Ferrari, have won a total of 17 constructors' titles and 15 drivers' titles. They were first approached by FIA president Jean Todt in March 2010.

Among the provisos Head and Byrne were given were: a) at the very least, make sure the changes did not make overtaking any harder than it already is; and b) make the cars a bit harder to drive - the target being for a driver to be able to be on full throttle for only about 50% of the lap, as opposed to the current average of 70%.

The new regulations are being fine-tuned by FIA race director Charlie Whiting this week before being sent to the 12 F1 teams for analysis. In the new year, they will be critiqued at the sport's Technical Working Group, a group of leading engineers who effectively define the technical rules.

Head says "sure as hell there'll be some small changes" there. The basic philosophy, though, is expected to stay the same, while Head says the shaped underfloor is "inevitable".

"It all starts with the fact that we are only going to have roughly 65% of the amount of fuel, and a (limited) fuel flow rate," he explains. "When you're very limited on fuel, it's very clear you've got to reduce drag enormously. OK, the tyres are a very high proportion of the drag but we decided not to put tiny skinny tyres on it because it's still required to go around corners quickly.

"So the next thing you turn to is the massive rear wing we're running at the moment and as soon as you replace that with a much smaller one, it's 'Oh, we've lost all our downforce, so what can we do?' So inevitably you end up with a shaped underside."

This idea has been around for a long time - as long ago as 1998, when another working group, led by the late Dr Harvey Postlethwaite, also suggested reducing the sizes of front and rear wings and re-introducing shaped underfloors. The idea was canned by then FIA president Max Mosley.

Back then, the motivating factor was to improve the racing. In theory, cars designed this way can follow each other more closely than modern F1 cars.

Currently, drivers experience a severe lack of grip when they get to within about a second of a car in front because the airflow to their cars, particularly over the critical front wing, is badly disturbed.

In theory, with smaller wings and a greater proportion of the total downforce coming from under the car, there is less disturbance in the wake of the car in front, so a following car loses less aerodynamic downforce. It therefore retains more grip, allowing drivers to get closer to the car they want to overtake, making passing easier.

Under these new rules, any benefit to the racing will be secondary. The first goal is improving the cars' efficiency.

But it's just possible that, in chasing a goal that is all about keeping F1 in step with a world of diminishing fossil fuels, the effect will be to make overtaking easier.

Chastened by years of rule changes aimed at making cars more raceable that made no discernible difference, those involved are cagey about that for now. But one senior figure will at least admit the thought is on their minds.

"One of the fundamental parts of this," he said, "was that it wouldn't make it worse. But we do believe that if you can ensure there's less disturbance in the wake, that's good."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2010/12/formula_1_is_undergoing_a_quie.html

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F1 moves to set 'green' agenda

The agreement for Formula 1 to switch to a new energy-efficient type of engine in 2013, exclusively revealed by BBC Sport, is the culmination of months of in-depth negotiations about one important aspect of the future of the sport.

Increasing F1's sustainability was a key aim of both Jean Todt - the president of governing body the FIA - and the Formula 1 teams through their umbrella organisation Fota, and this move certainly makes a statement about that.

By replacing the current 2.4-litre normally aspirated V8 engines with 1.6-litre, four-cylinder turbos with energy recovery and fuel restrictions, F1 has deliberately mirrored the way road-car manufacturers are taking the cars we all drive on the road.

Fossil fuel supplies are running out and there is an ever-increasing pressure on resources, but there is no realistic replacement in sight for the internal combustion engine for some time to come, despite the hopes for zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell engines, for example.

In those circumstances, car manufacturers have no choice but to produce ever-more efficient engines.

That is already happening with 'hybrid' cars such as the Toyota Prius and an increasing number of manufacturers rolling out energy-saving technologies across their ranges.

But the manufacturers involved in F1 hope that by adopting these technologies in a glamorous, high-profile activity they can speed up their adoption by making them 'sexy'.

So whereas now high-performance and fuel economy/efficiency are regarded among the wider public as pretty much mutually exclusive, F1 can prove otherwise and by extension help in dramatically reducing the carbon dioxide emissions produced by road cars in the future.

They will do this by producing new engines that reduce fuel consumption by as much as 50% while retaining the same power and keeping competition as close as it has been in 2010.

It is not all about philanthropy, though. Inevitably, there is self-interest involved too.

F1 is aware that it has an image for being profligate with resources. In an era when there is increasing pressure on energy supplies, it is nervous about its position as an activity that literally burns fossil fuels for fun.

By introducing these new rules, F1 is hoping it can go some way towards insulating itself against accusations that it is an irrelevant waste of resources.

It can counter any such claims by pointing out that the pursuit of the maximum possible power output for the minimum possible fuel consumption by some of the world's brightest engineers in the white-hot competition of F1 will lead to a much faster development of energy-efficient technologies.

These advances will thus transfer much more quickly to road cars than they would have done, thereby reducing global CO2 emissions quicker than if F1 had not bothered.

It is a noble idea and it sounds like a no-brainer - and regular readers of this blog may remember that I wrote about the likelihood of these rules as long ago as April - but there have over the past few months been serious doubts about whether they would be adopted in 2013, as was originally the plan.

That is because as F1's power-brokers began to discuss the idea, economics and politics threatened to put the brakes on it.

The move was opposed for some time by Mercedes and Ferrari because they felt it did not make any sense to commit to spending millions designing a new type of engine at a time when the sport was trying to cut costs, and teams were facing problems finding sponsorship as the global economic crisis bit.

Ayrton Senna's Lotus and Nigel Mansell's Williams at the start of the 1986 Brazilian Grand Prix

F1 cars last used turbos in the '80s - they are coming back for 2013 in a very different form. Photo: Getty

Better, some felt, to delay such a big change by a year or two - or perhaps even five - and make some nods towards efficiency with the current engines, than embark on such a complex programme at such a difficult time.

How, these people argued, would they convince the boards of major car companies to spend anywhere between 50-100 million euros building new engines for F1 when the current ones worked perfectly well and all car manufacturers were struggling financially?

There were other objections, too.

The background to the talks was that the 2010 F1 season was developing as one of the greatest in the sport's history, with five drivers in three teams competing for the world championship.

All involved were painfully aware that it would be foolish to introduce a new regulation that put the closeness of competition at risk.

F1 commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone put it this way to me when I spoke to him about the prospect of the new rules: "It's not necessary. We have a very good engine formula. Why should we change it to something that is going to cost millions of pounds and that nobody wants and that could end up with one manufacturer getting a big advantage?

"We don't need to do it; all the manufacturers are doing it (in their road cars) already."

At the same time, F1's senior figures were aware that while the current 2.4-litre V8 engines might appear to be wasteful, in actual fact they are more efficient in terms of specific fuel consumption - the amount of power produced per unit of fuel - than any road-car engine.

The counter-arguments to these objections were as follows:

  • Although the current F1 engines are cutting-edge in lots of ways, they will increasingly be regarded as out-of-time and irrelevant as car manufacturers move away from big-capacity normally aspirated engines and into smaller-capacity engines fitted with high-tech turbocharging and energy recovery. (Renault, for example, is predicting that by 2015 more than 75% of the engines it produces will be small-capacity turbos).
  • If F1 did not ensure it kept pace with the times, it would come under increasing scrutiny as the 21st century progressed.
  • One of the reasons teams are struggling to raise money is because some major companies - those to whom corporate social responsibility programmes are an important part of their business plan - are reluctant to get involved in F1 because of its wasteful image.

Nevertheless, even the most ardent proponents of the new rules recognised that those arguing against had a point - no one had an appetite to spend tens of millions of euros on a new F1 engine and no one wanted to wreck the on-track show.

As a result, I'm told, a series of checks and balances have been built into the new rules to ensure that the engine manufacturers cannot engage in a spending war and to prevent one of them gaining a significant performance advantage over the others.

It was also recognised that an F1 car had to remain what it is - super-fast, with a very powerful engine. So the new engines will produce about the same total power output, 750bhp, as the current ones.

How they do it, though, will be very different.

Only 600bhp of that will come from the 1.6-litre, four-cylinder turbo engine itself; the remainder will be generated by the energy recovery systems that will be integrated within it. Fuel consumption will be restricted both by limiting fuel flow and introducing a maximum capacity for races.

Current engines rev to 18,000rpm - a figure that has come down from more than 20,000rpm in recent years as the FIA has introduced limits as part of cost-saving moves. The new ones will not do more than 10,000rpm.

That in itself caused concern - believe it or not, there was disquiet that the new engines would not sound 'right', that they would be too quiet.

Anyone who has witnessed an F1 car at close quarters will be aware that they make a quite shattering noise - few things on this earth are louder.

Certainly, the new ones will sound different - and quieter - but whether that is better or worse depends on your point of view. It is almost certainly also a question that concerns the ardent F1 fans who live for the sport a lot more than it does the millions more who switch on their televisions every other weekend to watch a race.

It sounds almost surreal to think that this was a serious point of discussion among such serious-minded people, but I can assure you it was.

Whatever your take on it, though, the new engines have won the day, and their adoption will be announced sooner rather than later, even if it is not after the FIA World Council meeting on Friday 10 December, as I'm told it could well be.

This, though, is just the first of many sets of talks about the future of F1.

To come are negotiations over a new Concorde Agreement, the document that binds together the teams, the FIA and the Formula 1 Management (FOM) companies, represented by Ecclestone, and which runs out at the end of 2012.

The teams are pushing hard for their split of the sport's huge revenues to increase from 50% to 75%, and early indications are the FIA is also seeking a major shift in its relationship with FOM.

If talks over a new engine formula felt difficult and protracted, those over the new Concorde Agreement promise to be something else again.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2010/12/f1_moves_to_set_green_agenda.html

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Steve Wallace to Make Sprint Cup Debut in Daytona 500

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Nationwide regular Steve Wallace, 23, will make his Sprint Cup debut in the 53rd running of the Daytona 500 driving a Toyota Camry fielded by his famous father, Rusty, the family team announced Wednesday.

Steve Wallace will become the fourth Wallace to run in the annual NASCAR classic, joining his father and uncles Mike and Kenny.

A regular in the Nationwide series since 2007 with Rusty Wallace Racing, Steve Wallace will drive the No. 77 RWR Toyota Camry in the Feb. 20 race with backing from longtime sponsor 5-Hour Energy and new partner Aspen Dental.

Wallace has a guaranteed starting spot in the 43-car field because his father's longtime car owner, Roger Penske, has a spot earned from Sam Hornish, Jr's 2010 full-season campaign in Penske's No. 77 Dodge. Penske does not have a Cup ride for Hornish in 2011.

"Starting my first Daytona 500 is definitely going to be the most exciting day of my career -- make that my life -- so far," Wallace said in a post at rustywallace.com. "It's something that every kid wanting to be a racer -- including me -- dreams of doing one day.

 

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Source: http://motorsports.fanhouse.com/2011/01/19/steve-wallace-to-make-sprint-cup-debut-in-daytona-500/

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NASCAR Tickets - Earnhardt Ganassi Parks No. 8

The No. 8 Dale Earnhardt Inc. stock car brought immense fame to the great Dale Earnhardt, Jr., but it will not have the same sort of luck for Aric Almirola, who saw his Sprint Cup season cut short earlier this week when his sponsorship money ran out. The Earnhardt Ganassi Racing driver will finish his NASCAR season short at a current number 37 in owner's points, putting another 40 jobs in jeopardy as Almirola now gets to play the waiting game in collecting more sponsorship money to continue his wild ride on the racetrack.

Almirola and EGR knew funding would be tight going into the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, and Almirola had four separate sponsors in his seven races during the '09 season before finally being forced to call it quits. The No. 8 driver hasn't given up completely, though, as he is still under contract with EGR but could talk with other teams about driving should sponsorship money come through. Earnhardt Ganassi Racing president Steve Lauletta recently made a statement regarding the current Almirola situation, saying, "We're talking to a lot of companies. We had a couple of companies with us at Texas. We've been doing this one [race] at a time, two at a time, three at a time, and it's really tough to do that. So we decided not to go to Phoenix and get ourselves to the point where we can get that sponsorship that will believe in Aric and market around Aric and help our team. Once we do that, we'll be back on with the 8 on the track."

While this waiting game is undoubtedly difficult for Almirola to undergo, the stock car racer has no other option than to spend valuable time searching out sponsorship money before getting back behind the wheel for another Sprint Cup race. If his season is indeed done for good, Almirola will have concluded the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series with a number of consistent finishes, as he crossed the finish line at Daytona in 30th place, was 35th at Fontana, 39th at Las Vegas, 21st at Atlanta, 35th at Bristol, 37th at Martinsville and 33rd at Texas. Fans with NASCAR tickets got to see the third EGR car zoom around the track seven times this season, and hopes are high that Aric Almirola will return for next racing season, if not sooner.

Almirola is a native of Tampa, Florida and has been racing competitively since age eight, when he got behind the wheel of a go-kart for the first time. In 2004, Almirola made his NASCAR debut piloting late models in North Carolina for Joe Gibbs Racing, and in 2005 he switched to the Craftsman Truck Series of Morgan-Dollar Motorsports, where he kicked up dust and eventually got noticed, propelling him into the Busch Series. After 2007, Aric Almirola scored a ride with Dale Earnhardt Inc. in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, where he shared the No. 8 United States Navy Chevrolet with Mark Martin. His run in 2009 with the combined Earnhardt Ganassi Racing was short but sweet, but racing fans can be sure they haven't seen the last of Aric Almirola. The show must go on for now, and NASCAR tickets will be available online regardless of whether or not Earnhardt Ganassi Racing's No. 8 comes back this season or not.

This article is sponsored by StubHub.com. StubHub is a leader in the business of selling NASCAR tickets, sports tickets, concert tickets, theater tickets and special events tickets.

Article Source: NASCAR Tickets - Earnhardt Ganassi Parks No. 8

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NASCAR Tickets - Hylton Yearns for One More Start

74-year-old racing legend James Hylton is NASCAR's Energizer Bunny, and as the 2009 racing season gets well underway, Hylton still just keeps going and going. James Hylton is the owner of the Hylton Motorsports race shop in South Carolina and has been for 45 years, but he just can't get racing out of his blood, as this famed driver has recently expressed interest in competing in one last NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race before relinquishing his driving powers to the next generation of NASCR contenders.

Last summer, Hylton became the oldest driver ever to start a Nationwide Series, qualifying Johnny Davis' No. 01 Chevrolet and completing 82 of 105 laps while coming in at 36th place. This racing icon also holds the record as the oldest driver to ever qualify for an ARCA race, and now he's going for records across the boards as he has recently expressed interest in snagging the Cup Series record for oldest driver, which currently belongs to Jim Fitzgerald and Hershel McGriff (who were each 65 when they made their respective final races). While hardships with sponsorship and finances keep Hylton off the track for now, the racing legend still thinks it's feasible to make a Sprint Cup start in the near future, saying, "One more Cup race. I want that record. I've put my whole life into this thing, and I feel like I'm still capable of doing it. If I thought I was endangering any of the competitors or I was in the way or I was somebody out there to cause a wreck... I ain't going to cause anybody no wreck. That's not saying I won't wreck, I've wrecked several times, had bad crashes. But the worst crash I've been in wasn't my fault."

James Hylton grew up in the backwoods of Virginia as one of 13 kids in his family, immersed into stock car racing culture at a young age. Hylton started out in the racing realm working as a mechanic for Rex White, but he eventually got into the driver's seat himself, capturing loads of fans when he made his strong NASCAR debut in 1966, popularizing the No. 48 car before Jimmie Johnson could get to it and winning the league's Rookie of the Year Award the same racing season. The next decade was an absolute racing frenzy for the great James Hylton, who finished the NASCAR championship in second place three times and finished a season in 11th place or better for 10 consecutive seasons.

Hylton retired from the full racing circuit in 1982 but has since gone on to set a number of records, now feasting his eyes upon one last Sprint Cup Series race. Hylton attempted a Daytona 500 race two years ago when Richard Childress supplied him with a bright orange car for the event, yet engine trouble kept him from starting the race, ultimately failing to capture the Sprint Cup record. The big question mark in NASCAR today still stands as whether or not James Hylton will ever accomplish his dream of starting one more Sprint Cup race, and if he does, which one it will be. In case Hylton does get to start one final Cup race soon, get NASCAR tickets online and cheer on this racing sensation, as you won't want to miss this record-setting event!

This article is sponsored by StubHub.com. StubHub is a leader in the business of selling NASCAR tickets, sports tickets, concert tickets, theater tickets and special events tickets.

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Source: http://www.articlespan.com/article/254220/nascar-tickets-hylton-yearns-for-one-more-start

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The NASCAR Coca Cola 600 Race: Everything You Need to Know to Have the Time of Your Life

NASCAR is one of the most well enjoyed of the American pastimes, and for good reason. While many people have heard of the NASCAR Daytona 500 race, there are other races to attend as well—many of them just as popular as the Daytona 500 itself. One of these races is the Coca Cola 600, a 600 mile race held at the Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, NC the weekend of Memorial Day. This is a stock car race, one of the things that attracts die hard fans of NASCAR stock car racing from all around the world. As a matter of fact, this race falls into the top five of all of the NASCAR races put together, something that is rather high honors in the racing world. The hotels in the area fill up in one to two nights; the camp grounds are reserved well in advance and packed to the brim with enthusiastic campers and racing fans.

A Bit of History on the NASCAR Coca Cola 600 Race

Like every other true NASCAR race, the Coca Cola 600 does have some history behind it. It has gone through several name changes, from the World 600 to the Coca Cola or Coke 600. From there it was changed to the Coca Cola Racing Family 600, and then was put back to the near original Coca Cola 600.

This race was designed to offset some of the popularity that the Indian 500 race was experiencing, and it succeeded in doing so. To date, the NASCAR Coca Cola 600 race has better television ratings and a higher viewership on television than the Indianapolis 500. These races occur on the same weekend of Memorial Day, making it prime time for true racing fans across the world. The races have even been scheduled in a way that allows fans to make it from the NASCAR Coca Cola 600 to the Indianapolis 500 and be able to participate in both races, something that wasn't made clear if it would be possible in the beginning. Nowadays, the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca Cola 600 are held on the same day. Of course, this makes a problem for some drivers who are not able to do over 1000 miles in one day, but those who have the grit and are determined to be successful have been known to do both races with ease, leaving the first race to make it to the second just in time.

Camping at the NASCAR Coca Cola 600

One of the best things about the time when the Coca Cola 600 rolls around is that it gives die hard NASCAR fans a chance to get in one place together and cut up. This can include anything, from drinking to games and other activities. Music, friends, fun—this is the type of thing that a successful NASCAR campout consists of. If you have never partaken in NASCAR camping before, the NASCAR Coca Cola 600 is a great place to start. Although the weather tends to be a little warm and sticky, those who have RVs should not have much of a problem dealing with the heat.

There are many different ways to camp out at this race. RVs with a hookup is obviously the most effective and pleasurable way to go about camping at a race like that. There are other ways to go about it as well, like RV camping without the hook up and even tent camping. Depending on what your camping style is there are many ways to enjoy the race, some of them even from the infield.

Of course, the NASCAR Coca Cola 600 is one of the most popular races on the NASCAR schedule, so reservations for camping spots anywhere even close to the infield are going to be in high demand. Make your reservations as early as possible to avoid disappointment as these things tend to fill up very fast. If you are excited about the event, think about the thousands and thousands of others who are excited about it as well.

The Coca Cola 600 is a huge event for racing fans all over. It is one of the hottest commodities on the NASCAR 600 schedule. It draws fans from all over the globe to the hot Carolinas and even more to their television sets, glued to the screen for lap after lap of NASCAR fun.

Join the Roadwarriors to view the trip right from your computer. http://www.Roadwarriorslive.com

Steve Godlewski travels all over the country with his wife Jen, 2 Kids, 2 Dogs, and the cat. Feel free to join us and ride shotgun.

Article Source: The NASCAR Coca Cola 600 Race: Everything You Need to Know to Have the Time of Your Life

Source: http://www.articlespan.com/article/187248/the-nascar-coca-cola-600-race-everything-you-need-to-know-to-have-the-time-of-your-life

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