Formula 1 2014 thread

[av4ever]

2014 CALENDAR

March 16 Australia
March 30 Malaysia
April 6 Bahrain
April 20 China
May 11 Spain
May 25 Monaco
June 8 Canada
June 22 Austria
July 6 Great Britain
July 20 Germany (Hockenheim)
July 27 Hungary
August 24 Belgium
September 7 Italy
September 21 Singapore
October 5 Japan
October 12 Russia
November 2 USA
November 9 Brazil
November 23 Abu Dhabi


For those interested like me perhaps we could follow the events here.

[av4ever]

I must say I love the look of the new mclaren

[av4ever]

Should be a better showing from Williams this time round esp. with Massa now driving for them


link... - view external link

[Arran007]

Formula 1 is introducing arguably the biggest set of rule changes in its history this season.

Most affected are the engines as the sport goes further than ever before to embrace 'green' technology.

The 2.4-litre naturally aspirated V8s, which have been in use since 2006, have been replaced by 1.6-litre V6 turbos.

After several years of a freeze on engine development, engine power will now be a performance differentiator again. And part of the new rules package is a fuel limit.

Drivers will now have to complete races on just 100kg - or about 130 litres - of fuel. That's down from the 150kg or so teams would use last year, when there was no limit. Meanwhile, engines must consume fuel at no more than 100kg per hour.

The fuel limit is not as draconian as it at first appears, though, so don't expect races to become an economy run.

The new engines don't use as much fuel for a start, while much more power is now available from the 'hybrid' technology, known as Ers.

Ers, which st

[Arran007]

Drivers pushed a button to access the power stored by the Kers system, but the new Ers will be controlled by the engine management computer, so it means there is less work for the drivers to do.

All sounds good, doesn't it? But there is a price to pay.

Such dramatic changes mean reliability will be a major concern, certainly at the start of the season.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has said he believes failure rates in races could be as high as 50%.
In addition to the changes to the engines, there are a series of changes to the cars. The effect of these will be to make the cars look different this year, even ugly.

The front nose is the source of most concern.

It's been lowered by 415mm for safety reasons, to just 135mm above the floor of the car.

Coupled with a complicated set of dimensional requirements, this is likely to mean cars resemble a giant anteater. This has already been seen with the new Williams, the first team to reveal the complete look of their ca

[Arran007]

The rules dictate that the chassis in front of the driver must be 625mm above the floor of the car, and that the height of the front of the chassis by his feet - the front bulkhead - must be 525mm. But they do not define a minimum distance for the transition between these two heights.

As a result, some teams have created a vertical 10cm wall immediately after the bulkhead, which might not be aesthetically pleasing to some, although there is always the option of using 'vanity panels' to cover the resulting 'step'.

The FIA is not happy about this, as it reduces the impact of its safety-related changes, and officials had been assured by designers no team would make the 10cm height change happen over as short a distance as some now have.

There are other changes, too, all of which will have a significant impact on aerodynamics.

The front wings have been narrowed by 150mm, the lower rear beam wing has been removed and the position of the exhaust has been moved.

The narrower front w

[Arran007]

These seismic technical changes are joined by a series of tweaks to the sporting rules.

Most controversial is the decision to award double points at the final race in an attempt to prevent championships being decided early.

The proposal, dreamt up by F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, follows the recent dominance of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, who has won the last four drivers' titles.

The German claimed two of those last three championships with at least three races to go.

There has also been a tweak to the penalty system.

As well the introduction of a new five-second penalty for minor offences, points will be awarded on a sliding scale depending on the misdemeanour. Any driver who racks up 12 points in a calendar year will serve an automatic race ban.

It sounds dramatic, but no driver would have been banned had the new system been in place over the last few years - even Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado, who both had incident-ridden seasons in 2012.

Less controversially,

[av4ever]

Great read arran thanks

I welcome the changes anything that brings the group of teams closer is agood thing we don't need season after season of particular team running away with it effectively winning by September.

In the link is a good youtube clip of a couple of the teams in testing the red bull sounds like my old metro I had 25 years ago

link... - view external link

[Arran007]

Great read arran thanks

I welcome the changes anything that brings the group of teams closer is agood thing we don't need season after season of particular team running away with it effectively winning by September.

In the link is a good youtube clip of a couple of the teams in testing the red bull sounds like my old metro I had 25 years ago

link...

Nice link !

I bet you had a Metro GTA ?

[av4ever]

It was a city x

anyway back to f1 more changes afoot this time with qualifying

link... - view external link