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DanF

Grand Chelem today (pole, led every lap, and set fastest lap) and a new track record. The GC is quite an accomplishment and gets my vote for DOTD. If I have this right, there have only been 24 drivers in the history of F1 to score a GC and a total of 62 GCs ever accomplished, including today. Clark ...

DanF

@ Lotus 49. Every crash is different. Some apparently take longer to repair. In this case, the crashed car was not repairable and the team did not have a spare car ready. I'm pretty sure the driver knew that before turning even one lap. A little extra caution while the car was still being sorted wou...

DanF

I've been sitting back and watching this whole "Alonso Goes to Indy" thing, and I have to admit I do not understand what McLaren are doing or why. First off, the 800 lb. gorilla in the room: Alonso failed to make the show because he crashed the car and lost two days of practice. Despite all of their...

DanF

A sad loss, but a full life. Agree with everything above. Let's also remember the "Gurney White Paper" that started CART. Gurney wrote the plan that he, Penske, Patrick (and others) used to transform a relatively unknown USAC series, which existed only to support the Indy 500, into a world class ope...

DanF

Another vote for Nigel Mansell and Jensen Button. Each clearly improved after their third year in F1 and for different reasons. Mansell spent the first part of his career firmly in the shadow of his teammate at Lotus as noted above. It was no secret then that the team favored de Angelis. Mansell was...

DanF

Regarding Hamilton/Vettel, I personally don't think Hamilton likes or trusts Vettel, even a little bit. I also doubt Vettel likes Hamilton either. They are both too media savvy to say what they really feel publicly. This season has shown us more about the two as men than we knew from the past. In my...

DanF

Took some time to think about this one, but for me it has to be 1982. That year had EVERYTHING! Triumph, tragedy, technical innovation, returning legends, monster drives from the back of the grid to victory, a variety of different winners in a variety of different cars. While not exactly on the OP's...

DanF

Considering it is the baseball playoff season here in the States, with lots of talk about "Magic Numbers," am I correct that Hamilton's is currently 42? In other words, if Hamilton can score 42 points in the next 4 races he wins the driver's title regardless of what anyone else might do. Obviously, ...

DanF

I certainly understand that Honda has not provided winning power. Nevertheless, I fail to see how putting Renault power in the back of the car will change that. I also fail to see how becoming another "customer" is going to solve the original problem - the perception that customer powered teams will...

DanF

My proposed engine regulations: 1. 3.0 liters normally aspirated, 2. 1.5 liters forced induction, and 3. Single connecting rod piston engines only. Outside of the engine realm, I would continue the ban on re-fueling. I would also do away with the ridiculous minimum weight limit. It was originally in...

DanF

Mea culpa! I did not intend to call Keke Rosberg a nobody (and he clearly was not!). What my poorly worded post meant to say was that Keke was not on anybody's radar as a potential 1982 WDC before he moved to Williams that year. I am aware that he had some impressive drives in less than competitive ...

DanF

I was just looking at the list of grand chelem winners. It's rare air indeed. Notably absent is 4 x WDC Prost! of the 24 drivers, Clark has the most at 8. Ascari and Schumacher are next with 5 each. Stewart, Senna, Mansell and Vettel all have four, and Hamilton joined that group with Canada. Piquet ...

DanF

First off, let me say that the Alonso of today is definitely not the Alonso of a dozen years ago. Success came relatively early in his career, and he was not prepared for it. Where he is today is more a consequence of immature past acts having closed the doors to greater decision making freedom. He'...

DanF

Even though it's more or less a "spec series," just like in most other forms of racing, some teams do a better job than others. Alonso drove for the Andretti team, which was clearly the dominant team at Indy this year. Four of the "Fastest Nine" pole shoot-out cars were from the Andretti team, and n...

DanF

[quote="Herb Tarlik"]For coming to Indianapolis. Long ago I used to follow the 500, back when Foyt, Andretti, Cogan, Gurrero, Mears, Sullivan, Rahal, and a whole host of Unsers filled the field. I always wanted to attend this race but never got around to it. Then the CART/IRL split happened and I dr...

DanF

You can only guess based on things you know. Like him or not, Alonso is clearly one of the very best drivers in the world. He has experience not only with many different generations of open wheel racing cars but also handling the pressure of racing toe to toe with people like Schumacher, Hamilton, a...

DanF

"I'd rather have an older Ferrari than a new Honda." That's so true for road cars as well as F1 engines. Somehow the people at Ferrari have managed to maintain Enzo's spirit in the company, and I'm sure he smiles when he looks down at it. Soichiro must be crying. As for the new NSX, all I can say is...

DanF

Honda supporting TWO teams?! At the rate they are going, that would require them to manufacture something like 100 race engines per year and God only knows how many test examples. They don't have the capacity! On second thought, the test engine only has one cylinder, so maybe it's possible. They sup...

DanF

Whatever they end up doing on the engine side, I just don't want them to lose the astonishment factor that has always been such an integral part of the F1 engine (and chassis) experience. Even today's crazy hybrid/turbo/electric motor monstrosities have an element of technical astonishment when you ...

DanF

Massa. (Stop laughing!)

DanF

I'm hardly an expert, but doesn't "oil" in the combustion chamber of a gasoline engine have the effect of reducing the fuel's octane rating? I remember reading a paper about WWII Daimler Benz aero engines using an inverted "V" configuration. One bank of cylinders was intentionally set with a slightl...

DanF

Well, this is a perfect example of what is wrong, and has for a long time been wrong, with F1's rule making mentality. Active suspension gets banned on the grounds that it is too expensive, engineers then spend huge amounts of time, effort, and money trying to find clever ways to get the same effect...

DanF

Shocking, but completely understandable. All the reasons he has given are valid and commendable. That being said, I think the pressure of the last three seasons has really weighed on him with adverse effect. Hamilton is criticized for lack of focus because of his "extracurricular" activities, but at...

DanF

Just by statistics, the MP4/4 has the highest winning percentage. But is was much more than that. It had ground breaking aerodynamics for its time. As one of the last turbo cars, it had a huge advantage over the normally aspirated cars that teams like Williams were starting to field, especially in q...

DanF

I am surprised by all the commentary about whether Nico Rosberg "deserves" his championship. Of course he does. It's motor racing. The flat out fastest guy doesn't always win the title. That's true between drivers even in the same team. One thing that strikes me is the similarity of circumstance bet...

DanF

In today's world, the car is always going to be much more important than the driver. Why? Because of all the data and telemetry being collected about every millisecond of every lap. Back in the old days, before every car had video and every component of the car was instrumented, when the driver pull...

DanF

I, for one, want to see F1 drivers fight it out on track as sportsmen and professionals giving it their all. Nothing disappoints me more than when they do not. Nigel Mansell 1993. Reigning WDC leaves F1 for CART because he did not want to face Prost as his teammate at Williams. Did Mansell really th...

DanF

Interesting question, but as pointed out above, we won't really know for another ten years. As it stands today, the 2006 grid had a lot more race winning drivers in it. On the other hand, 2016 had a lot of young talent that should go on the win races at some point in the future.

DanF

I realize this is not exactly on topic for the OP, but one alternative would be to open up the engine regulations to allow a greater variety of engine configurations. For decades the rules were 3.0 liters normally aspirated and 1.5 liters forced induction. Those years saw an amazing array of engines...

DanF

F1 is almost always all about the car, just like horse racing is almost always all about the horse. Strangely, in F1 we remember the drivers, while in horse racing we remember the horse (Who rode Secretariat?) There have been examples of drivers coming out of relative obscurity to become World Cham...

DanF

F1 is almost always all about the car, just like horse racing is almost always all about the horse. Strangely, in F1 we remember the drivers, while in horse racing we remember the horse (Who rode Secretariat?) There have been examples of drivers coming out of relative obscurity to become World Champ...

DanF

I am reminded of an old adage about beggars and choosers... I also think there's a bit too much Red Bull being consumed among the team owners and managers. They've very publicly burned the bridge with Renault and had the door slammed in their face by Mercedes. Now they are attempting to "negotiate" ...

DanF

What's the record for most blown Honda's in a season? :lol: 8O :o :twisted: :evil: :] I don't know for sure, but it's at least twenty in 1984 (Including engines blown in practice and qualifying). Perhaps the record, although Ferrari in 1981 and Renault in 1982 must be close. Those early turbos were...

DanF

I have to question the credibility of the linked article, and I hope it is not true. I find it strange that after so much family secrecy about Michael's condition, Hakkinen would blurt out the very things the family is trying to keep to themselves. If true, however, then our worst fears have been co...

DanF

The OP wrote: "I recall Nelson Piquet driving around in F1 cars long after his championship years, never even getting close to a win." I recall Nelson Piquet having two years at Lotus without wins (1988 and 1989 - and if you didn't drive a McLaren or a Ferrari in those years, you had little chance o...

DanF

Some misconceptions about ground effect in the above. First, even with skirts (which accounted for roughly thirty percent of the "ground effect" down force) the old ground effect cars did not make more down force than a modern car (Peter Windsor published a chart that I'm sure is still available som...

DanF

I agree McLaren are not in control of the engine situation or of their own fate at the moment. Unlike The other manufacturers, which are willing to outsource engineering/manufacturing or hire outside specialists to enhance their projects in the short term, Honda want to develop their power unit enti...

DanF

Christian Horner has lost a lot of esteem in my view because of all his crying and demands for "corrective" (i.e. retaliatory) action against Mercedes. One observation: At least in the recent past, when the FIA stepped in and made rules "changes" mid season it was to clarify a formerly gray area in ...

DanF

Assuming this is the 312T5 (and not the internally very similar 312T4) the photo would have been taken in the run up to or during the 1980 season. That was, for most teams, the second year of ground effect. The car appears to be running with everything except its ground effect system. Of note, the f...

DanF

I see this thread as a discussion of drivers who had the equipment available to win more than one championship but for some reason, either of their own making or out of their control, failed to do so. Sometimes the reasons were due to bad luck (Mansell in Austrilia 1986). Sometimes due to making a m...

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