Motorsports Thread

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matticus

matticus

Guru
Location
England, near a river, near some hills
Jim Clark's car actually had LESS inputs for the drivers to f**k up, and less data in the cockpit for them to absorb . Yes, the team are doing more, but that's because there is a bazillion more bytes of data available in real-time on the modern cars. Jim Clark couldn't do the work of all those engineers looking at screens - 1 brain isn't enough!

Whether this makes for better racing - or "better" drivers - is debateable of course.

The BIG difference is that Jim Clark was far more likely to die every time he started a GP. Ernest Hemingway probably wouldn't classify modern F1 in his list of real sports.
 
Smokin Joe

Smokin Joe

Legendary Member
Location
Bare headed cyclist, Smoker
matticus said:
Well ... yes and no. The poster broke a general etiquette; failing to post in Spoiler tags (or similar). And in a thread that is about many things, not just the latest GP.
(so i might think my post about Damon Hill has been replied to, so I click-thru ... bingo!)
The post was barely an hour after the race I think? So bit of a grey area, time-wise, too.

Nevertheless, better to post a spoiler post, than start a thread with the result in the title! Social media *seems* to have left that trick behind for a few years now ... <crosses fingers> ...
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How the hell can anyone not know the result by now? It's been on every TV and radio news bulletin, all the papers both online and print have headlined it.

I'd go along with "If you don't want to know the result of a motor race, don't open a motorsports thread".
 
raleighnut

raleighnut

Legendary Member
Location
One of the 'Elite'
Kempstonian said:
Yeah, they steer and try not to have accidents. The little voice on the radio tells them when to come in, when to adjust settings, when to watch tyre wear, when to stay off the kerbs, when to speed up, when they can take it easy for a bit and where they are in relation to their opponents.

Compare what they do to what drivers in the Jim Clark era used to have to manage.
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Yep there was a race where Jim was going through one corner either in neutral or with the clutch depressed which baffled the team. When he won the race they asked him why and he said the Oil Pressure was dropping to close to zero probably due to the oil sloshing away from the pickup in the sump through the long bend so it seemed prudent to coast through the bend to save the engine.

Now that's skill. :becool:
 
Kempstonian

Kempstonian

Has the memory of a goldfish
Location
Bedford
matticus said:
"now" is not 3:58pm on race Sunday.

But it's no big deal in this case - it's more inconsiderate when us plebs can't see a race live (e.g. most GPs and bike races). During July i (usually) have to turn off the world from 2pm to 7pm :P
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I watched it on Channel 4. I saw the practice and qualifying on there too.
 
OP
OP
Reynard

Reynard

Guru
Location
Cambridgeshire, UK
And in oval racing, you have spotters, which tell the drivers who is around them and where...

Although they are running in a large pack at high speed. Unlike F1, which is kind of just high speed and mostly on your ownsome. :tongue:
 
Kempstonian

Kempstonian

Has the memory of a goldfish
Location
Bedford
matticus said:
Jim Clark's car actually had LESS inputs for the drivers to f**k up, and less data in the cockpit for them to absorb . Yes, the team are doing more, but that's because there is a bazillion more bytes of data available in real-time on the modern cars. Jim Clark couldn't do the work of all those engineers looking at screens - 1 brain isn't enough!

Whether this makes for better racing - or "better" drivers - is debateable of course.

The BIG difference is that Jim Clark was far more likely to die every time he started a GP. Ernest Hemingway probably wouldn't classify modern F1 in his list of real sports.
Click to expand...
My point really is that over the years driver input has got less and less and the car has got more and more important. No matter how good a driver is he'll never win a GP driving the current Williams for example. If you put almost any other driver in the Mercedes he would have several podiums each season - not because he suddenly became a better driver but because the car is that far in front of the others.
 
OP
OP
Reynard

Reynard

Guru
Location
Cambridgeshire, UK
Kempstonian said:
My point really is that over the years driver input has got less and less and the car has got more and more important. No matter how good a driver is he'll never win a GP driving the current Williams for example. If you put almost any other driver in the Mercedes he would have several podiums each season - not because he suddenly became a better driver but because the car is that far in front of the others.
Click to expand...

But hasn't that nearly always been the case, though?

It's pretty rare in F1 that there isn't a car that's the class of the field to the exclusion of others.

Merc now, before it was the Red Bull, the Brawn, Mclaren, Ferrari in the Schumacher era, Williams were the class of the field from on and off through the '90s, McLaren in 1988 - they won 15 of the 16 races...

The last time I remember (and this was the first season I watched motor racing), the driver / car combo that won the WC that wasn't the class act on the grid was Keke Rosberg in the normally-aspirated Williams-Ford back in '82...
 
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