Quote from dadge :

that's not aston club.

Though what's interesting about it is that it agrees with neither of us, giving the AS2 layout 5 numbers for turns, not my 4 or your 7 (which, retroactively, is what my point of that post was).

Quote from dadge :

we only need to establish where T4 is. anything after that is not relevant.

Or we could use NDRs rather odd "number every corner of every track" map:

Quote from dadge :

i just go by what most other motorsport fans would call it. the most common would be Martin Brundle during his track guides in the F1. how busy does your day have to be that you have to reduce 2 turns into one turn when there's visibly 2 turns? i've always called the first chicane at AS2 "T2&3". i've always thought AS2 had 8 turns (final hairpin being T7 and the left turn immediately on the exit of T7 leading onto the start/finish). don't know why i've never counted the slight right at the start.

So the first real turn is T1, the first fast chicane is T2 and T3, then the second fast chicane is T4 and T5, T6 is... that bend leading up to T7? That's as much of a turn as the two minor bends before the real T1.

If you want to claim that AS2 has 8 turns then how many does AS6 have? 40? This is what I mean when I say it's easier to label a chicane as "T2" in its entirety. Watching a lap of XFR/AS2 (WR lap) I count 12 distinct apexes (there are two on the bend before the final hairpin). I suppose at some point it's all objective unless you define a full set of all-encompassing rules. One mans turn is another mans minor kink/bend that doesn't need a number.

Quote from dadge :

i suppose it's all down to how many corners are in a chicane. i always thought it was 2.

Two (or more) apexes in a chicane, I'll agree, but it's much easier (for numbering) to say "a chicane is a type of turn which contains two (or more) apexes on the opposite sides of the track" and just call them T2 an T3, and the final turn T4.

Quote from dadge :

T4 is the entry to the flat out chicane dude. and it's always been flat out in the XFR and any other car i've driven there.
T1 is the hairpin. T2 and T3 are the first chicane. T4 and T5 are the flat out chicane. T6 and T7 are the last hairpin and exit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikFKYAF_hsc
AFIK, flat out usually means "top gear". writing flatout saved me for listing each car and their top gear.

I was going by whats up on LFS Manual: http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/Tracks:Aston#Club. I'm sorry but AS2 does not have 7 turns.

Quote from dadge :

flat out then.

I don't think "flat out" is a gear, and T4 isn't flat out all the way through, only on exit. Also the correct answer is you shouldn't be in an XFR (or UFR as it magically changed to in bunder's answer) because it's a horrible car. A FOX or TBO is much more fun there. I'd say since T4 is pretty slow it's probably a 2nd gear corner for most cars with reasonable setups but driving is more about feel and instinct than memory so that's a silly question.

Though I agree with you on your other stuff, I've driven quite a lot of combos and can still find ways to have fun. It's a bit annoying when people who haven't done half or even a quarter [edit: haha guess I was being conservative with 1/2 and 1/4, it's more like 1/15th ] as much moan about "old content". In the end it doesn't matter because I'm sure a lot of us who have driven tons of combos want another 'S' worth of new content, I know I do. What's it matter if a few people who have to claim they've done offline "racing" want new content?

Last edited by pik_d, Sat 2 Apr 2011, 23:00.

Quote from BlueFlame :

Neither do I, but there are hints that they have, the fact Liuzzi was only 2seconds behind the 107% rule. With basically no running of the car up until THAT day. And if kartikeyan was only 4seconds off the 107% rule, it must be a better car than percieved.

It may be that they screwed up and the old wing is faster than the front, what ever screw up they've had doesn't mean they won't be fast. If all the team tripped over their shoelaces at once, does that mean that the car won't be able to close the gap?

Using the old front wing will have only helped them, because they can compare and use data that they already have. If anything it benefits them because they've done no testing at all.

Just open your mind a little, they have done no testing, there have been cars known in the past to be brutally quick out of the box. The Red Bull for example, so it doesn't mean much, after the first race given the way they entered (or tried to enter) the weekend I'd say their pace is still unknown even after the race. Look at it this way, with the little track time they had, their gap from the 107% can't get any worse can it? It can only get better for them, unless they go bankrupt of course :P

Actually It can get worse. Red Bull could add KERS and get even faster, therefor making the 107% time harder to reach. The teams at the front have much more money than HRT and even though HRT are in a position where they can make big gains easily (because there is much to gain) they are openly talking about money issues and it's only the first round.

Saying 2 seconds or 4 seconds off 107% makes it sound much nicer since it's a shorter track. Malaysia is a bit longer so I wouldn't be surprised to see them 3-6 seconds off pace.

Quote from Senninha25 :

don't they usually mix wind tunnel testing with pencil and paper design? Heard Adrian Newey still resorts to drawing the project, unless it was a figure of speech.

My point is that your original statement used "pencil and paper" as the part that's left out of their design process when they say "entirely CFD/CAD" when actually what's left out is the wind tunnel usage. I have no idea if they use pencil and paper for sketches, but I'd be surprised if it was used much at all when CAD is much more advanced/easy to send around and modify/send to the molding machines.

Quote from BlueFlame :

No, it isn't. It's better than it looks, I'll hazard a guess and say they have closed some of the gap to Lotus/Virgin. Especially Virgin. Only time will tell.

Well that's good because it looks like nothing so far. I don't see how they could have closed the gap when they've done no track testing outside of the first qualifying session and a few shakedown laps. Besides, they showed up with a front wing that couldn't pass the safety test, that doesn't seem like "closing the gap" to me.

Quote from Rappa Z :

I know, it's fecking ridiculous though.

Engaging F1 mode of thought:
Why don't we have the track split into halves at Le Mans so that the LMPs don't have trouble overtaking the GTs? They can run next to each other in different lanes.

Because part of the point of endurance racing is dealing with slower/faster classes than you. Formula One is one formula of cars, not F1 and F1.5.

Quote from Rappa Z :

Well, we're a bunch of pansies if we think the frontrunners are going to have a difficult time overtaking a car that is 6-10 seconds slower.

That remark was in reference to Alonso moaning constantly last season about the backmarkers. I'm sure he'd have gotten around them eventually.

Quote from BlueFlame :

Yea, but I'm not gonna let my opinion rule out the facts if I am aware of them. That would be ignorance.

All I did was give them credit where it's due, in that they managed to be close to the 107% without any previous flying laps. Think about it, they didn't even get time on the track to setup the car, other than the data they had for last year, but then they got off to a shakey start there too...

The fact are that, unlike everyone else, they were not prepared for what was supposed to be the second race, don't have enough funding, and just barely got their cars on the track long enough to confirm everyone's suspicion that they're slow and dangerous.

"Wow they got realllly close (they didn't they were still like 2 seconds off I believe) to qualifying without much running time" is not a good fact. It's bad from every angle.

Quote from Rappa Z :

Me thinks that the stewards should have let the HRT cars run anyway so that they could have atleast made some development. Also, how happy are their (few) sponsors when they aren't allowed to race? The team can't get better if it doesn't race from the start.

Either that or they put someone else on the grid. It's disgraceful that HRT (and USF1) was given a license last year. Were there really no better teams that could be put together?

That would have been dangerous though. The track would have flooded due to Alonso's tears from being held up by too many backmarkers.

And there were better options, Dallara or Prodrive would have both been much better options. I suspect the entrance was more about money though.

Quote from BlueFlame :

You have to remember they didn't even shakedown the car properly before qualifying, so either the drivers are awesome, or the car is awesome. Think about it, they hadn't driven a lap in anger the whole weekend until qualifying in a car they're not familiar with, and Narain not driving an F1 car since 6years ago.. Infact, now I'm thinking to myself, when it's put like that, it does make you wonder how quick that HRT actually is....

Not really, the car is crap and HRT have no money to make it better. I really hope they keep missing the 107% so they quit the sport quicker. You're talking about not wanting teams int he sport, HRT is the worst offender.

Quote from GreyBull [CHA] :

Sorry but I agree with him more or less. If the car can get within 1.7 second of the 107% after only a few laps, with fail 2010 parts and no DRS, the package isn't hopeless.

Once they'll get the new parts and the DRS sorted I belive they can qualify and get close to Virgin.

HRT's qualifying times:

Aussie 2010
B. Senna: 1:30.526
K. Chandhok: 1:30.613

Aussie 2011
V. Liuzzi: 1:32.978
N. Karthikeyan: 1:34.293

The King of Spain is right, they are an embarrassment to the nation, and the sport. 11 other teams (2 of which joined when HRT joined) made it to Australia with a car that was ready to go, qualified, and raced. They beat Virgin last year on virtue of having three 14th places rather than just 2. The only miracle will be if HRT makes it to Brazil this season.


EDIT: Also there's nothing wrong with privateers, the sport needs them with manufacturers like Toyota, Honda, and BMW pulling out because they didn't meet some goals in whatever particular year.

Last edited by pik_d, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 20:40.

Quote from Senninha25 :

He has a point about that last sentence. Virgin has a fairly decent budget and with it they have improved their CFD technology for this year so you'd expect thay they would bring a better car out of that...but they still have a shit car that just managed to qualify for last week's race.

But I'm glad that we're being proven that entirely computer-designed machines are nowhere near the pencil and rubber art when it comes to designing racing cars.

The alternative to pure-CFD is using wind tunnels (along side CFD), not using pencil and paper.

Quote from Senninha25 :

April fools!

Of course

But on a more serious note (but still funny to me):

Quote :

HRT owner Jose Ramon Carabante has admitted his team's failure to qualify for the Australian Grand Prix was down to financial problems, insisting: "If we had the budget of the other teams, we would have come to the first race of the season with 3,000 kilometres under the belt."

HRT failed to qualify under the 107% rule, but despite that Carabante bullishly predicted that by May it would be beating the other 2010 newcomers Lotus and Virgin.

"Like last year, we began the development of the car too late due to the budget," he told Cadena Ser radio. "We were closing [sponsor] agreements that in the end did not come." He added a technical deal regarding 2011 with Toyota was "broken" at a late stage: "So we set a realistic goal with the budget that we had."

Revealing that HRT's budget for this year is €45 million, he said the team's showing in Australia was an achievement. "We did 11 laps with Liuzzi. If he had done 20, he would have qualified. Getting within 1.7 seconds without driving hardly at all is a miracle."

The team plans to have its 2011-spec front nose on the car in Malaysia, and Carabante said a whole "new aerodynamic package" will be fitted for May's Spanish Grand Prix. "It will be enough to be ahead of Lotus and Virgin," he said. "Last year we were in a worse condition than now and we ended up ahead of Virgin with twice our budget, and behind Lotus due only to one accident."

He also reacted to the strong criticisms of HRT, noting he had "not read a single criticism of Virgin in the English press".

Source

Maybe my April fools will come true sooner rather than later.

Quote from Autosport :

HRT Slips Out of Formula One

Autosport has just received news that Hispania Racing has pulled out of Formula One before the upcoming Malaysian Grand Prix, and after the Spanish King Juan Carlos blasts the team for being an embarrassment to the country. Updates to follow.

Source

Quote from matijapkc :

+1
People here are probably more interested in LFS being able to use all of the CPU cores and a few more major fixes, like the barrier bug so we could have normal layouts and maybe a possibility to damage car's engine...

LFS isn't really at a stage where it needs to use more than one core though, is it? It would probably need something major to get a lot more complex and CPU intense in order to need it, procedural damage, higher hz for physics engine (maybe), much higher poly environment/track (in terms of the physical mesh, not necessarily the graphical one), or possibly the addition of weather. I see this multithreading suggestion brought up a lot but it in itself wont really do much.

Quote from dekojester :

Schedule: AS5 or AS5R.

AS5R or AS6R I think you mean, and either of these two tracks would be quite challenging with the top speed -> 1st gear turn just before the hairpin around 2/3rds of the way through.

Quote from cargame.nl :

My opinion is that people need to get used to !prs [trackname]

If that's a reply to me than that doesn't really show the information that I'm asking for.

Feature request:

In the !top [car] display, on the title line (Server best recorded laps - BL1/FO8 (6) for example) also include the current WR along with sectors.

I see a fair amount of people doing !top and !wr one after the other, would be nice to streamline it so that you can compare the !top laps to the WR without switching between the two.

I dunno what I would suggest if they simply do !top and it returns a class of cars (or worse yet, multiple classes). If it's a class of cars maybe the fastest WR among the class (maybe a configurable option to switch between current car, fastest of current class, or fastest of all cars shown in !top)?

Last edited by pik_d, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 22:13.

Quote from PMD9409 :

They had written "SO5" not "SO5R", nub.

no that never happened you can't prove it

Quote from PMD9409 :

Not exactly, its reversed.

There's no images for the reverse tracks nub.

Ah hah I wish it were SO4... you may wanna change that.