Quote from sinbad :

Yep, and it's not as if the BMWs in BTCC/WTCC currently are spectacularly sideways all of the time either.
If V8 Supercars went to FWD only it would be different
But honestly for the most part if the BMWs all switched to FWD this season it wouldn't change the spectacle (or lack thereof).

BMW wouldn't switch to FWD, they'd leave.

Quote from duke_toaster :

The WTCC are going to go to a set of rules that will be expensive and no-one knows much about (if they don't implode before they let in high boost expensive fragile 1600ccs), I wouldn't be surprised more series adopt NGTC.

300hp and front wheel drive should be do-able, after all SEAT Cupra Cup cars were like that. I guess RWD would be legalized if BMW wanted to join as manufacturers. I'd imagine the rules would fit Subarus and Mitsubishis more (as two litre forced induction saloons), which could easily be converted to FWD but from a manufacturer's point of view they would want 4WD.

If nobody knows about them how can they be expensive? The S2000 rules are much cheaper than the old BTCC rules were. They also made room for different car configurations, limiting them to FWD is a bad move.

I also think it's bad to force the manufacturers to use larger cars. Touring cars should represent the cars that every day people are looking for and driving. In the past that may have been saloons but nowadays smaller hatches are the more common car, so they should still be allowed.

Quote from trebor901 :

these people who are grumping about no RWD anymore need to look at the facts, BMW and rwd has only been back in the championship for 3 seasons.

BTCC since the late ninties has been dominated by fwd cars. And on the note of 5haz about the 300bhp, thats what power the current cars have. Or if you want to be really picky 280bhp. So it will be no different.

BTCC was dominated by FWD cars because of the rules since the old RWD/AWD domination. The current rules are very fair, aside from the diesel/petrol 'equalisation'

Last edited by spookthehamster, Wed, 3 Jun 2009 11:33.

One of the best things ever to happen to BTCC was to adopt the same rules used around the world, now they're changing it again?!

Quote from samjh :

Well, speed doesn't necessarily dictate whether a category is the "pinnacle of motorsport". Around a road course, F1 is the pinnacle, true. Around an oval track, short road course, off-road, or straight-line drag, others rule the roost (IRL, superkarts, WRC, top-fuel drag racers, respectively), and I haven't even touched on endurance categories.

F1 is the pinnacle because of its combination of speed, driver ability, rich finances, historical prestige, and technological advancement, not merely speed alone. In recent years, speed, technology, and finances have all been tuned down. Going by current trends, Le Mans LMP1 teams could outstrip F1 in all but outright speed.

Really, an F1 car is only fastest around what it's designed for?! A road course is the ultimate test of any car, it includes almost all the environments that a car will encounter. Going as far as to compare to off-road or drag racing is a completely different area.

F1 has always been about engineering the fastest car within the rules set. The rules have always been restrictive compared to the technology available when the rules were set. When technology changes, new areas of development are available that the ruling body had not imagined. New rules are then necessary to keep things under control and make things harder work for the engineers.

The technology is available that anyone could make a powerful engine, or electronics to control a car, or any number of things not allowed in F1. The thing that makes F1 the 'pinnacle' is that it's still the fastest even with the restrictive rules.

I was at Brands yesterday, where a 1994 Benneton (no electronics) was destroying DP01 Champ Cars and Indy cars. A 15 year old car! The cars are even faster now, so there's just no comparison.

Quote from Mustafur :

F1 needs a major speed boost, Its 2009 and where over 1 second a lap slower then the 04 spec cars.

F1 is about going forward, afterall its the Pinnicle of Motorsport.

They'll stop being the "Pinnacle of motorsport" when they stop being the fastest vehicle round a track.

Quote from BaitNWait :

I wantd to have scott speed back.

Are you serious?!

Ah, we've had (and melted) two of the HQ2 cameras. They offered replacements but it was our fault so I declined.

The ChaseCam is a nice unit, but a bit bulky.

Quote from tristancliffe :

We got it all from DogCamSport. It's a Sony HQ1 bullet camera, mounted on our roll hoop via a bespoke home-designed, home-made mount, and linked to a Chasecam PDR100 Compact Flash MPEG2 recorder at 8Mbps and 720*576.

The footage is pretty good. The raw footage is interlaced, so looks best on a TV screen (that likes interlaced video), and looks a bit naff on a computer monitor. But I deinterlace the footage for use on a computer (done automatically when the datalogging overlay is added in Trackvision) so that it looks nice there.

I also make a non-overlayed .flv version for hosting on my own website which is also deinterlaced (but lower bitrate).

The deal I have with DogCam is that I have to send a DVD of my footage to them after every race. In return they provide almost unparalleled customer support

Tristan, what DVR/camera combination are you using? The footage is pretty good. Though your car is probably considerably kinder to electronics than the ones I work with so you can use something a little higher quality but less tough.

Quote from el pibe :

yay ! the kers cars are performing well... =)

looking foward for the quali

Yeah, and Williams are going to win the race!

Practise means nothing.

God this is boring.

Rules regarding materials will have also changed since 04, as well as (like others have said) increased safety requirements. I've seen a few people carrying chassis as a two-person lift, but that may just be the awkward shape.

I'm not saying that many cars are overweight, but I wouldn't be surprised if some teams with KERS are pushing it.

It's mainly that you should never assume from the rules, and you should definitely never believe what a team says re: anything technical

Quote from tristancliffe :

Me likes cookies! :cookiemon

I've been pondering what the downside to the lighter chassis is - less rigid? Less safety margins on the crash testing? More exposed parts in the cockpit? There has to be some downside of a lighter chassis, otherwise they'd have made it that light to start with...

It's probably the crash testing part. Teams will quite often fail their initial crash tests at the beginning of the year, then have to bulk up the cars to pass them quickly. Maybe they've taken the time to go back to their original design intent, but still retain the strength.

Or maybe they've been crash testing light chassis since the beginning of the season, and the wind blew in the right direction one day resulting in a pass.

Quote from tristancliffe :

My limited experience suggests that it's not at all easy to make a car much lighter than the weight limit - carbon tubs aren't much lighter than a steel spaceframe one, and then you've got miles of wiring, engines, gearboxes, sensors, brackets, tanks, electronic boxes, radiators, bodywork... I'd be VERY surprised if the lightest car with the lightest driver has more than 20kg of ballast in it, whilst a heavy car with a tall driver and KERS might not have room for any.

Have a cookie.

Why do you think Ferrari made a special chassis for Raikkonen, and why Kubica had to wait to use KERS? Not because they couldn't use as much ballast as they wanted, but because they probably couldn't use ANY.

I would not be surprised if some of the KERS cars were pushing the weight limit before ballast, and slightly over when it gets added (because it does have to be).

Quote from evilgeek :

they do. with ballast they are all 605kg.

Really, You're sure of that? What makes you so sure, is it because that's what the press assume in their reports?

I wouldn't be surprised if there was some small variations in there. Nothing huge, but something small.

The problem with 'fuel corrected' is that it assumes all the cars weigh the same without fuel.

I haven't done any maths since I started my placement. I'm screwed when I go back to finish.

I wouldn't be surprised if the room where the tyres are kept gets heated up to some uncomfortable temperature for 2010.

The budget cap will be great, all the teams will sign up for it so they get the relaxed technical restrictions, then cheat and spend as much as they are now.

Quote from dawguk :

...but even then they could pit with 6 laps in the tank.

I wonder how much race pace lap difference all the KERS crap makes. I'd wager that it's very close to the cusp of being useless.

Someone finally gets it

Quote from tristancliffe :

...

I agree a bit, though I do like seeing the weights.
One thing I find brilliant about F1 is all the armchair engineers/strategists, thousands of people who think they know how everything in F1 works and all the minute details on every car. Yet how many of you actually know what the cars weigh empty?

Always take everything you read about F1 with a truckload of salt.

Glad to see Red Bull at the top of this. Now we just need another 15 race wins

Truck racing is actually awesome. I've got a few pictures on my Flickr page of the UK/Europe champs at Thruxton last year.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maaaahtin

Most of the teams are still here and in the same bases, a lot of the people will be the same as well.

Steward -> Jaguar -> Red Bull
Minardi -> STR
Tyrell -> BAR -> Honda -> Brawn

Quote from DeMS :

Webber was nowhere to be seen

Funny that, considering he was driving a heavily damaged car. Fastest sector 1 and 2 time in quali as well, he would have been on the front row had he not made a mistake in sector 3.

He's not my favourite driver, but he can't be written off.

He just happens to be the unluckiest driver driving for the unluckiest team.

Quote from deggis :

Expensive? Which one of the teams quit because of costs?

The series lasted three years, the major teams had barely joined when it finished. The attitude of the Group B teams however laid the groundwork for the insane spending that would follow in rallying.

I think this is a very, very good idea.

The cars will be cheaper, so we should get a lot more entrants. They'll be more similar to road cars as well so perhaps we'll actually get to see some of the models transfer to the real world, instead of just Subaru giving us something.

Also, it could hopefully make the stages longer again. Teams have been trying to make the stages shorter and shorter because the new cars just can't run the huge stages they used to.

Quote from senn :

if they are grippy they are boring. The whole reason Group B was so much fun to watch is cos the cars were almost always scrabbling for grip like a dog on lino....

NA cars (4cyl generalization) don't have the power to break grip mid corner easily, altho on gravel the odds increase. However its still boring if the cars are TOO well balanced weight/power wise. and can take most corners smoothly

Ever watched the PWRC? They don't seem to struggle to break traction, and they're still pretty damn fast.

Group B cars may have been amazing, but it was them that pushed rallying too far, and made it too expensive for everyone involved.

Last edited by spookthehamster, Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:11.