Quote from Vykos69 :

nice move by eyebrow to show the "winner-fist" the moment, MS engine blows. Very sportsmanlike behaviour.

I did exactly the same

Clearly Schumacher's aggressive driving style caused his engine failure...it's all his own fault.

Would all those who believe that Jenson Button's driving style is the smoothest there is and that it's all stupid Alonso's fault for burning out his tyres please read the following article:

http://www.itv-f1.com/Feature. ... d_Kravitz&PO_ID=37573

Of particular interest is the following paragraph:

Quote :

The team had to move the stop forward, as Jenson’s set-up and driving style burned out the intermediate tyres, rendering them useless.

Humble pie, anyone?

Quote from tristancliffe :

Lets hope Alonso has a major heart attack overnight. Good things come to those to wait...

Normally I find your posts amusing and/or intelligent. That's just sick...

So you're expecting us to be happy that a site previously taken down (presumably for some sort of copyright infringement) is back online?

I think the whole thing is a bit silly to be honest. The FIA said after the Turkish GP that they would launch an investigation immediately as they must remain politically neutral. Surely remaining 'politically neutral' would have meant telling them to sort it out themselves?
Having said that, the organisers did break the rules regarding the podium, so they deserved some sort of penalty.

Quote from Becky Rose :

The fact that the Turkey+Cyprus thing turned into a podium scandal and yet Tony Blair didn't hardly strikes me as neutral. Tony Blair is widely considered a war criminal in his own country, let alone the countries he has illegally invaded in the Far East.

Tony Blair will only be a war criminal when he's locked in jail for his 'crimes'. Please give it a rest until his trial begins. I won't be holding my breath.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I think it is getting better. Just think - everyone currently hates F1, and thinks it's all rigged/biased/conspiracied. Which means all the 'I know about F1 honest' types feck off and leave the sport with those that understand it and enjoy it. Which is perfect for me!

It's been dumbed down enough by ITV, and the soon-to-be-new regulations, so if some of the people who needed it dumbed down leave then I shall be able to enjoy it in peace!!!!

I kind of agree with you, except that the only thing we will be left to enjoy is dumbed-down tripe!

OK, I can confirm that a medium-sized modern diesel engine does cut the fuel completely on deceleration.
This is based on data taken directly from the ECU of an engine running simulated drivecycles on a transient dynamometer.

I don't know exactly what conditions cause the ECU to cut the fuel injection...I could find out, but all the engine software manuals are strictly confidential so I couldn't share the information.

My understanding is that, if there is no throttle demand from the driver, the ECU will provide just enough fuel to maintain idle speed. I therefore assume that if the engine is being motored above idle speed the ECU decides that fuel injection is not needed.

As for the effect of catalytic converters...there will be a very small pressure drop across them but I don't think it would be significant. They're generally quite open-celled and don't present much of a restriction. We've never done any testing with and without cat because it would be a complete waste of time.

I'm fairly sure modern engines cut the fuel when they're being motored. I run tests on diesel engines all day every day and when they're being motored by the dyno during simulated driving the AFR goes sky-high, i.e. there's no (or very, very little) fuel being added.
Having said that, I've never actually checked the fuelling during motoring, so I could be wrong.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Alonso: The biggest whiner F1 has ever seen. A new record, one that even Schumi can't take away from him.

I'd like to think that was posted to elicit a response rather than because it's your real opinion. All Alonso has said is that Schumi is the least sporting driver ever. I'm struggling to think of many other drivers who have deliberately taken their rivals out of a race, been black flagged (and then banned) for ignoring a stop-go penalty, been disqualified from an entire championship for unsportsmanlike behaviour AND been penalised for deliberately sabotaging a qualifying session. Alonso was stating fact, not some fanciful idea he has in his head because he's angry.

In any case, you've forgotten Nigel "Nelson's got a faster car than me" Mansell and Rubens "How dare you try to overtake on the last lap" Barrichello.

Quote from tristancliffe :

In 94 remember the FIA was against Michael (and his team), and every decision favoured Hill and Williams. Yet no one remembers that now. In 97 there were less technical politics going on, and Schumi made a car that shouldn't have been anywhere near the front nearly snatch the title.

I don't see how the FIA opposed Benetton in 1994. They ignored the fuel rig tampering (sorry, I should have made it clear in my earlier post that it was fuel rig tampering) even though it caused a huge fire. Schumacher was given a stop-go in Silverstone for blasting past Damon Hill on the parade lap which he refused to take, hence the black flag and a two race ban. He was disqualified in Belgium because his plank was worn more than 10% (due to a spin across a kerb rather than deliberate fiddling). The punishments given to Schumacher seem reasonable to me.

Even though the decisions went in Williams' favour, I don't see that the FIA favoured them, they just made fair decisions based on the rules.

Quote :

There is no doubting Schumi's brilliance behind the wheel, and he's only had a few black marks to his name. But no more that any of the other greats really.

I've never doubted his ability to drive, nor his ability to develop a car and team. I was only ever criticising his sporting integrity.

Quote from xaotik :

Truth is, there certainly has been controversy over and over again involving Ferrari the past few years. But then again, that was the case for McLaren when it was no1 in the past and the same with Williams after that.

So you can point to examples of bizarre FIA decisions favouring Williams or McLaren in order to support this? I won't hold my breath.

Quote from Vykos69 :

Now, gimme another 1000 words on how fair Alonso is, and Schumi isnt or whatever. On my point of view both are on a same level in terms of ruthlessness.

I've not watched the videos as I'm at work, but I fully agree that Alonso has done things wrong and been punished for them. The huge difference between Schumi and Alonso is, however, that Alonso has never been accused of cheating (fuel tampering and TC rumours at Benetton in 1994) or ramming his opponent off the track (Hill and Villeneuve). Alonso has done nothing in his career so far to make me question his integrity as a sportsman. Schumacher seems to have done little to confirm his integrity.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

If Mosley retires, Jean Todt is the most likely person to take over his job at the FIA.

Argh! Yes! I'd forgotten about all those stories from a few years ago :doh:

Quote from keiran :

So far there are three penalties/bans that I've yet to see any decent proof towards:

A) Ban of mass damper system - That rule and the logic the FIA used means that anything moving which influences the aerodynamics is not allowed. Well I bet that steering wheel, brake pedal and throttle pedal have a bigger influence.

B) 1 second penalty for overtaking under yellows. The STR moved out of the way and slowed down, what was Alonso supposed to do? Brake test following cars in an acceleration zone? Oh wait he just got a penalty for that. They should be asked the STR driver why he did that, as it showed me he didn't see the yellow flags.

C) Forcing Alonso to 10th by removing his three fastest times for something which he didn't do. Now the FIA will have there hands full when every driver who makes a slight mistake blames the car 100 metres ahead of him for it after going back to the garage to find out who it was.

You forgot Ferrari's wheel hub covers. If they're part of the wheel then they're illegal because wheels must be made of a single material. If they're part of the brake cooling system then Ferrari break the parc ferme rules each time they change the wheels during a race. Either way they're illegal, yet the FIA don't do anything about it.

I really, really hope Alonso wins the championship this year. Then I hope Ross Brawn and Max Moseley follow Schumi into retirement.

I think it's awful that Kimi is going to Ferrari. How can I support him if he's driving for a team for whom 'sport' means nothing?

So, does anyone out there still believe that the FIA don't favour Ferrari? The way I see it, Alonso went out with a heavy fuel load and a broken car and he drove a stunning lap to get 5th, a position from which he could win the race.
Then the cry-babies at Ferrari go running to the stewards to have him penalised for daring to be on track in front of Massa.

BTW, the reason two of the stewards have Italian sounding names is that the FIA appoint three stewards for each race...one is Tony Scott-Andrews, the FIA's permanent steward and two are picked from the local motorsport governing body.

Finally got round to finishing this skin after starting it about 5 months ago!
This is Bruno Senna's British F3 skin (mostly from 2006 but I've taken some artistic licence ).

Quote from wheel4hummer :

We don't need that at all. Think about it for a second, in an FPS game you are realtivlely still. In LFS, you are constantly moving. So, why would we need HDR?

The whole point of HDR is to simulate the differences in lighting conditions when you're moving around.

Static screenshots are totally pointless when demonstrating HDR...the effect is only revealed when you move from a brightly lit area to a darker area, or vice versa.

When you look at brightly lit objects the pupils in your eye contract to reduce the amount of light entering the eye. This makes any dark areas in your field of view look very dark. Shade your eyes from the bright light and your pupils will expand, allowing you to see more detail in the darker areas.

HDR is needed because the human eye can deal with a much higher range of light intensities than a monitor can display.

Personally I'm all for it, and I trust Scawen to implement it correctly.

Quote from Becky Rose :

*cough* 605.

*cough* 605 after qualifying, 600 after race

Quote from deggis :

Stupid idea. I hate auto-censoring even on forums. It's just stupid. I have a right to swear if I see it's needed, goddamnit!

Do you really believe you have a right to swear?
If so, I'd like to claim my right to avoid seeing swearing...stalemate!

Quote from tristancliffe :

At the end of the day, for bods like us, does it make any difference why it was banned? I don't think it does, and I think the cars looked better bouncing around and looking alive.

It does make a difference because of the timing of the ban. The FIA have had 12 months (ish) to ban the device but they chose to wait until now. It seems too similar to the Michelin tyre controversy at Monza a few years ago. Then Ferrari turn up to Turkey with those aerodynamic wheel covers and nothing is said. Sorry, I meant to call them 'brake cooling ducts'.

I desperately want to believe that the FIA run things fairly but they make it so difficult for themselves.

Quote :

But I'm just waiting patiently for driver aids to be banned from all forms of motorsport. Including, I wish, flappy paddle gearboxes.

Aside from the gearboxes, I agree.

Quote from sinbad :

Aren't the temperature and load readings constantly taken from the contact patch?

I'd always assumed that was the case, but your diagram leads me to think I may be wrong.

The diagram is correct; the F9 display always shows the topmost element of the tyre. Scawen said that if he were to code it the other way around, to show the contact patch, he wouldn't be happy with it until he'd also added tyre deformation to the F9 display

Quote from tristancliffe :

Actually, it does reference TC in the rules.

For the start, where 'Launch Control' is not allowed anymore, the traction control must not be used until a speed of 100km/h is reached, so to avoid 'Traction Control Launch Control'. After the start, and after the car has reached 100km/h it may be used freely.

Umm...where? I've read through the whole of the 2006 F1 Technical Regulations and traction control is not mentioned once. There are only two rules regarding 'race start' and neither of them mention traction (or launch) control.

Quote from duke_toaster :

In F1 the current rules state that Traction Control cannot be used below 100KPH AFAIK.

The current F1 rules make no reference to traction control whatsoever...pretty much anything goes!

I think the problem to which Tweaker is referring is that the TC allows enough longitudinal slippage to degrade the lateral traction of the tyre, so you can slide the car quite a lot at low speeds with TC enabled. What you'd have to do to solve this is reduce the 'Wheelspin' percentage or (one for Scawen) make the allowed wheelspin variable with car speed.

I thought being a mod meant you had to own a Vespa...

The new replay selection screen is great...much better than before.
One comment though...I think it would be better to change the 'OK' button to 'play'. Now that we've got more options in the replay screen its not obvious (to me, at least) that the 'OK' button will start the replay.
Thanks for the effort

Quote from Bob Smith :

Just because the Excel auto-polynomial thing limits you to 5, doesn't stop you doing it manually. Although GRC only uses order 3, I want to up it to order 4 and the maths for that are like /me whistles (ok it's essentially the same maths, only it all gets much more complicated). So doing 14 manually probably isn't a sensible challenge.

It isn't actually very difficult to program a regression analyser if you can invert a matrix. I've written several programs in Scilab (a free Matlab clone) to do this.

One of my colleagues at work came across a similar interpolation problem which our resident Excel guru couldn't solve easily. A few minutes spent in Scilab and I had his problem solved.

I know you didn't want suggestions for other programs, Tristan, but unless you can code VB, Excel is fairly limiting in this area. You'd almost certainly be better off learning a more advanced language.