I agree, to a point. Street circuits are ok, but they are more and more becoming dominant, which is a shame when we have tracks with so much history to race on. But... I guess that if people wont come to the races, the races will have to come to the people...
Personally I don't give a monkeys.. I'm for the action on the track.. It could all be played out in silence for all I care. IMO, if diesels are an advantage then the other teams should just get their act together and go the same way.
I just don't see what the big deal is about personally..
Both are internal combustion engines.
Both are Hydrocarbon based fuels.
Anyone would have thought people were complaining about the addition of a completely different form of advanced propulsion and energy production system, (introduced by some advanced alien race), the way some people are going on about this thing. When in fact we're talking about a minor difference in the fuel and the way it's combusted.
Oh yes and the turbo give a power advantage to the diesels.... oh wait
The argument about Turbo use is disingenous and you know it. The diesel engines have a power disadvantage when not turbo'd. The only way that they can be on equitable terms with petrol engines is to be turbo charged.
Plus they are given a weight penalty.
Simple fact of the matter is that diesel engines have a better torque curve for racing on a lot of circuits. Any manufacturer that wants to stick their heads in the sand over "loyalty" or such other facile reasons for sticking with petrol engines as have been stated in this forum deserve to loose. In racing, to win you have to be pragmatic and go with what wins irrespective of how you "feel" about it.
Same thing happened in motorcycle racing with the introduction of the Ducatis and their V twins. They made slightly less power than the Japanese bikes with their inline fours and were even heavier yet they dominated the racing for a long time because their power delivery gave them an advantage on a typical race circuit. Lots of teams just swapped manufacturers to remain competitive. Then the rules were adjusted slightly and the inline fours regained competitiveness and now bike racing is very balanced despite using completely different engine configurations. Same will happen with car racing. Eventually they will get the overall competitive balance right through regulation changes.
Of course I do. I also know the history of Monaco and Surfers Paradise and the likes. I'm not saying Street Circuits are without history, I'm saying that enough is enough, time to use some proper road courses for what they where intended for, namely good racing
No you didn't fix anything. Turbo'd engines do generally have wider torque curves, but a diesel engine has an inherent low rpm torque advange over a petrol engine of the same capacity. Plus the turbo can be configured in such a way as to have no affect on the torque curve at low rpms so as not to give any "added" advatage over and above that which diesel would inherently have. So the advantage is not purely down to the turbo, it's predominantly down to the inherent nature of the way a diesel makes torque. The turbo is used to balance the disadvantage of the lower high rpm torque/power output vs a petrol engine.
Or at least that is how they could be implemented. Not knowing the exact details of the implimentation on the actual cars we can't do anything more than speculate.
A couple of years ago at Croft, the BTCC medical car went off right in front of me. Not quite as spectacular as this one, but it took quite a trip through the gravel, only just getting itself out!
Seriously... what the hell. WTCC has still some surprises in that chaos of first lap which is quite usual for this series. ad that sc driver, I think it wasn't only his fault, but what was his fault was defiinitely not respecting the leaving pit line, going straight into the racing line was just very very stupid...