Formula One Racing Just a Matter of Crunching the Numbers

Si24601 writes "Sauber Petronas Formula 1 team have launched Albert, their new supercomputer. With aerodynamics contributing a claimed 75% of the performance of the current bread of cars, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) calculations have become increasingly important. Dalco's 530 AMD Opteron processor, 2.3 Tflop/s Supercomputer, with 1 TB RAM and 11 TB of storage, may just be up to the task." Other readers submitted links to stories on F1 Live and Formula1.com.

Comments

bread

[convolvatron]

and without high performance bread, you may as well
not enter the race

Re:bread

[dbIII]

and without high performance bread, you may as well not enter the race

Strangely enough, there was a story in the "Yakitaki! Japan" Manga about a contest to bake the ultimate sports bread for Formula 1 drivers. (www.snoopycool.com for those interested). Yes, it's as silly as it sounds - a baking manga with elements borrowed from survivor, the LOTR movie and all kinds of places.

Re:bread

[operagost]

Screw you. Who needs bread? My high performance bagels will run rings around the competition.

Re:bread

[majesty2180]

I hear that the 12 grain variety is most suited for high performance racing, even outside the formula 1 world!.

Re:bread

[vettemph]

You've never seen money GO so fast!

Re:bread

[noahproblem]

In that case the Minardi team must be on the Atkins diet....

"bread of cars"

[Neil Blender]

mmmmmmmmmmm....car bread, tastiest of all breads.

Re:"bread of cars"

[Anonymous Crowhead]

mmmmmmmmmmm....car bread, tastiest of all breads. Car bread goes well with engine black eggs...if you can keep those down, you'll be sitting pretty.

Wow

[qw0ntum]

Need for Speed 1000000 right there.

Re:Wow

[Scooter]

Or is that Nead for Spead?

Sorry - is that my coat?

Bread of cars

[MacDork]

With aerodynamics contributing a claimed 75% of the performance of the current bread of cars

The other 25% being due to lightweight wheat products apparently ;-)

Re:Bread of cars

[Zocalo]

Well modern F1 cars do use a lot of fibre in their construction, but I always thought it came from carbon filaments and not wheat products. Who knew?

Re:Bread of cars

[AlexeiMachine]

The competition is toast!

Re:Bread of cars

[shri]

With rumors of the Atkins group looking at carbs in cellphones, this may be the best news that overweight americans get. Your car has too much carbs... WALK 5 miles a day.

Don't forget the drivers, too.

[mOoZik]

Sure, technology is important in that sport, but don't discount the importance of world-class drivers like Schumacher, et al.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[aceh0]

it's mostly the car. when valentino rossi gets within a second or two of schumacher on his initial outing in a F1 car, it illustrates how the driver is not as important as he once was

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[Herr_Nightingale]

..AND the food they eat. The article mentions bread in particular.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[mOoZik]

Schumacher wouldn't be the world's best paid athlete if he didn't contribute whatever amount of importance to the process of winning. Consistently.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[servoled]

Why don't you hop in an F1 car and take on Schumacher. The driver is still very important.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[AK Marc]

If you put Schumacher in a perfect two-year old car and the rest of the field in current cars, I doubt he'd manage a win a single race. The cars improve enough each season that you must have both the car and the driver. Just the driver alone will not win races. It would be able to showcase what you can do with the old technology, getting you sponsors able to afford the new tech, but not win.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[aceh0]

you cant win in F1 without a top notch car. if Schumacher was in a BAR Honda and Barichello was driving the Ferrari would Schumi be dominating the series? the car is the biggest factor in F1 not the driver.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[servoled]

If a driver crashed every race he would never win no matter how good the car is. Like it or not, both the car and driver are important.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[aceh0]

we're not talking about drivers who crash every race. we're talking about F1 level drivers most of which have some semblance of competency in F1 cars. throw a good driver in the fastest car and he will win more often than not. was Jacques Villeneuve not a World Champion? how many podium finishes did he have when he was driving an inferior car?

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[gvc]

Sauber has hired Jacques Villeneuve, the only driver racing who has beaten Schumacher to the World Championship.

Although Sauber and Villeneuve have had less-than-spectacular results recently, there's always a chance that they could collectively get their acts together and be very competitive.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[Lussarn]

Valentino Rossi has never made an F1 start. Thats entirely diferent from a test driving without competitors.

I sure hope he gets his shot though.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[iowannaski]

or... it illustrates what an eternity "a second or two" is in F1.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[servoled]

Ohhh... I see, you have to have good drivers. You can't just throw anyone off the street in the fastest car and expect him to win every time? Huh, sounds like the drivers are also important.

A good car will make a good driver look even better. On the other hand a good car won't do a damn thing for a bad driver other than make him crash faster.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[linders]

Mika Hakkinen beat him in 1999. Though, he doesn't drive anymore. http://www.4mula1.ro/history/year.php/year/1999/

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[iowannaski]

If you put Schumacher in a perfect two-year old car and the rest of the field in current cars, I doubt he'd manage a win a single race. The cars improve enough each season that you must have both the car and the driver. This is absolutely correct. THe 5th and 6th place qualifiers were routinely qualifying at the previous year's pole time this year.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[NeoSkandranon]

If your counterstrike rounds go like that you need better players.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[radish]

In F1 a second is a week. The gap from first to last on a qualifying lap will be no more than 2 or 3 seconds typically. The top 10 may well be within 0.5 seconds.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[attonitus]

Back in 1994, Schumacher came second in Barcelona with his car stuck in fifth gear for three quarters of the race.

Undoubtably cars have improved since then, but it's a good indication of the difference a great driver can make. It doesn't matter how fast the car is, you've still got to take the right path around the corner to exit it as fast as possible.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[packeteer]

Ok round one you lose, so round two what can you buy. You can count on your opponent buying either an mp5 or ak or colt, none of which you can buy. If you choose to buy a deagle then your going against someone with a similar strength weapon but they have a muchb larger clip. Watch the worlds best CS players they dont buy guns on the second round they lose becuase if they do they are so money-fucked they might as well give up. Winning the first round aka "pistol round" is nearly an automatic 3 rounds untill in CS.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[flewp]

Yes, but within a second doesn't mean much. Lets see how long it takes him to make up that extra second, and not only that, but do it consistantly over the course of an entire season.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[flewp]

And get this, none of the other teams believed a driver could still do so well stuck in fifth gear... until Benneton released the telemetry from the race.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[Basehart]

During the 2004 Monaco Grand Prix David Coulthard later acknowledged he was stood on a Lego brick throughout the entire race, yet went on to win it (the race, not the brick). If that doesn't reek of sheer mastercraft breadmaking I don't what is!

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[innosent]

One other point: The cars get quicker because they are tested and refined to suit their drivers. Without good technical feedback from the drivers (both test and race), the car will not improve as quickly. Car AND Driver both need to be good, and an enormous budget doesn't hurt, either.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[Malc]

Mr. Newtown is an extremely over-paid playboy. Or atleast he was at BAR. Now he's just a moderately over-paid playboy. For him to be good he needs a fantastic car (like the Williams he used to drive) and a fantastic team (like the Williams people who used to be behind him). Mssrs Button and Sato have shown him up as a pretender at BAR.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[Malc]

Et al? What others? Where are they?

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[dorsey]

Coulthard didn't win the 2004 Monaco GP, Jarno Trulli did. I assume you mean 2003.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[Basehart]

Dang, DC is doing worse than I thought.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[minimunchkin]

The problem is that the best driver (undoubtedly Schumacher) gets into the best car (the Ferrari) who then starts at the front of the grid. The aerodynamics of the car mean that it is almost impossible to overtake. When you had Senna and Prost both in McLarens the car was still king, but they raced each other and the season was close (Senna won 8 and Prost 7 IIRC). This last season was frankly dull. Schumacher's brilliance has pretty much killed F1 as a sport.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[swiftstream]

Of course, when given identical cars to race in, Schumacher loses.

Yeah, he may be world class. But other drivers are, too. There's a lot to be said about the cars.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[GimmeZeroZero]

I'm no Schumacher fan, in fact I don't particularly like him, but the guy is exceptionally talented. And considering how good the BAR cars were last season, Yes I think Schumacher would still beat Barrichello more often than not. He has beaten plenty of good drivers with better cars in the past. The driver is still very important.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[GimmeZeroZero]

There are far better drivers than Villeneuve out there. Alonso, and Rikkonen are just two of them.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[GimmeZeroZero]

So how did Schumacher win countless times when in an inferior car?

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[Datafage]

That's why he qualified it as "the only driver RACING," not just "the only driver."

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[MouseR]

Case to the point: in his first season (1996), Jacques Villeneuve pounded Shummy repeatedly and nearly took the championship, with 4 points behind Shummy. His first season! William cars were great in those years.

The very next year, Shummy lost to Villeneuve. The following year, Shummy came back in front. But was pounded by McLaren. Hard.

Then, Ferraries became much better and each year, they've increased their lead.

As for Villeneuve, he left William to join his friends at a new builder: BAR. The car sucked more each year and the great driver that Villeneuve is took a plunge in the points.

Watch him come back next year: he's with Sauber now.

The car DOES make a difference.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[caveat]

Just for the record, he was in a "regular" car. I got to go to the three-day Skip Barber racing school primer as an XMas present; we spent part of the last day whipping around the track in the open-wheeled Barber Series cars. Driving a downforce-dominated car demands a whole different set of skills; as you slow down your brakes lose effectiveness (less wind, less force into the ground) and as you speed up, your handling improves (vice versa). I'm not horribly surprised that Schumy wasn't dominant in that event - and Kovalainen also beat Coultard and Alesi as well; ultimately it appears Schumy came in second. And as a sibling has already pointed out, he did pretty damn well with Benneton...

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[TomServo]

Don't forget about Button and Sato, those two have really come into their own. Button moreso than Sato, IMHO, but Sato's got some maturing to do. If he can keep that agression but learn the points where discretion is the better part of valor, he may turn into something really special. In the meantime, he'll keep doing really well, then locking up and skidding into the inside of the car in front of them as they go through the corner ;)

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[Forbman]

Yes. While complaining that the drivers don't really drive F1 cars anymore, people forget that the success of Ferrari is the sum of all the people involved. OK, being willing not only to want to throw money at it, but having a good idea WHERE to throw money at it, also helps Ferrari.

What has Sauber-Petronas done in F1, wrt Ferrari and McLaren or Williams?

This is all fine and dandy for Sauber-Petronas to feel good about things, but it won't matter.

It's like any other pack-filling, back-running team suddenly thinking it's relevant to the race podium or overall standings, much like the Chicago Cubs after getting Dusty Baker last season...

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[jeremyp]

I remember watching that race. The telemetry from Schumacher's car was shown in a graphic at the corner of the screen. Anybody viewing the race live in th UK could see he was stuck in fifth.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[epine]

There was one intelligent post already about how the driver contributes to the quality of his own car by giving consistent and accurate feedback to his engineering pit crew. There's more to driving at this level than being a fantastic clutch monkey.

Another brilliant poster noted that if you put a sufficiently bad driver into any car no matter how good, the result will suck. Excellent deduction, Sherlock.

Let's say the F1 tour consists of a pool of twenty top drivers and twenty top cars. The drivers and cars will be randomly paired up. You have the option to bet on the race, but you can only bet on the driver, or the car, BEFORE you know how the random pairings are made.

Are you going to plunk you money down on the car or the driver? At this point in F1 the consensus seems to be that voting on the car is the better option.

This is a somewhat stupid exercise in any case. The third term is how well the driver fits the car, and this is largely a function of chemistry between the driver and his crew. The talented clutch monkeys who contribute toward bad chemistry end up piloting a poorly tuned ride, or they don't trust the car 100% in every situation so they're afraid to leave everything the car can do out on the track (er, I mean metaphorically).

Then it gets even more complicated because a driver with good chemistry in an astrobucks team concept might suck in a financially constrained environment, and vv.

Now that I think about it, this whole thread is silly (duh, like I didn't know that). We should stop talking about F1 and start reading Ken Dryden's book (from ages past) about the difference between a "good good team goaltender" and a "good bad team goaltender". The role of the "good good" goaltender is to not make mistakes so his team can go out and win it on talent up front. The "good bad" goaltender is expected to take chances and stand on his head so that his crappy teammates have a chance to win on a flukely goal or two.

This applies to a lot more sports than hockey.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[GimmeZeroZero]

True. Button has impressed me more than expected. I'd gave Sato another two years. He has certainly been impressive on occasion, but does need to calm down a little. I'm looking forward to seeing Raikkonen and Montoya as team mates, should be interesting.

See?

[the_mad_poster]

For a long time, everyone made fun of the "NASCAR families" for being a bunch of dumb hicks. I'll bet this is very similar to the sorts of things they do.

Guess you have to be a little smarter than the average bear to race a car around in circles after all. Not that I expect the yuppies will give up their sense of superiority (yea, golf takes brains) to admit that.

Re:See?

[empaler]

Yeah... Just because some guy with an IQ that would make you quiver designed the damned thing doesn't mean that he has to design so that only his mental equivalents can drive it.

It's like tools: There are people who come up with ingenious tools, and there are the plumbers who can't seem to find pants that covers their crack but still manage to use the tool.

Re:See?

[dont_think_twice]

For a long time, everyone made fun of the "NASCAR families" for being a bunch of dumb hicks. I'll bet this is very similar to the sorts of things they do.

Guess you have to be a little smarter than the average bear to race a car around in circles after all.

You "bet" that they do the same thing in NASCAR, and then you conclude, based on your bet, that NASCAR people are as smart as formula one people. If that is the kind of logic NASCAR people use, I can assure you that NASCAR people are, in fact, stupid.

Not that I expect the yuppies will give up their sense of superiority (yea, golf takes brains) to admit that.

If giving up my sense of superority means making stupid arguments like yours, you can bet I am going to hold on to mine.

Now, to your actual logical leap: in NASCAR, they are constantly changing the rules so that the races are always close, even to the point of specifically penalizing a team if they have any advantage. To a certain extent, F1 follows a similar procedure, but it is much less agressive, and acts over longer periods of time. Therefore the technological advantage to be gained in NASCAR is much less - if you do something ingenous that helps you win races, you will just be punished for it to keep the races close.

Of course there are advantages to this - it makes the sport more exciting (for sufficiently weak defintions of exciting), and it makes it more about personalities than about technology.

Bottom Line: all car racing is boring. At least in Formula 1, the technology is interesting. And NASCAR people are dumb.

Re:See?

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

I saw an interesting thing one day on tv, They brought Jeff Gordon (nascar driver) and some Formula one driver (can't remember which), to Indy for the road course, they drove there cars around. Then they switched, Gordon got in the F1 car, the F1 guy in Gordons Nextel Cup car. Guess what happened?

In a few laps Gordon was pulling times just as good as the F1 guy was, dang close to the pole time for the track.

The F1 guy, not sure if it was Shoemaker but it was one of the names i knew and i don't follow F1. He was struggling, he just couldn't drive the car.

The reason, simple, F1 is all car, they have made it so easy on the driver it's basicly point and shoot, if you gave a lot of drivers a chance to drive one, they would do great, they just don't get a chance. But Nextel cup cars are designed to be hard to drive, it's about the driver, not the cars (equal cars in theory). Every year there are new rules added making them harder to drive, thus the skills needed go up even more. Sure the drivers don't look all flashy, they are not some thin euro guy trying to look cool, they are just families that have evolved doing that thing, and they really are very good drivers.

People want to diss Nextel cup cars cause they are low tech, on low tech tracks, well thats the whole idea, it's about drivers and stratgy, not shear spending the most money on a super car.

Re:See?

[pyite]

And NASCAR people are dumb.

Nice ignorance. Whether or not you enjoy it (I personally find NASCAR boring except for road racing) does not dictate how dumb it is. A good driver is a good driver. There's no doubt that NASCAR has top engineers working on its cars. What exactly is "dumb" about those people?

Re:See?

[nester]

at least f1 has right turns ;)

Re:See?

[pyite]

Oh, totally agreed. But that's why I like the road races in NASCAR. They're at the very least amusing because usually only a handful of drivers are accustomed to it, the rest drive like morons.

Re:See?

[dafz1]

Wrong! This proves that Jeff Gordon is a very good race car driver. The car is compeletly foreign to him(power, braking, downforce, and G-Force), yet he is quickly up to speed(about a second off of the qualifying time). I doubt Williams put the Indy qualifying setup in the FW25, much less gave Jeff time to get a setup for him in the car. Too bad he had the flu last Saturday, so we could see what he would do against Schumacher in the Race of Champions.

As for Montoya, he was just out for a cruise. I think that car was a road race car, however, Watkin's Glen doesn't have the tight turn complexes, especially the turn 5-6 and turns 8-10 of the Indy GP course. He was driving the snowplow that a NASCAR machine is, in comparison to the F1 car. I wonder what JPM would do around the oval? He's got plenty of experience(2000 Indy 500 win).

What I want to see is them really trade paint. Put both driver's in an identical car, give them an hour to test setup, and then let them race.

Re:See?

[ajayvb]

In Formula1 you don't drive it around only in circles. You have a few curves which turn the other way too.

Re:See?

[flewp]

Let's see your Charger try and race a decent Europan sports car on something other than a track that's either: A) A straight line, or B) A straight line with banked turns leading to another straight line. To compare a Smart Car to a Charger is just as stupid as thinking cars should only go fast in straight lines and turn left.

Re:See?

[flewp]

He would have qualified. He was outside of the 107%, but the year he tested did not have that rule in effect.

Re:See?

[flewp]

F1 cars may be easier to drive than some other racing series, but it's a lot harder to be competitive in F1 than most other racing series. To keep the car perfectly on edge in order to make up a 10th of a second is extremely hard.

When's the last time you saw a driver willingly leave F1 to go to another season? Rarely, if ever.

Re:See?

[TheLink]

Different version of what happened.

"Although no official timing was done, Gordon's fastest lap in the Williams was approximately one second slower than Montoya's fastest time in the warm up that morning. Likewise, Montoya's fastest time in the Chevrolet Monte Carlo was off by about one second from Gordon's best time."

Re:See?

[humina]

I'm gonna troll on this one: Sure it takes brains to design the car. It just takes less to drive it and even less to sit and watch someone else drive it. Nascar and most car racing is pretty pointless and wasteful. So is golf.

Re:See?

[FyRE666]

Well I think that anyone reading quotes from Gordon the NASCAR driver tend toward the "dumb" theory:

"It's like everything is opposite where, you know, he had to brake at the 250 and was like 'Whoo.' I was like, you know, went to the 100, you know, down in there and, like I said, I can go so much further, you know, and I just couldn't get on the brakes hard enough."

Re:See?

[fafaforza]

Jeff Gordon is arguably the best road track driver in NASCAR. The F1 driver you're talking about was Montoya. His style of driving is very harsh. He likes to swing the wheel every which way, and get the car sideways, so maybe that contributed to his uneasiness with the car.

As far as strategy, there's plenty of it in F1. Anything from fuel strategy, to tyres, to what time to pit in order to get a clear bit of track, to whether to take more fuel during qualitying and sacrifice your starting position to get a longer first stint.

And just like NASCAR, there are many rule changes in F1, sometimes even mid season.

The difference in the gaps between F1 and NASCAR are, I think, largely due to F1 not having a pace car out every 10 laps, or every time there is a bit of debris on the track.

Re:See?

[fafaforza]

So I suppose human beings shouldn't engage in any emotionally stimulationg activities? Instead of watching high tech machines push the envelope of power, grip, technology, dynamics and mechanics while competing for a top spot, we should do what exactly? Go to church? Read fiction? Take up knitting?

If you ask me, it is the most pointless exercise to mandate what others should find worthwhile and rewarding.

Re:See?

[TomServo]

I have this show on my computer, it was called "Tradin' Paint" on Speed Channel. Juan Pablo Montoya was there with the 2003 BMW Williams and Jeff Gordon had his NASCAR.

Your description is a bit off. Gordon was fast, but he was still a couple of seconds off of the 107% rule. Not that that rule abides anymore, but if it did, he'd be close enough to qualify, not to grab pole.

Both of them had trouble with the other car. Juan did well, but one time goofed up going into T1 and overshot. Jeff had trouble going into T6 and overshot into the grass.

They both did well. They both seemed like they really enjoyed it. Neither did well enough to win in the other's series, but they both showed that they are excellent drivers.

However, the description of the performances you gave is kinda like something one of my teachers told us about in a Russian newspaper back in the early 80's describing the outcome of a two man 100-meter dash. According to them, the Russian came in 2nd while the American came in next to last.

Re:See?

[TomServo]

Not sure what exactly you mean by "what the sport is supposed to be about", whether you're referring to Nascar or motorsports in general. In Formula 1, just as much of the sport is about making the car better, at least as much as having the best driver. The teams are constantly trying to improve the car, often using rule ambiguities to get an advantage. IE, no launch control is allowed anymore, but if speculation is correct, Renault figured out how to make the clutch bite absolutely perfectly for launches, which is why they almost always get at least two positions on the start.

In F1, I believe Jean Todt gets just as much credit as Michael these days, and I know Mike Gascoyne got a tremendous amount of credit for the resurgence of Renault and their absolutely stunning car design.

Re:See?

[TomServo]

You could always mention Montoya's comments about rolling off the brakes into the corners after being told that the NASCAR wouldn't be able to do it like the F1 car can...

Re:See?

[Forbman]

I don't think anyone questions what it takes to successfully race cars. Racing cars is racing cars. You do what you can with the tech available and the rule set imposed.

What I think is open to question is "NASCAR Nation", the body of fans... (but you can throw in pretty much any group of fans you want in here, be it #3 fans, Ferrari F1 fans, NY Yankee or Boston Red Sox fans, etc. They're by definition not very objective).

Still a sport?

[Octagon Most]

I imagine that at some time we will approach the level of technological sophistication where we no longer call some competitive event a sport. That is to say, at some point the human element will contribute a trivial amount to the overall performance. I am not saying that F1 racing is at or near that point - I have tremendous respect for the athletes that drive those cars under extreme conditions. But imagine a technologically advanced version of something like dogsledding, where the human is along for the ride. Do we continue to call it a sport? Or does it become some other type of contest?

Re:Still a sport?

[t_allardyce]

In the end the technology will hit a wall, F1 is already pretty regulated as to what you are and arn't allowed to put in your car and other sports are probably similar or will bring in more rules, so eventually everyone will have pretty much the same car because they just cant tweak it any more under the rules and it will be all down to the drivers.

Re:Still a sport?

[drinkypoo]

Most types of racing outlaw computer assistance, including traction control and ABS. As long as this is true, racing is sport. When you start letting the computer drive, it's not a sport any more.

Re:Still a sport?

[hairykrishna]

Hell yes. Robot wars is a sport! No, wait, what was the question? Seriously I think it's still a sport at the level you talk about. Only difference is that the competitors are the engineers rather than drivers.

Re:Still a sport?

[Deliveranc3]

Dude sports aren't about competition or even winning.

Someone needs to get the women, duh.

Re:Still a sport?

[Wiener]

In the end the technology will hit a wall, F1 is already pretty regulated as to what you are and arn't allowed to put in your car and other sports are probably similar or will bring in more rules, so eventually everyone will have pretty much the same car because they just cant tweak it any more under the rules and it will be all down to the drivers.

Not disagreeing with your post, but I just wanted to point out that the stock car sanctioning bodies (NASCAR, ARCA, CASCAR, etc) figured this out about 30 years ago. The rules exist - primarily - to make the cars as even as possible.

Re:Still a sport?

[Stevyn]

This reminds me of Jetsons. I remember watching an episode that had robots playing football when I was a kid. Didn't understand it then, but I understand it now. Sports are all about generating revenue and hype. Look at the Super Bowl halftime. Nobody watches it for the game, it's all about the glitz. The comedian Lewis Black did a very funny and insightful review of the last halftime on his "End of the Universe" album

Re:Still a sport?

[penguinoid]

Makes me wonder... considering how extremely lightweight racecars are, how long before putting a few cameras and a remote control on a car gives you a real edge over other drivers? And if that happens, will people still watch races?

Re:Still a sport?

[nester]

human engineers design the cars. you just don't see them every race. (they wouldn't fit, anyway.)

Re:Still a sport?

[powerlinekid]

I don't recall UPS or FedEx drivers getting million dollar endorsment contracts either.

Re:Still a sport?

[niittyniemi]

> And if you think drivers don't make an impact, look at the differences
> between teammates. Each F1 team has two drivers, and often you'll see
> one driver consistently outperform the other. Examples: Michael
> Schumacher, Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso, Juan-Pablo Montoya, Jason Button.

Hiring drivers in F1 is baroque. Yes, the outstanding drivers in the junior formulas get snapped up (eg. Schumacher) but the guys who make up the numbers are often hired on the basis of how much sponsorship they will bring with them to the team.

Hence, a lot of the drivers are from rich families where daddy provided sponsorship in the junior formulas.

So you a hire a guy who can't drive and is seconds slower than everybody else because he brings a couple of million sponsorship to your team....then you build a supercomputer at vast expense to knock off a few tenths from his slow times.

No. It doesn't make sense to me either but it indicates how much money has got to do with winning in F1 and how little everything else has.

Wild guess: If you did the numbers, you'd probably find that performance of a car corresponds quite closely to the budget of the team.....with some exceptions.

Re:Still a sport?

[hcetSJ]

I think the opposite is true. While technology is creating cars that are capable of driving faster, it makes no difference if your driver is no good. Also, when you hear about these kinds of advances, they're talking about shaving a fraction of a second off of a lap, or maybe a few seconds off of a race that could be hours long. In order to take advantage of such a miniscule technological advantage, your driver had better be near-perfect.

Now, when they start having a computer decide how much to accelerate, or brake, or turn the wheel, then I'll stop calling it a sport.

Re:Still a sport?

[flewp]

Well, take this into consideration: F1 drivers must endure extreme G-loads over the course of a race weekend and also off season testing. They can routinely pull ~4 gs. F1 requires EXTREMELY fit drivers. Many of them have workout regimes just as intense as any other "regular" athlete. Not only must they put up with the g-force beatings, they also require absolutely phenomonal hand-eye coordination, and must have amazing reflexes.

So tell me, since when does a sport that requires stamina, extremely fine tuned hand-eye cooridination, and amazing reflexes not involve athletes?

Re:Still a sport?

[Anonymous Coward]

Drivers are athletes because it takes a lot of physical stamina to drive those cars. If you could even get within 60% of the limit in one of those cars, you would be physically exhausted in three laps.

With racing, the part that is the most physically demanding is not turning the wheel, or pushing the pedals, it is actually keeping your body stable. When a professional driver drives a car of that calibre, his/her entire upper-body is tense almost all the time, so he/she can be ultra-precise with the steering wheel and pedals. In a lot of those cars, not only is your upper-body tense, but it does actually work out your arms a lot too. Also, with cars like that, the entire underside of the car is shaped to suck the car to the ground. They can corner at 4 G-forces. The drivers can't wear regular racing suits... they need them tailor-made because their necks need to be so strong. Also, beyond all that, the mental strain is immense. Imagine going through a corner flat-out at 300 km/h (185 mph), and having to not only steer the thing, but also feel every movement of the car. Is it understeering at turn in? Does it seem to slide sideways in the middle of the corner? Does it push wide on the exit? Did the last change to the wing help or hurt the aerodynamic balance of the car? If I tap the brake lightly mid corner, will it help give the front more grip, and make it turn better? You have to think about so much when you are racing, that the act of driving the car NEEDS to be 100% on reflex and second nature. By the end of the race, not only will the driver have gone through all that mental strain, but he/she will have had their heart-rate at about 160-180 bpm for 1.5 to 2 hours (which is a hell of a workout).

I know a lot of this first hand. I haven't been behind the wheel of an F1 car, but I have been behind the wheel of some very fast cars, where after I got out, my arms were getting tired, and I was covered in sweat. This particular car (Radical SR3 Supersport... google it) generated a lot of downforce, and gave me an excellent work out!

Malcolm Strachan
www.malcolmstrachan.com
autoquest_racin g@yahoo.ca

ps. it's not likely that I'll come back here (a friend sent me the link to this), so I won't bother making an account.

Re:Still a sport?

[ffejie]

I hear that ~4 gs argument all the damn time. Quite frankly, I'm sick of it. Because a human endures 4gs does not make him an athelete! Is it impressive? Yeah, but he's not an athelete.

When do we start considering astronauts atheletes? They endure gs, they also have finely tuned motor skills and they're in "competion" (against the Russians etc.).

Re:Still a sport?

[flewp]

The 4 g arguement doesn't make them athletes. You still never actually answered my question though.

Re:Still a sport?

[ffejie]

F1 is not just a sport that happens every other Sunday, it's a 365-day long sport, with engineers working on the mechanics, and the teams constantly testing various setups.

Right, because football players certainly don't train in the offseason or practice when they're not in games. I mean none of these guys actually play except on Sundays, right? No, no, no. In fact, the athletes that you see playing in the MLB, NBA and NFL (also, if the NHL is playing) as well as other pro leagues around the world are the most serious atheletes in the world. There is a reason they get paid millions: 1) They have extraordinary natural talent 2) they train almost nonstop, during the seasons and also in the offseasons.

Just because F1 operates 365 days a year does not make it more respectable than real sports. The truth of the matter is that NASCAR may be more of a sport than F1. I say this because at least in NASCAR, it truly comes down to the drivers, as the cars are more or less identical. In F1, as I understand it, you've got teams with enormous budgets that buy the best technology to make their "atheletes" better. All of this being said, I don't consider any car racing events to be sports. The simple reason is that a guy with a joystick could be doing the same thing on the sidelines.

Re:Still a sport?

[ffejie]

To paraphrase what I said above (in a different comment thread): They are not atheletes because a guy with a joystick can do the same thing on the sidelines.

Assuming no delay between the joystick and the driverseat, a few correctly mounted cameras allows a guy on the sidelines to do the same thing. My question to you is then: When do we consider people playing video games atheletes.

Re:Still a sport?

[flewp]

A guy with a joystick is completely different. To think they are is completely ignorant and just plain stupid. Driving an F1 car requires stamina, look at how sweaty the drivers are after a race. Not only that, there's the G-forces involved, which DO play a major role over the course of a race. Even Jeff Gordon, a professional Nascar driver commented on the G-loading and the neck strain (from his head whipping and back forth) when he tested the Williams F1 car. Not only that, but it is considerably more difficult to drive a real Formula 1 car which has no power steering as opposed to driving a simulation with a joystick, or even a wheel with force feedback. Also, being in a real car gives you more tactile feedback that you have to be extremely acutely aware of, especially at the speeds and limits that exist in F1. Also, these guys are bouncing around quite a bit in these extremely stiffly sprung cars. Once again, video gamers aren't. Race car drivers also put their lives on the line each time they step out on the track. You obviousely have absolutely no clue as to the physical training and conditioning required of a Formula 1 driver to be competitive. I ask that you actually get a clue before making another dimwitted response.

Re:Still a sport?

[vrt3]

Some 20 years ago, some European TV station ran competetions between athletes of a lot of different sports to test their general fitness. F1 drivers came out as the best, or at least one of the best.

Driving an F1-car is a very taxing occupation; doing it during a whole race is no small feat. In order to be able to pull that of, F1 drivers train as much as other athletes: power training, running, the whole thing.

Re:Still a sport?

[flewp]

Oops, to think they AREN'T any different is ignorant...

Re:Still a sport?

[Spellbinder]

traction control is to come next year in F1

Re:Still a sport?

[Spellbinder]

it is not just the money
you need very talented engineers to develop your car
i cant see whats wrong about team competition?
if you watch football it is also the team with the money with the better players

Re:Still a sport?

[rbbs]

Jenson Buttons neck size when he started f1 was a 15.5/16. Now it is 18/18.5.
For small guy that is a lot of neck.

Besides which, speaking as an aero engineer, anyone with any sense knows that nomatter how good your aero package is, if you don't have the traction (ie mechanicals and most importantly tyres), the whole lot is wasted as the aero package does so little for you in the slow corners where most of the overtaking is done and where the driver gets the real confidence in his car.

Re:Still a sport?

[bryan1945]

"if you watch football it is also the team with the money with the better players"

Well, not really. The NFL has salary caps which limits every team's total payroll, so you don't have a situation like the MLB where the Yankees outspend every other team by $90 million or so. Another thing, look at how the Eagles are doing, and they are a couple of million under the cap; now compare that to the Redskins, who have been consistently over the cap for about 4 years.

Re:Still a sport?

[t_allardyce]

In the end theres no right or wrong way to do it - its just a sport where you watch people drive cars around a track so really its up to the fans. Im guessing half the fans want it to be about the car and half about the driver...

Re:Still a sport?

[Spellbinder]

you illiterates :p
thats football but i talk about football
the thing the rest of the world plays and the rest of the world calls football
and i know of no salary caps for this sort of football..
and if you insist of calling it soccer it is your problem

Re:Still a sport?

[Zeinfeld]

Right, because football players certainly don't train in the offseason or practice when they're not in games.

And spend half the game at least sitting on their butts having a rest. If you want a real sport try soccer.

Seriously folks I don't care whether F1 is a sport or not, I can think of nothing more boring than 'sports' like weightlifting or running where the full extent of the intellectual activity is the athlete's strategy for avoiding the drug testing regime.

American football and MLB have both been ruined by rules set up to squeeze as many ad breaks in as possible, the only way those sports are now watchable is using a tivo. Booorrrrrinnngg.

Golf has become moderately interesting now that the stakes are so ridiculous. If someone told you that you would win a million dollars if you could putt from 12 inches the chance of you making the shot is close to zero. These guys can do that from 10 yards.

Tennis on the other hand is plain silly. Even the women are now turning it into a service only game.

Re:Still a sport?

[hackstraw]

sport

1. Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.
2. An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.

Although the physical demands are not that great, its not different of a physical activity than horse racing, bowling, curling, sailing, or darts (or dog shows for those that really, really, really stretch it :).

The key is competition, and alghough I'm not a NASCAR fan, its pretty impressive how Dale Ernheart (sp?) or Richard Petty simply seemed to win more than the other 40 or so drivers a good amount of the time. The cars are aguably very similar in performance, and even where the differences do happen with the cars, it also seems to work out that the best drivers also coincindentally have the best cars and crew.

Equipment is an important part of most sports. The best tennis player in the world could not compete with a raquet from the 70s. I would bet that he would not make it past the 1st round.

Re:Still a sport?

[karnal]

I don't know about you, but I have enough trouble with an overhead view of an RC car....

Most of what racing would imply is that the driver is able to take many more forms of feedback all at once, and put that into a usable output - getting the car around the track at breakneck speeds.

Now, if you cut the weight down 200lbs for the driver, but added 50-60 pounds of remote equipment (+ cameras, I'm being generous here) then you would have a weight savings, and increase hp-torque/weight ratio, but not by too much.

What you would really lose is the ability to "feel" the car. Let's say the tires start getting a little too thin -- with remote control, you couldn't feel this, so you may start running into the problem of overheating your tires. *BLAM*. Well, get it towed off the raceway....

We've got a long way to go before "remote" control will suffice for something like racecar driving on the large scale, at least against a human. That's just my take though...

Re:Still a sport?

[TomServo]

Traction Control is already in F1, and has been for a couple of years now, after they realized that, while it was banned, they had absolutely no way to enforce that ban. ABS and Launch Control are still banned, however, as are automatic shifts.

Re:Still a sport?

[cobar]

Excellent post. Mod parent up.

Re:Still a sport?

[Forbman]

Yes, but F1 has pretty much given up the ghost on this one. It is possible now to do traction control w/o having traction control by writing clever engine control software.

Remember the McLaren cars from the 80's and 90's? Those had all sorts of cool electromechanical devices. F1 put in all sorts of rules to ban them, but the teams figured out how to do most of them simply with the engine control computers.

The shifter is no longer a direct mechanical linkage between the driver's hand, the shift lever and the transmission. They don't even have a clutch pedal anymore. It's just two buttons or paddles on the steering wheel that can be triggered with the thumbs. One tells the computer to shift up a gear, the other to shift down. The computer takes care of adjusting optimum engine rpms for the shift, the timing, activating the gear changes, and the engagements of the clutches, to the point that for some time it has not been humanly possible to match the car's ability to shift gears.

Personally, I think it gives the driver more opportunity to focus on driving, instead of having to manage a bunch of other manual tasks.

Maybe what they'll eventually have to do to slow down F1 is put a couple of car seats in back, with crying kids who need bottles, toy dispute resolution, "are we there yet", drinking a mocha and changing CDs, all at the same time, to bring the driver's workload into more realistic realms of every day reality.

Re:Still a sport?

[Forbman]

The best tennis player in the world could not compete with a raquet from the 70s ...they would be able to compete if everyone else was using the same equipment.

Re:Still a sport?

[Forbman]

Not only that, but it is considerably more difficult to drive a real Formula 1 car which has no power steering as opposed

While not having driven one, I would say that the steering effort in a F1 car at speed is probably not nearly as bad as it is at 50 mph.

Did you ever notice why NASCAR cars have such huge steering wheels? I thought about this, and it has something to do with the tech rules as well as the geometry of the steering setup. When these cars are driving at 200+ mph, it helps dampen the driver's input compared to a smaller steering wheel, for this kind of car. In-car cameras shows NASCAR drivers making LOTS of steering wheel inputs all of the time at speed, and some of them seem to be relatively large amplitude inputs as well, all while zooming down the back straight.

I've read other articles about race car drivers, and you just don't hop into ANY race car and expect to drive it at speed. Do you remember how awkward it was to drive the first time, especially if you had a manual transmission car? How many times did you kill it while trying to start going uphill, until you learned how to either put the parking brake on to keep you from rolling back, how to do the gas pedal and brake with one foot while you feathered the clutch with your left foot, etc.?

The amazing thing about most race car drivers is not necessarily their ability to operate their cars at speed, but their abilities to pretty much operate the car consistantly, lap after lap.

Probably the most consistant driver right now is Michael Schumacher. He would clean up in riding lawn mower racing.

Like most things, it's not that there is specific training that will make you a good race car driver. Just like there isn't any training that will help you cut beef faster with less effort, shovel shit, lay bricks, frame buildings, etc. You just tend to get better and more efficient at doing them over time.

If you've ever done "construction" work, you might understand. There are some people who seem to do what they do very well. If I were a carpenter, it would be amazing to work with Norm Abrams. If I were an aspiring chef, Jacques Pepin. Have you seen him debone a chicken?

People like this make doing difficult things look breathlessly trivial. Some of it is talent, and the rest of it is just time and practice.

If you ever decide to do work on your house, watch a professional drywaller at work, and then do it yourself. You'll probably hire the drywaller. I know I will.

Re:Still a sport?

[ffejie]

I think you missed my point. I didn't say that a guy with a joystick would undergo the same stresses as a guy behind the wheel. Obviously, getting carried at intense speeds, thrown around curves and breaking is physically demanding.

However, a guy with a joystick COULD control the car. Given the right equipment, he could have the same exact setup as a guy behind the wheel (a video game being the most crude setup). Compare that to say, a football player who could not have a virtual setup and have it not be physical. A football player, assuming you could build such a series of controls, would still have to jump, run and catch in his sim.

In short, my problem with F1 is that the drivers don't physically do anything. All they have to do is withstand grueling conditions. There are plenty of other positions that require people to withstand grueling conditions, and no one calls them athletes.

flewp wrote: Race car drivers also put their lives on the line each time they step out on the track

If this is a legitimate argument, aren't police officers, firemen and countless other jobs dangerous as well?

Re:Still a sport?

[ffejie]

Ok, so are the engineers athletes? (Obviously /. crowd would love to see this be true.) Or is the driver the only athelete?

Is business a team sport? You're competing with other companies. You work in a team. You try to outpreform the other teams by doing something better, faster or cheaper.

Re:Still a sport?

[rampant poodle]

Parent was well stated. Lots of folks don't realize that F1 cars and their drivers operate at higher G forces that the space shuttle. NASCAR doesn't quite reach those force levels but the drivers are wrestling 3000 pound full bodied vehicles at bizzare speeds and cornering forces. Either way it is a physical work out.

Re:Still a sport?

[hackstraw]

thanks for sharing

Re:Still a sport?

[flewp]

I didn't miss your point. You clearly missed mine. You don't have one. Drivers are athletes because of those stresses and everything else. It takes a lot more physical ability to drive a race car than it does to play a simulation game. Yes, a guy with a joystick could do it, so what? You can throw a football and catch it, does that mean even if you're not an athlete that Brett Favre isn't an athlete?

F1 drivers do a lot more physically than you can actually imagine. Again, steering a car at the speeds they do with no power steering isn't as easy as driving your Toyota down the freeway. If you notice, the drivers are also constantly working with, and fighting with the car to keep it on edge. It may not look like they're doing a whole lot, but they really are. I don't have it handy, but I'll look for a video that shows this. It features a former driver talking about MS's skill as a driver, and the many corrections and adjuestmnents he makes throughout a series of turns. They're not visible simply by watching him, but rather, you have to look at the actual telemetry to see it. The fact is, they are constantly working to keep the car on edge to maintain the fastest possible line without going over the edge. I believe I asked you to actually get a clue before responding, did I not?

As for putting their lives on the line, I was simply pointing out that major difference between real racers and gamers. (Yes, simulations are still games). You also took this one single arguement as the sole basis for making an athlete, which is a rather stupid jump to conclusions by you.

Re:Still a sport?

[ffejie]

F1 drivers do a lot more physically than you can actually imagine. Again, steering a car at the speeds they do with no power steering isn't as easy as driving your Toyota down the freeway. If you notice, the drivers are also constantly working with, and fighting with the car to keep it on edge.

Well at least now we've thrown out that stupid ~4gs argument. So now it comes down to raw strength of turning a wheel and pushing the gas. Great, so now you're claiming that these "athletes" have the raw ability to turn a wheel. Is it harder than driving a car down a freeway? Absolutely. Does it require more talent (in reflexes and knowledge) than parallel parking? Sure. But to say it's a sport, simply because their only physical contribution is turning a wheel, that's ridiculous.

And I didn't turn the danger of being a driver into the sole basis of ahtletism. I was simply trying to wade through your many bullshit arguments about why these guys are athletes.

Re:Still a sport?

[flewp]

Well at least now we've thrown out that stupid ~4gs argument. So now it comes down to raw strength of turning a wheel and pushing the gas. Great, so now you're claiming that these "athletes" have the raw ability to turn a wheel. Is it harder than driving a car down a freeway? Absolutely. Does it require more talent (in reflexes and knowledge) than parallel parking? Sure. But to say it's a sport, simply because their only physical contribution is turning a wheel, that's ridiculous.

Everything they do makes them athletes. Not one single thing. You keep taking single points and act like I'm saying that they alone make them athletes.

But to say it's a sport, simply because their only physical contribution is turning a wheel, that's ridiculous.

I never said the sole physical contribution was turning a wheel. You did. You keep taking one single aspect of what they do and say that's my sole justification, and you're arguements are extremely weak. Sure, turning a wheel and hitting the gas and brakes may not seem like a whole lot, but it's the skill and the way they do it that speaks volumes. You're acting as if I said a basketball's player sole skill of throwing a basketball into a hoop makes them an athlete.

And I didn't turn the danger of being a driver into the sole basis of ahtletism.

Yes you did. When you said that cops, firefighters, etc should be considered athletes you did. Or at least, you implied it, or you implied that I said risking their lives made them athletes. Again, you keep taking single points of my arguement and isolate them to make your point instead of looking at it as a whole.

I'll say it again: It's everything they do that makes them athletes. It's not just having to deal with the g-loading, it's not just having to wrestle a car around a track, etc, it's EVERYTHING.

Formula 1 drivers compete in a sport where stamina, phenomonal hand-eye cooridination, phenomonal reflexes, among other things is absolutely required. To say they're not athletes is just plain retarded.

Re:Still a sport?

[flewp]

Yeah, a Formula 1 car generates roughly 600kg of downforce at 60mph, and at 120mph they're generating close to 2000kg of downforce. Obviousely that would depend on setup, but that's a paraphrased (numbers are the same, just different words) quote from April 2004's F1 Racing magazine.

Re:Still a sport?

[ffejie]

Formula 1 drivers compete in a sport where stamina, phenomonal hand-eye cooridination, phenomonal reflexes, among other things is absolutely required. To say they're not athletes is just plain retarded.

You missed one part of what they do: let the car do all the work.

Re:Still a sport?

[flewp]

Man, you're such an idiot it's not even funny. Sure, they have traction control above 62mph, but they don't have ABS or power steering or anything like that. That doesn't mean the car drives itself. And again, it's not exactly easy to keep the car in perfect control and be the fastest out there. Sure, a decent rookie race car driver *might* be able to pull within a second or two of the top driver's times after only a few laps, but to make up that last second gets exponentially harder.

Anyway, you have absolutely no clue, so I'm not going to further this discussion.

Re:Still a sport?

[ffejie]

Well I was hoping you would catch the drift that I wasn't interested in taking this further... but you had to go and call me an idiot.

Clearly we disagree on this stuff. Let's just leave it.

However, to take a parting shot at you: You claim I have no clue, but I would bet that you have no experience in racing these cars or even getting close to one of them. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that all of your opinions on the subject matter comes from reading articles and watching races which, incidentally, is the same exact place that my opinions come from.

Re:Still a sport?

[Biomechanical]

Hehe, you Yanks with your grid iron.

Pad this, pad that, chuck on a helmet...

I like Australian Rugby League for a good "big boofy blokes" sort of sport, and I miss the "Spear Tackle". >:)
For those ignorant of the Spear Tackle (WTF?! Heathen!), it's basically this,

• Blue Player, for example, has the ball and is running towards the Red Team's goal.
• Red players are chasing him.
• Upon reaching the Blue player, two or three of the red players will grab the blue player - not just one - and pick him up, tip him over, and drive him face first into the ground, but not maliciously of course.

Marvelous game. Download the rules off the net one day and try playing it. Remember, no padding or armour.

And as for V8 Supercars, well, what can I say?
Sure, 185mph (298kph) isn't the 200mph+ of nascar or F1, but then again, I can't walk into my local car dealership and buy the same car as a nascar or F1.
I can just about do that with V8 Supercars. :)

I much prefer the Australian sports arena to the yank or european one.

Re:Still a sport?

[Biomechanical]

Just a bit of an addendum.

Check Aussie Rules Football one day too. I see a lot of knee/shin/spike-soled-shoe on face action in that every time some guy jumps 5+ feet up to grab the ball. >:)

Re:Still a sport?

[JackRabbitSlims]

Since when F1 cars do not have power steering?. In the regulations for the 2005 F1 season, the FIA says:

Power assisted steering systems may not be electronically controlled or electrically powered. No such system may carry out any function other than reduce the physical effort required to steer the car.

It clearly prohibits the use of all-electrical steering, but not a mecanically asisted one -like any street car-. This is to avoid the risk of a power down failure and the consecuent inability to handle the car in any way.
The car industry has been holding this type of regulations as well and you won't be able to find a car without a means to drive it in case of total power failure
I've heard several F1 drivers that got their power steering broken while on race, and the nightmare it was to keep on the circuit trying to steer the car.

Re:Still a sport?

[Phantom Gremlin]

For the record, you're wrong about lack of power steering in an F1 car. Google is your friend.

So much of it comes down to science.

[Sheetrock]

It's almost scary that they leave the human element in there at all when you think about the amount of money they sink into these cars. Granted, win or lose you've got a ton of sponsors, but it's very nearly to the point where they might as well do everything with robots.

From complex wind shear modelling to the amount of flour to throw in the composite, almost all of the attention is paid to the machine -- it makes me wonder if they're shaving less time off the total than if they put this kind of focus on the driver (proper diet, reflexive training, etc.) Gran Turismo 3 demonstrates quite well the types of skills necessary to take on the track.

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[Anonymous Coward]

almost all of the attention is paid to the machine -- it makes me wonder if they're shaving less time off the total than if they put this kind of focus on the driver (proper diet, reflexive training, etc.)

Formula 1 drivers are some of the best athletes in the world. They train constantly and they are on strict athlete's diets. The G-forces they experience are amazing, both lateral and transversal(?). I believe driving some of the F1 races is equivalent to running a marathon. If a F1 driver isn't in top shape, they wouldn't even be able to finish a race. That is one of the advantages someone like Michael Schumacher has, he is an unbelievable athlete. Believe you me, the drivers are getting as much attention as the cars.

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[Ryan Amos]

Uh, dude, at this level of racing the drivers are already masters of the skills of the trade. That's what developmental leagues (NASCAR truck, regional driving leagues, etc.) are for; to become a good racer with vehicles that aren't quite so meticulously tuned. Every F1 or NASCAR racer out there has been driving cars very fast for at least 10 years. You don't just hop in to a Formula 1 car and drive; I honestly doubt most of us would be able to operate an F1 car at all. You have to keep the engine revved above 6000 RPM or it will get too cold and die. You have to regulate the fuel mixture or it won't get enough of either air or gas and die. Simple story is that they're not going to trust a $10 million car to someone who doesn't know how to drive it very very well. I think this says that most of the drivers have reached a skill level where the only deciding factor in a race is the car. If you're a fatass or if you don't know how to drive, well, you're not going to last in F1.

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[Brandybuck]

Gran Turismo 3 demonstrates quite well the types of skills necessary to take on the track.

Spoken like a true Slashdork. If you didn't learn it from a video game, it's not worth knowing...

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[Quarters]

Agreed. Thinking a few hours behind a DualShock and a copy of GT3 puts you at the same level as the Schummachers, Truli, Alonso, Montoya, Rikkonen, or Barrichelo is just pure hubris.

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Gran Turismo 3 demonstrates quite well the types of skills necessary to take on the track.

You mean the same game where a Cooper Mini can slip and slide slide while going around a *gentle* paved, dry curve going only 45mph?

Car racing games are more cartoon physics than gamers let on.

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[dafz1]

True, but it does make you appreciate it a whole lot more. Watching a race is a whole lot more enjoyable after a season of F1 Career Challenge. Set it for full damage and semi-automatic transmission(with a Logitech wheel) and you'll get an inkling how much goes into driving an F1 car. That doesn't include the G-forces or what it feels like to hit the wall at 300kph.

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[Konster]

They have to regulate fuel/air mixture SINCE WHEN? These things have been controlled by computer for a LONG time.

Idle on the BMW P83 is 4500 R.P.M. which is also CONTROLLED BY COMPUTER. Too cold and die? You REALLY think this?

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[l4mbch0ps]

The average f1 car revs to 18,000 rpm. So, letting it drop below 6000 rpm would basically mean you just lost the race/lap. If you ever watched one of those f1 races with "from the cockpit" views, with the g-force meters, and tachometers, you can watch them rev those things pretty much from 12-18grand all day long. I agree with your point that these drivers are incredibly skilled, but your examples are way to extreme/entirely wrong (the fuel/air mixture thing, as someone already corrected)

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[TheLink]

I don't know what era F1 car you are talking about, but driving a modern F1 car isn't that hard. F1 is NOT the same as NASCAR.

After all you just keep going round the same track over and over, there's semi auto transmission, tons of computers taking care of stuff. Give a decent driver some coaching and an hour or so and I think he/she could get the hang of driving it fast.

Do a search for "Alex Yoong" and F1. Driving it fast _enough_ is the hard part, as Alex Yoong found out.

In contrast driving in a rally race is probably harder for normal drivers. I'd probably crash and die the first bend I tried to go fast on.

Note, I'm not saying that rally drivers would be faster than F1 drivers when driving F1 cars.

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[the pickle]

I think this says that most of the drivers have reached a skill level where the only deciding factor in a race is the car.

Perhaps.

But that doesn't explain Valentino Rossi's success on two wheels, seemingly independent of manufacturer.

I suspect if Schuey were tossed into a competitor's ride, he'd *still* run away with the title. After all, Barrichello is driving essentially the exact same car, yet he doesn't win even half the races Schuey does. Nor would most other drivers in F1, if given the opportunity.

That right there is precisely why robots haven't taken over yet. They've yet to match the NI (as opposed to AI) of a human driver, and within the next 25 years, probably won't.

When motorsport becomes a question of which team hired the best programmers, it will cease to be interesting and popular.

p

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[Malc]

Do you have any idea? We're talking F1 here, not Indycar. Nigel Mansel went to Indycar as the world champion and beat the pants of everybody. After just one year in Indycar he was too fat to fit in an F1 car and too unfit to race F1 at all. F1 is extremely demanding of the drivers.

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[dorsey]

The rules no longer allow remote input from the pit, and a computer doesn't understand race strategy. A computer does the actual work, but it is in fact up to the driver to make the decision.

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[RageEX]

> it makes me wonder if they're shaving less time
> off the total than if they put this kind of focus
> on the driver (proper diet, reflexive training,
> etc.)

They do that too. Even if you don't want to call what the drivers do in the car a sport taken on their own each driver is a world-class athlete. Schumacher's training schedule and diet are frightening. Ever see the guy leap after a win? And they don't just hop in a car and go. They train all year, practice all year, test all year, drive all year.

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[RageEX]

Actually for a long time now the cars have had a fuel mixture knob on the steering wheel. If you listen to the pit radio you can hear them giving the driver advise about how to tune the mixture.

http://www.formula1.com/insight/technicalinfo/11 /6 45.html

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[RageEX]

> I agree with your point that these drivers are
> incredibly skilled, but your examples are way to
> extreme/entirely wrong (the fuel/air mixture
> thing, as someone already corrected)

Your overall statement might be right but it is true that the drivers control the cars fuel mixture. It's among the many controls found on the steering wheel. Perhaps 'control' is not the best word, perhaps 'alter.' It's typically done to lean the mixture and conserve fuel. Though I wouldn't be surprised if they could also get more power out of the car when needed by messing with the mix.

I wish people would google more things instead of just accepting the last thing they heard.

These are two good reads:

http://www.atlasf1.com/2000/aut/gray.html
http: //www.formula1.com/insight/

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[EaTiN cOfFeE bEaNs]

I honestly doubt most of us would be able to operate an F1 car at all. You have to keep the engine revved above 6000 RPM or it will get too cold and die. You have to regulate the fuel mixture or it won't get enough of either air or gas and die.

How about launching the car itself? With the clutch on the steering wheel itself, drivers in any other racing series other than F1 have troubles. Ask Jeff Gordon when he drove Juan Montoya's ride last year @ Indy for the "Tradin' Paint" publicity stunt.

Re:So much of it comes down to science.

[Forbman]

Sorry, even with the Logitech wheel, it leaves out way too much. There is more to the "seat of the pants" argument than people think. In a real car, you can feel things getting awkward in your ass and back, and even your hands. Playing GT3, there is none of that. In a real car, you can "feel" where your car is. In GT3, you can't.

Yes, GT3 is leaps and bounds above "Night Drivin'" standards.

Hey, watch that --

[RealProgrammer]

• Guess you have to be a little smarter than the average bear to race a car around in circles after all.

Bears are smart, you insensitive clod!

But seriously, I view anything people do with wrenches as magical.

It's so bad that when I go to a mechanic and they ask, "So, how big an engine's in that thing?", I hold my hands about two feet apart.

Re:Hey, watch that --

[shadowbearer]

Damn, wish we were closer. We could trade services - my wrenches and wrists for your coding tutoring :)

Nice website BTW.

SB

Shape of tires

[marol]

From the red areas in the images you can clearly see that round tires are inefficient. I propose shaping them oval as a step in optimizing the aerodynamics.

Re:Shape of tires

[notanatheist]

Shimano tried that with the bicycle. There was a chainring called the "bio ring" or something of that nature. It was thought to provide more efficient pedaling with each downstroke but cyclists know the efficiency is in the clipless pedals and "spinning".

Re:Shape of tires

[dafz1]

Actually it was called BioPace. The point of it was most cyclists don't have a fluid pedal stroke where even power is transmitted through the entire pedal stroke. Most cyclists have a flat spot in their pedal form, and the oval ring helped with the flat spot. The problem was too many cyclists developed knee problems because of the oval ring.

how about for bikes

[adeydas]

how about making a supercomputer for bikes... just another huge waste of money to me...

Re:how about for bikes

[homer_ca]

The MotoGP bikes put on a great show, but compared to F1 the machines are simpler and the engineering budgets are smaller. Motorcycle racer Eddie Lawson probably put it best when he said,

"The truth about racing cars is that if a competent driver is in a great car, he will win. Yet a great driver in a bad car has no chance. On motorcycles, maybe a good rider on a bad bike won't win, but he definitely has a chance. In cars, you have no chance without the best machinery." (Interview is in the Dec '04 Motorcyclist mag. Not online yet.)

Does that sound like F1?

Re:how about for bikes

[ottawanker]

Maybe F1 recently, because Ferrari definately seems to have the best equipment, and some of the other great drivers haven't had much chance, but if you're trying to take a shot at Michael Schumacher, you're way off base. He's the one who helped make Ferrari the dominant force in Formula1.

Also, while Formula1 now is not as exciting as it was in say the early nineties, there's still tons of great racing, just usually its in the middle of the pack, and the television feeds tend to ignore it.

Re:how about for bikes

[SatanMat]

Yet a great driver in a bad car has no chance.

perhaps... You have a point proved by Verstoppen in 2002, Most passes in the season, worst car on the grid. had no chance of doing anything...

now on the oderhand... Jacques in the last 4 seasons great driver in crap car did NOTHING... shit for points.

drivers are as important as the car but you have to have both... But would anyone deny that Schumi (who I hate) is THE best driver ever? and that the Ferrari ir the bets car on the track? Driver and car MUST be as one... of course I could be wrong...

Re:how about for bikes

[homer_ca]

Schumacher couldn't beat Hakkinen for the championship when the Ferrari was the slower car. Although it was impressive when he won the championships in the less powerful Benetton Ford V8.

Re:how about for bikes

[Zeinfeld]

Schumacher couldn't beat Hakkinen for the championship when the Ferrari was the slower car. Although it was impressive when he won the championships in the less powerful Benetton Ford V8.

Yes, but the better driver usually ends up with the better car. Schumacher won many races despite not having the best car on the grid, at Benneton and later at Ferrari. Every driver on the grid knows that Schumacher is by far the best driver there.

Drivers can also have a huge effect on their teams. The main reason that Ferrari turned itself from a stereotypically disorganized Italian outfit into the dominant team is Schumacher.

Sure you don't have a chance in F1 unless you can raise at least $250 million a year, Ferrari raise much more.

Re:how about for bikes

[lew3004]

That's similar to what I've been saying all along in the US on NASCAR vs open wheel racing. In my opinion, NASCAR is not true racing. All you ever have to do is turn left and in the "off chance" that a driver connects with another driver it's generally no big deal and accepted in that form of racing as part of the sport. Try that shit in open wheel (IRL / CART / F1 / Sprint) and not only do you endanger yourself or another driver but the entire racing field. Generally speaking, I think it's more idealistic for an open wheel racer to transfer to NASCAR than the inverse; just because of the driving styles. That and the whole inbreed circumstance that just seems to loom over NASCAR; both in the drivers and the fans. The lack of refinement in the fan base / driver mentality never ceases to amaze me when I'm forced to endure a NASCAR race during a party or social event. NASCAR should go back to it's roots when Daytona was actually raced on the beach with TRUE production cars. At least then I'd have a little more respect.

Re:how about for bikes

[Llama_STi]

I think Rossi proved that you can have a shit bike and still win. This year he went to the worst bike on the grid from the best the previous year. He absolutely owned everyone this season and last. Bikes aren't quite as bad off as F1, obviously.

Re:how about for bikes

[CodeArtisan]

Schumacher probably had only the second best car when he won the World Championship for Benetton too. Mansell was, arguably, driving the best one at the time.

Williams too... and with Linux

[loner0208]

The Williams team also uses a scupercomputer to do a lot of their modelling, thanks to one of their major sponsors HP and a Linux supercomputer.

Re:Williams too... and with Linux

[Spellbinder]

it acctually runs linux .. to sauber petronas one search for the AMD press release

Sponsors for F1

[BurningCorpse]

Is Panera sponsoring any cars this year? You know a Ferrari/Panera partnership would be a tasty proposition. However, I wouldn't want people spraying hot coffee if they won the race.

bread statistics

[Fishstick]

75% !! bread is evil and must be stopped...

I've done a little research, and what I've discovered should make anyone think twice....

- More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.

- Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.

- In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid,yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.

- More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.

- Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month!

- Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.

- Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.

- Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.

- Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 80 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.

- Newborn babies can choke on bread.

- Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.

- Most bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

In light of these frightening statistics, we propose the following bread restrictions:

- No sale of bread to minors.

- A nationwide "Just Say No To Toast" campaign, complete with celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers.

- A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.

- No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.

- The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools.

http://www.obnoxiousfumes.com/archives/000376.html

Re:bread statistics

[the pickle]

I've seen that before, and I think it's highly entertaining, but one thing about it has always bothered me...

It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse.

Are there studies on this? Would it really take a whole POUND of bread dough to suffocate a mouse? I think I could probably accomplish it with as little as a tablespoon with sufficient motivation and some thick gloves...

Ah, the important questions in life.

p

Re:bread statistics

[uglyduckling]

Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.

I've heard this one a few times before (well, without the bread bit) and it's always amused me. There's no reason to suppose that 50% of people would be below average - unless we're talking about a median average, but most people are thinking about the mean when they say 'average'. It's perfectly possible with a mean for the curve to be skewed one way or the other so that a lot more people are to one side of the mean than the other - all it takes are a few extremes that are not excluded as outliers.

Re:bread statistics

[caswelmo]

We've all "heard this one before". And you're exactly correct. The thing is, we just don't give a shit. Neither should you.

Re:bread statistics

[Fishstick]

well put. I know everyone's heard it before -- I spotted the typo in the summary first thing and it reminded me of the bread/statistice thing so I googled and found it and copy/pasted (with attribution) under the first reply pointing out the typo.

karma be damned

Design

[Stripsurge]

Given all the rules in F1 won't computers eventually calculate the same optimal design for everyone? One set of paramters should have only one correct solution, no? Clearly we're not at that point yet as some designs are significantly different than others. When that happens it will be back to just the performance of the driver rather than the current combination of skill and car.

Re:Design

[flydude18]

That could happen, but the FIA has a nasty habit of changing the rules every few years. Any solution will probably be reached first by the teams with most money, leaving at least some performance difference.

Re:Design

[tool462]

One set of paramters should have only one correct solution, no?

Not at all. There are many systems with multiple solutions. Is this one of them? I don't know, but there's no reason to assume it's not. I'd argue that the more complex the system, the more likely it is that there are multiple, very different solutions, and what's more complicated than fluid dynamics?

Re:Design

[dafz1]

No, a couple of Ferrari engineers will shop around the aero and other build info from the last year's car. Another team will give the former Ferrari engineers a job, integrate the information into their computers, make improvements, and then tell the cops it can't be removed because it may give away their car's secrets(where have I heard this argument before? SCO is creating a new way of doing business).

In all seriousness, having the ideal optimal design is unlikely. Most teams have their own engines, which bring different performance characteristics. They even change the engine mapping during pitstops. There are two different tire companies, a number of different compounds. Take in different track temps, air temps, etc. Then you take different tracks(Monaco vs. Monza), and there will never be an optimal design, just an optimal compromise.

This doesn't include the driver, which is the biggest difference. Look at the aggresive drivers like Montoya or Alonzo, compared their more conservative teammates. Similar/same cars, much different speeds.

Re:Design

[harmanjd]

and what's more complicated than fluid dynamics?

Chasing a 2 year old through a libary?

Re:Design

[Forbman]

Then you take different tracks(Monaco vs. Monza), and there will never be an optimal design, just an optimal compromise.

The NASCAR way is to have about 15 different cars set up at the home office. Going to Pocono? OK, take the "road" car. Going to Bristol? Take one of the short-track cars. Going to Talledega? Take the superspeedway car.

NASCAR might be more interesting if they stuck to one car setup per season.

Re:Design

[Hognoxious]

"...there will never be an optimal design, just an optimal compromise."

There is no optimal design, just a sufficiently non-pessimal one.

Too much tech?

[Tom Bombadill]

On Fifth Gear recently (11/22) Jackie Stewart was saying that Schumacher makes more mistakes every Gran Prix weekend than any GP racer he has ever know.

Reliance on tech, whether track data or ASR and ABS in race cars has arguably reduced the ultimate skill levels demanded of racing's elite.

Re:Too much tech?

[Moofie]

OK, so what happens to your argument when I tell you that ABS and stability management (I assume that's what you're talking about when you say ASR) are banned in F1 racing?

Re:Too much tech?

[PHPhD2B]

Of course, he can say that knowing full well he'll never be put in a new F1 car to put his mouth where his money is. Did occur to anybody Jackie Stewart might be a bit JEALOUS of Michael Schumacher's accomplishments?

Re:Too much tech?

[mOoZik]

No offense to Jackie Stewart, but that statement - if true - shows what a moron he is. Schumacher is the best of the best: period. He is not the best because he drives the best car. Before F1, he was also the best in his respective type of racing. To make such sweeping statements about the best paid athlete - and arguably the best driver on the face of this earth - is moronic, at best.

Re:Too much tech?

[WolfWithoutAClause]

No. He said something more along the lines of:

Schumacher makes more mistakes in a Grand Prix weekend than anyone of my generation in their entire careers.

Of course they were driving their cars a lot 'slower', partly because the cars went more slowly, but mostly because if it left the track, you were highly likely to die- they weren't even wearing seatbelts. F1 driver life expectancy was about 3 or 4 years in those days.

Personally, I think Jackie was exagerating for effect, but he had a point.

Re:Too much tech?

[the pickle]

You've lost the important point...

Schuey still makes fewer mistakes than his competitors.

That's why he's on top of the podium every damn weekend, and they aren't.

It also proves that driver skill, not simply the engineering department at the manufacturer, is the ultimate and deciding factor in F1, just as it's (almost) always been.

p

Re:Too much tech?

[phaze3000]

I think the point JYS was actually making was that drivers of today make far more mistakes than those in his day. I've no doubt this is true - in the days JYS was racing several drivers died every year, a mistake would often cost you your life. Cars then were a hell of a lot more 'twitchy' than now.
In modern F1 drivers can *afford* to make more mistakes - partly because of technology like traction control (ABS has been outlawed in F1 since the Prost bore-fest that was 1993), but mainly because one can afford to make mistakes. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that if racers drove as conservatively as they did as in JYS's day they'd never even make it into the lower Forumlas, let alone F1.

Re:Too much tech?

[Zaphod_Beebleburp]

Where do these "you're not an F1 driver so your opinion means nothing" comments come from? I'm not an F1 driver, but it's still the same argument of walking up hill both ways in the snow. Was Sir Jackie Stewart a great driver?, without question. Does that make him worth listening to?, Of course. It doesn't mean he's impervious to farting out the wrong hole once in a while. So many aspects of F1 have changed since Stewart drove that even he can't accurately compare the two eras. Stewart is probably correct in saying that Schumacher (actually every current driver in F1) makes mistakes, but if the telemetry available today were available when he was driving, it would most likely show that his comment is insignificant. What does he have to compare his mistakes to the current genre of F1 drivers? With all do respect, until there is a ranking for errors in the telemetry data, I'll pass this off as cranky retired champion syndrome.

Re:Too much tech?

[TomV]

Bear in mind that in the era when Jackie Stewart won his Championships, F1 was a bloodsport. Jackie Stewart's greatest achievement was survival. Back then, a single mistake in a 200mph race could, and too often did, cost the driver his life. Nowadays (touch wood) barring that one horrible weekend at San Marino in 1994, a 'serious' accident leads to concussion and a few broken bones. Every driver now makes far more mistakes that used to be the case. It's just that they don't die as a consequence.

It's simply unreasonable to compare the skills needed thirty years ago with those needed today. It's not the same game. There are skills needed now that weren't then, and skills needed then that aren't needed now (not destroying your engine with a badly timed gearchange comes to mind).

As a triple World Champion of unimpeachable skill and talent, I don't think Stewart's got anything to be jealous of.

Re:Too much tech?

[Hognoxious]

The Jaguar F-1 team Jackie used to own was just trashed (again) by Ferrari and summarily discarded for pennies by Ford Motor, who was the current owner.

Which proves what about his driving ability, or the statement you think you're refuting?

Re:Too much tech?

[jeremyp]

Jackie Stuart has had nothing to do with Jaguar since the team was sold to them. When he did run the team, it was a reasonable middle of the pack outfit which lacked for nothing except money.

By the way Jaguar had nothing to do with the team either. It's just that Ford decided it would be a sexier name than "Ford".

Re:Too much tech?

[klmth]

Jackie Stewart can say this because he was there, creating the safety network that allows the drivers to make some mistakes without having to fear for their lives. Stewart was and is one of the biggest proponents of safety in motorsports. His comment was not intended to be a slight at Schumacher, but rather a comment of how far we've come with regards to safety.

When you don't have to fear for your life, you tend to push harder, and when you push harder, you make more mistakes.

Re:omg he said bread

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Korea, all your old *cars that are dying make beowulf clusters of bread and hot grits sandwiches for profit!!!

my vote is ....

[CestusGW]

That we introduce a forced limit on how good your steering/braking system can be relative to the maximum output of your vehicle. Say you're only allowed to have enough downforce applied etc. to maintain reasonable control at half your engine's top output. That way, the mediocre drivers would drive more cautiously, whereas the truely amazing drivers could push their cars to a very very dangerous point and win the race .... or crash in a spectacular fashion. Which makes us (the spectators) that much more happy.

Re:my vote is ....

[Wiener]

my vote is ... That we introduce a forced limit on how good your steering/braking system can be

That already exists...it's called stock car racing (primarily NASCAR for those of you unfamiliar with autosports).

Re:my vote is ....

[endlessoul]

To some people, that sounds like a "bang-up" idea (pun intended), but to those who know the sport can see that as a bad notion. Even the best people in the world have off days. If it were to make the spectators happy, it's OK, right? Because some awesome racer just died in a fireball of racing fuel, as long as it gets ratings, it's OK?

Not in my book.

Re:my vote is ....

[flydude18]

While we all like technologically advanced vehicles, it has made the sport a bit... well, boring. Passing outside the pits has virtually been eliminated on most circuits, because of the heavy reliance on aerodynamics. On the other hand, I'm not advocating going to pre-1968 configurations, it was dangerous enough then, it would probably be worse now. Some sort of a middle would probably be best for the sport.

Re:my vote is ....

[penguinoid]

Wow. A poster who is all for reducing the control over one's car, to make races more enterteaining to watch. I'm sure the lawyers would love that idea. I'm also sure that you would be firmly against anything similar that would affect your own life (eg a keyboard that occasionally types the wrong letter, to make Slashdot posts more amusing. Although on second thought this might not be the best such example).

Re:my vote is ....

[dafz1]

Passing in F1 is minimized for two reasons. The first is the tracks. Tracks are too narrow, overtaking is next to impossible, especially at Monaco and Imola. Secondly, the top tier cars are too equal(usually...this year was an exception, with no car being legally[Williams at Canada] competitve with the Ferraris[and Kimi at Spa]). Only when people get ballsy(JPM at Spa or Sato at Hockenheim) does F1 get exciting.

Re:my vote is ....

[flydude18]

The tracks are not too narrow. Monaco is an exception, most tracks are wide enough. One element of track design did contribute to the murder of passing, and that's the addition of chicanes. The simplest and safest passing maneuver can occur at a sharp corner after a very long straight, because it is possible to utilize drafting on the straight, outbraking in the braking zone, and the geometry is favorable if you get on the inside. There are no longer any very long straights. The top cars are near equal, but that has never stopped passing. The problem with heavy reliance on aerodynamics is that the surfaces of the car in the back will not be as effective passing through the air disturbed by the car in front.

Re:my vote is ....

[j_zero]

imola april 29 - may 1 1994. those who follow formula one know the significance of this weekend: it was a weekend that saw roland ratzenberger, and ayrton senna (whom even nascars beloved dale earnhardt was very fond of) die in "a crash in a spectacular fashion". those who follow formula one will also remember the utter disgust felt of those who stood cheering in the stands when kimi raikkonen went off and into a wall at hockenheim at high speed in "a crash in a spectacular fashion". if you watch motor racing to see "a crash in a spectacular fashion", you need to have "a crash in a spectacular fashion", and see what this does to the drivers psyche.

That's just a steaming pile of shit

[penguinoid]

I suppose you all already know what shape is the most aerodynamically efficient shape for soft solids...

Multiplication?

[MP3Chuck]

From TFA: "To achieve the same computing performance, the entire population of the city of Zurich would have to multiply two eight-digit figures every four seconds for a whole year."

Does anyone have a conversion from "multiplying two eight-digit numbers" to "reading through a Library of Congress?"

Fast car won't guarantee an F1 win

[Taco Cowboy]

Sauber Petronas can launch whatever supercomputer they want, but if they can't get top gradeed drivers such as Michael Schumacher, they won't be able to be the #1 team for Formula One.

Although computing power is extremely useful for the F1 race, it's the driver who makes the difference.

How many times has Michael Schumacher turned the situation around, owning to his quick wit and his superb skill ?

Unfortunately, also-run teams such as Sauber Petronas never learn the lesson. They kept thinking that technology will win the day.

We know that the Sauber team has a "rich daddy", its sponsor, Petronas Malaysia, has pumped BILLIONS into Sauber, and the money does make a difference - Sauber climbed from nobody to #3 or #4 in the team ranking.

The climb, although is encouraging, doesn't mean much, if its drivers keep crashing the cars. For the past 3 years, the Sauber Petronas drivers had had to drop out many, many times, due to car crashes.

How to grab the #1 spot if your driver can't even finish the race ?!

Re:Fast car won't guarantee an F1 win

[ottawanker]

Sauber has Villeneuve on their team this year, and while he didn't exactly shine in the races he did last year, they have been at the top of the charts recently in testing. They are running Ferrari engines, and this year switched from Bridgestone to Michelin tires, which should help them where they've been hurting, which is qualifying and the beginning of their runs.

Also, how would Sauber get good drivers if they didn't have the needed technology, like their new wind tunnel and supercomputer? At least now they have very real potential.

Re:Fast car won't guarantee an F1 win

[flewp]

To take any information from the numbers in testing right now is pointless. We won't know what teams have competent packages until Melbourne in March.

Re:Fast car won't guarantee an F1 win

[ottawanker]

Actually, if this year was any indication, we probably won't know until June. Still, the results were promising, and show that Villeneuve can still drive a car at a good speed around the track at a time slightly faster than his teammate.

Re:Fast car won't guarantee an F1 win

[flewp]

Well, you also have to consider JV will have more seat time at the start of next year than he did when he filled in at the end of this past season. There is no replacement for seat time in Formula 1. I think a lot of people were dissapointed with his results at the end of this past season, but I'm sure he'll do better this year (proportionally to how good his car is)

Re:Fast car won't guarantee an F1 win

[Tomic B24CD]

The ability to test new aero packages, often and quickly will be a huge advantage for suber, due to the constant changing of the F1 rules and regulations, not to mention the different interpretations of regulations. The new Sauber wind tunnel, coupled with their already superior aero dinamics team should give them an edge in taking advantage of the new regulations, provvided they can construct a more stable chassis this season.

It is good to see that F1 is still interested in utilizing technology to better performance. One might assume that Ecelstone had killed the desire to be the highest form of racing.

Re:Fast car won't guarantee an F1 win

[TomServo]

Sauber actually did a decent job of turning their fortunes around this past season, I thought. Of the second-tier teams, they did the best, beating out teams like Jaguar and Toyota.

Out of the past few races:

Brazil - 8th and 9th, 1 point
Japan - 8th and 9th, 1 point
China - 7th and 8th, 3 points
Italy - 8th and 12th, 1 point
Belgium - 4th and 5th, 9 points
Hungary - 8th and DNF (brake failure), 1 point
Germany - 9th and 13th, no points

It's only the last 7 races of the season, but no driver-caused accident for either of the drivers, usually at the top of the 2nd-tier teams, and, given that they had a Ferrari drivetrain, improving the chassis and aero would probably make them quite a bit quicker, I don't think anyone can argue that their cars alone are as fast as the BARs, Williams, and Ferraris out there, despite the Ferrari engine.

I thought Fisichella and Massa did a pretty decent job given what they had, and they held up rather well. I'd say the honor of crashing a lot should go to Jag and Jordan, though in Jordan's case, I'd blame that more on that horrid chassis rather than the drivers.

Amazing!

[pipingguy]

Fluid dynamics problems have been finally solved by a bunch of overpaid mechanics that work on F1 cars with high technology monitoring equipment.

I'm sure that this research relates directly to the mileage of my Hemi.

Re:Amazing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of double overhead cams, disc brakes, bucket seats, the vtec engine? Where do you think they came from? to name a few.

You do know that F1 uses regular pump gas, and that by definition, they want their engines to be as efficient as possible (less thirsty, less time wasted in the pits refueling), so a lot of their engine research comes back to regular cars.

Re:Amazing!

[zmollusc]

Don't those things (except maybe variable valve timing) pre-date F1?

Re:Amazing!

[EaTiN cOfFeE bEaNs]

Well if it weren't for Mercedes bailing out Chrysler and doing all the hard engineering work for them, you wouldn't see rear-drive, Hemi-powered Mopars today. The rear ends are all Mercedes' work, and all they had to do was drop them onto their own platforms. Where does Mercedes get a bit of their tech. data from? Their F1 team.

Re:Amazing!

[Datafage]

...uh, I'm not sure on the exact dates of all of those, but F1 goes back to the beginning of the last century, then between the World Wars it took some time off before coming back in the early fifties and running continuously through the present. In other worse, before most modern automobile advances were made.

Re:Amazing!

[Scooter]

Yeah and uh.. how many football fields is that anyway?

Damn, I was going to post it, "New Standard Unit"!

[PaulBu]

And almost did, but you beat me to that...

Paul

Re:omg he said bread

[penguinoid]

quick make a million different jokes!!
that are all lame!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I'm sure most of the jokes I'll be making will be lame. Especially since I sprained my ankle 2 days ago.

Sorry, I just belong to the bread that makes lame jokes.

Well

[michelcultivo]

Maybe a better car on 2005 or headaches.

Imagine what would happen...

[Baldrson]

If all the engineering energy that goes into NASCAR suddenly went into rockets -- we'd be the last generation bound to the earth.

Re:Imagine what would happen...

[randall_burns]

The thing is, you _can_ theoretically go orbital using the level of technology used in NASCAR. What will really make space happen is getting the guvviews and corporate sociopaths out of the way.

Re:Imagine what would happen...

[UrlorJkron]

"Houston, we got a problem in turn three.."

Re:Imagine what would happen...

[Baldrson]

In F1 the fuel they use for time trials costs $1k/litre

So F1 is the NASA of car racing.

Sorry, I didn't mean to insult the F1 people like that.

Wonder which OS this thing is run on ?

[Taco Cowboy]

Is it Windows ?

Or is it Linux ?

Re:Wonder which OS this thing is run on ?

[Smidge204]

DOS...

=Smidge=

Re: your sig

[metricmusic]

Isn't that from Return of the Jedi? or did hey steal it from Star Trek?

The Driver Makes the Car

[iowannaski]

Schumacher skill is not limited to race day. He drives the best car in part because he provides better feedback to his engineers than any other driver. Ther are teams with bigger budgets than Ferrari, and probably teams with better engineers. All of that is useless unless the driver can drive the car the team can build, and the team can build the car the driver can drive. Schumacher excels not only on race day, but every other day of the week. He is better than any other driver at communicating to his engineers what he needs and understanding what they build.

Re:The Driver Makes the Car

[ottawanker]

The only team I know with a bigger budget than Ferrari is Toyota, and look at what they've done with they budget.. haha. They're getting real value for their money.

Re:The Driver Makes the Car

[dorsey]

What Toyota don't seem to have figured out is that no amount of money can make up for high employee turnover. Ferrari are where they are because they were patient when they weren't doing so well and didn't go around firing everyone every time something bad happened.

Re:The Driver Makes the Car

[daniil]

The problem Toyota is facing is the same one that killed Jaguar: they're too busy politicking instead of actually running the team.

Re:The Driver Makes the Car

[flewp]

Yep, Ferrari has had a core team for awhile now, and many of them worked together before 1996, when Ferrari started to develop into what it is today.

Linux vs. Windows

[Taco Cowboy]

According to Fluent.com's own pages, the software requires a minimum of 256 MB or RAM to run, under both the Linux and Windows. However, under Windows, it requires 35 MB of drive space for the software, and on the other hand, under Linux, the disk space requirement is 50-75 MB.

Does that mean Linux installation is more troublesome ?

Re:Linux vs. Windows

[damiam]

It probably means that the Linux version is statically linked to every library it could possibly need.

Ferarri is outsourcing

[sokoban]

Really, Ferarri is outsourcing a lot of their computer engineering work to india from now on out. They are ending their AMD deal over it.

But....

[Sileighty]

Yeah, but is it Duke Nukem Forever ready?

Sauber Petronas in Unique Situation Next Season

[ngyahloon]

Sauber Petronas will be in a rather awkward and yet unique position next season. As all F-1 fans know, there's a great tyre war going between Michelin (BMW-Williams, BAR-Honda, Renault, Mclaren-Mercedes, Toyota, Sauber Petronas, Red Bull Racing) and Bridgestone (Ferrari, Jordan, Minardi). Sauber Petronas buys their engines from Ferrari (incidentally the only top team in Bridgestone) and they will be switching to the Michelin tyres for next season. So, it will be very hard for Sauber Petronas to find trust from both their engine and tyre suppliers. Hence their need to find more speed based on their own R&D, maybe more this year.

Re:Sauber Petronas in Unique Situation Next Season

[dafz1]

Sauber was faster than the Ferraris(and everyone else) at Jerez Dec. 1, 2, and 3rd. Things are looking up for Sauber. It's good too, these two years at Sauber should be better for JV than the last two at BAR.

Also note, Sauber used Ferrari transmissions in 2004, but will be using their own this year.

Re:Sauber Petronas in Unique Situation Next Season

[flewp]

Testing at this point means absolutely nothing. It's simply way too early to tell. None of the teams have actually launched their 2005 spec chassis and aero packages.

Not only that, but people scoffed at the F2004, saying Ferrari made no improvements in the offseason. Well look what happened.

In the future, computers will..... (it's a joke)

[1iar_parad0x]

This reminds me of a joke by Richard Feynman...

In the future an engineer will write a paper about a new type of computer. It will be the fastest running computational fluid dyanmics simulation in the world. It will be nothing more than a man blowing through a straw. Not every "computer" is digital. Unless of course you are a logician.

Richard Feynman had quite a bit of experience with computers. Aside from heading up the scientific computing program during the Manhattan Project, he published several papers on scientific computation, and lectured frequently about the outer limits of computation (analog and digital).

Rock on

[jrwillis]

Best damned sport out there if you ask me. GO SATO!!

That's somewhat of an overstatement.

[Chuck Chunder]

I think most cars even have anti-stall technology these days. Basic operation of an F1 car would quite simple.

The problem most of us would face would be avoiding shitting ourselves when we put our foot on the loud pedal.

Of course, you need to be highly skilled to be even vaguely competative in one.

Oh no!

[xeon4life]

Heard at the White House earlier today:

"Oh no! We're about to lose a whole group of voters when the Nascar dads hear about this..."

What? Where is it?

[Time_Ngler]

Imagine a beowulf cluster of these.

75%?!?!?!

[absurdist]

With aerodynamics contributing a claimed 75% of the performance of the current bread of cars OK, ignoring the whole bread != breed thing... so if I remove the engines they will still go 75% of top speed?

Re:75%?!?!?!

[f1rb]

It is probably referring to the delta: of the ~1 second annual decrease in lap time, 0.75s comes from aerodynamic improvements. Rule changes (mainly affecting aerodynamics) tend to make this sort of year-to-year comparison difficult.

Re:75%?!?!?!

[Hobbex]

It means if you replace the current style of bodywork by a box, the car will be 75% slower.

Isn't that rather arbitrary. I mean, if you replace it with a full rig sail the car will hardly be able to move. So then it must be 99.99% of performance really?

Car vs. Driver

[Ctrl Alt De1337]

I don't know how it is in F1 since it doesn't get much coverage in America outside of Michael Schumacher's annual championship and the now-and-then spectacular crash, but in NASCAR I would say the 75% car/25% driver ratio is not accurate. Great drivers tend to win more often than lousy drivers. You'll see Kurt Busch or Dale Jr. say after a race "Well, we didn't have the best or fastest car today, but we worked hard and won it," and usually they're right - they won because of great driving and pit strategy. Compare with "Front Row" Joe Nemechek who racks up pole position after pole position in qualifying showing that he often has excellent cars, but he has only 3 victories to his name in 11 years on the top circuit. It takes a good car to win, but also a great driver to get it around the track in one piece and good pit strategy and times to preserve or make up time and make sure it doesn't run out of gas on the last lap.

stupid title

[dthx1138]

if formula 1 racing is just a matter of "crunching numbers" then designing anything using computer simulations is just a matter of crunching the numbers. people do realize that CFD/panair was created for PLANES right?

Re:stupid title

[dthx1138]

of course i do. unfortunately, that is totally irrelevant to the point i was making, which was that:

everything that uses computer simulations, i.e. CFD, is "just a matter of numhers"

nice machine silly usage

[mantle_etching]

so someone finally built a machine to handle doom3 full detail? is it just me or is this overkill? TB's of memory and storage? for F1 racing? did I miss something? with another couple TB's this thing will be able to predict David Beckham's hairstyle in 2006 or analyze Barry Bond's drug test samples effectively. now there's something to put computing power towards.

Re:nice machine silly usage

[fafaforza]

"is it just me or is this overkill?"

It's an investment. If Sauber feels the simulator will get them better positions on the grid, it will get them more money from the FIA and sponsors.

Re:nice machine silly usage

[mantle_etching]

and this is F1 racing?

i get the point of the article, but as a person that makes car payments, car insurance payments, pays an inflated amount of money for fuel, and spends up most of my driving time in traffic i honestly don't see the point of any form of car racing. there is no reason to glorify an object (the automobile in its current form) anymore that is the main user of the most geo-politically volitile resource. why don't they figure out a way to replace the combustion engine or do something useful. going around in circles wasting gasoline/petrol is a WASTE. moreso than my daily commute. uneducated/unwealthy/unmotivated soldiers are dying in Iraq right now so these fluid dynamics problems have the fuel and to be solved.

my original post was a stab at humor.

obviously a failed attempt.

as an american if this were NASCAR it would have made more sense. (that was sarcasm as was the whole original post.)

Re:nice machine silly usage

[fafaforza]

You kinda lost me with this reply. Dunno, maybe the whole thing is sarcasm, though I don't get it.

But to answer the oil question (which came out of the left field): sure I feel uneasy when watching F1. But for motorsports to stop, there would have to be a very widespread and coherent agreement between the audience to reject the sport. I doubt that would happen any time soon, seeing how large cars and SUVs sell like hot cakes in the US.

The way I figure it, far more fuel savings and efficiency can be gained from eliminating cars idling in traffic (I live in NYC) by improving traffic flows or allowing engines to run at minimum revs, or by swapping SUVs that most of the time transport a single person for a smaller Civic, instead of using cars to boost their social status and show off their wealth.

But if anything, motorsports will be the place that develops alternative fuel sources. In 2003 there was a car at Le Mans that ran purely on alcohol. In the past things like seatbelts, cabin design, break systems, and other safety developments were pioneered in auto racing. Companies like Mercedes and BMW have money invested in racing, and teams that run alternative fuels gather lots of information that can be used by auto manufacturers to develop cars that run on clean burning fuels, like BMW have done with their 7 series that runs on methane.

Once there is a much stronger push for clean burning fuels in cars, data gathered from these racing teams will make it cheaper for manufacturers to switch over, and since the bottom line is king in the corporate world, any chance of a change over will be made more possible thanks partly to the contribution of racing teams.

Aaaaah, the memories!

[zmollusc]

This takes me back a good few years to when car companies were competing over how aerodynamic their cars were. I think the audi 80 featured its drag factor in all the ads. Nowadays, of course, there is no such thing as aerodynamics and we all drive round in big boxy 4x4 glasshouses.

Re:In the future, computers will..... (it's a joke

[florescent_beige]

If you think about it, its not hard to convince yourself a completely accurate numerical simulation of anything requires as many computational elements as there are elements in the real problem, which in this case might be the number of gas molecules in the flow field. Anything less results in discretisation errors unless your field equation (usually a PDE) is completely accurate.

It's getting to the point where F1 spends more money on their zoomy gizmos than most serious engineering companies spend on development. It makes me wonder what the ultimate goal of capitalism really is. One day we'll learn it's really all about rich dudes getting laid and exacting revenge for high school.

More to the point, 75% of what? Maybe what that means is if you invest equal amounts of resources in every discipline on a current-technology car, .75 of the normalized incremental change in the speed around the circut will be due to the investment in aero and .25 will be due to the investment in everything else. I doubt anyone has done such a sensitivity study for real though.

Still a sport?

[gnalle]

Just for reference: The article does not mention anything about computers taking decission for the driver. It describes the aquisition of a wind tunnel and a large cluster for doing computational fluid dynamics (CFP). These two toys will help the Sauber Petrona team to optimize the outer shape of the car.

The news us that large clusters have become a useful tool for analyzing the aerodynamics of a race car.

Re:What ever ..

[RageEX]

What does this have to do with F1? F1 has never involved sports cars.

If you like sports car racing (which I do) there are many many leagues out there. Heck without much expense you can join the SCCA and go racing yourself.

And if you like vintage sports car racing (which I do) they still do that too. Take a trip to Monteray, Goodwood, Watkins Glen, or a million other places and you can see people racing cars from years past.

Auto racing is physically and mentally exhausting

[xtal]

Even from the beginning, technology played a huge part in racing. And as far atheletism, it plays a bigger part in F1 than in many other forms of auto racing.

I take it you're speaking from a position of complete ignorance. Auto racing is one of the most exhausting activities you can do - you need absolutely flawless concentration and a LOT of upper body strength to toss around ANY kind of competitive racecar, even a shifter kart. To say nothing of the temperatures and cornering forces you are subjected to.

Getting out of a car after a 20 lap sprint is equivilant to a huge workout, and if you think otherwise - I suggest you try it.

No cooling for those computers?

[Bender Unit 22]

How on earth do they cool those servers?, the front is solid and there's no holes for air anywhere in front of the computers.
Maybe they have made holes in the side of them since there seems to be a bit of space between them.
But you don't see many computer companies that support racks with solid doors anymore.

Re:No cooling for those computers?

[rdunnell]

You mentioned seeing another angle with vents, but racks in really good data centers really don't need front/back vents for airflow. They tend to work on a sort of forced air system, cooled air is blown under the floor which is then forced up holes and/or removed floor tiles under each rack. Then, depending on need, the rack will usually have high volume fans built into the top which blow hot air up, out, and away from the rack.

The data center I currently deal with uses only the air through the floor, but it's only a couple years old and the HVAC systems were sized properly. The top fans would be a waste so they're left unplugged.

Re:No cooling for those computers?

[Bender Unit 22]

I thought so too, only I was talking with IBM and HP, and they claimed that they require ventilation in the front and back in their service contracts. And I have servers in a datacenter with the same setup you describe.
I guess I have to take them on a tour of the center to make a deal with them. :)

Ah, just saw a picture from another angle.

[Bender Unit 22]

That solves it :D

sorting out some misconceptions

[vogon jeltz]

* Formula one pilots are usually very good athletes, doing some kind of workout daily. You, the average slashdotter, wouldn't survive three laps of a race.
* except for engine and gear box management, no electronic control is allowed: no ABS, no traction control, no adaptive damping, no remote control from the pits (except for data recording)
* aerodynamics are indeed very important; no one in his right mind would invest millions of dollars into a computer cluster just for the kick of it. It's an iterative process: find several possible approximations of your aerodynamical setup on the computer; then test it in the wind tunnel, squeezing out the last and most important percentages of lift / drag ratios.
* I'd like to see somebody around here doing a lap in less than double the time a formula one driver could do.
* current control technologies ("robot drivers") would lose out *big* against even an average driver. This is not my opinion, but those of experts (drivers feeling their car's reaction "in the butt").

Just some thoughts.

Since when...

[icemanuea]

...has Forula 1 had anything (much) to do with driver skill? It has always been a platform for compaies to show off their newest technology and what can be achieved. I am not saying the drivers have no skill, on the contrary, I believe they are very talented sportsmen but the main aim of F1 other than making money of course, is to display their technology to the world and get some free advertising too

Re:Since when...

[RageEX]

A few short rebutals:

Fangio, Senna, Prost, Brabham, Clark, Stewart.

Slashdot missing linux???

[Spellbinder]

The 530 AMD Opteron processors, which run on a Linux operating system

AMD Press Release
and slashdot is missing this?????

ADM and Intel "race each other"

[Anonymous MadCoe]

The register has a a story describing this as a race between AMD and Intel too, where Intel is doing a similair thing woth the Toyota F1 team. My guess is that the CPU vendors don't see this as a race between themselves, but it's a nice way of looking at it.

Always a Sport

[ACNeal]

What you fail to realize is that this technology is available to everyone. Even if i have a technological advantage for a short period of time, my car driver, sled driver, swimmer, runner, or whatever still have to perform with the new equipment or training techniques.

Then, when everyone else has the same technology, it falls back solely on the shoulders of the competitors. Sure technology has them going 100% faster, but everyone is going the same 100% faster. And the new breed of competitor has to be better to deal with the new tech.

And if they turn into remote control cars, then the comptetitors are still human, and still have to be good at something, have fast reflexes, etc.

The human will never just be along for the ride. A lot more, or different, things will be required from them, but they won't be just along for the ride.

F1 goes back to the beginning of the last century

[zmollusc]

I thought that F1 was recent (post war)?
Anyhoo, people have always raced cars so it is hard to say that racing caused the development of road cars since any new development will have been hurled round a track or up a hill at some point.

Re:Can't wait for it

[irussel]

Formula1 teams can do their own data processing, they don't need us to help them with that....except maybe Minardi...

Also, if seti@home could spend as much money as formula1 teams do, we'd have interstellar calling plans by now.

Engineering energy is engineering energy.

[2nd Post!]

Nothing is lost just because we're pumping all that engineering energy into F1. The great part is that F1 is self sustaining without the need for TAXES and government subsidies.

That's like saying, "Imagine what would happen if all the engineering energy that goes into video games suddenly went into artificial intelligence -- we'd be the last generation without smart computers." because that is wrong. The energy that goes into video games will show up elsewhere, and as video games get more advanced then so will the AI, and as AI gets more advanced so will the video games.

So don't begrudge other people their sports and their money. You're not that far off from people who complain, "Imagine what would happen if all the resources that go into NASA suddenly went into our economy -- we'd never go hungry again." Which is also false. The efforts put into our space program return to us 1000 fold (I think you can appreciate that)

Re:Ferrari is outsourcing

[sokoban]

Uh, blow me. Ferrari and AMD have had a fairly long and successful history together. They are breaking their relationship with AMD to start one with TCS who will not only do F1 enginering work for them, but also will provide software for their road cars. You say I am being a "racist american shit", but it is really just the truth.

STFU and go back to your lame ass life you anonymous coward piece of shit.

not to mention some of the highest paid..

[caveat]

...what did Schumy make last year, like $82,000,000 exclusive of endorsements? For driving around in a Ferrari. Lucky sod.

Niki Lauder said that, and had to appologize

[Phelan]

Niki Lauder (arguably the greatest F1 driver of all time) after taking over Jaguar a few years ago said that today F1 cars are so easy to drive that a monkey could do it. He went out to show it and promptly spun out 3 seperate times on one lap.

Also the Trading Paint show on SpeedChannel to my recollection had Montoya quickly grasping the NASCAR (on a road course too) and Gordon didn't do badly, but he also didn't do very well at all being behind everyone's but two drivers (The Minardi's) qualifying times of the season before with one of the best cars in F1.

I'm sure Gordon is a good driver, but I am also sure that Schumacher in a contest that he cares about (i.e. not the 'race of champions') is pretty much unbeatable. I hope that after he retires from F1, he may swing by the Nextel cup and make some of my fellow Alabamians cry.

Software engineering

[Anarchofascist]

In other news, apparently software engineering is only a matter of pressing the right buttons on a keyboard.

Re: your sig

[Scooter]

Dr. Spock (the eminent child psychologist) was in Star Trek? Must have missed that episode..

Athletes

[sonamchauhan]

Dictionary Definition of an Athlete:a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina

"Motor Sports"
"Video Games"

Hmmm. All this high tech and Sauber's at the back

[CatOne]

Ferrari must be using Xserves for this same analysis ;-)

I wish I could post pictures

[rdunnell]

but I can't.

needless to say, if you're in the same situation I am in and your company has a contracts negotiation team like mine does, you will have no problem with solid cabinet doors. The only issue will be whether it's worth the money to spec them or just to buy vented doors.

be a business analyst, not a tech geek. it pays better. :)