4 ms·

There was a guy who designed/built racecars by the name of Colin Chapman founder of Lotus Cars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Chapman http://en.wikipedia.o

by RowanH 14y ago

There was a guy who designed/built racecars by the name of Colin Chapman founder of Lotus Cars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Chapman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Chapman) One of the ethos he had was "add lightness". Every additional piece of weight is more kg's to stop, to turn, to accelerate. It's no surprise this thing is fast as hell. The first thing I thought of when I saw the Delta Wing - Colin would be proud. It will likely be banned. It will likely have polarising opinions about it. However one thing is for sure, it will prompt people to think different which is what the motorsport industry will need. Grass roots different approaches to make things more efficent. I applaud it. Personally I went for a drive of the modern day replica of one of Colins original designs - a Lotus Super 7(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Seven http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Seven). In a 2L Honda engined version of one in New Zealand (called a Fraser), absolutely staggering performance (around 400hp per metric tonne). Got out all wobbly at the knees. The last time I'd seen that level of performance was in 500-600hp TT V6 engines in big Japanese sports cars, and that is a lot of fuel and rubber up in smoke. Really does make you think, what is necessary in a vehicle? All the climate controls, sound deadening, sound system, power windows... the whole lot is more to move. Very analgous to systems design, every additional feature, piece of code is more movement within a system. Interesting architectural lessons.

mberning 14y ago
I don't see why it would be banned. F1 is all about pushing technology to the limit. In fact, the DeltaWing did not qualify for the 24 hours of lemans but it was provisionally invited to compete due to it's radical design.
- Someone 14y ago
  F1 is more about advertising than about pushing technology to the limit. It would be trivial for all tesms to build much faster F1 cars. Lots of technological innovations got banned because they made racing too dull or too fast. Examples are turbo engines with engines at are equal in size to non-turbo engines, the 'use a vacuum pump to suck the car to the ground in corners' trick, the 'electronic gear switching' trick, variable angle wings, and KERS (allowed, but drivers cannot use it as often as they want)
  - mberning 14y ago
    To say that advertising revenue is the dominant force driving the regulation of F1 innovation is simply untrue. When it comes to limiting the speed of the cars, driver and spectator safety is the primary concern. If you talk to the engineers and drivers they are in F1 for only one reason - to be faster than everybody else. The fact that regulations exist is a part of racing. Doesn't stop cars from going faster every year. F1 is the most technologically innovative sport in existence today.
    - Someone 14y ago
      Tht drivers and engineers are in it to be faster says nothing about the sport; they aren't the ones paying the bill. Looking at the bills, I notice that many new regulations are cost-cutting measures (limiting testing time, limiting the number of engines used in a season) that are, AFAICT, solely aimed at leveling the playing field, so that races become more attractive, giving more teams a chance to compete, rather than to take part. We also have (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/06/sport/motorsport/motorsport-f1-ferrari-future-massa/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/06/sport/motorsport/motorspor...) Ferrari complaining ""If Formula 1 is not any more an extreme technology competition, where the technology can be transferred to the road car, maybe we can see Formula 1 without Ferrari,"

by RowanH 14y ago

mberning 14y ago

I don't see why it would be banned. F1 is all about pushing technology to the limit. In fact, the DeltaWing did not qualify for the 24 hours of lemans but it was provisionally invited to compete due to it's radical design.

Someone 14y ago
F1 is more about advertising than about pushing technology to the limit. It would be trivial for all tesms to build much faster F1 cars. Lots of technological innovations got banned because they made racing too dull or too fast. Examples are turbo engines with engines at are equal in size to non-turbo engines, the 'use a vacuum pump to suck the car to the ground in corners' trick, the 'electronic gear switching' trick, variable angle wings, and KERS (allowed, but drivers cannot use it as often as they want)
- mberning 14y ago
  To say that advertising revenue is the dominant force driving the regulation of F1 innovation is simply untrue. When it comes to limiting the speed of the cars, driver and spectator safety is the primary concern. If you talk to the engineers and drivers they are in F1 for only one reason - to be faster than everybody else. The fact that regulations exist is a part of racing. Doesn't stop cars from going faster every year. F1 is the most technologically innovative sport in existence today.
  - Someone 14y ago
    Tht drivers and engineers are in it to be faster says nothing about the sport; they aren't the ones paying the bill. Looking at the bills, I notice that many new regulations are cost-cutting measures (limiting testing time, limiting the number of engines used in a season) that are, AFAICT, solely aimed at leveling the playing field, so that races become more attractive, giving more teams a chance to compete, rather than to take part. We also have (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/06/sport/motorsport/motorsport-f1-ferrari-future-massa/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/06/sport/motorsport/motorspor...) Ferrari complaining ""If Formula 1 is not any more an extreme technology competition, where the technology can be transferred to the road car, maybe we can see Formula 1 without Ferrari,"