Episode 61 - Must be Talking About the Wrong Race
- File: episode61.m4a
- Length: 37:08
- Size: 34.2 MB
- Transcript: episode61.pdf
Slightly on the late side, we cover all the news and gossip from the week gone by, plus the action from the Circuit de Catalunya.
Intro
Don’t call me woman, and take a breath now and again.
Good Week / Bad Week
Flattering week for Force India and Murray Walker, not so good for McLaren.
News and Views
Valencia could be in trouble, and is EveryRace really worth the effort?
Qualifying
How light is Fernando Alonso really?
The Race
Light, but not actually that bad, it turns out. Plus, the obligatory Fantasy Racers update.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:00 amJourneyer said:
Great show as always, guys!
I’d love a Michael Schumacher biopic, but Bruce Willis as Murray Walker? That makes me think this is all just a late April Fools joke!
April 30th, 2008 at 8:18 amme said:
regarding the bit in the show about darren heath, he has a good blog entry describing the ‘faces of racing’ photo session. and on the subject of why alonso didn’t know what is was about he says:
so it appears to be completely reasonable that alonso appeared on a website he knew nothing about, however, you’d have thought the fia would have mentioned it to him!
April 30th, 2008 at 10:19 amScott Woodwiss said:
I thoroughly enjoyed that, good job.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:02 pmScott said:
Great podcast once again guys.
It’s actually not only the Formula One drivers who’ve been complaining about mirrors this season. Here’s an extract from my GP2 Barcelona round-up:
The weekend started well for Pastor Maldonado, with the Venezuelan securing pole position for the first GP2 main series race of the season. Stalling at the start lead to a 12th place finish in race one. He then went on to clash with team-mate Andi Zuber a number of times in race two - the final occasion forcing both to retire with suspension damage. A meeting to clear the air has since been held, and all is now well in the Piquet Sports camp. Interestingly, Maldonado has said that the mirrors on the new GP2 car - which are positioned out wide, rather than close to the cockpit - don’t allow drivers to see anything, and were a contributing factor. Now, where have I head that before?
Source: http://www.onthegrid.ws/index.php/2008/04/30/10-barcelona-gp2-highlights
Scott Dryden
April 30th, 2008 at 3:21 pmme said:
any idea why they opted to move them there? was there a technical reason, or did the gp2 chassis designers look at the f2007 and think “cool”?
April 30th, 2008 at 4:00 pmScott said:
That’s a very good question. Having found a picture from one of the GP2/08’s first runs, it would appear that they weren’t in that position originally:
http://gp2.gpupdate.net/en/news/2007/06/26/gp2-reveals-2008-car/
Dallara have a wind tunnel that allows them to run up to 40% scale Formula One cars. They’ve also been praised by GP2 teams for the aerodynamic upgrades they’ve made to the new car, so I find it hard to believe they’d move the mirrors purely because they thought it’d look cosmetically attractive. More than likely they noticed the positioning on the F2007, and tried it on the GP2/08 to see whether there were any improvements in airflow to the rear wing.
You’ve raised a good point as this does seem to suggest that Dallara having been looking towards borrowing Formula One innovations, for GP2. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised about that, given that F1 teams ‘borrow’ each others’ ideas all the time.
Scott Dryden
April 30th, 2008 at 4:23 pmScott said:
Having done a little digging, I’ve come across this quote from Alfonso de Orleans Borbon, team principle of Racing Engineering, who suggests that the positioning of the mirrors relates to safety:
“Having the mirrors further out is fantastic in terms of safety. These cars have big rear wings, so when the mirrors are close in the drivers can’t see much. With them so far out, it makes things much safer.”
Surely that can’t be right?
As an aside, GP2 teams conduct their own wind tunnel programmes. Although they’re obviously not allowed to add aerodynamic devices, doing this enables them to understand the car better, which in turn helps when it comes to set-up. Back in February, BCN Competicion sent a car over to the UK, to run in MIRA’s full size wind tunnel:
bcncompeticion.com/backend/watermark
Note that the mirrors are in a wide position here.
Scott Dryden
April 30th, 2008 at 4:28 pmScott said:
On an unrelated note, the time limit on editing doesn’t seem to be working, as I’m able to edit all my comments. Or at least the text box appears when I click on them… I’ve not tried to change anything.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:00 pmDan Brunell said:
With as much technology that is put into the sport, you think that they could do one of the following:
1: Replace the mirrors with rear mounted cameras. Mounting the cameras would be the easy part, finding a way to show that to the driver is the hard part. Something that might work is something that works with military helicopter pilots. A mini see through screen is mounted in front of the drivers primary eye. with a button on the wheel, it could activate and show what is behind the car.
2: Or the more practical solution… since all the race tracks are in defined areas, why not get two or three people at specific vantage points in the track to act as spotters. If anything, it would add some more radio chatter which is always good.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:44 pmme said:
appreciate the research.
given the problems in f1 this year, it seems unlikely that it’s any safer.
i had no idea gp2 teams went to those lengths. am much impressed.
can see we’re going to have to pay more attention to this alternative f1 business
April 30th, 2008 at 6:46 pmme said:
didn’t schumi have some success in this area? it was a while ago, but i recall him experimenting and being pleased with the results.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:48 pmme said:
i think that’s by design.
there is a countdown timer we can enable to let you know when you’re times up, but i find it pretty distracting, so it’s turned off at the moment.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:18 pmbrendan stallard said:
“Bruce Willis as Murray Walker?”
Journeyer,
Race movies are usually box office death, and the critics hate ‘em too, so this is an interesting take on a biopic. Done as a documentary, it could have wide interest and would get good WOM and probably last years as an independent film. However, if Hollywood is anything to do with it, Corrina (Mrs Schumacher) whom Michael nicked off another driver, will be played by some younger Meg Ryan type and it’ll be a huge romance, along with on track accidents and tragedy played up with little reference to the technology, grind or real speed.
Anyway: it’ll have little to do with reality, and it will need big names to get it made. Willis, being a motor racing fan and of late a producer (think investor) will put money and influence in the film and want a part for himself.
I think he’d do better as Ross Brawn: but he’s the producer and in Hollywood, a “Bull”, so he’ll play the part he wants.
It’ll get the film made.
brendan
April 30th, 2008 at 7:47 pmKathi said:
So you’ve decided to call him Fettel? :p
April 30th, 2008 at 8:10 pmDank said:
Fantasy Racers: Not wanting to gloat (not much!), Team Dank has gone from 90-odd to 24th in the Sidepodcast league! I scored the seventh highest points total out of everybody in the whole wide world (maybe) for the Spanish GP with 614!
Team Dank - onwards and upwards!
April 30th, 2008 at 8:21 pmAndy Morton said:
We’re allowed to gloat about our Fantasy Racers performance? Why did no one tell me!
Seriously Dank, that’s an impressive result.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:21 pmlou said:
Well worth the wait!
Loved it!
April 30th, 2008 at 8:27 pmme said:
me? nooo, tell me that’s not true?
no kidding, good man.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:41 pmKathi said:
No, I think Christine.
That’s good, because I would hate to have to call Coult-hard, Coul-thard.
Btw do you know this page? It’s quite entertaining. Also, Rosberg doesn’t know how to pronounce his own name.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:48 pmChristine said:
Kathi, I decided to try and pronounce them correctly, and that page is a god-send!
Did you notice how Hamilton pronounces his name but also manages to fit in Vodafone-McLaren-Mercedes as well. That’s another couple of grand in the bank
April 30th, 2008 at 9:44 pmKathi said:
Good luck with that.
Will you pronounce Rosberg, the Finnish, German or his own VERY WRONG way?
And what about BMW. They are German. Shouldn’t the letters be pronounced German.
And all the French names: Renault, Sébastien B. …
And does that mean Räikkönen, Séb will have their dots and accents(?) in the written text from now on?
Ooops sorry I got a bit carried away. I’ll stop with that now.
Aaargh!
April 30th, 2008 at 10:47 pmKathi said:
There should be a lot more smileys in my above post. I just meant it as a bit of fun and not as a critic for your admirable attempt to pronounce strange foreigners in the right way *sheepish*
April 30th, 2008 at 11:04 pmme said:
hey, no offence taken, we’d tell you if there was.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:31 pmAlenyaa said:
Thanks for another entertaining and insightful podcast!
There’s no need to be sad about our being seperated by 70 teams, Christine. The gap was over 90 teams after last race
And you DID score higher than I did!
May 1st, 2008 at 10:02 pmRich said:
Would like to pick up on Alonso not having the opportunity of going to Ferrari, and the issue of no team should have two amazing drivers, oops poor little Felipe - now you have heard it! Poor Brazil as well, since both drivers got rubbished. Piquet was definitely over-confident, but he is still doing better than Vettel or DC. Felipe is not doing so badly after a very poor start. Picking up on Anthony and Uncle Ron’s special order Apple juice - is there not an element of sarcasm? Finally onto the Fantasyracers - if you want to score points you make sure you have two of the following four drivers in your team, Kimi, Lewis, Felipe (even though Briatore says he is rubbish) and Robert - its that simply, but wheres the fun? With my first team I had SIX drivers and scored lowly, my next race I used FIVE drivers and scored a little better but both Christine and Lou scored way better (this means I still did really really badly), so now I am trying with four more expensive drivers. We should really still put our faith in the drivers we like (so I won’t stoop to including Lewis) so as to keep it fun.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:18 pmlou said:
When did i score better? lol, last race with the five drivers? I would have scored soo much better if Nico had not had that failiure, if Nick had finished in the pionts, and if Vettel had actually completed his first damn lap! Thats a good idea… having 4 expensive drivers….well i have about 5 days to come up with my drivers for next race so fingures crossed i pick the right ones!
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:14 pmRich said:
In response to Lou yes I did manage a lot lower. I also had Nico and Nick. With fanatasy racers it is skewed to finishing so Takuma has actually scored more points that either Jenson or Rubens. I have said elsewhere the drivers to avoid are Adrian, DC and deSeb. I also had LeSeb. I have ditched all the drivers I have mentioned (sorry Nick and it really was not your fault) but have kept Mark and Jarno (despite Toyota’s pit blunder). Hope this helps you with your choice. I have added Massa because everyone has been mean to him (including me).
May 4th, 2008 at 12:09 amOne for the Future | Sidepodcast : Your Weekly F1 Podcast said:
[...] following the comments on sidepodcast.com this past week, you’ll know that after recording Episode 61, I did an Alonso - and threw my toys out of the podcasting pram, threatening never to speak again [...]
May 4th, 2008 at 6:49 pmSteven Roy said:
Great show guys. I am running even later than you.
I am sure Piquet still thinks he is an amazing driver. He will put his performances down to inexperience and Alonso being the favoured driver. It will probably take 2 seasons worth of poor performances to dent his confidence. I actually think he is a decent driver and it will be interesting to see how he performs in the second half of the season since it was the second half of the GP2 season that he delivered his best results.
I think the Racing Against Racism title was dropped because it was seen as Max’s baby and had it been launched without him it would have been obvious that his personal life was interfering with his ability to do his job. So now we have this low (no) profile launch and no doubt nothing more will ever be heard about the program.
“Lewis Hamilton’s teammate had a crash”. Unbelievable.