

Last in Beauty Contests May Be First on Tracks - mhb
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/automobiles/last-in-beauty-contests-may-be-first-on-tracks.html?hpw

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TallGuyShort
The point about Formula One no longer developing technology for other cars is
inaccurate. Recent major rule changes (like the introduction of KERS and the
ban on in-race refueling) have been specifically intended to force the teams
to focus on developing technologies for making more efficient vehicles. Cool
design, though.

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thedrbrian
Formula 1 has never driven production automobiles. Practically every first
used in f1 isn't or came from outside the automotive industry. I suppose this
car is quite disruptive as it too follows no rules nor regulations.

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tyw
as I understand it, the point isn't that they drive cars that approximate
production automobiles. But rather that the technology the teams develop to
come up with competitive advantages (lightweight-yet-strong materials, power
from limited displacement volume, aerodynamic improvements, etc.) will be
useful to production cars. The point that others are making is that the F1
rules are now so stringent that teams are not rewarded for coming up with
these types of massive improvements and are limited to tiny tweaks.

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orangethirty
But those tiny _tweaks_ are not tiny at all. Realize that there are very smart
teams of engineers. If one team manages to get a bit ahead, it means that they
are putting huge resources on the _small tweak_. Add up a couple of small
tweaks and you end up with a new technology altogether. Formula 1 is about
engineering. Ferrari is one of the leading teams in terms of getting new
technology introduced to the real world. When production Ferrari cars started
to have paddles behind the wheels, and people wanted them in other luxury
cars, what do you think happened? Nowdays, even my daughters Power Wheels has
paddles. But realize that those paddles were engineered into reality because
engineers wanted to save space, time, and weight. Little tweaks that combined
into a new way to shift gears.

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stevenrace
Title should be corrected to 'ALMS/LeMans racecar' - not 'Indy 500'...

The following video goes over some of the more interesting technical bits from
one of the engineers (6m38s in):
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_INdbXMqsw&t=6m38s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_INdbXMqsw&t=6m38s)

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mhb
Thanks

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colanderman
Looks like whatever the title was, an overzealous mod changed it to match the
article title, which has no meaning out of context. I thought this would be
about some biological study when I clicked on it.

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mhb
Pedantry über alles.

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mehshoe
I saw it race at Atlanta recently. I was very surprised in the cars outright
speed. Only a couple tenths off of the fastest P2 car! The two things I
noticed about the car was how unstable it looked at turn in. The car rotates a
lot compared to other prototypes. Quite scary on the high speed stuff. Also,
the tin top drivers complained about not being able to see the car in their
mirrors (very small frontal area). In fact a Gt car turned into him whilst
being overtaken going under the bridge and the crash was scary.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW7qaG9K2_c>

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nicholassmith
It's an odd situation, I can kind of understand where the Porsche driver was
coming from, it's ridiculously hard to see the car in mirrors, but he came off
such an asshat from the incident _he_ caused it spoilt his point slightly.

It does look like it shouldn't corner though, yet at LeMans it seemed to power
through them pretty smoothly.

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RowanH
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>) 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>). 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.

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mberning
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.

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Someone
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)

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mberning
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.

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Someone
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/motorspor...](http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/06/sport/motorsport/motorsport-f1-ferrari-
future-massa/index.html)) 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,"_

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rndholesqpeg
The author keeps referring to the incident in practice before the Petit Lemans
as if it was the Porsche driver's fault for the incident. Its quite apparent
that the Delta Wing's line is way off on the pass if he expects the Porsche to
be able to make turn 12. When you see in the video that Porsche turns in he
would barely be able to have made turn 12, the Delta Wing left him no room and
it looks like the Delta Wing driver was aiming for the motorcycle course not
the car course which sweeps right from under the tunnel.

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mehshoe
The accident was just a racing incident IMO. The Delta was taking the normal
line a prototype would take to get around a slower GT car. The GT oversteered
at the exit of the right hander (you can watch his front tires as he tries to
save it) and collected the Delta. What I found to be crappy was the GT driver
flipping off the Delta driver after the collision. He also never went over to
talk to Gunnar afterwards (Once of those unwritten rules in racing).

<http://www.joe.ie/uploads/story/29499/porsche.jpg>

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iandanforth
The author keeps calling it ugly, but to me it looks f-in sweet!

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njharman
What totally crap photos that don't show the dimensions/structure well at all.
And only two of them.

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zachrose
There's a slideshow.

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zachrose
So less drag and less weight, but also less front-end downforce and contact
area.

My amateur understanding is that this is essentially a compromise between road
car and dragster, optimized for straights and low-speed cornering.

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mehshoe
It makes plenty of downforce. Prototypes these days make a great chunk of
downforce from the underbody. I watched it go through turn 1 (130mph+ at turn
in) at Atlanta, the car was very fast. Now I am bummed I did not break out the
radar detector to compare speeds.

