Formula One

f1 on fox

Corey Henderson — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:22:22 GMT

Just a note to say that the Indianapolis Formula One Grad Prix will be on Fox this Sunday. And unlike years past when F1 has been on CBS, the normal Speed channel announcers will do the race.

Jessica Walter

Corey Henderson — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 15:43:10 GMT

Arrested Development is being re-run on basic cable, the G4 network I think. I caught most of the episodes in the original run of the show, but there is so much detailed, subtle comedy in there, I highly recommend watching them again.

In 1966, John Frankenheimer directed Grand Prix, the classic F1 racing movie. The film is a seriously artsy, dedicated effort to capture the world of racing, from the driver's lives to long, realistic driving sequences. Apparently almost all the drivers drove their own racecars (minus one scaredy-cat, meow) at full speed since the director figured fans would know the difference if they went slowly and just sped up the film. James Garner, the star was said to frequently match or better the professional racers during the between takes racing action. There's lots more of good trivia at the IMDB page, and if you're up for three hours of mid sixties cutting edge filmmaking, check it out.

Why mention these two things in the same post? Jessica Walter plays Pat Stoddard, a drivers wife in Grand Prix; 40 years later she plays Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development.

montreal 2006 wrap-up

Corey Henderson — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:43:00 GMT

This past weekend was my third annual trip to Montreal for the Grand Prix du Canada. 2004 2005 posts here.

I wasn’t able to borrow Emily’s hot new Canon 5D for this trip, so I didn’t take any interesting pictures, but hey, let’s pretend I took this one and it wasn’t some guy named TMWolf from Flickr.

Fans don’t seem to do it as much in F1 as they do in NASCAR, but you can listen to the teams talk back and forth to the drivers with a scanner. Most of the time they say stuff like “Fuel mixture 7 please Fernando” or “we are going to go up .2 in the front and .1 in the rear tire pressures.” They tell their drivers to “push” when they think they should be going faster. Every once and a while you hear something cool that you don’t hear on TV and makes it feel like you’re just a little closer to the action. David Coultard’s (a Scottish twelve year veteran) engineer came on and said “David, you can not short-cut the final chicane, the FIA is watching” — David: “Yes, I understand that, but I don’t have any f***king grip [unintelligible].”

I share the scanner with Paul aka PineHead and he does all the hard work scanning for frequencies during the practice sessions on Friday and Saturday. I tried to look them up online and found some here, but the teams seem to switch frequencies between races just slightly to throw it off. Plus three of the teams including Ferrari and McLaren Mercedes use a digital system or somehow invert or scramble the signal — even though I believe encrypting the signal is against the regulations. Also, he uses large aviation style headphones and I wanted to use my Etymotic earphones, but since mine are so much more efficient the volume was way way too loud. This year I found a solution: Griffin SmartShare Headphone Splitter with Individual Volume Control Black

I’ll be heading back next year since the prime seats we have require year-to-year purchasing or you get sent to the back of the seat picking queue.

bahrain gran prix

Corey Henderson — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 21:41:00 GMT

Where was I at six AM this morning?

Watching the first practice session of Formula One’s Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix on Speed Channel.

Okay, it was more like seven thirty due to the wonders of time shifting. But I was still up-and-at-‘em like a kid on Christmas.

This was our first look at all the new cars, new livery, paint schemes, new drivers.

The race is on Sunday at 6am Eastern time. Speedtv.com

(the thing at the right is the track layout)

f1 motor hijinx

Corey Henderson — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 21:07:00 GMT

Thermodynamics 101, brought to you by the warmup sequence of a Formula 1 motor

Here we have an V10 F1 engine being revved hard, without the carbon fiber engine cover, on stands, at night. They manage to get the exhaust pipes to a seriously beautiful glow before they have to shut it down.

Normally you would never do this without either running the car — F1 cars like sharks in that they have to keep moving to keep cool or else they overheat in a matter of ninety seconds or so, engine idle speed is around 8,000 rpm — or having dedicated cooling systems around.

Since this is pretty reckless, I suspect this might have been the last days at Arrows, a team that quit F1 at the end of the 2002 season. It jives with the Orange uniforms and markings on the car. If anyone knows different let me know.

This is a 3.0 liter V10, previously on coreyh.com I had a link to an mpeg of a Cosworth 2.4 liter V8 doing 20,000 rpms .

[via MetaCool]

new maclaren

Corey Henderson — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 23:18:00 GMT

Oh my, that is sexy. The color scheme is only temporary.

Still my biggest interest/concern for the upcoming season is the sound of the new smaller V8 motor. Man I hope I don’t turn into one of those old timers that sits around going “Boy, you should have heard those V10s, now *that* is an engine.” Sigh…

uncomfortable driving position - formula one

Corey Henderson — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 20:35:00 GMT

bsw96 posted a photo:

[via Flickr: f1 - Everyone's Tagged Photos]

Neat. Must be a strange feeling to travel so fast in that pose.

F1 top speeds

Corey Henderson — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 16:02:00 GMT

BAR-Honda F1 car to run at Bonneville:

BAR-Honda, at the request of sponsor Lucky Strike, has announced their intention to run one of their Formula 1 cars at the Bonneville Salt Flats. The goal is to run a car that’s as close to F1 specifications as possible, aside from aerodynamic trim and the addition of required safety gear such as a parachute. The run is planned to take place sometime in October, with one of BAR’s junior drivers taking the wheel. The team expects the car will do at least 250 MPH.

…

Read

Cool.

[via Autoblog]

20,000 rpms

Corey Henderson — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 14:46:00 GMT

Current F1 engines are 3.0 liter V10s. The FIA governing body has decided to move to 2.4 liter V8s or rev-limited V10s in 2006. They site cost-cutting and safety as the rationale, but I’m not thrilled about the change — I worry about the change in engine note.

Cosworth, the ex-Ford engine manufacturer has a little mpeg up on their site of the early version of the new F1 engine revving up to 20,002 rpms. The sound is incredible. You think that it would surely shatter itself in a million pieces at 16,000 by the sound. 20,000 is amazing to hear. I have been told that F1 engines spin so fast that a traditional tachometers don’t work, so it is all based on harmonics.

Direct link to MPEG 2.2mb

[via Pitpass]

hand knit f1 seat cushion

Corey Henderson — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 21:16:00 GMT

Check out this hand knit Formula One seat cushion with Rothmans and Elf logos. Circa 1989? Not sure.

The guys in front of us at the Montreal Grand Prix have been going to that race for 23 straight years.