Motorsports (non-NASCAR)

[CBear3]

The radiator inlets are getting mighty interesting/busy.

Meanwhile, McLaren has their own Renault AeroCat and stegosaur sidepods.

[tifosi77]

Gary Anderson at Autosport was writing that 2018 will be 'the year of the barge boards', or something. Which is just super. Because who doesn't get all creamy thinking about barge boards?

[dodint]

tif, thinking of doing the one or two day Allen Berg school at Laguna Seca. Formula Renault 1600s. They claim drivers can be as tall as 6'7.

I am not an open wheel guy but want to cross it off the list. Any ideas?

[tifosi77]

My AB track day thing at Fontana was a hoot: the cars were those 1600s, and they certainly scoot. Point the car at the tree entering the Corkscrew, and stay in the middle for Rainey.

MRLS is no more than a 10-minute drive out of town, so I'd suggest staying in Monterey or Pacific Grove. There are a ton of good restaurants and wineries in the area, and depending on when you do it I might be able to come down and buy you a beer at Cannery Row Brew Co.

[dodint]

My wife asked if she could "Meet her boyfriend Guy, you know, Matt" when we come out. So, yeah, you have an open invitation...

[tifosi77]

Took me a second to recognize the significance of the capital G.

[dodint]

[tifosi77]

Has anyone done a mock start with one of those Halo things attached to the car? I imagine there might be problems with visibility as regards the light gantry.

[tifosi77]

F1 offers first look of new streaming service

While access will initially be available through desktop and the web, in the future there will be mobile apps phased in on Amazon, Apple and Android.

The price of this service will be between $8 and $12 on a monthly basis, with annual rates priced according to the market.

When Bernievision launched in the late 90s, it cost today's equivalent of over $25 per race.

[dodint]

*drool*

[tifosi77]

For those averse to click-through, there will be a pared-down offering called F1 TV Access: Live timing data, radio commentary and extended highlights, and historic footage.

[tifosi77]

ALERT THE MEDIA

MCLAREN-RENAULT HAD THE FASTEST TIME IN TODAY'S TESTING*










* Alonso was the only driver to do a timed lap (snow), so technically they also had the slowest time.

[CBear3]

They turned the most number of laps too.
Alonso immediately went to twitter to boast as well

[tifosi77]

I just saw that, brilliant.

[dodint]

I'm getting Alonso'd out. 24LM will be off the hook, tho.

[tifosi77]

This dates back to last summer, but I just clicked-through to the story from a Jalopnik article earlier today.

F4 racer Floersch hit with €5,000 fine after Oschersleben incident

I can't make out the flags in the video on that link, but apparently the first marshal stand she passed showing reds was the one right before the incident. She was actually fined for sharing the video without the permission of ADAC, not for the red flag incident.

[dodint]

Unrelated (link to F4 coverage made me think of it) and kind of crass, but I don't care about Billy Monger who lost his legs and is valiantly going to race again. He probably should have died and got lucky, maybe stay out of the car and take up chess or something. I suppose if he pockets the $1M in donations he accepted and uses them for healthcare and quality of life people will think he's a too, or something.

I'm sure that's a bad take by most, but nothing about the situation seems right to me. The return to racing, accepting the donations, etc.

[tifosi77]

I completely forgot they were going to standing restarts this year. Apparently they did a mini-test of procedures at Barcelona today that was something of a complete poop show.

[tifosi77]

The standing re-starts are going to be a mess. Grosjean said today that on a mock start he never got the car above 4th gear..... it's 3/10 of a mile from the s/f line to the braking point for T1, but couldn't get the car above 4th because of wheelspin on the cold tires.

[tifosi77]

This is kinda cool actually.

F1's other key safety innovation flying under the radar

Formula 1's relentless safety drive has prioritised head protection in recent years, with the controversial halo capturing most of the attention for its visual impact. Yet tucked away in a driver's hands is a device that could prove just as important, as biometric gloves are rolled out in F1 for 2018.

Inside each driver's gloves this year will be a 3mm-thick sensor and 23g device measuring vital signs that is capable of sending information over a 500-metre radius. The gloves are the brainchild of F1's deputy medical delegate Dr Ian Roberts and medical car driver Alan van der Merwe, co-founders of Signal Biometrics.

Van der Merwe has been piloting the medical car at grands prix for almost a decade, taking up the position after a racing career that culminated in the 2003 British Formula 3 title and a test role at BAR-Honda. With the FIA striving to improve access to the correct medical information, van der Merwe and Roberts took it upon themselves to pioneer the product that will feature in 2018.

[tifosi77]

Now that it's over, the biggest takeaway from pre-season testing is that Honda is probably laughing themselves silly.

[Shyster]

Anyone interested in doing another fantasy F1 pool for 2018? I'd be happy to handle scoring again, but I haven't been able to find a good reference for the budget and driver salaries. If someone could point me to such a info source, I'll handle the setup as well.

I would propose at least one rule change. I would continue to have each participant pick two double-points races, which must be unique, but those races would only be scored with double points in the event of a tie at the end of the season. That would make scoring a little easier and would give participants a better idea of exactly where they are in relation to everyone else.

[dodint]

Yes, I got the scoring values this morning, was going to PM you to see what you wanted to do.
Another proposed change is buying drivers, not seats. The mid-year switching is confusing.

Values:

Code: Select all

Budget of 40 Cost Driver Constructor Driver full name ---- ------ ----------- ---------------- 26 HAM Mercedes Lewis Hamilton 22 BOT Mercedes Valtteri Bottas 18 RIC Red Bull Daniel Ricciardo 18 VER Red Bull Max Verstappen 21 VET Ferrari Sebastian Vettel 14 RAI Ferrari Kimi Räikkönen 6 HUL Renault Nico Hülkenberg 5 SAI Renault Carlos Sainz Jr. 4 PER Force India Sergio Pérez 4 OCO Force India Esteban Ocon 3 ALO McLaren Fernando Alonso 2 VAN McLaren Stoffel Vandoorne 3 GRO Haas Romain Grosjean 2 MAG Haas Kevin Magnussen 2 STR Williams Lance Stroll 2 SIR Williams Sergey Sirotkin 2 HAR Toro Rosso Brendon Hartley 2 GAS Toro Rosso Pierre Gasly 1 Sauber Sauber (both) Marcus Ericsson & Charles Leclerc

If you want to just take it and run with it I'm cool with that, or if you want/need help let me know.

Your rule change is fine. It's only there to not have to deal with duplicate teams. Moving it to a tiebreak procedure is cleaner, go for it.

[tifosi77]

Sign me up again. I'm a glutton.

[Shyster]

Additional rule proposal: players pick their teams in the order they finished last year. So Cbear3 gets to pick first, Gaucho gets to pick second, BigMck gets to pick third, MR25 gets screwed again, etc. That way you know exactly if someone has already picked the drivers/races you were thinking of. That way there's a tangible benefit for winning last year's contest.