re: 2022 Formula 1 Season Thread

quote:

---

Those spectators had a lot of faith in that fence

---

There's nothing you can do when it happens that unexpectedly. It looked like he was going to hit the barrier, not flip over it and until the car got really close it seemed difficult to realize just how much energy it still had when sliding upside down.

I remember being a kid sitting close to the track at Talladega when a big piece of metal flew off a car during a bad wreck and kept going up and up until it was just caught by the top of the catch fence.

Afterwards you're like, holy shite that was really close to being bad news.

quote:

---

Those spectators had a lot of faith in that fence

---

TBF, like a ground ball to short stop, it took a bad bounce at the last second.

It appears the FIA is pretty concerned about what happened to the roll hoop and an investigation will be centered on what happened.

Some talk was that the hoop took the initial impact and worked as designed, but a secondary impact removed it. Also, Alfa uses a "blade" design for a hoop that has been questioned before. One part of the concern is that the blade could dig in and flip the car if the ground was soft.

Could have some ramifications for car design in the future.

This is the pic floating around of what Zhou did to the track.

More Manufacturing Teams and Wider circuits is my hope one day for F1!

So fun to see Fernando running up into the crowd at the end and Schumacher fighting with Max, even if it was in a hampered RB.

Really hope to see Toyota GR (based on endurance success), Porsche, Audi and Andretti as their own teams, but understand the limitations.

Porsche and Red Bull deal sounds done.

I understand Toyota F1 history BUT with the explosion of popularity and the success of Gazoo Racing involvement see link, last 5 LeMans and counting.

Never say Never

Gazoo Racing

Sorry NOT "Reporters" but does Honda Repartner?

quote:

---

F1 flexi-floor exploit revelations a "shocker", says Mercedes

Autosport understands that during talks in a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) meeting in the week after the Canadian Grand Prix, suspicions emerged of some teams pushing the boundaries of the rules that are supposed to limit the flexing of their floors and planks.

The current regulations stipulate a maximum deflection of 2mm at the two middle plank holes and no more than 2mm at its rearmost hole in a bid to ensure that the floor is stiff enough.

However, there were claims some teams have managed to cleverly flex the floors by as much as 6mm in total, which would allow them to run with higher rake and much closer to the ground for increased performance without the risk of suffering the ill effects of ground strikes.

Sources suggest a number of teams were surprised at what their competitors had been up to, with Wolff confessing how taken aback he was about the situation.

"Nobody had an idea until the FIA brought it up in the last Technical Advisory Committee, which was to a great surprise of all the teams," he explained.

"What's in the regulation and what the intent of the regulations is pretty clear. I mean, there's is no argument why that could deflect more than what's in the regs. So a bit of a surprise to say the least: more a shocker."

While it is unclear which teams were potentially playing around with flexi floors, Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin reckoned that the change could help move his squad nearer the front.

"When it came to light, we realised there's opportunities that we've perhaps not been taking or exploiting," he said.

"So it won't affect us in how we run our car. It may well be it affects our competitors, and, by virtue of that, we move a little bit closer."

---

How do teams get away with something like this for 10 races? Does the FIA not check these things on a regular basis?

Will we see Mercedes push for the first win of this season at the smooth Paul Ricard French Grand Prix? I know they traditionally struggle at Austria, so they are not winning there.