Who is he

[Carl]

Dec 31, 2017 10:24:33 GMT @lucio said:

I was certain JC knew it. Admittedly, for someone in America not exposed to F2 it might not have been obvious.

It's the Maurer MM82, I saw it race that year at Vallelunga, Bellof retired just in front of me. The Sunday morning I went around the paddock taking pictures of the cars, chassis, suspensions. The Marches were all aluminium monocoque construction, the Maurers were in composite materials, there was one chassis without engine sitting there and I took plenty of slides from all corners. The people there were a bit puzzled by my behaviour. They didn't know it was my passion and finally I did my dissertation on composite aircraft structures.

He won the first two races of the season, but then couldn't sustain the challenge and Corrado Fabi on a works March won the championship.

Beautiful car from Brunner:

Lucio,
           I remember your telling me that you often drive past the remnants of the banking at Brooklands, sometimes daily. As an accomplished structural engineer, what is your assessment of their design and construction?  Would they be radically different today? 

Cheers, Carl

[Deleted]

I recall Manfred famously somersaulting at the 'Ring with the March F2.

[Deleted]

Dec 31, 2017 20:19:51 GMT Carl said:

Dec 31, 2017 10:24:33 GMT @lucio said:

Lucio,
           I remember your telling me that you often drive past the remnants of the banking at Brooklands, sometimes daily. As an accomplished structural engineer, what is your assessment of their design and construction?  Would they be radically different today? 

Cheers, Carl

Carl,

the design principles of composite materials structures are pretty much, if not indeed exactly, the same.

What is changed is the technology. I recall the Maurer had a chassis built with the same principle of an aluminium alloy panels one, namely CRFP/kevlar panels connected together (glued and other means). Perhaps in 1982 it was still a mixed aluminium-CRFP construction, I don't remember whether it was the following year I saw an all dark grey/black chassis.

Today, technology allows to build structures which are effectively pre-formed shells with multiple curvatures built in, without joints. This was already possible at the time, but there was much less experience and the technology had to be further developed.

Another thing that has changed is the type of fibres materials used, I think at the time it was mainly carbon for stiffness and strength, and kevlar for lateral impact resistance. I am not fully up-to-date on current proceedings in F1, but I think while carbon and kevlar are still the main materials, they use other fibres (boron, for example) for specific function in specific locations. I would think today chassis construction is quite optimized, also considering the amount of money they throw at it in F1.

Cheers, Lucio

[charleselan]

Jan 1, 2018 11:14:52 GMT @lucio said:

I recall Manfred famously somersaulting at the 'Ring with the March F2.

Indeed; the terrifying image of the underside of the March only visible, nose pointing towards the skies, manfred was lucky that day but sadly not so a few years later.

[René]

Yes, I remember that image too!

[Deleted]

Another easy one.

What is this:

[Carl]

First and foremost, it's beautiful!

[charleselan]

I have a feeling that is the last ever BRM, which never actually raced and in the cockpit would be one time Aurora F1 driver Neil Betteridge.

Could be totally wrong of course as i was with Giunti  .

[Jamie]

Jan 1, 2018 17:48:56 GMT charleselan said:

I have a feeling that is the last ever BRM, which never actually raced and in the cockpit would be one time Aurora F1 driver Neil Betteridge.

Certainly looks like a BRM engine 👍

[Deleted]

Yes, very last BRM, P230. Nice shape.

[Jamie]

What year is this from Lucio? Don't know anything about this car, was it an official 'Bourne' project?

[Deleted]

Jamie, don't know much at all really. This bit is all I can gather:

members.madasafish.com/~d_hodgkinson/brm-P230.htm

The last proper F1 was the P207 driven by Larry Perkins in 1977 - a brick, in actual fact, but for some strange reasons I have always been fascinated by it, perhaps because it was such an obsolete design even before to be built.

I am waiting for the fourth volume of Doug Nye's opus magnum on BRM, which should deal and enlighten with the last decade or so of the marque.

[Jamie]

Intriguing, I too thought that the P207 was the last. Look forward to finding out a bit more, BRM's hold a certain fascination.

[charleselan]

The end of BRM was very sad, the 207 was really not up to speed. I remember seeing Guy Edwards trying manfully to pre qualify the thing at the British GP (Silverstone), but they couldn't even get it into full qualifying.

Goodness me guys do you remember when they had so many entries that they had to run pre-qualifying; many little teams trying their utmost to make it into the big time. Ecclestone & Moseley put a stop to that though, didn't fit in with their image o the sport, just seemed to forget how they actually started!

Back to the BRM. I don't think it had much to do with the original BRM team let alone Louis Stanley's later team, have a feeling it was run by someone down in the West of the UK, hence young Neil in the car.

[Deleted]

Who are they? Each and everyone.