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Post by Carl on May 29, 2023 18:29:47 GMT
I only saw the start of both the Monaco GP and the Indy 500 live and watched the rest later. Funnily enough, my wife's birthday is always during this race weekend! I've already suggested to her to celebrate her birthday on a different day, but she thought that was strange. No idea why..  René, Women are sometimes overly sensitive. As we both know, the best response is surrender...
Cheers, Carl
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Post by Carl on May 29, 2023 18:33:23 GMT
René, I remember the stark difference in lap times a few years ago at Austin. Formula One and Indycar are like cheetah and lion, one built for speed, the other for overall balance. The problem with cheetahs is a lack of adaptability to challenges less dependent on speed and easily mastered by lions. The top speed at Indianapolis was Pato O'Ward's 243 mph at the end of the straights, but even the best car would not have qualified at Monaco. Grand Prix cars and cheetahs are like high strung prima donna ballerinas, Indycar is like folk dancing that would appear clumsy in ballet. F1 cars are too long and wide at Monaco even on a clear qualifying lap, one car essentially unaffected by others, as intended by F1 aerodynamicists. Max Verstappen was awesome and his final qualifying lap close to perfection, but he never had to rise to that challenge during the race, minding the gap and just going fast enough to stay ahead, so Q3 was the highlight for me. As you know, there's more competition and passing in Indycar, but neither series is as fun to watch as a smaller class with fierce competition built into the design, proving again that less is more...  Cheers, Carl |
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Post by mikael on May 29, 2023 19:00:41 GMT
I fully agree, Carl. It's hard to comprehend if a car laps at 1:11 or 1:21 in Monaco; but good wheel-to-wheel racing - that is something one can enjoy :-)
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Post by robmarsh on May 30, 2023 7:56:28 GMT
"Indycar is like folk dancing that would appear clumsy in ballet" Good analogy Carl, though if it wasn't for the fact that the corners on the ovals are rounded it would be like square dancing.😊
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Post by René on May 30, 2023 9:21:07 GMT
I fully agree, Carl. It's hard to comprehend if a car laps at 1:11 or 1:21 in Monaco; but good wheel-to-wheel racing - that is something one can enjoy :-) Absolutely true. The focus on ever faster lap times was again a wrong path that F1 chose. The cars are insanely fast and at a track like Spa you can actually see that with the naked eye. I remember standing at Pouhon in 2017 or 18 and just being in awe of the speed those cars were doing. Comparing from memory when being at the same spot, I never saw cars go that fast and it was bl**dy impressive I can tell you. But you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand when cars go that fast and are so glued to the road with insanely short braking distances, it must be virtually impossible to have a proper race with them. |
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Post by robmarsh on May 30, 2023 15:52:58 GMT
Dragsters also go insanely fast and they are very impressive to watch. Formula 1 is about racing not just speed and I remember at Kyalami in the late nineties standing within a couple of metres of the F1 cars testing and being half scared to death at the speed they were doing that close to the barrier. F1 cars will soon be as long as dragsters. Time to change, F1 is going down a rabbit hole.
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Post by mikael on May 31, 2023 19:36:31 GMT
Time to change, F1 is going down a rabbit hole. I couldn't agree more, Rob.
As far as I understand, F1 made drastic changes twice, to actually reduce speed, in order to obtain better racing (and maybe also to reduce costs and increase safety).
For the 1954 season, engine sizes were reduced from 4,500 cc unsupercharged, 1,500 supercharged, to 2,500 cc unsupercharged, 750 cc supercharged. And then, for the 1961 season, a further size-reduction, to 1,500 cc unsuper- and unturbocharged. (I believe the supercharged/turbocharged alternative was banned altogether.)
As far as I am able to understand, both engine size-reductions produced better racing.
Hopefully this has not been forgotten.
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