Note years. My point exactly. In his younger days, he was understandbly more agressive. I think he has more than made up for it. I'm sure we'll see more of Alonso's antics, specially if his McLaren keeps breaking next year. It's just youth and the pressure. Senna was a bit of an ar$e in his days. Alain Prost can testify to that.

On a similar note, we've actually had a very odd period of F1 where everyone holds hands and so forth. Watch DTM and those guys are rear racers. I don't condone dangerous tactics, but I think every driver is allowed to be agressive to a certain degree. There is a fine line and it is easy to over-step in the heat of the moment. My opinion is that we shouldn't judge a great driver like Michael simple of a couple of on-track, 200mph hissy fits. That's just my opinion and you're certainly entitled to yours.

 

Mass damper

It's debatable when this was actually first used but what it is, is a mass on a spring that sits in the nosecone and around the gearbox of the F1 car.
The system, in its 'normal' name is called a dynamic vibration absorber and was invented by a guy called Frahm in 1909. So Renault didn't invent it, but I think they're probably the first to stick it on an F1 car.

Basically, if you have a mass on a spring it behaves, obviously like a mass on a spring with resonanaces and all that. If stick another mass on another spring on the original mass you can be clever and have the new mass and spring have their resonance at the freq. of dirturbance and you can show that the original mass does not vibrate at all although you're putting in forces (sinusoidal) at the orignal mass. It's pretty simple (k/m)^0.5 stuff, mostly.
[if anyone is interested, I can post up a sketch and some simple equations so show this rather cool effect.]

The real trick here, for a car, is to work out what the heck the resonance freq. needs to be front and back and I think this is where the Renault is ahead of the others. They designed the darn thing around it so I guess suspension geometry and so on makes it more effective. It would also not be beyond the realms of possibility for this lot to have on-line variable stiffness in theie system either mechanical or even hall effect type stuff.

The reason the FIA banned it though is because it will inevitably lead to twin-chassis F1 cars (so they say). For those who don't go back to the Lotus years, the twin-chassis is a system similar to a pickup truck where the 'cab' in which the drive sits is suspeneded on the main chassis. This allows you to run wheel rates that you can only dream of while the drive sits on a softly suspended tub so that his eyes remain in their sockets. It was deemed unsafe cos the two chassis can separate or something like that...

 

HondaGuy,

Knowing how sharp you are on Formula one subject, did you know that Alonso actually strongly believe that Renault made a step back with the Renault R26?.

Alonso thinks that the chassi of the Renault R25 was indeed better. Perhaps the only main "improvement" this year was the Type C spec engine launched this year when racing at Magni-Cou and some minot aerodynamic changes.

The Renaul also changed the 6 speed to a 7 speed "supposedly" to "maximize" the engine power band.

I agree with Alonso, perhaps last year R25 with the 6 speed was a great sucessful car, remember, they revealed their new engine on the last two races last year. Renaults R25 on the GP China last year seemed like a supercar compare to the competition.

Carlos

 

x838nwy,

I kind of agree with you, regardless of my favorite driver (Alonso) I still have to recognize that MSC is perhaps the best Formula One driver in history.
Is NOT arguable that MSC is well known for his dirtyness at the track however that is only a minor dark spot on his brilliant and sucessfull career.

It would definately take a few years to see a driver with the quality of MSC, maybe Alsonso and Kimi would show us some quality driving skills in the years to come.

Carlos

 

guys,

sorry for the double post. it threw me an error when i posted the first one.

just posted some stuff about mass damper instead.

i'll pop another thread about the equations later perhaps. Or I could do it here if anyone wants me to....

 

One thing about Schumacher is his career decision to mvoe from a successful team (Benneton) to Ferrari. At the time Ferrari was struggling horribly. IIRC they together won one race that first year possible two. He has embraced Ferrari and Italy and has made Ferrari once again the best team in F1 over the last 10 years say.

There are a lot of drivers out there who jump from team to team just to get paid. No one has encouraged a team to be better then MIchael has.

IMO Scumacher should race next year because it is pretty much in the bag. Look at all the driver's McLaren has had that were the next great thing but McLarens problems have produced nothing. Even when Hakkenein (sp?) was there they suffered the same type of problems and this was when they were at the top of thier game.

I inherently don't like Alonso because he is the opponent. But I will give credit where it is due. He is a talented driver and has really matured over the last couple years. Unfortunately he is leaving a good team for a mediocre team. It is quite evident that getting the driver is not the fix for McLaren's issues.

Massa has come into his own lately and I would like to see Ferrari keep him around for next year. Say what you want about putting him in a great car but Barrichello was great for the team in time but was not as effective as Massa is as quickly.

 

^^^ true , but probably MSC has the best payroll among all the other F1 drivers, there is no need for him to change to a different escuderia/team, Ferrari offers him stability, good pay, great sponsorship, great incentives and a great car.

But yeah, I am with you, many drivers change teams just for the money, others are moved involuntarily because of their poor performance.

For the last 5 months I tried to make sense to the stupid idea Alonso had about changing teams, he first said that it was because Michelin wasn't going to be in the F1 on 2007 but that would apply to all the team right? so why in the hell is he leaving Renault?

Definately Alonso's decision to leave Renault can easily cost him any chances to get a world championship next year, would you guys agree?

Carlos

 

I may have said this before, but I think Fernando decided to leave Renault at the time when even Renault weren't sure they were going to stay in F1 for 2007.

The thing with Michael is that it's not just him that has made Ferrari a success. A number of people have been working with him since the Benetton days. Ross Brawn, Jean Todt and a handful of key people in Ferrari have been with 'team schumacher' forever. It's not as if he can just pack up and go somewhere else. I'm not saying that he would not win without them or that any of those other guys merely tag along. I see it as more of a professional respect and faith and to a large extent character. You hear stories all the time about drivers not even on speaking terms with key members of the team and that inevitably happens when the results are not coming. You never see that with Michael and Ferrari. Michael will never leave Ferrari because there he is more than just a guy who is paid to take the car around in circles. He is, more than any other drivers, part of the team and because of that, the fact that the team is built around him is justified.

Strong rumours suggest that next year, we'll see Kimi and Michael in the same team. That will be something to watch. Kimi in a reliable car IMO would be a very scary thing in deed. If McLaren post-Newey still has silly problems, Fernando is going to have his work cut out for him in 2007. Specially since there is unlikely to be major changes to the engines (well that depends on the engine freeze (dis)agreements.)

On the brighter side for Massa, he is managed by no other than Jean Todt's son, so I'm sure he will remain in the frame at Ferrari, even if he gets a drive with another team. With Ross Brawn no longer in F1 next year, I think Michael will not be racing for much longer.

 

well, i'm neither an F1 engineer or a driver. so, if Alono thinks the R25 is better than the R26, who i'm i to second guess him. but, sometimes that just means the driver is not comfortable with the car. just look at Barrichello at the beginning of the season. his car was setup almost identical the Button's car yet his pace was way off Button's pace. it doesn't mean that Barrichello wasn't a good drive or his car was slower, it just means that he wasn't comfortable with the car.

last year’s cars was considerably different than this year mainly due to the power train. the v10 provide more low end torque and weight distribution is also changed due to the smaller engine. Renault's engine is know for their low end torque, so using the 6 speed suit them better than the 7 speed, it helps them to stay in the power band longer. it's one of the reason why they are better at getting out off the hole at the start, along with a superior traction control system.

i think it’s good for drivers to move from team to team, it keeps the sport more interesting unlike other racing series where a driver stays with a team for a very long time. It’s just hard to support both the team and driver at the same time because you never know what driver is going to what team each year. i think it sucks that Alonso is leaving a team that is responsible for making him the youngest F1 champion and possibly a second championship in a row to an inferior team because of monetary reasons. Button did what ever he could to back out his contract with Williams when he realize that they weren’t going to be able to help him achieve that first win. He lost a substantial amount of money staying with Honda.

 

i found these really cool pics on honda's site. you can see from the pics that every nuts and bolts are included. i would love to see it in person.