Like it or not, they have IMO the best of all young driver programs. Look at the caliber of drivers they bought to the sport...Vettel, Ricciardo, Kvyat, Verstappen, Vergne, Sainz just of the top of my head. I do wish for Mate****z and Helmut to **** off though. put a gag on them.
Do you mean the Footwork-Arrows? Agreed but at least there was a diversity of engines/types in that era--V8's, V10's and V12's by several different manufacturers. The sound of the pack was magnificent.
I took no offense to your post and was laughing with you and not at you, should I be more delicate next time?
It is the diversity that I miss most. When the FIA regs layout specs, right down to the valve angle, there is effectively no diversity and little innovation. And for those of you who are slagging 4 cylinder turbos, the BMW M10/12/13 Megatron develop 1,000hp +/- form 1.5 liters and the sound was quite loud. Of course, that was 30 years ago, when the FIA wasn't designing engines.
Renault did push for the smaller turbo concept. However, it was mainly Newey who pushed for the V6 over the inline four. He felt that the subframe required to run an inline four would upset the aero potential...pushing for the stressed member V6 instead. Ferrari agreed...and, Mercedes shrugged their shoulders and said "okay."
At the time, an acquaintance of mine visited Megatron, enquiring about a BMW turbo engine for a sportcar project he intended to built. On that day, they were bench testing one of their experimental F1 engines and they invited him to see the dyno session. He saw the dyno clock go to 1700HP, although they quickly said that the engine wouldn't be operable with that boost pressure. 1700HP extracted from a stock block taken from a saloon car, can you believe it !!
Liuzzi, Speed, Bourdais where not fit for F1. Alguersuari and Vergne both got a proper shot at F1, 2.5 and 3 seasons respectively, all on Red Bull's money. After a while, Red Bull decides who moves up (Vettel, Ricciardo and Kvyat), others have either stayed on, been picked up by other teams or, if they where either unlucky (vergne) or not good enough (speed, Liuzzi, Bourdais) they try their luck at other series. Not quite sure where Alguersuari fits in, I don't think he was quite bad or very spectacular. Anyways, it's not RBR's job to keep employing someone who is not going to get a shot at their big boys team, and other F1 teams have been able to see the talents (or lack of) of all their drivers, and could pick them up if they want to. Most of these drivers have been receiving Red Bull support before F1, which means they've been a sizeable investment on RB's part, and relieved said drivers of finding sponsors (if they're not lucky enough to have billionaire dads). I don't understand the hate for the RB program. They're not going to dump world championship drivers for a chance with a rookie. What I certainly don't understand is the claims that they're destroying the careers of these young guys, many of which probably wouldn't even come close to an F1 test seat, let alone be able to race for many seasons. They're not charity. On top of that, wouldn't you feel for young drivers not able to get an F1 drive because RBR keeps STR drivers sitting in seats? Look at the GP2 boys with titles (particularly Van Doorne, who is now looking at a super formula drive...), unable to get an F1 seat.
Very cool!..... If the stories are true, leaving the blocks out in the rain & pissing on them worked wonders too..... I'm surprised he was invited to watch it though - Must have had many dollars (Dmarks?) hanging out of his pockets! IME, they're all generally pretty paranoid about allowing "outsiders" into their test bays/control centers. I watched a few Toyota F3 lumps in Italy over the years, but they'd *never* let us see "our" engine(s) being tested; Someone elses, no problem, although we were never told who owned what. Cheers, Ian
BMW used engine blocks that had seen many miles on road cars. The reason for that if they believed that going through plenty of thermic cycles de-stressed the mollecules in the block. Other engine builders obtain the same, if they work from block straight from the foundry, by putting them through various cycles in an oven, for the same reason.
+1 Whatever the reasons, the little sucker certainly made many HP..... Agreed. It's one of the few areas that remain something of a black art IMO. It's steel, the molecules are pretty much set. "Destressing"? I dunno..... Cheers, Ian
That's right. Most people don't seem to grasp the counter-intuitive notion that highly defined design parameters can actually result in higher development costs than less restrictive regulations.
I think alguersuarie had some kind of heart condition, prevented him running cars at one point, I may be wrong, but that is likely the reason
