News from Barcelona:
- Perez passed his test so he's back
- FIA will forbid engine "party mode" - essentially there will be one mode for qualy and same for race, no more boosting it for Q3. That looks directly aimed at Mercedes... Ferrari laughed out loud, it's not gonna make a difference for them, there's no party at Ferrari ;-) This could start (Well, stop) as soon as the belgian GP.

I wonder how they are going to police that?

they use a common CPU supplied by mac
the FIA can see the settings in real time to know the modes used

So the FIA has the same access to engine parameters and control as the teams do?

Grojean 5th fastest in FP2 where did that come from ??? Magnuson back in 16th . Vettel only 12th with the new chassis while his teammate was 6th I think . The black cars still in a different zip code 😁

Maybe low fuel ? He's not a **** driver actually, has shown speed before.. In terms of where did that come from, may I present Maldonado winning in Spain? That was the mother of "where did that come from" ;-)

F1 2020 Thread
 

Wow, watching the free practice 1 in Spain and listing to the announcers. They mentioned on average the brake pedal required 120 Kilo or 264 pounds of force to stop at the right pace. All done with the front of the foot so leg, ankle and toes.

Try that next time you are at the gym.

And not just once, but corner after corner for the weekend. Wow.

5G under braking, that's a lot of stopping force

Was told just lifting off the gas in an F1 car it brakes harder than any road car because of aero drag alone

This may have already been posted but it’s a good story of a normal person driving a modern F1 car including the brake for needed:

https://youtu.be/BE7mgfwd6M8

The really tricky part about braking in an F1 car, or any car with substantial down force, is that you have to progressively release pedal pressure as the speed goes down. It’s not simply a case of standing on the pedal, like in a street car.

Sounds to me like breaking for a fairly slow corner from full song is at best a 2 second affair. You'd do good to brake near 100% and modulate towards the end of the 2 second period. More like relieving the pressure on your kidney for a few milliseconds before you crush same kidney while accelerating away from the corner.

And that's lying down. I try to think of where the blood in my brain would be during all of this. Clearly this is not for anyone short of the ability to fly fighter jets. Race car drivers do their gymnastics on a relatively flat plane compared to the multi directional forces of high performance flight. They just don't have to strain their groin to push a brake pedal.

I think piloting an F1 car would be much more difficult than flying a fighter jet.

The thing about downforce is that it’s relative to the square of the speed. That means the release of pressure on the brakes is not linear and, as you rightly pointed out, it’s compressed into a really small timeframe.

Today's qualifying was not very exciting but it is what it is . What happened to Grojean's pace ? I hope qualifying at Indy later today is better .

It would be interesting to get a pilot and driver together to compare experience. I realize it would be much easier to put an F1 driver in an FA 18 Hornet's co pilot seat than it would be to do the opposite. One thing for sure is the commonality of G-forces. Interesting also is the fact that although an F1 car creates tremendous downforce, the driver feels none of it. Only acceleration in 2 axis (with the occasional elevation change and subsequent forces). The fighter pilot doesn't get too much lateral force, his 2 axis are fore and aft and up and down.

I think they's each be a bit disorientated at first.

My ESPN did not record Qualifying this morning?
so here are the highlights.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t8t4lbw6pBE" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Well, at least Max and Bottas weren’t lapped...

Not really a spoiler is it?

Anyone tuning into this thread on raceday without watching the race is begging for a spoiler, yes?

My post was more of a comment on the sharp end of F1 than a complaint about spoilers.

I doubt that an F1 driver would be braking for as long as 2 seconds into a corner. That's a loooong time in an F1 car