GP2 Cars Faster than the Cosworth End of the F1 Grid A curious thing happened today in Monaco. Several of the GP2 cars put in faster laps than some of the new F1 teams. F1 is the undisputed pinnacle of modern motorsport with fantastically large budgets, while GP2 is a spec feeder series. As eloquently put by Flavio Briatorre, “There are teams in F1 who are only two seconds quicker compared to GP2 teams and they are spending 60-70 million while GP2 costs three million. Something’s wrong there.” Just imagine…
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Video – Randy Bernard Answers Fan Questions at Kansas
IndyCar – DeltaWing Announces Partnership With Milliken & Company
Many of you know that I’m not a big supporter of the DeltaWing effort, but understand that its not for any of the technological goals and philosophies of the group. I just can’t get past the tricycle appearance of the thing and the mundane performance specs for the engine. Of all the designs and proposals made public thus far, I must say that Swift Engineering is by far my favorite. The renderings of their proposed models look great, but that’s not their primary strength; it’s their technological expertise and partnerships…
Read MoreIndyCar – The BAT Project
Bruce Ashmore, Alan Mertens and Tim Wardrop, all with serious design and engineering credentials in IndyCar racing, have put together a concept for the 2012 IndyCar Chassis. Calling themselves BAT Engineering, BAT for Bruce, Alan, and Tim, the trio have created a concept that started not with a discussion amongst aerodynamicists, but with Dr. Trammell and and other Indy Racing League safety officials. The first goal of the chassis was to be safe, which leads the concept to have very wide sidepods and closely protected wheels. The second objective was…
Read MoreIndyCar – Lotus Returns to the Greatest Spectacle In Racing
The folks at Racecar Engineering are reporting that Lotus is looking to return to the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, as Team Lotus USA. Motorsport Director Claudio Berro told highly regarded British publication Motorsport News “the Indycar dream is very real for us. We are talking to an existing team about forging an alliance. The American marketplace is very important for Lotus and there is a pedigree and history at the Indy 500. When people think of Lotus they think of competition and racing, it is…
Read MoreVideo – Delta Wing Mock Lap at Long Beach
IndyCar – The Lola Project Revisited
Today, Lola followed their initial press release which revealed their intent to bid for the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series chassis contract with a second, more fulsome press release including sketches of their proposed chassis. It must be said that the outward appearance of the chassis is rather uninspired and stale. There’s nothing genuinely new, innovative or modern about the looks of the chassis. Lola does bring some very interesting concepts with their bid that could lower costs, and bridge the equipment gap between the IZOD IndyCar Series and the Firestone…
Read MoreOpEd – Beauty Pageant or Racing Series?
The interwebs have been all a buzz over the release of the chassis concepts for the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series from Dallara, Swift, and especially the much anticipated Delta Wing. There’s been much commentary offered for and against all of the designs, but none has received more discussion and more scorn than the extremely radical concept car from Delta Wing, LLC that was revealed last Wednesday at the Chicago Auto Show. We’ve gone over various aspects of the proposed concepts here, as have many others, and there are certainly a…
Read MoreVideo – Delta Wing Mock Lap at Mid-Ohio
IndyCar – Detla Wing: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!
The official unveiling took place this afternoon at the Chicago Auto Show and now we officially have the Delta Wing concept car to ogle, ponder, ruminate upon and maybe mock a bit. The Bad and the Ugly Our universal opinion here amongst the Paddock staff is that this thing looks a bit too far fetched, to the point of being downright unattractive. Delta Wing’s press release calls this an “open wheel” car, to which they may be referring to the tire contact patch sized gap in the top of the chassis where…
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