US GP at Indy this weekend
Despite the total shambles that marked the 2005 Indy Grand
Prix, the Americans have hosted the F1 circus again, even
though it needed offers of free tickets (20,000 of them)
from Michelin as some form of appeasement. There was also a
class action against the promoters in the American courts,
but it was rejected.
The
US GP is held at a special ‘stadium’ circuit built inside
the famous ‘Brickyard’ Indy circuit and incorporates one
straight and one corner of the American classic.
The ‘Indy’ circuit more correctly known as the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway (there is also a circuit called Indianapolis
Raceway Park) opened in 1909 as a 2.5-mile track paved with
bricks. Each of the long straights is 3,300 feet long, the
short straights are 660 feet. Each turn is 1320 feet long
and banked at 9 degrees and 12 minutes. The track is now
surfaced with tarmac and there have been subtle changes made
to the turns to slow down cars - or to speed them up when
the Indy Racing League took over the Indianapolis 500. The
‘Brickyard’ held its first 500 mile race in 1911 and the
Indianapolis 500 is now the world’s oldest continuously run
motor race. It is also the richest motor race and the
world’s largest single day sports spectacle.
Tony George, the President of the Indianapolis Motor
Speedway, was almost single-handedly responsible for
bringing F1 racing back to the United States. The
Indianapolis Motor Speedway had to be brought up to standard
in order to host the United States Grand Prix, including a
new Paddock area which would allow cars to exit from the
garage directly onto Pit Lane. Also, in a major concession
to the traditions of F1 racing, the 2000 USGP marked the
very first time that a race had been run in reverse
(clockwise) direction at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway!
Despite the hour, (I believe the race will start at midnight
on the Sunday, but check with your local TV feed) I will be
at Jameson’s Irish Pub on Soi AR (Sukrudee) next to Nova
Park. Join me for a beer or three!
MX-5 gets an electric folding roof
The motoring world seems agog because
Mazda has announced it will add an electrically folding roof
to the new Mazda MX-5 line-up. Why, I do not know. Not why
regarding the roof, which is a great idea, but why the
motoring journalists are questioning it.
Having had an MX-5 as my daily driver car for three years,
removing or installing the hard top was a pain and needed
two people, and the rag roof fluttered as they all do at
speed. A folding metal roof would have been my first
tick-the-box option.
Mazda will debut the new roof at the 2006 British
International Motor Show (July 18-30). Now in its 17th year
of production and third generation of design, the MX-5 is
already the top selling sports car of all time and can be
expected to get a significant lease of life with the
newfound convenience of an electrical hardtop.
Autotrivia Quiz
Last week I asked who was it that had the rear-mounted fuel
tank on his Cadillac armor-plated? It was none other than
everyone’s favorite crim, Al Capone!
So to this week. In 1919 41 percent of the registrations in
the UK were a foreign make. Which one was it?
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be the first correct
answer to email [email protected]
Good luck!
So what did we learn from the Canadian GP?
Alonso.
Well, the first thing we learned was that
Michael Schumacher thinks Jacques Villeneuve is a good
singer/songwriter! Apparently JV has released his first
record and Schumi was asked to comment. It seems that Schumi
believes he should stick to singing and forget the rest.
There is still no love lost between those two drivers.
We also saw the difference between the young inexperienced
drivers like Rosberg and old experienced drivers like
Michael Schumacher. Juan Pablo Montoya raced wheel to wheel
with Schumi and there were no problems, but when Montoya
took the apex from Rosberg (the first trick in GoKarting),
Rosberg moved over into an apex he no longer had, and ended
up in the wall. He has a lot to learn yet.
We also saw again just how Alonso wins his world
championships.
He drives well (much better than his team mate Fisichella
for example), the Renault is bullet-proof, and the pit stops
go flawlessly. That is their winning combination. Now
compare that to the other ‘young charger’ Raikkonen. I
believe that the Finn is ultimately the faster driver, but
the McLaren Mercedes is far from being reliable and the pit
stops must be a period of gut-gnawing anxiety for the
driver. Two botched pit stops out of two in Canada. One
apparently caused by a dragging clutch causing the engine to
stall, and the other with the wheel not seating properly.
And this is from a team that is supposedly one of the best
in the world. Ron Dennis must be tearing (what’s left of)
his hair out.
Who is the best Brit out there? I think it is time that the
native UK press stopped holding Jenson Button up as the UK’s
great white hope. After more than 100 starts, he now has an
excuse book that runs to several pages, but I question
whether Button actually is of the stuff that champions are
made. Currently, ‘old timer’ David Coulthard is certainly
showing Button the way, and in Canada, to come from last
grid slot to actually pass Button, on the track – not in the
pits, to score the final championship point was a superb
drive. Coulthard may be the second oldest driver out there,
but he is certainly out-driving the UK’s great white hope.
We also learned that no matter how many championships your
team has under its belt, it can still make some hopeless
decisions. WilliamsF1 admitting they chose the wrong tyres
for Webber’s car, making it almost undriveable in the race.
You must also not lose sight of the fact that the team
members who make these decisions are paid mega-dollars for
their experience and canny know-how. Sir Frank will be
asking questions this week, I am sure.
We also saw that Schumi never gives up, and it was because
of this he was close enough to Raikkonen to take advantage
of the Finn’s slip-up at the end of the race and secure
second place on the podium for himself. If Schumacher had
been in ‘touring’ mode he would have only been third.
The other Schumacher ended up being a mobile chicane all
day. It was put down to a wrong tyre choice (similar to
WilliamsF1), and his team should have really pulled him in
about 40 laps before they did. An embarrassing display for
Toyota, whose head office will not be pleased.
So we head to the US GP this weekend. Currently, Alonso has
to be favorite, but as always (as we saw in Canada), never
discount Michael Schumacher!
J.D. Power awards the
automotive ‘Oscars’
The J.D. Power organization revamped its Initial
Quality Study to cover both quality of design and quality of
production (lack of defects and malfunctions). The Initial
Quality Study was based on the responses of almost 64,000 US
motorists who have owned 2006 models for 90 days and then
answered a survey with more than 200 questions.
There were many reasons for the re-assessment this year, as
customers have been complaining about difficulties in using
their new cars, as well as faults that have become apparent
in the way the car was assembled. The traditional method of
assessment did not take the design quality into account.
According to Joe Ivers, executive director of quality and
customer satisfaction research for J.D. Power and
Associates, “New vehicles today are often packed with new
technologies that unfortunately can be complicated and
frustrating for the average consumer when their integration
is not well executed.”
“In the eyes of consumers, design flaws can have as much of
an impact on their perceptions of quality as can a defect.
Yet, many manufacturers have tended to address quality
solely on the plant floor without considering design
factors.”
“Without considering both quality factors, one might fail to
recognize vehicles that are, in fact, excellent in certain
ways,” said Ivers. “For example, BMW vehicles have among the
fewest defects and malfunctions, along with Toyota. But BMW
approaches controls and displays in a way that creates some
problems for customers, leading to more design-related
problems overall than Toyota incurs. Automakers differ
significantly in how they define quality and what parts of
the organization they hold accountable for it. Clearing both
critical quality hurdles is an accomplishment experienced by
only a limited number of brands,” Ivers said.
This new way of grading the Initial Quality Study certainly
should be an eye-opener or a wake-up call for companies such
as BMW and its complex iDrive system. For those unaware of
iDrive, BMW managed to produce a system of controls governed
by one knob only. The function required is shown on a screen
on the dash and you ‘navigate’ around the screen (like a
computer drop-down menu) to select the function and then
what you want to do with it.
When it came to the number of defects per 100 cars, BMW was
highly competitive, with only 52, which matched Toyota and
was ahead of Honda (57), however when it came to design
problems BMW was close to the bottom with 82 problems, the
second worst among the 37 brands in the study. Only Land
Rover, with 89 design problems, was worse with its controls
aggravating its owners. Honestly, I have to agree with the
findings expressed by the American drivers. Simple rotary
knobs are so much easier than repeatedly punching buttons or
scrolling down through multiple choice menus. Grrrrr!
On the other side of the coin, Kia, had 72 defects per 100
vehicles when it came to malfunctions, but in the design
category it had only 58 problems per 100 vehicles, which as
one Australian journalist noted, “indicates Kia owners have
an impressive mastery of simple dials, knobs and possibly
window winders.” I agree.
When it came to overall excellence, Toyota and its Lexus
operation ruled, winning 11 of 19 vehicle categories,
however Porsche took the top spot overall, Lexus was second
and Toyota was fourth. Third was the major upset, taken by
Hyundai, which Ivers says “has hit the major league”.
The 2006 Initial Quality Study was based on responses from
63,607 purchasers and lessees of new 2006 model-year cars
and trucks surveyed after 90 days of ownership. The
redesigned IQS is based on a new 217-question battery — up
from 135 in previous years — to provide manufacturers with
richer information to improve problem determination and
drive product improvement.
