What did we learn from the GP in Turkey?
Well, we learned that Button can push all
the right buttons on his Brawn GP, but Rooby Baby Barichello
pushed the wrong one at the start. Button drove an exemplary
race, and after nipping past Vettel (Red Bull) on lap 1, it
was game over. Button is now the odds-on favorite to take
the world championship.
Vettel did not do himself any favors in Istanbul. His pole
position was courtesy of running very light in fuel (he was
almost 10 kg lighter than team mate Webber). He was again
kept light after the first stop, so that he could take the
fight to Button (which he did) and then pass him (which he
didn’t). That was the point in the race which sealed his
fate to be third behind his team mate. His sulky Seb routine
at the finish and on the podium showed that he is still a
youngster, or perhaps taking lessons from Alonso. However, I
had previously been calling him the “vunderkinder” and I was
taken to task by reader Peter Wehrli who informed me that
“kinder” is plural. Thank you Peter, but I will now refer to
him as “Sulky Seb”. Webber drove a mature race and deserved
his second place and really did not need any help from the
pit wall to keep his team mate behind.
Toyota is back, and no longer backs to the wall as they were
in Monaco. Trulli drove well for fourth and Glock overcame a
miserable qualifying session to finish eighth. I expect them
to be even closer to the front at Silverstone next weekend.
Williams were also rewarded with a fine fifth place by
Rosberg, and ‘Knuckles’ Nakajima was also looking for a
points finish until a botched last pit stop put him out of
contention. A great change, as he normally puts himself out
of contention!
Sixth was as good as it got for Ferrari’s Massa. Raikkonen
asleep on the job as usual.
BMW also showed some promise, and Kubica “nose” there has
been an improvement and was happy with his seventh place.
Heidfeld went back to being a mid-fielder, I am afraid.
Renault came away with no points, despite Alonso being the
lightest on the grid (even lighter than Sulky Seb). Piquet
once again demonstrated the fact that he is not a top line
driver. When Dad’s money (which is keeping him at Renault)
runs out, so will Nelsinho’s contract.
Also rans? How about McLaren? Lewis Hamilton did not even
make it through to the second qualifying session and was
again lapped by Button. Kovalainen had an interesting tussle
with Barichello for a few laps (one of the few points of
interest in the entire race).
Of course, the battles on the track pale into insignificance
compared to the battles in the boardrooms, with eight of the
current teams threatening boycotts, being responded to by
the FIA waving entries by new teams as their answer. These
new teams may sound like old teams, but they are not. The
“Brabham” entry has nothing to do with Sir Jack and the
boys, other than the fact that the ‘name owner’ is being
sued by them. We are also led to believe that “Lotus” has
been resurrected. This is not ‘Team Lotus’ with a
resurrected Colin Chapman, but some other bunch who has
bought a name. Nor is it related to the Lotus sports cars
owned by Malaysia’s Proton.
If the FIA does not come to a compromise agreement, expect
the top teams to walk away and form their own competition
(Formula 1+) on circuits such as Spa and Silverstone run in
daylight hours.
Electric Superchargers
The way of the future is to electrical power even
more than just now. Many features in the vehicles of the
future can be adapted and handled better by electricity, and
this includes brakes and steering. “X-by-wire” is certainly
here to stay.
However, the auto industry is stuck with a conundrum. All
vehicles need some propulsion unit, and whilst fuel cells
and all-electric vehicles are being made, they cannot
(currently) be made cheaply enough to be considered mass
transport. In that area, the internal combustion engine
still reigns supreme; after all, we have been progressively
refining it for over 100 years.
The auto industry is now trying to make its gasoline engines
as economical as possible. The first saving was that of
power steering. When this was driven by pulleys attached to
the crankshaft, and therefore used power, this was making
the cars more thirsty. The answer? Drive the power steering
with electricity.
Another method to counteract thirsty engines is to downsize.
A 1.3 liter engine is more economical than a 2 liter engine,
but it is less powerful. To try and get round this problem
with downsized engines, many manufacturers have turned again
to turbocharging, but encounter the turbo lag problem.
There is another way of getting more petrol/air mixture into
the cylinder head, and that is supercharging. However, the
supercharger usually takes power to drive it because it is
belt driven from the crankshaft. The horsepower required to
drive the blower on a typical OEM supercharger may be 50 to
60 BHP at full throttle.
This is where the concept of electrically driven
supercharging would appear to have an enormous plus. Instead
of being crankshaft driven and sapping the power, an
electrically operated supercharger would give instant boost
within milliseconds, irrespective of engine crankshaft
speed, and without the large losses of the belt driven
blowers.
Autotrivia Quiz
Last week I mentioned the term ‘People’s
Car’ which makes everyone think of VW, but I wrote that
another country also produced their own ‘People’s Car’, and
it was the first private car built in that country. I asked
what country was it? It was China with the car being
produced by the Mao Tse-tung government in 1951.
So to this week. In 1907 you could buy a four cylinder,
shaft drive, continuously variable transmission (CVT)
motorcycle. What was it?
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be the first correct
answer to email [email protected]
Good luck!
GM and Chrysler bust -
is Ford next?
After Chrysler, GM have now gone Chapter 11
Bankruptcy protection. How the mighty have fallen! Two years
ago in this column we predicted that GM would go to the
wall, while all the time their top executives were awarding
themselves multi-million dollar bonus packages. For what?
For overseeing the biggest catastrophe in the history of US
car making?
Ford
HQ
Some pundits have been wondering if the Chapter 11 will kill
GM’s sales. Why wonder? Of course it will. With many GM
dealers being phased out, and the total air of uncertainty,
would you be rushing down to the local GM dealer for your
next SUV? Answer truthfully!
There are some who are predicting that Ford is next to go,
but I don’t think so. Whilst things have been tight over at
the Blue Oval, FoMoCo has not accepted any government money
and is in no immediate danger of going under financially.
Back to Ford, it may have lost a record $14.7 billion last
year and hasn’t posted an annual profit since 2005, but new
CEO Alan Mulally predicts that Ford may return to
profitability by 2011 because of cost cutting and building
more fuel-efficient new models that consumers are demanding.
Ford is also increasing production, after the cut-backs of
last year. North American output will rise by 10,000
vehicles from its previous plan to 445,000 this quarter, and
third-quarter production will be up 42,000 vehicles from a
year earlier to 460,000. Ford’s market share has also gone
up for the past seven months, as its rivals have stuttered.
The stock market has also reflected the (cautious) optimism
at Ford. Ford stocks rose 6.6 percent, to $6.13 and the
shares have more than doubled this year, for a gain bigger
than those of all except three companies in the Standard &
Poor’s 500 Index.
Whether it is Alan Mulally or just a better corporate think
tank over there in Dearborn, I do not see Ford going under.
Quite the opposite. But will it get back to being the world
number 2? Probably not.
British motorists claim
BMW drivers are the worst
In a highly doubtful piece of “research”, it is
claimed by Auto Trader Compare, the motor insurance
comparison service from the UK’s largest motoring website,
that BMW owners are deemed to be the worst drivers on the
UK’s roads according to a massive 59 percent of respondents,
followed by Subaru drivers (42 percent), Porsche drivers (39
percent), Audi drivers (30 percent) and Mercedes-Benz
drivers (27 percent).
BMW drivers are most associated with bad or inefficient
driving according to the survey, with 68 percent of
respondents claiming that bad drivers of these vehicles
drive too fast, overtake in dangerous situations (66
percent), intimidate other road users (66 percent) and drive
too close to the car in front (64 percent).
Enjoying
what a BMW can give you!
The survey, conducted amongst more than 1,500 UK motorists
nationwide, shows that outdated driving myths are still
prevalent, with 37 percent still believing that men are
generally better drivers than women and that van drivers are
the worst on the road (100 percent), followed by young
drivers (98 percent), old drivers (90 percent), taxi drivers
(78 percent) and ‘school run mums’ (78 percent). Bus and
heavy goods vehicle drivers were considered to be the best
road users.
‘Sunday drivers’ were classed as the worst type of driver
(53 percent), followed by ‘rush-hour drivers’ (43 percent).
It seems that UK motorists are happy to find fault in other
road users, but not in themselves as the survey results also
show that 22 percent of motorists rating their own driving
as ‘excellent’ and 63 percent as ‘good’.
Mind you, I have to say that generally the British drivers
are far more aware than those in Thailand, no matter what
they drive!
Valentino Rossi to
Ferrari?
This has been coming up for the past two or three
years, ever since Rossi had a drive in an F1 Ferrari and
lapped within 1.5 seconds of Michael Schumacher’s time.
Undoubtedly a spectacular effort, but Rossi has always said
that his ambitions are on two wheels, and getting Yamaha to
the top is one of them. That he has done, so what is next?
Four wheels and Ferrari? Please note that Rossi’s Yamaha
sports Fiat advertising, and Fiat just happens to own
Ferrari. And Rossi is Italian!
A complicating factor is the current squabble between
Ferrari and the FIA as far as the formula for 2010 is
concerned, with Ferrari threatening to withdraw. For once, I
am totally in agreement with Ferrari. The proposed two tier
classes for F1 destroys the very basis of the ‘premier’
formula.
However, I am sure that a compromise will eventually be
reached, as F1 cannot afford to be without Ferrari (and
Renault, Toyota and Red Bull, who are also threatening to
leave), so there will still be F1 in 2010.
So will Rossi be wearing red Nomex instead of his leathers?
If he wins this year’s Moto GP championship, I expect him to
switch to four wheels. You read it here first.
Rossi’s
Ferrari?
