Off topic - F1 Safety Car (??)

After my last post, I went back through a couple of my tapes from this year. Yeah, you're right it is an SLK. It's the SL55 AMG, which is one seriously full-on piece of equipment. I had a clown blast past me at many knots over the posted limit on the freeway the other day with some stunningly gorgeous blonde thing in the passenger seat. She wasn't bad, but I was more interested in listening to the exhaust note on this thing.

From memory, I seem to recall M.Brundle waxing lyrical to his James Allen (a while back now) about an opportunity he had to take it for a spin around one of the tracks. You could hear the massive grin on his face as he was talking about it. Now & then, depending on the track, the effects mike will pick up the exhaust as it hammers around. Yeah I think Bernie's now playing even more hard-ball when it comes to licensing. Probably because he feels he's not going to win the fight over the teams' push for increased TV revenue - they've pretty much boxed him in on that one. Which means we may never see another F1 kit from Tamiya.

Santa, I would like: an R25. If Mr Tamiya can nail that sexy, swoopy bodywork around the sidepods, then he will have taken injection moulding to the next level.

Cheers

Shaun

Shaun:
Searching the memory banks here.  The CLK was used as a safety car for a few years.  I want to say from around 1999 to 2003 or so.  I know in 2004 they were using the SLK.  It is a tough sounding little devil.  It should considering they somehow shoved a V8 under the hood.  Rumor has it the V8 came from the S-class series with fine tuning by AMG.  Not positive on that one.  The medical car is a C-class wagon which surprised me.  I would have thought they would have used an E-class for the size.  Tamiya makes a nice little SLK, now if someone could turn out the decals....hmmm.  But then Bernie would blow a gasket over license fees.    At Spa this year they were using the A-Class for track workers.  That was a hoot, seeing that car with all the F1 livery.

Now if Tamiya really wanted to send us a merry christmas, I'm thinking 1/12 McLaren MP4/20. 

You're right . You're right. Now that I think about it more objectively, 2006 will definitely be an engine-builders year, I think. Even allowing for the Xmas testing break, we'll see imcremental increases in engine power & lap times at the various tracks very quickly. What we should all keep in mind, is this: even though the engine capacity has been reduced by 20%, each cylinder volume is exactly the same, which theoretically should mean the same acceleration & torque figures. It's really only top end speed which will suffer in the short term. And you didn't even mention Toyota - surely the most improved team in 12 months.

I thought the safety car was a CLK. Doesn't matter. A model of one would indeed be cool. Mind you, so would a bells&whistles (a-la last Tamiya Williams)MP4/20, TF105, R25, dare I say it an RB1, & BAR 07.

Cheers

Shaun

Shaun:  If we could ONLY get A1GP on Speed for us poor folks who don't have the dish.    Now to return this to a model topic.  What would be really cool is if someone would do the Mercedes SLK Safety Car is say, 1/20??  Think of all the cool dioramas you could do then. 

As for 2006, let's see here.  Tires changes will be back, but the changes in cars and a new track will mean the compounds will change and testing will start all over.  (See Ferrari testing at Bahrain last week.)  New engines which are down on power compared to strangled V10s.  (Could Toro Rossa be a leader now?)  Ferrari still has to create a decent car and BAR, Renault and McLaren have been testing the new ones already.  Will Williams suddenly find daylight in their tunnel?  Signs point to no.  I'm thinking BAR will be a force as well.  So we "could" be looking at 3-4 teams with real shots here.  Would that be cool or what?  Forget the rules package, can you imagine a 3 or 4 way fight for the title?  Fernando v. Kimi v. Juan v. Schuey with Jenson and a couple other tossed in for good measure?  Oh man, F1 life could get no better.  Looking at the end of last year, it could happen. 

Of course that is if the teams don't screw up the cars.  Juan doesn't play tennis.  BAR doesn't  get busted again.  Let's keep our fingers crossed here folks.  Oh, and petition Tamiya to make that safety car model for us! 

vapochilled wrote:

In my humble opinion, the rules regarding F1 have gone so far to pot, as too make the sport a laughing stock. Each year they roll out another set of rules which reduces the enjoyment more. I can't wait for the 2020 season, by then they will all be driving 1.3 Diesel fiesta's and overtaking will be banned :( It used to be such a great sport to watch.

 

Dont forget the speed cameras and fines

Martin & Il Leone

I agree with both of you. This thread gave me an opportunity to vent my spleen, on the dis-service we have had as F1 fans the world over. Yes I found it quite exciting that Ferrari hit their purple patch in 02, but I also found it quite annoying & frustrating that at least half of the other teams couldn't come up with a comparable package to even compete. I guess one of the problems is there isn't a decent junior F1 formula to bring a lot of guys on to the top level. The cars are built these days to be almost like SCX. I remember reading an article on one of the current young guns saying he thought his F3 was actually a harder car to set up & drive competitively, & they do it twice a weekend.

We could all bang away on this thread for hours, days, weeks....... I think we all agree the current state of F1 is a joke. I remember sending a letter to F1Racing recently, basically saying unless things change, A1GP will drag the fans across. Every race so far has been great - real sidepod-to-sidepod stuff. A bit of argy-bargy. Ok, so the French & Brazilian teams have pretty much romped away with it, but geez it's been interesting to see who's the best of the rest. And there's been a few surprises.

Anyway, off to do some modelling

Cheers

Shaun

Funny how this has been resurrected.  There is no level playing field in F1, nor has there ever been - that is the whole point of it.  Rules and regulations are there to restrict and to my mind that is what the FIA seem to want.   Instead of welcoming new technology (which, in the end, benefits commercial road cars) the FIA continually mess with the rules to try and make them go slower.   

Why to these Guys get paid 20 million a year - to sign a Health and Safety certificate get out clause?
I don't think so!

We've always had dominant teams for as far back as the 30's with Bugatti.  Alfas, Mercs etc etc through to the Lotus years and then Mclaren, Ferrari, Williams etc (not necessarily in that order) -you get my drift. (and it didn't seem to matter a heck of a lot who was driving them either!)

Now that Ferrari have thrown their toys out of the pram and more or less forced the FIA to drop the no tyre stop rule for 2006 I guess my money has to be on Schuey again for next year.

I still think this Safety Car rule is a lottery though - which was the point of my original post.

Martin

I got my first "live" experience with the Aussie V8s in Melbourne 2004.  Better than NASCAR?  That is the understatement of the decade.  Better action, loud cars beating and banging going through each turn.  Oh yea, way better than the circle trackers.  Good drivers too!

Don't even get me started on the rules and F1.  So glad I wasn't at Indy for the debacle there.  Qualifying?  From a TV point of view, PLEASE give me the days of old.  Last minute action as everyone went nuts going for a time.  At the track is was a little confusing trying to figure out who was on pole and what was happening.  Plus you were really bored for the first 30 minutes.  I think we "may" have a solution for next year.  Fingers crossed that this will work out.  Action on the track for the entire hour+ of qualifying. 

The Ferrari dominace of the past few years?  Answer is simple here.  Build a better mouse trap people.  Go back in history.  In the 80s we had what, 4-5 driver worth their paycheck?  Senna, Prost, Piquet, Berger (sometimes) and of course, Mansell.  (I'm biased, deal with it.)  On any given race day, any of these drivers would/could win.  For who?  McLaren or Williams with the rare Ferrari victory.  Go back to what, 1986?  How many manufacturers won the trophy between then and 2005?  McLaren, Williams, Benneton and Ferrari.  Between 1986 and 1994?  Only two of them.  But was that boring?  Nope, good stuff then.  So what has changed?  Instead of 4 great drivers, we had only 1.  Sure there were some others, but would you really place Mika, Jacque or Damon in the same league as Ayrton, Alain or Nigel?  Be honest now people.  McLaren and Williams built some really great cars and good, but not great, drivers had them to win.  The only dominating car built recently was by Ferrari, who also had probably the best driver ever.  (Remains to be seen by the historians.)  End result, nobody to touch them.

Now we are the edge of something new.  Keep your fingers crossed here.  Could it finally be that we have 2 or 3 really good cars and perhaps 4 or 5 really good drivers?  Possibly.  The fools in Paris can mess with the rules all they want but the bottom line remains, good drivers and cars will always be at the front.  Renault won on reliability this year.  But McLaren had the better car.  "Maybe" next year we will see a real fight for the trophy coming down to the last turn on the last day.  We can always hope.  Bottom line, teams have to build a better car.  We have to hope that the drivers will rise above themselves and find truly great and spirited drives within themselves.  And it wouldn't hurt to have a little controversy going on.  Come on Juan, tell us how you really feel about Kimi! 

Oh, and by the way before you start on the tires.  Remember how it used to be claimed that because Ferrari had the "exclusive" deal with Bridgstone they could get special tires and were thus faster?  Funny how this year it was claimed by those who know that because Ferrari was the only team running Bridgestone they could not get enough miles to test well and find good compounds.  Thus Michelin was the better tire and Ferrari lost.  Let's admit it, Ferrari finally built a dog and got beat.  It had to happen and it did. 

Sorry for the long post, feel free to disagree with me.  It's going to be a long winter with no racing and there is nothing better to do while the model is drying!

shaun68 wrote:

It's funny how in 1988 no one bleated at all when McLaren won 15 races.

Oh yes they did. But you are right, the only constant (apart from Schu's dominant driving) over the last few years is the rule changes and has it made the spectacle any better? I don't think so. Will it be better in 06 - we can only hope. The Aussie V8's are much more spectacular, in fact Nascar is better!

I was just stumbling around through the forums on a quiet Sunday morn with my brew when I came up on this little topic. The whole F1 thing just does my head in these days (why I persist in staying up to watch butchered delayed telecasts escapes me).

You know, it's quite ironic that all the people who rejoiced at Schuey finally 'getting one for the gipper' in 2000, were the very same people who shouted enough at the end of 02 & wanted to change every damn rule that exists. After all it's bad enough we can't build a decent racing car with $200 000 000, but to have him rub our noses like he did that year, well.......Give me a break! Now we've had to endure 3 different qualifying formats (4 if you include 06), pitstops without tyre changes, parc ferme service restrictions, ridiculous drive-through penalties, 2 weekend engines......

The 3 amigos (Mosely, Whiting, Blasch) have got Bernie over a barrel. He runs the circus & yet he just sits back & watches the clown show bugger the whole damn thing up. It doesn't make sense. This year our V8's went to China, which immediately made it an FIA sanctioned race. Imagine if Max showed up to find out what this gig was about, & started giving his 2c worth on why it's not right these family sedans can do the same speeds as an F1 on a bad day, & how that doesn't present a good image for the car makers, & whatever else dribble he trots out. He'd have 30 drivers & 1 angry AVESCO chairman throwing him back through the gate he came in.

It's funny how in 1988 no one bleated at all when McLaren won 15 races. Instead the pitlane wanted to beat Senna. They didn't change the rules to do that. Sure they went back to atmos in 89, but the Concorde agreement was amended to accomodate that, which means the teams ratified it, rather than the FIA altering the sporting regulations for them.

I could ramble on. I thank God it's the teams, Dave Richards & the WMSC that have the final say when it comes to the WRC.

Cheers

Shaun

In my humble opinion, the rules regarding F1 have gone so far to pot, as too make the sport a laughing stock. Each year they roll out another set of rules which reduces the enjoyment more.
I can't wait for the 2020 season, by then they will all be driving 1.3 Diesel fiesta's and overtaking will be banned :(
It used to be such a great sport to watch.