These days anyone can pick up a $400 camera and produce stunning VR videos so, it's easy to be blasé about it a simple overhead view of a Formula One at Monaco, even if that car had two extra wheel
You probably have seen the clip of Patrick Depailler driving a naked Tyrrel P34 in Monaco, what you might not have ever seen is the rig it took to to film it. Back then a "small camera" was a 16mm weighing 20 pounds...
Lewis Hamilton was involved in a traffic accident on Monday in his adoptive home of Monaco. Hamilton was driving his purple, one off, manual transmission Pagani Zonda LH when he collided with a parked car.
Team LH took to Instagram to say he had been running a bit of a fever (he was probably driving to the all night pharmacy for some aspirin?) and to accuse people of wanting to "take advantage and make a quick buck".
A photo posted by Lewis Hamilton (@lewishamilton) on
These things happen but then there are those ubiquitous, pesky car spotters all over the principality so we learned that it was 3:30 in the morning and the crash happened by the Fairmont hotel, which is also near the exit of Monaco's top night clubs, Buddha Bar.
You can put two and two together, I'm guessing Jalopnik already has a bounty on that video!
The Zonda is off to the the bodyshop and Hamilton is off to Brazil, No problem.... been there done that.
Cheers!
Max Verstappen received a 5 grid spot penalty for hitting Romain Grosjean's Lotus in the F1 race but, during the earlier World Series by Renault race, it was the Lotus run car of fellow Dutchman Meindert Van Buuren who hooked onto Bruno Bonifacio's Draco sending both into the Saint Devote runoff.
Bonifacio had to be stretchered away but was not seriously hurt. Lucky boys.
Not huge fans of posting gratuitous crash pictures here but, sometimes you come across one of such implied dooshbaggery that it deserves the ridicule.
How this person managed to stuff a 458 Italia over the jersey barriers of the 25 mph speed limited tunnel under the Fairmont Hotel in Monaco is a mystery. We're guessing it might involve an epic fail in creating yet another "Ferrari blasting in a tunnel" car spotter video? It certainly deserves a medal for creativity.
Lucky that at the time nobody was on that pedestrian walkway so only egos, wallets, aluminum and some sort of firefighting station were harmed here.
UPDATE: It was Pastor Maldonado!..... OK no, just kidding.
It will be Sean Edwards ahead of Kuba Giermaziak for tomorrow's Porsche Supercup race in Monaco.
Edwards and Giermaziak
Qualifying were marked by many yellow flags and a couple of heavy crashes in the closing minutes of the session.
Even more than Formula cars Supercup races in Monaco tend to have eventful qualifying and no passing at all in the race so Edwards is well placed for a second win on his home track.
“Our car ran perfectly, it was great to drive. The many yellow flags made it a very difficult qualifying session. I think a faster time would have been possible, but I didn’t really get a clean run. That makes pole position all the more sweeter. For tomorrow’s race I’m of course hoping for a perfect start – and for my second victory in Monaco.”
Sebastien Loeb
Loeb and Ogier
Of note, there are not one but two WRC superstars competing this week end with Sebastien Loeb joined by the other Seb, Sebastien Ogier.
“I was almost in despair. I didn’t get one free lap." said Loeb who qualified 15th " At one point I was on the way to a new fastest time, but suddenly two cars stood in the middle of the track. That was typical of this qualifying.”
Perpetually on my "List of cars I'd like to drive some day", five Renault Alpines A-110 from the Renault Classic collection will be taking part in this year's Rally Monte-Carlo Historique.
Forty year ago, Alpine-Renault scored a 1-2-3 finish at the Monte and went on to win what was the first WRC manufacturers title.
The winning crew from 1973, Jean Claude Andruet and Michele "Biche" Petit will be leading the group. Madame "Biche" should be quite familiar with some of the roads, she just finished competing in the 2013 Rally Monte Carlo as a navigator in a Mitsubishi Evo IX!
No rest for the weary: in the hills behind the principality, WRC teams have been busy testing for the 2013 Montecarlo Rally which stats just about a month from today.
The Monte is famous for its varying surface conditions, snow, ice, wet and dry tarmac all on the same stage making finding the correct tire choice compromise , crucial.
Having driven on some of these very roads, these videos never fail to blow me away.
How fast do you drive on black ice when there's a 300 foot cliff on your left and jagged granite on your right?
Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala got it a bit wrong today in the hills around Monaco today, but he got lucky.
No big surprise, leading after day 1 is Sebastien Loeb in the Citroen DS3 followed by Delacour in a Ford Fiesta RS and Danni Sordo in a Mini JCW.
We're real happy that our old friend Alex King made this new cut of his dad James' win at the 2010 Grand Prix Historique in Monaco available.
Despite a bad start, James King took his ex-Dan Gurney Brabham BT7 to victory that day and a bunch of GoPro cameras onboard for the ride. Lucky us.
Alex along with Matt Barlow made fantastic movies in the last two editions of the Monaco classic. Selfishly, we hope they go for a trilogy!
We may be in one of the temples of Formula 1 but you got to love what having fenders lets you get away with.
As you may know, Fridays are free in Monaco so you can pick whatever spot you choose to watch both Supercup qualifying and the long GP2 race. I decided on a spot overlooking the second Swimming pool complex. It was amazing to see the fast guys turn in early, aim for the end of the guard rail and brush it every time. You could clearly hear it, tshhk....tsshk... From there they would attack the opposite side curb, bounce about a foot in the air and then gathered it all up in time not to hit the far side barrier. Very cool.
René Rast did it best, qualifying his VELTINS Lechner Racing 997 GT3 cup in 1:35.734, a new Supercup track record .
Sight and sounds below, a full gallery and result from today after the jump
Qualifying result 1. René Rast (D), VELTINS Lechner Racing, 1:35.734 minutes 2. Nick Tandy (GB), Konrad Motorsport, + 0.313 seconds 3. Kuba Giermaziak (PL), VERVA Racing Team, + 0.635 4. Sean Edwards (GB), Team Abu Dhabi by tolimit, + 0.641 5. Jeroen Bleekemolen (NL), Team Abu Dhabi by tolimit, + 0.710 6. Sebastiaan Bleekemolen (NL), Team Bleekemolen, +0.845
It's all HD so don't be afraid to go full screen for maximum enjoyment!
Handsome Dick Manitoba may have rocked Young Fast Scientific but this guy is...REALLY scientific. Any thought's this man's obsession is mere playing around stop when you see the light turn off as Kubica is see entering the tunnel in Monaco!
Or when you read his technical explanations:
"... Monaco is a one-of-a-kind circuit in so many ways. With the guitar I noted it was the hardest circuit to play in the championship so far, with very quick gear changing (a feeling reinforced by playing a different driver than the smooth Fernando Alonso) and very quick accelerations. Note also the use of first gear in the slowest corners of the championship, a not very usual fact this season with the unloaded fuel tanks during Q3. I am sorry for my careless low start of 7th gear in the guitar playing, when this straight-less circuit demands a very short 7th gear."
He too is worried about the technical regulations coming in 2013
"...When I started thinking about how to make my guitar videos, I first calculated the theoretical pitch of current Formula 1 V8 engines. This way, we have the revolutions limit in 18000 rpm, which is 300 revolutions per second, that is 300 Hz. Given that a four-stroke engine cylinder has one explosion for every two revolutions, we have 150 explosions per second per cylinder. Therefore, the eight cylinders of a V8 engine make for a total of 1200 explosions per second, that is a sound of 1200 Hz, which is a musical note slightly above D6. However, the actual sound we hear on TV onboard laps has a predominant frequency of 600 Hz when the engine is on top revolutions, which is a subdivision of the 1200 Hz theoretical sound. That is the main frequency I play on my guitar videos, using appropriately tuned third and fourth strings past 22nd fret to have a 600 Hz sound (D5).
With the new engines, to be used from 2013 on, the revolutions limit is set to 12000 rpm, which means a reduction of the engine sound pitch by 12000/18000 = 2/3. Moreover, the engines will have 4 cylinders instead of 8, which will reduce by 1/2 the pitch of the engine sound. Altogether, we will have 2/3 x 1/2 = 1/3, so the 600 Hz sound on top revolutions will be divided by 3 to turn into a 200 Hz sound. That corresponds to a musical note slightly above G3, around the 3rd fret of a guitar for third or fourth strings, so I will have to buy a bass guitar if I want to play slow corners of a Formula 1 lap in the future, or even a contrabass for the Monaco famous turn 6."
Check out more at Formula1guitar.blogspot.com in English and Español! (Thanks @Circuitoftheamericas) end of post
You could think of the Motore Centrale R240 as a FIAT 500 Abarth backwards but a more correct comparison would be with those mad mid engine creations by Renault, the Turbo5 and the Clio V6. Don't look for a FIAT warranty though, the Motore Centrale (Mid Engine) is a project of Lucarelli Monza and Aznom S.r.l of Codatronca fame.
The idea was to have a perfectly balanced car with the ideal mass distribution found on much fancier vehicles. As with the French cars, the Abarth engine in a 500 is moved behind the driver, replacing the rear seats. The rear suspension has been replaced with the fancy subframe with double A arm, fully adjustable suspension you can see in the picture above.
Brakes are 335 front and 305 rear with monoblock 4 piston calipers, Bilstein shocks and Kumho track day tires. Abarth engine is tuned 240HP and 240ft-lb.
That's the "touring" version, available with fancy leather interiors by Aznom etc. A R280 "Pista", track version will also be available, 280 hp900kg/ 1980lbs with full FIA cage, data recording and a racing Limited slip differential. A light track car that is not a Lotus might be of interest.
I never was able to find a good answer as to why cars of the period, from the 20s all the way to the early 50s, were set up with the top of the wheels pushing out, as if the inside wheel needs to pull out in turn rather than the outside, push in. The technical reason must have to do with the rigid front suspension but can anyone explain it in more technical terms?
