Showdown at the Brickyard!
The Brickyard!
Its time for the second trans-atlantic race in as many weeks, even as the car's are being freighted overhead from the scenic Montreal to a bustling Indianapolis. Teams would have already reached the spacious garages of the legendary "Brickyard" and started laying out their wares and race day setup simulations would be underway.
Originally designed with four turns, each measuring nine degrees and twelve minutes and connected by a pair of longish straights and two short ones to provide for a two and a half mile shot of pure ecstacy a.k.a SPEED, Indy was perhaps the first ever "testing" venue, allowing the booming Indianapolis motor giants to display their new-fangled wares during the 1920's. With a surface of crushed rock and tar, Indy proved disastrous initially and its founders bustled around and laid more than three million bricks and refitted the track with mortar, thus giving the track its famous name, "The Brickyard". Replaced by asphalt in later years, now only the Start/Finish line exposes the legendary "yard of bricks" as a reverie of past glory.
If transporting the machines and assorted Formula One paraphernalia in time is a logisticians nightmare, then Indianapolis, throughout the evolution of this track has given more trouble to its teams in terms of aerodynamics. And with new aerodynamics regulations in place, Indy should prove to be a gamble for all teams. Untested aerodynamic packages for a track that boasts the longest flat-out straight and some of the slowest turns in the entire calendar year. And for a long straight, a smaller wing would let the driver gun his machine at full throttle, but for a shorter and tighter turn like turn one, the drivers would prefer a lot of wing - for they need not worry about the drag in the infield. Speaking in terms of lap times, simulations wouldnt show differences if one used either types of wings. But when a car with lesser engine power but a lot of wing happens to over take the ones with the faster ones, then the faster ones lose lap times significantly.
If aerodynamics in isolation gave such problems, then factoring in engine cooling and tyre selection with aero-packages can catapult the problems sky-ward. To add to all this, the Indy pits are right in the middle of a long straight. So at some point of time, two cars are bound to come off the pits within seconds of each other. This could create an air-void for the second car, allowing it to go faster, but with reduced downforce and drag problems which could lead to a crash if the driver were to try to overtake the person in front of him.
All said and done, complex laws of physics and theoritical aerodynamics would be the last things that drivers like Kimi or Alonso would think of, especially with the thunder of a Scuderia gunned by Schumacher all over their backs. As for you and me, we would sit back and enjoy the pure rush of speed over the weekend at the local pub screening F1 on a large screen :-)
Originally designed with four turns, each measuring nine degrees and twelve minutes and connected by a pair of longish straights and two short ones to provide for a two and a half mile shot of pure ecstacy a.k.a SPEED, Indy was perhaps the first ever "testing" venue, allowing the booming Indianapolis motor giants to display their new-fangled wares during the 1920's. With a surface of crushed rock and tar, Indy proved disastrous initially and its founders bustled around and laid more than three million bricks and refitted the track with mortar, thus giving the track its famous name, "The Brickyard". Replaced by asphalt in later years, now only the Start/Finish line exposes the legendary "yard of bricks" as a reverie of past glory.
If transporting the machines and assorted Formula One paraphernalia in time is a logisticians nightmare, then Indianapolis, throughout the evolution of this track has given more trouble to its teams in terms of aerodynamics. And with new aerodynamics regulations in place, Indy should prove to be a gamble for all teams. Untested aerodynamic packages for a track that boasts the longest flat-out straight and some of the slowest turns in the entire calendar year. And for a long straight, a smaller wing would let the driver gun his machine at full throttle, but for a shorter and tighter turn like turn one, the drivers would prefer a lot of wing - for they need not worry about the drag in the infield. Speaking in terms of lap times, simulations wouldnt show differences if one used either types of wings. But when a car with lesser engine power but a lot of wing happens to over take the ones with the faster ones, then the faster ones lose lap times significantly.
If aerodynamics in isolation gave such problems, then factoring in engine cooling and tyre selection with aero-packages can catapult the problems sky-ward. To add to all this, the Indy pits are right in the middle of a long straight. So at some point of time, two cars are bound to come off the pits within seconds of each other. This could create an air-void for the second car, allowing it to go faster, but with reduced downforce and drag problems which could lead to a crash if the driver were to try to overtake the person in front of him.
All said and done, complex laws of physics and theoritical aerodynamics would be the last things that drivers like Kimi or Alonso would think of, especially with the thunder of a Scuderia gunned by Schumacher all over their backs. As for you and me, we would sit back and enjoy the pure rush of speed over the weekend at the local pub screening F1 on a large screen :-)
posted by Koushik V S at
6:22 AM
1 Comments:
schumi did win da... hmmm though it was far from something callable as a race. For the first time, i did not feel for not watching a race in the recent past.
By
bharath, at 4:14 AM
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