Formula One

ThatBikeGuy

I'd like to see Webber win a championship but he seems to haul in all the bad luck :shock:

EKE_38BPM

[cliché]
If Webber didn't have bad luck, he'd have no luck at all.
[/cliché]

Regarding KERS weight/ballast: I can't remember what material F1 teams used to use for ballast but it was banned as it was too expensive. They used it because it was so dense but it was bloody expensive. I wonder how many engineers, even fleetingly, considered using some form of radioactive material due to the density?
Red Bull are really handicapping themselves with their unreliable KERS (and that is a good thing for the racing). They 'need' it to get off the line well, but if it dies during the race they are just dragging around ~30kg of badly placed ballast.

rick_chasey

EKE_38BPM wrote:

[cliché]
If Webber didn't have bad luck, he'd have no luck at all.
[/cliché]

Regarding KERS weight/ballast: I can't remember what material F1 teams used to use for ballast but it was banned as it was too expensive. They used it because it was so dense but it was bloody expensive. I wonder how many engineers, even fleetingly, considered using some form of radioactive material due to the density?
Red Bull are really handicapping themselves with their unreliable KERS (and that is a good thing for the racing). They 'need' it to get off the line well, but if it dies during the race they are just dragging around ~30kg of badly placed ballast.

I think you're underestimating how keen on safety these engineers are. I get the impression they really feel responsible for stuff like that.

Simontheintrepid

EKE_38BPM wrote:

Regarding KERS weight/ballast: I can't remember what material F1 teams used to use for ballast but it was banned as it was too expensive.

Tungsten I believe - says so here anyway, in the para next to the head shot of Rossi
http://plus.autosport.com/free/feature/ ... last-idea/

ThatBikeGuy

Anyone going to a race weekend this season?

EKE_38BPM

It wasn't Tungsten, it was something exotic, possibly one of the heavy isotopes of unobtanium maybe?

I remember in the days when data transfer between the car and the pits was two way, the teams (maybe not all but definitely Williams) used to transmit using a microwave transmitter mounted in the wing mirror. At pit stops they had one member of the pit crew whose job it was just to put on and remove a shield to stop the microwaves cooking the pit crew. The engineer who thought of a mirror mounted microwave could also thought of radioactive ballast (with the proper shielding, of course).

Mr Plum

The Beginner wrote:

It is slightly, but if you take out the circa 30Kg of Kers you can add the ballast low don in the middle not towards the rear and higher up where the KERS stuff often has to be.

Rick Chasey wrote:

But without KERS you can choose where you want to put the remaining weight for improved handelling.

True, which is why it's a bit of a misnomer and not a complete misnomer :P

Red Bull definitely need to get it working though, but race pace/tyre conservation seems like it's more important to get right at the moment.

estampida

its most likely monel, or maybe some sort of Ni-Span-C alloy for ballast.

tobermory

the main ballest material is tungsten placed on the skid plate.
but others have been usedOsmium, Iridium, Platinum, and Rhenium have been used but are expensive.

EKE_38BPM

Bernie says F1 sales talk is rubbish, I guess its a done deal then.

ITV F1 wrote:

Ecclestone, who said he knows both Murdoch and Slim, added: “If they were interested for sure they would have called me and they haven’t.”

Maybe they just don't like you, Bernie?