You are watching CNN and one of the advertisments is for BMW Armoured and Bulletproof cars, for your peace of mind.

Of course.

Yet another atrocious quali for Rosberg.

Where is this speed we are all hearing so much about? He is so far beyond over-hyped it’s not funny. I mean, to drive a Williams to P18 (01:22:084) in Hungaroring Quali when Webber puts it on 5th (01:20:266). Thats 1.8 seconds difference, and Webber was even running with race fuel to set that time where Rosberg was on low fuel!

Seriously. I can’t see why Frank is keeping him next year – better to let him go to a smaller team for a few years to find all this speed we have been hearing about. Imagine what Luizzi or Montiero (who both qualified ahead of him) could do in the same car that Rosberg is driving?

The thing that makes this all the worse, is the fact that Rosberg believes his own hype.

“I’m seriously quick and afraid of no one.” F1 Racing Magazine – August Issue

Seriously Quick? Serious Ego, more likely.

It has finally been confirmed that the WilliamsF1 team are dropping Mark Webber for the 2007 Formula 1 season and replacing him with current test driver Alex Wurz.

Given that WilliamsF1 had an option on Mark Webber’s services for 2007, and given his performances this season have been outstanding despite mechanical failures causing many retirements I can only imagine that the cost of the new Toyota engines for next year must have priced him out of the market for the team.
Webber has only completed 4 of the 12 races this season, with 6 of his 8 retirements due to mechanical failure, 2 due to being caught up in other peoples accidents.

This is a shame as I really do like the WilliamsF1 team. However my real aliegence is with Webber so my team support next year will follow to whichever team he joins. Given RenaultF1 has a spare race seat next year, and Flavio Briatore is Webbers manager, it would seem that he is the prime candidate for a drive there alongside Giancarlo Fisichella.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks – to see who he signs for.

A couple of my mates from back in Perth have embarked on an effort to recondition and supercharge an old JE Holden Camira.

They have started a blog to let us all know what they are up to, and keep track of the project.

I spent the first 3.5 years of my driving career banging about in a maroon JD Camira, it did me well and hardly ever broke down.

The project is centered around learning how to reprogram an old Delco EFI ECU, and to make it a bit more challenging they decided to supercharge the beast while they were at it.

I look forward to seeing the results and loaning the car when i’m back in Perth and need a new ride

Good luck guys.

technorati tags:Camira, Holden, Craig, Adam, Perth, Delco

The FIA has decided that the new Formula 1 qualifying rules for the 2006 season are not yet complicated enough, and compensated by adding yet another rule for the Saturday qualifying session.

For those not in the know (I am assuming that’s most of my readers?), for the 2006 season, the FIA has scrapped the existing 1 lap shootout format and replaced it with a series of three mini-qualifying sessions that knock out drivers as they progress. Here’s the condensed version.

• First 20 minute session; All cars on track, slowest 5 (6, now Super Aguri F1 has gained entry?) cars get knocked out, and take their respective places at the rear of the grid.
• Second 20 minute session; Remaining cars on track, slowest 5 (6, see above) of the remaining cars take positions 11-16 on the grid.
• Third 20 minute session; Fastest 10 cars on track. At end of the session they are ordered fastest to slowest and slide into grid positions 1-10.

If you didn’t think this was complicated enough, you need to watch out for the following extra conditions.

• Those knocked out in sessions one and two (positions 11-22) are allowed to refuel their cars before the start of the race, other than this, cars get put into parc ferme until the race.
• Cars entering the final session (the fastest 10 cars), have to start session three with the fuel level they want to start on for the race. At the end of the session each car would be ‘credited’ fuel depending on the number of laps they did during the final session to bring their fuel back up to the level they started the final session with.

This was the current state of the 2006 season qualifying rules, until today.

There was concern that the fuel credit system could be used as a loophole, with drivers in the final session doing very slow laps (mainly laps in and out from the pits) in order to conserve fuel, and hence start the race on a higher fuel level than they did the final qualifying session. In steps the FIA to complicate things further. We can add the following extra condition

• For the final session, only laps that are within 110% of that drivers fastest lap will be fuel credited before the start of the race. For example, if a drivers fastest lap is 1 minute exactly. Only laps that are faster than 1 minute 6 seconds will get credited fuel, therefore penalising drivers trying to save fuel for the race.

I personally don’t understand what was wrong with the shootout format. It was simple for the viewer to figure out, and still enjoyable to watch. I don’t really understand what was wrong with the old qualifying format, 1 hour, all cars on low fuel fighting it out for the fastest time in both a Friday and Saturday session. But thats just me, I guess. Does anyone else think this years qualifying format is a bit silly? If a qualifying format can’t be be described in a few sentences, is it too complicated?

I can’t see it drawing more people to the sport we love.

technorati tags: Formula1, Qualifying, 2006, Season, Qualifying Changes, F1, Super Aguri

One of the things I am looking forward to when going back home to Australia for Christmas is getting back behind the wheel of my pride & joy.

Although, looking back through various pictures I have a gained a strong desire to lower the front of the car even further than it already is. The problem however, is that the current tyres on all four corners of the car are 235/45ZR17. As it is, the current front tyres rub slightly on full lock, so much so that I have already cut and removed parts of the inside guards at the front.

I have a strong suspicion (via my memory of the inside wheel arch bodywork) that this particular section bodywork has a slight positive camber, hence the wheels will rub more the further the car is lowered. This effect is exacerbated by the the fact that whenever you lower a car (without altering other parts of the suspension) the wheels of the section being lowered automatically gain negative camber. I can counter this effect slightly as I have a Whiteline adjustable camber kit on the car.

Another possible problem is that lowering the front of the car with super-low springs also increases the likelihood that the stock dampers will start bumping. This has two effects; the first being that it generates heat, making the dampers less effective, hence altering its rebound characteristics. The second is that whenever the damper knocks it is effectively destroying its self. The general way around this problem is to fit a proper adjustable coil-over kit (in fact in Japan they would never just put in lowered springs with standard dampers). I am not sure if my budget will stretch to a full coil-over kit, so I may just get a set of super-low springs and replace the dampers with a shorter set sometime in the future (when I move back to Australia permanently).

So, who makes super-low springs for the FTO. The car currently has King Springs on each corner, however unfortunately they do not provide a set of super low springs for the FTO. Whiteline does have a set in their flat-out range however I have a sneaky suspicion that their springs are no lower than the Kings that are already in the front. Jumboz have a bad rep (I couldn’t even find an official Jumboz website…), so that rules them out. The only Australian company that offers the possibility of lowering further is H&R Springs who make custom springs designed to the specifications you provide. Does anyone know anyone else that makes super-low springs for the FTO in Australia perferrably 50mm-60mm lower than standard? If so, email me.