Tom Cruise who we all know by his passion for Scientology, show us in this video his other passion for doing risky things. To be honest I was quite impressive with the way he handle the car but also I have to say that it doesn’t seem this is the first time he have tried this. Or at least the way they edited the video make us believe that he just had one spin, when I know for sure he had more than that.
After the run on the F1 he then climbed into a helicopter and did a loop, which is a very risky thing to do in these type of aircraft. One thing we know for sure is that this man like “risky business”… pa ra ca tam shushh!
Sid Watkins pass away today, he was 84 years old. Watkins was one of those character in the f1 paddock who everybody knew due to his important contribution to the sport in driver’s safety.
He was very close to Ayrton Senna to whom he tried to persuade to retire from the sport and “go fishing with him” in order to avoid all the risks of racing in these type of cars. Later on we all now what happened at Imola on that tragic weekend and was from that point on that Sir Watkins push a dramatic change that have eventually saved the lives and body integrity of many drivers.
The best tribute formula one management along with Motorsport around the world could give to this extraordinary man is to keep up the work on improving drivers and fans safety.RIP Sir Watkins
A Formula One car have a very stretch relationship with fighter aircraft when it comes to design and technology. There are three notable similarities
The use of top of the industry technology
The small space used to place the different component
The use of wings as a key element for their functionality
This last point is critical for both machines. Engineers and designers make use of them to obtain and manage air force flow. In airplanes the air force is used to push the aircraft up, but in F1 cars they use them to push the car down and keep it attached to the floor while taking corners at high speed.
The down force produce by an f1 car is so big that it is possible to flip them over if the car is going at least at 175 km/h and it will keep running attached to the ceiling. To prove how important wings are for f1 cars here is a video that shows Mark Webber loosing his front wing and catching air for several meters.
And here is an animation of a formula one car running upside down. I think it is time now to demonstrate this fact in a real scenario with a real f1 car and a driver on it. It will be a great show for sure.
Pastor Maldonado is currently driving his 2nd season in Formula One, his driving style have carried him to where hi is, although many also consider that he is one of those driver who have bough his way in to the maximum category. Unfortunately for Pastor he is not proving them wrong, so far he have accomplished 1 race win but on the other hand he have lost many valuable points due to his aggressive style.
If you compare his stats with Sergio Perez’ a driver who have the same time as him in the maximum category, you will find that the Mexican lead Pastor by a comfortable margin of 36 points, and they not only have the same time but drive for two teams that have shown similar pace through the year.
Pastor is missing a cold head in situations of very high concentration, in formula 1 if you don’t have that you will find it much harder to accomplish great results.
Here is a video of the Valencia race this year where he had the chance to finish 2nd but instead he crashed with Hamilton in a silly way. I am not judging if it was his fault or Hamilton’s, what I want to point out is the fact that it will be a complete different story if he will have waited to make the move ahead.
Here is a another video where he was hunting down Alonso on the Australian GP for fifth position but he then put a rear tyre in the grass and it was game over.
And to end it up an incredible video of another Pastor Maldonado crash, this time it was in the World Series by Renault.
This meme came from the lack of pace that the Red Bull team is showing in Monza this weekend. Red Bull had two year with a notable advantage over the other teams but now that the blown diffuser system is banned the team have had difficulties to find pace during the weekends.
For those of you who doesn’t know what a blown diffuser is, or what it does, view this article to learn more.
In my spare time I browse through a lot of stuff about Formula One. For some time now I know that the Monza circuit is not only the circuit that we see year after year in the gran prix weekend, the circuit has an even a bigger oval circuit that use to held races in the past.Yesterday I decided to look for a satellite view of the Monza circuit and is amazing that at first view the first thing anyone could notice is a big oval instead of the traditional path where F1 cars and many other categories currently run their races. If you are an F1 fanatic and think you already know the Monza Circuit landscape try to figure it out in the picture above, you will notice that it is not as easy as it may seem.
Here is an interesting video that give us a quick reference of the f1 car evolution since 1950. The video is just 1 minute long but give us some much information in such short time frame.
This wonderful animation was created by Ruf Blacklock, you can see more of his work here
Although Button and Vettel did a great race, the best news from this event was that Fernando Alonso scaped without serious injuries due to a crash in the first corner. First Grosjean collided with Lewis Hamilton who then collected Alonso and Sergio Perez. Hear the sound of the impact in second 11. Alonso was very lucky to escape without a serious injury from this collition.