[Alvin]

2015 Formula One Monaco Grand Prix Preview



Formula One Monaco Grand Prix

The Formula One Monaco Grand Prix is right up there with the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Indianapolis 500 as one motorsport’s top events, and despite its beautiful location and party atmosphere it’s actually one of the toughest races on the calendar. The race lines are so close to the barriers that there is no margin for error, with drivers needing to remain 100 percent focused nearly the entirety of the race.

The Monaco Grand Prix was on the inaugural F1 calendar back in 1950 and it’s been a regular fixture since ’55. The layout of the 2.1-mile circuit has remained largely unchanged, the biggest updates taking place in 2004 when a new pit complex was built.

Being a street circuit, the grip levels change the whole weekend and the surface can also be quite bumpy. Because of this, the cars are set at their maximum ride height and allowances are also made for the steering, which is necessary for the tight, twisting corners. Accordingly, the race has the lowest average speed of the year.

Looking at this weekend’s weather forecast, we can expect generally bright skies with cloudy intervals and ambient temperatures hitting a peak of 73 degrees F (23 degrees C) during the day. There’s also the possibility of some showers throughout the weekend. Pirelli has nominated its Supersoft and Soft tires for the race.

As always in Monaco, qualifying will be critical, as will race strategy to ensure that track position is maintained. Last year's winner was MercedesAMG’s Nico Rosberg.


Lewis Hamilton

The German’s biggest threat this year will come once again from his own teammate Lewis Hamilton who has just signed a new contract to drive with Mercedes through the end of the 2018 season. The Briton’s previous contract was due to run out at the end of this season, and the negotiations became a major talking point during recent races. Though financial terms weren’t made public, it’s thought Hamilton will be receiving a base salary of approximately $32 million per year with bonuses potentially pushing the total north of $45 million a year.

Since making his F1 debut with McLaren in 2007, Hamilton has started every one of his 153 races with Mercedes power, and this track record includes 36 victories, 15 of them with the Mercedes works team. But the Monaco resident’s links with Mercedes go even further back. In a statement, Hamilton said Mercedes has been supporting him since 1998 and that he was very proud that his new contract will see him mark 20 years with the automaker in 2018.

Hamilton currently leads the 2015 Drivers’ Championship with 111 points. Rosberg is second with 91 points and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel is third with 80 points. In the Constructors’ Championship, Mercedes leads with 202 points followed by Ferrari with 132 points and Williams with 81 points.

_______________________________________

Follow Motor Authority on Facebook, Twitter, and Google +.

[Alvin]

F1 Paddock Pass: Monaco Grand Prix (VIDEO) http://motorsportstalk.nbcsports.com...nd-prix-video/

Formula 1 has a reputation for putting on a show, and there is arguably no better example of this than its annual blue-riband event: the Monaco Grand Prix.

The rich and the famous come out in force for one of the most exciting races on the calendar, as the imposing walls threaten to punish drivers who go beyond their limits when racing through the Monegasque streets.

Ahead of the race weekend, Will Buxton brings you all of the latest news and interviews from Monaco in the latest edition of NBC Sports’ original digital series, Paddock Pass.

In part one, Will speaks with NBCSN analyst Steve Matchett about the proposed changes to the technical regulations for the 2017 F1 season. Following the meeting of the F1 Strategy Group last week, big changes are on the agenda, so be sure to get the low down from our resident technical expert.
-----------------------------
In part two, we hear from Lewis Hamilton following the announcement of his new $150m Mercedes contract. We find out what he plans to spend the money on, as well as getting his reaction to Kanye West’s enthusiasm about his music.

Valtteri Bottas speaks about his future in F1 with Ferrari thought to be vying for his services in 2016, whilst Jenson Button gives his say on the return of refuelling for 2017.

[Alvin]

Montreal F1 is on this weekend w Quali Sat Noonish, similar on Sunday on NBC

[Alvin]

Austrian Grand Prix practice in Spielberg broadcast Live Fri 7am CST - Tune In Alert!

Quali Sat
Race coverage begins 6:30am CST Sun.

[Alvin]

Silverstone Quali this AM, look for mention of possible US Football Team (Miami Dolphins?) Owner & Qatar co-purchase of F1!

F1 may be sold to Miami Dolphins owner and Qatar investors ...
www.theguardian.com › Sports › Formula One 201510 days ago
F1 may be sold to Miami Dolphins owner and Qatar investors in £5bn deal ... Ross wants to link up with QSI to buy F1 in a move that would transform the sport.
Read more here http://www.theguardian.com/sport/201...nie-ecclestone

Also many changes proposed for 2017... Renault seeking to purchase their own team to run their own complete Manufacturer Car/Drivetrain format like Mercedes, etc.

[Alvin]

Silverstone 2015 certainly was exciting from the start...

[63Banshee]

Jules Bianchi died last night.

[Alvin]

Jules Bianchi dies at age 25, his family confirms

Jules Bianchi has died at age 25, his family confirmed in a statement early Saturday morning French time, some nine months after his accident in the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix.

Bianchi suffered a diffuse axonal injury when his car veered off course at last year’s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka. His helmet was lodged underneath a tractor crane when the car slid underneath it.

Bianchi has been hospitalized in a coma since the accident, and while he was moved from Japan to France last November there were little to no signs of progress. As recently as this week, Bianchi’s father Philippe Bianchi called it a “daily torture” seeing the lack of recovery.

The statement released from the family reads as follows:

It is with deep sadness that the parents of Jules Bianchi, Philippe and Christine, his brother Tom and sister Mélanie, wish to make it known that Jules passed away last night at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) in Nice, (France) where he was admitted following the accident of 5th October 2014 at Suzuka Circuit during the Japanese Formula 1 Grand Prix.

“Jules fought right to the very end, as he always did, but today his battle came to an end,” said the Bianchi family. “The pain we feel is immense and indescribable. We wish to thank the medical staff at Nice’s CHU who looked after him with love and dedication. We also thank the staff of the General Medical Center in the Mie Prefecture (Japan) who looked after Jules immediately after the accident, as well as all the other doctors who have been involved with his care over the past months.

“Furthermore, we thank Jules’ colleagues, friends, fans and everyone who has demonstrated their affection for him over these past months, which gave us great strength and helped us deal with such difficult times. Listening to and reading the many messages made us realise just how much Jules had touched the hearts and minds of so many people all over the world.

“We would like to ask that our privacy is respected during this difficult time, while we try to come to terms with the loss of Jules.”

Bianchi’s teammate, Max Chilton, and their team, Marussia, now Manor Marussia, have also expressed their thoughts:

MotorSportsTalk extends its condolences, and expresses its thoughts and wishes for the Bianchi family at this time.

RIP Sir Jules

[Alvin]

2015 Hungarian F1 Practice, Quali & Race schedules are at best vague on our local Comcast menus...
Suggest you check CNBC, NBCSports Net, and all other NBC channels in your local markets.

Our actual race broadcast time and channel was not found w standard Motorsports search tool use.

Posting the 2015 broadcast schedule for race below as FYI

[Alvin]

Hungarian F1 2015 - without being a spoiler, what a race full of surprises, twists and turns!

[Alvin]

Jensen Button burglary: Gas suspected in F1 driver break-in


Anaesthetic gas may have been used against Jenson Button and his wife Jessica during a burglary in France, the Formula 1 driver's spokesman says.

Two men, who stole jewellery including Jessica's engagement ring, may have pumped gas through the air conditioning before Monday's break-in, he said.

The spokesman said they were unharmed but "unsurprisingly shaken".

But medical experts said they were sceptical that burglars had used gas in the raid on the villa in Saint Tropez.

The Sun newspaper reported that valuables worth £300,000 were stolen.

The couple, who married in December, were staying with friends in a rented villa at the time of the burglary.

Button's spokesman said: "Two men broke into the property whilst they all slept and stole a number of items of jewellery including, most upsettingly, Jessica's engagement ring.

"The police have indicated that this has become a growing problem in the region with perpetrators going so far as to gas their proposed victims through the air conditioning units before breaking in."

Philippe Guemas, deputy prosecutor in Draguignan, France, told Europe1 radio that "nothing has been established" and said the claim that gas was used in the raid was made by Button's entourage as the driver felt unwell the following day.

"To our knowledge there has never been a burglary like this in St Tropez where gas was used to knock out the victims," he said.

"We have taken blood samples, which will be analysed."

An operations director for SRX, a home security firm based near Mr Button's home, said the possibility of burglars using gas did not surprise him "at all" and he had received requests to install measures to prevent such attacks.

But the Royal College of Anaesthetists said although it could not rule out that "some sort of agent" had been used, it was "highly unlikely" the group had been rendered unconscious by anaesthetic gas.

This, a spokesman said, would require "massive amounts of gas".

He added: "When you combine that with the fact that these gases are expensive and difficult to get hold of, we are very sceptical."


Analysis

The stolen engagement ring was on display in February 2014 during Formula 1 winter testing in Bahrain Hugh Schofield, BBC News

There has been an awful lot of rumour about sleeping gas burglaries in France, but precious little hard evidence.

A number of doubts spring to mind: What gas do they use? In what quantities? How do they ensure it will be effective in the right parts of the house? And through the air-conditioning system? Really?

In the camping-car community, there have been persistent claims about burglars using sleeping gas.

On chat-lines, holidaymakers share their experiences and ask about ways to protect themselves.

But again - no-one has ever appeared in court charged with gassing and stealing. No police officer is on the record.

Who knows? Maybe Jenson Button was indeed the target of a gas-and-steal.

The head of a security firm I spoke with in St Tropez says he has never heard of an actual case of a sleeping gas burglary. "I don't believe in it at all," is what he said.

Do French burglars really use gas?

Button, 35, who drives for team McLaren, is based in Monaco, about 80 miles (130km) along the coast from Saint-Tropez. He won the F1 championship in 2009 driving for Brawn GP and finished in eighth place in 2014.

Have you been affected by the issues in this story? You can email [email protected] to share your experiences.

[Alvin]

McLaren Formula 1 driver and former F1 World Champion Jenson Button might have been the victim of a bizarre, anesthetic gas attack when burglars robbed him, his wife, and friends while they were sleeping in a rented villa in Saint-Tropez, according to a BBC News report. Thankfully, none of them were harmed during the Aug. 3 theft in the popular French vacation spot. The thieves got away with quite a bit of loot, though.

"Two men broke into the property whilst they all slept and stole a number of items of jewelry including, most upsettingly, Jessica's engagement ring," a spokesperson for the driver said, according to the BBC News. "The police have indicated that this has become a growing problem in the region with perpetrators going so far as to gas their proposed victims through the air conditioning units before breaking in." The value of all the looted items was reportedly 300,000 pounds ($463,000 at current rates). Afterward, the spokesperson described Button and his wife as "unsurprisingly shaken."

http://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/...=ansAutoblog11

[Alvin]

Received in today's email blast:

Formula One Racing Technology (today)

For a time, the argument could be made that the Can-Am series of the late 1960s and early 1970s was the innovation powerhouse of the world, bringing us high wings, automatic transmissions, and fan-driven ground effects cars, largely thanks to the ingenuity of Chaparral Cars. In the more recent past, F1’s star had been eclipsed by the levels and variety of innovation seen in the hybrid prototypes of the World Endurance Championship (WEC), the cars that race the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Formula One has responded in a most dramatic way, sacking the previous formula of tightly regulated 2.4 liter V-8’s with a KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) that used regenerative braking to recharge the lithium battery pack. This new formula allows the return of turbocharged engines.

In the 1980s, F1 had largely unrestricted 1.5 liter 4-, 6-, and 8-cylinder variants which were said to generate between 1,200-1,300 hp. For 2014, it was a heavily regulated 1.6 liter V-6 configuration with two hybrid power units, including one (MGU-H) that converts heat from the exhaust into electric energy, which is stored in the Energy Storage battery pack, located just below and behind the driver.

Paddy Lowe, technical director of Mercedes AMG, explains. “When KERS power packs first came in back in 2009, it was left to the teams to set their own safety standards. Now, you have to put the battery within the confines of the safety cell, where it is well protected in a shunt. In a current Formula One car, there is nothing that’s that easy to change on any of it, but when you drop the floor, the battery is accessible and you can probably change it in a half an hour.”

The hybrid power available has been doubled, from 80 to 160 horsepower, but it comes at a cost, with a requirement for far higher efficiency on the engine side. Fuel supply has been limited to 100 liters for a Grand Prix distance. There is also a restriction not allowing a fuel flow/usage of greater than 100 liters/hour. This has been achieved with varying success by the engine suppliers. Most successful has been Mercedes, with their cars finishing 1-2 at the United States Grand Prix and in the top five spots in a race in Russia on cars of three different constructors.

Obviously, there are many well designed assemblies that, when combined, resulted in dominance. One of the more innovative was separating the turbocharger turbine (at the rear of the engine) from the compressor on the intake side, which runs off a shaft which runs the length of the engine. Placing the compressor close to the cool air intake has advantages in both density and velocity of the intake tract. It also moves a bit more weight closer to the center of gravity (CG) of the car. With the engine specification being frozen for the year, Mercedes locked in this design advantage for 2014 and exploited it to great effect.

Drivers have a role to play in this equation. In past years, the driver would push the “KERS button” to kick in that extra 80 hp for approximately seven seconds per lap. For 2014, that actuation occurred automatically. Adrian Sutil drives the Sauber and explains, “On a hot lap in qualifying, when everything is perfect, you shouldn’t run out of energy anywhere, the power is consistent. In the race, we have different mappings for the engine to sometimes save fuel and you feel a dip in the acceleration at the higher speeds.”

One might assume the circuits with the greatest issues for fuel mileage might be the mighty high speed circuits, but that is not the case. Nico Hulkenberg of Force India said, “The race in Sochi was the most critical race for fuel savings. It is full throttle time and that is what uses the most fuel. You can coast and drive as efficiently as possible.”

This is confirmed by Pat Fry, Director of Engineering at Ferrari, who added, “Tracks where there is lots of acceleration, long straight, stop, long straight, stop… Melbourne, for instance, is quite a severe track for fuel consumption as is Canada, or Sochi.” The engines have a massive increase in torque, so with reduced downforce, the cars twitch and wiggle around at times.

There has been a lot of criticism about the sound of the cars. The 1.5 liter F1 cars of the 1980s were sonically far removed from the screaming normally aspirated V-12s that followed in 1989. For the first time in a generation, hearing protection could be described as optional.

Suspension is typically actuated by pushrods connecting the hubs to the shock/spring units inside the carbon chassis. In 2009, Adrian Newey of Red Bull shifted over to pullrod rear suspension to get those bits out of the airflow, allowing a tidy package at the all-important underside of the car. For the past three seasons, Ferrari has integrated a pullrod front suspension as well, which looks nearly horizontal, seemingly giving up the mechanical advantage needed when the wheel moves vertically. You would think they would need tremendous spring rates to achieve a conventional wheel rate with such minimal ‘pull’ on the pullrod. “When you have a high chassis with the wishbones angled down,” said Fry, “in bump, the track of the car increases. When you actually do the kinematics, it’s not as bad as it looks. The vortices coming off the front wing, we don’t want those hitting anything. It’s just a small aero benefit, really.”

With the increased effect by the regenerative braking, seamless integration when combined with the hydraulic brake system became a priority. “When we had KERS with the 60kw recovery, that was just about manageable with conventional brakes and brake balance,” said Lowe. “With 120kw recovery, there was no way to not allow brake-by-wire and it has made the brakes a lot more controllable and stiffer.”

These new “brake-by-wire” systems use an electronic actuator at the rear wheels to provide a more seamless interface between the formerly hydraulic brake system (pad to disc) and the regenerative braking which in F1 speak is the MGU-K. Apparently, this results in a firmer pedal than conventional hydraulic braking systems, which can have a slight amount of expansion in the flexible brake lines. Although it seemed unlikely as there is still a hydraulic conventional brake system at the fronts as well as a hydraulic backup at the rear, Pat Symonds, technical director of the Williams F1 team also confirms that their system also has a much firmer brake pedal than before.

All-important in F1 is the packaging and resultant aerodynamics. Gone are the “blown diffusers” of past years, where engines also served as air pumps, or giant leaf blowers, which then could be directed into the underbody of the car to provide the greatest effect. It had been tried many times before, but was abandoned when the differences between on- and off-throttle aerodynamics became too much to resolve. The solution was the development of off-throttle blowing, which kept the engine pumping air even in off-throttle applications. Coanda effect exhaust routing (where exhaust gases are attracted to nearby surfaces, such as the diffuser) was similarly banned.

Another issue has been the high noses of the cars launching skyward off the rear wheels. Since John Barnard’s Benetton of 1991 featured the high nose with underslung wing, this has been a problem. In recent years, the maximum nose tip height had been reduced from 650mm to 550mm, but now reduced to 185mm. The appearance is unfortunate at best, and an artistic disaster at worst. Referred to as “Aardvark” or “Anteater” noses, some resemble a proboscis, or in the case of the Ferrari, a Platypus. Lotus has adopted a twin “tusk” nose, and after trying the Platypus, reverted back to the tusk version.

Of course, since Formula One is an entertainment business, they have come up with performance enhancements which help overtaking cars pass. Drag Reduction Zones allow the overtaking car to drastically reduce the drag from the rear wing and shoot past the car in front. This can often be repeated as now this advantage transfers to the previously overtaken car.

with pix HERE

[Alvin]

Spa - Belgium Race next weekend.
Check out this historic info ==>http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/for...nage-1998.html

[Alvin]

John Player Special

[Alvin]

Remembering Senna

[Alvin]

F1 Fueling Ban

[Alvin]

One of three in 1998

[Alvin]

"You picked a fine time..." #1

[Alvin]

"You picked a fine time..." #2