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Systems overdrive

Nigel Roebuck — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:43:20 +0000

Adrian Newey isn’t a fan of KERS, but why he would be? Yes, it provides an 80-horsepower boost for a few seconds a lap, but a genius like Adrian has subtler ways of going faster than employing a ‘push to pass’ button, and that’s what it amounts to. At a time when FIA president Max Mosley was insisting that Formula 1 needed drastically to cut its costs, so the governing body introduced KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), the argument being that it was ‘green’ in concept and the beginning of a path down which F1 must proceed if it were to have any chance of long-term survival. And if it cost a massive amount of money to develop, well, too bad, start serving up cheaper Parmesan in the motorhomes…

For all its green credentials, KERS would never appeal to a man like Newey. For one thing, it is a component on an F1 car over which he has no control; for another, it necessarily screws up the purity of his designs. With or without KERS, the minimum weight limit of an F1 car is 640 kilos, so if you don’t run KERS – as with Red Bull at Melbourne – you run an equivalent weight of ballast, and that’s fine, because you can position ballast and use it to your car’s best advantage. Sebastian Vettel utterly dominated the Australian Grand Prix in a car of perfect balance – without KERS.

Melbourne, though, was a bit of a special case, for it lacks a straight of any consequence. Come Sepang, with two extremely long straights, and KERS simply had to come into the reckoning – even for Red Bull. Even though his team, concerned about a potential problem, requested that he not use it for a portion of the race, Vettel still won again. But Webber, whose system was inoperative from the start, was decidedly hampered. In the circumstances Mark’s fourth place was a great achievement, but on the long straights his lack of KERS invariably kept him from getting within the requisite one second of the car in front – which meant, of course, that he was unable to deploy his ‘moveable rear wing’, otherwise known as DRS (Drag Reduction System).

All initials and systems, contemporary F1, isn’t it? Fernando Alonso had the opposite problem: his KERS was working, but his DRS wasn’t…

Over time all manner of things have been considered to improve the quality of the racing – or, at least, to permit changes in the order. That’s why refuelling was originally brought back, for example, and why, at different times, there has been talk of weight penalties for successful cars (as in the Trophee Andros ice racing series), and more recently proposals of rallycross-style ‘short cuts’ on the circuits – and even sprinkler systems to create ‘rain’.

All these ideas have been a tacit acknowledgement of F1’s ‘lack of overtaking’ problem, and I confess that whenever anything like this comes up I find myself thinking, ‘What would Ayrton or Gilles have made of this?’ Or, come to that, Jenks? And it doesn’t take me long to arrive at an answer.

I really wasn’t surprised that Niki Lauda contemptuously dismissed the ‘moveable rear wing’: “Completely crazy – now the FIA decides where you can overtake…”

Some suggest that these systems are no different from adjustable boost in the turbo era, whereby you could temporarily award yourself some extra horsepower (at the same time knowing that it was eating into your restricted fuel allowance for the race). But that argument is hardly valid – if a following driver whopped up his boost to pass you, there was nothing to stop you doing the same to defend your position.

All cars were operating to the same rules at all times in the race, that’s my point, and surely that is fundamental to anything calling itself ‘Grand Prix racing’. DRS strikes me as akin to investing in the best running shoes for all competitors – and then putting stones in some of them.

By common consent, wet races are invariably far more exciting – hence the ‘sprinkler’ idea – but why is that the case? It’s not rocket science; it’s because there is less grip. No, we can’t un-invent downforce, but surely we can come up with a set of aerodynamic rules that permit cars closely to follow each other through fast corners, perhaps generating downforce from shaped underbody, rather than relying absolutely on external appendage.

“Ah, here’s the purist – the keeper of the flame…” Max would murmur when I arrived at one of his functions, and I couldn’t – and can’t – take issue. I’ve loved Grand Prix racing all my life, and I’ve never cared to see artifices introduced to turn the sport into ‘The Show’, particularly systems – like KERS and DRS – which involve no element of driving skill. Of course I want to see better racing as much as anyone – but it has to be real. Remember the Hanford Wing, which undoubtedly increased the amount of overtaking in CART events on superspeedways, but rendered the races farcical? ‘I pass you here each lap, and you pass me there…’

F1 has surely become way too convoluted and complicated. Some years ago I asked Patrick Head what he would do to improve F1. “Oh, ban wings,” he said immediately, somewhat to my surprise. Then he laughed. “But that would never happen – think of all that lost advertising space…”

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Jenks’s problem with Jochen…

Nigel Roebuck — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:35:25 +0000

Jenks’s problem with Jochen…

Dear Nigel,
Please clear something up for me. You knew both Jenks and Jochen Rindt. Can you tell my why Jenks didn’t believe Rindt would ever win a Grand Prix? He said he’d shave his beard if Rindt ever won and I remember a picture of Jenks sans beard in Road & Track years ago. Maybe I have the story mixed up because Jenks seemed to have such an eye for talent. Most books about that era mention Rindt’s natural ability and speed. Was Jenks really that dismissive of his talent?
Craig Lightcap

Dear Craig,
First of all I should say that, although Denis Jenkinson was one of my closest friends, I never – sadly for me – knew Jochen Rindt, for I began working as an F1 journalist at the beginning of 1971, a few months after Rindt’s death at Monza the previous September.

That said, I very well knew of Jenks’s somewhat controversial opinion of Jochen, and often quizzed him about it – and I have to say that I finished up none the wiser! Jenks, as we know, was a quirky fellow, and it wasn’t always easy to find logic in many of his opinions and conclusions – I suppose we’re all like that, to some degree. However, having said that he would shave off his beard if Rindt ever won a Grand Prix, he indeed kept his word after Jochen’s inaugural victory at Watkins Glen in 1969.

Jenks was always a man of strong opinions (thank God!), but I have to say that I never agreed with – or understood – his judgement of Rindt, whom he resolutely refused to accept as one of the artists of the sport, despite the fact that a man like Jack Brabham (for whom Jochen drove in 1968) considered him perhaps the greatest of all time. Jenks would suggest that Rindt’s spectacular, tail out style was ‘agricultural’, compared with the smoothness of a Clark or Stewart – and yet he loved that about Gilles Villeneuve!

It was, I think, something of a blind spot, and perhaps we all have them. Jenks tended to put people into one of two boxes – pro and anti – and once you were in either one, there you stayed forever. As well as that, of course, he had a mischievous taste for winding people up: he would, for example, praise Fangio for ‘winning a race at the slowest possible speed’ and then criticise Prost for doing the same thing! How, I would argue, is what Prost does any different from what Fangio did? “Just is…”

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How Prost achieved perfection

Nigel Roebuck — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:06:44 +0000

How Prost achieved perfection

Dear Nigel,
I confess to being a huge fan and admirer of Alain Prost, both as a person but also for his driving technique. Former team-mates Eddie Cheever and Keke Rosberg speak in amazement at how he managed to be so quick and smooth without them really understanding how or what he was doing. And former engineers, including John Barnard and Patrick Head, speak in awe of how easy on the car he was.

Have you ever been privy to information or been told first-hand exactly what Prost did differently and where it was he made up so much time? Was it under braking? Was it through certain types of corner?

I would be fascinated to know, as in-car footage of Prost doesn’t reveal the secrets to his technique.
Gavin

Dear Gavin,
Like you, I was a great admirer of Alain Prost, both as a driver and a man. As I always say to people, throughout all his years in F1 he never told me anything that subsequently proved to be an untruth – in other words, he never lied to me, and there are not many in the F1 paddock of whom I can say that. A superstar he may have been, but from the first time I met him, when he was in F3 in 1979, his behaviour never changed – and there are not many of whom I can say that, either!

Why was he as good as he was? I remember watching qualifying with Denis Jenkinson at Monaco in 1983: others were flying round, some looking quite lurid, and in the middle of all this Prost came out, apparently doing two or three ‘bedding in’ laps. Then the times were announced – and Alain was on pole. Jenks was nonplussed: “Amazing little bloke… how does he do it?”

No one ever made the job of Grand Prix driver seem easier than Prost, and that surely is close to a definition of artistry: you could watch him, and believe you could do it yourself. He personified smoothness in a racing car.

“Being in a team with Alain was like walking into a food-processor every day,” Eddie Cheever affectionately says of his 1983 Renault team-mate. “If you had a good race, the next weekend it would be hell, because he’d have made sure that he took a further step forward, and it was hard to keep pace with him. He never did anything in an underhand way, I must say. I never in my life came across anyone as detail-orientated as Prost was. He just went about his job – he was like a little general.

“Fast corners are one thing – what I never understood about Alain was that he was so quick in slow corners. At Monte Carlo I would lose three-tenths of a second to him just in the Loews hairpin! How he did it I have no idea – and of course there was no telemetry in those days.

“Alain had a very soft way of driving, whereas I would hold my breath and take as much pressure as I could, and then back off. I mean, Prost never used his front tyres! Now, how is that possible? When I drove the car the way it was set up for him, I was very uncomfortable – I couldn’t get it to turn in.

“Alain was a genius when it came to set-up, and I only started really to appreciate that when I drove at Indy the first two or three times. If the car wasn’t handling well, you just had to hold on, and then start working towards a set-up goal at the end of the stint. That was when I started to learn a little bit about how Prost did it – he was just phenomenal.

“The problem was that it was difficult not to become demoralised. I had complete admiration for him – I was confounded by how he could do certain things with the race car. Without a shadow of doubt, Alain was the best driver I ever worked with, or was in a team with – and as well as that, of course, I thought he was a great guy…”

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The drives of my life

Nigel Roebuck — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:36:32 +0000

The drives of my life

Dear Nigel,
As we know, Denis Jenkinson was a very experienced racer, both as a sidecar passenger and in his navigating of Sir Stirling Moss on the Mille Miglia. My questions are, have you any competition experience, which drivers have you sat alongside, and do you consider yourself a ‘sporting motorist’?
Phil Darby

Dear Phil,

Certainly I consider myself a ‘sporting motorist’ in the sense that I have always enjoyed driving fast, and always had high-performance cars – as I tell people with great pride, I’ve never owned a four-door car in my life.

Over the years I’ve been driven by a good many racing drivers, and very rarely been frightened – indeed, the last time I saw the late James Hunt, once a hellraiser of some consequence, he was a model of decorum as we drove into Wimbledon for a hamburger. We were, mind you, in James’s beloved A35 van.

As a youth, I went to the Brands Hatch racing school, drove Formula Fords and the like, and then later, as a journalist, drove such as a Lola T70 sports racing car. Thought I knew a bit about driving on a track, in other words. Then, in 1975, Chris Amon took me round Oulton Park in a Ferrari 330P4.

This, to me, was the most beautiful sports racing car ever built, and it had won at Daytona and Monza in 1967, driven by Amon and Lorenzo Bandini. Now, eight years on, its current English owner wished to see it driven properly once more.

Amon was an artist in a car. He could steer as readily with his foot as with his hands, and Old Hall Corner was a favourite. Crammed into a passenger seat never intended for actual use, I watched as he went to work with the throttle, his hands barely moving, beyond applying just the right touch of opposite lock. Every time round the left-rear wheel would kiss the grass at the exit, and Chris would glance across as if to say, “How was that? Was that OK?”

Jenks, as you say, was indeed a very experienced racer, in a variety of ways. He never lost his love of being driven by racing drivers – nor, for that matter, his exacting standards. One year we were invited to Silverstone, to be driven round in a factory Porsche 935 by one of the team drivers – a man, I should say, who had won a Grand Prix.

As was only right, DSJ was the first to go, and when he emerged from the car at the end of the run he was grinning wildly, clearly exhilarated. “How was it?” I asked. “Jesus!” he replied, then, after a pause, “Just think what it would have been like with a proper driver…”

In 1978 the Le Mans 24 Hours was won by a turbocharged Renault A442B, driven by Didier Pironi and Jean-Pierre Jaussaud, and later that year I was invited to Paul Ricard, to be driven by Pironi. Opportunities of that kind were much more common back then, before what Martin Brundle calls, “The days of plain vanilla Health and Safety…”

That remains the most electrifying ‘motoring’ experience of my life. At first everything seemed stupefyingly fast, but after a lap or so I was accustomed to the pace, and able to concentrate on the road ahead, and how Pironi was dealing with it. There were great lunges of power, and brakes to drag the breath from you, but a pattern of the circuit took shape, and I thought the surprises were done.

The one really daunting corner at Ricard was Signes, a right-hander at the end of the back straight, and our last lap through there was altogether different from those before, with the Renault sliding much more, and Pironi working harder, flicking the wheel this way and that.

The moment was over almost before it had begun, the car back on the straight and true. Pironi looked at me, winked, and gave one of those floppy-wristed French gestures that means something like, “That was a close one, huh?” At over 150mph we had hit oil put down by René Arnoux’s Renault F1 car, which was out on the circuit at the same time…

At the same track, late in 1982, I drove the Renault F1 car. Actually, that’s not quite the truth: we journalists were allowed to try it on the airfield, to experience the acceleration and braking. It was wet, and freezing cold, but I was very impressed with the car – until I somehow contrived to spin it in a straight line! I can still remember Eddie Cheever’s glee afterwards, but later in the day I began to feel a bit better about it when Jenks did the same…

In the mid-’90s, before he went to Ferrari, Michael Schumacher drove me round Silverstone in a road-going Escort Cosworth, and what made the experience memorable was the realisation – yet again – that ordinary mortals have no clue as to what a car can be made to do. I was reasonably familiar with Cosworths, but the day was horribly wet, and at first Michael seemed to be going into corners at an impossible speed.
It was kids’ stuff for him, of course; on our last lap he simply showed off, rescuing the car from impossible angles – and doing it all with his right hand, while the left remained on the gear lever.

Johnny Herbert was out at the same time in another Cosworth, and of course Michael just had to catch him, and put him in his place. “Did you enjoy that?” he grinned, as we came in. I nodded assent. “Well,” he said, “imagine what it’s like in F1 cars. When we mean it…”

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Mechanics, Monaco and memories

Rob Widdows — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:00:40 +0000

Mechanics, Monaco and memories

First, a note of thanks. Last week I was talking about mechanics – you know, the guys who get all the messing around and none of the credit. I was hoping that a few of these chaps would get in touch and, guess what, they have.

So my ‘Mechanics Tales’ series is at least safe for a few months more. Damien (my Editor) is pleased, or relieved, one of the two.

1971 European F2 Championship. Cranleigh, Surrey, UK. 4th November, Rondel Racing F2 Team including L – R: Clive Walton, Ron Dennis, Neil Trundle and Preston Anderson.

I was encouraged to hear from Neil Trundle, a man who has been there, done it, got the t-shirts, the videos and the trophies. Neil established the Project 4 team with Ron Dennis, the outfit that built the ProCars for BMW, wowed the paddocks with its presentation and persuaded the mighty Marlboro to support its bid for the old McLaren team. The rest, as they say, is history.

Dutch Grand Prix, Zandvoort, Holland. 29th – 31st August 1980. Alain Prost (McLaren M30-Ford Cosworth), 6th position.

Neil still works with Ron, at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, where he’s in charge of the gearbox department. This is all to cut a very long story short but Mr Trundle has agreed to tell me a few mechanics tales so you will no doubt enjoy reading those in the months to come.

This week I’m going to see Neil Davis, who worked for Ken Tyrrell for many years and looked after the cars of Jackie Stewart. It was he who featured in our picture of the paddock tunnel at the (proper) Nürburgring last week. Meanwhile, in next month’s magazine, it will be the turn of David “Dorky” Lowe who is a protégé of both Neil Davis and Roy Topp at Tyrrell and who was terribly injured at Imola in 1996 when Jos Verstappen left the pits while Dorky was still re-fuelling the Arrows. But we’ll be looking at a happier phase of his life in the pitlane with Paul Stewart Racing when he looked after David Coulthard in Formula 3.

San Marino Grand Prix, Imola, Italy. 3rd – 5th May 1996. Jos Verstappen (Footwork FA17 Hart).

I won’t be in Monte Carlo this coming weekend but I will be glued to the television. This is absolutely one of my favourite Grands Prix, along with Spa-Francorchamps, Montreal and Monza. Well, and Suzuka, but that’s not every year now. Why do I love Monte Carlo? Because of the speed and the skill. You can feel the speed, get close to the cars for once, and you can only wonder the skill involved in threading a Grand Prix car around the streets. And the noise. Ah, that noise, as the cars scream around the Principality, the shriek of those engines ricocheting off the buildings. First thing in the morning it is just thrilling, makes the hairs on the back of your neck bristle.
Many years ago I watched a practice session in Monaco with Jenks. We stood behind the barrier at the old Tabac and at the swimming pool section. We could, if we’d been mad enough, have reached out and touched the cars. “You’ve got to realise,” he said, peering up at me through his spectacles, “that this place really shows you who is that bit special, who’s really got it. But even the cars at the back are quick, even the slowest drivers are going fast.”

I remember that every time I see these guys dancing and sliding around the streets, the best of them within millimetres of the barriers. Fantastic place.

Monaco Grand Prix, Monte Carlo, Monaco. 25th – 27th May 2007. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren MP4-22 Mercedes.

There may not be much overtaking but overtaking isn’t everything in motor racing. I’d rather watch no overtaking in Monaco than in Hungary or Malaysia, for example. I’d rather watch Hamilton or Raikkonen in Monaco than the whole field at Barcelona. And, it is possible to overtake in Monte Carlo. Not easy, but possible.

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Barcelona – all Greek to me

Rob Widdows — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:00:02 +0000

Barcelona – all Greek to me

I try to avoid being on holiday during a Grand Prix weekend. That’s not always easy once the European season gets underway, as you will appreciate.

Looking at the diary in February I quickly came to realise that the summer was going to be busy, Motor Sport having put my name next to a most encouraging number of events, some of them Grands Prix. An early holiday, or no holiday, were the options.

The latter option did little to improve the atmosphere at home so here we are, in Corfu, and the Spanish GP in Barcelona is not exactly headline news in the local newspapers. The Greeks are a great deal more concerned with football than they are with motor racing. And it is Easter weekend – well, Holy Week to be precise – and access to British newspapers and broadcasting is, to say the least, limited.

Easter Sunday found us with friends in the mountain village of Skripero, slowly roasting a large lamb over an open fire, and easing into the day with an ouzo. To receive the race coverage on ITV requires the installation of a satellite dish the like of which you would expect to find atop GCHQ or some similar secretive government establishment. This is clearly not an option in an area of such outstanding natural beauty. And nor should it be. We therefore break away from the Easter celebrations to watch the Grand Prix unfold on Antenna, a Greek channel with, naturally, a Greek commentary.

As the Ferraris lead the field round lap after lap the commentator doesn’t sound very excited but there is much discussion amongst our international party about what might, or might not, happen over the duration of this first European encounter.

The Italians are pleased, but not surprised, to see the red cars out in front. The Americans want to know what Michael Schumacher is doing these days and why did he stop at the top of his game. (The Italians glance across at Kimi who, through the interference, appears to be cruising to victory). The Brits want to know if Lewis really has what it takes and whether he is truly as cool and charming as he appears? The Greeks, understandably, are more concerned with the lamb slowly turning on the spit.

I mention these things this week because distance delivers a little perspective upon the matter. If you have not seen practice or qualifying, and you do not understand the grid, the race somehow loses some of its intensity. If you have just recently joined the throng around a TV set in a café to watch a most enthralling football match, joining in the general hullabaloo, then the Grand Prix seems somehow not to bring you to the edge of your seat.

In the days following the race at Barcelona I have come to appreciate that there was some excitement, some intrigue, and possibly some measure of the margin that the red cars appear to have over the rest of the field. And it’s interesting how the team from Maranello has a following wherever you travel, in the same way that Manchester United clearly had plenty of support in the cafes of Corfu when they strode onto the pitch at Stamford Bridge last weekend.

The village of Arillas, from where I am writing, seems a world away from fast cars, let alone racing cars. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. I am tempted to start to believe that I could wean myself off the drug that got into my bloodstream all those years ago at Goodwood. But I know that such a process is not going to happen. As the grid forms up for the next one I know I will not wish I was here, whatever I may have written on post cards this week.

Incidentally, the internet connection through which you will have received this brief report is not so easy to find. So thanks Dimitris at Brouklis where I have perched to satisfy the terms of my contract. I guess that Jenks would have simply walked down to the post box by the sea and dropped his envelope in with fingers crossed. Those were the days.

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The future’s bright

Gordon Kirby — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:40:17 +0000

The future’s bright

I couldn’t be more delighted to join Motor Sport magazine at a key point in the magazine’s long history. Under the fresh leadership of my longtime colleague Nigel Roebuck I am sure we will be able to make a fine magazine even better.

As Nigel says, we take pleasure in pursuing the tradition of good writing and forthright journalism laid down in the pages of Motor Sport for many years by Denis Jenkinson. Our mission is to produce the world’s most complete racing magazine. We are committed to maintaining Motor Sport’s fine eye and passion for the history of the sport while sharpening the magazine’s coverage of the contemporary scene. And too, we’ll attempt to be as forward-thinking as possible by examining the technical and philosophical challenges facing the sport in the fast-changing world of the 21st century.

It’s a tremendous pleasure to be part of a magazine with a grand tradition and lofty goals. I’ve always believed that motor racing is about attempting to set extremely high standards and thanks to the new owners of Motor Sport and Nigel’s arrival as editor in chief we have all the necessary tools to drive the magazine into an even healthier, more robust future.

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Watching and waiting

Rob Widdows — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:37:56 +0000

Watching and waiting

The passage of time means different things to different people. For a geologist, two hundred and fifty million years is a long time. For us motor racing nuts, seven weeks is a long time. That’s how long it is until the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. And it seems more than fifteen weeks since we saw Kimi Raikkonen cross the line at Interlagos. Wonder what he’s been doing? World Champion seems to be a very low-profile achievement these days. Pictures of Kimi grinning, in public at least, are rare but perhaps they are on the walls of every bar in Helsinki. We didn’t hear much from Fernando Alonso during the previous winter did we?

What we need, to lift the general gloom that seems to be settling over Gordon Brown’s Britain, is a British world champion. Now it is a long time since we had one of those. At Silverstone the other day I bumped into the last man to do it for us while chatting with another man who could, and should, have done it for us. Both had what it takes, skill and grit, and both are great ambassadors for motor racing. Damon Hill, now President of the BRDC and no longer looking like a heavy metal star, is busy putting back some of what he took in 1996. Derek Warwick, also busy finding, and helping, young British drivers would have made a wonderful World Champion. He turned down an offer from Frank Williams in 1985, the seat went to Mr Mansell, and he became, yes, a British world champion.

It’s all about being in the right place at the right time. Even Gordon Brown knows that. And so does Lewis Hamilton. But we don’t want to go over all that again do we? I fear that ITV will have more than enough to say as we edge closer to the sunshine of south Australia. Thank goodness for Martin Brundle, always a source of knowledge and humour amidst the hysteria. I watch ITV for Brundle in the same way as I bought Autosport, until this year of course, for Roebuck. And unless Matthew Paris makes a move, I shall continue to buy The Times. I’d like to read Alan Henry in the Guardian but the rest of that newspaper makes no sense to me at all. Reading is one of life’s great pleasures, along with Grand Prix cars at Spa, or just about any of the Greek islands.

You can probably tell I am a virgin blogger, a big, fat book beating a blog any day. But we must move with the times. Wonder what Jenks would have made of blogging? It would have been tricky for him to have got himself on line, the great man’s home not being connected to a supply of electricity. But I digress.

Seven weeks, then, until we get some real clues about the new Grand Prix season. For me, Jenson Button will be the interest. If Ross Brawn does not make a material difference to the Honda team I will be surprised. It is said that Mr Capello will do the same for England. Time, probably a couple of years in both cases, will tell. And it’s time I got on with writing up my chat with Derek Warwick. You can read it in your magazine two months from now.

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