Post by Andrew Rowland on Dec 3, 2015 17:21:37 GMT -5
So after a tumultuous trip across the world in which customs officials seem to have opened every car and box and caused quite a lot of damage we find ourselves back in Britain for the British Grand Prix at Manor Park circuit.
The Tyrrell 002, Tyrrell P34 and March 721X all needed serious work wile the other cars got off lightly with relatively minor appendage damage.
The relatively compact circuit and the rough tarmac here should shake up the outcome a little as this is a track unlike any the cars have yet raced on.
Qualifying was held over 10 laps for each car after the track was cleaned and rubbered in from the morning’s minor formulae races.
It was a bright day and the teams all worked hard to get their cars as well prepared as possible.
The last minute adjustments were being made in the pits……
Chapman puts a reassuring arm around Fittipaldi’s girlfriend… Who seems less than impressed!
Hulme prepares on the grid. Will his recent form hold on this small twisty track?
They form up for the off…
Qualifying was probably too short to give a genuine reflection of the performance of some of the cars. The Brabham BT42 came out on top for its driveability whilst the Mclaren M19A is clearly very powerful for this small circuit. One can see why it was so dominant on those larger circuits! Here it is quite a handful.
The rebuild of the March 721X chassis and gearbox has stiffened it significantly and that is now performing very well. The short wheelbase and low moment of inertia responding well to the twisty track sections.
And the grid is set:
(Please note this was a dummy grid and not representative of the final start grid which I failed to photograph!!
The race got underway with me driving each car singly for 5 minutes in reverse order of the grid.
The Tyrrell P34 was a handful as usual with the narrow front end not helping with balance on the tighter turns. Potentially the nose is a little light as several trips ontot he grass and one or two intot he barriers kept me from creating a good rhythm.
The Tyrrell 002 felt heavy and slow with no striaghts where it could get up to speed. It was hugely handicapped and ended up last.
The Lotus 72 was smooth but lacked brakes. The back wheels hit a barrier on the very last lap and hooked in as the barrier gave way. This robbed the car of a certain third place and ropped it to fifth on the vaery last lap!
The Lotus 56B ran very well for a long time, the slightly narrower tyres creating a good balance with the power of the motor.
The Mclaren came with great expectations and there were series of laps when the car got really intot he groove, however it is just a little too powerful for this circuit making it a handful to drive and this created a few mistakes, preventing the car from really getting a high placing. Third bestlap of the day shows how quick the car is.
The March 721X was really running well and braking beautifully into the corners. Grip was optimum and for a while it looked like the car might win.
The Brabham BT42 continues its run of good form. It is just so driveable on these type of circuits and its consistency won through again today which was quite a surprise. It shared a fastest lap of the day of 5.27 with the March 721X.
I’ve been playing with different ways of recording and presenting data….
I’m using the App called Lap tracker which is quite versatile provided you don’t have shadows passing across the face of the phone during recording.
The neat thing is that you can send all the data via email back to your PC and import it into Excel (or other presumably).
From there one can ‘see’ the whole race.
I find it useful as a loan racer to be able to run the cars separately and then overlay their race performance simultaneously to understand when they overtook one another etc.
The Leaderboard after five races shows some position changes:
The Tyrrell 002, Tyrrell P34 and March 721X all needed serious work wile the other cars got off lightly with relatively minor appendage damage.
The relatively compact circuit and the rough tarmac here should shake up the outcome a little as this is a track unlike any the cars have yet raced on.
Qualifying was held over 10 laps for each car after the track was cleaned and rubbered in from the morning’s minor formulae races.
It was a bright day and the teams all worked hard to get their cars as well prepared as possible.
The last minute adjustments were being made in the pits……
Chapman puts a reassuring arm around Fittipaldi’s girlfriend… Who seems less than impressed!
Hulme prepares on the grid. Will his recent form hold on this small twisty track?
They form up for the off…
Qualifying was probably too short to give a genuine reflection of the performance of some of the cars. The Brabham BT42 came out on top for its driveability whilst the Mclaren M19A is clearly very powerful for this small circuit. One can see why it was so dominant on those larger circuits! Here it is quite a handful.
The rebuild of the March 721X chassis and gearbox has stiffened it significantly and that is now performing very well. The short wheelbase and low moment of inertia responding well to the twisty track sections.
And the grid is set:
(Please note this was a dummy grid and not representative of the final start grid which I failed to photograph!!
The race got underway with me driving each car singly for 5 minutes in reverse order of the grid.
The Tyrrell P34 was a handful as usual with the narrow front end not helping with balance on the tighter turns. Potentially the nose is a little light as several trips ontot he grass and one or two intot he barriers kept me from creating a good rhythm.
The Tyrrell 002 felt heavy and slow with no striaghts where it could get up to speed. It was hugely handicapped and ended up last.
The Lotus 72 was smooth but lacked brakes. The back wheels hit a barrier on the very last lap and hooked in as the barrier gave way. This robbed the car of a certain third place and ropped it to fifth on the vaery last lap!
The Lotus 56B ran very well for a long time, the slightly narrower tyres creating a good balance with the power of the motor.
The Mclaren came with great expectations and there were series of laps when the car got really intot he groove, however it is just a little too powerful for this circuit making it a handful to drive and this created a few mistakes, preventing the car from really getting a high placing. Third bestlap of the day shows how quick the car is.
The March 721X was really running well and braking beautifully into the corners. Grip was optimum and for a while it looked like the car might win.
The Brabham BT42 continues its run of good form. It is just so driveable on these type of circuits and its consistency won through again today which was quite a surprise. It shared a fastest lap of the day of 5.27 with the March 721X.
I’ve been playing with different ways of recording and presenting data….
I’m using the App called Lap tracker which is quite versatile provided you don’t have shadows passing across the face of the phone during recording.
The neat thing is that you can send all the data via email back to your PC and import it into Excel (or other presumably).
From there one can ‘see’ the whole race.
I find it useful as a loan racer to be able to run the cars separately and then overlay their race performance simultaneously to understand when they overtook one another etc.
The Leaderboard after five races shows some position changes:
