Alt+F1: 39 - Chinese GP Prerace 2015

Track walk coming soon? Can't wait!

Vroom vroom ~

HEY PASTOR! PASTOR MALDONADO!

Hope Ferrari can challenge Mercedes on a cooler track. The iceman is ready.

@dannyodwyer: so quiet that you can hear the laughs.

Speedy race cars!

Meanwhile, in Chinese Cup Racing:

Wow, that was really fast turn around

3 hours since then

That goddamn ersatz Daft Punk/Deadmau5/Squarepusher FE DJ.

If you can't make it to an F1 race, at least try to make it to a FE race.

China don't care

@t_wester: That might be the best product endorsement ever.

13th comment i had issues managing my keyboard in the final stint

1:11:11

China Kimi don't care.

Love the show, but it's fact check time:

-First Chinese Grand Prix was in 2004; parts of the turf were being ripped up during the race as well as a manhole cover(!)

-China T5 isn't anything like Malaysia T7-T8; many Tilke circuits have a flat kink before a hairpin

-T14 isn't double apex

-Average temp at China is 18C / 64F; the talk after Malaysia was that the temp tyre deg will be easier for Mercedes this round -- not sure how abrasive S2 has become

-Operating temp for carbon brakes are around 400-600C; peaks out at around 1000-1200C

-There's partial Brake-By-Wire in F1. The brakes are still connected via a hydraulic line, but the rear-calipers can be controlled by the ECU for the ERS and MGU-K. It's interpreting the brake pressure from the driver and controlling it electronically to optimize their system

<3 you guys!

Aren't there maximum distances and times races can run to which determine number of laps? So they will reach one or the other.

@billmcneal: China don't mind~

Race distances are 305km, Monaco is 260km.

Total time limit is set to 2 hours (it gets complicated if there's red flags, climactic conditions or an unlit track is running out of daylight).

SPEEDY. RACECARS.

Inserting SF2 into the GP is the best result of hosting a racing podcast on a video game website.

This is probably a better place to put this. While I hate to drag this into "social justice" territory, I can't agree with banning grid girls. That's a perfectly legitimate gig for an aspiring model, and I'd wager one of the least sleazy ones available in that rotten industry. Often times they get to wear tasteful ethnic costumes, as is the case in Malaysia, and I very much like to see the variety of outfits throughout the year from place to place. Sure maybe it gets awkward during the ceremonies, but that can be easily fixed by clever people. In the down time I imagine they get to hang out in the Paddock Club with the rest of the rich, glamorous people. That sounds pretty sweet to me. Why are people so keen on taking away a young woman's employment opportunity? Until we hear reports of Bernie trying to pimp one of them out to Harvey Weinstein the grid girl should stay.

On the tropic of glamorous people and pimping.

If you cant read it it says:

Dear Cyril

Please be reminded that where possible, grid access passes should be used for celebrities or people of note or as always, really glamorous ladies.

This is not so much a sporting matter but part of the show business of Formula One.

Best wishes

Bernie

@edgecrusher: I agree with you. Blatant exploitation and degradation of any gender is a terrible thing, but pit girls seem to be neither. I bet they are paid well for a relatively easy job and I bet it helps them further their careers as 'person who looks pretty for a living'. I really wish we could hear from them (pit girls) in this matter, it would be fascinating to know an opinion on the situation from that perspective.

DOWNLOADING FROM YOUTUBE!!!

@bachogrande said:

To add to this, China is a front limited circuit as apposed to Malaysia which is rear limited. Mercedes have always done well at front limited tracks.

@t_wester: That's no different than any night club, in any city, in any country, any place on Earth, on any given weekend. Hardly pimping. Ever hear of Ladies Night?

And while we're being all progressive and shit, how about Grid Dudes? I wouldn't have anything against them, especially if they keep the whole ethnic costume thing going. In some cultures the traditional male dress is wackier than the female dress. It would be a great sight to behold, especially among all the super serious mechanics and technicians making sure these damn things get off the line in one piece. Each row has two slots. One gets a girl, one gets a guy. That's equal opportunity, no?

A note about the Camera T-Bars that Drew was talking about: They're not purely based on seniority. I only found this out recently myself, but the teams just pick their own "Number 1" and "Number 2" Drivers and assign them the black and yellow bars, respectfully. Which is why you get bizarre stuff like Vettel getting the black bar in his rookie year at Ferrari. It's confusing as hell, but there are good spotting guides that list em out.

So glad you guys went with that picture

I think the flag/sign girls are a nice touch. But I'm not ashamed to say I don't mind looking at lovely ladies. I think it adds some culture (not sure if that is the right way to describe it) to each track. And it's interesting to see the different outfits they end up wearing and how it might reflect their country's style or whatever. /shrug

That being said, you wanna make it fair then I'd be perfectly fine with them having an equal amount of dudes out there for the spectators interested in that. Nothing wrong with that.

I do think any of the other weird trophy girl type stuff is weird and awkward and that's in all kinds of motorsports. The winner standing there while women practically hang on their arms, sponsors plastered all over them, and a big ol forced fake smile.

@drew@dannyodwyer For the brake temp question, it was roughly answered above, but in terms of general performance brakes, the brake pad materials are much harder for durability because of racing conditions (if you were to take normal brake pads designed for street use onto a track and in race conditions, the pads would literally turn to dust even after just a couple laps) and thus need to be brought up to higher temperatures to get them to a certain level of softness that provides optimal friction but not too much otherwise the pad and rotor will become excessively hot, release gases, lose friction, and wear much quicker. This is basically known as "Brake Fade". You can also warp a brake rotor from it getting too hot, which you'll feel in the brake pedal via a pulsing sensation.

And hydraulic fluid used in performance brake applications is different as well since the normal type of fluid used in street cars will literally boil because of heat transfer from the pads and rotors into the calipers (the part that fluid goes into and pinches the pads against the rotors). When the fluid boils, it'll start to create gas pockets (I think) in the system and gases are more easily compressed compared to a thick fluid, thus when the driver presses the brake pedal, it ends up compressing the gas instead of pushing against the brakes and the driver essentially loses brakes/pedal pressure.

Chiiinah

Vrooooom! hoping last race wasn't a one-off and that ferrari really has closed the gap to mercedes

@t_wester:

@edgecrusher: @frostmute:

I found this interesting quote on F1 Fanatic

@seikenfreak: Yeh your brakes going off is the first of many fun surprises you have when you roll out your own car on a trackday :D

Another great episode!

F1 brakes are carbon fiber and they don't work at normal temperature, they have to be hot.

If you put a f1 brake in your street you will crash, because street car breaks operate at cold temperature, lets say you are driving in the high way at on a winter night, your braking disks and pads haven't been used for like a hour, and they are really cold, if something comes in front of your car and you have to hit the brakes hard, be glad they are no carbon fiber like the ones from f1,otherwise you would die.

Another thing that I would like to mention, motogp does not have scheduled pit stop, normally the races are flag to flag, except if it is declared a wet race, then they can swap the bikes, f-e style. But on motogp they have to swap to a bike that has a different tyre that the one that they came in into the pit. Like wet to dry or dry to wet. And they can swap as much as they want.

The reason that they don't just change the tyres os because changing them is a bike is not as easy as a car, and the brake disk is attached to the whell, and they need to be hot as well and would be a safety hazard going out with cold brakes.

Btw motogp is fascinating, you guys should watch it. Next race is in circuit of the Americas next Sunday.

@rethla: I agree that that industry is fairly shitty all around. They need to fix their own problems. I'm simply betting that F1 is better than most. (The author quoted freely admitted that she wasn't talking about F1.)

Wasn't there a similar situation with boothbabes at E3? I want to say a former boothbabe came forward and said that E3 was actually one of the better events for them where they get treated way batter than other trade shows.

@t_wester said:

Dear lord, is that some kind of horrible bunny/sled hybrid. ;)

Eh....you guys?

So I drove past formula E. Its fucking great! I didnt have time to go, but I'm for sure going next time. I thought LB only did indy. Glad there is a such a close race near me.

Active Numbers on cars? Endurance Racing!:

The Audi lights are red so thats LMP1 class and its 3rd. These lights update every time a car cross the start finish.

See the Three lights behind the door? (only 2 are light on this Ferrari 458) They green which means the car is in the GT-Pro Class. and the two lights means its in second

@dannyodwyer said:

Eh....you guys?

Twitch plays formula e, it will be glorious!

Well guys, after listening to the podcast for a few months without watching any F1 or Formula-E, I am now watching both, really enjoy formula-e weirdly enough.

@dannyodwyer Just an fyi, the track seems to be shaped like the character 上 or shàng, which literally just means "up" in Chinese.

@dannyodwyer: Formula EJ 2015 for Oculus Rift. Think about it.

Oh @drewbert, it's the World Series because it is PLAYED by people who hail from all around the world (Dominican, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Japanese players) not because it is comprised of different national teams.

A lil' baseball knowledge for your racing podcast.

I was actually down at Long Beach for the E-Prix (ugh). It was a fantastic, very low key event. The E-Jay played THE ENTIRE RACE, and it was the same like 10 second loop. Fortunately, there were speedy little race cars zipping around for distraction. If you guys have a chance to go check one of these out before they start charging for tickets, totally go for it.

@dannyodwyer

"Full of people who couldnt get into F1 if they tried, and people who used to be"

Maybe he's the exception instead of the rule, but...Sebastien Buemi is the current FIA WEC driver's CHAMPION. I know you guys don't have the time to cover and be experts on all racing...I don't expect that. But pls. LMP1 is just as groundbreaking and on the edge of technology as F1 is.

At Silverstone last year, The Toyota P1 car he drove qualified only 7 seconds off from F1's fastest lap. At Interlagos, the pole-winning Porsche's qualifying lap was only 5 seconds off F1's fastest race lap (7 from qualifying pole). That sounds like a lot, but they're the only thing even in the same speed league as F1. (Some might argue for indycar's DW12, but there's no track for track comparison). And they do 90-95% of that pace for 6 hours (and up to 24 hours) at a time.

Im not asking for much, just a mention! Just a MENTION that there is more than just open wheel, that maybe it isn't the complete pinnacle of EVERYTHING, would be nice...because Buemi is a current champion of one of the most technologically advanced, competitive, and diverse racing championships in the world, along with that he used to race in F1, would be nice.

Love the podcast! =D

Drew, how are you gonna just sit there and let Danny get away with saying "Mexican Wave?"