a tight fit.....

Malcolm · 04-06-06, 03:53 PM

Here is a picture of me in a car I sat in today. Blimey, it was uncomfortable. Shuey has a really tiny a***!

This is his 1994 (I think) Benetton championship winning car, albeit less engine, yours for a mere £350,000.

I found it amazing how little forward vision there is to see the front wings. The wheels yes but anything lower down is out of sight. Amazing how those guys are not bumping each other all the time.

An amazingly engineered car but IMHO an obscene amount of money spent by the F1 teams.

I LOVE GT40- Paolo · 04-06-06, 04:18 PM

deeply agree with u Malcom.
That is the same thought I have when I look at all the race cars we made in Jas factory(almost all DTM Alfa Romeo,and many 575 GTC too).

really an incredible waste of money.....

Paolo

RobBeddington · 04-06-06, 04:50 PM

[ QUOTE ]
IMHO an obscene amount of money spent by the F1 teams.

[/ QUOTE ]

True, unless you believe that F1 and other racing technology help to further road car development/safety, ie increased use of carbon fibre, titanium, electronics/microprocessors, fly-by-wire, paddle shift, etc, etc, etc.

An expensive way to test this sort of stuff? Probably, but IMHO F1 is a (marginally) more entertaining way of doing this than pure factory development.

Remember, without Ford's massive investment to win Le Mans, there would be no GT40, and we would all be hill-climbing Cortinas and Minis... [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/driving.gif[/img]

Malcolm · 04-06-06, 05:08 PM

$300,000,000 so two guys can race 19 times a year? Yes some tech does come down the chain and the engineering is excellent. But the Ford GT40 was to sell cars. I din't see a link between F1 and car sales. For proof look how the new Ford GT was used to sell cars dragging up the old heritage.

And as for racing minis and cortinas, if you are prepared to include MAxda MX5 (Miata) in that then actually I have had more fun racing a Miata in USA than with my 40 on a track here in the UK. I have written a stupidly long article about that experience that will make it to the forum in due course.

RobBeddington · 04-06-06, 05:36 PM

Mazda Miata? I can see the attraction, but give me a Datsun 2000 any day of the week...

Cheers.