#while silverstone is like. half an hour to an hours drive away

[lightsovermonaco]

His Good Sweater: Chapter 4

Masterlist

Thank you as always to my best friend and Beta reader @acollectionofficsandshit​ for putting up with me and my ramblings ♥

Word Count: 3.8k

Recommended song: "ily (I love you baby)" by Surf Mesa and Emilee

You'd never been more thankful that you kept a change of clothes in your car than you were after the race at Silverstone. You'd showered again, changing back into the sweaty tee and leggings. The clean emergency hoodie and jeans were a blessing, and casual enough for a night on the town.

Most of the crew had left, only a few poor souls pouring over race data or packing up essentials. James let you into the trailer yard this time without hesitation. "We really should just get you a key," He teases, "Sure would make my life easier."

Rolling your eyes, you give the tower of muscle a pitiful shove. He doesn't move an inch. "Thanks James. I'll ask Pierre to look into it."

A sudden wave of tiredness washes over you when you make it back to the trailer. You flip through the channels on the tiny television, settling on an analysis of the day’s race.

“And a brilliant drive from young Pierre Gasly, wasn’t it John?”

“I completely agree Martin. Gasly took advantage of every slip up by Mercedes and Red Bull and he has to be commended for that. Max made some rare mistakes and…”

You smile to yourself, their praise washing over you. Yawning, you curl up on Pierre's bed, the familiar smell of cedar lulling you into a light sleep in minutes.

**********

A gentle touch to your cheek wakes you some hours later. You crack your eyes open, greeted by a smile brighter than the stars in the night sky. You taste eternal sunshine on his lips when you kiss him, your soul sparking in response to his light.

"Good morning," He murmurs, thumb rubbing along your jaw. "Sleep well?"

You snuggle closer to him, eyes closing once more as you soak up the warmth. "Is it time to go out already?"

"It is. But we can stay here if you want to." He brushes a stray hair off your face. The gesture is so tender, if you didn’t know any better you’d never guess he could turn into the seasoned, take-no-shit racer you’d seen hours before. 

You shake your head. You couldn't let him miss out on celebrating his victory with his closest friends. Besides, you hadn't seen any of them for a span of time longer than a few minutes in months, and truth be told, you missed them all. 

Those boys had a knack for turning the simplest of outings into unforgettable adventures. You had been sworn to secrecy on numerous occasions after Pierre recounted drunken escapades that usually ended with Max sleeping somewhere preposterous, like a claw-footed bathtub in a fancy suite.

“Where are we going?” You ask sleepily. “Somewhere nearby?”

Pierre tugs you up until you’re sitting. He pulls you back against his chest, arms wrapping around you as he sets his chin on your shoulder. “Yeah. Maybe ten minutes away.”

You lean your full weight against him, admiring how perfectly your bodies slot together. “Can I leave my car here?”

“As long as you’re okay with it staying here until tomorrow, that’s fine.” He coaxes you to stand and presses a kiss to your temple as a reward. Your limbs are still heavy and uncooperative. Pierre winds an arm around your waist, supporting you and assuming the position of your rock as he always did.

"You don't sleep here," You state simply, looking at him for confirmation. He shakes his head.

"Wouldn't be enough room for two anyway." He gestures to the tiny twin sized bed and shrugs.

Your brow furrows. “Am I staying with you tonight?” You honestly had not considered it. The jet usually left early and you had assumed he would want to get as much rest as possible. But now that you had experienced waking up next to him, you realize how much you want his face to be the first thing you see when you open your eyes each morning.

“Of course you’re staying with me. I’m taking every second of your time that I can get.”

You bite your lip and lay your head on his shoulder. The idea of falling asleep in his arms was enough to shake any lingering sleepiness. “Okay.” Confident that you could hold yourself up, you step out of his grasp. “Ready.”

The few mechanics roaming about the grounds are enough to keep you cautious. You walk through the paddock a hair's breadth apart, although every nerve screams for you to touch him. Every time your arm grazes his, electricity ripples across your skin. All you want to do is hold his hand, but there’s enough prying eyes that you restrain the impulse.

You can tell he feels it too by the way his fingers curl and uncurl at his sides. And he's biting his cheek, you notice. A nervous habit of his and a clear indicator that he'd retreated inside his own head, likely contemplating if he'd truly deserved to win today or not.

Every few months his doubts crept in, the devil on his shoulder reminding him that Horner hadn't deemed him good enough to keep his seat at Red Bull after only a handful of races.

You'll never be as talented as them, is what you'd imagined it whispered. They're only here because they pity you. What makes you think you deserve a seat?

It couldn't be farther from the truth. Deep down, Pierre knew that. Driving in Formula 1 meant being under constant scrutiny from the public and sportscasters. Making an error meant debates about whether you were good enough and rumors about seat security.

There were no such errors today. You'd heard the commentary after the race; everyone was raving about his performance. Not one person had dared say he didn't deserve it.

Not wanting him to suffer alone, you subtly wrap your pinky finger around his. "You're okay," You say softly, his head whipping to you. "You deserved that trophy today. It was some of the best driving I've ever seen, everyone agrees. You deserve a trophy every time you get in that car. You'll always be my champion, even if the world tells you otherwise."

It takes a moment for it to sink in, but he nods and releases your pinkie. "You're my grounding rod," He says, lips curling in a knowing smile, and you can't hold back your laugh.

"Leave it to you to turn a romantic moment into a cheesy one." Instead of saying you're my rock like any normal person, he had to bring up the time you'd embarrassed yourself at the bar a year or so ago. He'd let you prattle on to poor Dan about building grounding rods of all things, and how you'd thought your professor's way of designing such a system was flawed. Pierre would never let you live that down, it seemed.

Max spots the two of you first, waving from where the boys had gathered outside Red Bull. “About time you showed up! We’ve been waiting for ten minutes!”

“She fell asleep,” Pierre says simply, his confidence back. “Takes her awhile to wake up.”

“Whatever, I’m just glad you’re here,” Daniel says, throwing an arm around your shoulders and tucking you tight to his side. You couldn’t help the broad smile creeping onto your face, twin to the aussie’s as you hug him back. 

“We missed you,” Charles says, falling into step beside you. “I never hear from you anymore!”

You grimace. It was true, while the three boys had texted you quite frequently the past few months, you had barely responded to them. You felt guilty about it, knowing they were taking time out of their packed schedules to catch up. But uni had been kicking your ass and the only one you’d found time for was Pierre. Looking back, you were glad he had been the exception.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” You say. “Lots of projects.”

“And that new internship,” Max points out. Your eyebrows flick up, gaze flicking to Pierre. You had been awarded an internship a month or so ago at a local engineering firm in London. It was only part time work, a few hours a week, but it was enough. The only one you had told was Pierre.

Pierre grins, the gesture a silent apology. “I may have spilled the beans.” 

You cut him a glare, the others laughing at your attempt at being intimidating. But you couldn’t turn away from him, not when he was looking at you with the same pride you had felt when he’d won earlier that day. 

“Uber’s here,” Charles announces, checking his phone.

“Where?” Daniel asks, and Charles indicates a black SUV parked at the curb. Daniel and Max exchange a look, shouting “Shotgun!” at the same time. Both boys break into a full sprint, feet pounding on the pavement. Daniel wins - barely, leaving Max and Charles to squeeze into the back seat.

Pierre follows you into the third row of seats, his hand immediately engulfing yours. Your stomach flips, glancing up to find a reassuring smile on his face. You could barely focus on what was said for the first half of the ride, hyperaware of the callouses rubbing your skin. The world around you erupts into color at the touch, completing the part of you that you’d never realized was missing. 

The remainder of the drive is filled with laughter, jokes, and plenty of selfies with the driver. It wasn’t every day one could brag about having four world class drivers in your car; you couldn’t blame the man for being excited.

By the time you arrive at the bar, your sides are already splitting with laughter. “First round is on you, Ricciardo,” Charles says, wagging a finger at him. “Punishment for bringing up the Abu Dhabi incident again!”

“Jokes on you, I was already planning on it!” He glances at you and winks. “Gotta congratulate the winner somehow, right?” Little did the Australian know, you had already congratulated Pierre a few hours ago, and you doubted that a few shots would outshine that performance. You hope the pink tinge that rises to your cheeks with the memory isn't obvious and you duck your head just in case.

A blast of air conditioning hits you as you all stumble into the bar. All eyes fell to you and the ragtag group of drivers when you entered, silence blanketing the patrons. The bartender slams a fist on the wooden bartop, rattling glasses and making you flinch.

“Been wonderin’ when you lot were gonna show your ugly mugs!”

Daniel, Max and Charles erupt into friendly laughter, shaking the man’s hand and making small talk. You look to Pierre for an explanation.

“Tradition,” He murmurs. The noise returned to a normal level around you, though you could feel the glances thrown your way. “We come here every year, but only if one of us wins at Silverstone. Been awhile since that happened.”

"Ah," You say, nodding dramatically. "Yes, very long time." Pierre grins, shaking his head.

"Who won this year?" The man - William, Pierre informs you- asks. He towered over you when you sat on the sticky bar stool, tall and lanky but well muscled and certainly not someone you would expect patrons to try disrespecting. He was already pouring five shots of a fine Irish Whiskey, waving Daniel off when he tried to start a tab. “My treat.”

Max claps a hand on Pierre's shoulder. "This one claimed the crown, for once!"

"Wey hey!" William says, passing out the shots. "Everyone else crash out or what?"

"You should watch the replay," You say, knocking Pierre's shoulder with your own. "It was amazing. The move he used to get past Max-" you bring your pinched fingers to your lips in a chef's kiss. "Gorgeous."

"Much to Max's despair," Charles adds, raising his shot. "To the underdog!"

You all echo the sentiment, the boys knocking back the strong alcohol with practiced ease. It didn't go down as smooth for you, burning your throat and making you wince.

Daniel laughs. "Not used to drinking with us anymore, huh?"

"Must have lost my edge," You say, the woody taste lingering in your mouth. "I'm sure it'll hit me hard in a half hour or so, too."

**********

Well, you weren't wrong about the alcohol hitting you like a punch to the gut. Two shots later and you were swaying like a sailor on his first excursion out to sea, Pierre's shoulder the only thing keeping you from toppling off the bar stool. 

Pierre's eyes were bright as the others poked fun at him, William joining in with a witty remark now and then. His laugh wrapped around you like a warm blanket, keeping you content and grounded.

"Hey Pierre," Daniel says at one point, "Don't look now but that table of girls has been obsessed with you all night."

Pierre, blitzed as he was, pays no attention to Dan's warning and turns around. A loopy grin was plastered on his face, turning back and shaking his head.

You may not have been able to think straight, but your stomach lurches. Instantly sobering slightly, you follow Dan's gaze to the indicated table to your left. Three beautiful women sat there, whispering behind their hands and clearly speaking about Pierre. One bit her lip and caught your eye, giggling. Her looks were universally attractive enough that she would be anyone’s type, Pierre included. The possessiveness in the gaze she raked over his body set your blood boiling. 

This… was not a scenario you wanted to play out. You didn't know if Pierre was ready to tell his friends about your relationship yet. You knew he wouldn't let any of those girls have the light of day, but he might let them fawn over him a little, just to protect your secret. And it would kill you, but you would have no choice but to let it happen.

"I'm good," Pierre says, sipping the beer he had been nursing all night.

"Come on mate," Max pushes, a wicked grin on his flushed face, "That blonde is so your type."

No she isn't.

You’re already staring up at Pierre when he turns to you. You have always worn your emotions on your sleeve for anyone to see, and it only got worse when mixed with alcohol. Pierre smiles softly, taking mercy on you. Slowly, he takes your hand and threads your fingers together before turning back to the boys.

"One of you can tell them I’m not interested. I already have my girl." 

Heart beating wildly, you scan your friends faces. They were all wide eyed and slack jawed, staring at your joined hands. Pierre gives your hand a gentle squeeze, reminding you to breathe. He read you like an open book, offering reassurance when you needed it most.

"It's about fucking time!" Daniel roars, breaking the tense silence. Your shoulders relax, grinning along with the others. Pierre beams at you, knocking your shoulder to say I told you so. 

"Does this mean I get a break from listening to you obsess over her every weekend?" Max asks, giving you a meaningful look. 

"Likely not," Pierre answers. "I'm still just as obsessed as before. Maybe more." Max pretends to gag, earning him a playful punch from Charles. God, it was so freeing for your relationship to be more open, even if it was just between your closest friends. 

"I'd just like to point out that I told you two this would happen years ago," Charles says matter of factly, pointing at Max and Dan. "Should've taken you up on that bet."

Your mouth hung open. "You were going to bet on us being a couple?"

"Oh come on," Max says, rolling his eyes. "We all knew it was coming eventually. We just didn't know when!"

Pink stains your cheeks, but Pierre laughs and leans in to kiss you. Remembering the girls behind you, you press a little closer to him. Under the guise of placing a kiss to his cheek, you meet the blonde's eyes and smile sweetly.

The woman preens, mouth twisting. Good. Pierre was yours, and now that he'd admitted it, you could let those girls know it. His hand slips to your thigh, squeezing hard. A clear warning that you were venturing into dangerous territory. You didn't care.

The alcohol in your veins makes you bold, and you want to drive your point home. They could look all they wanted, but he was coming home with you. You push the boundary farther and bite the soft skin of his neck just hard enough to leave a mark. Pierre's hiss finally makes you pull back and look up at him innocently.

"Get a room," Daniel teases with a wink. You smile at him, mumbling an insincere apology. Your point had been made. The arrogant smirk had been wiped from the woman’s face, replaced with a grimace. 

"I think it is time for us to get going," Pierre says, annoyance flashing across his face. Oh, you had stoked the fire and now you would have to face the consequences. 

"We're just getting started," Charles complains. Pierre slaps a few bills on the counter and gets up without responding. 

"Bye guys!" You call over your shoulder as Pierre drags you towards the door. They all wave back, Max's lower lip jutting out in a pout. Your eyes slid one more time to the blonde, who had her arms crossed over her chest. You give her a wicked, taunting grin and return her earlier wink.

Pierre halts so quickly that you run into him. “Why are we leaving?”

“You know why,” He growls, flagging down a cab. “You didn't like how she was looking at me, so you did something about it. You might not have noticed, but every man in that bar had their eyes on you. So I’m following your example and doing something about it.”

Your brow furrows. Pierre won’t meet your gaze, and your eyes fall to the purple mark on his neck. You didn’t like his tone; it bordered dangerously on anger. “Are you… Are you mad that I did that?”

Tears threaten to spill when he finally looks at you. God, you were a blubbering drunk.  When your lip wobbles, his anger fades and he sighs. “I’m not mad. I just… I didn’t think you’d want me flaunting our relationship yet. When you did this-” He gestures to his neck- “I could barely keep my hands off you. Not when I saw the guy walking up to you.”

You sniff, trying to conjure the image of the bar. “I didn’t notice anyone.”

“Yeah, cause I dragged you out here before he could say anything.” Pierre pulls his hood up and sighs. “Trying to catch a cab here is harder than overtaking Hamilton.”

You laugh harder than you should at the off-hand remark, following after him as he trudges down the sidewalk. “Why are you not drunk? I feel like you should be drunk. You won a race. They were feeding you shots one after another.”

“One of us had to be responsible and make sure we got home okay.” He smiles over his shoulder at you. “And I knew as soon as you had that first shot it would have to be me. Didn’t you notice me handing the shots to the other guys?”

“No,” You say, rubbing your eyes. “What about the boys? How are they gonna get home?” Pierre stops, forcing you to do the same. He tugs your hood up, makes sure his is secure enough to hide his face, and grabs your hand.

“I already told Seb to come round them up in an hour or so. They’ll be fine.”

You don’t respond, too busy trying to put one foot in front of the other and not fall on your face. It doesn’t help that your vision is a tad blurry. Finally you give up and whine, “How much further?”

“It’s right there,” He says, pointing at a towering glass building just across the street. “In five minutes, you can be tucked into a cozy, fluffy suite and you can rest all you want, my love.”

You hum at the words, warmth flooding your veins from more than the liquor. “I like that.”

“What, the building?” He asks, amused. He helps you cross the empty street, making sure you’re paying attention to where you’re going.

“Noooo, what you said,” You clarify, leaning on him as you try to navigate the handful of steps leading to the hotel.

He’s quiet until you reach the elevator. “My love,” He murmurs, and you grin up at him.

“Mon… mon coeur,” You manage to say, somehow pulling the French phrase out of the dregs of your memory. The words are slurred and you know that you absolutely botch the pronunciation, but the intent is clear. You may have lived in France since you were 18, but learning the language wasn’t a requirement when almost everyone knew english as well. But the two of you had spent many hours watching Pierre’s favorite french films over the years; some of it must have unintentionally rubbed off on you.

A disbelieving smile tugs at his lips. “How do you even know what that means?”

You shrug. “Just do.” The elevator doors open and you step out, Pierre following. You halt, not knowing which hall to take. You glance up at your companion for help, only to find him staring back at you. “What?”

He shakes his head and leads you down the corridor to his room. It's a spacious corner suite, with huge windows facing Silverstone that give him a perfect view of the track. You make for the window but Pierre’s hand on your wrist stops you.

“I don’t think so, it’s time for you to sleep.”

“But I just wanna see,” You protest weakly.

“Nice try. I know you. You’ll sit in front of that window for hours if I let you.”

You give in only because he was right. Cityscapes of any kind drew your attention like a moth to a flame. You pouted anyway, but let him take you to the bedroom. Gentle pressure on your shoulders had you sinking into the plush mattress, groaning at the luxurious softness. Pierre laughs as he helps you out of your shoes and jeans, leaving the hoodie.

Eyelids drooping, you climb under the covers Pierre had pulled back for you. He tucks you in and kisses your temple. You grab for him, tugging on his shirt until he stoops down and gives you a proper kiss. When he steps out of your grasp, you panic.

“Stay,” You mumble, fear bubbling in your chest. He had to stay, he couldn’t leave, not when you only had this one night left-

“I’m just taking off my shoes,” He assures you, his weight sliding in behind you to settle against your back. You sigh, moulding yourself to him as best you could. Being in his arms was somehow familiar, even if he’d never held you like this. It felt like home.

“Pierre?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”

Pillowy soft lips press to the nape of your neck. “I love you too, mon coeur.”

Tagging: @flashcal

#pierre gasly #pierre gasly imagine #formula 1 #f1 #formula 1 imagine #f1 imagine #formula 1 fanfiction #formula 1 fantasy #formula 1 fanfic #formula 1 fic #f1 fanfic #f1 fanfiction #f1 fic #f1 fantasy #formula 1 rpf #f1 rpf #pierre gasly x reader #pierre gasly fanfiction

[ilovejevsjeans]

WHAT MAKES ‘PECULIAR’ McLAREN SO HARD FOR RICCIARDO TO MASTER

The esoteric driving-style demands of the McLaren MCL35M have been laid bare during the 2021 Formula 1 season by Lando Norris consistently producing superb performances while new team-mate Daniel Ricciardo has faced a long, hard and often fruitless slog to adapt.

Norris and former McLaren team-mate Carlos Sainz also found the car tricky to drive, but ultimately adapted well. But over his first 11 races as a McLaren driver, Ricciardo has been frustrated by attempting to implement a counter-intuitive driving style required by what he’s described as a “peculiar” car.

“I knew straight away it was a different beast,” said Ricciardo of the McLaren-Mercedes MCL35M.

“I’d be lying if I said the Renault wasn’t a different beast to the Red Bull, so they are all different. But there’s certainly some things where this car is slightly more peculiar. That’s the puzzle that I’m still trying to solve.

“But every car will respond and react differently, and this one’s got a couple of other things, I guess.”

Usually, you would expect a driver of Ricciardo’s high calibre to get on top of a new car after half-a-dozen races. Certainly, he thought that was how long the process would take before reluctantly admitting more recently that his struggles are “a reality” rather than a temporary problem.

McLaren’s executive director of racing, Andrea Stella, suggests the problem is Ricciardo is from the “opposite end” in terms of driving style. But what exactly is it about the McLaren that is so specific and has caused so many struggles, and why can’t these characteristics be dialled out easily?

“What we kept is some characteristics of our car that make it very special to drive, which we see with the experience Daniel is going through because he came from the opposite end in terms of how you would like to drive a Formula 1 car,” said Stella of the transition from 2020 to ’21.

“Our car requires some special adaptation, while we work to improve this aspect. It’s no secret that our car is good in high-speed corners and may not be the best car when you have to roll speed in mid-corner.

“We are trying to adjust some of the characteristics to make it a little bit more manageable to drive. At the same time, the important thing to deliver is aerodynamic efficiency, even if we couldn’t necessarily improve in terms of balance and [driver] exploitation of the car.

“We are relatively happy with the rate of improvement of aerodynamic efficiency that we have been able to achieve in early races and hopefully a little bit more will be coming in the next races.”

So let’s delve a little more into the characteristics of the McLaren that have stymied Ricciardo. In keeping with what Stella says about high-speed performance, Silverstone in July was a strong qualifying performance relative to Norris, even though he struggled for race pace.

But Silverstone is a high-speed circuit without so many medium and slow speed corners that remand more rotation of the car. It’s here, with the kinds of corners that dominate at the Red Bull Ring and Hungaroring, which hosted the races either side of Silverstone, that have proved difficult.

Ricciardo’s problem is that he likes to carry speed into the corner by braking a little earlier (except when making one of his trademark overtaking moves) and rolling the speed into the corner. The McLaren has a front-end weakness that is mitigated by braking later, but then appears to still require a relatively progressive application of steering lock.

Ricciardo has struggled to do this, often braking earlier than Norris and ending up with the car under-rotated, meaning he is still traction limited for longer in the exit phase than Norris simply because he’s effectively extending the corner.

“He’s a driver who likes to roll the speed in the corner and not necessarily attack the braking as much as our car requires,” said Stella. “We understood very quickly what the issue was. We could model this aspect, which means Daniel knows what to do in terms of working on the simulator, in terms of coaching the driver. But the progress that we do see race after race is not necessarily a switch.

“Sometimes I use the example of a musician. You can tell him how to play the guitar, you can use a lot of theory but at some stage he will have to spend quite a lot of time with the guitar and make quite a lot of exercises. You don’t necessarily take a step in concerts. Most of the progress you make will be when you work in background at home and you spend hours and hours exercising.”

Just as Ricciardo has done, Stella points out the lack of testing opportunities has made this problem harder to get on top of. Ricciardo had just a day-and-a-half in the car pre-season and since then has done his learning on race weekends. At times, he’s been intensively coached by race engineer Tom Stallard as he battles to tune into a driving style he’s at odds with.

But this has to fit in with the usual work of the race weekend and can’t waste time doing needless experimentation. It’s an extra distraction, but Stella says he’s “optimistic” Ricciardo will eventually get on top of it – and has been impressed with how his racecraft has at least made it possible to put together a solid run of results, albeit only scoring 50 points compared to Norris’s 113.

The obvious question is why McLaren can’t simply change the characteristics of its car. After all, we have seen other drivers who had to adapt to the machinery be met in the middle by teams, notably Fernando Alonso who benefitted from a power steering change that gave him the sensitivity he needed to optimise his driving style.

But in the case of the McLaren, it is more about the aerodynamic characteristics than the mechanical ones. And even if the trait could be eliminated, it would likely make the car less competitive. The need to brake late and the fact the car can have a weak front end perhaps indicates the necessity to be more aggressive in shifting the aero centre of pressure forwards at corner entry in lower and mid-speed corners.

If you brake earlier and roll the car into the corner as Ricciardo wants to, the aero centre of pressure will not be as far forward as if the car is on the nose. But in attempting to make this style work, there is also a more aggressive shift in the aero centre of pressure rearward as the driver comes off the brakes, which also appears to be creating a limitation for Ricciardo in the corner entry phase.

It’s also a style that is close to Norris’s default approach, although it’s important to note that he’s put a huge amount of effort into evolving his driving style in recent years.

At the end of 2019, he spoke about experimenting with his style in the Abu Dhabi test and given he and Sainz struggled in different ways, the pair were able to learn from each other. The result of that was a tricky car but that both could make work – but creates a driving challenge that surprised Ricciardo.

Stella is uncertain how long this characteristic has been in the DNA of the McLaren, although it appears to have been for some time. After all, progressing along development paths often augments such characteristics over time.

“We have been scratching our heads on how long this characteristic goes back in time,” said Stella.

“The aerodynamics is where the forces come from and I think it goes back to some seasons before the current season. It’s a set of characteristics in terms of how the car delivers the aerodynamic forces, which is not new to this year’s car.

“This year’s car is a close sister of last year’s and there’s certainly a close relationship to the previous years’ cars. So it has to do with the methodology that can produce quick cars, but with some [specific] characteristics.”

It’s also important to remember that the aerodynamic characteristics are not independent of the mechanical ones.

What’s crucial is the interaction of the mechanical platform and the aero – as well as the all-important aero performance of the floor.

This is not just about how the car is loaded up front to rear, but also in other directions. It’s a hugely complex equation to capture these interactions through all phases of a corner and this is where understanding of the characteristics will lie. This is why McLaren is largely stuck with the characteristics for the rest of the season.

“F1 cars are entirely dominated by aerodynamic delivery,” said Stella. “Then you work with suspension and the other mechanical aspects, but those aspects are often compensation and integration, not the leading parameter which is the aerodynamic delivery of the car at the various attitudes, the attitudes being the front ride height, the rear ride height, the yaw angle, the roll angle.

“This is what causes the car to be strong in a straight line and to be less strong as soon as you generate some yaw angle or rotation of the car. At the same time, when I talk about aerodynamics, this is definitely what leads to this characteristic, but it is also quite difficult to fine tune because to generate the aerodynamic forces you need to establish floor structure.

“It takes months or years of development to consolidate these floor structures so that you can achieve the aerodynamic efficiency of the car is absolutely astonishing and never matched in the past by any Formula 1 car.

“So when you embed these characteristics so deeply, it is difficult to change them. So it’s easier to work with mechanical aspects, but even those aspects are relatively limited because of homologation in 2021.

“You find yourself relatively stuck and that’s why a lot of the requirement and a lot of the demand shifts to the driver’s side. This is the tool, it’s quick, but it needs to be driven in a certain way.

“There’s not much we can do at the moment. So while we can improve the aerodynamic efficiency, it is a lot more difficult to improve some of the characteristics with a mind to the driving style.”

You might assume that these characteristics will be eliminated next year given the comprehensive change in regulations, but Stella suggests it is possible that it could be a consequence of the methodology used by McLaren.

If it’s a product of the underlying science, then it’s possible the characteristics could carry over. This is why Ricciardo can’t simply ride out the season then start anew in 2022. What’s more, given it has produced a competitive car, it would be wrong to say that McLaren has got things wrong.

All F1 cars have what is called ‘limit behaviour’, particularly when it comes to corner entry. Some aspects will always ‘give up’ first and it’s simply that McLaren is a more extreme example of the tradeoffs present in most cars.

“I find this quite typical,” said Stella when asked if this was something he had encountered before. “Even going back to my days at Ferrari there were various seasons in which the cars were pretty much experiencing similar characteristics.

“It’s always a bit difficult to find the right blend between having the car which is strong in mid-corner and maintains good characteristics in straightline speed. Conversely, if you focus your car on straightline and high-speed, then it comes a bit difficult to maintain good aerodynamics in the middle of a corner

“It’s not McLaren specific. What is McLaren specific is that our car is clearly on one side of this typical split of characteristics that you can achieve.” (X)

#daniel ricciardo #articles #andrea stella #dan

[edfvwadfadwas]

“We shall deal with your uncle and mickey egeres babakocsi his feigned boy in due time

So while you can definitely mount an ATX motherboard in the Node 605, the heatsink on our ATX/MicroATX testbed nike black tn 001 wouldn fit, so as with the SilverStone Grandia GD07 I elected to go with the mITX testbed. They both testified before council. “Stop,” Roose Bolton shouted. It would be difficult for him to forget an insult and to let pass any chance of avenging it. It was the hour of the wolf. There’s no telling how it will be done; but the victory is yours! Alyosha! Don’t blame me, my dear! Don’t say that I don’t understand your love and don’t appreciate it. 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Narrowest pole position winning margin

1997 European Grand Prix: 0.000s between first, second and third

The 1997 European Grand Prix at Jerez is chiefly remembered for Michael Schumacher’s unsuccessful attempt to eliminate title rival Jacques Villeneuve from the race.

But F1 anoraks like myself also recall the astonishing events of the previous day’s qualifying session. It saw the same two drivers plus Villeneuve’s team mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen stop the clocks at the same time to within a thousandth of a second.

First Villeneuve, then Schumacher and finally Frentzen lapped the 4.4km (2.7-mile) Jerez circuit in 1’21.072. Unless F1 follows IndyCar’s lead and starts measuring times to four decimal places, this record is stuck at 0.000s.

Earliest start to a season

1965 and 1968: January 1st

While modern-day F1 campaigns usually kick off in mid March, until the 1980s it was customary for the season to begin as early as January.

In 1965 and 1968, at the East London and Kyalami circuits respectively, the season opening South African Grand Prix was held on the very first day of the year. Yet in both seasons, the following world championship event was not held until over four months later!

Keep that next time you think the current four-week summer break is too long…

Longest race

2011 Canadian Grand Prix: four hours, four minutes and 39.537 seconds

The track was wet as the Canadian Grand Prix got underway at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in 2011. But on lap 19 a fresh downpour forced the race to be red-flagged for two hours.

Under F1 rules the clock kept tipping so that when the race finally resumed and ran its scheduled 70-lap distance the entire thing had taken over four hours.

This prompted the introduction of a new rule for 2012 requiting all races to be completed within four hours regardless of any stoppages. It’s a good thing the rule wasn’t in place a year earlier, or we’d have been robbed of the thrilling sight of Jenson Button hunting race leader Sebastian Vettel down and passing him on the final lap.

2011 Canadian Grand Prix stats and facts: Button scores tenth win in longest ever race

Most failures to pre-qualify

Gabriele Tarquini: 24

When F1 entry lists ballooned in the late eighties pre-qualifying sessions were held to weed out some of the slowest cars before the real action began.

Gabriele Tarquini suffered more than most at the hands of this cruel eliminator. Driving for such unfancied teams as Coloni, AGS and Fondmetal he failed to gain a place on the grid on 40 separate occasions. In 24 of those he suffered the indignity of failing even to qualify for qualifying!

Today it’s been 17 years since we last had a full grid of 26 cars at a Grand Prix. Given the current state of the world economy and the huge costs involved in running a Formula One team, the prospect of the grid being oversubscribed again seems a very distant one. This unwanted record is Tarquini’s to keep.

Most podium finishes in a season

Michael Schumacher, 2002: 100% (17 out of 17)

Thanks to the performance and reliability of his Ferrari F2002 (and, earlier in the season, the F2001), Schumacher not only finished every race of the 2002 season, he never never lower than third. And he only finished there once!

The record may be improved upon by a driver finishing a longer season entirely on the podium, but that 100% hit rate is never going to be beaten.

Best podium strike rate in a career

Dorino Serafini: 100% (1 out of 1)

The same applies to the obscure example of Dorino Serafini who finished his only world championship race, the 1950 Italian Grand Prix, on the podium.

Serafini only drove half of the race – he handed his car to Alberto Ascari midway through as the rules permitted at the time.

There have also been several examples of drivers who finished on the podium in the Indianapolis 500 when it counted towards the world championship from 1950 to 1960, but these races were not run to F1 rules.

Most podium finishes in a season

Michael Schumacher, 2002: 100% (17 out of 17)

Thanks to the performance and reliability of his Ferrari F2002 (and, earlier in the season, the F2001), Schumacher not only finished every race of the 2002 season, he never never lower than third. And he only finished there once!

The record may be improved upon by a driver finishing a longer season entirely on the podium, but that 100% hit rate is never going to be beaten.

Best podium strike rate in a career

Dorino Serafini: 100% (1 out of 1)

The same applies to the obscure example of Dorino Serafini who finished his only world championship race, the 1950 Italian Grand Prix, on the podium.

Serafini only drove half of the race – he handed his car to Alberto Ascari midway through as the rules permitted at the time.

There have also been several examples of drivers who finished on the podium in the Indianapolis 500 when it counted towards the world championship from 1950 to 1960, but these races were not run to F1 rules.

Smallest points haul

Stirling Moss, Alberto Ascari and Jean Behra: 0.14

During the first ten world championship seasons in the 1950s, drivers were awarded a single point for setting the fastest lap of the race. Unfortunately, timing systems in this era were somewhat rudimentary, and lap times were sometimes measured to the nearest second.

The 1954 British Grand Prix at Silverstone saw seven drivers shared a fastest lap of one minute and 50 seconds. The single point was split between them, each scoring one-seventh of a point. Four of them also scored points for their finishing positions, but for three drivers 0.14 points was all they came away with.

Longest wait for the second-placed car

1963 Belgian Grand Prix: four minutes and 54 seconds

Most modern Grand Prix are close contests. With tight restrictions on car design ensuring the field remains relatively evenly matched, and races regularly punctuated by Safety Car periods, winning margins are seldom much more than a few seconds.

But in years gone by, more regulatory freedom meant cars often varied hugely in performance. Coupled with the high rate of attrition, it meant that many races concluded with huge gaps between each driver.

Jim Clark’s sensational victory by four minutes and 54 seconds in the 1963 Belgian Grand Prix will surely never be surpassed. He burst through from eighth on the grid to take the lead and was never headed around the fearsome 14.1km Spa circuit.

Conditions during the race were so dreadful Clark’s team boss Colin Chapman urged officials to abandon the proceedings at one point. Meanwhile Clark annihilated his rivals. He lapped the field at one point, though second-placed Bruce McLaren unlapped himself.

That meant when Clark took the line to finish it took almost five minutes for McLaren to appear in second place. Today’s tracks simply aren’t long enough for such a feat to be possible. Spa remains the longest track on the calendar, but is half the length it used to be and is lapped in well under 110 seconds in race conditions.

#top ten

[dontratoutyourfriends-moved]

Cheryl (cherylofsu) wrote in theused, 2003-04-09 20:53:00

fuck the jacksonville cops

quinn wasn’t trespassing shit. okay here’s what happened. after the show there was a group of about 20 kids out side of the tour buses and these guards started yelling at everyone to leave, so people kind of scattered and after awhile a small group of like 10 formed again. so then a cop showed up and told everyone to leave so me and my friends went to my car across the street to wait for them to leave. while i was in my car i saw this kid i had met at the show getting searched and shit and they were going to arrest him so i asked his friend what was going on. this kid wasn’t doing anything. i mean i guess he didn’t “leave” but he was on the other side of the cement wall dividing the venue and this gas station, so basically he was in the gas station parking lot.

after the kid got taken away quinn and branden came out and signed stuff and took pics and we told them what happened. and of course more jville cops came. and they told us to leave and everyone is like dude they’re in the band. lol. and branden’s like they can’t do shit, you guys stay here, you’re with us. well the girl who’s friend got arrest went to talk to the cop bc she didn’t have ride home and they ended up arresting her too. and so when quinn went over to him to talk to the cop, before we knew it quinn was in handcuffs too. all the tour people and band members went running to see what was going on, but it was too late. when branden started talking to the cop he backed off bc he knew he would get arrested too. so yeah basically they did nothing. but i must say….if there was ever a time to get arrested, it would have to be with quinn. poor quinn didn’t even have a shirt on either. i need to get my hands on the mug shot so he can sign it. lol, jk. shit he was just trying to stick up for a fan too.

well after all of that commotion we hung out with all the bands. and everyone was very cool. we didn’t leave until about 2am and i had a two hour and a half drive home.

and yes alicia silverstone was there. haha, i was pretty excited. she’s dating the lead singer of s.t.u.n.

check out my entry in my journal to read about the tampa, orlando and jacksonville shows and my kiss from bert. lol….definately the best birthday present i got.

#quinn allman #the used

[alexballracing]

MSVR Elise Trophy 2019 - Round 3: Oulton Park

Oulton Park is great. I don't think you'll find anyone who says differently, as it has elevation, bumps, high speed and technical sections. I haven't driven it since 2016, and I'd been looking forward to it since they announced it on the calendar to replace the Silverstone round. Because I'd not driven the track in so long, we had booked the afternoon test sessions to remind myself where the corners went. We set off at 7am, and after a long drive part of the M6 closed due to a crash, and my air suspension exploding on the way leaving the 5-series on it's bump-stops for the journey, we arrived at the circuit with enough time to sign on and check the car before going out. Unfortunately one of the two 30 minute sessions was pretty much a red-flag-fest, and we only did one flying lap but the second session was mostly green. After about 10 minutes I felt like the tyres had really gone off, as I was having massive oversteer around all of the right hand corners. I carried on, since we run very old tyres and a bit of oversteer isn't unusual, but in the bolt-check after the test we found that the left hand toe-link bolt had come loose, and bent.. Scary! I had checked the car over before the race weekend and knew it was tight before we started on track at Oulton! Just bad luck. I didn't have a spare bolt (well, not with me, I have hundreds at home!) so I had to spend the remaining time at the track running round the paddock asking everyone if they had one - Hangar 111 spent a good 30 minutes looking through every single box in their van for one, without any luck, ES Motorsport tried, Ben Carpenter who runs Ade Wooton had a look but nobody had anything suitable. I was not able to go to a shop, since my 5-series suspension was still shafted, but luckily a team running a couple of historic formula fords happened to be popping out of the track was able to find me one back in his garage.. amazing considering I'd never met them before trying to scrounge a bolt. That's the side of motorsport I love. Many many thanks must go out to Dave at Souley motorsport. With the new bolt, we bashed the car back together and gave it a thorough check over. We were ready to race. 10:10 Qualifying. It was dry for qualifying, but we headed out onto track with a little trepidation as the skies looked threatening and rain was predicted at some point in the day. I had fitted new tyres, and while they're normally great after a lap or two, these never really felt great, and I actually went a tenth slower than I had done in the 30 minute test just a day earlier, despite the toe link issue. The car seemed to slide across the track rather than dig in and grip, but I think it might have been to do with the tyre rubber left by the formula cars, as the test day had been wet in the morning so not much rubber was down. Luckily, despite not being happy with the laps, my time was still good enough for pole! DELAY We were supposed to be having our first race before lunch, so we got the car back from Parc Ferme, and got straight down to giving it a bolt check. Annoyingly, my toe-link had come loose again! I had changed a washer when fitting the new bolt, and I think this had crushed slightly, as the bolt was still torqued up, but had a small amount of play allowing the joint to move. I replaced the washer for a different style, and re-torqued it and hoped it would stick this time. The rain came while we were bolt checking, and it was going to be a wet race for sure. While we were working on the car the Mini JCWs were out on track and had a big crash - so big that they had to repair a barrier, causing a delay to the day, and eventually, after 2 hours of repair time, a decision being made to move us from the long International Circuit to the smaller Island Circuit - I believe the drivers involved were OK, it must have been a mega shunt to make the track unusable! Our races were moved to both after lunch, both shortened to 18 minutes, and with only around 30 minutes of down-time between them after scrutineering and being called to assembly. I hoped nothing would go wrong with the car! 14:10 Race 1. We were given 3 laps behind the safety car to start the race because none of us had driven the Island Circuit before, and it was now raining. We used the laps to find the grip, find the slippery areas and warm the car up. The only downside was that these slow safety car laps ate into our 18 minute race time. After the 3rd lap we were released as if it was as safety car re-start in single file rather than side by side, and I managed to get a good get away, with John LaMaster just behind. He pushed hard for the first couple of laps, meaning I spent more time looking in my mirrors than forwards, but after I got into a rhythm I was able to pull away and won the race with John finishing second, and Ade Wooton getting his first podium in 3rd, a great effort considering the conditions! He and Chris Marks had a great battle by the sounds of it. The brief downtime allowed me to only check the rear toe link (which was fine) while Nicky fuelled the car and we were then called back to the assembly area for race 2. The weather had now started to dry up, as it had stopped raining after the race, and it was pretty windy. It took some thought to decide what to do with the car for it, before driving it down to wait for our turn on track. 15:30 Race 2. This race would also start behind the safety car, but with only one lap following it and then starting in the same way as the first, in single file. I was starting in 10th, as we reverse the top ten qualifying positions for the 2nd race. Obviously while the start in the first race suited me to protect my pole position, this one meant I was starting further from the front than normal. The track was drying with a few damp areas around to catch people out. The race started, and a bit of a squeeze in turn 1 meant that Mark Bithrey got turned around and slid into the wall on the inside. We had half a lap of racing before the safety car was called, meaning our race time was going to be in single digits. With the car cleared from Old Hall the safety car came in and we were racing again. Knowing the race was short, I was pretty aggressive, and made my way forwards. Overtaking was really good fun in this race, as the off-line areas were still damp in places, so it made planning the moves just that bit harder - brill. After a couple of laps I was in the lead, and just focused on making no mistakes. I won the race, with the Johns behind me, Atherton leading LaMaster by just 0.04 seconds! We then packed up to leave the circuit, and found that my shed of a 5-series wouldn't even start. Luckily, Greg from Hangar 111 was there to help again and jumped it, after solving why it was failing to even turn over. We dragged the stupid thing home and I suspect we'll scrap it as I am done with the unreliability! Just like Cadwell, the car was mega all day. Nicky really does a fantastic job of the setup and keeping it spot on for the races. I couldn't do it without her. I need to say thanks to everyone that helped when I was hunting for a bolt - Hangar 111, Ben, ES - all tried to find the bits for me which really is appreciated. Oh, and as always, Applecado and Kraftwerk Tools UK, who make it all possible.

[thisdaynews]

Formula 1 2019 review: Warning! Contains Sebastian Vettel

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/formula-1-2019-review-warning-contains-sebastian-vettel/

Formula 1 2019 review: Warning! Contains Sebastian Vettel

Another season, another trophy in the cabinet for Lewis Hamilton. By winning his sixth world title, the 34-year-old became statistically the second most successful driver in F1, behind only Michael Schumacher.

But while Mercedes were busy hoovering up points for both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles, the rest of the season’s entertainment was happening elsewhere – and it often involved Sebastian Vettel.

Even if 2019 brought him only one race win and one pole position, he gets top marks for turning what could have been a tedious year of racing into a thriller. Here’s why…

Vote for your moment of the 2019 season

Vettel in Canada: agitated

The one when Seb lost it

As the pressure was mounting on the four-time world champion to stop the run of mistakes that had begun in the second half of 2018, his team-mate Charles Leclerc was taking most of the points – and all of the glory.

But then in Canada in June, Vettel came back with a bang to dominate qualifying and score his first pole in nearly a year – since the previous July’s German Grand Prix.

Had Vettel’s losing curse been lifted? It seemed as if the F1 circus was rooting for him to win in Montreal.

But then Hamilton applied pressure while chasing him down, and the mistakes returned. The German was going off on to the grass approaching a chicane, then returned to the track aggressively enough to push Hamilton towards the wall. That caused the stewards to pick up their clipboards and issue him with a five-second penalty.

Cue Vettel shouting: “Where the hell else was I supposed to go? I had grass on my wheels. They are stealing the race from us.”

But that wasn’t the end of it. Vettel took the chequered flag, but once he discovered he wasn’t the race winner, he went into another rant.

“No no no,” he said over team radio. “Not like that. You have to be an absolute blind man – you go on the grass, how are you supposed to control your car? This is the wrong world.”

The German’s outrage caused him to disrupt the the usual podium celebrations, park his car by the FIA officials instead of in front of the ‘number two’ board in parc ferme, and storm off into the Ferrari garage. He was then forced by an FIA official to fulfil his podium duties.

On the way, he swapped the ‘number one’ board in front of Hamilton’s car for the ‘number two’ where his should have been. A bemused Hamilton, who must have felt for his rival, dragged him up to share the top step of the podium with him – once Vettel had finally arrived.

Unsportsmanlike behaviour? Not a bit of it… Fans enjoyed it so much that Vettel was voted driver of the day. And Ferrari even joined in with the refusal to accept defeat, upholding their long tradition of flying a flag at the factory in Maranello following a race win.

Four-time champion Vettel has managed to repeat every one of his F1 bad boy traits across the 2019 season

Three poles… or maybe two

Another driver quite happy to dispute the stats this year is Max Verstappen. The loss of his pole position in Mexico in October was not the first time he’s been stripped of a top-three place because of a penalty, but it is the one he appears to refuse to accept.

He was handed a three-place grid penalty after failing to slow under yellow flags on his final qualifying lap when Valtteri Bottas crashed, and even admitted his mistake in the post-qualifying press conference with a nervous giggle.

Then again, his eight career victories have nearly all come amid some form of drama. Take the one in Austria in June – Verstappen’s first win of the year and his second at the team’s home race.

The Mercedes pair were out of contention for the win with engine cooling issues, and so a rivalry blossomed between Verstappen and Charles Leclerc. A gripping on-track battle saw Verstappen chase down the Ferrari and pass with just two laps remaining.

Just as Hamilton had done to Vettel in Canada three weeks earlier, Verstappen forced a mistake and made Leclerc run wide. At least, that’s one way of looking at it. Another, if you’re in the Ferrari camp, is that Leclerc was pushed clean off the track.

There was a long wait to discover if Verstappen would keep his race win. The verdict – that his victory stood – was not called until hours afterwards. The Dutchman called it “hard racing”. Leclerc took his bat and ball home, and began concocting a revenge plan.

Two weeks later, at Silverstone, that plan was enacted.

Vettel in Northamptonshire: in a hurry

Two weeks later… Ferrari attack, as a pair

Ferrari came back with bite at the British Grand Prix. Verstappen and Leclerc faced off in one of the most intense battles of the modern F1 age.

It even extended to the pits as they stopped for new tyres. The race to get back on track as quickly as possible meant a side-by-side duel that the Silverstone pit lane just wasn’t designed for.

They battled hard but fairly, and Leclerc held off Verstappen until a safety car on lap 20 ended their fight.

Enter Vettel to take up the challenge. But instead of taking the fight to Verstappen, he piled into him. The German put himself to the back of the field, and left the Red Bull driver to trail home in fifth.

Vettel not only collected a 10-second penalty, but also another two superlicence points to add to those from the 2018 US Grand Prix, and the Canadian Grand Prix after the “grass on my wheels” incident. They wouldn’t be the last.

A bittersweet Italian Grand Prix

There are many rules for a Ferrari driver. But number one, at the front of the rule book in giant font, is: ‘Don’t mess up in front of the Tifosi.’ Leclerc adhered to it. Vettel didn’t.

Leclerc produced the perfect pole-to-flag victory in September – with a controversially cut corner and an aggressive defensive move thrown in for good measure. He did all that at an F1 circuit steeped in history, fending off Hamilton to become the first Ferrari winner at Monza since Fernando Alonso in 2010. Scenes.

But what of Vettel? Ah, well. First, he lost a place on lap one to the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg. Then it got worse.

Under no pressure from anybody, the German lost control and spun at the Ascari chicane. Then it got worse still.

Attempting to re-join the track, Vettel did something to horrify Ferrari fans and driving instructors alike. Mirror, signal, manoeuvre? Forget it. Seemingly without looking, Vettel returned to the track and crashed into Lance Stroll, who then had to swerve dangerously to avoid a collision with Pierre Gasly.

It was a shocking move to come from a driver so experienced, and another jaw-dropping moment in an already dramatic race.

Then it got even worse.

The stewards slapped Vettel with a 10-second stop-go penalty, and added three more points to his over-crowded superlicence. Three more after that would mean a ban.

So was that the end of Vettel’s dramas for the season?

Don’t be silly.

Lewis Hamilton wrote on social media that he felt “like giving up on everything” in October. And then he remembered he wasn’t Vettel

Ferrari implode, and the others get a go on the podium

The internal power struggle to be number one at Ferrari reached breaking point at the Brazilian Grand Prix in November, with a crash and a double retirement.

Leclerc had been beating Vettel repeatedly on and off the track all season – even when the pair played with remote control cars in the paddock.

In the closing stages of the battle for third at Interlagos, Leclerc made a clean lunge down the inside of his team-mate at Turn One.

Vettel wasn’t happy. He really wasn’t happy. He responded by deploying DRS to attack back on the approach to Turn Four.

The duo went wheel-to-wheel down the straight, As Vettel was pulling away, he turned in on Leclerc and the cars made contact. The result: suspension damage for Leclerc, and race-ending punctures all round.

The feud had finally erupted – and history had repeated. The move emulated one Vettel had made on Mark Webber at the 2010 Turkish Grand Prix in their Red Bull days.

It was heartbreaking for Ferrari, but a joy to see two midfield teams – Toro Rosso and McLaren – make it on the podium. It was a particularly sweet moment for Red Bull’s most recent reject, as he won a drag race with Hamilton on the final straight across the line. For this was Pierre Gasly’s moment.

Gasly – demoted from Red Bull to Toro Rosso in August – and Carlos Sainz joined Max Verstappen on the podium to celebrate a race which won’t be forgotten any time soon.

Listen: ‘Verstappen wins a mad Brazilian Grand Prix’

The one where Mercedes made a mess of things

What happens when it pours down during a race, and cars come a cropper on a corner covered – inexplicably – with soap?

If you’re Vettel, you deliver the perfect race – for once – by coming from last to second, while much of the field crashes or retires.

Such was the strange scenario in Germany in July, one made even odder by a rare Mercedes foul-up. The team arrived wearing 1900s-style outfits to celebrate 125 years in motorsport. They left having been sucked into enacting a full-on tribute to Wacky Races.

To think, after a disappointing French Grand Prix the previous month, that the F1 community had debated whether the sport was getting stale. Germany provided a race for the ages – and a few surprises.

Take, for instance, the drivers to spin off. Bottas – sure. Hulkenberg – understandable. Leclerc – a bit of a shock. But Hamilton? The multiple world champion came to grief at a corner covered, by the looks of it, in soap suds. Had Dick Dastardly paid a secret visit to Hockenheim? No one seemed able to explain – or take any action.

You wouldn’t get that kind of drama in a game of Mario Kart.

However, the most shocking moment of the race was when Racing Point took a gamble on slick tyres in the closing stages as the rain subsided, and Lance Stroll took the lead.

All bets were off on who would eventually stand on the podium, and to add to his list of dramatic victories, Verstappen won, with another display of masterful driving. Daniil Kvyat collected some champagne on the third step next to Vettel.

The one with the bromance

Away from Vettel’s antics, there are many things to be taken from 2019.

There’s the bromance between Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz; the close midfield battle and resurgence of McLaren; the fall of Renault’s performance; the ladder Williams and Haas continue to climb towards achieving competitive form; the Red Bull mid-season driver swaps leading to the discovery that their talent pool is dry; and the continuous discussions about the 2021 regulations.

But what is for certain, is that Formula 1 has provided many moments of laughter, tears, frustration and boredom. And long may it continue. See you in Melbourne in March, Sebastian? You bet.

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The Top Things to Do in Undiscovered Northamptonshire, England

01 of 06

Britain’s Best Surprise

Loop Images/Andrew Baskott/Getty Images

Northamptonshire, about an hour and a half straight up the M1 from Central London, has got to be one of the UK's most unfairly overlooked and underrated regions for visitors. And yet it has all the attractions that vacationers and holiday-makers arrive in Britain to visit. The county is host to numerous historic homes, notable hotels, charming market towns and gardens, the epicenter of British motorsport, and even the childhood home and final resting place of Princess Diana.

So why don't more people know about and visit Northamptonshire? Recently, a group representing local attractions, businesses and boosters asked the same question and decided to change all that with a colorful and stylish campaign — Northamptonshire: Britain's Best Surprise.

The campaign shows the region off as a great destination target, whether for UK touring or weekend breaks from London or the cities of the Midlands and the North of England. If you are racing up the motorway to visit Diana's grave, then battling rush hour traffic back on the M1, you are missing the opportunity for a great short break. Here's why.

Continue to 2 of 6 below.

02 of 06

Visit Historic Homes and Castles

Photo courtesy of Holdenby House

At under 100 miles from London, Northamptonshire was just far enough away for politically ambitious aristocrats of the Tudor and Elizabethan times to stay out of sight and out of mind, yet close enough to reach the court in a few days of hard riding if summoned.

As a result, in addition to a few older castles — including Rockingham, originally built by William the Conqueror, more than 900 years ago — Northamptonshire has a wealth of Medieval, Tudor and Elizabethan stately homes that you can visit. In fact, the county claims more stately homes than any county in Britain. These are just a few:

Holdenby House: Pictured above, this lovely country house, surrounded by wonderful gardens, is just a shadow of its former self (or about one quarter actually). Built as a grand country estate by an Elizabethan courtier, it was turned over to the crown as a palace for King James and the ill-fated Charles I. Charles was imprisoned there during the Civil War and then arrested by Parliamentary forces. The archways he walked through heading for his final, bloody fate, are still standing. Check out the music room, where rare and unusual instruments have been collected from all over the world by the current occupants of the house. And make time to stay for a falconry demonstration. If you can imagine Holdenby draped in rotting vegetation, you might just remember it from the 2011 BBC production of Great Expectations with Gillian Anderson as Miss Haversham. It was the stand-in for her house.

Althorp: Keen Royal watchers already know that this was the late Princess Diana's childhood home. But maybe you never knew that it has been in the same family for more than 500 years, has a spectacular collection of paintings (including a whole room of Joshua Reynolds portraits, another of Lely paintings of court mistresses and the only known life portrait of the tragic Lady Jane Grey) or that you can hire it for weddings and posh events.

Deene Park: This once grand, originally Medieval, house was having a facelift under scaffolding in April 2017 – so a bit hard to judge. But a highlight is the room devoted to the notorious 7th Earl of Cardigan who led the infamous charge of the light brigade during the Battle of Balaclava (described in one account as “the greatest old woman in the army”). The room includes a portrait of his ravishingly beautiful (and scandalous) second wife and a glass case holding half of Ronald, the horse Cardigan rode into battle. Some years ago it was discovered that the taxidermed Ronald was becoming a bit moth eaten so now only half of him remains.

Burghley House: A house full of many of its original treasures and works of art, built by William Cecil, Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I and still considered one of the greatest Elizabethan houses in Britain.

Boughton House: Begun in 1528 by the ancestors of the current owners, the Buccleuch family, the house morphed from a modest Tudor manor to a French style palace, sometimes called “The English Versailles”. Among its treasures are paintings by El Greco, Van Dyke and Gainsborough as well as 150 acres of gardens and landscapes..

Apethorp Palace: A palace that once belonged to Queen Elizabeth I, and was a favorite of Jacobean and Stuart kings, was at risk of total collapse when purchased for the nation by English Heritage. Now, through a remarkable 80-year arrangement between English Heritage and the current owners, the house is being completely restored. It's open to the public by guided tours only, 50 days a year.

Do keep in mind that most of the stately homes in Northamptonshire are still private family homes, with limited public openings. Check their websites to find out the dates of opening and the conditions of entry.

  Continue to 3 of 6 below.

03 of 06

Explore Charming Gardens

VisitBritain/David Sellman / Getty Images

Most of the stately homes mentioned above have gardens that can usually be visited even when the houses are not open to the public. And there are some great ones — from a restored Elizabethan kitchen garden at Holdenby House to a landscape by the legendary Lancelot Capability Brown at Burghley. 

There are 35 acres of gardens, open every day, year-round, set in the 10,000 acre Castle Ashby estate. And the county is laced with country parks, woodlands, arboretums and wetland reserves.

But by far the most impressive garden is also one of the smallest. At ten acres, plus another 5-acre bluebell wood and a wildflower meadow, Coton Manor Garden is an attraction that punches well above its weight.

Created in 1925 by the grandparents of the current owners, the garden is still managed by a small family team, assisted by students and volunteers. It's colorful herbaceous borders, water gardens, walled gardens full of roses and several more garden “rooms” are arranged around a small, private 17th century manor house. They hold more than 1,000 varieties of plants, many of them rare and hard to find elsewhere. You can buy plants in the nursery, attend a gardening school, have lunch or tea in the cafe and visit with the “wildlife”. They include a pond full of wildfowl, a pair of elegant flamingos who have been resident for more than 40 years, some very cute kune kune pigs and several English longhorn cows.

The garden is open several days a week between April and September and every day during bluebell season (end of April to mid May). A visit throughout the season is bound to be rewarded with ever changing, colorful displays.

Continue to 4 of 6 below.

04 of 06

Feed Your Need for Speed

Rhapsode/Getty Images

If you've ever sat in front of one of those motor racing arcade games, enjoying the VROOM VROOM sound effects while imagining yourself speeding around the Grand Prix course in Monte Carlo, you are going to love Northamptonshire, the super-revved up motorsport capital of Britain.

Five of the world's Formula 1 teams — Mercedes, Force India, Williams, Renault (formerly Lotus) and Red Bull — are based in an area that has become known as Formula 1 Valley, covering Northamptonshire and adjacent bits of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. The county claims the creation of 80 percent of the world's Formula 1 cars and engines.

And Silverstone, the Northamptonshire home of the F1 British Grand Prix, is the place where you can get behind the wheel and experience those G-forces for yourself.

When it's not hosting the Grand Prix or classic car races, Silverstone offers a variety of driving experiences, ranging from a “hot ride”, as a passenger in a race-prepared sports car with a professional driver (£45 in 2017 ) to the Silverstone Challenge — an all day driving experience in eight different kinds of racing cars (£995 in 2017). The variations in between include going round the track in a Silverstone single-seater and short training sessions followed by your own chance to drive at speed on the famous track.

We tried out a hot ride in an Aston Martin driven by professional racing and stunt driver Sam Maher-Loughnan. Fitted out with a fireproof hood and a racing helmet, each of us climbed in beside Sam for the ride of our lives, three times around the track at about 130mph. Whether you enjoy it will depend on whether you like speed, whether the idea of going sideways gives you butterflies and how well you can tolerate the extra G-forces of going round corners without breaking. It's definitely an adrenaline rush.

Not into Formula 1? You could head for Rockingham Motor Speedway, which claims to be Europe's fastest banked oval racing circuit, where experiences you can book include super cars, drift driving and NASCAR-style training. Or how about a deafening day out at Santa Pod Raceway, home of the European Drag Racing Championships. On scheduled public track days there, you can take your own car or motorcycle out on the quarter-mile drag strip to test out its full-throttle performance.

  Continue to 5 of 6 below.

05 of 06

Fulfill Your Shoe Fetish Fantasy

Anna Clopet/Getty Images

Northamptonshire was once the center of shoemaking for most of the British Empire. It's still a center for high quality, custom made men's shoes, several major work shoe brands and, perhaps the most iconic English shoe brand, Dr. Martens.

The Northampton Museum and Art Gallery tells the story of the history of shoes with the largest collection of shoes and shoe related objects in the world. It includes more than 15,000 shoes and 50,000 archival records, documentary footage and shoe related fine art. Visit to see shoes worn by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Tom Thumb's boot and hundreds of years of shoes fashions

It's a wonderful rainy day outing for shoe lovers and fashionistas, but you'll have to plan your trip for 2018 to see this fabulous collection as the museum is currently undergoing a major expansion. Happily, it's just one of many in the county — ranging from small local history and industry museums to transport museums and several heritage railways. 

Continue to 6 of 6 below.

06 of 06

Stay in a Historic Luxury Accommodation

Richard Croft/CC BY-SA 2.0

Plan a romantic getaway to Northamptonshire at the Grade 1 Listed Rushton Hall, a historic manor that is now a fabulous luxury hotel and spa.

Begun in the early 15th century, the house has a complicated history of colorful owners and plots. It even has a priests hole where secret Catholics hid their family clergy during the reign of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and later during the English Civil War.

The Tresham family, its first owners, were implicated in the Gunpowder Plot, now annually remembered in England on Bonfire Night. Charles Dickens was a frequent visitor and the hotel's amazing hall with its double hammerbeam ceiling may have been the model for Miss Haversham's house in Great Expectations. The Hope family, for whom the Hope Diamond is named, once owned the house and the fabulous jewel, now part of the British crown, was probably kept here.

You can no doubt find a member of staff to expound at length about the history of this enormous and beautifully kept house, but it's much easier to simply enjoy its large, luxurious rooms, its first class kitchen and its extensive, landscaped grounds. Guest rooms overlook a lake with an island where sheep pose as if placed by an artist. The hotel spa includes a small but well equipped gym and a beautiful 18 meter heated pool. 

Rooms in 2017 start at a reasonable £240 for two that includes dinner (a very accomplished three-course menu, easily worth £50 per person), bed and breakfast and full use of the spa.

As is common in the travel industry, the writer was provided with complimentary services for review purposes. While it has not influenced this review, TripSavvy.com believes in full disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest.

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[jonathanbelloblog]

Tragic Hero: Stefan Bellof

Stefan Bellof was never better—and never worse—than when he had something to prove.

And Bellof always had something to prove, even if it was just a minor personal point, created from whole cloth to maximize motivation. Raw talent (emphasis on “raw”) allowed the German to drive on the knife’s edge, lap after lap. Luck, or the lack of it, determined whether he stayed on that edge or fell off to one side.

On May 28, 1983, a lucky Bellof qualified his Porsche 956 at the Nürburgring Nordschleife track in Germany for the ADAC Nürburgring 1000 km. In traffic, on older tires, and with a nearly full tank of fuel, Bellof ran a lap of 6 minutes, 11.13 seconds at an average speed of 202.053 kph (125.550 mph). Jaws dropped, and stopwatches were checked to see if they were working properly. Never had a racer averaged more than 200 kph here. Some sort of timing mistake, perhaps?

No, it was just Bellof. Six of the seven top cars were 956s, but Bellof was nearly 6 seconds quicker than the next best. The comparatively inexperienced upstart had proven two things. First, that he could embarrass his fellow factory Porsche drivers, which included Jochen Mass, Jacky Ickx, Stefan Johansson, Bob Wollek, Jan Lammers, Jonathan Palmer, David Hobbs, and Bellof’s own co-driver, Derek Bell.

Bellof is a certified tragic hero, and new fans have embraced his legend, incredible drives, and comparably incredible crashes.

And second, that he could even embarrass Keke Rosberg, then the reigning Formula 1 world champion. Rosberg drove a Williams in F1 but was guest-starring at the ’Ring in a 956 like Bellof’s.

That was on a Saturday. Sunday, during the race, bad luck, enhanced by arrogance, shoved Bellof right off the knife’s edge.

Porsche stars: Stefan Bellof with Derek Bell, Jochen Mass, Jacky Ickx, Vern Schuppan, and John Watson.

Eighteen laps in, Bellof, still feeling lucky, drove the fastest race lap ever run at the Nürburgring: 6:25.91. Two laps later, with a 30-second lead, he crested the hill at Pflanzgarten, became airborne, and flipped. The car came to rest upright. Bellof was uninjured, and he signed autographs for fans lining the fence until track workers finished the cleanup.

Bellof crashed because he was, once again, proving a point. Porsche engineers told him it was impossible to take Pflanzgarten flat-out. Bellof thought otherwise. He was mistaken.

Two years later, the German crashed another 956 at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. This time, he did not walk away. He was 27.

Outside of Germany, Bellof is best remembered for that near-ethereal Nürburgring qualifying lap, a record that went unbeaten for so long. Inside his home country, the enduring, internet-enhanced Bellof legacy suggests that had he lived, he could well have become Germany’s next F1 champ. This was during a barren period, well before Michael Schumacher’s dominant era, though Schumi, a teen when Bellof died, often cited his countryman as a key inspiration, an opinion seconded by other German drivers, including Timo Bernhard.

Bellof fans—and there are more than you might guess for a driver 33 years gone, most of them centered in Germany but scattered across Europe and beyond—were conflicted when Porsche returned to the Nürburgring to break the record. To Bellof devotees and reportedly even some members of his family, Porsche’s campaign smacked of a pricey publicity stunt at the expense of their idol. After all, Bellof set his mark during qualifying, meaning he had to steer around slower cars. His 956 was race-legal, while the 919 Hybrid Evo Bernhard drove was tuned far beyond the rules that governed the model when it dominated the premier LMP1 class in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Porsche management in general and Bernhard in particular were profoundly sensitive about eclipsing an almost mythical record set by a fellow Porsche factory driver. Bellof is a certified tragic hero, and new fans have embraced his legend, drawn by online archived videos that showcase his incredible drives and comparably incredible crashes. With his long, typically tousled hair, big, toothy grin, and laughs aplenty, Bellof’s easy manner even won over fellow drivers.

“Everyone liked Stefan immensely,” teammate and co-driver Bell said. “Well, maybe except for Jacky Ickx.”

Ickx, now 73, is the Belgian racer who won the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times—three of those victories driving with Bell—and won eight F1 races, as well as the tough Bathurst 1000 and the Paris-Dakar Rally. If there was any driver who gave Bellof a reason to prove himself, it was Ickx. It cost Bellof his life.

Bellof’s pro racing career started with a dare. At the end of 1981, he was disqualified from the Formula Ford Festival race at Brands Hatch in England after making contact with another car. Bellof was angry. Through his manager—Bellof didn’t yet speak English—he told the race officials to “watch my career, because I’ll be back next year, and I’ll win my first Formula 2 race.”

In March 1982, Bellof did just that, driving a privateer car against a field full of factory-backed entries. A year later he became the youngest driver to date to sign with the Porsche factory. He was assigned to the potent Rothmans team, partnered with Bell.

Monster crashes at Nürburgring and Spa punctuated Stefan Bellof’s career.

Despite minimal experience in race cars with a roof, he qualified the 956 on the pole for his first race, the Silverstone 1000 km, and the duo went on to win. Their next race was the aforementioned Nürburgring 1000 km.

Bellof went on to win two more races that year then came back in 1984 to win the World Sportscar championship by eight points over Mass. He was cheerful and well spoken, and the cameras adored him. He was on his way.

Given his success, it was no surprise F1 came calling, but the best seat Bellof could find was with Tyrrell, which was stuck with naturally aspirated Ford-Cosworth engines when the rest of the field had turbochargers, putting Bellof and teammate Martin Brundle at a 175-horsepower deficit.

Bellof, obviously, had plenty to prove in F1 but little chance to do it, often crashing or breaking in his rookie season as he willed his Tyrrell to run with the turbos. At Monaco, he finally got a chance to shine. Wet tracks are great equalizers when it comes to horsepower, and the principality was soaked. Demonstrating a degree of otherworldly car control that even the also-rising Ayrton Senna couldn’t match, Bellof slid and yawed his way to third, closing fast on Senna, who was second, and leader Alain Prost. Suddenly and to the surprise of most everyone on the track and off, the race director halted the event after 31 laps, citing the poor conditions, though they seemed comparable to what they had been like all race long. Had the race run the full distance, Bellof may well have won. As it was, he still managed his first and only F1 podium, but due to the decreased race length, only half-points were awarded.

Bellof was back with Tyrrell for 1985, and team owner Ken Tyrrell struck a deal that got Bellof and Brundle a few turbocharged engines for later in the season, but they still had to run the Fords early that year. Bellof’s last F1 race was the Dutch Grand Prix in August 1985. He and his team were still getting used to the quirky Renault engine, and it blew up 40 laps into the race.

Stefan Bellof celebrates with Derek Bell, racing in F2, in sports cars at Silverstone, and in F1 in Monaco.

A week later, Bellof was killed. He never had the chance to show what he could do in a car with proper power. Reportedly, he had a ride with Ferrari for 1986. The possibilities are sobering.

His final season, Bellof was an F1 driver first, a sports car racer second, cherry-picking events on off weekends in F1 when he could, against Tyrrell’s wishes.

The shorthand version of Bellof’s career, now that so much time has passed since his death, is bookended by two events: that Nürburgring record run in 1983 and his controversial fatal crash at Spa.

His final season, Bellof was an F1 driver first, a sports car racer second, cherry-picking events on off weekends in F1 when he could, against Tyrrell’s wishes. Bellof entered the Spa 1000 km race in privateer Walter Brun’s fast 956, partnered with Thierry Boutsen.

Did Bellof have another something to prove at Spa? Oh, yes. Porsche factory racer Ickx, conservative, often tightly wound, and not at all impressed by Bellof’s playboy personality, was driving Porsche’s newest race car, a 962C.

Ickx and Bellof were oil and water. Spa was Ickx’s home track. And remember the Monaco Grand Prix that was stopped as Bellof was reeling in Senna and burgeoning legend Prost? A moonlighting Ickx was the F1 race director for that event.

At Spa, Ickx and Bellof had both just taken over for their co-drivers. A quicker pit stop put Ickx ahead of Bellof. It did not take long for Bellof to catch Ickx, but passing him was another matter. On lap 78, Bellof attempted perhaps the riskiest pass imaginable, taking aim at Ickx as they entered the treacherous left-right Eau Rouge corner. Bellof dove in to Ickx’s left. They touched.

Both cars spun into the guardrail at 140 mph. Ickx took a glancing blow and was able to climb from his car. But Bellof’s car speared head-on into the barrier, at a point where it was supported by a concrete pillar. The Porsche then burst into flames. Ickx hurried to Bellof’s car to help track workers pull him out. It wouldn’t have mattered.

Stefan Bellof tackles Spa’s Eau Rouge in his last race, and the aftermath of his crash (below).

Ickx had a contract to finish the season for Porsche, and he did, contesting the final three races, winning the finale at the Shah Alam Circuit in Malaysia with co-driver Mass. Ickx then hung up his helmet. By all accounts he was deeply troubled by Bellof’s death, but he has seldom spoken of the incident on the record.

Just as Mass was unfairly blamed for causing the death of F1 driver Gilles Villeneuve in 1982 at the Belgian Grand Prix after they touched wheels during qualifying, a contingent of Bellof fans still suspect Ickx might have blocked Bellof as the two entered Eau Rouge, causing the crash.

But Ickx had a camera in his car, and the evidence disputes the notion of dirty play. So said former Porsche chief engineer Norbert Singer, who designed the 956. “We reviewed the film, frame by frame, for several laps,” Singer told Automobile. “Ickx took the same line through Eau Rouge every time.

Bellof “just ended up going side-by-side into the corner and wouldn’t lift. But that was him—Stefan wouldn’t lift.” —Martin Brundle,  Tyrrell F1 teammate

“Stefan and Jacky were not really friends,” Singer continued. “Bellof had the idea to show him that he was the hero at Spa, show him that someone could be much faster than him. He tried to overtake where normally nobody can. It was very tragic.”

Bell agreed with Singer. “I was very upset when he got killed,” he said. “It was a totally unnecessary accident. Bellof was incorrect, and I would say that to his parents. Nobody in his right mind would try to pass on what may be the most difficult corner in the world.”

Brundle, Bellof’s Tyrrell F1 teammate, was racing a Jaguar at Spa and was waiting to get into his car when the crash happened right in front of him. Bellof was “trying to make a statement, basically,” by passing in full view of pit lane, Brundle wrote in a 1997 column for F1 Racing magazine. Bellof “just ended up going side-by-side into the corner and wouldn’t lift. But that was him—Stefan wouldn’t lift.”

Jacky Ickx’s personality didn’t mesh well with Stefan Bellof’s, but the German’s death appeared to have a deep effect on the Belgian.

The funeral, Brundle wrote, “was horrific. It was just awful. The family was beside themselves with grief.”

Bellof devotees rally around the driver’s official website, Stefan-Bellof.de, where you can still buy family-approved merchandise and read archived stories about his career. Shortly after Porsche set the new ’Ring record, the website carried a statement that, despite reports to the contrary, the Bellof family did not support the event.

As you might expect, many of the comments on the Bellof site and Facebook page are unenthusiastic about the new benchmark. Wrote one fan: “You can’t compare apples to pears,” suggesting that a car specifically modified for the record run and using 35 years’ worth of fresh technology doesn’t directly compare to Bellof’s achievement, set in an entirely different era with what is now certainly antiquated equipment.

That said, even the diehard Bellof fans seem unanimous in their praise for the human aspect of the new Holy Grail of lap times. “Despite all the nostalgia,” wrote one, “a great performance by Timo Bernhard.”

Archive photography courtesy of Porsche and LAT Photographic

Ringing in a Record: Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo Race Car

The post Tragic Hero: Stefan Bellof appeared first on IFTTT

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[jesusvasser]

Tragic Hero: Stefan Bellof

Stefan Bellof was never better—and never worse—than when he had something to prove.

And Bellof always had something to prove, even if it was just a minor personal point, created from whole cloth to maximize motivation. Raw talent (emphasis on “raw”) allowed the German to drive on the knife’s edge, lap after lap. Luck, or the lack of it, determined whether he stayed on that edge or fell off to one side.

On May 28, 1983, a lucky Bellof qualified his Porsche 956 at the Nürburgring Nordschleife track in Germany for the ADAC Nürburgring 1000 km. In traffic, on older tires, and with a nearly full tank of fuel, Bellof ran a lap of 6 minutes, 11.13 seconds at an average speed of 202.053 kph (125.550 mph). Jaws dropped, and stopwatches were checked to see if they were working properly. Never had a racer averaged more than 200 kph here. Some sort of timing mistake, perhaps?

No, it was just Bellof. Six of the seven top cars were 956s, but Bellof was nearly 6 seconds quicker than the next best. The comparatively inexperienced upstart had proven two things. First, that he could embarrass his fellow factory Porsche drivers, which included Jochen Mass, Jacky Ickx, Stefan Johansson, Bob Wollek, Jan Lammers, Jonathan Palmer, David Hobbs, and Bellof’s own co-driver, Derek Bell.

Bellof is a certified tragic hero, and new fans have embraced his legend, incredible drives, and comparably incredible crashes.

And second, that he could even embarrass Keke Rosberg, then the reigning Formula 1 world champion. Rosberg drove a Williams in F1 but was guest-starring at the ’Ring in a 956 like Bellof’s.

That was on a Saturday. Sunday, during the race, bad luck, enhanced by arrogance, shoved Bellof right off the knife’s edge.

Porsche stars: Stefan Bellof with Derek Bell, Jochen Mass, Jacky Ickx, Vern Schuppan, and John Watson.

Eighteen laps in, Bellof, still feeling lucky, drove the fastest race lap ever run at the Nürburgring: 6:25.91. Two laps later, with a 30-second lead, he crested the hill at Pflanzgarten, became airborne, and flipped. The car came to rest upright. Bellof was uninjured, and he signed autographs for fans lining the fence until track workers finished the cleanup.

Bellof crashed because he was, once again, proving a point. Porsche engineers told him it was impossible to take Pflanzgarten flat-out. Bellof thought otherwise. He was mistaken.

Two years later, the German crashed another 956 at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. This time, he did not walk away. He was 27.

Outside of Germany, Bellof is best remembered for that near-ethereal Nürburgring qualifying lap, a record that went unbeaten for so long. Inside his home country, the enduring, internet-enhanced Bellof legacy suggests that had he lived, he could well have become Germany’s next F1 champ. This was during a barren period, well before Michael Schumacher’s dominant era, though Schumi, a teen when Bellof died, often cited his countryman as a key inspiration, an opinion seconded by other German drivers, including Timo Bernhard.

Bellof fans—and there are more than you might guess for a driver 33 years gone, most of them centered in Germany but scattered across Europe and beyond—were conflicted when Porsche returned to the Nürburgring to break the record. To Bellof devotees and reportedly even some members of his family, Porsche’s campaign smacked of a pricey publicity stunt at the expense of their idol. After all, Bellof set his mark during qualifying, meaning he had to steer around slower cars. His 956 was race-legal, while the 919 Hybrid Evo Bernhard drove was tuned far beyond the rules that governed the model when it dominated the premier LMP1 class in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Porsche management in general and Bernhard in particular were profoundly sensitive about eclipsing an almost mythical record set by a fellow Porsche factory driver. Bellof is a certified tragic hero, and new fans have embraced his legend, drawn by online archived videos that showcase his incredible drives and comparably incredible crashes. With his long, typically tousled hair, big, toothy grin, and laughs aplenty, Bellof’s easy manner even won over fellow drivers.

“Everyone liked Stefan immensely,” teammate and co-driver Bell said. “Well, maybe except for Jacky Ickx.”

Ickx, now 73, is the Belgian racer who won the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times—three of those victories driving with Bell—and won eight F1 races, as well as the tough Bathurst 1000 and the Paris-Dakar Rally. If there was any driver who gave Bellof a reason to prove himself, it was Ickx. It cost Bellof his life.

Bellof’s pro racing career started with a dare. At the end of 1981, he was disqualified from the Formula Ford Festival race at Brands Hatch in England after making contact with another car. Bellof was angry. Through his manager—Bellof didn’t yet speak English—he told the race officials to “watch my career, because I’ll be back next year, and I’ll win my first Formula 2 race.”

In March 1982, Bellof did just that, driving a privateer car against a field full of factory-backed entries. A year later he became the youngest driver to date to sign with the Porsche factory. He was assigned to the potent Rothmans team, partnered with Bell.

Monster crashes at Nürburgring and Spa punctuated Stefan Bellof’s career.

Despite minimal experience in race cars with a roof, he qualified the 956 on the pole for his first race, the Silverstone 1000 km, and the duo went on to win. Their next race was the aforementioned Nürburgring 1000 km.

Bellof went on to win two more races that year then came back in 1984 to win the World Sportscar championship by eight points over Mass. He was cheerful and well spoken, and the cameras adored him. He was on his way.

Given his success, it was no surprise F1 came calling, but the best seat Bellof could find was with Tyrrell, which was stuck with naturally aspirated Ford-Cosworth engines when the rest of the field had turbochargers, putting Bellof and teammate Martin Brundle at a 175-horsepower deficit.

Bellof, obviously, had plenty to prove in F1 but little chance to do it, often crashing or breaking in his rookie season as he willed his Tyrrell to run with the turbos. At Monaco, he finally got a chance to shine. Wet tracks are great equalizers when it comes to horsepower, and the principality was soaked. Demonstrating a degree of otherworldly car control that even the also-rising Ayrton Senna couldn’t match, Bellof slid and yawed his way to third, closing fast on Senna, who was second, and leader Alain Prost. Suddenly and to the surprise of most everyone on the track and off, the race director halted the event after 31 laps, citing the poor conditions, though they seemed comparable to what they had been like all race long. Had the race run the full distance, Bellof may well have won. As it was, he still managed his first and only F1 podium, but due to the decreased race length, only half-points were awarded.

Bellof was back with Tyrrell for 1985, and team owner Ken Tyrrell struck a deal that got Bellof and Brundle a few turbocharged engines for later in the season, but they still had to run the Fords early that year. Bellof’s last F1 race was the Dutch Grand Prix in August 1985. He and his team were still getting used to the quirky Renault engine, and it blew up 40 laps into the race.

Stefan Bellof celebrates with Derek Bell, racing in F2, in sports cars at Silverstone, and in F1 in Monaco.

A week later, Bellof was killed. He never had the chance to show what he could do in a car with proper power. Reportedly, he had a ride with Ferrari for 1986. The possibilities are sobering.

His final season, Bellof was an F1 driver first, a sports car racer second, cherry-picking events on off weekends in F1 when he could, against Tyrrell’s wishes.

The shorthand version of Bellof’s career, now that so much time has passed since his death, is bookended by two events: that Nürburgring record run in 1983 and his controversial fatal crash at Spa.

His final season, Bellof was an F1 driver first, a sports car racer second, cherry-picking events on off weekends in F1 when he could, against Tyrrell’s wishes. Bellof entered the Spa 1000 km race in privateer Walter Brun’s fast 956, partnered with Thierry Boutsen.

Did Bellof have another something to prove at Spa? Oh, yes. Porsche factory racer Ickx, conservative, often tightly wound, and not at all impressed by Bellof’s playboy personality, was driving Porsche’s newest race car, a 962C.

Ickx and Bellof were oil and water. Spa was Ickx’s home track. And remember the Monaco Grand Prix that was stopped as Bellof was reeling in Senna and burgeoning legend Prost? A moonlighting Ickx was the F1 race director for that event.

At Spa, Ickx and Bellof had both just taken over for their co-drivers. A quicker pit stop put Ickx ahead of Bellof. It did not take long for Bellof to catch Ickx, but passing him was another matter. On lap 78, Bellof attempted perhaps the riskiest pass imaginable, taking aim at Ickx as they entered the treacherous left-right Eau Rouge corner. Bellof dove in to Ickx’s left. They touched.

Both cars spun into the guardrail at 140 mph. Ickx took a glancing blow and was able to climb from his car. But Bellof’s car speared head-on into the barrier, at a point where it was supported by a concrete pillar. The Porsche then burst into flames. Ickx hurried to Bellof’s car to help track workers pull him out. It wouldn’t have mattered.

Stefan Bellof tackles Spa’s Eau Rouge in his last race, and the aftermath of his crash (below).

Ickx had a contract to finish the season for Porsche, and he did, contesting the final three races, winning the finale at the Shah Alam Circuit in Malaysia with co-driver Mass. Ickx then hung up his helmet. By all accounts he was deeply troubled by Bellof’s death, but he has seldom spoken of the incident on the record.

Just as Mass was unfairly blamed for causing the death of F1 driver Gilles Villeneuve in 1982 at the Belgian Grand Prix after they touched wheels during qualifying, a contingent of Bellof fans still suspect Ickx might have blocked Bellof as the two entered Eau Rouge, causing the crash.

But Ickx had a camera in his car, and the evidence disputes the notion of dirty play. So said former Porsche chief engineer Norbert Singer, who designed the 956. “We reviewed the film, frame by frame, for several laps,” Singer told Automobile. “Ickx took the same line through Eau Rouge every time.

Bellof “just ended up going side-by-side into the corner and wouldn’t lift. But that was him—Stefan wouldn’t lift.” —Martin Brundle,  Tyrrell F1 teammate

“Stefan and Jacky were not really friends,” Singer continued. “Bellof had the idea to show him that he was the hero at Spa, show him that someone could be much faster than him. He tried to overtake where normally nobody can. It was very tragic.”

Bell agreed with Singer. “I was very upset when he got killed,” he said. “It was a totally unnecessary accident. Bellof was incorrect, and I would say that to his parents. Nobody in his right mind would try to pass on what may be the most difficult corner in the world.”

Brundle, Bellof’s Tyrrell F1 teammate, was racing a Jaguar at Spa and was waiting to get into his car when the crash happened right in front of him. Bellof was “trying to make a statement, basically,” by passing in full view of pit lane, Brundle wrote in a 1997 column for F1 Racing magazine. Bellof “just ended up going side-by-side into the corner and wouldn’t lift. But that was him—Stefan wouldn’t lift.”

Jacky Ickx’s personality didn’t mesh well with Stefan Bellof’s, but the German’s death appeared to have a deep effect on the Belgian.

The funeral, Brundle wrote, “was horrific. It was just awful. The family was beside themselves with grief.”

Bellof devotees rally around the driver’s official website, Stefan-Bellof.de, where you can still buy family-approved merchandise and read archived stories about his career. Shortly after Porsche set the new ’Ring record, the website carried a statement that, despite reports to the contrary, the Bellof family did not support the event.

As you might expect, many of the comments on the Bellof site and Facebook page are unenthusiastic about the new benchmark. Wrote one fan: “You can’t compare apples to pears,” suggesting that a car specifically modified for the record run and using 35 years’ worth of fresh technology doesn’t directly compare to Bellof’s achievement, set in an entirely different era with what is now certainly antiquated equipment.

That said, even the diehard Bellof fans seem unanimous in their praise for the human aspect of the new Holy Grail of lap times. “Despite all the nostalgia,” wrote one, “a great performance by Timo Bernhard.”

Archive photography courtesy of Porsche and LAT Photographic

The post Tragic Hero: Stefan Bellof appeared first on Automobile Magazine.

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[eddiejpoplar]

Tragic Hero: Stefan Bellof

Stefan Bellof was never better—and never worse—than when he had something to prove.

And Bellof always had something to prove, even if it was just a minor personal point, created from whole cloth to maximize motivation. Raw talent (emphasis on “raw”) allowed the German to drive on the knife’s edge, lap after lap. Luck, or the lack of it, determined whether he stayed on that edge or fell off to one side.

On May 28, 1983, a lucky Bellof qualified his Porsche 956 at the Nürburgring Nordschleife track in Germany for the ADAC Nürburgring 1000 km. In traffic, on older tires, and with a nearly full tank of fuel, Bellof ran a lap of 6 minutes, 11.13 seconds at an average speed of 202.053 kph (125.550 mph). Jaws dropped, and stopwatches were checked to see if they were working properly. Never had a racer averaged more than 200 kph here. Some sort of timing mistake, perhaps?

No, it was just Bellof. Six of the seven top cars were 956s, but Bellof was nearly 6 seconds quicker than the next best. The comparatively inexperienced upstart had proven two things. First, that he could embarrass his fellow factory Porsche drivers, which included Jochen Mass, Jacky Ickx, Stefan Johansson, Bob Wollek, Jan Lammers, Jonathan Palmer, David Hobbs, and Bellof’s own co-driver, Derek Bell.

Bellof is a certified tragic hero, and new fans have embraced his legend, incredible drives, and comparably incredible crashes.

And second, that he could even embarrass Keke Rosberg, then the reigning Formula 1 world champion. Rosberg drove a Williams in F1 but was guest-starring at the ’Ring in a 956 like Bellof’s.

That was on a Saturday. Sunday, during the race, bad luck, enhanced by arrogance, shoved Bellof right off the knife’s edge.

Porsche stars: Stefan Bellof with Derek Bell, Jochen Mass, Jacky Ickx, Vern Schuppan, and John Watson.

Eighteen laps in, Bellof, still feeling lucky, drove the fastest race lap ever run at the Nürburgring: 6:25.91. Two laps later, with a 30-second lead, he crested the hill at Pflanzgarten, became airborne, and flipped. The car came to rest upright. Bellof was uninjured, and he signed autographs for fans lining the fence until track workers finished the cleanup.

Bellof crashed because he was, once again, proving a point. Porsche engineers told him it was impossible to take Pflanzgarten flat-out. Bellof thought otherwise. He was mistaken.

Two years later, the German crashed another 956 at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. This time, he did not walk away. He was 27.

Outside of Germany, Bellof is best remembered for that near-ethereal Nürburgring qualifying lap, a record that went unbeaten for so long. Inside his home country, the enduring, internet-enhanced Bellof legacy suggests that had he lived, he could well have become Germany’s next F1 champ. This was during a barren period, well before Michael Schumacher’s dominant era, though Schumi, a teen when Bellof died, often cited his countryman as a key inspiration, an opinion seconded by other German drivers, including Timo Bernhard.

Bellof fans—and there are more than you might guess for a driver 33 years gone, most of them centered in Germany but scattered across Europe and beyond—were conflicted when Porsche returned to the Nürburgring to break the record. To Bellof devotees and reportedly even some members of his family, Porsche’s campaign smacked of a pricey publicity stunt at the expense of their idol. After all, Bellof set his mark during qualifying, meaning he had to steer around slower cars. His 956 was race-legal, while the 919 Hybrid Evo Bernhard drove was tuned far beyond the rules that governed the model when it dominated the premier LMP1 class in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Porsche management in general and Bernhard in particular were profoundly sensitive about eclipsing an almost mythical record set by a fellow Porsche factory driver. Bellof is a certified tragic hero, and new fans have embraced his legend, drawn by online archived videos that showcase his incredible drives and comparably incredible crashes. With his long, typically tousled hair, big, toothy grin, and laughs aplenty, Bellof’s easy manner even won over fellow drivers.

“Everyone liked Stefan immensely,” teammate and co-driver Bell said. “Well, maybe except for Jacky Ickx.”

Ickx, now 73, is the Belgian racer who won the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times—three of those victories driving with Bell—and won eight F1 races, as well as the tough Bathurst 1000 and the Paris-Dakar Rally. If there was any driver who gave Bellof a reason to prove himself, it was Ickx. It cost Bellof his life.

Bellof’s pro racing career started with a dare. At the end of 1981, he was disqualified from the Formula Ford Festival race at Brands Hatch in England after making contact with another car. Bellof was angry. Through his manager—Bellof didn’t yet speak English—he told the race officials to “watch my career, because I’ll be back next year, and I’ll win my first Formula 2 race.”

In March 1982, Bellof did just that, driving a privateer car against a field full of factory-backed entries. A year later he became the youngest driver to date to sign with the Porsche factory. He was assigned to the potent Rothmans team, partnered with Bell.

Monster crashes at Nürburgring and Spa punctuated Stefan Bellof’s career.

Despite minimal experience in race cars with a roof, he qualified the 956 on the pole for his first race, the Silverstone 1000 km, and the duo went on to win. Their next race was the aforementioned Nürburgring 1000 km.

Bellof went on to win two more races that year then came back in 1984 to win the World Sportscar championship by eight points over Mass. He was cheerful and well spoken, and the cameras adored him. He was on his way.

Given his success, it was no surprise F1 came calling, but the best seat Bellof could find was with Tyrrell, which was stuck with naturally aspirated Ford-Cosworth engines when the rest of the field had turbochargers, putting Bellof and teammate Martin Brundle at a 175-horsepower deficit.

Bellof, obviously, had plenty to prove in F1 but little chance to do it, often crashing or breaking in his rookie season as he willed his Tyrrell to run with the turbos. At Monaco, he finally got a chance to shine. Wet tracks are great equalizers when it comes to horsepower, and the principality was soaked. Demonstrating a degree of otherworldly car control that even the also-rising Ayrton Senna couldn’t match, Bellof slid and yawed his way to third, closing fast on Senna, who was second, and leader Alain Prost. Suddenly and to the surprise of most everyone on the track and off, the race director halted the event after 31 laps, citing the poor conditions, though they seemed comparable to what they had been like all race long. Had the race run the full distance, Bellof may well have won. As it was, he still managed his first and only F1 podium, but due to the decreased race length, only half-points were awarded.

Bellof was back with Tyrrell for 1985, and team owner Ken Tyrrell struck a deal that got Bellof and Brundle a few turbocharged engines for later in the season, but they still had to run the Fords early that year. Bellof’s last F1 race was the Dutch Grand Prix in August 1985. He and his team were still getting used to the quirky Renault engine, and it blew up 40 laps into the race.

Stefan Bellof celebrates with Derek Bell, racing in F2, in sports cars at Silverstone, and in F1 in Monaco.

A week later, Bellof was killed. He never had the chance to show what he could do in a car with proper power. Reportedly, he had a ride with Ferrari for 1986. The possibilities are sobering.

His final season, Bellof was an F1 driver first, a sports car racer second, cherry-picking events on off weekends in F1 when he could, against Tyrrell’s wishes.

The shorthand version of Bellof’s career, now that so much time has passed since his death, is bookended by two events: that Nürburgring record run in 1983 and his controversial fatal crash at Spa.

His final season, Bellof was an F1 driver first, a sports car racer second, cherry-picking events on off weekends in F1 when he could, against Tyrrell’s wishes. Bellof entered the Spa 1000 km race in privateer Walter Brun’s fast 956, partnered with Thierry Boutsen.

Did Bellof have another something to prove at Spa? Oh, yes. Porsche factory racer Ickx, conservative, often tightly wound, and not at all impressed by Bellof’s playboy personality, was driving Porsche’s newest race car, a 962C.

Ickx and Bellof were oil and water. Spa was Ickx’s home track. And remember the Monaco Grand Prix that was stopped as Bellof was reeling in Senna and burgeoning legend Prost? A moonlighting Ickx was the F1 race director for that event.

At Spa, Ickx and Bellof had both just taken over for their co-drivers. A quicker pit stop put Ickx ahead of Bellof. It did not take long for Bellof to catch Ickx, but passing him was another matter. On lap 78, Bellof attempted perhaps the riskiest pass imaginable, taking aim at Ickx as they entered the treacherous left-right Eau Rouge corner. Bellof dove in to Ickx’s left. They touched.

Both cars spun into the guardrail at 140 mph. Ickx took a glancing blow and was able to climb from his car. But Bellof’s car speared head-on into the barrier, at a point where it was supported by a concrete pillar. The Porsche then burst into flames. Ickx hurried to Bellof’s car to help track workers pull him out. It wouldn’t have mattered.

Stefan Bellof tackles Spa’s Eau Rouge in his last race, and the aftermath of his crash (below).

Ickx had a contract to finish the season for Porsche, and he did, contesting the final three races, winning the finale at the Shah Alam Circuit in Malaysia with co-driver Mass. Ickx then hung up his helmet. By all accounts he was deeply troubled by Bellof’s death, but he has seldom spoken of the incident on the record.

Just as Mass was unfairly blamed for causing the death of F1 driver Gilles Villeneuve in 1982 at the Belgian Grand Prix after they touched wheels during qualifying, a contingent of Bellof fans still suspect Ickx might have blocked Bellof as the two entered Eau Rouge, causing the crash.

But Ickx had a camera in his car, and the evidence disputes the notion of dirty play. So said former Porsche chief engineer Norbert Singer, who designed the 956. “We reviewed the film, frame by frame, for several laps,” Singer told Automobile. “Ickx took the same line through Eau Rouge every time.

Bellof “just ended up going side-by-side into the corner and wouldn’t lift. But that was him—Stefan wouldn’t lift.” —Martin Brundle,  Tyrrell F1 teammate

“Stefan and Jacky were not really friends,” Singer continued. “Bellof had the idea to show him that he was the hero at Spa, show him that someone could be much faster than him. He tried to overtake where normally nobody can. It was very tragic.”

Bell agreed with Singer. “I was very upset when he got killed,” he said. “It was a totally unnecessary accident. Bellof was incorrect, and I would say that to his parents. Nobody in his right mind would try to pass on what may be the most difficult corner in the world.”

Brundle, Bellof’s Tyrrell F1 teammate, was racing a Jaguar at Spa and was waiting to get into his car when the crash happened right in front of him. Bellof was “trying to make a statement, basically,” by passing in full view of pit lane, Brundle wrote in a 1997 column for F1 Racing magazine. Bellof “just ended up going side-by-side into the corner and wouldn’t lift. But that was him—Stefan wouldn’t lift.”

Jacky Ickx’s personality didn’t mesh well with Stefan Bellof’s, but the German’s death appeared to have a deep effect on the Belgian.

The funeral, Brundle wrote, “was horrific. It was just awful. The family was beside themselves with grief.”

Bellof devotees rally around the driver’s official website, Stefan-Bellof.de, where you can still buy family-approved merchandise and read archived stories about his career. Shortly after Porsche set the new ’Ring record, the website carried a statement that, despite reports to the contrary, the Bellof family did not support the event.

As you might expect, many of the comments on the Bellof site and Facebook page are unenthusiastic about the new benchmark. Wrote one fan: “You can’t compare apples to pears,” suggesting that a car specifically modified for the record run and using 35 years’ worth of fresh technology doesn’t directly compare to Bellof’s achievement, set in an entirely different era with what is now certainly antiquated equipment.

That said, even the diehard Bellof fans seem unanimous in their praise for the human aspect of the new Holy Grail of lap times. “Despite all the nostalgia,” wrote one, “a great performance by Timo Bernhard.”

Archive photography courtesy of Porsche and LAT Photographic

The post Tragic Hero: Stefan Bellof appeared first on Automobile Magazine.

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[alexydury]

Silverstone Half marathon

Sunday 12th March 2017 There were two main reasons why I chose to run Silverstone Half marathon…. The first reason was because it is not too far away from where I live, and secondly because it’s a famous historic landmark! I tried to run this race last year but it was sold out, so I took part in the Reading Half instead. I had been told previously that the Silverstone Half marathon was a brutal one, however I reckon that any half marathon is a tough thing to do! I enjoyed doing the Oxford Half marathon (following the old route where it started and finished at the Kassum football stadium) and the Coventry half marathon too (especially the lovely downhill route all the way to the finish line!) I left home at 10.30am to allow enough time for the half hour drive and half hour walk to the start line, with half an hour spare before the actual start of the race. I was surprised to see a long queue on the A43 for the Silverstone half marathon, which then made sense as to why they wanted us to arrive an hour early before the race in case of queues to get into the car park. Luckily I was able to jump to the front before the queue got too big. Quickly we parked our cars in the free car park (which was a bonus!) and managed to locate a lovely clean block of toilets in the car park (there were plenty of toilets everywhere). These toilets were proper toilets not portaloos (another bonus!) which made the experience even more enjoyable. I then followed the crowd all the way to the start walking over various bridges that went across the F1 track, wondering if we were actually going to be running along the race track! With 15 minutes to spare, I stuffed my raincoat and fleece into the “see-through” rucksacks which were sent to us with our bib race number beforehand, and dropped my rucksack off at the left luggage area. I then made my way down with the other runners to the start line on the actual F1 track, where only runners were allowed to stand without any spectators around, which felt a little strange! There are usually people who will be watching the race nearby, however in this instance they were located further away. This did help in a way, as there were no distractions and less nervousness as a result! As the race began, all of the runners seemed to move along smoothly with huge spaces in-between each person. This was a really lovely way to run as everybody was spread out and making full use of all of the space we had on the tarmac for the duration of the race. I ran over the start line at around 7 minutes, which wasn’t bad! Straight away I felt that I had developed a good rhythm as I followed one particular man for the first 6 miles using him as my pacer. I felt relaxed with my thoughts, thinking about maintaining a good rhythm with my breathing and overall pace….This was my version of mindfulness! I quickly realised that I had run my first 6 miles in under an hour, which was a little too fast for my liking! Maybe 2 years ago this would have been an okay pace, but not now! I felt like I was starting to lose energy and my body felt stiff after around 8 miles. This consequently meant that I lost my lovely feeling of mindfulness! During miles 8 to 10, I felt like I was on a never ending road. This is a feeling I always seem to get about this time during every half marathon!! However, I enjoyed looking at the different stands, tracks and when we went off road through car parks etc until we made it up the 13.1 miles at the end of the race! It was amazing to pass the pitstops where the F1 cars stop for fuel and do tyre changes. There was a point where I stopped to use my inhaler as I did feel woozy at one point but soon felt okay. I thought of my late father a lot on the day, as he loved to watch F1 and my mother had mentioned that we had all been to Silverstone to watch races when we were small. So I felt my father’s presence whilst at the Silverstone half marathon, which was really nice. Finally, onto the best part…..the last 3 miles on the big track to the finish line. This seemed to go on forever! It took a little while to complete, as I am not as quick as an F1 car! I walked a lot in the last 5 miles or so, yet am pleased with my time of 2 hours 15 minutes which was an improvement on a finish time of 2 hours 19minutes 2 weeks ago in Brighton… Can’t complain! The walk back to the car was a nightmare though, along with attempting to drive out of the car park. The whole place was dead locked and nobody moved for around 10 minutes or so. As I was waiting I decided to get changed in the car into dry clothes and to eat and drink some of the things from the goody bag! I then went on to meet up with my daughter who was with friends in Milton Keynes. Thank you to Silverstone Half marathon for all the support and to the volunteers. I thoroughly enjoyed running in this race and will be back again one day to go for a PB when I am feeling better.

[jonathanbelloblog]

Tragic Hero: Stefan Bellof

Stefan Bellof was never better—and never worse—than when he had something to prove.

And Bellof always had something to prove, even if it was just a minor personal point, created from whole cloth to maximize motivation. Raw talent (emphasis on “raw”) allowed the German to drive on the knife’s edge, lap after lap. Luck, or the lack of it, determined whether he stayed on that edge or fell off to one side.

On May 28, 1983, a lucky Bellof qualified his Porsche 956 at the Nürburgring Nordschleife track in Germany for the ADAC Nürburgring 1000 km. In traffic, on older tires, and with a nearly full tank of fuel, Bellof ran a lap of 6 minutes, 11.13 seconds at an average speed of 202.053 kph (125.550 mph). Jaws dropped, and stopwatches were checked to see if they were working properly. Never had a racer averaged more than 200 kph here. Some sort of timing mistake, perhaps?

No, it was just Bellof. Six of the seven top cars were 956s, but Bellof was nearly 6 seconds quicker than the next best. The comparatively inexperienced upstart had proven two things. First, that he could embarrass his fellow factory Porsche drivers, which included Jochen Mass, Jacky Ickx, Stefan Johansson, Bob Wollek, Jan Lammers, Jonathan Palmer, David Hobbs, and Bellof’s own co-driver, Derek Bell.

Bellof is a certified tragic hero, and new fans have embraced his legend, incredible drives, and comparably incredible crashes.

And second, that he could even embarrass Keke Rosberg, then the reigning Formula 1 world champion. Rosberg drove a Williams in F1 but was guest-starring at the ’Ring in a 956 like Bellof’s.

That was on a Saturday. Sunday, during the race, bad luck, enhanced by arrogance, shoved Bellof right off the knife’s edge.

Porsche stars: Stefan Bellof with Derek Bell, Jochen Mass, Jacky Ickx, Vern Schuppan, and John Watson.

Eighteen laps in, Bellof, still feeling lucky, drove the fastest race lap ever run at the Nürburgring: 6:25.91. Two laps later, with a 30-second lead, he crested the hill at Pflanzgarten, became airborne, and flipped. The car came to rest upright. Bellof was uninjured, and he signed autographs for fans lining the fence until track workers finished the cleanup.

Bellof crashed because he was, once again, proving a point. Porsche engineers told him it was impossible to take Pflanzgarten flat-out. Bellof thought otherwise. He was mistaken.

Two years later, the German crashed another 956 at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. This time, he did not walk away. He was 27.

Outside of Germany, Bellof is best remembered for that near-ethereal Nürburgring qualifying lap, a record that went unbeaten for so long. Inside his home country, the enduring, internet-enhanced Bellof legacy suggests that had he lived, he could well have become Germany’s next F1 champ. This was during a barren period, well before Michael Schumacher’s dominant era, though Schumi, a teen when Bellof died, often cited his countryman as a key inspiration, an opinion seconded by other German drivers, including Timo Bernhard.

Bellof fans—and there are more than you might guess for a driver 33 years gone, most of them centered in Germany but scattered across Europe and beyond—were conflicted when Porsche returned to the Nürburgring to break the record. To Bellof devotees and reportedly even some members of his family, Porsche’s campaign smacked of a pricey publicity stunt at the expense of their idol. After all, Bellof set his mark during qualifying, meaning he had to steer around slower cars. His 956 was race-legal, while the 919 Hybrid Evo Bernhard drove was tuned far beyond the rules that governed the model when it dominated the premier LMP1 class in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Porsche management in general and Bernhard in particular were profoundly sensitive about eclipsing an almost mythical record set by a fellow Porsche factory driver. Bellof is a certified tragic hero, and new fans have embraced his legend, drawn by online archived videos that showcase his incredible drives and comparably incredible crashes. With his long, typically tousled hair, big, toothy grin, and laughs aplenty, Bellof’s easy manner even won over fellow drivers.

“Everyone liked Stefan immensely,” teammate and co-driver Bell said. “Well, maybe except for Jacky Ickx.”

Ickx, now 73, is the Belgian racer who won the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times—three of those victories driving with Bell—and won eight F1 races, as well as the tough Bathurst 1000 and the Paris-Dakar Rally. If there was any driver who gave Bellof a reason to prove himself, it was Ickx. It cost Bellof his life.

Bellof’s pro racing career started with a dare. At the end of 1981, he was disqualified from the Formula Ford Festival race at Brands Hatch in England after making contact with another car. Bellof was angry. Through his manager—Bellof didn’t yet speak English—he told the race officials to “watch my career, because I’ll be back next year, and I’ll win my first Formula 2 race.”

In March 1982, Bellof did just that, driving a privateer car against a field full of factory-backed entries. A year later he became the youngest driver to date to sign with the Porsche factory. He was assigned to the potent Rothmans team, partnered with Bell.

Monster crashes at Nürburgring and Spa punctuated Stefan Bellof’s career.

Despite minimal experience in race cars with a roof, he qualified the 956 on the pole for his first race, the Silverstone 1000 km, and the duo went on to win. Their next race was the aforementioned Nürburgring 1000 km.

Bellof went on to win two more races that year then came back in 1984 to win the World Sportscar championship by eight points over Mass. He was cheerful and well spoken, and the cameras adored him. He was on his way.

Given his success, it was no surprise F1 came calling, but the best seat Bellof could find was with Tyrrell, which was stuck with naturally aspirated Ford-Cosworth engines when the rest of the field had turbochargers, putting Bellof and teammate Martin Brundle at a 175-horsepower deficit.

Bellof, obviously, had plenty to prove in F1 but little chance to do it, often crashing or breaking in his rookie season as he willed his Tyrrell to run with the turbos. At Monaco, he finally got a chance to shine. Wet tracks are great equalizers when it comes to horsepower, and the principality was soaked. Demonstrating a degree of otherworldly car control that even the also-rising Ayrton Senna couldn’t match, Bellof slid and yawed his way to third, closing fast on Senna, who was second, and leader Alain Prost. Suddenly and to the surprise of most everyone on the track and off, the race director halted the event after 31 laps, citing the poor conditions, though they seemed comparable to what they had been like all race long. Had the race run the full distance, Bellof may well have won. As it was, he still managed his first and only F1 podium, but due to the decreased race length, only half-points were awarded.

Bellof was back with Tyrrell for 1985, and team owner Ken Tyrrell struck a deal that got Bellof and Brundle a few turbocharged engines for later in the season, but they still had to run the Fords early that year. Bellof’s last F1 race was the Dutch Grand Prix in August 1985. He and his team were still getting used to the quirky Renault engine, and it blew up 40 laps into the race.

Stefan Bellof celebrates with Derek Bell, racing in F2, in sports cars at Silverstone, and in F1 in Monaco.

A week later, Bellof was killed. He never had the chance to show what he could do in a car with proper power. Reportedly, he had a ride with Ferrari for 1986. The possibilities are sobering.

His final season, Bellof was an F1 driver first, a sports car racer second, cherry-picking events on off weekends in F1 when he could, against Tyrrell’s wishes.

The shorthand version of Bellof’s career, now that so much time has passed since his death, is bookended by two events: that Nürburgring record run in 1983 and his controversial fatal crash at Spa.

His final season, Bellof was an F1 driver first, a sports car racer second, cherry-picking events on off weekends in F1 when he could, against Tyrrell’s wishes. Bellof entered the Spa 1000 km race in privateer Walter Brun’s fast 956, partnered with Thierry Boutsen.

Did Bellof have another something to prove at Spa? Oh, yes. Porsche factory racer Ickx, conservative, often tightly wound, and not at all impressed by Bellof’s playboy personality, was driving Porsche’s newest race car, a 962C.

Ickx and Bellof were oil and water. Spa was Ickx’s home track. And remember the Monaco Grand Prix that was stopped as Bellof was reeling in Senna and burgeoning legend Prost? A moonlighting Ickx was the F1 race director for that event.

At Spa, Ickx and Bellof had both just taken over for their co-drivers. A quicker pit stop put Ickx ahead of Bellof. It did not take long for Bellof to catch Ickx, but passing him was another matter. On lap 78, Bellof attempted perhaps the riskiest pass imaginable, taking aim at Ickx as they entered the treacherous left-right Eau Rouge corner. Bellof dove in to Ickx’s left. They touched.

Both cars spun into the guardrail at 140 mph. Ickx took a glancing blow and was able to climb from his car. But Bellof’s car speared head-on into the barrier, at a point where it was supported by a concrete pillar. The Porsche then burst into flames. Ickx hurried to Bellof’s car to help track workers pull him out. It wouldn’t have mattered.

Stefan Bellof tackles Spa’s Eau Rouge in his last race, and the aftermath of his crash (below).

Ickx had a contract to finish the season for Porsche, and he did, contesting the final three races, winning the finale at the Shah Alam Circuit in Malaysia with co-driver Mass. Ickx then hung up his helmet. By all accounts he was deeply troubled by Bellof’s death, but he has seldom spoken of the incident on the record.

Just as Mass was unfairly blamed for causing the death of F1 driver Gilles Villeneuve in 1982 at the Belgian Grand Prix after they touched wheels during qualifying, a contingent of Bellof fans still suspect Ickx might have blocked Bellof as the two entered Eau Rouge, causing the crash.

But Ickx had a camera in his car, and the evidence disputes the notion of dirty play. So said former Porsche chief engineer Norbert Singer, who designed the 956. “We reviewed the film, frame by frame, for several laps,” Singer told Automobile. “Ickx took the same line through Eau Rouge every time.

Bellof “just ended up going side-by-side into the corner and wouldn’t lift. But that was him—Stefan wouldn’t lift.” —Martin Brundle,  Tyrrell F1 teammate

“Stefan and Jacky were not really friends,” Singer continued. “Bellof had the idea to show him that he was the hero at Spa, show him that someone could be much faster than him. He tried to overtake where normally nobody can. It was very tragic.”

Bell agreed with Singer. “I was very upset when he got killed,” he said. “It was a totally unnecessary accident. Bellof was incorrect, and I would say that to his parents. Nobody in his right mind would try to pass on what may be the most difficult corner in the world.”

Brundle, Bellof’s Tyrrell F1 teammate, was racing a Jaguar at Spa and was waiting to get into his car when the crash happened right in front of him. Bellof was “trying to make a statement, basically,” by passing in full view of pit lane, Brundle wrote in a 1997 column for F1 Racing magazine. Bellof “just ended up going side-by-side into the corner and wouldn’t lift. But that was him—Stefan wouldn’t lift.”

Jacky Ickx’s personality didn’t mesh well with Stefan Bellof’s, but the German’s death appeared to have a deep effect on the Belgian.

The funeral, Brundle wrote, “was horrific. It was just awful. The family was beside themselves with grief.”

Bellof devotees rally around the driver’s official website, Stefan-Bellof.de, where you can still buy family-approved merchandise and read archived stories about his career. Shortly after Porsche set the new ’Ring record, the website carried a statement that, despite reports to the contrary, the Bellof family did not support the event.

As you might expect, many of the comments on the Bellof site and Facebook page are unenthusiastic about the new benchmark. Wrote one fan: “You can’t compare apples to pears,” suggesting that a car specifically modified for the record run and using 35 years’ worth of fresh technology doesn’t directly compare to Bellof’s achievement, set in an entirely different era with what is now certainly antiquated equipment.

That said, even the diehard Bellof fans seem unanimous in their praise for the human aspect of the new Holy Grail of lap times. “Despite all the nostalgia,” wrote one, “a great performance by Timo Bernhard.”

Archive photography courtesy of Porsche and LAT Photographic

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The Man Who Trains F1 Stars

Rob Wilson looks at the stopwatch on his trusty Nokia 6210 cellphone. “I think a 1:50.4 deserves a cigarette,” he says as he delivers a warm and congratulatory pat to my shoulder. “It’s been a great morning.” I drop him off beside a decommissioned Boeing 747 tinged a bluey green by unidentified vegetation and then drive gently to the end of the runway to cool the brakes before looping around to collect him. “Right,” he says as he drops back into the passenger seat of our humble 198-horsepower Vauxhall Astra hatchback. “Let’s get lunch. Then I’ll set another target lap, and we’ll go again.”

And that’s how it goes. Wilson consumes maybe another 10 Marlboro Reds over the course of the afternoon as he chips away at my driving technique and I chip away at my lap time. This place—the Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground in rural Leicestershire, England—is his second home, and it’s here that the great and the good of Formula 1, IndyCar, DTM, the FIA World Endurance Championship, World Rally Championship, and countless other professional racing series come to hone their craft under his tutelage. Yes, in a Vauxhall Astra.

Kimi Räikkönen. Juan Pablo Montoya. Valtteri Bottas. Marco Andretti. Petter Solberg. Whatever name pops into your head, chances are the pro driver has been to this former USAF base and been coached by Rob Wilson in a humble family car. Sometimes they’re a tenth quicker than he is but not often. He doesn’t advertise. There’s no website full of inspiring nonsense to build his business. If you want to employ Wilson, you need to know someone with his number. Fortunately, everybody in high-level motorsports has his number. “I used to travel to go to them,” he says. “But then they banned smoking on planes.”

So how exactly do you become the driving Yoda to the stars? The guy that every F1 team goes to when they want to polish a young talent or to just help an experienced racer through a sticky patch? It started for Wilson, as you’d expect, with a racing career. He left his native New Zealand as quickly as he could and competed in the U.K. in Formula Ford and then Formula 3. He was quick, too, and was lined up for an F1 drive in 1981 at Spa with Tyrrell until Michele Alboreto turned up a few days before with a big check, which ousted him from the seat. Money talks, and the F1 dream was over. Wilson then raced for many years in the U.S. in sports cars, NASCAR, Indy Lights, and anything he could get his hands on.

Coach and veteran pro driver Rob Wilson has helped the top names in racing improve their times. At an airfield in Leicestershire, England, he teaches his unconventional methods in lightweight Vauxhall Astra hatchbacks— and goes through many sets of tires.

His eureka moment came as he stood beside Stowe corner at Silverstone in the late ’80s—his broken Bowman F3 car next to him—with nothing much to do. So he started watching and then timing as Rickard Rydell and Gary Brabham pounded around. Brabham was incredibly early on the throttle and looked and sounded fast, but Rydell was quicker. Wilson worked out why and gave his solution to Brabham. Sure enough, those times improved. Suddenly Wilson was a driver coach, and in those early days he used Goodwood as his base. He carried on racing well into the 2000s, but his real gift was apparent: He made the best even better.

“Traditionally you find the limit of adhesion and feel like you’re going fast on that geometrically perfect line. But you know what? You’re not going forward that much.”

Bruntingthorpe looks as pretty as an old airfield can today under sunshine and threatened by dramatic, brooding storm clouds, but it’s still a million miles from the shiny, volatile, carbon-fiber and cash-soaked world of top-level racing. Wilson, you might imagine, is similarly detached from the F1 or IndyCar circuses. He’s a New Zealander, 65 years old, powerfully built with a fearsome appetite for nicotine. If you met him at a bar and asked him what he did, you’d scarcely believe a word. His stories, which he doesn’t give up lightly or embellish, are almost unbelievable. Today he’s coaching me. Last week? F1 rookie Lance Stroll, who’d been struggling for form but didn’t look so out of his depth in the last couple races. “He’s been here a lot,” Wilson says. “Couldn’t be nicer. I didn’t expect that.”

More stories later. First, why he uses the Astra hatchback. “It’s perfect. Truly,” he insists. “Tough and with a good chassis but also quiet and comfortable so we can communicate easily. And when you make a mistake in this car, you feel it for a long time. We can be talking about what went wrong while you’re still paying the price.” Wilson has three Astras supplied by Vauxhall, General Motors’ former bread and butter marque in the U.K. (now owned by French auto giant Groupe PSA). He gets through a set of tires a day and a set of brakes per week, and he keeps each car for about 5,000 miles. My car for the day has a Michelin front left tire, a Bridgestone rear left, something called a Sunny SN3970 front right, and an Avon rear right. “The circuit mostly goes right, anyway,” he grins.

So that’s the equipment. What about the technique? “Everything is the most important thing in the world,” Wilson says with a smile over a mug of tea in the cafe adjacent to the airfield before we get started. “The first most important thing in the world is the rate you move your body. It creates the initial weight transfer. So when we are coming up to a corner, I’ll say, ‘Turn left.’ We want to turn left, but we don’t mean a turn of a certain size. We just mean a turn of the tiniest, tiniest amount. You can’t even see it.” This is the foundation of Wilson’s obsession with maximizing a car’s potential by managing weight transfer: Introduce a subtle, almost imperceptible amount of lock and then manipulate the car to the apex more assertively.

Wilson’s driver training is a hands-on experience, quite literally. He likes to teach in the Vauxhall economy car because “when you make a mistake in this car, you feel it for a long time.”

He’ll also often talk about a “flat car.” The physics concept behind it is obvious: the less steering angle, the greater the acceleration. To achieve this you begin each turn with that miniscule weight transfer then progressively steer to the apex. In the middle of the turn—where there’s the least amount of penalty for tire scrub—quickly introduce a bit more lock than seems natural to shorten the corner and then actively straighten the car to the exit. “It’s about altering our values,” Wilson explains. “Traditionally you find the limit of adhesion and feel like you’re going fast on that geometrically perfect line. But you know what? You’re not going forward that much. And that’s bad, actually. I want you to be offended when you feel tire scrub.”

This introduction to Wilson’s techniques goes on for maybe an hour. We discuss shortening corners, braking lightly for a fraction before really applying force to ensure the rears are responding before the nose dives and the rear raises up, trying to match wheel speed and car speed momentarily in the braking phase, and how all this feeds into a race scenario by putting less stress on the equipment. “Shortening the corner reduces tire degradation,” he says. “So in the middle of the corner there’s a bit more lock, a higher peak, but for the next 10 car lengths there’s less load. It’s like putting your hand on a red-hot stove for a millionth of a second. You won’t burn. If the stove is half as hot but you put your hand on for a few seconds, guess what happens.”

It sounds simple. Then Wilson demonstrates personally on his unique circuit, drawn out by the airfield’s natural turns and a few cones to add a crucial chicane and a slow switchback. “Monaco’s Lowes hairpin,” he calls it. The running commentary is enlightening. Probably. I just can’t get over the speed and efficiency. He’s smooth with the car at times then sometimes more assertive, and his lines don’t trace the long arcs of a classicist. Watching the dramatic “corner shortening” is really remarkable. The car doesn’t gracefully blend out of the turns to the circuit’s edge on the limit of adhesion. Rather, he literally steers it out there in a straight line, and you feel the rate of acceleration climb the instant he’s removed the exaggerated midcorner steering input. It’s bordering on phenomenal, and my nerves skyrocket. This guy has coached Nigel Mansell. Now I have to show him my silky skills? Punch me now.

Fortunately the teacher is patient and remains calm even if I barrel into a turn way too fast, the tires scrub wide, and my exit is a mess of wheelspin. Most importantly, you feel he wants you to be better and gets great satisfaction when you get things right. To be honest the first few laps are ugly, probably worse than if I drove my own “natural” way. But slowly it starts to click—the lovely feeling of the car responding accurately because of that initial steering input, the extra lock midcorner allowing you to quickly get the car straight and drive out to the exit, the gentle and then assertive braking that seems to keep the car more level and more stable on corner entry. The time tumbles away. That 1:50.4 is just 0.8 second off his target lap.

After lunch he blitzes me with a new target: 1:47.8. On these tires that’s a good lap, he says. On four Michelins maybe we’d get down to 1:47.2 or even a high 1:46. The roast-beef lunch at the local pub has slowed me down, though. I do a 1:50.6, then whack a cone, then another. It feels like it’s going the wrong way. But it clicks again on the last couple of laps. My hairpin is close to perfect, I negotiate the esses with Wilson’s line (avoiding the curbs and straightening each section), and my braking and steering techniques improve so the last two corners are much sweeter.

The result is 1.48.7 despite one mistake coming onto the crucial back straight. “Fantastic. You have the speed,” he says flatteringly. “It’s not about making you faster. It’s about making you do the right things. Now you can see the progression … how you could get to a low 1:47. You’re on the road from being somebody who can drive a race car to a racing driver. There’s a difference.”

“Some of the Indy teams have what they call the ‘Rob Matrix’ in new telemetry programs,” he tells me between long drags on his beloved Marlboros.

I’m elated and leave full of anecdotes and advice. Rob Wilson is a fascinating guy, and the truly amazing thing is, in a digital world of telemetry, his techniques have become even more important. He looks at what’s between the telemetry traces shown on computer screens and is now working with engineers from BMW’s DTM team, Porsche’s WEC guys, and pretty much every F1 team to help them understand what those squiggly lines can’t show them. “Now [that the engineers have been here], they can feel this stuff and apply that knowledge to what they’re seeing on the telemetry,” he confirms. “All of them are [now] trying to measure that first 5 percent, the rate of weight transfer. Some of the Indy teams have what they call the ‘Rob Matrix’ in new telemetry programs,” he tells me between long drags on his beloved Marlboros.

I can’t leave without asking him who he thinks is the best of the best. “I love Kimi,” he says. “He’s maybe the one guy I’m biased toward.” Wilson spent a lot of time with Räikkönen in his early days and has huge affection for him. OK, so who’s second? “I never coached Mansell until after he’d won the F1 title and just before he started racing in the U.S. But when I did, I couldn’t believe his finesse, his understanding of the surface. Totally at odds with his reputation for being a real beast in the car.” And third? “Everybody’s third, Jethro. That’s the point. Everybody’s third.”

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