Bathurst meets Formula One

[goodfella]

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A sponsor fuelled car swap between McLaren's Jenson Button and V8 Supercar driver Craig Lowndes before the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix next month has finally been approved by the local council.

In a V8 Supercar, it was Lowndes who recorded the fastest ever lap at Mount Panorama, 2:06.801, late last year.

"You would be very disappointed if you couldn't go sub-2'06 in a car like that," said Lowndes.

[mikinoz]

I'm not sure how much fun an F1 car will be around Bathurst for the driver...

[Corey_R]

lol... yeah, it'd be rather scary, not many runs offs, and any run offs there are have stupid sand traps which should've been removed years ago!

[flyingfridge]

Engineers are still making sure the F1 car will be able to make it around the track unmodified, with the steep drop of The Dipper especially coming under review.

This was my first thought, I imagine the front wing at the cutting would also be an issue!

[cme2c]

How would the aerodynamics go over the bumpy crests on conrod? This killed Bevan Gibson in 1969 (in a sports car) in a similar accident to Mark Webber's at Le Mans. If that front wing gets too much air under it...

Still, I think they know what they are doing.

[ozgti]

lol... yeah, it'd be rather scary, not many runs offs, and any run offs there are have stupid sand traps which should've been removed years ago!

Why should they have removed them? What would you replace them with?

You take them away, and you get more damage as they hit the wall or tyres then have tyres bouncing across the track.. Safer? Hardly! As a street circuit, it's one of the best regarding run off and less carnage. Macau has a bottle neck that wiped out pretty much the whole field. Monaco- What runoff! With walls and tyres you get longer safety car periods and more expensive damage. Sand trap- 2 laps to extract the car. As a team owner, I'd be happy for the sand traps!

[Corey_R]

The problem with sandtraps at the end of high speed areas (such as Conrod) is that if a car doesn't go into it "straight" and stay straight, it rolls and destroys the car and puts the driver at far more danger than if it was simply an asphalt/concrete run off area with high grip painted surface - as what they have install in many F1 tracks internationally, and what has also been occurring on run off areas of high speed ovals for many years in America (replacing grass... as sand traps were always far too dangerous to consider).

A paved run off allows the driver chance to come to a graceful stop, or if no brakes, steer around onto the next portion of course, or if spinning allows them time to correct and catch it. Depending on the amount of run off area, the speeds, corner shape and barriers, a sand or gravel trap after the concrete and tyres against a wall may be appropriate still. Alternatively neither sand nor grave nor tyres and a SAFER barrier.

Where there are isn't room for sandtraps and there are tyres, the SAFER barrier is often a much better option as a car coming at a soft angle is absorbed and deflected, unlike tyres which will often "grab" the car and cause more damage than if there were no tyres - and yet the SAFER barrier will still absorb the acute angle impacts which necessitate the tyres there in the first place.

But effectively there are plenty of options to replace the sandtraps in high speed run offs, and tyres against walls where there is no run off, which are being used internationally but which haven't yet been utilised by CAMS at Australian tracks. From memory, when queried about this after the last death at Adelaide (in the Fujitsu V8 series) I believe they just sighted cost issues.

The removal of sand traps at international tracks has often been met with hestiation from competitors etc, but it has proven repeatedly to be safer AND cause less damage to the cars. How many times at Bathurst have you seen a car simply brake too late, run through a sandtrap, and destroy the front and underneath of their car, whereas if it were ashpalt painted with grip paint they could've just driven straight across, and merged back in after giving back the position? (through the Essess or the Chase for example).

Sand traps are still a cheap solution to stop cars though, maybe I should've specifically noted the one at the end of conrod as being the one which should definitely be removed due to safety.

[hooba]

Maybe Vodafone should be concentrating on fixing their network.

Just saying....

[geoff_gti]

Maybe Vodafone should be concentrating on fixing their network.

Just saying....

Damn straight! And cut all the high budget tv advertising with Samuel whats-his-name doing the voiceovers...

Still, it will be fun to watch an F1 car go round the hill Albeit sponsored by Voda internationallly not AUS though haha

[Spyda]

I will laugh if he crashes. Even if he touches the wall, in a V8 super car it would be a scratch, in an open wheel F1 it would probably cost more than the V8 supercar to fix