Automotive Talk--cars, fuels, motorsports, etc.

[Chernaudi]

This is pretty much our own private topic now, so I guess I have to chime in. I watched the Oz GP, and it was better than Barhain. It was a street circuit, not one of those start/stop circuits so typical of F1 nowadays, it rained, and Button reverted back to the tactics he used with Brawn/Mercedes GP last year, and it won him the race, because the tires didn't fall off like everyone expected, and he ran consistant and highly competitive times though out the race.

As for me, I'd rather watch the American Le Mans Series(ALMS) or European Le Mans Series(LMS)-proper cars on proper circuits. As for this year, here's the new Audi R15+, an updated version of the 2009 R15 to address the problems with that car at Le Mans last year. Appropreately, this is from a Dutch site: http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/car/4480 ... -plus.html

Compare to this: http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/car/4044 ... 5-TDI.html

[Chernaudi]

A pretty good video of a couple of Audi R15+ TDI racing cars doing high speed testing at Monza in Italy--And why the F! guys use that chicane that the Audis are blowing by and above all else why racing cars don't have speedomitors in them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaOLIKe5Cx8

And a couple more-the blowing of that chicane looks more impressive in the first video, but these sound more impressive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xn6a1ooEGE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytIV6fSVkX0&NR=1

I wonder what those lap times were, since with that chicane the F1 cars do 155-160mph average lap speed!

[Chernaudi]

How about this idea: Driverless cars? Standford University built a Volkswagen Toureg SUV that can drive itself with help from Volkswagen, and now there's an Audi TT that can drive itself: http://centurylink.net/news/read.php?id ... 00L1_UNEWS

[Chernaudi]

The Audi R15 TDI 2010(AKA Audi R15 Plus) got an A+ on debut at the Paul Ricard Circuit in souther France. The R15 was bullet proof and consistantly the fastest car on track during the 8 hour event, while the Peugeot 908 was slightly slower and has mechanical problems of a strange nature-an air jack failure that took 20 minutes to remedy. Audi publically admitted that they were using Paul Ricard as "a test in race conditions", but they came to win after setting fastest lap time in 2 out of 3 practice sessions and the morning warm up, and ultimately lead all but two laps and by far set the race's fastest lap.

Audi report and gallery of the beast called the Audi R15 Plus here: http://www.fourtitude.com/news/publish/ ... 5813.shtml

[marielle]

I know I'm bad.... sorry I really should post here more often...

Chernaudi, I'm sorry I haven't been able to watch all the clips you posted, mostly due to my annoying computer who thinks it has a mind for his own....but what I have seen were very interesting and fun to watch....

ok back to business.....BUTTON won today.....YAY....I had so much fun watching the F1 race today...but I'm happy they'll be moving to europe for the next race..getting out of bed early every sunday is starting to show...

[Chernaudi]

To Marielle: I think that F1 should do as Audi(and more recently Peugeot) have done and bypass the Curva Grande chicane at Monza. Maybe even race on the now decrepit banked oval that used to be part of the road course like in the movie Grand Prix. Ok, that's pushing it. After all, Audi did only bypass that chicane for striaghtline speed/high speed corning testing at Monza.

And it seems to have helped-Audi dominated the Paul Ricard 8 hours-they were fast(fastest lap was over .6 of a second faster than the Peugeot), were consistanly fast(er than the Peugeot), and with a car that hasn't had as much testing as they wanted, which shows that Audi has righted most of the R15's wrongs from last year. It's also easier on it's tires than the Peugeot.

Were you able to read the article and see the gallery I posted? And here's a short video; hopefully your computer will cooperate for 7 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxzJ4wL4cPM

That's diesel power for ya! If only F1 and NASCAR hadn't have headed down the path to becoming virtual spec series.

[Chernaudi]

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is next weekend. I'll fill in some more later if there's enough interest, or just to put it out there.

[Chernaudi]

New Audi R18 photos:

http://www.oneighturbo.com/audi/audi-r1 ... ll-livery/

Technical info:

http://www.oneighturbo.com/audi/audi-r1 ... ll-livery/