We are the Champions! We are the champions!

That was Fernando Alonso singing on his radio at the end of the race in China today. A very exciting race that saw Renault securing the constructor championship (its 1^st one as a team) 2 races after Fernando was crowned world champion himself! What a year for Fernando and Renault (which has been racing since 1899!).

A spanish driver winning on a French car; now that's Europe!

Congratulation to Renault and Vive la France!

Posted at 01:09AM Oct 16, 2005 by Hubert Le Van Gong in Formula 1 - Rally... | Comments[0]

The San Jose Grand Prix

Last Sunday we had the chance to host one of the Champ car races here in San Jose. The public came in force (over 150,000 for this 3 days event) and so did I: I took both my sons so they could experience a bit of the excitement of car racing as opposed to watch Formula 1 on TV. And boy! Did we get thrilled; we were along the fence and got to watch the cars zooming past us at about 150mph!

An interesting thing I noticed is that these cars are much less noisier than F1 cars. In fact the big difference is that F1 cars are a lot more in the high pitch range. I'm sure the main reasons is that an F1 engine will revve up to 19,000 rpm when a champ car will merely achieve 12,000 rpm. Also F1 is using V10 (at least for this year) not V8.

I had taken my D70 (digital SLR from Nikon) to play with and tried to capture some of these cars: not and easy task! Here are some of the pictures I took. Click on these thumbnails to get a bigger image.

Posted at 12:26AM Aug 03, 2005 by Hubert Le Van Gong in Formula 1 - Rally... | Comments[2]

Debacle

Oh Boy!!

What a sad Sunday it was for F1, especially for its future in the States.

Michelin blew it coming with a tire that was unfit for the banked corner of the U.S. Grand Prix (Indianapolis). 7 teams (out of 10!) were basically told their cars' left rear tire would most likely not hold together for the 73 laps of the Grand Prix.

Since you don't want your pilots to end up in the wall at about 130 mph and since you cannot change tires during the race (especially when you don't know when the blowup can happen) they tried (with Michelin) to negotiate with the FIA some alternatives (installing a chicane , using a different tire...). Because of a mix of stubbornness and political motives from both the FIA and the teams no agreement could be made and the teams withdrew from the race, leaving 6 cars on the track (with M. Schumacher obtaining his 1^st victory of the year!).

Shame – shame – shame, most of all for the 130,000+ fans that paid for that (ticket + travel...). What a contrast with Friday when it was all about Scott Speed (1^st American pilot since 10 years now – only test pilot though) and the boom of F1 in the U.S.

Oh well, I guess we can only try to laugh about it. For this you HAVE to read this hilarious piece from Tim here.

Posted at 06:06PM Jun 21, 2005 by Hubert Le Van Gong in Formula 1 - Rally... | Comments[0]

What a week-end!

The 24 hours du Mans are approaching! I don't know if it'll be broadcast here in the US (I hope Speed will oblige) but I sure hope so because it is going to be a fierce battle between the Audis, the Pescarolo team, the Ferraris and the 2 vipers.

Interestingly this year, Sébatien Lœb will be racing in the 24 hours too. For those not following Rally, Sébastien is the 2004 WRC Champion and it looks like he might also be the 2005 champion. This guy is amazing, the way he crushes his opponents, just like M. Schumacher does (or should I say did...) is astonishing. I read once that a F1 pilot (I think it was Hakkinen) sat in a rally car (as a passenger) and was given a demo: he was amazed and a bit scared at what these guys can do on any type of roads. It'll be interesting to see how he does.

Anyway so between the 24 hours and the Indianapolis Grand Prix my Tivo box is going to be pretty busy this week end!

Posted at 04:45PM Jun 15, 2005 by Hubert Le Van Gong in Formula 1 - Rally... | Comments[0]

2 nice week-ends

Wow so the last 2 week-ends were pretty exciting for Formula 1 fans.
2 week-ends ago Kimi Raikkonen claimed his 2nd victory of the season with Alonso being a distant second. It really is amazing what the team have to deal with when racing in Monaco: specific top front wish bones, a new diffuser, new front/rear wing and specific tuning for the suspension to get more lock around the Grand hotel hairpin (the tightest corner of all races). And with all that you have cars achieving over a 100mph on a lap...
What is really interesting is that throughout the recent years the FIA has desperately tried to slow the cars down. But in 1998 a lap in Monaco was completed in about 1min23s. This year the pole was in the 1min13s.
Finally, the race at the Nurburgring last Sunday saw Kimi Raikkonen losing on the last lap after his suspension collapsed: a huge flatspot on his right front tire caused way too much stress on it. Alonso was just behind and claimed his 4th victory; he is now leading the championship by 32 points. It's going to be hard to catch up with the Renault driver.

Posted at 11:02PM Jun 01, 2005 by Hubert Le Van Gong in Formula 1 - Rally... | Comments[0]

C'est la vie !