Blue Falcon

Formula 1 Racing

Ah yes so the newest season of Formula One has now begun. (And by begun I really mean three months in, thats just how slow I seem to be as of late at writing on these things). But yes, once again, I will cheer valiantly for our lone canadian driver Jaques Villeneuve, with his Sauber-BMW car.

Its not so much the racing aspect that attracts me to this sport ( but dont get me wrong i dont mind watching the races) however, its more the cars themselves. These cars seem more like planes then automobiles. These vehicles can travel at speeds close to 360 kph (100m/s). To give you an idea of how fast that is, that is the equivalent of drving the distance of a soccer pitch in just 1 second! In fact, the engines used in these cars are pushed SO hard (17,000 rpm on idle, compared to an average car at 6000 rpm at full throttle) that formula one teams never (or VERY rarely) re-use an engine more than once simply because at the end of a race, all the components are almost worn to peices.

Then there are the wings on the car. These wings allow the car to stay on the ground at such high speeds by creating grip. The average car creates 0.7-o.8 g's of grip. These wings allow the cars to possess 5 g's or higher or grip without losing control. What that means is that, these cars can take corners at close to 100 kph!

I really envy the drivers who get to operate these cars. They get the thrill of their lives everytime they get into the car and drive (and get paid rather well actually). Also, the engineers that design these cars have on of the greatest jobs on the planet, designing something that can not only drive at blistering speeds, but also handle and compete against other similar cars!

I would love to be one of those engineers one day. Until then however:

This is Falcon, sigining off.

posted by Blue Falcon @ 5:45 PM