F you Bernie! from the USA

[SZ]

relax, ray.

it's only the fanboys that pull it over yank v8's becuase they're yank v8's. i don't know any powertrain engineer that has a fundamental problem with them.

(and pick another example... we aussies are too proud of "our" GTO ).

and NASCAR isn't as technical in F1. that's just a reflection of the engineering involved. to be fair they're both far more complex than anything a racing fan on a very good sim will ever realise, and i'm yet to meet a southern american that can (or needs to) reassemble a carb.

that aside...

were i you, i'd take a nice letterhead

splice in your second last paragraph

and send copies to anyone important in the FIA... it about sums up the essence of the situation.

[vyselegend]

Second point, about the holy thing you all pray as a God: overtaking..............

How do you want to feel lucky when you pic a four-leaf clover, if 3/4 of clovers have four leaves...

That's exactly what I was talking about!

Amazing avatar, btw (credits to MC?)

Yes, it's Manchild's work

About the overtaking thing, I think it's more about the point system (like you and SZ say) than aero rules. FIA must raise the interest of passing for the driver, not the easyness of it! that was the point I tried to underline. But the lack of overtaking isn't probably the only thing ampering F1's developpement in USA, and I agree the old "east Gp" and "west GP" system was good, given the space of the USA, it's very hard to ask some americans to travel thousands of miles to go to their home GP. It's like if I had to fly over Russia to go to the french GP!

[enkidu]

This is something the US lacks!!! I drive a 2.0L 4 cylinder car here which produces 300BHP at the fly, the cars not special or expensive its just been tuned 0-62 in 5 seconds(FWD) and top speed is 160 mph, gearing issues lol. In the us you'd need a 5L V8 to even get close to that performance. This is what F1 is all about technology..............

That's not exactly true. You are more than likely comparing a FWD car to a bigger, heavier RWD car. Plus you forget that an engine that size makes almost no torque whatsoever compared to the bigger engine, AND you have to wind that thing WAY up to get anything out of it without forced induction of some kind. So compare apples to apples and not that 4 cylinder fanboy argument of 100HP per litre crap. Horsepower per litre doesn't mean jack if you make 170lbft of torque compared to my 450. I'll race you in a fat GTO any day and smoke any four cylinder whatever. Don't forget that a WORLDWIDE motorsports council voted that the LS7.R was the best engine in the world in 2007. To use the parlance on this site and most Europeans, it's an "archaic, old, outdated cam in block V8."

It makes 330Ft/Lb torque at 3k RPM..... and just shy of 300bhp at 6krpm. If you noticed my above post I said it was a cheap car. Its a vauxhall astra Gsi...... GTO is in a different league... It is a turbo BTW

So all the extra weight of a under performing massive engine is going to slow you in the corners and the straights....

[Ray]

It makes 330Ft/Lb torque at 3k RPM..... and just shy of 300bhp at 6krpm. If you noticed my above post I said it was a cheap car. Its a vauxhall astra Gsi...... GTO is in a different league... It is a turbo BTW

So all the extra weight of a under performing massive engine is going to slow you in the corners and the straights....

Again, apples to oranges. You are, like every other 4 cylinder fanboy are comparing unequal things, stock to modifed. A turbo vs. a N/A engine isn't an equal comparison. To say underperforming isn't even relevant. Underperforming would mean it isn't working to the design criteria. So go ahead, make your arguments about how good that motor is widly modified, I'll enjoy my archaic insanely powerful V8s.

[Ciro Pabón]

I wrote something boring and long about how F1 and NASCAR represent two worlds, now officially divorced, but Mr. Ecclestone, always the same brilliant mind, took the headlines before I had a chance. So, it's your loss.

Anyway, in view of the discussion, as always, becoming a long tirade about what's better, if american oversized cars or europeans undersized cars, I give you a repost.

You Might Be A Ricer If…

If it takes you 8000rpm to reach 30mph from a dead stop at WOT.
You have more exhaust decibels than your engine has horsepower.
Your engine makes twice as much horsepower as torque.
You sound like you're going 90, but you're creeping past 25
You can reach back and defrost the rear window by hand
You put your automatic car in neutral at every stoplight in order to roll it back and try to fool other people into thinking you have a manual transmission
A chameleon lizard undergoes fewer shade changes than your custom paint scheme.
Your rims and tires are so large, that you have to install the tire / wheel from underneath the car because it simply won't fit in the wheel well going in from the side.
The dealer laughs when you bring your car back in for service under warranty, and you've only had it 6 months...
You push your car through the staging lanes. That way, maybe you can break into the 16s by keeping the motor cool between runs.
You add a super tall rear wing, and a hundred pounds of aftermarket ground effects, neon and stereo yet you gut the interior and yank out the rear seat for weight savings.
Your rear wing AND your rear window have a third mount brake light...
You cut 4 coil springs and scrape the chassis on the ground and then you have to find a way to drive AROUND speed bumps in a parking lot.
You install clear corner and brake lights.
You install colored bulbs in your aftermarket clear lenses.
You ever put neon on the bottom of your car, and then busted it on the first speed bump you went over.
If your rear spoiler is taller then you are.
You have more stereo WATTS than engine TORQUE!
Your tailpipe extension fell off during a quarter mile race and you went three tenths of a second faster due to weight savings.
EVERY car in your class has a turbo pushing double digits worth of boost.
You spent $5,000 on the engine and you can not out run a stock Camaro, Firebird, or Mustang
You want the 'wastegate' sound, but don't want to install a turbocharger system.
You think Nitrous Oxide on your Hyundai Sonata puts you in the same performance league as the Chevy Corvette.
The automatic version of your car runs 2 seconds slower in the 1/4mile.
You think the Del Sol is a sports car...
A torque converter does NOTHING for your car.
If you think that horsepower is far more important than torque
If you have ever claimed that switching to a cone filter has given you more than 5 HP.
If you have ever considered installing more than one set of fog / driving lights.
If you claim that the aftermarket cold air intake system you just installed doubled your horsepower or took 2 or more seconds off of your E/T.
You spent all night on the Internet trying to find a company that makes a turbocharger system for your Hyundai...
If you removed your side view mirrors and put them at the TOP of the door / window frame.
Your four cylinder has four exhaust pipes ("Hey, one for each cylinder!")
If you have stickers on your car for parts that you could not point out if asked where those parts are installed.
You think pushrods are a bad thing…
Your car has more decals than you do the quarter in seconds.
Every Honda you EVER owned, all the way back to your 1978 Accord was either a V-Tec or a TYPE-R.
You took your rear seat out and gutted your interior for weight savings but you installed 400 pounds of electronics, neon, DVD, Sony, etc. AND you never take your car to the track, anyway.
You lean your seat so far back when you are driving, that every time you hit a bump, its your back and not your butt that hurts.
If you can estimate that your car makes more than 250 HP without ever running it at the track or getting a dyno reading.
You own a "TYPE-R" Hyundai or Mazda.
You claim that polishing your intake gave you 5hp.
You own a V-TEC Hyundai or Mazda (especially a V-TEC rotary engined Mazda RX-7)
You have neon INSIDE your car or in your ENGINE compartment
You ever claimed that high gas mileage made your car superior in performance to V8s.
If you paint your drum brakes to simulate Hi-po calipers
If you have a front wing.
Clear tail lights and turn signals. They’re colored for a REASON!
You claim you lost because you missed a shift... and your car is an automatic.
The cross section of your exhaust tip is bigger than the contact patch of your tires
Your aftermarket tach is bigger than your fist
Your dad is worried cause you bought a car with less displacement than his lawnmower

[F1 Observer]

Anyway, in view of the discussion, as always, becoming a long tirade about what's better, if american oversized cars or europeans undersized cars,

There's one simple answer to that : PONTIAC (F1 Observer bows before the muscle car king)

[Spencifer_Murphy]

Its amazing how people get so agrivated about the F1 / NASCAR issue. For example, Brezzeyracer posted on the first page of this topic a retaliation to people talking down about American intelligence. And I agree with him, its not right to do so. BUT, in his post he said "I bet when silverstone gets the axe the agerage Brit IQ will drop by 30", well I'd like to point out that not everybody posting against NASCAR was a Brit, and also why not comment on the French, their IQ levels and the loss of the race at Magny-Cours? Because its not right to do so. It's that sort of silly, angry, and bigotted retort that gives people the impression that all ANSCAR fan's are stupid" Why is it when somebody bashes the States it got to be a brit doing it, and equally why is it that when somebody from the states says "I prefer NASCAR" that all of a sudden people from outside the states call them idiots?!

I cannot get into NASCAR, I find it boring, the overtaking, as prolific as it is, I don't find interesting as it doesn't seem (although it certainly is) like a special thing, nor a particualrly hard thing. I personally prefer seeing a car lunge down the inside under braking.

My girlfriends uncle like F1, but he loves NASCAR, he finds it thrilling. And neither of us talk down to eachother, call eachother stupid or the like. We listen, like mature adults, to eachother's views and agree to disagree. We get on very well btw.

Finally we must remember that if you cannot laugh about yourself, you have no right to laugh at others. If somebody says to you that NACSAR is stupid and boring because the cars just go round and round in circles bashing into eachother and the engineering is dated. Laugh about it, and in response point out (in a light hearted way) that if the engineering in NASCAR is so poor how come the car's CAN bash eachother a bit, unlike in F1 when they break after hitting a kerb too hard?! lol.

They are two completely different types of racing, like track & dirt. We cannot compare them, just like we don't try to compare Schumacher to Tommi Makkinen.

Chillout guys, this is a great forum, with obviously loads of great and varied opinions, lets just try not to let our emotions run crazy before we say something we might later forget.

[enkidu]

So the new Pontiac GTO latest spec V8 6.0 Litre. Its 400HP & 395FT/LB torque.

Not too bad, I wouldn't like to know the carbon footprint you have though. But you can't really use that as an example because most of you guys drive a 5litre V8 that produces less than 200HP....


Anyway back to topic... I'm pretty gutted they axed that race I actually quite like it but I can think of better venues IE Laguna Seca!! Then you'd see how fast F1 cars can be compared to indy

[SZ]

So the new Pontiac GTO latest spec V8 6.0 Litre. Its 400HP & 395FT/LB torque.

Not too bad, I wouldn't like to know the carbon footprint you have though. But you can't really use that as an example because most of you guys drive a 5litre V8 that produces less than 200HP....

i hate to jump on your bandwagon and off the topic, but -

there is NO direct link between engine displacement, engine power and emissions levels.

arguably some states of the US have some of the tightest exhaust emissions legislation in the world, certainly tighter than in the UK. if your vauxhall was remapped as part of 300HP, it's very likely the same technologies used to get more power out of your vauxhall started life as a piece of US emissions legislation.

manufacturers in a cost driven market will fit vehicles with the most effective emissions management strategy that meets existing legislation.

the only surefire fact here is that if you've taken your your astra far beyond its manufacturer's power figures, you're asking more of your emissions control hardware than what it was designed for.

in which case your carbon footprint over the same drive cycle would be more significant than that for a new, bog-stock 400HP GTO.

[enkidu]

Ok the Pontiac gives out 365 CO2 in g/km. My car standard gives out 214. My car is actually better on fuel now its been tuned as I get more MPG and more out of my tank so in theory it'll have lower CO2. This is down to the more efficient exhaust, intercooler and induction with optimised mapping. But of course if I tracked it running max throttle all the time then i know it would use more fuel than standard.

Besides this is not what I was on about, its the massive 2 ton cars you have with massive engines that produce silly low figures. I could come over there with my little car when it was standard and beat them round a track get better MPG and beat them over 1/4 mile.

USA needs to start using less fuel and making better more efficient cars. You can still have the performance levels if the engine is more advance to begin with. Look what honda do for instance!

And also to add ODB2 was a collaboration between europe and USA to standardise all car manufactures fault codes and emissions.... Good idea yes but I have not changed this on my car, it still does the same job as before. O2 sensor before and after the CAT.

[SZ]

Ok the Pontiac gives out 365 CO2 in g/km. My car standard gives out 214 rant etc snip

[/ rant=on]

not really interested in CO2 stats as the be all and end all of emissions regs.... there's more to exhaust emissions than CO2, which isn't regulated anywhere anyway (EU included).

not least that a car is good for what emissions regulations it needs to pass. a given emissions level from a vehicle is not a reflection of the powertrains' country of origin, the manufacturer, whatever. it's a reflection of what's legally allowed on road. if regulations degree they've all got to be under 100g/km CO2 tomorrow or they won't be sold, guess what every manufacturer will have at launch. it might take fuel additives, larger cats closer to the engine, the technical measures and development might add cost and that might have to be passed onto the consumer, but if it means selling cars or otherwise, then guess what happens.

if you have a real bitch with what a given car puts out, take it up with a government that regulates that it's OK. or maybe ask the EU why it's been years that some US states have adopted CARB regulations - and actively, progressively promoted ultra low emissions vehicles - whilst the EU has no similar initiative.

CO2 levels aside, there is NO predominant link between your fuel consumption and your exhaust emissions. for all we know you could be running leaner, running up your combustion temps and increasing NOx and CO. wildly.

your mapping was probably done through OBD2. OBD was purely US driven. it's since been adopted everywhere as the US is the world's largest automotive market. the point isn't to standardise fault codes, it was to maintain the emissions system's running, to test it where possible, to track and log faults and to provide a standardised interface for inspection. there's a hell of a lot more to it than some oxygen sensors. between 25-40% of your engine's ECU processing power is dedicated to running OBD-II compliance. US clients might not want small cars yet but their government pushed though one of the key emissions containment technologies which added cost in significant cost in development and production to every vehicle sold in effectively every market. automakers don't like being told and the lobby groups are powerful up around motor city. you can imagine it was like pushing --- up a brick wall in the US more than anywhere but it got done there before it got done anywhere else, as with many other bits of important vehicle emissions legislation that have since been adopted in part or whole the world over.

OBD-II was ratified in the US for MY96. that's over 10 years ago when the development tools and the production hardware cost a shitload. the same happened in the europe FIVE YEARS later.

and yes, just look at what honda do. there's some great points in their engines. massive specific power. catalytic converters the size of small dustbins. which is also why their engines are complicated, costly, and weigh a lot for what they do. so a small carbon footprint gets traded off for ecological costs in production, disposal and other means. you can't have it all. an s2000 engine is a prick to package FWIW; you'd be surprised how comparable in size an LS1 is. you REALLY can't have it all.

a lot of good engines and emissions technology has come out of the US, just as it has out of the EU.

your little car would not sell in the US, that's all there is to it. learn how the other side lives. may people really do believe they're safer in a SUV; using that logic if you witnessed a head on between a hummer and a hatchback it doesn't take a ph.d in physics to realise which you'd rather be in. when fuel costs what it does in the US your two+ tonnes mass is not such a cost sensitive issue. you if you can convince the average US consumer that they're better off in a small car imported or otherwise, or if you can convince the US government to peg petrol prices at current european levels, you might see demand for a different type of vehicle. this has happened where i live over the last three years particularly, with a profound effect on the local automotive industry in my country.

(which, by the way, is australia not the US. and i drive a car with a much smaller engine than yours.)

i sympathise with your intentions even if i have some misgivings about your points. you went in with some key assumptions that wouldn't impress anyone remotely interested in automotive issues stateside - not least because they're occasionally wrong.

so back on topic if your posts were to represent a european, f1-centric attitude to what's good in the automotive world with the US on the receiving end... draw your own conclusions as to how palatable that might make f1 to the "other side"....

[/ rant=off]

PS so... always argue the devil's defense before stating your own!

[Ciro Pabón]

A relevant quote, about NASCAR vs F1, by Pablo Montoya, father of JPM (I guess all the people talking about red-necks will love this one):

"This isn't so much different than the fans in Germany," Pablo said with a laugh. "The Germans drink a lot of beer, too."

There is no need for any more comments about the german fans refinement

Actually, I feel compelled to apologize to germans in this forum. I am sure Pablo was just making a joke, not like the comments Michael Schumacher and some other forum members had made about NASCAR.

Another interesting comment (ehem, forum members) about the NASCAR rednecks, by Montoya Sr.:

"They live for this," he said. "In F1 you have a lot of people who go to the races just to show themselves or have people look at them. Not too many have a good idea of what's going on.

"Here, you'll have [more than 150,000] people on Sunday and 90 percent of them know what it's all about."

[Ray]

CO2 is absorbed by trees in massive quantities. So CO2 output is a stupid point. Carbon footprint is a hippie and corrupt politicians term, they hold nothing for me and I will not reply to the absurdity that term brings. I also don't care what your car will do highly modifed or stock. It's your car. I like big loud belching V8's, and I sure as hell aren't going to be so arrogant as to say your country needs to change it's ways to match mine. The US has big cars and relatively cheap gas. So what? Should I also up the price of potato chips cause you pay more than me? You live there, I live here. I like what I like and you like what you like. Don't patronize someone for thier tastes, or preferences.

I'm glad you love your turbo 4 cylinder, it's still sounds like --- no matter what you do to it. V8's are my thing. I am impressed by the potential of 4 cylinder engines, not the cars, in alot of ways. They do make good power for thier size. There is no dispute on that at all with me, it's a fact. But the only arguments any 4 banger fanboy has is, in no particular order:(not directed at you in particular enkidu)

1. Gas mileage. So? It's a performance competition, not an efficiency competiition.
2. Hp per liter. Wow. Who cares. Torque is where it's at. And my torque is off idle to redline, not 3500 to 6800. That's where my 450 or so horses comes in. You have no torque. Plus I make torque AND horsepower. You only make horsepower.
3. DOHC vs. pushrods. Seriously this is a stupid argument. What's so special about overhead cams vs. pushrods? I have a roller cam and it works great for me. You and your five foot timing chain can stuff it.
4.VVT. You have this because you make no power or torque down low, simple as that. You have to comensate for your shortcomings somehow.
5.Turbos. That's so you can make the same amount of power as I do.


That's about all I can think of when the performance debate comes up. When you run a 14 second quater mile at 85 or 90 mph, I laugh. At your 100 HP per liter, cause it didn't get you a fast car.


But back to the topic as it started out. I wouldn't say F you to Bernie, that's quite innappropriate. We need to take a step back and see what would be the best track or locale to host an F1 race here. Don't blow the F1 world off cause they left, blow them away when they come back. Make THEM want to host a race here. Bernie knows he can do without a US GP. I think Watkins Glen would be nice, but I'm not sure if it's a good F1 'track'. It's too simple to me somehow.

[wazojugs]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sorry this thread is getting very tiresome it like being in the playground "my dad's got a ferrari estate!" silly bragging statements.

1. American large capacity engines are great and produce enough torque to make the earth turn the other way but the chassis they sit in makes mockery of that effort.

There has not been a car from over the pond that beats a European car yet and i will not be holding my breath. Sorry buts thats the way it is!

2. I would never brag about having an Astra on any forum fullstop.

Standing 1/4 with a 2.0l turbo looks a little like this
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0A1OWIE3

[wazojugs]

8.3 V10 SRT-10 4d = 500 bhp with 8.277L = 60.48 bhp per litre
Honda S2000 = 240 bhp with 2.0L = 120bhp per litre.

Sorry but i had to post it