RE: Formula One vs. NASCAR

[White Anthony <anthony.white@domain.elided>]

> In addition,if pure technology 
> was all that mattered,why do F1 cars run with grooved tires and flat 
> bottoms?

Damn, and your argument was holding together so well until that question!  I mean, NASCAR's not my thing, but I was impressed with the reasonable way you were able to defend it.  

The F1 regulations mandate flat bottoms and minimum ride height for safety reasons since Senna bought the farm.  If you recall, Senna's car had astonishing ground effects, allowing very high speeds through fast corners.  However, just before his accident, there had been a safety car period, and tyres had cooled, lowering pressures, and so fractionally lowering the ride height of the car.  If you look at footage of the accident, you can see sparks from underneath the car moments before he lost control.  Basically, the car bottomed out, consequently lost the downforce from the ground effects, and so didn't have the grip to stick to the road pulling 4g through a sweeper at 180 mph.   

Grooved tyres were regulated to lower cornering speeds, and so create racing with more passing, as were the regulations around legal aerodynamics.  This is also the reason active suspensions were outlawed, along with anti-lock brakes, traction and launch control the first time around, and then again later this year.  

F1 is no more about having the best car than it is about having the most powerful engine.  In both cases, they're important, but alone won't win a race.  It's about the best combination of a good car, a good driver, a good team, a good strategy, good decision making, good reliability and good luck.  Any one of those things goes bad, and it will loose a team a race -- as we saw last Saturday in Melbourne.  It was a fantastic race, and the weather was a far more significant factor in the way it unfolded than the new qualifying rules were.  

Regards,
Anthony.  
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