AUTO MANIA: by Dr. Iain Corness [email protected]

Bahrain GP this weekend

Despite on-going discontent with the ruling royal family, the Bahrain GP should be run this weekend.
The Grand Prix will be televised at 7 p.m. Sunday April 21. We will be lining up in front of the big screen at Jameson’s Irish Pub (Soi AR next to Nova Park - turn right into Soi 4 Pattaya Second Road at the Bangkok Bank and follow it round to the right and Nova Park and Jameson’s is on your left). We will be getting there around 6 p.m. and watch the dedicated F1 channel which has no adverts during the race, whilst indulging in some palate cleansing beers and the famous Jameson’s Sunday roasts. Please come and join us. By the way, the Qualifying is on the Saturday at 6 p.m. Thai time.

World’s fastest road car

Hennessey Venom GT.

Up till recently, it was accepted that the world’s fastest production road car was the Bugatti Veyron, but now there is a challenge thrown down by a small manufacturer/tuner in the USA called Hennessey.
In what is really a fairly pointless exercise, Texas tuning company, Hennessey, has claimed its Lotus-based Venom GT is now the world’s fastest production car after it recorded a top speed run of 427 km/h at a US Naval air base in California.
While Bugatti’s million-dollar Veyron Super Sport has officially recorded a top speed of 431 km/h - and is recognized by Guinness World Records as the fastest production car - this speed was recorded with the car’s 415 km/h electronic speed limiter removed and the car ran on a nine-kilometer straight section of Volkswagen’s high-speed test track.
Now here comes the semantics - company founder, John Hennessey, claims his Venom GT should claim the title as the Veyron Super Sport wasn’t in the specification available to customers.
“While a Veyron Super Sport did run 430.98 km/h, Bugatti speed-limits its production vehicles to 415 km/h. Thus, at 427.60km/h the Venom GT is the fastest production car available to the public,” said John Hennessey.
In addition, “While the 3.2 km long runway is more than enough acceleration distance for an F/A-18 fighter jet, it was far too short for the Venom GT to reach its true top speed,” added Hennessey Performance CEO, Don Goldman.
The Venom GT is no stranger to the world records holding the Guinness record for the quickest accelerating production car, with times such as 0-300 km/h in 13.63 seconds - around the same time it takes a high performance V8 to achieve half that speed.
The Venom GT is based on a Lotus Exige chassis fitted with a twin-turbo 7.0 liter V8 that produces in excess of 925 kW and, unlike the all-wheel drive Veyron, transmits the outrageous amount of power to the ground through only the rear wheels.
Hennessey plans to build a total of 29 of the carbon fiber Venom GTs - one less than Bugatti’s Veyron Super Sport edition - each costing a little more than $1.1 million. It claims that more than one-third have already been sold in the United States.
Hennessey’s position goes against the current trends from traditional hypercar brands, such as Ferrari, Lamborghini and McLaren, which have all admitted the Veyron’s top speed mark has become unbeatable, but also irrelevant. Hear! Hear!
But, saving the good news till last, John Hennessey claims that given the same length of wind-up for his Venom GT, it will break 445 km/hour.

GM say “Thank you velly much!”

GM Baojun.

General Motors report that GM and its joint venture partners set sales records in China for both March and first quarter. They sold 290,538 vehicles in March, up 12.6 percent from March last year. Shanghai GM’s March sales jumped 15.2 percent to set a March record with 126,785 vehicle sales. SAIC-GM-Wuling sales also rose 10.9 percent to 155,065 vehicles and FAW-GM’s sales rose 12.8 percent to 8,369 vehicles, both marking best-ever months.
Other GM brands did well too with Buick sales up 22.8 percent in March over the same month a year ago, while the Cadillac sales were up 32.2 percent year-on-year.
Even the minnow Wuling sales increased 13.7 percent in March to set a new monthly sales record with 148,060 sales, while sales for GM’s Baojun brand jumped 39.8 percent in March over the same month in 2012.
For the first quarter, GM’s sales in China totaled 816,373 vehicles, up 9.6 percent over the same period in 2012.

What did we learn from the Chinese GP?

Well, we learned a lot, and not all of it complimentary. In the lead up to the Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel (the precocious finger) arrogantly said he would ignore team orders again, if it gave him a chance of winning. Attempting to save face for the Red Bull management, owner Dietrich Mateschitz decreed there would be no team, orders from now on. Very shortly, that will be “no team”.
Then we had “Qualifying”, another farce brought on by the FIA asking Pirelli to produce tyres that last around five laps, so everyone sat tight and had one run only, and the Precious Finger did not set a time at all.
And it was in Qualifying that Red Bull, the three times world champs (or was that chumps) sent Webber out with insufficient fuel to even get the car home, which resulted in Webber having to start from pit lane. Brilliant!
The start was uneventful (that is nobody crashed into anyone), but after lap two when the silly DRS zones were enabled, this allowed Alonso (Ferrari) to pass Hamilton (Mercedes) and the farce then continued as the majority of the front runners pitted by lap six as their tyres were in shreds. Brilliant, FIA. Six lap tyres which had to be nursed by the drivers to even go that far.
The world chumps then excelled themselves changing Webber’s tyres, but forgetting to fasten the right rear which detached itself from the rear axle and ensured that Webber would get no points. No team orders needed?
After the tyre roulette, and the double DRS zones making it ridiculously easy for drivers to pass, it was Alonso, who had driven with his head, who romped home for the win, followed by Kimi Raikkonen (“Lotus”) and early leader Hamilton (Mercedes) in third. Precious Finger followed close behind in fourth after stopping for new tyres (yet again) six laps from home.
Webber’s woes continued, the racing incident with Jean-Eric Vergne has resulted in Webber getting a pro-active three grid spot penalty for the next race in Bahrain.
The final points scorers did well, under the ludicrous circumstances, with Button (McLaren), Massa (Ferrari), Ricciardo (Toro Rosso), Di Resta (Force India), Grosjean (“Lotus”) in that order and finally in 10th, Hulkenberg (Sauber).
In their bid to make the racing more exciting for the spectators, the FIA with its interminable meddling, has reduced F1 to the lowest possible denominator. Drivers cannot give Qualifying their all, as they will run short of tyres for the race. Drivers cannot ‘race’ any more as they have to conserve the tyres during the race. And in addition, all drivers have to use both grades of tyre in the race, so you see drivers pitting to change into the soft tyres five laps from the end, even though they could have continued for many more laps on the harder compound.
But the FIA stewards did not stop there. When there is a yellow (caution) flag displayed, drivers are not allowed to open up their rear wing in the DRS zone. Eight drivers were named by the headmaster to be kept in after class and ‘please explain’. Turned out that an FIA signal green light was shown in the DRS zone, so the class was dismissed. Pathetic.
Quite frankly, F1 needs the FIA to but out, let drivers use as many tyres as they want, Pirelli to produce tyres that will last the race distance and get rid of DRS. Let the ‘real’ racing begin!

Team Orders

With the recent situation where Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) ignored the team orders, I thought I should bring you up to date over this contentious item.
Team orders is not something new. Team Orders have existed in motor sport for decades. Some of the famous motor racing heroes have owed their world driver’s championship titles to team orders.
In 1956, Peter Collins was on the verge of becoming Britain’s first F1 World Champion when he handed his Lancia-Ferrari D50 over to team leader Juan Manuel Fangio, which resulted in Fangio winning the Drivers championship that year. Team orders of an extreme type.
These days, mentioning ‘team orders’ in a group of western race enthusiasts will produce an instant response, with memories of Barichello moving aside to let Michael Schumacher through to win in 2002, and then Schumacher inviting Barichello to take the top step of the podium, to be later fined one million dollars for upsetting the order on the podium! The fine was not for the team orders.
In the 1997 Japanese Grand Prix there was a more sophisticated use of team orders, where Ferrari No 2 Eddie Irvine began the race light on fuel, allowing him to get ahead of the superior Williams-Renault cars and hold them up, to the benefit of Ferrari No 1 Michael Schumacher.
In 2007, Felipe Massa was guilty of allowing Kimi Raikkonen to overtake and win with team orders. In Red Bull, Mark Webber was told not to overtake Sebastian (the finger) Vettel at Silverstone.
Harken back to Barichello, Massa and Webber. The motoring media was in a frenzy, and it was put forward that the reason for the frenzy was because the FIA rules forbade the practice of team orders. This directive had come subsequently after the 2002 season, and read, “Team Orders that could influence the outcome of a race” were banned in F1 regulations.
However, this in turn brought out the inventive nature of human beings. Messages such as “Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understand that message?” being given to Massa, obviously being an attempt at a “code”, but not a code of conduct! Even more secret codes began to be used. Instructions to turn down engines, or to save fuel became the way to continue the practice of team orders.
So what could be done about it? Was there a way the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) could police this? The simple answer was again, no. The FIA, an organization that has rarely covered itself in glory, then responded by lifting the ban on team orders. However, “Team orders” is considered a form of cheating in the West, and every society frowns on cheating.
So, should we ban team orders again? Or just learn to live with it? The answer is not difficult. The policing of a ban on team orders is really quite impossible to do. There will always be ways around the problem, so the motor racing fraternity should just continue, as it has done for decades, allowing the team to decide just who finishes where. Remembering that for the team, the Constructor’s championship is more important financially than the Drivers championship.

Autotrivia Quiz

Last week I mentioned that a particular car had a V12 engine with Traction Avant. It was French, and I asked what was it? No, it was not a Citroen, but a Bucciali TAV.
So to this week. What famous engine was designed by three firefighters in WW II?
For the Automania free beer this week, be the first correct answer to email [email protected].