Formula 1’s official safety car driver, Bernd Maylanda, walks us through his career and the stable of safety cars he’s driven. All of the cars had been gathered with Bernd in a barn for a photo shoot for German car magazine. The line starts at the 1999 CLK55 and goes all the way to the debut of the new SLS AMG GT safety car for 2013.
Here’s some bonus footage of the current Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Wagon F1 Medical Car testing on track:
Mike Finnegan of Hot Rod Magazine takes us into the world of drag boat bracket racing. He built the 1,160 horsepower jet boat that his friend is using to compete at the highest level of the sport. The point of bracket racing is to get as close to a bogey time as possible without going too fast. Finnegan and his friend Jeff are competing in the 9 second bracket. The guys do a good job talking about what it takes to tune the engine power and water jet pressures based on the heat, humidity and water smoothness of the track. It’s something similar to drag racing cars but completely different at the same time.
The folks over at Jalopnik.com put together this chart outlining the performance statistics and construction regulations for Formula 1 race cars this year. The rules change year to year, but this is a great crash course for the uninitiated. Hopefully there are a lot of new F1 enthusiasts getting ready to watch the return of the American Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX this weekend. Click to Enlarge:
Source: Jalopnik
Bathurst is my favorite track. You literally race up and down a mountain each lap. It’s one of the marquee tracks of the Australian V8 Supercar series. Ride along with Rick Kelly as he guides around the track and then lets the car do the talking for one lap. I really wish Gran Turismo would put Bathurst in the next game.
Red Bull Racing’s Chief Technical Officer, Adrian Newey, is arguably the most innovative open wheel race car design the world has ever seen. Red Bull put him behind the wheel of two of his groundbreaking Formula 1 car designs. The first is a 1990 Leyton House March that represents the start of an era where Formula 1 cars were starting to tune front wings and underbody trays together as one aerodynamic unit. The second car that Newey drives is the Red Bull Racing RB6 that won the 2010 F1 World Championship. The RB6 represents the era of the exhaust blown rear diffuser where teams were changing engine mapping so that the exhaust from the engine was providing extra rear downforce. Newey obviously has full trust in his work as he shows what David Coulthard calls a “10 out of 10 for commitment” around Silverstone.