F1 Grand Prix of Brazil

Practice today in Brazil for Formula 1 cars found them in heavy rain. A tough time for professional drivers since the open wheel designs means no fenders and enormous rooster tails of water spray off the track in their hand cut rain tires. There's a 50% chance of rain for Saturday's qualifying and Sunday's race. Rain is very troublesome, since grip on a wet surface is minimal and speeds are lower, crashes more frequent and I don't watch racing to see crashes. That's for Nascar fans. I love the engineering, the strategy and precision of the drivers, the crews doing tire changes on all 4 wheels in 2.7 seconds or changing the front nose and wing assembly in 3.1 seconds. Its amazing. And I love it.

Formula 1 racing is a truly advanced technology sport, and discoveries perfected for racing eventually find their way into the cars we all drive on the road. Fuel Injection, aerodynamics, the inverted wings to add down-force and improve high speed cornering, tire compounds and steel belts all came from racing. Weight distribution and differentials, double wishbone suspension, even power disc brakes came from racing. Yes, the engine needs teardown after the race, but I will point out that 24 Hours At Lemans uses the more durable materials and tolerances to run an engine for a full day, at speed, and their tech starts in F1 and works its way down to us.

I'd like to show you a clip of the rain there, but nothing on YouTube yet. This is the last Grand Prix of the season and after this I'll be waiting months for 24 Hours at Daytona and possibly American Le Mans, which should have Mark Webber, who is retiring from F1 this year. His teammate Vettel is largely unbeatable, mostly because he's very very good, very smooth on his corners and throttle control. That's what you need to win. Webber makes more mistakes and has had some bad car issues, alternator failing, suspension parts breaking, and some crashes. Its been a tough season for the guy. I hope he does well in American Le Mans. Its an interesting race series and I really should follow it more closely. Watching a 6-24 hour race is asking a bit much, however.

Update Saturday November 23rd.
Heavy rains in qualifying are having a huge impact on times and its really jumbling up the race order based on when the cars go out, as slight improvement in dryness or following behind another car dries the track beneath it just enough to get a better time in successive laps... and then it rains some more, and not the same amount in all parts of the track, either. Interlagos is in Sao Paolo, and is a hilly course, which affects where the rain falls and how much. They are showing this race on Sunday on NBC at 11 AM Eastern Standard Time, so 8 AM Pacific. I'm looking forward to it, even if its really wet. Because that's driving skill too. Maybe Vettel won't win?