Member Info for Richard365054

3300, the only time I recently heard him was on the motorbike show talking with Henry Cole. I'm no judge of bikes and will leave that to you. The loveliest Aston in the last 20 years, in my opinion, was the DB9 which was an Ian Callum design. Sort of explains why the Jaguar XK had very similar lines. I still love the previous Vantage which was a Fiske design but obviously leant heavily towards the DB9 for inspiration.
Haven't heard from MFGX recently.

That's a bit controversial about Marek, 3300. But I know where you're coming from. Incidentally, I don't know if you remember the Allegro when it first appeared. It had what was called a quartic steering wheel.

They appear to have invented proper round steering wheels.

Hamilton hasn't been in any rush and has been quite happy to add to some little rumours about retiring. He knows he's in the driving seat and can pretty well write his own salary. There's no one to touch him short of Verstappen being lifted from Red Bull.

There was "rumour" back in September that Ineos were to buy Mercedes F1 but it seems this was speculation and nothing developed. It appears Wolff won't maintain his current role with the team and move somewhere upstairs and Hamilton in no way would walk away from the car which will give him the best chance of an 8th title.

Andy Cowell is still the interesting one to me and hopefully there'll be some news in the next few weeks.

It's interesting how BMW and Audi are leaving Formula E at the end of 2021 with Audi heading back to Le Mans. I only wish the Valkyrie was still in the mix.

I could certainly do that, TinyPie. I could even rebadge my minis.

Do you think they do a north of England collection for the not so wealthy!

Dunnie, can't you put the knives away. You don't miss an opportunity and I reckon most people are heartily sick of this.

November!!

We should have UK registration numbers for December pretty quickly.

Paul, I suppose paddle shift gearboxes and carbon ceramics come to light as the most memorable pieces of technology to filter down from F1 to road cars. I remember at the very beginning of paddle shift technology, Our Nigel was debuting the Ferrari with this new tech. It had been troublesome but unreliable but in the first race of the season he was leading when it malfunctioned. He screamed into the pits, threw his old steering wheel away, popped on a new one and won the race! I don't think they had pit limiters in those days and in a later race he engaged the clutch with the car still on the jacks and when the spinning wheels touched the tarmac the half shafts promptly snapped.

The first hybrid also debuted in F1 with about a 7 second usage per lap. The driver could choose where he deployed it.

Andy Cowell will be an interesting one to watch. I had half wondered if the AML V6 would be canned when Stroll took over, but CarsCoffee says he has heard what he thinks are V6s pounding round Silverstone and this of course is the engine slated for the Valhallah and Vanquish. The other point of interest are the new engine regs for 2025 or 2026 in F1. Is Cowell preparing for his new base to become involved in this. I think his MB connection officially ends at the end of this month, so not long to wait.

It was the combination of all factors coming together that occurred yesterday and also allowed the miracle escape. I still don't know how Grosjean got out, let alone relatively uninjured. You just don't expect a fat F1 car to pierce a barrier when the gap between the horizontal steels is so small. It must have been a one in a million accident for the intact ****pit cell to penetrate and the rear of the car to completely break away. The higher weights of todays' cars doesn't help as the inertia is much greater. But the sheer strength of the carbon tub around the driver saved it from breaking and instead the rear end with fuel tank and engine broke away. I bet Grosjean is a religious man and I don't mean that in a humorous way.

The more you look at yesterday's race the more you realise there was an extremely lucky escape for Grosjean. Lucky for F1 as well since the implications of a fatality would have been enormous. Comparable accidents that come to mind are Cevert and Rindt, plus Zanardi many years later. It's highly unusual to have a fuel fire but it does rather show the tremendous inertia involved in the Grosjean accident - sufficient to rip a car in half.

I've never seen a single seat race car penetrate Armco and a driver survive. Thank goodness for the halo as the outcome would have been different without it. You can't help but conclude that TecPro will have to be used along all parts of an F1 track, not just corners.

I was also looking at car weights. With full fuel today's F1 car starts a race at around 850 kilos. In the early 70s and even mid 90s the weight of an F1 car without fuel and driver was sometimes as low as 500 kilos. They have grown fat and heavy today which means they carry an awful lot of inertia.

Thank goodness we had a happy outcome.

Pack in the childish performance Crank. If you have nothing original to say and persist in your weekend performance I'll happily report you for disruptive postings on this BB. You've had your fun and you can go elsewhere if you just want to repeat your meaningless utterings.

Come on Kettle, don't stir things again. There's been significant unpleasantries on this BB and we're far better without it. If we are civil we learn and benefit far more.

3300, good morning. Now you've got me wondering.....................

The photo of Prince Charles in his Aston refers to a DB5 Volante when in fact it is a DB6 Volante. I remember a series of photos when he was married to Diana and he was playing polo one day. Diana was with friends and perching herself half on and off the Aston. Charles noticed and came straight across, quite angrily and told her not to lean on the aluminium bodywork. The things you remember!

That's a sweeping statement as for a lot of people it's a major way of socialising. Human beings are at their best when they interact and a major consequence of technology is that so many people are becoming couch potatoes. Purchasing pretty near everything on line minimises the need for contact and exercise. One day, at the rate we are going, we'll take pills as meal substitutes.

Came across 2 No DBX on Piston Heads, both for £190,000. Don't know what the spec was but well above list.

MFGX, it's tricky to find the breakdown re ownership of the Mercedes F1 team. Toto owns/owned 30% and Lauda did own 10%. Ineos were looking to buy 60% to 70% but now are sponsors with a strategic partnership. Do they own a percentage? They obviously will know what Mercedes intend with their F1 team and obviously are comfortable with the details. But no news on Wolff or Cowell and only 6 weeks to year end.