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Post by Jacob Fredriksson on Jan 19, 2021 11:45:45 GMT
Well since I talked about the car before, here we go: Penske PC27 1998:  Not to toot my own horn, but this weekend I had a very interesting conversation with Mathias Jönsson, Penske's chief mechanic for the last 21 years, about this car on my podcast. Other than Roger Penske's own 1955 Mercedes gull-wing, he said this Penske is his all-time favorite car to work on. It was far ahead of the competition in regards of craftmanship and engineering, but the problem was it was too perfect. It would only work as intended in clean air, in traffic all the calculations about it's performance was thrown out of the window. And the Mercedes engine and Goodyear tyres ensured that it would never get out of traffic, meaning it would never work as intended. And altough we didn't mention Unser's personal issues, Mathias agreed on that he wasn't as good as he had been earlier in his career. We also spoke about Fontana 2000, and that rocketship of a qualifying engine Honda had produced. Mathias said it didn't work as intended in practice, it only ran on 7 cylinders, so they had to fit it with some standard parts to get it to run cleanly. Safe to say, they made the engine go, around 1100bhp it produced in qualifying to reach over 400kph on Gil de Ferran's pole lap. As I said, this conversation was for my podcast, "Indypodden", but it's all in Swedish.  The whole interview was about 90 minutes long, and it was great fun to speak with "Matt Jonson" on his career in Indycar. and here's the impossibly good 2002 Ferrari:  |
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Post by Jason White on Jan 19, 2021 15:19:53 GMT
2003 Lola B03/00  |
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Post by Richard Coxon on Jan 19, 2021 15:22:42 GMT
Another fine Sheffield export in Justin Wilson.
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Post by Michael Drechsler on Jan 25, 2021 15:58:27 GMT
2004 Ferrari F2004. One of the finest F1 cars ever.
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Post by Michael Drechsler on Jan 29, 2021 19:00:24 GMT
By the mid 2000s, its getting increasingly difficult to find original open wheelers, as most series already switched to spec racing or are on the verge of doing so, with F1 soon being the only remaining series racing different chassis and allowing more or less free development. So, its either F1 cars for the remainder of the thread, or some new generation of spec car introduced. I go for the later this time, as I did with F3000, because the aforementioned was replaced in 2005 by GP2 series, racing the Dallara GP2/05-Mecachrome |
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Post by Jacob Fredriksson on Jan 30, 2021 8:42:20 GMT
The first championship winner of the new 2.4 V8 regulations: the Renault R26.  |
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Post by Michael Drechsler on Feb 12, 2021 16:11:38 GMT
2007 Panoz DP01. Last car to be used in the Champ Car World Series, before the series became absorbed by the IRL |
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Post by Alberto Ibañez on Feb 12, 2021 16:25:24 GMT
2008 was probably the year when F1 started looking like Star Trek and the aero add-ons went completely nuts. One of the most extreme cases, this Renault:  |
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Post by Michael Drechsler on Feb 12, 2021 17:47:58 GMT
2009 Brawn GP, a Honda with an Mercedes engine after Honda pulled the plug. With the famed double diffusor
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Post by Michael Drechsler on Feb 15, 2021 18:09:41 GMT
2010 Red Bull RB6-Renault
First of four consecutive titles for Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull Racing. High rake aero concept, blown diffusor, bending wings... Check the mirror supports! Some teams used a F-duct during the season. Total spaceships. According to Adrian Newey, the RB6 was probably the F1-car with the highest downforce numbers ever.
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The whole interview was about 90 minutes long, and it was great fun to speak with "Matt Jonson" on his career in Indycar.
