USF1 -- F1's All-American Challenger

[WhiteBlue]

Martin Brundle spoke about the new teams. You can listen to his words from 7:30 in this youtube clip.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-WEtD94vFM[/youtube]

I agree with Martin that the story behind the new teams will be incredible and it will be fantastic to watch F1 grow instead of a steady stream of failures of teams such as Super Aguri whom I miss more than I do Toyota.

I just hope that the second part of the plan will also work out and that cost/resource capping will be followed by more technical freedom once the first part is achieved.

From the new teams USF1 is a particularly interesting case. They will make and do things in a different way which will bring diversity to F1. I hope they will be around for a long time. We just lost one F1 factory outside of England and USF1 would be a good replacement. If they succeed other countries may in the end make attempts at fielding F1 teams as Italy and Switzerland do. I see no reason why F1 factories cannot be in Japan, India, Malaysia, Dubai, USA or Spain.

[xpensive]

My point was that with USF1, Anderson has simply recycled an old concept, which he tried in 2002 as "USIRL".
Said effort ended at just about this stage, with a finished chassis which never saw an installed engine or a test-track.

[christopher.mahlon]

Can you please refrain from double-posting WB, it is most annoying, but I have noticed that you do this sometimes?

Anyway, my point was that with USF1, Anderson has simply recycled an old concept, which he tried in 2002 as "USIRL".
Said effort ended at just about this stage, with a finished chassis which never saw an installed engine or a test-track.

If I remember correctly, calling it USIRL wasn't really a selling point of the car; ie, the designers didn't stress that. This was something that the AOW press picked up on, because the whole reason Tony George started the IRL was to benefit Americans-- American drivers, Americans mechanics, etc. It was egg on the face of the series that one car was designed in Italy and the other in England. Once Panoz acquired the assets of G-Force the chassis was rebranded and built in Georgia (I think), but it was a big deal for the press that the Falcon chassis was an American creation. This is something that American Open Wheel fans and reporters have long been concerned about; the cars race on tracks in the United States but most of the crews, cars, and drivers aren't American. It makes it harder to fully embrace the concept for a lot of folks.

Again, like I said, there's a lot more to this story than simple failure, and it is hardly the only car to fail to catch on in IRL. Heck, the Panoz only had about three real seasons before everyone abandoned it. Conspiracy theories abound with this car, just go trawl an IRL message board...

[Roger the knife]

The composite work on the Falcon IRL project, was mostly done by contractors from the UK, and apparently the main reason for the failure of the project was that the chassis didn't conform to the rules by quite a large margin, not just an 1/8" here and there, but substantial discrepancies. I think this is why so many have doubts about the credibility of Ken Anderson..

[spacepig]

apparently the main reason for the failure of the project was that the chassis didn't conform to the rules by quite a large margin, not just an 1/8" here and there, but substantial discrepancies.

Sort of true. The Falcon exploited a couple of large loopholes in the poorly written IRL tech rules. The main one was the definition of the front bulkhead shape. The intent of the rules was to have a flat bottom and sides, and allow a fully radiused top (see a 95 Reynard for an example). But the rules never specified an orientation for that shape, so the Falcon flipped it upside down, giving the car a nice fully radiused underside (exactly like the RB5). You can see all this in the pictures that came out after the launch.

The other loophole was that the original 2003 rules didn't specify a maximum length for the car, so they ran the nose way out in front. That allowed the nose to be higher, got the front wing away from the wheels, and allowed it to run at a shallower angle to balance the mandated rear wing.

The IRL apparently took a dim view of the bulkhead shape interpretation, but by then it didn't matter much. The money was gone and the engine manufacturers had decreed that they would not allow their teams to run anything other than a G Force or Dallara (they didn't want to spend more money supporting a wind tunnel program for yet another car).

[xpensive]

Sort of true. The Falcon exploited a couple of large loopholes in the poorly written IRL tech rules.

Makes you wonder who wrote the IRL Technical rules, doesn't it? Xcerpt from Anderson's CV on the USF1 website;

1995 – 1996: Defined IRL chassis rules;

[spacepig]

Nice try, but that was round 1 of the rules. The IRL's crack technical staff (Les McTaggart) had redone them twice by 2003.

[christopher.mahlon]

"Crack" technical staff, it should be emphasized. yeesh...

The best things to come out of American Open Wheel in the past fifteen years have been safety improvements. Actually making interesting racing cars? Not so much.

[christopher.mahlon]

Sort of true. The Falcon exploited a couple of large loopholes in the poorly written IRL tech rules. The main one was the definition of the front bulkhead shape. The intent of the rules was to have a flat bottom and sides, and allow a fully radiused top (see a 95 Reynard for an example). But the rules never specified an orientation for that shape, so the Falcon flipped it upside down, giving the car a nice fully radiused underside (exactly like the RB5). You can see all this in the pictures that came out after the launch.

The other loophole was that the original 2003 rules didn't specify a maximum length for the car, so they ran the nose way out in front. That allowed the nose to be higher, got the front wing away from the wheels, and allowed it to run at a shallower angle to balance the mandated rear wing.

So... kinda like exploiting diffuser rules?

[Roger the knife]

Sort of true. The Falcon exploited a couple of large loopholes in the poorly written IRL tech rules. The main one was the definition of the front bulkhead shape. The intent of the rules was to have a flat bottom and sides, and allow a fully radiused top (see a 95 Reynard for an example). But the rules never specified an orientation for that shape, so the Falcon flipped it upside down, giving the car a nice fully radiused underside (exactly like the RB5). You can see all this in the pictures that came out after the launch.

The other loophole was that the original 2003 rules didn't specify a maximum length for the car, so they ran the nose way out in front. That allowed the nose to be higher, got the front wing away from the wheels, and allowed it to run at a shallower angle to balance the mandated rear wing.

So... kinda like exploiting diffuser rules?

Except IRL had the sense to say "No"

[FW17]

Sort of true. The Falcon exploited a couple of large loopholes in the poorly written IRL tech rules. The main one was the definition of the front bulkhead shape. The intent of the rules was to have a flat bottom and sides, and allow a fully radiused top (see a 95 Reynard for an example). But the rules never specified an orientation for that shape, so the Falcon flipped it upside down, giving the car a nice fully radiused underside (exactly like the RB5). You can see all this in the pictures that came out after the launch.

The other loophole was that the original 2003 rules didn't specify a maximum length for the car, so they ran the nose way out in front. That allowed the nose to be higher, got the front wing away from the wheels, and allowed it to run at a shallower angle to balance the mandated rear wing.

So... kinda like exploiting diffuser rules?

Except IRL had the sense to say "No"

Falcon was nothing more than a ploy to keep Roger Penske from building his own car as he did in CART for many years. The theory has it that when the IRL announced they would allow three chassis manufacturers for the next generation car – Roger Penske submitted a bid to be one of the three manufacturers, assuming of course that he would provide equal chassis to some of his competitors.

The IRL didn’t care for the potential conflict of interest, said the conspiracy dwellers. The IRL would only need to point out that the cars that Penske had provided to Tony Bettenhausen for years in CART were no match for the same chassis out of the Penske stable. The IRL feared that Penske would not provide all of the necessary support for other cars other than those carrying Penske colors. So when Penske submitted a bid to be a supplier, the IRL needed an alternative – even if the car only existed on paper – to award the last slot to anyone other than Penske. Enter the Falcon. Some would say that the IRL and Kranefuss knew that the Falcon would never race, but it had performed as expected – it kept Penske Cars of Poole, England on the sidelines.

enske’s arrival in 2002 as the beginning of the end of their existence. Although the presence of Marlboro Team Penske brought a whole new level of credibility to the league, it also meant the stakes – and the cost of doing business just got higher. They thought the presence of the CART juggernaut would instantly create an unlevel playing field and they felt threatened by anything the man did.

Looks like Max was not the only bad seed in world of racing.

[Professor]

Anderson's Falcon

This is well beyond what IRL had considered, and was more than any engine manufacturer would support. It died because Anderson was well ahead of the status quo.

[Professor]

Double Post, Sorry!

[xpensive]

Copy from above, didn't catch the source?

Falcon was nothing more than a ploy to keep Roger Penske from building his own car as he did in CART for many years. The theory has it that when the IRL announced they would allow three chassis manufacturers for the next generation car – Roger Penske submitted a bid to be one of the three manufacturers, assuming of course that he would provide equal chassis to some of his competitors.

So that's what USF1 was all about, interesting to see history repeat itself, but I wonder where Windsor fits in?

[Professor]

Pensive, I don't know about all that other stuff, all I know is that the Falcon died because nobody bought a chassis. The reasons they did not are beyond my scope of knowledge. But, I suspect that it wasn't the potiential of the car that killed the deals, but a result of typical marketplace pressures. I do not have any facts to explain why a promising chassis was ignored, but I am sure that this happens all the time due to one reason or another.