A1 gp

matty55

Team Ireland have shown good pace this year. I think a championship could be a possibility!!

aidan_dunne

Adam Carroll has put it on pole for the sprint race tomorrow, Team Ireland's first ever pole position in the series. That's a good start anyway!

The new Ferrari-designed cars look a hell of a lot better than the old Lolas, I have to say. Pity they still have that ugly "shark-fin" at the back of the engine cover, though. Guess that's going to become the trademark feature of all A1GP chassis or something. :rolleyes:

Wish I could say the same about the Ferrari engines, though, they just don't have a real racey sound to them. The old Zytek engines sounded way better, they sounded closer to F1 engines or something, whereas the new engines just sound like the slightly tuned road car-based engines they are. It's a pity Ferrari didn't use a slightly detuned version of the old V10 F1 engines instead, something that would provide a real racey scream out of them.

Anyone know if any of the Irish terrestrial channels are showing A1GP this year? I don't have Sky Sports so I'm going to be reliant on an Irish channel showing it (or trying to find an online stream. Anyone know of any? ).

aidan_dunne

Wooohoooo! Go on Ireland!

In case you haven't heard, Adam Carroll drove a fantastic, controlled race to win the sprint race this morning. Great to hear the national anthem playing at a major international motor race again. Fingers crossed for a good result in the feature now.

Oh yeah, to answer my question in the post above, for those of you who don't have Sky Sports like me, A1GP stream the races on their website. Quality is decent enough too (as long as you have a good broadband connection). Here's the link:

http://www.a1gp.com/About/Promotion.aspx?id=31

aidan_dunne

2nd place in the feature, with Adam pushing the Portugese car all the way to the finish, a great weekends work for A1 Team Ireland after a dissapointing season opener at Zandvoort. Let's hope this momentum will continue for the team for the rest of the season.

cherryghost

tied 2nd in the champ with france i believe?

EvilMonkey

Congratulations team Ireland i hope they can keep it up. I wish this was series was available on TV here(not sky)

aidan_dunne wrote: »

The new Ferrari-designed cars look a hell of a lot better than the old Lolas, I have to say. Pity they still have that ugly "shark-fin" at the back of the engine cover, though. Guess that's going to become the trademark feature of all A1GP chassis or something. :rolleyes:

Wish I could say the same about the Ferrari engines, though, they just don't have a real racey sound to them. The old Zytek engines sounded way better, they sounded closer to F1 engines or something, whereas the new engines just sound like the slightly tuned road car-based engines they are. It's a pity Ferrari didn't use a slightly detuned version of the old V10 F1 engines instead, something that would provide a real racey scream out of them.

Are the A1GP cars using bio fuel this year? Maybe thats why they dont sound as good.

EvilMonkey

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Running on Biofule makes no difference to how the car sounds.

Well assuming they are using biofuel then presumably they would have to adjust the compression ratios/timing etc. would this not change the engine note slightly compared to ruining a setup for ordinary fuel?

Magown3

Arent they powered by Ferrari this year??

It's possible they were last year too as I didn't really keep up with it last year... I might have to this year tho

aidan_dunne

EvilMonkey wrote: »

Are the A1GP cars using bio fuel this year? Maybe thats why they dont sound as good.

Nah, as LIGHTNING said, running on biofuel would have little or no effect on how the cars would sound. It's just the fact it's a tuned roadcar engine they're using instead of a "proper" racing engine, so to speak, is why they don't seem to have a good racey sound out of them and sound, dare I say it, a little puny even?

The old Zytek engines were proper racing V8s and sounded as such. As I said in an earlier post, it's a pity Ferrari didn't use a detuned, rev limited version of the old 3-litre F1 V10s or something as they would have sounded so much better than a tweaked roadcar (F430 or something like that, I believe) engine.

EvilMonkey

aidan_dunne wrote: »

Nah, as LIGHTNING said, running on biofuel would have little or no effect on how the cars would sound. It's just the fact it's a tuned roadcar engine they're using instead of a "proper" racing engine, so to speak, is why they don't seem to have a good racey sound out of them and sound, dare I say it, a little puny even?

The old Zytek engines were proper racing V8s and sounded as such. As I said in an earlier post, it's a pity Ferrari didn't use a detuned, rev limited version of the old 3-litre F1 V10s or something as they would have sounded so much better than a tweaked roadcar (F430 or something like that, I believe) engine.

Are the new Ferrari engines more powerful than last years engine? Why dont Ferrari use a cheaper lower spec version of their f1 v8. It could help improve reliability of the f1 engine with data coming in from all the A1 teams. I must try and catch the next round.

aidan_dunne

Yeah, the engines this year are more powerful than the old Zyteks. The Zyteks produced something like 550 bhp maximum (that's including the Power Boost) whereas the new Ferrari engines are putting out something like 600 horses standard and an extra 40, I think, with the Power Boost.

I think the main reason why Ferrari decided to use a production based engine instead of a detuned version of their old V10 F1 engine or, as you suggested EvilMonkey, a version of their current F1 V8 was because a production roadcar-based engine would be more reliable and need less rebuilds and, therefore, the costs could be kept down. Pity they don't have quite the same racey sound to them that a proper, bespoke, racing-designed engine has, though.

Kersh

Hope next weekend goes as well, thumbs up !:)

matty55

Pole for the Feature!!!!

vectra

matty55 wrote: »

Pole for the Feature!!!!

Nice :cool:

aidan_dunne

Great news! Seems like things are finally starting to come together for Team Ireland at last. Looks like bagging that win at the end of last season, combined with some of the back-room changes within the team, has really given the team the kick it needed to move forward. Fingers crossed for a good result again tomorrow and, as I said earlier in the thread, let's hope this momentum stays with the team now for the rest of the year.

aidan_dunne

Go on Ireland! 5th in the sprint race, followed up by a win in the feature, completely dominating the race to boot. Fantastic job by Adam Carroll and A1 Team Ireland and they now lead the championship going into the winter break. Roll on 2009 and, hopefully, winning the championship outright!

vectra

aidan_dunne wrote: »

Go on Ireland! 5th in the sprint race, followed up by a win in the feature, completely dominating the race to boot. Fantastic job by Adam Carroll and A1 Team Ireland and they now lead the championship going into the winter break. Roll on 2009 and, hopefully, winning the championship outright!

Way to go Adam and Team Ireland

Hope they keep up this streak..
:cool:

Tippex

It was another great drive from carroll.

Although I was convinced that watson was putting the commentators mockers on him with about 6 laps to go.

bf1

aidan_dunne wrote: »

Go on Ireland! 5th in the sprint race, followed up by a win in the feature, completely dominating the race to boot. Fantastic job by Adam Carroll and A1 Team Ireland and they now lead the championship going into the winter break. Roll on 2009 and, hopefully, winning the championship outright!

Watched it live on the net, they are doing fantastic:D
Yee hoo!