Two weeks off the radar – and by that I mean almost completely, because the phone signals where I was were weak and the wifi worked only occasionally. This means that I feel rather more relaxed than I was, although the next few days before Spa mean there is much catching up to be done…
The best part of my holiday was catching up with long lost friends, which was great. And enjoying life without deadlines. Back in the F1 world, there has today been a big announcement about Formula 1 getting into e-sport. This is a good thing to attract new generations and will not trouble the oldies, who probably won’t see the point of it all. Such is the world today.
There was really nothing else of outstanding importance in F1 over the break (not unexpected), although my GP+ partner in crime David Tremayne gave me a WTF moment after he set out to try to set a new British Land Speed Record with his Duo StayGold jet car at RAF Elvington. The record for a two-way run stands at 301.670 mph, although the one-way record (thus unofficial) stands at 338.74mph. It is very hard to get much faster because of the lack of suitably long runways in Britain. DT was doing an evaluation run and got up to a vmax of 297 mph but then a gust of wind caught StayGold’s parachute as it deployed and the car went sideways and rolled – at 250! This no doubt stiffened the sinews but I spoke to him yesterday and he’s fine and says that he intends to write about his adventures in the upcoming GP+ e-magazine, which will come out on the evening of the Belgian GP.
The plan is to repair StayGold and try again to get the official record to 500 kph, which is 310 mph. If you’d like to sign up for the magazine and read about DT’s summer ‘holiday’, click here.
joeblogsf1 
Isn’t this the same kind of caper (i.e. driving a jet car) that nearly finished off Richard Hammond a few years ago? Tell DT to be more careful in future, please!
Richard Hammond’s “incident” was also at Elvington, and quite possibly in the same car… apparently, the original builder made a pair of them.
What a “WTF experience” …
So glad you can both write about it with a smile ;-)!
Sounds like a brown adrenaline situation for DT! I hadn’t really thought about how the lack of salt pans must limit the British record and it’s going to be a pretty hard barrier: the runway at Doncaster was a back-up space shuttle landing site and even that’s slightly shorter than Elvington.
I think the eSports campaign is a clever idea. In the fifteen years since I was last an eSports ‘athlete’, I’ve lost all interest in competitive (and even multiplayer) gaming but it’s a low-cost opportunity to connect with young folk who may not have been raised by motorsport fans. And if they don’t do it, where on earth will the next Jann Mardenborough come from?
Doncaster at 2,893m long is 107m shorter than Elvington and neither of them were Space Shuttle back up landing sites. The only UK Shuttle landing site was RAF Fairford with a runway length of 3,046m. Sorry for being a git.
Not all are available.
Some chums of mine managed to get hold of Fairford for a human-powered speed record attempt, but that was back before land wars in Asia experienced a resurgence.
Wasn’t RAF Machrihanish (now Campbeltown airport) longer? I was under the impression it was a shuttle back up site as well, with Keflavik the next one up.
Admittedly, Machrihanish is pretty remote and probably windier than Elvington.
And I think the runway ends at a cliff. This is there the USA were rumoured to fly their denied ‘Aurora’ hypersonic spy plane to and from at night!
“Rumoured” being the operative word…
no thats not the case NASA certified a number of UK landing sites, Elvington was one of them, as was RAF Machrihanish , RAF Upper Heywood, RAF Woodbridge, RAF Manston in fact any airfield with a large enough runway was considered, RAF Woodbridge actually stationed the USAF 67th Air Refueling and Reconnaissance Squadron who held the emergency role for the US space programme since the 60s and had a dummy Apollo command module for practice.
they were simply held on care and maintenance status until most of them closed post cold war or long before the Shuttle programme finally ended, Fairford is still open even today which is why its often cited as the only UK Shuttle site available, though in reality the list of sites changed over time and was entirely dependent on orbital inclination.
Hopefully the next ‘Jann’ will show more respect before entering a real race track. Jann did not and poor result of that was a death of an spectator at the N’ring.
Very biased, and unfair, account as the spectator who sadly died was in an exclusion area solely because of the risk of a car crashing there given the nature of that part of the circuit. The track was then subject to speed restrictions in the “at risk” section before modifications allowed unrestricted speed for the full circuit.
As far as I recall there was never any blame being apportioned to the driver(s).
Also unfair representation of events I would suggest. Jann Mardenborough was already in his 4th season of “real” racing by the time the Nurburgring GT3 accident.
I remember watching him at Le Mans in 2013 in LMP2 and being impressed at the job he was doing.
Hi Joe,
Inspired to search for further details on Davids adventure I came across a video of the attempt & roll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5020rbfojQo
Might be worth editing into your article – good to have you back!
There is also a video clip on the BBC website titled “man walks away from a 200 mph crash”
Cor ! Is this called doing a Hammond ? Glad he’s OK and hope the machine was not too badly damaged. Puts in perspective the commonly achieved top speeds of the F1 cars and how stable they manage to look. I may abhor the aerodynamic appendages but they do serve more than one purpose.
Welcome back and glad you enjoyed your time away. Looking forward to Spa and Monza always 2 of my favourites.
So… where’d you go? (Or is that a secret?)
I went to the Lot-et-Garonne
I hadn’t realised you were actually into fishing. Ever get to go with the Prof?
Glad you had a good trip.
I’m not into fishing. It’s an expression…
I didn’t go fishing
Yeah, well, you say that now… but did you have a rod and reel at hand? 😉
Isis n
I did not fish
If you’re stuck for an epitaph (or a bumper sticker), that would do nicely… 😉
Back where the heart lies!!
There are not many places privileged with weak WiFi these days.
In W Europe there is only Lot-et-Garonne, N Scotland, Galicia, and central Ireland.
Holidays to these places have consequently trebled in price.
There’s a good chunk of North Wales – including Anglesey – where you struggle to get 2G. In Llangollen, you’ll get nothing if you’re not on Vodafone.
There are in fact quite a lot of areas with poor signals even if micro rather than macro. Rural areas are often not good and there are plenty of those in France. Bad weather days during school holidays and back home time from school are often very slow.
Glad you’re back, Joe, missing the regular updates and chat!
Welcome back Joe, it’s seemed awfully quiet without you!
Well, the idea of “e-sport” is intriguing. Can’t wait to see how they moneytize this.
It’ll be a very very very long and futile wait seeing as how they never will . Suffice it to say all of motorsports is losing money hand over fist … so why would you think a snooze fest like Formula E will be any different ?
Hardly, we get it, you hate Formula E. That said, e sport and Formula E are two totally different things here. And are “SnowFlakes” (whatever that truly means?) and Milennials not permitted to be F1 targets for potential interest? Shouldn’t everyone be a target by Liberty?
Snowflakes are those who cannot stand disagreement with their thoughts, and melt down instantly when it happens. See also: SJWs (Social Justice Warriors…though “Warriors” means “a mob”).
You very much completely missed the point there. This isn’t about Formula E at all. Rather an online competition in F1 2017. It’s pretty cool actually, the kind of thing F1 should have been doing 5 years ago.
The e sport venture is nothing to do with formula E. Its a world championship for people playing the computer game F1 2017.
Simply my humble opine, but I do not necessarily think this is a “monetization” thing from the Liberty guys. I think it is their genuine attempt to connect to a crowd who looks at F1 differently than do we “old timers”.
Fact is, if Liberty, et. al. do not connect with today’s millennial and younger generations then what future has the sport, really?
I am intrigued by their ownership. I believe for us fans, the experience of an F1 race will be improved over time. I certainly think they have the correct forward-thinking mentality needed to take the sport into the future as opposed to CVC + Mr. E.
As a Yank who is stuck with the horrible, disingenuous, pathetic, (you add in your favorite negative adjective), money-grubbing coverage from the NBC conglomerate, I am so praying Liberty will offer streaming capabilities….even though that will cost me. To be able to actually see an entire race? OMG! If you’ve ever been subjected to NBC coverage you’d understand me. It is one thing to miss between 20 and 25% of every race due to commercial adverts, but then to receive zero, zero, nada, nil, nunca……explanation of what had transpired in the four to eight minutes they vanished to pay the bills is mind numbingly irrational.
As an american who gladly pays for an HBO Now subscription just to watch Game of Thrones, i would gladly pay at least $100 – $200 per season to watch quality F1 broadcasts. As it stands now i flat out refuse to watch NBC’s coverage as it is both inconvenient timing for me (i dont have cable so would be beholden to their over the air broadcast schedule) and an inferior product. Until there is a quality streaming product, which again i would gladly pay for, i will resort to other means of accessing the SkySports F1 broadcasts.
@jeff baldwin I think NBC is in the final year of its F1 broadcast contract. Liberty personnel have previous talked about introducing an over-the-top (i.e. direct to consumer) model at some point, so there’s hope that the US coverage will improve eventually. Hell, if Fox just rebroadcast the Sky coverage, perhaps with a regular “Haas F1 Update” (in the same way that Sky does a regular Ricciardo interview for their Aussie broadcast partner) they’d be golden.
In the meantime, if you’re watching F1 live in the US, have you considered trying the old trick of Telemundo for uninterrupted video, and BBC Radio 5 Live streaming audio?
I love the WEC app. No commercials and a much better audio feed.
I hope F1/Liberty option has foreign audio as an option. I like rewatching races in Polish and proper English. Dutch is fun too when one can find it even though I don’t understand any of the Dutch.
I’m in Hawaii, so watching live doesn’t work for my schedule. I just download the SkySports video file to watch after the kids and wife go to bed. Works great! I’d love to tell you how, but I’m sure Joe would not appreciate it on his blog. It is easy, available timely, and in HD, but I’d much rather just pay for it and have it all be aboveboard, plus I actually would like to give my money to the sport I love. It’s only fair.
So hurry up Liberty and make it happen. Call it F1 Now, make it an app on my Apple TV, do NOT make me “already be a cable TV subscriber to purchase”, let me pay the subscription through iTunes, and we all win!!! If HBO can do it, you can to!
Pleased to hear you’re OK, David, after your big moment at nearby Elvington, just down the road from us. Would have come along if I’d known.
Formula E . So what exactly is the point ? To create an even deeper money pit than F1 that no one cares about ( including and especially not the SnowFlakes and Millennials ) with even lower TV ratings and non-existent trackside crowds taking sponsorship away from legitimate motorsports all in the futile attempt of the pretense of green as they create as large a carbon footprint per race as F1 does ? Yeah … there’s a real point to all that . Its called … stupidity
I don’t think formula e was being discussed.
As I have said elsewhere the e sport venture is nothing to do with formula E. It’s a world championship for people playing the computer game F1 2017. It is a promotional venture for the game but also a genuine attempt on behalf of F1 to engage a younger audience, something at which it could well succeed. E sport is a big thing especially among the 15-25 male demographic. It’s just a pity that it is coming at the end of the season rather than the start.
Btw, I think it is gratuitously offensive of you to automatically label everyone who you consider to be young ‘snowflakes’.
I am addressing my remarks to HTW III of course, not you Joe.
Hardley – Perhaps read properly before ranting? E-Sports. Google it.
Methinks “Hardley T. Whipsnade III” is nothing more than the second coming of “Guitar Slinger” from a couple years ago, both of whom bring an all-too-familiar, tired, and brand of cynicism that is out of place with the celebration of F1 and motorsport that Joe wonderfully and unselfishly promulgates here. Regardless of whether you’re separate people or the same, I sincerely want to know, Whipsnade: Why are you here? Do you root for F1, and motorsport in general, to fail? Just one man’s observation, but it sure seems that way. I always laugh when I see people here rooting for the downfall of IndyCar or Formula E. As if less motorsport is a good thing. Tell us how.
You might want to put DJT on a key man contract prohibiting such perilous shenanigans…
I’m all for his adventures – and besides we are partners in GP+. It is not my magazine. It is OUR magazine.
We are partners thus he would have to do that himself! In any case, I’m all for him doing his thing. Why not?
I thought the silly season was over, but…
Some bright spark has suggested the F1 safety car could be run without a driver. Marcin Budkowski needs to be told to stop digging.
Welcome back, Joe! I hope you had a great vacation time. 🙂
While you were away, a certain site wrote that Honda’s Toro Rosso engine deal fell through. That makes the whole Honda situation interesting. But… is it true?
Have a good day!
Great to have something sensible to read again. Meanwhile two Chinese car makers have eyes on FCA. Some countries are beginning to realise that there is not sufficient supply of either Lithium or or national grid electricity to power their EV aspirations. The price of Lithium must surely soar.
Joe – we’re all waiting with baited breath – did you catch any fish?
Not one
No I did not, I wasn’t trying to…
Just foolin’ with the fish, eh?
Gone fishing is just a saying, it isn’t literal.
Pedantic trivia but ‘bated’.
Sorry. I cannot help myself.
Watching a good coat of paint dry is more exciting!
Good to see you back Joe. Looking forward to more F1 insight from your blog and GP+.
Cheers,
John
Good to have you back, Joe. Glad you have a restful break. Doubly glad that DT is fine too after his”moment”. Looking forward to reading about the attempt in GP+ soon.
Welcome back Joe, glad you enjoyed your break and here’s looking forwards to hopefully exciting conclusion to the season.
250 mph roll?
I classify that as a “brown trouser” moment.
I always wonder if it’s just me that sits here pressing refresh on a regular basis impatiently waiting for an update?
Welcome back Joe.
Welcome back! What are your thoughts on McLaren, are we looking at a completely unchanged lineup and engine supplier? It seems like all the other teams have completed the engine business whilst McLaren were still umming and ahhing over theirs.
I’ve always the double run rule was a complete joke. It’s not an endurance test, it’s a ‘who can travel the highest velocity’ test, so if one can create a machine that can beat all others before expiring at the end of its single run then the designers / builders / drivers have all succeeded. Instead they have to wind it all up again for a second run, so even if they manage 1,000 mph on the first run, but a gremlin robs them of power so they manage just 500 mph on the second run, then officially they’ve only attained 750 mph.
No they bloody haven’t- they’ve patently managed to build an pilot a vehicle that did 1,000 mph.
I hate idiotic rules.
It’s to compensate for wind and slope surely, averaging the speed of the runs in both directions is easier than complex rules about how much wind or slope should be permitted for a record.
The idea of the second run is to negate any advantages gained through wind or gradients.
By the way the average speed would be 667 mph.
The two-directional run rule is in order to dial out any advantage gained by a tailwind as best it can. I also think it’s reasonable to expect a cutting-edge engineered vehicle to be able to run twice.
I suppose you could insist that for a competitive record single-run that the vehicle be driven into a headwind for the first run, to cancel out any advantage of a tailwind, and then if the car breaks the record on that run, it is allowed to stand, in case of a breakdown or other incident on the second run.
The other alternative would be to rule that if the wind speed is above a certain threshold, then the time is disallowed, as is the case in competitive athletic sprinting (where the threshold is a 2 mph tailwind if I recall correctly), which would be far more punishing than the two-run rule, considering the time and effort required to set up land speed record runs.
Without the two-run rule, you’d have a bunch of records with asterisks next to them and the tailwind speed in parenthesis (because everyone is going to want to run with the tailwind) and endless disputes over the validity of the record (a bit like modern baseball records of players who were taking steroids).
Of course none of this would have helped DT, who it appears was taken out by a crosswind hitting his ‘chute.
Joe,
I heard on Missed Apex podcast that the name of this website is pun. Might you be able to explain?
I was just at Laguna Seca for the Motorsports Reunion. I had brief chats with Zak Brown, Mika Hakkinen, Sir Jackie and Tom Kristensen (he drove the early 2000’s R8 and was so friendly). Mika drove the Emmo McLaren from ’73, I believe – what a noise that thing made and it was so much faster than anything else on the track that day. What an amazing event. I highly recommend it to any racing fan. I asked Zak about the fate of the Honda engine and he said “wait and see” (not surprisingly).
Thanks for your blog and commentary on podcasts.
Who’d a thunk??
Someone who has (apparently) never heard of Joe Bloggs……
Double runs for any speed record. It has always been thus and record attempters know and have to allow for this. It is to ensure a real vehicle that can do that speed. In two attempts. Otherwise you’d just get one-way land rockets, not a ‘vehicle’ that can do it on a return run.
P.S. Joe. Next time you take time off, suggest you don’t sign off with ‘Gone Fishing’, lest you engender another round of more literal-minded ‘Whaddya catch?’ queries. Suggest you don’t write’ Buggering Off’, for similar reasons.
Next summer call it garden leave , can’t wait for the responses .
Spent today in the garden!
Glad to read that the summer holidays got you your healthy dose of relaxation to get fired up for the rest of the year Joe!
I am not even going to ask about catching fish, because a) you mentioned you were not actually going for that, but more importantly b) because fishing (for facts, confirmation, and thruth behind rumours) would be far too close to your “dayjob” to be considered a holiday 🙂
I must say that I am curious about your view on where McLAren now stands with Honda, since it seems the STR talks fell flat. But that will have to wait a bit (until the next GP+ after Spa?).
DT’s exploit has now made the BBC Yorkshire news channel.
very informative & well descriptive. thanks for sharing
Joe
will there be an audience with ….in Singapore,???
Sadly, I don’t think so. Organisation went awry
Thanks for letting me know, Hopefully we we will bump into each other to say hello over the weekend