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Making a single bolt for an FL car

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21–30 of 52 posts

Re: Making a single bolt for an FL car

#21
post #19
post #12

As a sponsor of Formula 3, I got to visit a Formula 3 / Formula 2 team yesterday and have to say, the racing sport it just insane. The amount of knowledge and effort and money it takes for a team to operate, just below break-even, it's on another level. I think racing must have some of the most passionate people in any industry. Also a fun fact on one of the businessmodels in racing: the team operates like a speciali…

There is often a popular resentment of "pay drivers" for not being up to the standards of top driver talent. But the fact is that anything but the top levels of the sport would not exist without their involvement. Motorsports is an incredibly expensive venture.

I know someone who was in alcohol funny cars (drag racing) for years. Someone bought his seat out one year. On paper it seemed like a good deal for the team. Their first two races they crashed the car, basically nullifying the money they brought.

Re: Making a single bolt for an FL car

#22
post #12

As a sponsor of Formula 3, I got to visit a Formula 3 / Formula 2 team yesterday and have to say, the racing sport it just insane. The amount of knowledge and effort and money it takes for a team to operate, just below break-even, it's on another level. I think racing must have some of the most passionate people in any industry. Also a fun fact on one of the businessmodels in racing: the team operates like a speciali…

How do the teams get the truckloads of stuff from race to race, especially internationally? I assume everything connected by land is able to be traversed by road/rail in time to make the next race. Do they put a whole truck on a plane? Do they have trucks on every continent and just move palettes of stuff?

Re: Making a single bolt for an FL car

#23
post #12

As a sponsor of Formula 3, I got to visit a Formula 3 / Formula 2 team yesterday and have to say, the racing sport it just insane. The amount of knowledge and effort and money it takes for a team to operate, just below break-even, it's on another level. I think racing must have some of the most passionate people in any industry. Also a fun fact on one of the businessmodels in racing: the team operates like a speciali…

How do the teams get the truckloads of stuff from race to race, especially internationally? I assume everything connected by land is able to be traversed by road/rail in time to make the next race. Do they put a whole truck on a plane? Do they have trucks on every continent and just move palettes of stuff?

People shave flown with hard cases full of carbon fibre car parts before now

I assume they rent trucks for most of the Grand Prix but since England and Milton Keynes is the home of F1 teams most can drive to Europe ahead of a race weekend.

Re: Making a single bolt for an FL car

#25
post #2

Insane? I've worked in F1, and seeing making this bolt doesn't sound extraordinaire. It's rather normal engineering technology. There are far more interesting, extremely expensive, specialized engineering methods in F1.

I'm really curious about the simulators they use for testing, if you know anything about that aspect. It seems like a chicken-and-egg issue: you see how a new part affects the car on the track by using the simulator, but the sinulator has to use parameters/assumptions put in by the engineers about how the part works. Won't it always just validate their assumptions?

Re: Making a single bolt for an FL car

#26
post #2

Insane? I've worked in F1, and seeing making this bolt doesn't sound extraordinaire. It's rather normal engineering technology. There are far more interesting, extremely expensive, specialized engineering methods in F1.

I have a bit of a pet hate around the use of words like “insane” to mean “unusual to the general public”. There’s nothing insane about this, they’re applying a tool designed for the job to doing the job. “Insane” would be hiring a team of chimps to slowly whittle away the metal using banana peels.

Re: Making a single bolt for an FL car

#27
post #12

As a sponsor of Formula 3, I got to visit a Formula 3 / Formula 2 team yesterday and have to say, the racing sport it just insane. The amount of knowledge and effort and money it takes for a team to operate, just below break-even, it's on another level. I think racing must have some of the most passionate people in any industry. Also a fun fact on one of the businessmodels in racing: the team operates like a speciali…

How do the teams get the truckloads of stuff from race to race, especially internationally? I assume everything connected by land is able to be traversed by road/rail in time to make the next race. Do they put a whole truck on a plane? Do they have trucks on every continent and just move palettes of stuff?

IIRC there are cargo flights specifically chartered for F1 teams (sharing an aeroplane).

Edit: Yep, provided by DHL who are also a sponsor https://www.wired.com/2014/11/ship-f1-car-across-globe-36-ho...

Re: Making a single bolt for an FL car

#29
post #10

The video forces us to think that they turned on all the machinery to produce just a single bolt, which is unlikely to be true. They filmed a single unit from a much bigger batch. These bolts may have the same complexity of one used in a 737.

Were you really forced to think a particular thing?

Re: Making a single bolt for an FL car

#30
post #3
post #2

Insane? I've worked in F1, and seeing making this bolt doesn't sound extraordinaire. It's rather normal engineering technology. There are far more interesting, extremely expensive, specialized engineering methods in F1.

Don't leave us hanging like that. Would you mind sharing an example?

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