Lunar Calendar & Formula 1 Research
To begin with leading on from my interim crit and advice given on looking into Lunar calendars I have gathered a brief summary of information on Lunar calendars.
The word calendar as mentioned bellow is a means of displaying and keeping track of days, weeks and months of a year in an ordered fashion and can be emulated into many different categories. What I mean by this is that a calendar doesn't just have to be a way in which days are tracked, it can be a method in which sporting events are tracked or as I will look into further the cycle of the moon and its solar positionings.
A lunar calendar is a calendar that represents the cycles of the lunar phases. This is the representation of the shape of the laminated section of the Moon that is lit by the sun and observed from earth. This representation in shape changes as the moon orbits the earth. The basic lunar phases in the lunar calendar are new moon, first quarter moon, full moon and last quarter moon.
There are slightly more than twelve lunation's in a solar year. A lunation is a representation of a calendar month. 12 lunar months are usually referred to as a lunar year. A lunar year is based on the Islamic calendar, the islamic calendar much like christian calendars consists of 12 months.
Fact: The oldest discovered lunar calendar was found in Scotland and dates way back to around 10000 BP.
The average length of a lunar month, also known as a synodic month is (Statistic 29.530589) days, which is why the average month consists of 29, 30 days usually to fit in with a whole lunar cycle (lunar phase/year)
After this brief insight into lunar calendars and almost been put to sleep with borden I decided it wouldn't be too engaging for me or the audience to carry on with this subject. Onto the second option derived from the Interim crit. Formula 1. I know Formula 1 as a subject itself isn't linked in with calendars but by gathering Facts, Opinions, Words, Statistics and photographs that come from different eras, the race events calendar, historic events and similar aspects.
Formula 1 Research
Formula 1 is named that because it refers to a set of rules which all race cars and cars must abide too, the sport was briefly known as Formula A. Its routes trace back to the origins of motor racing in the begging stages of the war in Europe. An official championship was arranged for 1930s but was held back due to world war 2.
1946 saw the birth of the idea and the first races had began, by 1950 a full set of rules and tracks were set out and the first Championship race was to be held here in Britain's Silverstone and has lead onto been a multi million pound enterprise that is funded worldwide by governments and sponsorships alike.
Its a motorsport that derived from racers starting on a set grid and basically racing to the finish although its got a lot more complicated now with rules and restrictions and point systems that aren't relevant to my collection of research.
Time is going to be the main concept that has derived from the word Calendar, and how things have changed over time from the origins to now, and what events happened over that period of time (Eras). Everything will link back to this concept in one way or another.
Bellow is a screenshot of the 2014 Race Calendar.
The book I will be using for collection of facts, opinions, words & statistics.
Development of car design from the 1950's to 2010
I formed a visual timeline on photoshop from lots of stock images I luckily stumbled across on a fan website, its interesting to see the development the cars have gone through and how the shape has shapes so drastically from smooth to very sharp and angular, a huge contrast. Also elements such as wings and air vents have been added over time to improve handling. This is something that interests me the most, the mechanics and engineering behind formula 1, so for the image collection I am going to collect images of things like drivetrain, suspension and engine components in examples found round the origins of F1 design and the present day.
To keep the collection of engineering imagery in context with the word Calendar and time, I will display a range of images from different era's showing development of technology throughout the years.
Here is the examples of the technology and engineering used in the modern day F1 cars shown on the McLaren Mercedes MP4-28.
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| Front wing |
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| Front wing |
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| Tyre's |
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| Tyre's |
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| Survival Shell |
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| Survival Shell |
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| Rear Wing |
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| Rear Wing |
Bellow is an exploded example of Mercedes 2010 grand prix car, it amazes me the detail and complexity of the individual parts that go into making a multi million pound vehicle.
http://www.bolide.co.uk/2011/01/mercedes-benz-world-photo-gallery/
To contrast with the above imagery I have gathered examples of the technology and engineering used in the cars used in the origins of Formula 1 back in the 50s and 60s. It was difficult finding an image of a deconstructed F1 car that far back but I found a cool exhibition by Fabian Oefner a swiss photographer who created 'exploded' images of classic sports car, and it happens to have the Ferrari 1967 330 P4 within that collection. This car adopted technology used in the 1965 F1 season Ferrari car and was translated into this road legal race car which boasted insane handling and speeds for that Era. The aero dynamics and engine construction is what I am concentrating on as this is were the drastic changes have happened between then and now. The lines of the vehicle are very soft and curved as apposed to the aggressive angles and sharp edges in modern day F1 cars and the addition of aero dynamic elements like wings and splitters and such as displayed above. The engines have also shrunk considerably, as apposed to having huge engines over 3.0 litres back then to tiny 1.6 engines in the modern cars, but outputting so much more power. For example the old Ferraris run 3.0 V10's which output 190hp, the 1.6 litre turbo charged engines of this era can output over 900hp to put into context the huge advance in technologies.
The steering wheel in F1 to me is the most important aspect of the car for the driver, its made for him and his driving style and its interesting to see the changes it has gone through over the years with the addition of technologies given to the driver to aid his driving and help achieve faster lap times and give him access to the latest technologies at the push of a button.
From the basic, and oversized example found in the 1950's.
To the complex example seen here were the driver can change all manner of aspects about the car and its driving style and characteristics.
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| Steering Wheel 2014 |
20 Facts
These facts i have gathered range from such events and aspects within F1 that have changed the way things operate from significant events over the eras to complete historical references with lots of interesting technical facts thrown in there too.
In 1901 the use of the word grand prix arose to promote the French Grand Prix at Le Mans.
"When running at maximum speed, a Formula 1 engine ingests air at a rate of 0.40kg per second for the combustion of fuel. That same airflow would inflate 600 party balloons in just one minute."
"Exhaust gases are emitted from the back of the car at temperatures of around 950°C to 1000°C. That’s 50 per cent higher than the temperature required to melt aluminium (660°C)."
"Approximate 80'000 components come together to make an F1 car. The cars have to be assembled with 100% accuracy, if it were assembled 99.9% correctly it would go onto the track with 80 components wrongly placed"
"An F1 car can accelerate from a standstill to 160kph in around 3.5 seconds, while the sprint to 100kph takes just two seconds. During the 2004 Italian Grand Prix, BMW WilliamsF1 driver Antonio Pizzonia recorded the highest speed in F1 history – an astonishing 369.9kph."
"Hungarian Ferenc Szisz (1873-1944) won the first ever motor racing Grand Prix (it lasted for more than 12 hours), driving a Renault, on June 26, 1906 at Le Mans, France. He is commemorated with a statue at the main entrance gates of the Hungaroring."
"Jenson Button’s 2009 world title victory marked the first time in 40 years that two drivers of British nationalityhad taken back-to-back world titles following Lewis Hamilton’s 2008 victory."
"Al Pease was the only driver ever to have been disqualified for being too slow. (Canadian Grand Prix 1969)"
"Louis Chiron was the oldest driver who has ever taken part in a Formula One Grand Prix. In his last F1 race, the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix, he was 58 years old."
"The extreme heat found in a Formula One cockpit, especially at the hotter rounds of the championship, puts vast strain on the body of the drivers: they can sweat off anything up to 3kg of their body weight during the course of a race."
"For a monocoque, about 30 square metres of carbon-fibre mats are processed, in which the individual fibres are five times thinner than a human hair."
"When a Formula One driver hits the brakes, he experiences deceleration forces comparable to a regular car driving through a brick wall at 300km/h."
"The fastest pit stop ever stands at 2.31 seconds set during German Grand Prix in 2012 by Vodafone McLaren Mercedes for Jenson Button during his second stop of the race."
"When Stirling Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio were team mates, they used to be called 'The Train' because they dared to drive so close behind each other."
"Alberto Ascari died on May 26, 1955, at the age of 36. His famous father Antonio Ascari (Grand Prix motor racing champion) was also 36 when he died, on July 26, 1925.
Both father and son had won 13 championship Grands Prix. Both were killed four days after surviving serious accidents. Both had crashed fatally at the exit of fast but easy left-hand corners and both left behind a wife and two children."
"For Monaco Grand Prix 2004 Jaguar Racing positioned diamonds in the nose of both racing cars, following a sponsorship deal with diamond company Steinmetz and representing the upcoming film - Ocean’s Twelve. But the diamond (£140,000) had gone missing when Christian Klien crashed his car nose into the guardrail at the Loews hairpin already in the first lap."
"Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel became Formula One’s youngest triple world champion at the age of 25after a wet and wild 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix."
"The term Scuderia dates back to the Middle Ages in the Italian language, it used to refer to a place where racing horses were kept. Now these racing horses are racing cars and the term Scuderia Ferrari remains."
"Sebastian Vettel became the fastest driver to be fined (2006, in Turkey during practice) after he was found speeding in the pit lane only 9 seconds into his Formula One career.
It cost him a $1000 penalty."
"In 2014 the power capacity of the KERS units will increase from 60 kilowatts (80 bhp) to 120 kilowatts (160 bhp). This will be to balance the sport’s move from 2.4 litre V8 engines to 1.6 litre V6 engines."
20 Statistics
To link my statistics with the concept of time and periods I have counted the amount of fatal accidents in each decade starting from the 50s up until the current. This will show how the change in rules and advanced technologies helped avoid these fatalities. A sort of calendar off statistics from the 1950s to new millennium.
Formula 1 The autobiography by Gerald Donaldson
1950-59: 15
1960-69: 14
1970-79: 12
1980-89: 4
1990-99: 2
I also compiled a list of the total amount of races each manufacturer has won under its sponsored drivers over the decades.
Formula 1 The autobiography by Gerald Donaldson
Ferrari: 221
McLaren: 182
Williams: 114
Lotus: 79
Redbull: 47
Brabham: 35
Renault: 35
Benetton: 27
Tyrrell: 23
BRM: 17
I will compare the considered best driver of this era to the best driver in past eras. I have chosen to compare statistics between Sebastian Vettel and Aryton Senna.
Aryton Senna Bio
DOB: 21-March-1960
DOD: 1-May-1996 age 34
Brazilian
162 races
41 wins
80 podiums
65 pole positions
610 career points
Vs.
Sebastian Vettal
3-July-1987
Age 26
German
120 races
39 wins
62 podiums
45 pole positions
1'451 career points
Money is a big part of F1, I decided to look into how much these two giants of there time earned for there insane skills.
Aryton Senna
$100million over his career
$10 per year salary
Vs.
Sebastian Vettal
$18million per year
$1million per year endorsements
My final statistic will be a slightly more patriotic one. How many Formula 1 championships has out nation brought home?
Interestingly we sit at the top of the table for most overall champions over the era's with Germany coming second with only 2 drivers obtaining titles but a lot more often and in a lot less time!
United Kingdom: 14 titles 10 drivers. (1958-2009)
Germany: 11 titles 2 drivers (1994-2013)
20 OPINIONS
After reading through my book the 'Formula 1 The Autobiography' I have compiled together some quotes from entries in the book. Again these will be sectored into Eras of time from the 1900's to the new Millennium.
- Sir Henry Segrave quotes "The attainment of speed is an instinct inherent in the normal being and in the vast majority of animals and one which has played a most important part in the process of evolution" His opinion on speed is given to us in an interesting translation explaining that we thrive of speed and have done throughout evolution.
- In the 1950s Geoffrey Crossley explained everyones thought about racing drivers "In this county if you were a racing driver, people thought there was something slightly rough about you."
- "Being a racing drivers wife is horrible, lousy job. Your the star racing drivers wife but really your the star of nothing" A F1 drivers wife express's her hate for the sport.
- Nelson Piquet a drivers imput on the sport and his hostility with the social side of it "I don't give shit for fame, i don't give a shit for society. I don't want to make friends with anybody who's important. I just want to win"
I struggled to find any more relevant opinions in the rest of the book so turned to internet forums and discussion groups to see what people thought about the F1 as a whole in modern society. Modern societies opinions will contrast with that of the publics opinions on the sport explained by Geoffrey Crossly in the 1950's.
- After searching around there are mixed opinions on the sport with a lot of american people finding the sport boring and draining to watch.
- Lots of people I asked thought of it as a huge money game, with lots of government backing from different countries people see this as a waste of money and it could be better off spent on more important things.
- Some people don't class it as a sport explaining that its down to the engineers and not driver skill like it used to be back in the 1950s-1980s and i strongly agree with this.
- It seems to be a sport backed by males, females reactions tend to be similar to the americans finding it boring and repetitive, "cars just going round a track over and over"
- Avid fans of the sport feel it is ruined now with all the restrictions and rules with power limits on cars to reduce emissions and hybrid electronics been added to the equation.
- Some fans think it will be entirely electric soon with the introduction of the KERS system been backed more and more.
- The 90's were seen as the time were F1 became a money game and all safety measures and restrictions came in to "ruin" the sport.
- The public still see Ayrton Senna as the true legend of the sport and think Vettell is a success of great engineering practice rather than out right skill.
- I asked 10 people what they thought of Formula 1 to give me a primary source off opinions on the sport bellow is a brief insight of what people thought of it:
- Unnecessarily dangerous.
- Boring.
- Too technical.
- Money, money money!
- Repetitive.
- Love it, keeps you on edge.
- Used too be good to watch but like the BTCC too many restrictions and rules.
- It's not even a sport is it?
20 WORDS
To sum up and round off my collection of research I will create some word associations and mind maps derived from the word Formula 1 & Calendar and select 20 words that link with each other.
Money. One of the main aspects that revolve around F1 and link with Calendar, I got this from the famous Motto "time is money"
Organized. A Calendar is a system in which days, weeks, months and years are ordered by, same with the race Agenda within F1 not to mention the obvious organization needed to build and maintain a race team and car.
Record. Links to the recording of time and the records broken within F1 for example speed records.
Speed. Speed is an obvious connotation that represents F1 and can also link in with the word Calendar, days pass, time isn't a stationery thing, its in motion and time goes a lot faster than you actually care to believe.
Technical. Has obvious links with the creation of a calendar system we take for granted the system we use every day to record days, weeks and months but it derives from the lunar theory which is far from simple. Much like the complexity within F1 car design.
Technology. The obvious one here is technology within F1 over the changing Eras but it also links in with how fast time is moving and how everything is advancing at such a rate we can't really keep up.
Deterioration. This word derives from the Deterioration of an F1 engine that only lasts for 1 race as well as tyros that only last a few laps usually, it also denotes well with the idea of as time passes its like the past is fading away.
Myth. Myths have the obvious links with times gone by and fabled creature, much like the links back with Ferrari and ittalion mythology of the mighty stallions.
Time. Time is an obvious one as all drivers are fighting to beat times each lap, and as they are doing this time is fading away from that Calendar day.
Century. Links with the visual timeline of the changing car design from the nineteen hundreds to the millennium and the obvious timescale of 100 calendar years gone by.
Danger. This links best with the common opinions on F1 as a dangerous sport.
Development. Denotes the progression of technology over time through the F1 eras.
Repetitive. Links with common opinions of the idea of F1 been repetitive, a car going round the same track repeatedly, much like the cycle a Calendar phase goes through the 365 days of a year and a new year starts and it happens again.
Millenium. Marked huge changes in the F1 industry and is the end of a century and a start of new millennium of the Calendar phase.
Lineup. The obvious thought here was the lineup of cars ready before they race, but it also comes from the noun 'almanac' that derives from the word calendar meaning the containment for information on a year.
Sound. Sound, speed and light, common things in a race event and around is all the time when were going through the motions of daily life.
Heritage. Lots of race teams are built on heritage and the past of there companies like Ferrari carried on there class workmanship through the years, Heritage has obvious links with time.
Death. Obvious links to fatalitys and has obvious links with time/calander as basically its the end of time for them as horrible as that sounds.
Light. Faster than the speed of light, light coming from the sun links with the idea of lunar cycles and calendars.
Overview. The elements I took forward from the interim crit to do list into final stages were looking into a variety of Facts into F1, the imagery of 100 cars of varying Eras derived from original thoughts off a visual timeline of significant events, looked into the race calendar for 2014, gathered other imagery relevant to F1 and its past and present technologies, gathered peoples thoughts and opinions on the sport as well as drivers opinions, drivers wives opinions and the general publics opinions and historical and significant events were investigated subconsciously thorough the collection of Facts and statistics. I felt the lunar idea as mentioned wasn't going very far so didn't advance it into any further research stages I feel I have a very broad range of research collected now that definitely represents the term Calendar in a loose concept in a way that shows time mainly through the past Eras in F1 history within aspects of engineering, statistics, facts, historical events and technological developments.
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