|
iRacing Goes Vintage With Lotus 79 F1 Car
Just announced at iRacing site, not something that im really interested in, I'd rather have WTCC cars or something similar. But it may float someones boat.
Quote:
Announcement Comes on 30th Anniversary of F1 Title
BEDFORD, MA (September 10, 2008) - The Formula One championship-winning Lotus 79, one of the significant race cars of the past century, will be the first vintage race car available to members of the iRacing.com motorsport simulation and internet racing service. The announcement was made jointly today, the 30th anniversary of Mario Andretti's Formula One World Championship, by Dave Kaemmer, chief executive officer of iRacing and Clive Chapman, managing director of Classic Team Lotus.
"Many of our members are very interested in historic race cars and a fair number of them compete in vintage racing in the physical world," said Kaemmer, who is well known for an earlier simulation, Grand Prix Legends, which was based on the 1967 Formula One season. "To have the Lotus 79, a technically ground-breaking Formula One car and a World Championship winner, as our first historic car is a great place to start, and to be able to announce it on the anniversary of Mario securing the title is perfect."
"Of all of the racing cars in Lotus's long history, including others that have won world championships, few have had such an impact on the sport," said Chapman, who is the son of Lotus founder Colin Chapman. "The Lotus 78 was designed around the notion of underbody aerodynamics, but the 79 was the first car that fully exploited ground effect principles. And that changed the face of racing. It was an amazing car for its time, and it remains an amazing car today. I'm pleased that iRacing will be making it possible for people today to experience what it is like to drive the 79."
One person who knows the Lotus 79 first-hand is Mario Andretti, who drove it under the checkered flag at Monza to clinch his World Driving Championship and last month was reunited with the car at the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races.
"Driving the Lotus 79 was one of the most satisfying experiences in my career as a race driver," Andretti recalled. "The car was exceptionally responsive to different setups that we used to adapt to different circuits. Because I understood the dynamics of the car so well, I was able to achieve perfect balance with that car most of the time, which was very rare. I always looked forward to crawling into that cockpit. Of course that car also is significant in my life because I won the World Championship driving it."
Andretti won five races in the ground-effect Lotus 79 (and the season-opener in the Type 78) on his way to the 1978 title, but Chapman had been thinking for some time about using the airstream to produce traction-enhancing downforce. His designs evolved for over ten years, including a wedge-shaped body for his Indy turbine cars to kill lift, then to generate downforce. By 1976 Chapman had tacked on side skirts to the "development" Type 77 F1 car in an attempt to produce a low-pressure area under the car and pull the car down harder on its tires.
The Lotus 78 design, with which Andretti won four races during the 1977 season, incorporated sidepods with curved undersides and sliding skirts acting as seals to protect the low pressure created beneath the pod. The advantage over body-mounted front and rear wings was more downforce and less speed-robbing aerodynamic drag.
It was with the Lotus 79 that Chapman realized the full potential of ground effect. With redesigned sidepods and front and rear suspension components repositioned so as not to impede the airstream's entry or exit, the 79 generated 30% more downforce than the 78. The 79, which wasn't introduced until the 6th race of the 1978 season, was miles ahead of the competition and with it Andretti dominated the rest of the season, winning the Drivers Championship and helping Lotus secure the Constructors Championship.
Divina Galica, iRacing's director of partner relations and a Formula One racer in the 1970s, is another driver with relatively recent experience driving the 79. She drove Joel Finn's fine example at Watkins Glen in 2006. "It is a fabulous car," she said, emphatically. "And as Mario noted, it has wonderful balance. But you know, I waited 28 years to drive it."
Galica went on to describe a phone call she'd made to Team Lotus head Colin Chapman shortly after the 1978 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, where Andretti's teammate, Ronnie Petersen, had died from complications following surgery to repair legs broken in a crash at the start of the race. "In those days, that's what you did," she recalled. "Someone was going to be driving the car at Watkins Glen, and I thought it might as well be me. Colin was very polite, but he'd already hired (Jean-Pierre) Jarier, who set fastest lap at Watkins Glen, but ran out of fuel near the end of the race, and then led the Canadian Grand Prix at Montreal until the car broke.
"I was always a bit disappointed that I hadn't gotten to drive the 79 then, so I was extremely grateful when Joel generously invited me to drive his car at a vintage race at Watkins Glen," Galica said. "And I'm even more grateful now to Joel for kindly providing us access to his 79 to scan and gather data."
About iRacing.com
iRacing.com was founded in September of 2004 by Dave Kaemmer and John Henry. Kaemmer was co-founder of Papyrus Design Group, developers of award-winning racing simulations including NASCAR Racing: 2003 Season and Grand Prix Legends. Henry is principal owner of the Boston Red Sox and Fenway Sports Group - the co-owner of Roush Fenway Racing - as well as an avid simracer. The iRacing.com team combines more than 100 years of real-world racing experience with more than 50 years of successful racing simulation development.
|
|
10th September 2008
Similar Threads
Linear Mode
