Motorsports Trivia Thread!

  • Thread starter Cap'n Jack
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Pupik
Marc Surer also drove with four tire manufacturers: Goodyear, Michelin, Pirelli, and Avon.
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Very good. I didn't have Barrichello as a certain outright winner:

Liquid
I don't have this verified as fact so if you can successfully prove that someone else other than whom I have in mind has also done it, you get the point.
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Always good to know that others also like doing boring research. :)
 
Liquid
Very good. I didn't have Barrichello as a certain outright winner:

Always good to know that others also like doing boring research. :)
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I was actually surprised there's only been nine tire manufacturers in F1 since 1950. I figured there had to be a few one-offs by some of the early privateers.

Edit: A little more digging on the Avon-shod drivers...it turns out that there are several more with four brands.

Marc Surer, Manfred Winkelhock, Keke Rosberg, Emilio de Villota, and Chico Serra also used four tire brands throughout their F1 careers: Goodyear, Pirelli, Michelin, and Avon. Jochen Mass used Firestone, Goodyear, Pirelli, and Avon. Jo Bonnier used 4: Firestone, Goodyear, Pirelli, and Dunlop. Phil Hill also with four; Englebert, Pirelli, Dunlop, and one race with Goodyear.

That makes 9 drivers, with Rubens being the most-recent case of this.

...so did anyone use five brands? I'm still checking.
 
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Pete05
The Australian Touring Car/V8 Supercar Championship was littered with them.

Allan Moffat, Peter Brock & Dick Johnson just to name a few.

Glenn Seton would be the last to be recognised as an Owner/Driver enjoying factory support from Ford in 2002.
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Would Jonathon Webb fit in this category? He owns Tekno and has driven for the team himself. Did he also own the Mother Falcon that he raced in 2011? Or was that supplied by FPR?

Edit: Webb's Falcon was originally owned by 888, and he had technical assistance from DJR in 2010. In 2011 Webb cut ties with DJR and decided to run the car for himself.
 
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CLowndes888
Would Jonathon Webb fit in this category? He owns Tekno and has driven for the team himself. Did he also own the Mother Falcon that he raced in 2011? Or was that supplied by FPR?

Edit: Webb's Falcon was originally owned by 888, and he had technical assistance from DJR in 2010. In 2011 Webb cut ties with DJR and decided to run the car for himself.
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No.

Webb didn't have factory support & he didn't own the team (DJR) that ran the car for him. In the Tekno phase, he's never had factory support so that's another NO.
 
Pete05
No.

Webb didn't have factory support & he didn't own the team (DJR) that ran the car for him. In the Tekno phase, he's never had factory support so that's another NO.
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I must've misread the part that mentioned factory backing; I thought you were talking about owner/drivers as a whole.
 
Obviously he was already a very talented touring car driver but Laurent Aïello had just one season in the BTCC and won the championship. In fact, quite a few drivers won on their BTCC debuts at this time (Winkelhock, Tarquini, Biela) but they continued racing.

What other instances are there of a driver only competing in a series once and winning the title?

Not just winning on your debut and continuing to race like, say, Nigel Mansell and CART (Mansell's 1994 season wasn't as successful) but winning and then disappearing from the series like Aïello.

Jim Clark also won the BTCC in 1964 but I don't think that was the only season he competed.
 
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Do you count someone like Nico Hulkenberg who won Le Mans on his only attempt?

Nico Rosberg won his only season in GP2. it's probably quite common in junior series'. I think Lando Norris has one or two
 
Jimlaad43
Nico Rosberg won his only season in GP2. it's probably quite common in junior series'. I think Lando Norris has one or two
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GP2 champions weren't permitted to race in the series again so anyone who won the title on first attempt could be counted. I just can't be arsed to go through the list :P
 
Who is the only chief engineer to win the Triple Crown?

(Indy 500, Monaco Grand Prix and Le Mans 24 Hours)
 
Tony Southgate somehow managed that accomplishment between Eagle, BRM and Jaguar.
 
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Liquid
Correctamundo!
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Many famous designers including Southgate were members of the 750 Motor Club. But strangely neither Charles Cooper, John Cooper nor Owen Maddock appear to have been members. Why is that?

As a teen, I hung out at the race shop that prepped local hero Jerry Grant's Lotus 19-Chevy. Grant went on to set the first 200mph lap at Indy, and the chief engineer of that Lotus 19 went on to design some famous and infamous F1, Can-Am, GTP, Indy and off-road racing cars. Geoff Brabham won several championships in his cars. Who is that designer?

1964 Lotus 19-Chevy, Jerry Grant at Riverside. The spoiler, made from a Bardahl sign, was the biggest ever seen at the time.
 
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Dotini
Many famous designers including Southgate were members of the 750 Motor Club. But strangely neither Charles Cooper, John Cooper nor Owen Maddock appear to have been members. Why is that?

As a teen, I hung out at the race shop that prepped local hero Jerry Grant's Lotus 19-Chevy. Grant went on to set the first 200mph lap at Indy, and the chief engineer of that Lotus 19 went on to design some famous and infamous F1, Can-Am, GTP, Indy and off-road racing cars. Geoff Brabham won several championships in his cars. Who is that designer?

1964 Lotus 19-Chevy, Jerry Grant at Riverside. The spoiler, made from a Bardahl sign, was the biggest ever seen at the time.
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Trevor Harris? He's the one designer I can think of that has worked in developing racing cars across that broad of a range of categories.
 
Redirected.

TheElbows
I don't recall the numbers, but did Mercedes win something like 80% of all races in the past 5-6 years or something absurd?
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Since the 2014 Australian Grand Prix there have been 121 Grands Prix. Mercedes-Benz has won 89 of them. That is 74% (73.55).

In that time the longest run without a Mercedes win has been 3 races (2018 AUS-BHR-CHN and 2019 BEL-ITA-SIN).
On two other occasions there has been a run of 2 races without a win (2014 GER-HUN and 2017 MEX-BRA)
On 16 occasions Mercedes went a maximum of 1 race without a win.
On 81 occasions Mercedes' 89 wins were part of a consecutive sequence; 91% of the time, If Mercedes won the last race, they would win the next one.
The longest such sequence twice being 10 consecutive wins
(2016 MON-CAN-EUR-AUT-GBR-HUN-GER-BEL-ITA-SIN and 2015 JPN-RUS-USA-MEX-BRA-ABU 2016 AUS-BHR-CHN-RUS)

For comparison over a similar 5 year period lamented for single-team dominance:

Between the 2000 Australian Grand Prix and the 2004 Brasilian Grand Prix there were 85 Grands Prix. Ferrari won 57 of them. That is 67% (67.05).

In that time the longest run without a Ferrari win was 3 races (2003 AUS-MAL-BRA)
Excluding the comparatively not-dominant 2003 season, the longest run without a Ferrari win was 2 races (3 times in 2000, 3 times in 2001)
On 47 occasions Ferrari's 57 wins were part of a consecutive sequence; 82% of the time, if Ferrari won the last race, they would win the next one.
The longest such sequence being 10 wins
(2002 CAN-EUR-GBR-FRA-GER-HUN-BEL-ITA-USA-JPN)

Mercedes' last 5 years have been more dominant than the Schumacher era many decried as unfortunately boring. Ferrari's dominance is stymied by 2003 being a genuinely open season with Williams and McLaren, 2000 not being as dominant given it was the first year of success and 2001 not being as comprehensively dominant as 2002 and 2004.

It's only now that time has passed us by and something more dominant has arrived can we look at the Ferrari era and be amazed that... it wasn't always quite so bad. Only 2 of the 5 seasons (2002 and 2004), fewer than half, were actually dominant. 2004 is a particularly outstanding season (Schumacher had 12 wins in 13 punctured by a DNF) that boosts the dominant stats to cover for the other years.
 
Schumacher era Ferrari is the single biggest stain on F1. At least Mercedes lets their drivers race....
 
More of a "something I want to know about".

What is the history of pit-to-car radios?

When did it develop, how and by whom?
 
Radio's first application during a race came from Peter Clark, who in 1948, equipped his HRG with a bi-directional radio for the 24 Hours of Spa. The invention is used the following year at Le Mans (1949), the first edition of the race after the war, on the Simca 8 driven by Norbert Jean Mahé and Roger Crovetto. In 1950, the American Briggs Cunningham installed a similar system in his two Cadillacs (the" Monstre" and the "Petit Pataud")
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https://www.lemans.org/en/news/history-radio-communication/13028
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HRG_Engineering_Company
 
Some research shows me that in F1 circles, Colin Chapman dabbled unsuccessfully with in-car radios in the late 1970s but it was Sir Charles Bernard Ecclestone's Brabham team way later in 1984 that had the first functioning car-to-pit radio.

Indianapolis was using them as early as 1962 mounted to the rollbar.
 
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+11
Former Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone has revealed his delight at becoming a father for the fourth time at the age of 89, with his 44-year-old wife Fabiana Flosi (couple pictured together)
 
What do Johann Sebastian Bach and Bernie Ecclestone have in common?

Answer: Their organ had no stops.

(JS Bach had 20 children)
 
Dotini
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+11
Former Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone has revealed his delight at becoming a father for the fourth time at the age of 89, with his 44-year-old wife Fabiana Flosi (couple pictured together)
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:irked: Just because you can don't mean you should.
 
Motorsports Poetry, Haiku corner

Under the lamp at BRM
Oliver and Harry toiled on the car
Into night; tap.....tap.....tap​
 
The video below attempts to show some exotic "road" cars in which F1 engines or F1 derived engines have been installed.

Trivia question: List the real world, everyday driver road cars which had engines derived from original F1 engines.

 
Wasn't the Repco V8 put in some Australian cars? Possibly either GM Australia or Chrysler Australia, I forget which.

I would also wonder if Ferrari's 3 litre flat-12 from their 312, 312B and 312T Grand Prix cars were used in some of their road cars or homologation specials.
 

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