Author: powerhorse
Date: 04-29-03 09:39
The Ferrari F2003-GA is the car which Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello will race in the Formula One World Championship from the Spanish Grand Prix onwards. The car, which uses Shell fuels and lubricants, is set to be the most advanced car, which Shell and Ferrari have ever raced in the Formula One World Championship, but how would it handle the different situations encountered on the road?
Imagine waking up in the morning to drive your brand-new F2003-GA to work, and realising that because it's raining you need to change the tires to wets to enable you to even think about using the car! Having spent half an hour replacing all the grooved slicks with wet tires, you go to start the car and remember that you have to let it warm up for 45 minutes before you can drive down the driveway and onto the road.
You are finally getting ready to go and you squeeze yourself into the tight cockpit and try to put your seat belt on, but because the cabin is somewhat narrower than you are used to, you have to call someone to come and help you strap in from outside the car. Once this simple task is accomplished, you attempt to move off from the driveway only to find that the clutch is a little more difficult than on a road car, and you stall it as you creep forwards. To restart it, you have to unstrap and use the starter for which you need to go around to the back of the car and reach underneath to the crankshaft before getting yourself back into the car.
As you move down the driveway and onto the road, you begin to think how much fun it is to drive as you race away from the lights and corner at speeds which the other road users can only dream of. Then you come back down to earth with a bang as the nearside front wheel drops into a deep pothole and the front wing gets knocked and damaged. The rest of the drive to work is then spent thinking about how much the carbon fibre replacement wing is going to cost you.
After work, having struggled to get over the speed bumps coming out of the car park, you decide to stop off at the supermarket on the way home. In the car park there, you attempt to reverse into a parking space and find that your rear visibility is extremely poor, and that other road users cannot see that you are reversing, as you have no reversing light. The shopping has to be left behind because there is no storage compartment, and then the exhilarating drive home leaves you with very little fuel, so you pull into a Shell service station to fill up.
The F2003-GA unfortunately does not have a conventional fuel filler cap, and you are unable to fill the tank with Shell fuel. By now it is dark and the F2003-GA has no lights and is therefore both illegal and extremely dangerous to drive at night. You arrive home after a long walk and wonder whether it was a good decision to buy the F2003- GA for road use after all.
Formula One cars such as the F2003-GA are designed for high-speed motor racing, and function best in that environment. The aerodynamics on the F2003-GA are designed to glue the car to the road at racing speeds by creating large amounts of downforce to complement the mechanical grip and enable the car to corner at otherwise impossible speeds. In order to do this effectively, the car needs to be running on a smooth, flat track surface, allowing the suspension to work and hold the car in the best position for achieving the high speeds we are used to seeing Formula One cars race at.
On the road the limited ground clearance and steering lock together with the cumbersome nature of the car at low speeds mean that it is difficult to drive, and the road cars designed to deal with this environment can offer more comfort and convenience to the road user. Shell fuels and lubricants are capable of powering and protecting the F2003-GA engine at the high speeds and under the extreme conditions of the racetrack and there should ber a very positive outcome this weekend.