Selection box - Stronger and more influential - Yet more interesting output from the powers that be
Published by Christine
We're gearing up for a weekend in Azerbaijan, where the racing is not expected to be up to scratch but still, the sport can always surprise us. in the meantime, keep yourself entertained with a handful of links from around the web, and don't forget you can always check out more places to visit on our dedicated page.
To kick off with this week, I've got some forward thinking pieces for you - people looking at the future of the sport, for better or for worse, and the way technology is always moving onwards, even if opinions and attitudes aren't.
Motor sport, and F1 especially, has always sought to explore new technologies and the latest innovations but how will these advances impact sport in the future? In the third of our Sport 2.0 films, we enter the world of driving simulators and drone racing. We also explore the concept of stadium holograms which could be used to replicate attending live sport.
You asked for a full lap inside Devbot and here it is, watch the autonomous lap at speed around the Berlin ePrix.
Just because Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale” made a hit TV series this year does not mean we need to turn this idea into a real life racing series. Three years ago I received an email. It was the type of email that makes your skin crawl and your blood boil. A consortium in Europe had unilaterally decided that what female racing drivers needed to further their careers was not the funding to keep racing, not support, and not the choice to race where-ever their experience placed them best, but instead that segregation was the way forwards.
Now we move on to some output from the FIA, which on the face of it doesn't sound particularly inspiring, but just as with the improvements in FOM's attitude towards sharing, so the governing body are also making strides too.
AUTO features exclusive interviews with two people who reflect this change: Formula 1 President and CEO Chase Carey and the driver who more than any other has made his mark on the sport in recent years, Lewis Hamilton.
FIA Women in Motorsport Commission President Michèle Mouton yesterday said that the Commission has helped make female participation in motor sport “stronger” and “more influential” but that there is more work to do through a series of new and continuing initiatives.
On the second day of the 2017 FIA Sport Conference in Geneva, former Williams F1 test driver and Dare to be Different founder Susie Wolff explains how powerful new technologies are in reaching younger audiences and inspiring the next generation to get involved in motor sport.
And to finish, a mish-mash of topics, from the disappointing realities of a pay-TV deal to lessons learned from mistakes made.
Formula One’s new owners believe the UK television rights deal they have inherited from the previous management, led by Bernie Ecclestone, is detrimental to the sport – with coverage entirely behind a paywall from 2019 to 2024.
Alejandro Agag is the CEO of Formula E, an auto racing circuit that only uses electric cars. Agag has had an incredibly diverse career, from Deputy Secretary General of the European People's Party and a member of the European Parliment, to a financial adviser and investing in Formula One.
There have been over 900 Grands Prix in Formula one’s 67-year history and in that time, there’s been thousands of overtaking manoeuvres. Overtakes are probably the most exciting aspect to F1 races and motorsport in general, there’s nothing quite like seeing two cars going wheel-to-wheel down a straight or one driver diving down the inside of another into a hairpin.
By their very nature, engineers tend to be cautious in their approach. That’s because making seismic, unpredictable change simply isn’t part of an engineer’s cultural make-up when you’ve spent, for example, years refining your modelling and simulation tools. Every engineer, however, should also recognise that no model or simulation is perfect.
