djr81

The point is/was that the racing business lost £6m in 2012. A year in which they actually won races. So this year will be worse, as will next year when they have a completely different set of rules to get around and no Vodafone, no MB money and less coming in from their finish in the constructors championship. You are right in saying that unless there is manufacturers money propping the thing up (or the owner has other companies eg Red Bull) that there isnt enough money coming in to allow the teams to properly compete. So hopefully Honda have some cash to put about. Making road cars seldom makes money - look at Lotus as an example. Ferrari are the only ones who have managed it but then again people buy them for the name and the noise and not much else. McLaren have been part middle east owned for decades. TAG is middle eastern and funded the Porsche motors way back when. McLAren poached them from Williams and they later became shareholders. Anyway this year has been their shttest car since 1995.

Had a look: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/oct/03/mclaren-f1-team-group-loss-2012 McLaren Group made a £2.5m pre-tax loss last year (so 2012) compared with a pre-tax profit of £19.7m in 2011, according to documents filed at Companies House. Hate to think what it would be for this year or next, come to that. And if McLaren are losing money then so must nearly everyone else.

Actually he used to be a mechanic for Jack Brabham. True story.

You can be both, you know. Just as long as your hating on the team cheater Abu Dhabi is all. Gunna get worse before it gets better for McLaren too. Hope the Honda is strong for 2015.

Well there is because running an F1 team over near on 40 years is a massive achievement. There are only a handful that ever survived for so long. Lotus didnt. Brabham, March, BRM, Ligier etc etc etc all went tits up. So the comparison is unfortunate because both Dennis and Williams have achieved massive success. Also, a large part of the reason Honda left Williams in the mid eighties is because they didnt believe a paraplegic could run a company. Allegedly. They left to go to McLaren, by the way. And Williams do ok on the other business activities front. Their hybrid power goes ok. Anyway McLaren is heading downhill - I reckon 2014 will be worse than 2013. Podiums will be but a distant memory. As will sponsorship. And quick drivers. None of which is welcome. For either team.

Yeah cause Frank Williams has had no success and no hurdles to overcome in his lifetime.

This ^^ is what is wrong with F1. Other than the few front running teams no one is getting anywhere near enough funding to run. Sponsorship is almost non existant - take a look at the teams: McLaren - some Mexican randomness for next year and little in the way of mid level sponsors. I would imagine they ran at a big loss this year and will be even worse next year. Williams - Basically nothing. Lotus - Only secondary sponsorship and how many tens of millions of losses this year? Sauber - Again basically nothing other than what the pay drivers bring. Borderline going bust. Force it India - Sponsors are the owners companies. Red Bull - see above other than the Nissan money. Ferrari - Dirty cigarette money still despite them signing agreements to do otherwise. Marussia - enough said. Caterham - The have GE but not sure what that is worth. Must be losing bags of cash too. TR - shows how much coin Red Bull have to piss away. MB - Petronas and Blackberry. Cant imagine Blackberry are long for this world. As one of two car companies with teams I dont imagine they care how much they lose. Make it up by selling sht cars with truck motors to people with too much money. Anyway point is that the distribution of prize and tv money is so unbalanced it means teams down the blunt end have basically no chance of dragging their way out of it. All because the F1 bergers are hell bent on shoving cash Ferraris way. The whole system is nuts and reinforces boring, predictable races and results.

The old system used to be better. Basically you had the numbers assigned to the teams. So Tyrrell was 3 & 4, Williams 5 & 6, Lotus 11 & 12. When you won a drivers championship the champion got to use #1, his team mate number two. The team that lost the WDC got to inherit the old number. So back in the day Williams ran 27 & 28. They took the WDC from Ferrari and Ferrari inherited 27 & 28. Which is why Villeneuve ran it a couple of years later and then for many years afterwards. Anyway the system used to work because there was some stability.

No Brian Hart stickers? Nah, not so much.

Chris is from WA. We dont do AASA racing in these here parts. Think Im correct om saying the restrictors bolt straight to the turbo inlets?

They are slightly shorter and push the top of the upright slightly further forward relative to a stock items. I have the missing inserts if that helps. I bought these ages ago and was going to convert them to a bush arrangement but it got too hard and I ended up making my own. Anyway there are two in the shed at home unmarked with inserts but no bearings.

Rotors and hats or just rotors? You need to check the rotor equivalent of offset and ensure it is the same for whatever other rotor you may choose. Project Mu do a 343 rotor. It is about $2k for the pair. Stop tech do one I think.

Random, trainspotterish question. Does the amount of money the teams get from the whatever fund depend on their position in the table or the amount of points? So Williams actually scored some points last weekend but are still in the same position. So do they end up with more coin?

Well I dont really either but from what I understand - if you look at the old group buy thread he "specified" them - which from what I can remember ended up being/was the same thing as what you got from Bilstein when you ordered them anyway. Just that some people appear to have conflated this with whatever else he was doing at the time and come up with he revalved the shocks or that they were special in some particular regard.

For RAWS it will have to be taken back to stock. 89 was less constricted. Go under the old scheme if possible.

You need to find out a few things and think about a few others: 1. Can you even get it complied now? You need to check that the old scheme is still useable for the GTR. If it isnt you would be under the new scheme - if the car complies. It may not be ok under either category. 2. You need to figure out what you need to spend to get the car registered (If it can be) 3. You need to think about what it will be worth once it is registered. 4. You need to think about whether all that is worth the hassle or whether you would be better off just buying a newer, better car and wrecking the 89. I am so glad that 15 year loop hole was closed down. What the brokers were up to then was pretty ordinary.

Did he? Or is that something that was inferred. Because I have tried to find out and cannot confirm if they were ever opened.

So Bilstein now make PSS-9's for 32 GTR's? Not that they are any good anyway. Duncan out of interest what are the differences between the Bilsteins from Gary and the ones you would normally buy? Other than the extra circlip rings. But yes the fixed Bilsteins are good shocks.

I havent had time to look properly (got to love shutdowns) but the HKS oil cooler may have enough spots on the mount to plug in either the temperature sender unit or the pressure switch. There is another thread elsewhere that mentions pressure relief valves and this reference: "but you have to use a toyota filter (z418) or any with a relief valve in it)"

I have six in a motor just pulled out of my car and stripped. No rings, however.

Oh and Rb30s appear to mount the filter straght to the block a pressure switch/transmitter just behind it.

Attached are photos of the RB20 (Thanks Troy) oil filter mount. Note that there is no way to attach the oil pressure switch nor the oil temperature sender - these have to go elsewhere so its not just a straight bolt up.

Well Maldanado may yet end up at Sauber or Force it India.

Money aside, the difference is in the tracks and in the support. Broadly at a street race you will see less of the cars and what you do see will probably be slower. On the flip side the support at last years Melbourne GP was Can Am cars, V8's, Porkers with drivers you have heard of and the Living End played. Overseas support races tend to be at a lower level or of categories that you give no fk for and the concerts are nonsense that you missus may like. The unfortunate part of the GP being in Melbourne is that you then have to go to Melbourne and the track is rubbish. There is more to see but you will see less of it. Malaysia you will see more of whatever there is to see - which wont be as much. But if you smuggle some drugs home with you things will be sweet. Or just pick somewhere else and go for a weeks holiday off the back of the race.

The problem is they need coin as they dont have any other sponsorship worth much. I had hoped they could follow on from last years results but clearly this years car is a dog. Its the old story - poor car leads to no sponsorship or winnings, leads to no money spent leads to poor car etc etc etc. They have been talking it up year on year ever since BMW did the dirty on them. Got it right once, last year, but other than that it has just been slowly getting worse. You go to a GP now and you only really see a few teams being supported. Redbull & Team Cheater Adu Dhabi are there in spades. Followed by McLaren (Mostly Brits) and MB. Lotus tend to have quite abit of support but I guess that is mostly because of Kimi rather than the confected heritage. Of the rest you can barely find merch. There is a tiny bit of Caterham and Force it India about but at the races you cant even buy a team Willy tshirt if you wanted one. No one even knows who Marussia are. It is one of the bullshit things about F1 is that some teams get more in winnings for the same results as others. Mostly RB & SF given the current agreements.