[flemke]

pastrana72 said:

mc_blue said:

pesty said:

Whats the name of the place where the silver on is for sale?

Looks like Romans International...?

its not romans,

its carrs ferrari in exeter, and its on their website.

its stunning as well.

If they're asking 1.35 in sterling, then somebody's putting some very funky mushrooms on their pizza.

[flemke]

gfwilliams said:

Flemke, when you drove the ring, what lap time did you get?
Cheers

GFWilliams

I never timed it.
Even if I had timed it, it would be an irrelevancy, because I'm far from being the quickest guy at the 'ring, and I would always be taking it easy out there in this car anyhow.
Our best guess is that, with a professional 'ringmeister at the wheel, the standard car would do a bit less than 8, and after my changes it would do maybe 7:40 on road tyres.
The sticking point is lack of downforce. There are only three places in the lap where you've got a decent bit of straight. Everywhere else in the 12.9 miles, downforce matters.

[R_U_LOCAL]

I have some questions relating to driving the F1 - apologies if they've been asked before.

How quickly can someone "settle in" to driving it for the first time? By that, I mean, is it a very intimidating, ferocious car to drive - does it make your palms sweat and your knuckles white even when you're trickling along? Or is it something that a moderately experienced driver can jump in and drive quickly straight away?

I've heard descriptions of the car along the lines of it being like a very fast Lotus Elise - is that a fair description?

And does the value of the car hamper your ability to enjoy it at all? Have you constantly got it's value (buth monitary and rarity) in the back of your mind when you take it out for a run, or can you genuinely enjoy the car without letting that worry you? I'd like to think that if I were lucky enough to have one, I'd be of the latter persuasion, but the rarity aspect would concern me more than the actual financial value of the car.

[flemke]

R_U_LOCAL said:

I have some questions relating to driving the F1 - apologies if they've been asked before.

How quickly can someone "settle in" to driving it for the first time? By that, I mean, is it a very intimidating, ferocious car to drive - does it make your palms sweat and your knuckles white even when you're trickling along? Or is it something that a moderately experienced driver can jump in and drive quickly straight away?

I've heard descriptions of the car along the lines of it being like a very fast Lotus Elise - is that a fair description?

And does the value of the car hamper your ability to enjoy it at all? Have you constantly got it's value (buth monitary and rarity) in the back of your mind when you take it out for a run, or can you genuinely enjoy the car without letting that worry you? I'd like to think that if I were lucky enough to have one, I'd be of the latter persuasion, but the rarity aspect would concern me more than the actual financial value of the car.

Reg,

You probably have a lot of experience in needing to adapt quickly to a car.
I myself find that the F1 requires a mental readjustment as well as a physical one whenever I get into it, even if I just got out of it five minutes earlier. I would have expected that, after I had driven F1s more than 30,000 miles, I would have become quite used to them. The reality, however, is that the car is sufficiently different from and extreme to "normal" driving experiences (in which I'm including every other high-performance car made by a global manufacturer) that it requires one's full attention at all times.
What is perhaps the most obvious point of difference is actually not an issue - the central driving position. It is one of the car's best features and is almost immediately natural. To adapt to it is far simpler than going from RHD to LHD. All you do is to think in terms of placing yourself in the middle of the space through which you intend to pass and, as usual, your eyes tell your hands what to do.

What makes driving the car very challenging (and satisfying) include:

- straight-ahead steering has high "sneeze factor",
- heavy brake pedal with not much feel, and a momentary delay to the onset of retardation when cool rotors and pads have to heat up enough to begin biting,
- no ABS or traction control,
- poor rear quarter vision (as common in mid-engined cars), and a complete blind spot directly behind,
- low understeer gradient below the limit,
- soft springs in standard car tend to allow dive under hard braking,
- high power-to-weight and especially torque-to-weight ratios. When the conditions are cool and damp or mixed traction, it is very easy to lose the back end. Even when it's hot and dry, you need to pay attention.
- The revs rise and fall very quickly, owing to a tiny flywheel and v. light clutch. The gearchange is nice and mechanical, but there is no freeplay and you really do have to get it right, especially the 2-3. With the revs dropping as quickly as they do, it takes a lot of skill to make a clean change in a single motion. Most people, including very skilled drivers, find that they need to divide the shift action into stages.
- The car has a true carbon clutch. Slip it and you'll soon ruin it. Mis-time a shift and it'll grab quickly. Standing starts up a hill are quite tricky. Getting to grips with the shifting is one of the most difficult things for a driver. Get a shift spot on and it is very satisfying.

I have only scant experience in Elises, but I'd say that driving them is substantially different from driving F1s.
There's the big weight difference which manifests itself in braking and cornering. The Elise's controls are light rather than heavy. The Elise gearchange is pretty sloppy, and its engine/clutch has a much greater flywheel effect.
The greatest difference in the dynamics of the two cars may stem from the wheelbases: 230 plays 272.
Another difference is that the standard F1 road car has a very comfortable ride.
Yes, both cars are mid-engined, and both are quick, each up to its own point. Beyond that, I don't know that there are a lot of similarities.


I couldn't speak for anyone else, but whenever I'm driving it there is a background consciousness of the F1's rarity, beauty and value. Regardless of whether one could afford to get the car repaired or to buy another, seriously damaging it would feel like a sort of sacrilege. That has a restraining effect which, regardless of its materialistic consequences, is probably a good thing on public roads.

Despite all of the above, or perhaps in some cases because of it, the car is immensely pleasurable and rewarding to drive and I feel privileged to be able to do so. It's also nice to do something in which one is always challenged and must stay fully involved.

Cheers.

[R_U_LOCAL]

Thanks for a very comprehensive answer. Your attitude to driving the F1 is exactly what I'd hoped - conscious of it's rarity rather than just it's monitary value. It's all proportional really, isn't it? Compared with my income, my car is relatively expensive (although not prohibitively so), and quite expensive to run and service. Does this stop me from enjoying it? No, of course not - I drive it to the best of my ability and I get a lot out of it. Do I drive it as hard as I drive my works cars? No - I'm not paying for the tyres and servicing in those, and I'd be far more upset if I pranged my car than a job car (my pride would be equally dented in both cases of course, especially in a Police car - there's nothing that passers-by love to see more than a crashed Police car!)

It's nice to see that you're using it as it was intended to be used - There's something a little sad about people who buy cars like that and just sit them in a collection or a museum. If I were a wealthy man, I'd have a small collection of around half-a-dozen cars which I'd use regularly and properly.

The comparison with the Elise wasn't meant to be quite so literal - I think the reports I've read about the F1 which made that comparison were referring to it's compact size, light weight and general wieldiness more than anything.

The "mental adjustment" that you mentioned is interesting. I've ridden fast bikes (although I'd never consider myself to be a motorcyclist), and you have to do a similar thing - concentrate very hard on adjusting to the huge difference between a bike's performance and a car's.

[robbiemeister]

gfwilliams said:

Flemke, when you drove the ring, what lap time did you get?
Cheers

GFWilliams

Spooky!

[flemke]

R_U_LOCAL said:

There's something a little sad about people who buy cars like that and just sit them in a collection or a museum. If I were a wealthy man, I'd have a small collection of around half-a-dozen cars which I'd use regularly and properly.

Yes, it's slightly sickening the way some people with great wealth (which almost always they have due more to luck than to anything else) will acquire a rare and beautiful thing and then secret it away. What they do with great art is even worse than what they do with cars, as there is only one of any painting or sculpture.
Possession is what matters to these people, rather than appreciation. The fact that they don't even share vicariously makes their possession worse.


BTW, with respect to your earlier post, I recalled that the person who probably adapted most quickly and fluently to driving the F1 for the first time was a BIB friend of mine. He drove it beautifully, despite the fact that he'd never before driven anything even remotely like it.
It must have absorbed his full concentration, however: on the drive he got nicked by a camera - 41 in a 30.

[littlegreenfairy]

Cars like yours are the reason I keep struggling on with this bloody degree. Hopefully one day I'll have the honour of getting a chance to work on the materials that go into these beasts and make them even more special.

[Neil_Bolton]

flemke said:

[quote=R_U_LOCAL] I recalled that the person who probably adapted most quickly and fluently to driving the F1 for the first time was a BIB friend of mine. He drove it beautifully, despite the fact that he'd never before driven anything even remotely like it.
It must have absorbed his full concentration, however: on the drive he got nicked by a camera - 41 in a 30.

If theres ever a time that you probably could bring yourself to be gracious in getting flashed - driving an F1 would be it

I do hope he got the camera piccie for his picture album

[road_terrorist]

Neil_Bolton said:

I do hope he got the camera piccie for his picture album

Probably framed on his wall, I know that's what I would do

[R_U_LOCAL]

flemke said:

BTW, with respect to your earlier post, I recalled that the person who probably adapted most quickly and fluently to driving the F1 for the first time was a BIB friend of mine. He drove it beautifully, despite the fact that he'd never before driven anything even remotely like it.
It must have absorbed his full concentration, however: on the drive he got nicked by a camera - 41 in a 30.

Only 41? I'd have been gutted!

[hurstg01]

41! perhaps he was slowing down! Cheers for the info flemke, I can't reply any other way, but cheers

[sato]

Flemke,

Do you have any thoughts on whether the market value of an F1 is over or under valued, and if so what other cars do think make a good comparative bench mark?

thanks

[dinkel]

www.autoblog.nl/archive/2007/04/19/mclaren-f1-rijdt-weg-na-crashtest

F1 is strong. seems that that F1 was the only car ever to drive home after the test . . .

[flemke]

sato said:

Flemke,

Do you have any thoughts on whether the market value of an F1 is over or under valued, and if so what other cars do think make a good comparative bench mark?

thanks

Markets have lives of their own, and they often behave in ways that seem irrational.
In the case of the F1, I expect that the values will do well over the forseeable future, because of the confluence of a few factors:

- McLaren Formula One effort appears likely to be successful in next few years. The racing overlay is an important fillip to the attractiveness of road cars. This is of course the basis of the Ferrari nonsense.
- They didn't make many F1s, and there is a mind-boggling number of people in the world who can afford to spend a few millions on a car if the spirit should move them. Again I use Ferrari as a reference point: the Italians made a cumulative shitload of cars that now command £1M+ prices - far greater numbers than there are F1s.
- There won't be another car of this ethos made again. There are simply too many regulatory constraints that stand in the way.
- In contrast to the 959, Veyron and others, the F1's appeal does not rest on technology. In contrast to the XJ220, EB110 and other, its aesthetics are not of a particular time.
The virtue of these facts is that the F1 will not date the way that the others have done and will do.
- I suspect that it will be many a year before another genuine road car that has been marginally adapted for racing wins Le Mans outright.
- I further suspect that it will be many a year before a chief designer goes directly from creating the most dominant Formula One car of its era to designing a road car from the ground up.

As I say, there is so much money floating around, it's hard to imagine that some more of it won't chase after F1s.

[tvr tommy]

I saw you driving your F1 up near High Wycombe at lunch. All I can say is it brightened up my day, thats the first one I've seen and it looked great. Nice to see you out and about driving it. I was in a very un pistonhead volvo at the time.

[nightfever]

Saw a program called 'million dollar motors' the other night. The guy with the orange F1 and matching coloured Hummer was on it Apparently he is a unique person so he wanted a unique car.

Glad he hasn't crashed it though.

[Davey S2]

I know its been said before but well done for still being here answering questions (many of which have been asked several times) after God knows how many pages and posts.

I think the factory should print out this thread and send out a copy to every owner bound in a hand stitched calfskin cover in the colour of their choice.

[Frik]

I think we can safely say that's very, very unlikely to happen...

[benzo]

hi flemke.

whats the scariest moment you have had in your F1?

thanks