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Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

Drivers still are international celebrities and they still dice with death. Someone died in an F2 car just last year.

But you’re right that it has gotten far safer. Drivers walk away from horrific crashes at insane speeds.

And modern cars despite being less powerful post lap times that boggle the mind. The aero is bonkers. Drivers regularly pull 5G laterally in corners. If it weren’t for rules, I bet we’d see cornering blackouts like fighter pilots get.

To understand why F1 is attractive, watch this speed comparison video, it’s 9 years old so more powerful engines, but slower lap times: https://youtu.be/K2cNqaPSHv0

As for rich people ... you can say the same about any sport. Why watch basketball? It’s just a bunch of millionaires running around in shorts

Edit: here’s another good comparison, motogp vs f1 on the same track this year https://youtu.be/NIIJNSdJoNQ

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No you wouldn't.

Cornering G is lateral.

That doesn't pull blood from the brain. Not to say it's exactly FUN, but it won't cause you to black out.

And Braking G is along the longitudinal axis of the driver, they could red-out.

I don't think that's likely considering that they are mostly laying down in the car with the feet only slightly below their head, so relatively flat overall. In braking, blood would be forced to their legs/feet, so you'd see gray/black out.

You're right. I literally laid down in the driving position our FSAE car has and I still got it backwards, oh dear.

You might have gotten it right. I believe the major cause of redout is blood rushing into the eyes/veins in the eyes bursting. The head is still more or less level, even if the body isn't. So it's still very much "eyeballs out" G.

Breaking G is also more or less required for the drivers to break properly.

All breaking force has to be generated by the driver as per regulations, and the pedal requires over 100kg for maximum breaking, all while modulating the force precisely to extract the maximum without locking up[1].

So they rely on the breaking G forces making their legs heavy.

[1]: https://motorsport.tech/formula-1/formula-one-brakes-explain...

Good post but I don't understand the comparison. F1 is faster, we get it. The racing in MotoGP is so much better.

I caught the start of F1 Mugello this year and I turned off after 7 laps of safety car. (Was the first real lap 11?) It's embarrassing. The amazing additional crash under safety car wasn't the kind of entertainment I was seeking.

And what are the rules for track limits in F1? I understand that braking when running wide - if not an outright incident - is safer with a "normal" grippy surface, but now it appears that both sides of the ripple strip are in bounds!? I think many people agree, independent of alternate formulas/vehicles, that the last 10+ years of F1 is questionable progress and the races are too often outright boring.

Track limits tend to vary from ciruit to circuit (or even corner to corner). The race director publishes the "rules" for a given weekend, defining the track limits for the event.

Agreed speeds are insane, but its less interesting than when people were overtaking more. The rich people bit was a dig at Abu Dhabi & Azerbaijan which seem mostly empty.

That's why MotoGP is so much more interesting. Not unusual to see multiple passes for the lead on the last lap alone, and the top, say, 8-10 riders to be within a couple seconds at the finish.

> The rich people bit was a dig at Abu Dhabi & Azerbaijan which seem mostly empty.

Tho that's not really a new thing, it's been more of a "rich people" sport for a while, at least for watching live, as races often happen in rather "exclusive" and expensive locations like Monte Carlo.

That's why the people watching F1 live, shown during broadcasts, usually look nothing like football fans but rather like rich people on an expensive vacation, at least that's what stuck most with me from watching a bit of F1 in the 90s.

> Drivers walk away from horrific crashes at insane speeds.

So, they run?

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