Full Throttle

A day that sees Ferrari vice-president Piero Ferrari utter the acronym “NASCAR” is a day you should look out the window to ensure the earth hasn’t flipped on it’s axis or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse aren’t riding up your driveway.

At this point, it’s early in the day yet, neither event has occurred but I’m keeping a watchful eye because Ferrari Vice-President Piero Ferrari did make a reference to NASCAR.

He was speaking about the introduction very controversial Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) for the 2009 F1 Championship season.

As background to you red-necked double-wide livin’ peons of NASCAR Nation (I’m joking, really) KERS is a technology that is designed to recover some of the vehicle’s kinetic energy that is normally dissipated as heat during braking. Allegedly the system will make the sport more environmentally friendly and lead to more overtaking.

I say allegedly because its untested at this point and it was dreamed up in part by a Pervert who shall remain nameless, but linked to.

But back to the Ferrari VP, Piero Ferrari believes KERS will increase F1 costs. “We should reflect on many of the technical and sporting decisions taken in F1 lately,” he told Autosprint.

“Engines were frozen with the result that all of them now run at 19,000 revolutions, so there’s no difference in power nor revs, and therefore there’s no way you can take advantage of a possible overrevving to try to overtake.

Ok, here’s the kicker, what you’ve all been waiting for the NASCAR reference (and probably the Four Horsemen as well):

“We should have done something similar to what NASCAR has done: to set some limits in the regulations, while allowing for researching and re-designing. The way the regulations are right now, we can’t re-design a single part to improve it. It’s excessive. Ferrari have great engine guys twiddling their thumbs.

“By contrast, they make us spend time and money to design the KERS, for which we can’t evaluate the costs precisely because it’s a new technology.

I’d be willing to bet, aside from the engine guys, a lot of the NASCAR team owners would partially concur with that.

Since the full introduction of the new car a lot of aerodynamic types are sitting around twiddling their thumbs.

Well, almost all, a couple had a hand in Carl Edwards’ “flip-top box” he was penalized for. But other than that there’s not much to do with the new car that won’t cost you a 100 pts and a hefty fine.

Frankly I don’t think, and wouldn’t expect the Ferrari VP to know NASCAR’s new car and all the ins & outs of the current budget strains all the teams are feeling because of it but it’s interesting non-the-less a man of his stature in F1 knows NASCAR exists and makes a comparison.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I hear the faint clomping of horse’s hooves in the driveway.

Technorati Tags: Ferrari, Vice-President Piero Ferrari, NASCAR, KERS