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David Phillips
Editor and ChiefDavid Phillips is a long-time contributor to print and electronic publications in the U.S. and abroad, including Racer, Autosport, AutoWeek, Motor Sport and SPEEDtv.com, oversees the daily updating of news stories and assigns, edits and contributes feature material for inRacingNews.com.
Chris Hall
iRacing.com Series WriterChris Hall has been writing since the nineties and moved into motorsports reporting in 2005, covering series such as ALMS, British GT, FIA GT, Le Mans and 2CV racing for Full Throttle magazine, Motorsport.com, The-Paddock.net, GTGateway.com, L' Endurance and, of course, inRacingNews. During 2008 and 2009, he worked with the RSS Performance Porsche Carrera Cup Team (and former British GT(C) champions) as a data engineer for a variety of drivers and models of 997s.
Jameson Spies
Contributing Writer19 years old, Jameson Spies lives in Quartz Hill, California. He grew-up surrounded by racing. His mother raced late models throughout Southern California while his father built and setup the car. Not surprisingly, Jameson began racing go-karts at the age of 13, and is now racing Spec Trucks at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale. He has a passion about all forms of racing and hopes to make a career out of it.
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iRacing.com Series WriterJason is 21 years old and was born and raised in Elk Grove. California. A big time NASCAR fan, he hasn’t missed a race on Sunday in years. Lofing is also a huge San Fransisco Giants fan and tries to take in at least a couple games a year. Other than sim racing, his biggest (and far more expensive!) hobby is photography. Although he is rather new to sim racing, Lofing has already accomplished some pretty impressive results, qualifying for the 2011 iRacing Oval Pro Series in Season 1, 2011, winning the inaugural Landon Cassill Qualifying Challenge and finishing runner-up in the second one.
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Contributing WriterTim Terry, aka the voice of Maritime stock car racing, fell in love with sim racing in 2004 after he joined the Sim Racing Network crew as a pit reporter. From October 2004 to SRNtv’s closure in June 2007, he’s covered prestigious races and leagues such as the Online 500, FLM Fall 400, Real Racing Online and the DMP Racing League – each as the lead broadcaster for the company. At the same time the wheels started to turn in another direction as he began announcing stock car racing locally. Terry became the assistant announcer at Scotia Speedworld in May 2007 and took over full duties in May 2009 when long-time voice Mike Kaplan retired from the track. Terry also became the series voice of the Parts For Trucks Pro Stock Tour in ’09 and continues to hold down both posts in 2011. He has also announced races for the Pro All Stars Series, Atlantic Open Wheel and Maritime League of Legends tours and has called races at six different Atlantic Canadian tracks. Terry can be heard online at WebRacingNetwork.com, RLMtv.com and OLRtv.com covering sim races. He also makes occasional appearances on PSRtv.com. In addition to inRacingNews, his articles and columns can be read on ScotiaSpeedworld.ca, MaritimeProStockTour.com and his own website at timterryonline.com.
David Allen
Contributing WriterNorth Carolina born and raised with over 15 years of computer/IT experience, I combine two of my biggest hobbies -- racing and technology -- here at inRacingNews. In my spare time I run a Nascar fan site and cure my own need for speed riding atvs. If it involves technology or racing I'll be there, but combine the two and I'll be looking a front row seat. Stop by and say hello anytime!
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Contributing WriterAllen was born in West Palm Beach, Florida but grew up in Atlanta and attended Georgia College and State University where he received a BS in Information Systems. Currently a resident of Albany, GA, he started sim racing in 2008 while in college when iRacing was first released to the public. Since then, Krier has been a two time iRacing Pro Series driver (2009 and 2010), picking up one Pro Series win at Daytona in ‘09. Besides sim racing, Allen’s other hobbies include RC Car racing as well as “attending and watching any sporting event that I can including going to the local dirt track.
Reactive ride height banned for 2012
January 21st, 2012
Formula 1 teams have been told that the reactive suspension system pioneered by Lotus has been banned for the 2012 season.
Sources have confirmed that a note was sent from the FIA to all teams on Friday evening indicating that the governing body was no longer satisfied the concept – which regulates ride height under braking – was still legal.
It is not clear why the FIA has decided now that the reactive systems should be outlawed, after AUTOSPORT revealed last week that it had given the green light to the Lotus idea as long ago as last January.
Rival teams are likely, however, to have made an effort to prove to the FIA that the Lotus system was in contravention of the regulations.
News of the FIA ban was first broken on The Flying Lap webcast, when Williams chief operations engineer Mark Gillan said on Friday night he had received a note from the governing body shortly before going on air notifying him of the move.
“The FIA has just banned that particular type of system,” he said.
Speaking about Williams’ efforts on the device, Gillan said: “We have been investigating that type of system for a while. It obviously has an impact on the aero platform of the car, [and] anything that gets the front ride height lower is beneficial from an aerodynamic perspective.”
The reactive suspension system on the Lotus was first spotted at last year’s Abu Dhabi Young Driver Test, and helped maintain the front ride height under braking for corners – to benefit both aerodynamic performance and stability.
Rivals teams were quick to look into the system, with Ferrari understood to be the first to propose its own version of reactive ride to the FIA.
Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali had said at his team’s Wrooom media event in Italy last week that he was awaiting a response from the governing body on its legality.
He said: “What you are talking about, is more related to having stability under braking. It is a system that I know there have been some documents in writing between the FIA and the teams.
“We are waiting for the final confirmation if this kind of devices will be acceptable or not. But for sure we are looking around these sorts of devices to see if they contribute to a performance. But we need to wait and see what will be the reaction to the FIA on that.”
Only this week, Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner had said he was unsure about the ultimate benefits of the system.
“It’s like all of these things, it’s about how they work and how they are integrated in the car,” Horner told AUTOSPORT. “Things have to work as a package rather than as individual components. It appears to be an interesting concept but I’m the wrong person to be commenting on it.”
When asked if he thought it was legal, he said: “I haven’t had that close a look at it. That’s more a question for [F1 race director] Charlie Whiting.”
The Lotus system was mechanical and activated by brake torque. And, because it was part of the suspension system, was deemed legal at the time because it could not be classified as a moveable aerodynamic device.