Yahoo Autos F1 Cars Are Woefully Ill-Equipped for US City Streets
Aston Martin Red Bull Racing recently had Daniel Ricciardo drive through San Francisco streets, the desert, and the Las Vegas strip in an RB9 V8-powered F1 car. While the video is cool to watch, what's more interesting is seeing just how terribly the car handles driving on a road that isn't perfectly flat or isn't intended for racing.
In some of the clips, you can see Ricciardo's car visibly getting airborne from being so unsettled, specifically on some of San Fran's more bumpy street crossings. These suspension systems are designed to absorb cornering force and some rumble strips, but not much else. Despite the broken road surfaces, he still manages to get a few drifts in for the camera.
The car is a lot more composed in the desert, where the roads are completely flat, and there aren't any train track grooves or curbs to worry about. Once Ricciardo arrives to Vegas, he's faced with some (assuredly staged) traffic on the strip. Because they shot this part of the video at night, Red Bull equipped the car with a set of headlights mounted where the nose piece connects to the body. When's the last time you saw headlights on an F1 car?
Since this video is titled "Road Trip USA," and there's a "To be continued" title card at the end, we assume this is only the beginning of Ricciardo's adventures in the US. We're curious to see which cities he visits next, and if that suspension will make it all the way to the end.
If you can't see the YouTube video above, click here.
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