FRIC and Barn Owls

Hi everyone.

Today has been kinda slow so far, but I do have some stuff planned.  Mostly looking up some stuff online and doing some gaming later on today/tonight. 

At least my energy is better than it has been because of the weather actually being decent around here.  






And now for what I want to talk about here.



There is a technology that was essentially banned in F1 that's not become the "in" thing in sportscar racing. This technology is FRIC, or Front-Rear Inter-Connected suspension. As followers of F1 remember from last season, the FIA got teams to agree to a moratorium on the use of FRIC as a cost cutting measure, the FIA preferring to give teams the option of using a cost-capped/rules-controlled electronic active suspension system as an alternative to FRIC.

FRIC is of course, ironically, the ultimate result of the FIA's ban of active suspension in most forms of top level motorsports after the end of the 1993 F1 season. And, naturally, teams were trying to find legal loopholes around that by using "reactive" suspension systems that emulate the banned active systems.

This leads us to now. In LMP1, it's been more or less confirmed that three of the four factory teams are likely to be using some type of FRIC like systems on their cars. Porsche has been though to have been using FRIC since some point last season, and it's been all but confirmed that they're using it again this year.

Audi have also adopted FRIC in the form of what Audi Sport have termed LSS, possibly simply standing for "Linked Suspension System". It's though that it may be in part derived from their road car Dynamic Ride Control (DRC) system.

And Toyota have also been quoted as having adopted FRIC for their 2015 car.

So this is one instance of sportscar racing adopting technology that's been banned in F1 due to cost control or BOP.
 
 For now, I'll leave you with a couple of barn owl videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aK_7Au8bUI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pWub12DUoU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlKo42iPslg

I'll be back later :)