Let’s talk about that infamous ‘squeegee’ shall we…?
You all saw PD driving at speeds of over 270km/h down Conrod Straight casually cleaning his windscreen with a homemade ‘squeegee’ – doing the old Paul Morris ‘rag on a stick’ trick.
Now, as much as we were impressed by PD’s hidden talent, we aren’t very pleased that our drivers were required to pull out the ‘squeegee’ – in the middle of the Great Race, might we add.
“It’s something you should never need because you should make sure your windscreens don’t fog up,” Red Bull Holden Racing Team Manager Mark Dutto said.
“It’s funny when you see it because it seems like a clever ‘get out of jail free’ card, but the fact we were using it is actually quite disappointing.
“It means we haven’t done a good enough job to ensure that it’s not fogging up in the first place.”
You’d think we’d have that down pat by now wouldn’t you? The old demister should do the trick wouldn’t it?
Apparently it’s not that easy…
“Unlike a normal road car, you can’t run your normal demister because of the added weight,” Dutto said.
“And the car also has a lot more holes in it – most of which are not allowed to be closed up due to safety requirements – so water is always going to get into the car.
“The cars run very hot and you create a lot of steam in the car and running slower because of the safety cars don’t help because there’s less cold fresh air cleaning the steamy air out,” Dutto said.
With the non-stop rain on Sunday, you’d think everyone else would be affected by the fog issues as well.
“We were the standout for having issues which is not cool, so we’ve got to redirect our attention to a different approach.
“The approach we took was too labour intensive, used too much time and energy and wasn’t effective enough.
Engineering at its finest 💦 #squeegees #redbullholden #vasc pic.twitter.com/HIUN6sO1pW
— Red Bull Holden (@redbullholden) October 8, 2017
And yes, for all the operations manual wiz’s out there, it was within the rules – and cleared with the big dogs prior to the race.
“The rule states that, ‘any other components or accessories, regardless of weight, which are mounted within the cockpit, must also be designed to ensure safe containment’,” Dutto explained.
“What we were using to contain it were neodymium rare earth magnets which require a lot of force to remove them.
“We didn’t intend on using it at all so it’s not something that we made easy to remove,” Dutto said.
Dutto’s basically saying that without pulling at the handle, you will have zero chance of dislodging the ‘squeegee’ unless of course you were in a crash and the whole car was destroyed.
“The roll cage is steel and the magnets stick to them so it didn’t have to be put back in one specific spot so the driver could place it anywhere and be guaranteed it would be safe and secure.”
Talk about convenience!