Q&A For The Those Who Aren't Quite Sure!!

[maranellored]

Quote:1) Chuck pitstops introduce long life tyres. - Yes, but then the whole tyre competition would be over surely?
2) Change the configuration of engines to V12/V16s from V8s (longer life) - Yes, agree 100%!! And they sound so much better too
3) Raise the minimum ride heights (reference plane) - Again, yes, it distributes the weight of the car doesn't it?
4) diffuser highest reduced from 175mm to 85mm - Why would that be good?
5) No pseudo slots and ducts to the rear wing. - But wouldn't that be areodynamically bad?
6) No extra cooling elements on the wheel rims - Yes - that makes sense for long life tyres
7) Mirrors must be on the monocoque, not attached to deflectors on the sidepods. - And also good for actual purpose!
8) Putting down a clear path to fully electric engines and throwing out fossil fuel based engines (never going to happen the evil oil and banking cartels in the world will have the entire FIA and FOM assassinated if they have to before this ever happens, doubt even the car markers want this to happen) Now this is really going green. - What about Hybrids like Honda were dveloping for F1 and have developed successfully for road cars?

Unrelated to the above:

A crazy idea of mine to take focus away from 1 driver and really put new meaning to "team work". During a pitstop the drivers swap and the other guy takes over. This way no driver can be harmed by internal politics. Both drivers have to contribute to the win so both will be given their best. When either driver wins both of them win. A real team sport it becomes. But this wont happen because it has no marketing appeal to sell one driver's image. Nor does it help fans get more close to one driver, they need to get close to both drivers so to speak. This will hugely appeal the constructors though, as focus will change more towards the brand. Right now brand has less focus than the driver.

- Yes!!! Politics should be left to Jean Cod and Bernie Ecclescake, not the real heroes of F1 who work tirelessly for their respective teams and drivers..............

[Tension_36th]

(04-17-2010 11:08 PM)maranellored Wrote:  1) Chuck pitstops introduce long life tyres. - Yes, but then the whole tyre competition would be over surely?

Inducing tyre competition through more than one supplier will make the sport a tyre decider. Also costs will increase because. However I made some ideas on how to have competition and yet keep costs down (some other topic on the forums will check)

(04-17-2010 11:08 PM)maranellored Wrote:  3) Raise the minimum ride heights (reference plane) - Again, yes, it distributes the weight of the car doesn't it?

That will depend on the chassis from team to team. That is not the main concern through this change. What it affects is down-force generation. A wing will produce more downforce closer to the ground than away from it for the same velocity it is subjected to.

(04-17-2010 11:08 PM)maranellored Wrote:  4) diffuser highest reduced from 175mm to 85mm - Why would that be good?

Diffusers are to generate a lot of downforce. Today multideck diffusers are so aggressive they are getting close to 2008 levels of downforce despite taking off numerous aerodynamic body parts and changes to wings to limit downforce. This was not supposed to ever happen.

Reducing the height of the diffuser will make it loose a lot of downforce, since its loosing its curvature to create a large speed difference above and below the diffuser's decks. The proposal for 2011 is two reduce it from 175mm to 125mm. Effectively banning the diffusers so to speak. They are still entitled to make many as decks as they please but with only 125mm there is little point in having multidecks. They will be crammed and the angle will not give much downforce anymore like they do now. They will all go back to 2008 style decks. Single decks.

But I know 125mm is still not enough they need to reduce it even more. Why? These downforce creating devices spoils the wake of the car for a competitor behind. It ruins close racing. So if we want faster cars spend less time in the dirty air of a slower car we need to give them the means to overtake them through good racecraft. The wake shouldnt be the reason a driver defends so well. They must defend well because of clever racing. Like Webber vs Button in Bahrain 2009, Button vs Alonso in Malaysia 2010. Those were close racing where the drivers made the faster guy loose out by clever racecraft. But ofcourse the wake was also bad for both cases. But still it showed what can be possible if we eliminate the wake problems. We will see more of such duels and the races will be more entertaining.

(04-17-2010 11:08 PM)maranellored Wrote:  5) No pseudo slots and ducts to the rear wing. - But wouldn't that be areodynamically bad?

Yeah they loose tops speeds, also that contraption is adding even more wake disturbance. Good to get rid of it altogether.

Fans wont miss the fact a car did not break the speed trap records. All we want is close battles and racing.

(04-17-2010 11:08 PM)maranellored Wrote:  6) No extra cooling elements on the wheel rims - Yes - that makes sense for long life tyres

Correct. It will force them to come up with tyres that last longer without facy cooling aids. But most important factor I wanted to stress was that wheel farings that are now banned in 2010 also ruined the wake.

(04-17-2010 11:08 PM)maranellored Wrote:  8) Putting down a clear path to fully electric engines and throwing out fossil fuel based engines (never going to happen the evil oil and banking cartels in the world will have the entire FIA and FOM assassinated if they have to before this ever happens, doubt even the car markers want this to happen) Now this is really going green. - What about Hybrids like Honda were dveloping for F1 and have developed successfully for road cars?

Its a good idea but if you don't give restriction they will use more fuel and do very less laps on electric engines. So they can have smaller and lighter batteries. Defeats the purpose of having electric engines in the first place. They will need to say like half the race must be done on electric and half the race on fuel. That means like a standardized fuel tank size so no one can carry more fuel.

[maranellored]

Ok Tension........please, explain why RBR are SO much ahead of all of the other teams.

At one point today it was 1.5 seconds so how can they have such an overwhelming advantage over brilliant teams and drivers?

[icegirljenni]

Apart from the development that RBR bring, i wouldnt said it is completely RBR who has gain the advantage of the 1 sec gap, I would said others are gambling with their minor development. Williams are screwed with their development, shoe licker seem comfortable with it, while Nico are damn struggle. With Mclaren not quite really matching the pace, i think they bring up the development that doesnt seem to be much helpful here at Spain. RBR certainly make a right progress at the right time while others seem struggling. that my POV with my minor research and little talk to tension. He can explain better of course.

[Tension_36th]

First of all why should it be a problem if some team is 2 or even 3 seconds faster for the same regulations? Thats like one student saying he got 60/100 on this math test, it was tough but how can this other guy get a 95/100? He must have been cheating.

Not at all, that's just because the one who scored less is not ready to accept reality that some are simply better than the others. We are not equal in the 'smart' department (unless ofcourse the other did in-fact cheat). Forget all the political correctness perpetuated in general society that we are all created as equals. We are not, that's just nature.

The same way Redbull and their extremely bright engineers have designed a very good car. A vehicle dynamics engineer can easily see why their car is good, there is nothing surprising or untoward. I first mentioned Ferrari was nothing special and Mclaren is the better car right after the launch. A user named Xpert in here wanted to argue this and now he is proven wrong. And when Redbull launched I again told the same thing, looks like Mclaren maybe good but Redbull maybe even better.

The only disappointment was Mercedes, their car was not complete, but they are now catching up.

There is nothing surprising to their pace because from a design standpoint their car is simply more efficient in high speed corners, The pull-rod rear suspension configuration, the extended diffusers, the revised profile of the nose, the energizing of the diffusers by the hot exhausts vents of the engines, high fuel efficiency of the Renault engine etc. All of these have made few tenths gains and the overall result is a very very fast car in those types of circuits that cater to the RB6's design. They wont be this quick on all circuits but will be quick on most, since most tracks have Barcelona-ish traits about them.

I would easily contend the fact that Redbull drivers are not just 'some' drivers in faster cars who beat other 'brilliant' drivers. Vettel maybe the best driver out there in just 1-2 years time. Maybe we are looking at the next world phenomenon. Fernando is good but he is not that great for example in the wet, Vettel is miles ahead. Vettel is on the rise every race. Last race he pulled a pole out of nowhere when Webber was faster all weekend. He is getting to the point where he is going to pass many on the current grid as one of the best drivers in the sport.

Webber is no slouch either, highly underrated. superior to drivers like Massa, Nico Rosberg etc.

No driver after Senna has left that mark. Every time we have a fair champion its because he had a tiny advantage over the rest in that period of time. Fernando had his moments, Kimi had his moments, Button had his moments in the right car. The press of each respective country will have you believe their country man is the god of F1 racing. That just partisan bullshit. All of these named drivers are very good but they are not overtly exceptional to warrant such surprise when they get beat by new driving talent or teams. Their time in the stardom will last a short while before they get displaced by new talent. Its the way it is. Its sport.

Redbull RB6 is the result of work by by some of the most brightest minds in F1, these people were once with different teams, like Mclaren for example. And while they where their, they showed their mark in their engineering projects Adrian Newey's 98/99 especially). They are doing it again in Redbull. Ferrari are not having this sort talent pool anymore, Mclaren have lost theirs to rivals like Redbull and others.

People think because of some recent history a certain team is brilliant. No 'team' is brilliant. People forget a team is made up of humans, if these bright human beings leave to other rivals, what happens to the current team? It lowers in quality. When Ferrari wins its not because the ferrari brand is so great, that brand is worth shit. Ferrari or Mclaren means nothing, it just means they had a good group of people doing work for them. The moment they leave, the results will also degrade.

It is the case with Redbull, they currently have people who are intellectually superior to others. All these engineers in F1 are highly smart compared to the average person. But amongst their peers some maybe likened to dumped down inferiors and some like copycats who are not clever enough. Like Ferrari copying ideas and refining them, thats not innovation. While teams like Redbull innovate. You can have lots of good people in one sport but they cant all be equally good, some are simply just too good. Thats nature, and that is part of competition.

Just like Senna was a freak of a driver, there is no use to analyze why he is so great, he simply is. The same goes for some smart engineers, they are simply better. Its a waste of time to over analyze why they are so good. They simply are. But what we can do is see why their car is better. And there are clear technical reasons as to why that is the case. Nothing fishy or nothing surprising. Just impressive that they are the ones to have found it and exploited it first.

It will take a lot of work for the other teams to match Redbull, its not just one area, they have several areas where they have made big gains.

[Tension_36th]

As for redbull design, there are no tricks on the suspension. Its all in the car's shape itself. I mentioned this in another thread. Its variable pressure zones. There is no right height change. That was all a lot of hot air and professional jealousy by a few teams. They are also humans you see. They can get angry, jealous, sulky, happy as we all do.

The ride height is not changing. The pace is from the shape of the car

To get the brief explanation read >here<

[maranellored]

It's not a problem.............just baffling. Look, Adrian Newey is the most genius man that ever lived - his vision and design and innovation is second to none, but I can't work out what exactly the Red Bulls have that the rest don't....except 1.5 seconds.

And yes, having a 2 or 3 second advantage over your nearest rivals in qualifying is unheard of these days which is why so many of us are baffled!!

[Tension_36th]

Its only in Barcelona. We may see a repeat at Spa, but at other tracks this advantage will be lesser but they will still be out in front.

[icegirljenni]

And this will only happen in those demanding tracks, you wont see much of such thing on others tracks. That is why the advantage of 1.5sec doesnt seem to bother me

[maranellored]

Turkey is a downforce track - will RBs still have a huge advantage?

I read that the RB advantage is down to the exhaust - is this true?

[icegirljenni]

The exhaust is just one aspect, you need to know more about mechanics to understand the RBR real pace, is not about point to one thing they read or heard about the reason for rebull being quick. Its more than 10 obvious areas plus several more areas where the car has lot of superiority over the rest.

[Tension_36th]

Exhausts are being used to energize the diffuser's boundary regions. I explained this already in some other post a while back. Will look for it, cant be arsed to type it all again

And like jenni mentioned, nope that is hardly anything earth shattering in terms of concept its old school and certainly not the reason for their quick pace, its many such finer details all contributing to the overall pace.