The true beauty of motorsports for me is the symbiosis of man/machine/environment interaction, the best drivers are are able to adapt their driving style to the limits of their car/setup in respect to changing weather.
Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?
61–70 of 154 posts
Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
The balance is probably around 90% the car and 10% the driver. In the years of RB dominance, a subpar driver like Webber almost got the championship. OTOH Alonso lost a decade in Ferrari and McLaren while being, tied with Hamilton, the best driver in the grid. The 10% of what the driver adds to the mix is what makes Hamilton champion instead of Bottas.
Dunno if it's a valid comparison, but my kid races indoor karting. He's average level, that means he's within 1.5% of the best in race conditions (i.e. on a 40 seconds lap, he's about than 0.7 seconds behind the best on average). And given the time it took to reach that, I'd say that being a competitive pilot may be just 10% of the victory, but those 10% are super tough to reach.
I've been doing a bit of karting lately and the difference between a 58s and a 59s lap is crazy. Super hard to shave that second off, but it's also so obvious that the guy doing 58s laps is way faster.
Last year there was a hobbyist race on my local track and the person who won it was a guy who mainly practices at home on his computer. I imagine a gokart simulation is close enough to the real deal that training on it actually can help a lot. You can get much more fine-grained feedback on how well you're taking certain corners etc. One thing that trips me up is understanding the kart - my local ones have somewhat poor acceleration, so it seems it's not actually best to take the corners as sharp as possible and try to accelerate out of the corner, but instead try to maintain as much speed as possible going into the corner, even if you end up on a bad line. This would be easy to test in a simulation, but I just have to go by gut feeling.
Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
After spending years trying to put myself in a position to work in the sport, now I mostly just follow F1 for the politics and gamesmanship more than the racing itself. There are much more fun motorsports to watch, but rarely do they come so packaged with intriguing technical drama.
Americans Cup (Sailing) has that similar appeal
It's a pretty rare event in comparison though.
Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
The balance is probably around 90% the car and 10% the driver. In the years of RB dominance, a subpar driver like Webber almost got the championship. OTOH Alonso lost a decade in Ferrari and McLaren while being, tied with Hamilton, the best driver in the grid. The 10% of what the driver adds to the mix is what makes Hamilton champion instead of Bottas.
Also, a good driver might not be a good team member which might put them in a disadvantage. Räikkönen was considered one of if not the fastest on the grid during his best years but iirc wasn't very good as a team member in the car's development phase which hampered his and his car's performance
But always against his teammate.
You can put whatever driver you name in a Mercedes from 2014 until today, and he will end at least in second place in the championship. I cannot imagine a single driver, not even Maldonado, that would end worst than 2nd except due to incredible bad luck with the car reliability.
Verstappen is an incredible good driver that probably deserves to win multi-championships. But as it is now, Bottas is closer to that achievement than him.
Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dunno if it's a valid comparison, but my kid races indoor karting. He's average level, that means he's within 1.5% of the best in race conditions (i.e. on a 40 seconds lap, he's about than 0.7 seconds behind the best on average). And given the time it took to reach that, I'd say that being a competitive pilot may be just 10% of the victory, but those 10% are super tough to reach.
I've been doing a bit of karting lately and the difference between a 58s and a 59s lap is crazy. Super hard to shave that second off, but it's also so obvious that the guy doing 58s laps is way faster. Last year there was a hobbyist race on my local track and the person who won it was a guy who mainly practices at home on his computer. I imagine a gokart simulation is close enough to the real deal that training on it…
The 1st rule we've learned is : you look all over the place, not just the kart in front of you.
The 2nd rule we've learned is : no skidding, never. That's really hard to do. But look at top pilots, they don't skid.
The 3d rule is : you do your best time on every single lap (super good pilots do almost the same time on most of their laps, within 0.3 sec range; it's hard to believe they do it, but they do !).
4th rule : figure out the best trajectory. According to my kid's teacher it's a question of 10 centimeters here or there (good luck figuring that out !).
Strangely, passing a car is the last thing you learn. But in retrospect,it's normal : most of the time you run after the one in front of you. The opportunities to pass another pilot are rare (most of the time you're much faster so the blue flags forces them to let you pass).
As a dad, I'd say : find a good teacher, it makes a big difference.
Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
A few years ago I did a spec Job application to RBR racing I wasn't cheeky enough to mention the two DNF's (ran out of fuel) they had had the previous season, and how as a former Research Assistant / Experimental officer at a world leading hydro dynamics RnD org - I would have at least made sure the second one did not happen
How are you so sure that you would have succeeded when they didn't?
I would have identified the issue and put plans in place to make sure it didn't happen the second time - any idea how much a DNF costs a top F1 team?
I worked on Campus at Cranfield Uni (close to RB and Maclarren) At a tier 1 research organisation in hydrodynamics, there was one US lab that was working at our level.
I worked on research projects and managing out risk like this is a big aspect of the work. If the materials for a single run of an experiment cost as much as for a small flat you take great care not to fuckup or at least not to make the same mistake twice
I also did a niche specialised Vocational Course in thermofields basically to support military /aerospace.
Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
The balance of importance between driver and constructor is quite unique in sport. A sufficiently good car can make an average driver competitive (e.g. Bottas), but also a sufficiently good driver can make an average car competitive (e.g. Schumacher). Plus everyone involved is such a drama merchant (or crook!) that the season often plays out like a soap opera.
It’s also the balance that the FIA has never managed to maintain to anybody’s satisfaction. A lot of the issues with F1 stem from the fact that it’s actually two seperate competitions. If you let constructors build the fastest car that they safely can, then two bad things happen. Firstly, the fastest car will win. Secondly, the teams with less money can’t compete. The F1 brand is about having the most technologically…
A budget cap is one solution to keep design regulations to a minimum and ensure that smaller teams can compete. F1 introduced a $145 million budget cap for the 2021 season, going down to $135 million for 2023-25 seasons. Right now the three biggest teams (MB, Ferrari, Red Bull) spend somewhere around half a billion or so per season.
Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
The balance of importance between driver and constructor is quite unique in sport. A sufficiently good car can make an average driver competitive (e.g. Bottas), but also a sufficiently good driver can make an average car competitive (e.g. Schumacher). Plus everyone involved is such a drama merchant (or crook!) that the season often plays out like a soap opera.
The balance is probably around 90% the car and 10% the driver. In the years of RB dominance, a subpar driver like Webber almost got the championship. OTOH Alonso lost a decade in Ferrari and McLaren while being, tied with Hamilton, the best driver in the grid. The 10% of what the driver adds to the mix is what makes Hamilton champion instead of Bottas.
The driver matters more when the cars are close in performance. Any driver on the grid would have been either World Champion or runner up in a Ferrari in 2002 and 2004, Red Bull 2011 and 2013, Mercedes in 2014-2016 and maybe 2019. The only opponent would be the team mate. The car matters nearly zero in the fight with a mate, that is only about driving skill: how to be fast and when, when to try to overtake and when not, etc. Most F1 drivers are very fast but not all of them are as wise in their driving as they should be. Some of them regularly end a race and score points, others regularly crash or throw away good results. (And some drivers are there because they are backed by sponsors with the money needed by the teams they drive for.)
Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
The balance is probably around 90% the car and 10% the driver. In the years of RB dominance, a subpar driver like Webber almost got the championship. OTOH Alonso lost a decade in Ferrari and McLaren while being, tied with Hamilton, the best driver in the grid. The 10% of what the driver adds to the mix is what makes Hamilton champion instead of Bottas.
Dunno if it's a valid comparison, but my kid races indoor karting. He's average level, that means he's within 1.5% of the best in race conditions (i.e. on a 40 seconds lap, he's about than 0.7 seconds behind the best on average). And given the time it took to reach that, I'd say that being a competitive pilot may be just 10% of the victory, but those 10% are super tough to reach.
Now imagine that the wealthy father of another average level kid is allowed to enter the race with an expensive kart that makes 10% more power, has 10% more grip and overall gives the driver a "free" 1.5 seconds per lap. Suddenly an average driver can crush a top notch driver every time.
Because that's F1. There's not a balance driver/car. There are good cars, average cars and poor cars, almost all of them driven by good drivers. In karting (and many formula cathegories) the reverse scenario is true: there are good drivers, average drivers and bad drivers, all driving similar karts.
Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> once a pairing has been made, either the drivers are closely matched, or one or both will be changing teams That's not always the case. Eddie Irvine spent 4 years as n.2 to Schumacher pretty happily, only changing teams because Jordan offered more money. He was pretty spectacular on good days but nowhere as good as The Michael.
> Eddie Irvine spent 4 years as n.2 to Schumacher pretty happily, only changing teams because Jordan offered more money I think you mean Jaguar. He moved from Jordan to Ferrari.
Yes, sorry.