Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 154 posts

Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?

#81

Post by leokennis »

dfgdghdf wrote: post #24
beaker52 wrote: post #2

There are a couple of aspects of Formula 1 that make it very compelling to watch (my opinion of course, take as you will): - Accessible aerodynamics (it's on the road in front of you, not up in the air) - Technological developments (e.g. this year, one of the teams has a steering wheel they pull toward/push away themselves to change the geometry of the front wheels) - Watching high-performing athletes demonstrating t…

This is all true, but personally I find it so boring to actually watch. The cars go around. Maybe they need to improve the way it is filmed and presented?

This is certainly a true point. A lot of the shots now are cars racing towards a stationary camera; hard to gauge distance (and thus speed) and the background is static.

If you sometimes see spectators phone recordings of F1, where they try to pan their phones with the cars, you can clearly see the insane speed.

Example of F1 broadcasting angle that makes the sport a lot more exciting:

https://youtu.be/RmvZyC6s_Wk?t=187

Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?

#82

Post by beavisel »

dom96 wrote: post #53
arooaroo wrote: post #29

People who are not normally interested in F1 are finding the Netflix series Drive to Survive a more accessible version to spectate. It's not just highlights in chronological order, but a distillation of the main themes of the season, e.g., certain inter-team battles, intra-team rivalries, fallouts between teams and suppliers, regulations, etc. The behind-the-scenes glimpses are fascinating. I remember (pre-family whe…

So I watched Drive to Survive and loved it, so much so that I would like to get into watching F1 proper, but when I tried it just doesn't hold my interest (although admittedly I mostly attempted to watch random races on YouTube). Do you (or anyone else) have any tips on what and where to watch to get into it? Perhaps it's time I get a proper subscription for the TV coverage and watch it like you say over the weekend.

I think the more you understand about the race, strategy, technology, rivalries, and race-craft will definitely help you enjoy a GP much more. It's combination of all these things that make it that much more than just cars going around a track quickly. The Austrian GP just gone was very exciting, especially the end!

Try watch a few more races and even check out the F1 subreddit /r/formula1 - its a good community that share plenty of news, clips from new and old races etc - and if you have any questions, they're all very helpful

Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?

#83

Post by dharmab »

dingaling wrote: post #57
eaurouge wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been some boring seasons, but you probably haven’t watched much recently if you think this weekend was one of the best in recent years.

Part of why I find F1 boring when I've tried to watch it in the past is that the camerawork is so technically orientated. They pan with the cars so perfectly that there's little sensation of speed. You could be watching RC cars on an indoor track. With the ubiquity of drones nowadays there would seem to be a lot of options for more exciting viewing.

This comment doesn't make sense. F1 uses onboard cameras extensively- look up the Halo HUDs which overlay speed, throtte, brake and g-force on the Halo device in the cockpit camera view.

Although the speeds those cars move at isn't possible to convey on camera- what looks like 60mph is usually a three-digit speed. Drones wouldn't be able to keep pace, which is why they're used as static cameras rather than chase cameras.

Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?

#84

Post by KuiN »

KuiN wrote: post #11

Always tricky to see detail in this area of an F1 car, but the BBC really haven't picked the clearest photos ... Hopefully a bit clearer here: * Mercedes W11 cape: https://i.imgur.com/LoDuge8.jpg * Red Bull RB16: https://i.imgur.com/lJ4SrYv.jpg * Renault RS20: https://i.imgur.com/XJVeFwN.png

Even harder to see the J-vanes on the Ferrari (not helped by there being only 10 photographers round the tracks at the moment, so many fewer pictures than usual) but I've found a couple photos of the SF1000's vanes:

https://i.redd.it/4awyalvl1al41.jpg

https://i.redd.it/xrhjfzmj0ql41.jpg

It'll be interesting to see if they change cape/J-vane philosophy with their much vaunted aero upgrade for Hungary in a couple of weeks. There certainly seem to be some pretty fundamental issues with their 2020 car at the moment. I'm sure their newly legal engine isn't helping them but watching some of Vettel's onboards from yesterday[0] there's clearly something aerodynamically wrong too, the car just isn't planted in any phase of cornering.

[0] - https://twitter.com/deadlinex/status/1279825624719392768

Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?

#85

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

rurban wrote: post #75
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #32

Watched a lot of F1 in 90s/00s, stopped after 2017 season. Current regulations make it very predictable. Most offending rules are: - limit on testing means that whoever makes the best car after regulations change will win until next regulations change (2010..2013 Red Bull, 2014.. today Mercedes), others have very limited means to catch up - scoring system introduced in late 00s rewards reliability over racing, and gi…

Limiting on testing is just taking away the unique Ferrari advantage. Previously they just took their design out on their private racetrack next to the lab. Now they have to test as all the others: virtually in computer simulations. And for a short time on the track. It's much more interesting to do the simulations virtually. Some even do the windtunnel testing now virtually. But only the richest.

So how do you explain that now after each regulation change and until the next, one team wins every constructor and driver title?

Previously, dominance was never that total, not even during Schumacher/Ferrari era (and Schumacher was way better driver than Hamilton). But since 2010, no competing team is able to catch up.

Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?

#86

Post by selykg »

dom96 wrote: post #53
arooaroo wrote: post #29

People who are not normally interested in F1 are finding the Netflix series Drive to Survive a more accessible version to spectate. It's not just highlights in chronological order, but a distillation of the main themes of the season, e.g., certain inter-team battles, intra-team rivalries, fallouts between teams and suppliers, regulations, etc. The behind-the-scenes glimpses are fascinating. I remember (pre-family whe…

So I watched Drive to Survive and loved it, so much so that I would like to get into watching F1 proper, but when I tried it just doesn't hold my interest (although admittedly I mostly attempted to watch random races on YouTube). Do you (or anyone else) have any tips on what and where to watch to get into it? Perhaps it's time I get a proper subscription for the TV coverage and watch it like you say over the weekend.

The first season I watched was a little tough to follow. There's a lot of new information being thrown at you and teams and all that fun stuff to wrap your head around.

I typically just watch qualifying and the race. But it's a time thing. Qualifying if I fast forward through things still takes about 40 minutes. The race is typically a solid 2 hours or so. That's nearly 3 hours each weekend it's on and we haven't even dove into the pre-race and post-race bits or the practice sessions.

Things get interesting, like in yesterday's race, when penalties start playing into things (which resulted in different podium finishes yesterday) and some of the technical issues that happen (of which there were several during the Austrian GP, as only 11 finished the race).

I'd say yesterday's race had a fair bit happening in it, but not super duper exciting stuff.

The big part of the problem is, at least so far this year, Ferrari is once again behind the eight ball, Mercedes is (once again) running the pack, and Red Bull are sort of somewhere in the mix there.

The more exciting parts of the race are the team placing 4th, 5th and 6th. Those are typically much more exciting, but they rarely air much of those parts of the race.

r/formula1 is a good place to keep up to speed as well.

Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?

#87

Post by rguillebert »

leokennis wrote: post #78
otherme123 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So then I would like your prediction on who would become WDC: * Hamilton/Verstappen in a Williams? * Antonio Giovinazzi in a Mercedes? Don't forget the classic "to finish first, you first have to finish"...a drivers skill is not just better reaction time or better peripheral vision, it's also mental calm, not making stupid mistakes on lap 69 of 70, situational awareness etc.

Antonio Giovinazzi in a Mercedes for sure.

Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?

#88

Post by wiz21c »

otherme123 wrote: post #69
wiz21c wrote: post #28

Earlier 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.

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…

>>> Now imagine that the wealthy father of another average level kid

Indoor kart racing is, in my country, affordable to, say 50% of population (you may have to make some choices though). Count +/-120€ per month (2 training session + 1 race). Swimming lessons are 30€ per month I'd say.

Outdoor karting is really expensive and is for the 1% (which I'm not part of :-)). Count 1000€ per race, gasp !

F1 is well, for ultra rich :-) Plan robbing 1 bank, or 10 (binary joke intended).

But according to many, indoor karts makes you a great pilot because the machine doesn't compensate for your failures.

Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?

#89

Post by phreenet »

OriginalNebula wrote: post #14
embrassingstuff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do u really feel an average/top driver can strategize during the race? The race engineer has X10 data, X10 mental bandwidth, and X10 domain practice (that's his day job!) There all these radio moments (Hamilton "how r we behind them?" after spinning out in Germany etc) .. which really makes it clear that the driver focus is very local (both spatially and temporally), as it should be!

Vettel called his pit stops in one of the last seasons and Schumacher was said to pull all the strings and that this was the reason for his success.

Calling your pit stops makes sense, sort of, for drivers. Top drivers like Vettel (well pre-Sbinalla Vettel) have a better "feel" for the tires and can gauge how they are doing. But this often times is risky and breaks down in races because the human brain, especially under the pressure of F1 racing, is not going to be tracking thousandths, hundredths, or even tenths of seconds off lap times over 4-5KM of traveled distance. You can hear frustration in engineers voices when trying to convince a top driver they need to get new tires after ignoring previous calls to "box" (come in for a pitstop).

Re: Formula 1 2020: The secret aerodynamicist – are capes the key?

#90

Post by arooaroo »

dom96 wrote: post #53
arooaroo wrote: post #29

People who are not normally interested in F1 are finding the Netflix series Drive to Survive a more accessible version to spectate. It's not just highlights in chronological order, but a distillation of the main themes of the season, e.g., certain inter-team battles, intra-team rivalries, fallouts between teams and suppliers, regulations, etc. The behind-the-scenes glimpses are fascinating. I remember (pre-family whe…

So I watched Drive to Survive and loved it, so much so that I would like to get into watching F1 proper, but when I tried it just doesn't hold my interest (although admittedly I mostly attempted to watch random races on YouTube). Do you (or anyone else) have any tips on what and where to watch to get into it? Perhaps it's time I get a proper subscription for the TV coverage and watch it like you say over the weekend.

I wish I still had the ability to block out ~3 hrs per day on race weekend. Alas those days are long gone.

A few years back, the free-to-air channel, Channel 4, lost the exclusive rights to broadcast the live events. Sky bought them up. Nowadays the Channel 4 offering has become a highlights package, and frankly that's been a pretty good outcome for me. Actually, I don't mind the reduced coverage of the actual car-on-track phase, but it's also not as in-depth on the pre-/post-race analysis, which was where a large chunk of the interest, intrigue and drama occurs.

Also, being able to record using a DVR means I can just tune in whenever it suits me, even if I'm dipping in for 15-30mins over a number of days. At least there's often two weeks between races.

Post reply on HN