If we go down this path we’ll watch autopilots racing soon. Not fun
This is already happening https://roborace.com/
Engineers, not racers, are the true drivers of success in motor sport
111–120 of 153 posts
Re: Engineers, not racers, are the true drivers of success in motor sport
#112If we go down this path we’ll watch autopilots racing soon. Not fun
I think a remote controlled car race would be fun to watch
Formula E + remote pilots
Re: Engineers, not racers, are the true drivers of success in motor sport
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel stupid arguing this, but if you watched F1 during Schumacher era it was obvious that Schumacher is really the best driver. While still at Benetton, he demonstrated his abilities, then with the top car he showed enormous consistency. Other drivers haven’t achieved it in the similar cars.
I would argue that Senna is the GOAT and it’s not even close. But yeh these GOAT conversations better with beers and stakes and people yelling at each other in person!
I hope you meant steaks...
but agreed, this is true in any sport, there's no real way to compare across eras and in the end it's just opinion.
Re: Engineers, not racers, are the true drivers of success in motor sport
#114I totally understand where this article is coming from but it still doesn't take away the appreciation of a good driver for me. I see lot of people coming to conclusions such as "drivers don't matter" after reading such articles. I don't agree with that. No one is gonna put Albon or Giovinazzi in the Mercedes and think "he'll be fine, we'll still win". Hamilton and Schumacher kinda put themselves up there to be in th…
I'm on the opinion that both Albon and Giovinazzi have a lot of potential but they both face several problems. Albon is in the back seat at Red Bull and he is in the same position as Raikkonen when he was at Ferrari: as far as everyone at Ferrari was concerned, it was 90% Vettel, 10% Raikkonen. In that sense, Albon is pretty much alone. Giovinazzi on the other hand made a very big mistake initially - he had Raikkonen of all people to learn from. Even beyond the experience, Kimi is quite possibly the most knowledgeable driver out there, not only as far as setting up a car but also sportsmanship. And it seems Giovinazzi eventually figured that out. When he started off, he acted like a truck, not an F1 driver. These days he is a lot more composed and is getting really good results, considering he is in one of the slowest cars out there. I'm pretty sure he has Kimi to thank for that.
Hamilton is a very different story - let's face it, he is the silver spoon boy. I really don't think there's a single person in F1 history who had it as easy as he did. While Michael was always riding with one foot over the edge of the rules.
It's not to say that all of them aren't incredibly talented. But it does seem to me that for most of them circumstances played a much bigger role than their actual skills. Hence the reason why I wouldn't rule out either Albon or Giovinazzi as potential champions.
Re: Engineers, not racers, are the true drivers of success in motor sport
#115Apart from watching on TV and the movies, my only brush with this world was a 1/2 day spent interviewing at McLaren in 1990. It was very clear from every engineer I talked to that they had fairly low opinion of the drivers. One of the projects we discussed was a new telemetry system, its primary purpose to allow them to prove conclusively when the driver did something stupid. I didn't take the job if anyone was curio…
That is mostly about politics and blame shifting in high stress high pressure situation. And us vs then dynamic.
That does not actually show the drivers regularly do stupid things or that it would be easy for human to stop doing things the engineers considered stupid.
Re: Engineers, not racers, are the true drivers of success in motor sport
#116F1 is an extremely difficult position these days. How can a team(s) increase lap speed YoY, have competitive racing, make money, stay safe, and still have incentives for OEMs to participate? The answer is they can't. At least in the current formula. I think Bernie did a great job running the sport as a dictator, but he set up a house of cards that was doomed. I don't think Chase Carey and Liberty really had a chance.…
I watch F1 for the engineering, but unfortunately it's not covered much due to the secretive nature of the sport.
> The only pair of teammates on the grid right now who have any legitimate gap are Albon and Verstappen. Other than that, it's par for the course.
Abon and Verstappen are no the only legitimate gaps; Leclerc vs Vettle and Ricc vs Ocon are also substantial.
A better driver can take 250ms off their team mate - something that would take multiple millions of dollars a year to obtain via regular engineering.
That said, I agree that a great driver such as Ricciardo has no chance to compete for the WDC in his car.
Re: Engineers, not racers, are the true drivers of success in motor sport
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
McLaren’s driver duo in 1990 were Ayrton Senna and Allen Prost. Are you sure the engineers weren’t just petty little creatures trying to get some spotlight? I can assure you that no engineer could win a race against either one. Additionally, Senna has proved that he do “well” with much inferior cars, there must be something going on there as well... As someone who races every now and then for fun, I can assure you th…
I've watched a couple documentaries on Senna. They'd all say Senna just drove faster than the others. Nothing said about just what Senna did to be faster, which was very frustrating. I didn't believe that Senna did anything magical.
He drive differently
He used techniques that helped the car to use the maximum possible grip, avoiding sliding or throttle partialisation
For example at Monza, in times of manual gear, he could switch from 4th to 5th in between the two turns of Lesmo, nobody else could, it meant gaining a tenth of a second every single lap and the pole position
For reference, this is how Senna throttle technique sounded at Monza's parabolica
Re: Engineers, not racers, are the true drivers of success in motor sport
#118F1 is an extremely difficult position these days. How can a team(s) increase lap speed YoY, have competitive racing, make money, stay safe, and still have incentives for OEMs to participate? The answer is they can't. At least in the current formula. I think Bernie did a great job running the sport as a dictator, but he set up a house of cards that was doomed. I don't think Chase Carey and Liberty really had a chance.…
I've idly thought that if I was the F1 Czar I'd ban all transistors in the cars, except for in safety equipment. Not even a radio. Have the operation of the car be up to driver skill, not computer programmer virtuosity. (And I'm a programmer!) Of course, it is possible to make mechanical computers, but they are very costly to develop, heavy, take up lots of space, hard to modify, etc. Besides, it's a lost art.
Formula 1 is meant to represent the pinnacle of technology. (Although arguably it doesn’t now, thanks to the myriad restrictions).
Your idea would probably give us a great racing series, but it wouldn’t be Formula 1.
Re: Engineers, not racers, are the true drivers of success in motor sport
#119I totally understand where this article is coming from but it still doesn't take away the appreciation of a good driver for me. I see lot of people coming to conclusions such as "drivers don't matter" after reading such articles. I don't agree with that. No one is gonna put Albon or Giovinazzi in the Mercedes and think "he'll be fine, we'll still win". Hamilton and Schumacher kinda put themselves up there to be in th…
I'm on the opinion that both Albon and Giovinazzi have a lot of potential but they both face several problems. Albon is in the back seat at Red Bull and he is in the same position as Raikkonen when he was at Ferrari: as far as everyone at Ferrari was concerned, it was 90% Vettel, 10% Raikkonen. In that sense, Albon is pretty much alone. Giovinazzi on the other hand made a very big mistake initially - he had Raikkonen…
Hamilton, the working class boy from Stevenage whose Dad had to work multiple jobs to support him being able to go racing in karts, is the “silver spoon boy”?
Re: Engineers, not racers, are the true drivers of success in motor sport
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really wished there was a version of F1 with less mechanical and technical regulation to see what human ingenuity could achieve.
The regulations exist both to put a cap on what the teams need to spend on R&D (if it's too much then smaller manufacturers and teams pull out and there's only two or three cars on the grid), and to make it safer for the drivers.
It bites both ways. If you restrict things heavily, the teams have to go after increasingly-expensive diminishing returns - meaning the biggest budgets usually win out.
At least if you have greater technical freedom, there’s the chance for someone from a less-funded team to concoct the next double-diffuser, as there’s probably less of a link between budget and sparks of innovation.