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Formula 1′s Leading Team Has a Big Secret

wired.com

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Re: Formula 1′s Leading Team Has a Big Secret

#191

Post by deelowe »

AmVess wrote: post #117
deelowe wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology can make the racing uninterested. ABS and TCS removes all the risk from cornering and braking, so you don't get spectacular overtakes on hard braking, which is a big part of racing. So, some technological advances actually reduce the entertainment factor. Thankfully, my favorite form of racing, motogp, has benefited greatly from recent technological advances. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YAiXqOwkmE

There are no driver aids in F1. No ABS, no (legal) traction control.

I realize this. I was addressing the OP's comment:

I think they should just let the teams use whatever technology they can invent...

Re: Formula 1′s Leading Team Has a Big Secret

#192

Post by kayoone »

krmmalik wrote: post #177
TillE wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vettel has won races by large margins before, without any accusations of cheating. The time difference of ONE LAP is under a second, but that adds up over the course of an entire race. Red Bull have the best car, Vettel is the best driver, they do the fastest pit stops, and with a little luck this creates big wins.

In Hamilton's last season at Maclaren (when there car was very competitive), he said more than once "they're definitely doing something with that car". It's been stated more than once by more than one person that Alonso is "the best driver in F1 at the moment, pound for pound". In addition to that, Vettel doesn't have the fastest time on the Top Gear Track (not that it's the ultimate test of a great driver) - but to…

best driver != fastest driver

Vettel also is very consistent, hard working, excellent under pressure and generally pretty faultless. Top gear times dont say much, but he was on the top there for quite some time, so if Lewis gets a 2nd chance, Vettel should be given one too.

I also think that Alonso is the best overall driver, but i think Hamilton is the fastest in terms of lap-time.

Re: Formula 1′s Leading Team Has a Big Secret

#193

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

Unosolo wrote: post #46
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Humans can't react nearly quickly enough for such a notification system to be of any use.

Could that be a forecasting system that notifies the driver just in time for him to react about what is going to happen in a next moment?

I suppose that it would be possible to predict what the driver should do x0ms in the future, and adjust your signal-to-driver to correct for that.

The problem is that you'd need to be right almost every single time - a single slightly wrong prediction could quite easily cause a crash.

Ultimately, I doubt that such a system (one which relies on the drivers' reaction to a TCS notification) would really gain very much. These drivers are already incredibly experienced, they have a team of professionals poring over their telemetry, and thus they are already using a sort of "traction control," albeit completely manually.

Re: Formula 1′s Leading Team Has a Big Secret

#194

Post by [deleted] »

Unosolo wrote: post #46
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Humans can't react nearly quickly enough for such a notification system to be of any use.

Could that be a forecasting system that notifies the driver just in time for him to react about what is going to happen in a next moment?

[deleted]

Re: Formula 1′s Leading Team Has a Big Secret

#195

Post by justin66 »

beat wrote: post #113
ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #106

Personally, I'd be all for a league similar to F1 that allowed for much greater disparaties between teams. We're talking about the most well funded teams in the world; no chance of a small upstart coming in with a low bankroll and making a splash anyway.

There used to be such a beast. It was called Can-Am, and the rules were basically that cars had to have two seats, fenders, and at least one engine. Other than that, it was anything goes. It made for spectacular racing, but tended to be dominated by one team at a time, and it was ridiculously expensive. It was ultimately shut down for cost reasons.

Not the sort of thing you could bring back today, even without the cost concerns. The "let's do everything we can do to make this fast" cars competing in that series killed a lot of drivers.

Re: Formula 1′s Leading Team Has a Big Secret

#196

Post by [deleted] »

krmmalik wrote: post #177
TillE wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vettel has won races by large margins before, without any accusations of cheating. The time difference of ONE LAP is under a second, but that adds up over the course of an entire race. Red Bull have the best car, Vettel is the best driver, they do the fastest pit stops, and with a little luck this creates big wins.

In Hamilton's last season at Maclaren (when there car was very competitive), he said more than once "they're definitely doing something with that car". It's been stated more than once by more than one person that Alonso is "the best driver in F1 at the moment, pound for pound". In addition to that, Vettel doesn't have the fastest time on the Top Gear Track (not that it's the ultimate test of a great driver) - but to…

[deleted]

Re: Formula 1′s Leading Team Has a Big Secret

#197

Post by eaurouge »

GVIrish wrote: post #134
eaurouge wrote: post #85

Or maybe their technical team is just better. Adrian Newey[1] has designed some very fast cars - at Williams, McLaren and now at Red Bull. Michael Schumacher managed to win seven championships in his career, but he was often racing against a (much) more superior Newey-designed car. F1 was fun in those days. With Vettel, arguably the most talented driver to drive a Newey designed car since Senna, it's no surprise Red…

Eh, I wouldn't say Schumacher won against vastly superior Adrian Newey cars. Once Ferrari hit their stride in the Schumacher years they often beat McLaren by being far more reliable and robust. They also built up their advantage with their Bridgestone partnership to a level that made them dominant. So dominant in fact, that it led to a spec tire. Adrian Newey designs in the past ran on the ragged edge of fragility in…

He won his first two titles in a Benetton Ford that was widely considered to be inferior to the Williamses. At Ferrari, it took the team four years after Schumacher joined, to build a car that was truly on par with the best on the grid. But even before that Schumacher had come close to winning the championship, challenging Villeneuve's Williams for the title in 97, and Hakkinen's McLaren in 98 and 99.

Re: Formula 1′s Leading Team Has a Big Secret

#198

Post by eftpotrm »

ams6110 wrote: post #123
geargrinder wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASCAR and F1 take opposite approaches to regulating technology. F1 defines an envelope and you can do anything within that envelope. NASCAR defines specs and anything on either side of that spec is treated as a violation. I much prefer F1's approach because it challenges engineers to innovate within parameters, just like the real world. NASCAR is trying to make everything even on the technology side and the result i…

NASCAR is trying to eliminate technical advantage so that the competition is entirely about which driver and crew is best. I don't see anything wrong with that.

And if that were really the case then you wouldn't see the big teams like Hendrick and Penske dominating. Heck, even Chip Ganassi has problems competing in NASCAR and he's hardly a small player.

Not that I'm necessarily anti the NASCAR approach (though I do think the organisation itself can be somewhat capricious), but it's certainly not a form of motor sport without team-based technical advantage.

Re: Formula 1′s Leading Team Has a Big Secret

#199

Post by schwap »

brey wrote: post #75
001sky wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self driving cars doesn't sound like a sport, tho.

an entirely remote controlled (as opposed to autonomous) car race could be fun to watch - can go much faster, risks of huge crashes are acceptable (or desirable...)

I actually think that would be extremely difficult. I think that such cars -- even with less restrictions -- would actually be slower than F1 cars around the same track.

My theory is that so much of driving (especially at the F1 level) is about feeling what's going on. That just doesn't translate to a remote control.

Re: Formula 1′s Leading Team Has a Big Secret

#200

Post by eftpotrm »

SanjayUttam wrote: post #83
TillE wrote: post #14

The smeary tone of this article is really quite obvious and unpleasant, and I don't think qualifying it as a "conspiracy theory" makes up for that. For example the claim that "Christian Horner isn’t saying much", when in fact he's flatly denied any kind of rule breaking.

Indeed, not to mention the very title of the Wired Article. I'm guessing the author has not recently checked into the concessions given to say, Ferrari [1][2]. That all said, to some extent controversies like these are what make F1 what it is...at least since I've been watching. Remember Jenson Button's secret fuel compartment? [3] Crashgate at Singapore? [4] Schumacher....everything? [5] [1] http://en.espnf1.com/fer…

If we're going to pick up on BAR's fuel tank problems from 2005 (and calling it a 'secret fuel tank' as the article does is rather disingenuous), then it's worth also pointing out that the tank manufacturer said that BAR's design wasn't unusual; they were merely the scapegoat picked on by the FIA during a period when it was noticeably pro-Ferrari and BAR were for a period their leading challenger.

Or we could point out that McLaren specifically asked about running a hydraulic-based hybrid system in the late 90s and it was initially approved then rejected on pressure from Ferrari, or about their (entirely driver controlled) fiddle brakes system being ruled an illegal driver aid and banned while Ferrari were allowed to decouple the throttle pedal from the engine throttle, or Ferrari getting higher spec tyres from Bridgestone than the other teams, or.....

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