58 replies to this topic

[qvn]

I heard people here saying that a drive cannot do anything in contributing to the development of his car beside trying to drive his car as fast as possible.

However, reading the article:
http://www.itv-f1.co...e.aspx?id=42804

I realize that beside driving a car he needs to be able to understand the technology to guide his engineers to develop a car suit his driving style and make his car faster.

Someone please enlighten me in this matter. (No driver bashing please!)

Edit: Spelling check.

[BMW_F1]

of course he does.

[pasadena]

A driver cannot design the car but could help a lot with its development. And then those guidelines could help in the design of the next year's car....and so on, it's an iterative process.

[Crazy Ninja]

I can honestly say i have an incredibly limited amount of knowledge on how an F1 car works (ive got the whole throttle/braking stuff down though) but it is rather important the team know what their driver thinks of the car. F1 cars are complicated as hell to set up and engineers need as much feedback as possible to improve handling, performance, etc.

In addition to setting the car up for the race weekend i reckon it is also important for feedback in which direction to develop the car over the course of the season although all the background staff probably come up with the ideas and the driver would provide feedback.

[archstanton]

Alain Prost on the front page of this site, on mclaren having two young drivers:

"Everybody says that they miss a driver with experience. I'm not convinced by that. The way they work in modern teams, the drivers change very little on the cars."


... this messageboard will need to go some to convince me it knows more about the dynamics of setup than prost.

[qvn]

Thanks for your replies.

However I am still confused: Who is correct? Thiessen or Prost?

If Prost is correct, why did Thiessen ask NH to do some technical analysis with his engineers?

[MikeTekRacing]

Originally posted by qvn

If Prost is correct, why did Thiessen ask NH to do some technical analysis with his engineers?

because the problem is related to his driving style. working together with engineers will help everybody understand what the problem realy is

[rookie]

The thread title is can a driver contribute? To that i would say yes, of course they could.

Could they have a big impact e.g " 6 tenths" ? I'd lean towards Prost on that one. I don't think they could make the car much faster , just make better use what they have.

I think the driver selections in top teams over the last 5 years shows how the team owners feel about this question...

Kimi, Jenson, Fernando, Nico, Vettel all very young and inexperienced and put into top teams almost striaght away.

[Crazy Ninja]

Maybe the technical analysis means Heidfeld and his engineers are going to study his driving style to try and understand why hes not getting the best out of the car. I remember a few years ago Satos engine blew up 6 or 7 times in races whereas Buttons didnt so BAR studied Satos driving to see if that was the cause. Anyway, my point is that this years car is obviously different from last years and NH is having trouble getting it to suit his driving style therefore his engineers will study it and try to come up with a new way for Nick to drive it (possibly) or a new way to set the car up. In a way its similar to Alonso, Raikkonen, etc struggling with Bridgestones last year - they had to adapt their drving style to suit the tyres.

Prost is probably saying the enginners have a great deal of knowledge on how the car should work therefore they may not need as much feedback as they did back in his day when there were less computers to predict how a car should perform.

PS. i may not be correct but just thought id add my opinion

[Imperial]

An excellent driver put in a mediocre car may be able to suggest some changes, but basically to the set-up of the car. As far as drivers driving development of a car, Ive never bought that.

Yes a driver can do what he is instructed to do by the engineers working from a job sheet etc and give feedback accordingly, but I've never gone with the notion that a driver has actively steered development of a racing car. Well, not in this era anyway (say last 20 years).

There's too many brains involved to contemplate the notion that mathematics will lose out to a drivers whims.

I don't even want to go into the specifics of driver names because as usual this thread will turn into a fanboy Vs fanboy thread.

[Timstr11]

Originally posted by Imperial
An excellent driver put in a mediocre car may be able to suggest some changes, but basically to the set-up of the car. As far as drivers driving development of a car, Ive never bought that.

Yes a driver can do what he is instructed to do by the engineers working from a job sheet etc and give feedback accordingly, but I've never gone with the notion that a driver has actively steered development of a racing car. Well, not in this era anyway (say last 20 years).

There's too many brains involved to contemplate the notion that mathematics will lose out to a drivers whims.

I don't even want to go into the specifics of driver names because as usual this thread will turn into a fanboy Vs fanboy thread.

Good post. I also do not believe a driver is able to contribute more than what is possible within the set-up envelope of the car.

[as65p]

Originally posted by rookie
The thread title is can a driver contribute? To that i would say yes, of course they could.

Could they have a big impact e.g " 6 tenths" ? I'd lean towards Prost on that one. I don't think they could make the car much faster , just make better use what they have.

I think the driver selections in top teams over the last 5 years shows how the team owners feel about this question...

Kimi, Jenson, Fernando, Nico, Vettel all very young and inexperienced and put into top teams almost striaght away.

I know this won't stop what to many people is obviously the joke of the century (Alonso's six tenths claim), but I'll try: Fernando likely wasn't implying that he brought the 6 tenths through his personal engineering excellence, that would indeed be laughable. I believe he rather referred to the knowledge of certain things he brought over from Renault, something which every driver does when swapping teams. Or tries to do, maybe some are not that good at all at memorizing technical details ;).

To the question, my answer is two-fold:

Can a driver directly contribute to car design? Certainly not!

Is a driver's capacity to remember stuff and ability to precisely articulate his observations while driving valuable to the engineers? Certainly yes!

[rookie]

Originally posted by as65p


I know this won't stop what to many people is obviously the joke of the century (Alonso's six tenths claim), but I'll try: Fernando likely wasn't implying that he brought the 6 tenths through his personal engineering excellence, that would indeed be laughable. I believe he rather referred to the knowledge of certain things he brought over from Renault, something which every driver does when swapping teams. Or tries to do, maybe some are not that good at all at memorizing technical details ;).

To the question, my answer is two-fold:

Can a driver directly contribute to car design? Certainly not!

Is a driver's capacity to remember stuff and ability to precisely articulate his observations while driving valuable to the engineers? Certainly yes!

I agree. I wasn't having a dig at his claim, just the notion that you can add "6 tenths" worth of value from driver input. As you pointed out it's more likely his input on what Renault were doing differently that would have made the difference as opposed to his intrinsic development skills.

Further to that, I think the day of certain drivers being better at setting up cars is long gone. Telemetry tells too much now.

[Spunout]

Drivers have no clue how to design cars. This includes Räikkönen, Alonso, Schumacher, etc. They don´t add 6 tenths, let alone solve reliability problems. And before anybody points out "yes, but Driver X switched teams and immediately Team X took quantum leaps"...let me give you an example:

Mystery Driver...

Joins one of the top teams (say, Team A), that has been struggling in recent years. 4 years since the last win for these guys. Immediately they win 4 races. Massive improvement, nothing less. Continues with team A for few years. They win more races, lotsa poles and even challenge for the WDC.

Then, chooses to switch teams. Team A hasn´t won races since Mystery Driver left (after winning his last race for Team A), and is still far from top level. Joins Team B, that had disaster season. Immediately Team B up their game. They challenge for the WDC and win more races than any other team...

Next year, Mystery Driver is gone. Team B goes down for the rest of the season, from podiums and challenging for wins to battling for 5th-8th places. Bad, bad, bad.



Who is the Mystery Driver?

[rookie]

Originally posted by Spunout
Drivers have no clue how to design cars. This includes Räikkönen, Alonso, Schumacher, etc. They don´t add 6 tenths, let alone solve reliability problems. And before anybody points out "yes, but Driver X switched teams and immediately Team X took quantum leaps"...let me give you an example:

Mystery Driver...

Joins one of the top teams (say, Team A), that has been struggling in recent years. 4 years since the last win for these guys. Immediately they win 4 races. Massive improvement, nothing less. Continues with team A for few years. They win more races, lotsa poles and even challenge for the WDC.

Then, chooses to switch teams. Team A hasn´t won races since Mystery Driver left (after winning his last race for Team A), and is still far from top level. Joins Team B, that had disaster season. Immediately Team B up their game. They challenge for the WDC and win more races than any other team...

Next year, Mystery Driver is gone. Team B goes down for the rest of the season, from podiums and challenging for wins to battling for 5th-8th places. Bad, bad, bad.



Who is the Mystery Driver?

OK you got me. First 2 paragraphs sound like Montoya...but if Team B is Mac, 06 wasn't that bad. Kimi had podiums and poles.

Is it Montoya?

[Arnold Layne]

Originally posted by Spunout
Drivers have no clue how to design cars. This includes Räikkönen, Alonso, Schumacher, etc. They don´t add 6 tenths, let alone solve reliability problems. And before anybody points out "yes, but Driver X switched teams and immediately Team X took quantum leaps"...let me give you an example:

Mystery Driver...

Joins one of the top teams (say, Team A), that has been struggling in recent years. 4 years since the last win for these guys. Immediately they win 4 races. Massive improvement, nothing less. Continues with team A for few years. They win more races, lotsa poles and even challenge for the WDC.

Then, chooses to switch teams. Team A hasn´t won races since Mystery Driver left (after winning his last race for Team A), and is still far from top level. Joins Team B, that had disaster season. Immediately Team B up their game. They challenge for the WDC and win more races than any other team...

Next year, Mystery Driver is gone. Team B goes down for the rest of the season, from podiums and challenging for wins to battling for 5th-8th places. Bad, bad, bad.



Who is the Mystery Driver?

JPM?

[as65p]

Originally posted by rookie

Is it Montoya?

Can't be anyone else. Outwardly Spunout pretends to support Kimi, but more often than not he just can't help his secret affection for Juan-Pablo. It's a bit of a love-hate relationship, but deep down the bond is very strong, I think.



;)

[Spunout]

rookie, Arnold Layne, as65p

spot on...Montoya it is

[Spunout]

Originally posted by rookie


...but if Team B is Mac, 06 wasn't that bad. Kimi had podiums and poles.

Notice how Mac results before the USGP were clearly better than after the USGP ;)

Kimi battled for the win in Australia, Monaco and Canada + had great pace in Bahrain. After JPM was gone, he couldn´t even beat Ralf and his Toyota for 4th place in France. And apart from Monza, things didn´t get much better in remaining GPs. Team B was quickly slipping to midpack, without hope of victories in the future.

As juan/Arrow/DigitalDrug would put it, we have undeniable evidence that Montoya - not Alonso, Räikkönen or even Schumacher - was the king of car development in F1.

[archstanton]

question a bit misleading, no?

for rest of that season, Team B scored three podiums after Mystery Driver left, and avg finishing position was roughly same as start of year with Mystery Driver



... at least that's why i didn't think it was him.

although, i was mainly trying to figure-out some way to make it look like Ralf.

[Ferrim]

Yes he can. Ferrari wouldn't be asking Schumi to drive their cars if he couldn't help them.

But he can't make a shitty car into a winning car.

[BMW_F1]

"contribute", was the key word in this question...

[Digitaldrug]

I dont know why you are asking this question when there are many comments out there from engineers and team staff praising specific drivers for their great development skills. Alonso and Schumacher, Senna, Prost ect. Its all been said before. These drivers give the team development direction and know how to make the car work for them. Its the only way to get the most of entire car/driver package.

[giacomo]

Strange question.

Of course drivers contribute to the development of their cars. They do that all the time.



Disclaimer: No, that does NOT mean that the drivers are designing the cars. I am well aware that this is done by engineers.

[Man of the race]

It is not that simple.
If the car is a winning car and one's favourite driver drives it, then the driver has contributed a lot.
If the car becomes bad, then that driver has not been allowed to contribute.
If the car starts to win again, forget the previous sentence. He does contribute.
If the driver changes teams and the car starts to suffer, it is because he left.
If the driver changes teams and the car is still a goer, it is because he developed the car before he left.
If the driver leaves a suffering team and the car still suffers, it was a right thing to do. The team sucks.
If the driver is not one's favourite but the car is a goer, the driver do not contribute at all.
If the car starts to suffer, that crappy driver has no skills to develop and contribute.
If the car starts to go again, the technical team is the one that has made those steps forward possible.
If the driver changes teams and the car becomes a goer, it is because the crapman left.
If the driver changes teams and the car becomes a goner, the driver's invaluable input finally shows.
If the driver is unnamed, he just tests.
If the driver is Kimi, he does not care as much as he should.
If the driver is Fernando, he does care more than he should.
If the driver is Michael, it is the team who contributes to his car development process.

[Lukin83]

Remember the e-mails between Fernando and Pedro about The Red Car? It was some kind of a development, wasn't it?

[Spunout]

Originally posted by Man of the race
It is not that simple.
If the car is a winning car and one's favourite driver drives it, then the driver has contributed a lot.
If the car becomes bad, then that driver has not been allowed to contribute.
If the car starts to win again, forget the previous sentence. He does contribute.
If the driver changes teams and the car starts to suffer, it is because he left.
If the driver changes teams and the car is still a goer, it is because he developed the car before he left.
If the driver leaves a suffering team and the car still suffers, it was a right thing to do. The team sucks.
If the driver is not one's favourite but the car is a goer, the driver do not contribute at all.
If the car starts to suffer, that crappy driver has no skills to develop and contribute.
If the car starts to go again, the technical team is the one that has made those steps forward possible.
If the driver changes teams and the car becomes a goer, it is because the crapman left.
If the driver changes teams and the car becomes a goner, the driver's invaluable input finally shows.
If the driver is unnamed, he just tests.
If the driver is Kimi, he does not care as much as he should.
If the driver is Fernando, he does care more than he should.
If the driver is Michael, it is the team who contributes to his car development process.

Post of the year

[jesee]

I believe a good driver can significantly help in car development. Engineers can design a car and get lots of feedback from wind tunnel but to translate these results they need to test this to the maximum out in the track. This is where a good driver can put the car to maximum limits and then the data can be fed back to the engineers. Hope this makes sense.

[as65p]

It's pretty obvious that compared to the senior grade engineers in a F1 team, ALL drivers are a bunch of sorry amateurs, technically. And yet, relatively, between these amateurs there could still be a pretty large gap in understanding and ability, and that would influence the information flow / development pace between the amateurish drivers and the professional engineers.

I can easily relate that to my own job: my customers range from people who will never understand why a PDF file opened from within MS Word looks so funny, to people whom I can just send a shell script snippet and they will put it to work inside their specific environment all on their own.

I imagine that between the drivers there exist comparable differences in technical understanding and ultimately in their ability to accurately describe a problem / characteristic of the car.

[Risil]

I'm pretty sure Alex Wurz designed a couple of parts for the Williams when he was testing there. But he's very much the exception, much as he is to the general rule that F1 drivers are egotistical, inarticulate, emotionally- and developmentally-stunted brats.

[as65p]

Originally posted by Risil
I'm pretty sure Alex Wurz designed a couple of parts for the Williams when he was testing there. But he's very much the exception, much as he is to the general rule that F1 drivers are egotistical, inarticulate, emotionally- and developmentally-stunted brats.

Are you serious about him really designing parts? I very, very much doubt that, even if i recognize that Wurz is probably the most technical knowledgeable among the current drivers. Even if he (hypothetically) might have said "I think a flap with that-and-that shape would make sense here", that would still be miles away from a real-world design process.

[giacomo]

"I would say there's no fewer than two or three designs on the Williams car now that came from Alex that actually make the car go faster. They are things that if you took them off we would go a 10th (of a second) slower," he [Sam Michael] added.
"I don't know any other driver like that. I've never worked with another driver where I can turn around and say there's a design or there's a change that we made and it's because of that bloke there."

http://www.autosport...rt.php/id/57332

[Imperial]

Originally posted by Lukin83
Remember the e-mails between Fernando and Pedro about The Red Car? It was some kind of a development, wasn't it?

Some kind of a development yes, but certainly not ingenuity. That was simply a case of saying something looks good and seems to work well on the Ferrari, let's try that tomorrow.

[Spunout]

Originally posted by as65p


Are you serious about him really designing parts? I very, very much doubt that, even if i recognize that Wurz is probably the most technical knowledgeable among the current drivers. Even if he (hypothetically) might have said "I think a flap with that-and-that shape would make sense here", that would still be miles away from a real-world design process.

And most likely even this would be far beyond what he can do...

[Imperial]

Originally posted by jesee
I believe a good driver can significantly help in car development. Engineers can design a car and get lots of feedback from wind tunnel but to translate these results they need to test this to the maximum out in the track. This is where a good driver can put the car to maximum limits and then the data can be fed back to the engineers. Hope this makes sense.

I believing that thinking this way people are under the impression that drivers are given a free rein with the car during test days. The teams don't give the drivers 15 laps to have a blast around, see how things feel, then come back to the pits to give their expert opinion on whether the barge boards should be a few mm forward on the car.

The test teams work to strict programmes that they work on throughout test days and the drivers go through a lot of tedious repetition. One small change, go out for a lap or two, Data is collected, driver is asked for an opinion if it is wanted. Another small change made. Driver goes out again. Repeat all day. There are no mavericks out there, they're all working to a strict programme.

Has anyone noticed how F1 cars have essentially been the same for a long long time? There's no big changes to be found, and nobody is allowed to make a leap of faith.

The cars are also rarely pushed to the "maximum limits" in testing because that simply isn't what the teams want. Reliability and stability are the goals and they don't come from blasting around on soft tyres with minimum wing all day.

The drivers case is really being overstated here.

[Imperial]

Originally posted by as65p
i recognize that Wurz is probably the most technical knowledgeable among the current drivers.

Try Nico Rosberg.

His background really should be looked at... (and I don't mean his dad)

[Imperial]

Originally posted by giacomo
"I would say there's no fewer than two or three designs on the Williams car now that came from Alex that actually make the car go faster. They are things that if you took them off we would go a 10th (of a second) slower," he [Sam Michael] added.
"I don't know any other driver like that. I've never worked with another driver where I can turn around and say there's a design or there's a change that we made and it's because of that bloke there."

http://www.autosport...rt.php/id/57332

Designed as a result of feedback. Not designed by Wurz.

[as65p]

Originally posted by giacomo
"I would say there's no fewer than two or three designs on the Williams car now that came from Alex that actually make the car go faster. They are things that if you took them off we would go a 10th (of a second) slower," he [Sam Michael] added.
"I don't know any other driver like that. I've never worked with another driver where I can turn around and say there's a design or there's a change that we made and it's because of that bloke there."

http://www.autosport...rt.php/id/57332

The point is, what does "came from Alex" really mean? I would take it that certain parts were inspired by his input, nothing more, nothing less.

If he really did design them with his own hands on a CAD workstation, I would be mightily impressed. Then again, he often enough drove like an engineer...;)

[Risil]

Originally posted by Imperial


Designed as a result of feedback. Not designed by Wurz.

Are you suggesting that out of all the drivers Michael has ever worked with, only Wurz has been able to provide feedback on the car? Suddenly Williams's recent run of form begins to make sense...

[airwise]

Originally posted by as65p


The point is, what does "came from Alex" really mean?

Alex has a photocopying shop in Woking.

[as65p]

Originally posted by airwise


Alex has a photocopying shop in Woking.

I see ;)

In that case, his overall impact wasn't all that great, Williams still hasn't won a race since ages ago...

[Spunout]

Originally posted by airwise


Alex has a photocopying shop in Woking.

What is a photocopier?

[Most Fastest]

Steve Matchett on Speed was RAVING about drivers like Schumacher or Senna who could give exact feedback on the car at each and every stage of a lap. He guaranteed those drivers help the team save time and develop the car in the right direction. He stated nothing is more frustrating to the team than drivers who are new and have no idea on how to improve performance. Now, he was on a WDC winning team, so Iguess he knows better than I

[BMW_F1]

Originally posted by Most Fastest
Steve Matchett on Speed was RAVING about drivers like Schumacher or Senna who could give exact feedback on the car at each and every stage of a lap. He guaranteed those drivers help the team save time and develop the car in the right direction. He stated nothing is more frustrating to the team than drivers who are new and have no idea on how to improve performance. Now, he was on a WDC winning team, so Iguess he knows better than I

I learn a lot from Machett myself. That guy really knows his stuff.

[qvn]

Originally posted by Imperial

I've never gone with the notion that a driver has actively steered development of a racing car. Well, not in this era anyway (say last 20 years).

How about MS insisted on requesting Ferrari to focus on reliability first when he arrived Ferrari in 1996?
I think he has actively steered development of Ferrari's car, which resulted in a very reliable car for quite some time.

[Spunout]

Originally posted by qvn


How about MS insisted on requesting Ferrari to focus on reliability first when he arrived Ferrari in 1996?
I think he has actively steered development of Ferrari's car, which resulted in a very reliable car for quite some time.

All drivers want reliability, all teams want reliability. It is not like Schumacher saying "hey Jean, I want reliable car" makes it happen. It´s 100% down to engineers. Hell....Räikkönen demanded better reliability after 2003, Ronzo agreed with him, but see what happened in 2004.

[PassWind]

This thread is more or should be more about peoples understanding of F1 below the layer of simple fandom, that is all. Largely secret although probably through perception and access mainly, the inner workings of many a different form of racing are alien to the layman.

What does a Driver Do?

What does an Engineer Do?

I would say that the role of the engineer is overstated, the principles invloved in just the structure of a car is not that difficult to concieve and then design. Most of their job is damn hard work pouring over data to extract the right recipe for a very fast car, the principles really arent that complicated.

The true work comes from those engineers in all of the disciplines that can conceptualise any changes and their effect flow through to the end state, making the car faster using less tire. Computer simulation does take alot of the guess work out of it, it wasn't guess work it was just alot of work, but many little changes can be simulated to find a end effect, thats where wind tunnel calibration is so important, because some of the reference data that feeds the simulation comes from these tunnels, if its not right then you may as well glue a weeties packet to the outside of the thing.

Someone mentioned drivers are stupid, I doubt that and I think that by the time they have been in the game for sometime those guys that hang around the garage long enough are in essence doing an engineering aprenticeship anyway with the practical application of testing the parts other engineers make. Engineers if they are good need to synchronise the language between the driver and the engineer. The driver should know what word to find for what sensation and the engineer needs to know what driver words mean in engineering terms.

Do drivers contribute to Development, of course they do, they are one of the primary sensors in the car when it trancends from wind tunnel to test track, they are also the challenger of reference data, in other words if a sensor is telling me this and the driver (another dynamic sensor) is telling me another thing then maybe I have made and error in seting the car up, importantly having several dynamic sensors (drivers) telling me the same thing helps greatly, alas this team sport means Alonso cannot do this on his own.

This dynamic sensor (driver) gets better with time as its reference data is continually being updated whenever the car is driven, over years this dynamic sensor may have driven every track 7-10 times each and if its a test track then thousands of kilometres the mere perception of this track in the minds eye of the dynamic sensor is completely different to that of the layman, engineers need to take note of that as the drivers (dynamic sensor) view of the track is completely different to that of the engineer.


So its more about understanding the scope of what people do in a team.

[qvn]

Originally posted by Spunout


All drivers want reliability, all teams want reliability. It is not like Schumacher saying "hey Jean, I want reliable car" makes it happen. It´s 100% down to engineers. Hell....Räikkönen demanded better reliability after 2003, Ronzo agreed with him, but see what happened in 2004.

Yes, but some team focus more on the performance like someone in F1 paddock said "you can't make a reliable car fast but you can make a fast car reliable". I heard this statement but cannot remember who.

PS. Sorry but as stated at the beginning this thread is not about fandom but is to shed some light on the issue of a driver could contribute to the development of a car. I ask this question because some forummers here in the past stated that a driver contribute nothing to the car development.

[BMW_F1]

Passwind good post.

[qvn]

Thanks Passwind for your good contribution.