22 replies to this topic

[Spa One]

Very recent. Nothing really new here but its interesting none the less. A couple of points made give you an understanding of how a drivers pace may be affected if he is or isn't suited to the direction of development.

http://www.youtube.c...player_embedded

[SpaMaster]

Good clip..

[rage2]

Press the Closed Caption button and rewatch it. Some hilarious transcriptions.

[Spa One]

Why has someone already given this topic 1 star?

[schuey100]

Why has someone already given this topic 1 star?

An Alonso fan I imagine.;)

James Allen is excellent isn't he? Thank goodness for his blog, it's really becoming the best source of inside F1 info, loving it

As for the video itself, I don't think it tells us anything new, the driver can help on set up, make himself comfortable, give advice but unless they have an in depth knowledge of aerodynamics and physics then much of it is based around feedback and the real work is done by the engineers.

What I do think they missed in the video is how important driver consistency is in car development. The team has to know that a driver will be 99.9% consistent on every lap so that they know exactly what effects the changes are having on laptimes. That;s always where a driver like Schumacher has been hailed, the fact that they know that if the car is 1000th of a second faster/slower it's because if the change on the car rather than the driver being faster one lap than the other.

Of course now with limited testing I very much doubt this even matters all that much compared to the old days. With testing rules as they are I'm not sure having Schumacher/Alonso in the car is much different to having a Rosberg in the car. Certainly there's no way Alonso would make the car 7ths faster than Hamilton would or Schumacher over Rosberg.

I did like the wry smile from the McLaren dude when the question was asked, he was obviously wanting to say Alonso was being a little generous to himself but engineering modesty got the better of him

[prty]

An Alonso fan I imagine.;)

How come? They are exactly saying that a driver has influence in the development process:

"The key thing the driver does is to tell you when you're going to get there, and how are you going to get there [...] where do you need to work and improve"
"They can have quite an input throughout the whole car"
"If the setup is off, you're perhaps half a second away. If a driver can have that little extra confidence in the car, you are looking at tenths per lap"

If anything, it was someone that doesn't like Alonso very much.

Edited by prty, 10 March 2010 - 11:03.

[Tenmantaylor]

Its by James Allen and originally on his blog http://www.jamesalle...ar-development/

I was shocked when James states Alonso claimed 7 tenths - we all knew it was 6 tenths

Edited by Tenmantaylor, 10 March 2010 - 10:21.

[SPBHM]

with the amount of precise data that the teams have to work these days, its obvious that the driver lost a lot of its importance in this area...
but good clip...

[wrighty]

I was shocked when James states Alonso claimed 7 tenths - we all knew it was 6 tenths

sandbagging!!

[schuey100]

How come? They are exactly saying that a driver has influence in the development process:

"The key thing the driver does is to tell you when you're going to get there, and how are you going to get there [...] where do you need to work and improve"
"They can have quite an input throughout the whole car"
"If the setup is off, you're perhaps half a second away. If a driver can have that little extra confidence in the car, you are looking at tenths per lap"

If anything, it was someone that doesn't like Alonso very much.

Er... No. That's not backing Alonso It's talking about whether a driver is comfortable in the car and when he is then he is faster. It's not saying that Alonso gets in the car, through his feedback makes the designers design the car so the McLaren is now faster for him and other drivers, it's only about how comfortable a specific driver is.

As an example, if my seat in my car is too high then I will drive more slowly than if it's in the correct position for me. If I then put it in the correct position that doesn't mean the car is faster or that my wife can suddenly corner more quickly It just means I can drive faster.

In any case, what they failed to mention is that putting a time increase on any thing is silly because it all depends on too many factors. Eg you cannot make a car 5ths quicker because a car might be 5ths quicker on a low fuel load but only 3ths on a full, or vice versa. Or an engineer can make the car 1 sec quicker at Monaco but it would be 5 seconds slower in Silverstone.

So this whole thing of "we can make the car (specific time X) faster is a nonsense. Maybe you can round a certain track, with a certain fuel load, with certain tyres, at a certain temp, with certain humidity etc etc etc. But what if it rains, is it still (specific time X) faster? Noop.

It's a nice media sound bite but means very little.

[MichaelPM]

this thread is going to be full of McLaren fans trying to keep support for their team while squirming to denounce what they say.

[HoldenRT]

I'm not a James Allen fan but it's a good video. All pretty common sense stuff really..

[prty]

Er... No. That's not backing Alonso It's talking about whether a driver is comfortable in the car and when he is then he is faster. It's not saying that Alonso gets in the car, through his feedback makes the designers design the car so the McLaren is now faster for him and other drivers, it's only about how comfortable a specific driver is.

With the exception of not mentioning an specific driver, and the hyperbole "he makes the designers design the car" you used for it to be non-agreeable, they say exactly that Again:

"The key thing the driver does is to tell you when you're going to get there, and how are you going to get there [...] where do you need to work and improve"
"They can have quite an input throughout the whole car"

And they ALSO talk about a driver being comfortable is quicker.

Edited by prty, 10 March 2010 - 12:03.

[Captain Tightpants]

So Alonso is basically full of crap when he says he brings more than half a second to the team. He always struck me as boasting when he said that.

That's the sense I got: the drivers provide feedback and point the designers in a direction. It might not be the right direction; they just speak their minds. If there's speed to be found in that direction, then speed will be found. But there are no guaantees.

[schuey100]

With the exception of not mentioning an specific driver, and the hyperbole "he makes the designers design the car" you used for it to be non-agreeable, they say exactly that Again:

"The key thing the driver does is to tell you when you're going to get there, and how are you going to get there [...] where do you need to work and improve"
"They can have quite an input throughout the whole car"

And they ALSO talk about a driver being comfortable is quicker.

hehehe Seriously, I'm not getting into a discussion on whether a driver can bring 7ths to a car over a single lap. I happen to know someone, who works for an F1 team that would be somewhat annoyed to think that his 23 years of training, on job experience and Phd in modeling and Aero was all for nothing when all he needs to do is hire a driver to do all the work for him

Seriously though, whatever, if you think that certain drivers can make cars over half a second faster on a lap, not through their driving but through the design feedback they give to the team then so be it. LOLS. Does make me chuckle though. But again, you're right, you win, end of discussion for me.

[prty]

hehehe Seriously, I'm not getting into a discussion on whether a driver can bring 7ths to a car over a single lap. I happen to know someone, who works for an F1 team that would be somewhat annoyed to think that his 23 years of training, on job experience and Phd in modeling and Aero was all for nothing when all he needs to do is hire a driver to do all the work for him

Seriously though, whatever, if you think that certain drivers can make cars over half a second faster on a lap, not through their driving but through the design feedback they give to the team then so be it. LOLS. Does make me chuckle though. But again, you're right, you win, end of discussion for me.

I'm not saying this or that myself, I'm pointing to quotes from the video. The denial also makes me chuckle, so there you go

[MichaelPM]

hehehe Seriously, I'm not getting into a discussion on whether a driver can bring 7ths to a car over a single lap. I happen to know someone, who works for an F1 team that would be somewhat annoyed to think that his 23 years of training, on job experience and Phd in modeling and Aero was all for nothing when all he needs to do is hire a driver to do all the work for him

Ask him and I doubt he will be annoyed if he has a Phd. He should know the inaccuracies of engineering sciences especially CFD, he should understand the importance of backing up his data with real world data/feedback and the understanding of experimental data. He would understand that on track is where it counts and understanding the real results is what his job is firstly and that is facilitated by clever instrumentation and driver feedback. The better the driver feedback and the more consistent the driver during testing the more focused the engineers can be on real results.

Engineering sciences simplifies the real world, engineers try to apply engineering sciences to the real world, it all means nothing until a driver uses it and correlation is proven.


P.S. they are part of a TEAM.

[noikeee]

The video actually just reinforced my idea that drivers bring very little, if anything at all, to the aero development of a car. What they do is important to get the setup right, and to, say, evaluate the differences in feel between two different evolutions of a package. I believe most if not all F1 drivers are extremely competent in this area (you hear this kind of praise from the teams to right about any competitive driver!!), so I doubt there's any driver with a large advantage over the others in this.

It's more a question of the driver feedback being key to making himself comfortable, than of making the car quicker by default. Of course being more comfortable means you are quicker, but slot in a different driver in the seat and he may not feel the same.

Edited by paranoik0, 10 March 2010 - 13:48.

[Trust]

Very recent. Nothing really new here but its interesting none the less. A couple of points made give you an understanding of how a drivers pace may be affected if he is or isn't suited to the direction of development.

http://www.youtube.c...player_embedded

Exactly.

[schuey100]

Engineering sciences simplifies the real world, engineers try to apply engineering sciences to the real world, it all means nothing until a driver uses it and correlation is proven

Actually, no. As I understand it the driver has very little input because he doesn't use the car all that much. The majority of the feedback from the driver is at the very end of the process and the resulting changes minor.

I mean, thinking about it, each driver so far has had 5 testing days. Out of those, taking away the time needed to iron out minor issues, installation laps, bad weather, evaluating tyre compounds etc etc, how much could a driver, in that small amount of time give feedback that would radically alter a car's direction? And it would have to be radical to start making the engineers think "crikey, he's onto something here, we could make the car a second faster a lap".

Again as I understand it the team pretty much knows how a car is going to perform before the driver gets into it, not relative to other teams of course but the numbers 'stick' from design to rollout. Where the driver comes in is the set up, tweaks, nothing that generally makes the engineering unit go "AHA, Schumacher has solved it, we need a mm off that side, a different composite this side and......"

So yes, no doubt a driver can help out the engineers but no driver is all that integral, and even if they are more important than perhaps I think then they all have the same skillsets, no single driver like Schumacher could somehow bring 7ths in speed to a car compared to Alonso. It's just not like that. But I'm bleeding arguing about this again. I really ought not too

[HoldenRT]

The way I see it there's a few things a good test driver needs to bring to the table. Some of these things contradict the idea that we all wish was true... the idea that teams are "trying to go as fast as possible in testing". So that it's easy to find out the pecking order. IMO Over analysing test sessions is a nice way to waste alot of time.

The things are -

1 - Be able to drive two comparable runs as consistantly as possible. It's not important if you are .5 seconds slower then you usually are, you just need to be consistant. So that you can isolate the changed variables (the variables you are trying to test). Two consistant runs .5 slower then during a race weekend is better then sloppy inconsistant runs that are faster, but make it hard to compare the runs. The test driver should be trying to drive like a robot. Braking in the same spots on both runs, turning in at the same time etc etc.

2 - Being able to isolate and concisely pinpoint the areas being tested. Saying "the front feels strange with that new front wing" = bad. Saying "the initial turn in is the same but on exit it understeers more" = good. Saying "the rear keeps sliding around" = bad. Saying "the rear is getting loose but it's not on power, it's only off power under braking, maybe we can try some new differential or brake bias settings" = good. The engineers can see some of these things on the data, but it's more about how the driver feels and what he prefers also and being able to communicate it properly.

3 - Knowing what he wants (what a good car should feel like) and pushing the car in that direction. Experience helps, it's hard to know what you want if you have never driven a good F1 car before. Which is why Rubens is so valuable for a team like Williams. Drivers have different preferences but they all have some universal ones.. they all want stability under braking, they all want alot of downforce and apex speed and they all want fast straight line speed, they all want good traction on corner exits etc etc.

The driver isn't going to say "the front wing feels like the airflow is stalling under the suspension, I better get back to the factory and draw up some new designs for you". The driver is just giving back feedback based on his feelings, which then confirms to the engineers that the new parts are working as they should, or helping them pinpoint the areas they need to target or improve for future updates.

[MichaelPM]

Well said HoldenRT

[Sausage]

Press the Closed Caption button and rewatch it. Some hilarious transcriptions.

onto the truck say financial Corp said political
the that I have