197 replies to this topic

[bargeboard]

Magnussen drove the wheels off that thing all race long. Well deserved result.

[KWSN - DSM]

Magnussen drove the wheels off that thing all race long. Well deserved result.

 

You can hear on that snippet both team and driver know that... With all the bias in the world... Magnussen driver of the day.

[William Hunt]

Great race by Magnussen, driver of the day for me today, this may help him to save his seat because it was (and maybe still is) looking like Haas is considering a completely new line-up (which is imho not a bad idea: fresh start with 2 new motivated drivers)

[Emilvang]

Great race by Magnussen, driver of the day for me today, this may help him to save his seat because it was (and maybe still is) looking like Haas is considering a completely new line-up (which is imho not a bad idea: fresh start with 2 new motivated drivers)

Magnussen / Schwartzman could be nice.

[Montie]

Great race by Magnussen, driver of the day for me today, this may help him to save his seat because it was (and maybe still is) looking like Haas is considering a completely new line-up (which is imho not a bad idea: fresh start with 2 new motivated drivers)

You saying Magnussen is not motivated. I think the race today proved otherwise.

[masa90]

Kevin was amazing today. Great, clean racing under huge pressure.

 

Good job by the strategists today!

[vee10]

Under investigation.

[KWSN - DSM]

Ohh ohh  https://www.autospor...-lap-infraction

[Stallknecht]

Is it related to the decision to switch tires??

[Emilvang]

I think it's about the engineers telling the drivers what mode to be in. Surely telling a driver to box is allowed and Magnussen and Grosjean both mentioned going to dry, not the engineers, so can't be that. Not sure what is allowed regarding modes.

[KWSN - DSM]

Is it related to the decision to switch tires??

 

About driving unaided, not sure what they supposedly did but we will surely know in due course - Stewards are busy today.

 

Albon dry track

Haas aided driving

Racing Point protested

[Emilvang]

They both get a 10 second penalty, so 1 point instead of 2. Apparently telling the driver to pit is not allowed, which is ****ing stupid, imo.

[Montie]

Ridiculous

[Montie]

And no penalty for Albon, what a surprise

[masa90]

They both get a 10 second penalty, so 1 point instead of 2. Apparently telling the driver to pit is not allowed, which is ****ing stupid, imo.

No wonder fans and casual viewers are having hard time understanding these rules.

 

Wtf seriously.

[Francesc]

This is has to be one of the most idiotic penalties I've ever seen.

[milestone 11]

Absolutely bloody disgraceful. On a par with Spa '08.

[KWSN - DSM]

Autosport is yet to post it, is the penalty for being told to come in?

[DutchQuicksilver]

Bizarre penalty. What’s the difference between this and coming in after lap 1 for slicks? The stewards believe a driver coming in after lap 1 does this 100% by his own admission?

[milestone 11]

Autosport is yet to post it, is the penalty for being told to come in?

Yes.

[milestone 11]

Autosport is yet to post it, is the penalty for being told to come in?

https://www.autospor...-lap-infraction

[SenorSjon]

It is also weird it is 10s, that one is hardly given out anymore. Latifi for instance had a 5s for an unsafe release.

[Wingcommander]

Great race by KMag and the team, despite the penalty. They really took all that was available to them  . To be honest the pace wasn't that great, but funnily enough Magnussen was kind of protected by Leclerc most of the race. In the first half Leclerc was struggling with the softs and collected quite a queue behind him, and then in the second half he held up Sainz for long enough. 

[Montie]

Fastest lap Leclerc vs Magnussen - telemetry

https://twitter.com/...0793844736?s=21

[just me again]

Haas team radio post-race
https://streamable.com/uh5bjl

They sound so happy. I think in Austria they could not imagine even to score a single point!
It was a truly grat drive from Magnussen :-)

[muramasa]

　

Komatsu Ayao (Haas's Engineering Director) has regular column on Japanese media, it's Komatsu's own reporting/writing. 

 

It's regular and almost race by race report, detailed and excellent so I always look forward to it. Not sure how many people are interested but I thought it's interesting so sharing here. Translation is by me
https://www.as-web.jp/f1/605963



At Hungary GP, Kevin came in 10th, scoring the first point for 2020 for the team. We had a feeling that this year's car has better race pace than last year's at the first race too where we retired by brake issue, so it was good that we were able to confirm it in this race.

At the race, we took strategy to box Romain and Kevin at the end of the formation lap to change tyres to dry medium from intermediate and full wet respectively. I would like to explain this strategy in order.

At the point of -30min from the start, intermediate was the most appropriate choice in terms of track condition, but Kevin, after trying both intermediate and full wet, insisted that he just could not be confident on intermediate so wanted to go for full wet.

I told him "full wet will be totally shot just after one lap in this condition I reckon", but he seemed to be still anxious, saying "doesn't have good feel on intermediate". Since it would affect the race badly if you made whatever huge mistake at the start as a result of forcing him to start on intermediate which he just cannot have any confidence on to that much, we accepted his intention and decided to start on full wet.

However, at the point of T1 on formation lap, Kevin radioed in "dry lines are visible, so I put on totally wrong tyres". At this very point I immediately started thinking about whether or not we change tyres after the formation lap, and strategists supporting our race back from the factory proposed "we better box before the race start" as well.

Soon after, Romain passing T8 said "seems we can switch to dry at quite early stage". Romain is a driver who is very cautious in such situations like transition from intermediate into dry, but since the very Romain made judgement in that way, I thought we could definitely go with dry.

I looked back and checked our garage listening to radio and watching onboard at pitwall, but it was still empty without any mechanics. Our grid positions were quite far back with 16th and 18th in Quali, so mechanics were still far in the middle of running back towards the garage. Even if we decided to change tyres before race start, we were not sure mechanics would arrive back in time, but thought we just had to go for it, so told "switching to dry for both cars".

Usually you choose the softer option when change to dry from intermediate, but other drivers performances on softs during FP1 were all not good, also we ourselves did not get good feeling on soft during FP3, therefore we had decided to go with mediums for the race already from the beginning/pre-race.
 

As to why we decided to change tyre at the end of formation lap, for example even if we went slower with dry tyres against competitors on intermediate by 5sec/lap in lap 1, lap 2 so losing like 10sec in total, the time loss of pitstop during the race is like 20sec, so just by simple calculation we would gain 10sec by changing tyres beforehand. There is handicap of stating from pitlane, but even taking that into consideration, the gain was much bigger than the loss, from the grid positions we had.
 
It turned out that our dry tyre pace was better than expected so that we did not lose 5sec/lap. We were P3 and P4 at one point, but that you can drive on your own pace without getting caught in traffic in such condition is not something you can do/have so easily/often.

When Kevin got caught up by Stroll, I thought he would be passed quickly, but he was able to hold on for quite a long time even though he was not really trying to defend the position, so that was one good achievement.

Our race pace at that point was quite good, that was because findings on flaws of last years car are properly reflected on this year's car. As I wrote before, we had double retirements at the first race, but after the race, Kevin came all the way to the pitwall to sit down and talk with me for more than 20min, saying "it's fun to drive this year's car because I can push in the race". We had good impression at Barcelona testings, but seems he was still anxious until he drive the car in actual race condition.
 

In this race, Kevin was able to make consistent laps without mistakes in the 2nd stint where he built gap against Leclerc gradually, let alone in the first stint. Also Kevin was driving calmly when Sainz after passing Leclerc was closing in by more than 1sec/lap.

Romain too was able to drive on good pace until he contacted Albon. Albon was a bit too aggressive, but it was not like Romain was racing against Albon so I wanted him to avoid contact. The car suffered quite a damage in that contact, so could not maintain the pace and lost positions. If not for that, there was a good possibility that Romain was able to finish right behind Kevin to achieve double scoring finishes, so that was shame.



Regarding making pitstop at the end of the formation lap, It crossed my mind for a moment that we might be penalized, but I did not think we would really be penalized. As a matter of fact there was no warning/reprimand or anything during the race, but we got called up by stewards few hours after race finish. That was because AlphaTauri pointed out to stewards that our radio exchange might be in breach of regulation.

It was not an official protest, but their arguing point was that our conduct might have been in breach of the clause issued in 2017 that "during the formation lap, you must not talk/instruct about anything other than the issues of the car on radio. If you do, you must make pitstop".

We were summoned by FIA and went to talk with them, then to my surprise, stewards said they did not know this particular regulation. That is quite regrettable, isn't it. In F1, in addition to Sporting Regulation which is issued and enacted officially every year, there is also a set of various regulations called Technical Directive issued by FIA. Much of TD is not embedded into the Regulation, therefore there is awfully ambiguous aspect in this, that unless you understand intentions and background/context behind the TD, you just cannot make appropriate judgement.

 
One of race stewards for this race was Derek Warwick who is ex-F1 driver, but his explanation was totally inconsistent/illogical, so no matter how much we talk, the discussion just went nowhere. He was saying like "drivers must make judgement on tyre choice totally on their own without talking to anyone else during the race", etc, then at the end he even started saying like "I don't want to be here anymore". Seriously he does not have sense of self awareness and responsibility that you are involved with World Championship, I guess.


So after all we ended up with receiving penalty, but post race, my ex-colleague at Renault, acquaintances at Ferrari and McLaren and so on all praised me "the pitstop was excellent judgement, well done!". In my opinion, going for something like this is exactly what racing is all about, the very "core" part of the racing. Organize/process all the information instantly and make the most appropriate judgement in whatever circumstances we are placed under. It is not a thoughtless gamble at all.

We cannot score points, let alone win, as long as we do same as other teams. Looking back at the very moment now, if I was not able to give the order to change tyres at that timing, I just would better retire from trackside engineer, I even think to that extent. I do not agree with the penalty, but I'm not regretting the decision. Besides, it was positive that we managed to score point in such circumstances.


Next race is double header in GB, its venue Silverstone used to be known as high speed track, but in recent years it has more corners where you can go flat out, so its characteristics has become closer to Spa with lots of full throttle sections rather than high speed track, so will be tough for us compared to Hungary. In that sense, race in Hungary was crucial for us even more.
 
At Silverstone, PU's power deficit will be more conspicuous, so you have to reduce drag even by shedding downforce otherwise you cannot set decent lap times in dry condition, cannot race competitively either. Needless to say, the more you reduce downforce the tougher it gets at low-mid speed corners, so it depends on how well we deal with it. Anyway we will just do our best to aim for higher position as much as possible!
 

 

Edited by muramasa, 30 July 2020 - 18:13.

[cnn]

Miranda: very interesting

[KWSN - DSM]

This part...

 

"One of race stewards for this race was Derek Warwick who is ex-F1 driver, but his explanation was totally inconsistent/illogical, so no matter how much we talk, the discussion just went nowhere. He was saying like "drivers must make judgement on tyre choice totally on their own without talking to anyone else during the race", etc, then at the end he even started saying like "I don't want to be here anymore". Seriously he does not have sense of self awareness and responsibility that you are involved with World Championship, I guess."

 

Should disqualify Warwick from ever being a Steward again.

 

And this part

 

"We were summoned by FIA and went to talk with them, then to my surprise, stewards said they did not know this particular regulation. That is quite regrettable, isn't it. In F1, in addition to Sporting Regulation which is issued and enacted officially every year, there is also a set of various regulations called Technical Directive issued by FIA. Much of TD is not embedded into the Regulation, therefore there is awfully ambiguous aspect in this, that unless you understand intentions and background/context behind the TD, you just cannot make appropriate judgement."

 

Is more than worrisome, I hope the teams behind closed doors address both of these with FIA.

[William Hunt]

You saying Magnussen is not motivated. I think the race today proved otherwise.

 

No that's not what I meant but when a team completely changes it's driver line-up it often gives all the staff of that team the impression of a fresh start. For drivers it can also be good to chance team & atmosphere, to get a new perspective. It can kickstart people and break routine.

[motohead]

　
Komatsu Ayao (Haas's Engineering Director) has regular column on Japanese media, it's Komatsu's own reporting/writing.

It's regular and almost race by race report, detailed and excellent so I always look forward to it. Not sure how many people are interested but I thought it's interesting so sharing here. Translation is by me
https://www.as-web.jp/f1/605963



At Hungary GP, Kevin came in 10th, scoring the first point for 2020 for the team. We had a feeling that this year's car has better race pace than last year's at the first race too where we retired by brake issue, so it was good that we were able to confirm it in this race.

At the race, we took strategy to box Romain and Kevin at the end of the formation lap to change tyres to dry medium from intermediate and full wet respectively. I would like to explain this strategy in order.

At the point of -30min from the start, intermediate was the most appropriate choice in terms of track condition, but Kevin, after trying both intermediate and full wet, insisted that he just could not be confident on intermediate so wanted to go for full wet.

I told him "full wet will be totally shot just after one lap in this condition I reckon", but he seemed to be still anxious, saying "doesn't have good feel on intermediate". Since it would affect the race badly if you made whatever huge mistake at the start as a result of forcing him to start on intermediate which he just cannot have any confidence on to that much, we accepted his intention and decided to start on full wet.

However, at the point of T1 on formation lap, Kevin radioed in "dry lines are visible, so I put on totally wrong tyres". At this very point I immediately started thinking about whether or not we change tyres after the formation lap, and strategists supporting our race back from the factory proposed "we better box before the race start" as well.

Soon after, Romain passing T8 said "seems we can switch to dry at quite early stage". Romain is a driver who is very cautious in such situations like transition from intermediate into dry, but since the very Romain made judgement in that way, I thought we could definitely go with dry.

I looked back and checked our garage listening to radio and watching onboard at pitwall, but it was still empty without any mechanics. Our grid positions were quite far back with 16th and 18th in Quali, so mechanics were still far in the middle of running back towards the garage. Even if we decided to change tyres before race start, we were not sure mechanics would arrive back in time, but thought we just had to go for it, so told "switching to dry for both cars".

Usually you choose the softer option when change to dry from intermediate, but other drivers performances on softs during FP1 were all not good, also we ourselves did not get good feeling on soft during FP3, therefore we had decided to go with mediums for the race already from the beginning/pre-race.

As to why we decided to change tyre at the end of formation lap, for example even if we went slower with dry tyres against competitors on intermediate by 5sec/lap in lap 1, lap 2 so losing like 10sec in total, the time loss of pitstop during the race is like 20sec, so just by simple calculation we would gain 10sec by changing tyres beforehand. There is handicap of stating from pitlane, but even taking that into consideration, the gain was much bigger than the loss, from the grid positions we had.

It turned out that our dry tyre pace was better than expected so that we did not lose 5sec/lap. We were P3 and P4 at one point, but that you can drive on your own pace without getting caught in traffic in such condition is not something you can do/have so easily/often.

When Kevin got caught up by Stroll, I thought he would be passed quickly, but he was able to hold on for quite a long time even though he was not really trying to defend the position, so that was one good achievement.

Our race pace at that point was quite good, that was because findings on flaws of last years car are properly reflected on this year's car. As I wrote before, we had double retirements at the first race, but after the race, Kevin came all the way to the pitwall to sit down and talk with me for more than 20min, saying "it's fun to drive this year's car because I can push in the race". We had good impression at Barcelona testings, but seems he was still anxious until he drive the car in actual race condition.

In this race, Kevin was able to make consistent laps without mistakes in the 2nd stint where he built gap against Leclerc gradually, let alone in the first stint. Also Kevin was driving calmly when Sainz after passing Leclerc was closing in by more than 1sec/lap.

Romain too was able to drive on good pace until he contacted Albon. Albon was a bit too aggressive, but it was not like Romain was racing against Albon so I wanted him to avoid contact. The car suffered quite a damage in that contact, so could not maintain the pace and lost positions. If not for that, there was a good possibility that Romain was able to finish right behind Kevin to achieve double scoring finishes, so that was shame.



Regarding making pitstop at the end of the formation lap, It crossed my mind for a moment that we might be penalized, but I did not think we would really be penalized. As a matter of fact there was no warning/reprimand or anything during the race, but we got called up by stewards few hours after race finish. That was because AlphaTauri pointed out to stewards that our radio exchange might be in breach of regulation.

It was not an official protest, but their arguing point was that our conduct might have been in breach of the clause issued in 2017 that "during the formation lap, you must not talk/instruct about anything other than the issues of the car on radio. If you do, you must make pitstop".

We were summoned by FIA and went to talk with them, then to my surprise, stewards said they did not know this particular regulation. That is quite regrettable, isn't it. In F1, in addition to Sporting Regulation which is issued and enacted officially every year, there is also a set of various regulations called Technical Directive issued by FIA. Much of TD is not embedded into the Regulation, therefore there is awfully ambiguous aspect in this, that unless you understand intentions and background/context behind the TD, you just cannot make appropriate judgement.


One of race stewards for this race was Derek Warwick who is ex-F1 driver, but his explanation was totally inconsistent/illogical, so no matter how much we talk, the discussion just went nowhere. He was saying like "drivers must make judgement on tyre choice totally on their own without talking to anyone else during the race", etc, then at the end he even started saying like "I don't want to be here anymore". Seriously he does not have sense of self awareness and responsibility that you are involved with World Championship, I guess.


So after all we ended up with receiving penalty, but post race, my ex-colleague at Renault, acquaintances at Ferrari and McLaren and so on all praised me "the pitstop was excellent judgement, well done!". In my opinion, going for something like this is exactly what racing is all about, the very "core" part of the racing. Organize/process all the information instantly and make the most appropriate judgement in whatever circumstances we are placed under. It is not a thoughtless gamble at all.

We cannot score points, let alone win, as long as we do same as other teams. Looking back at the very moment now, if I was not able to give the order to change tyres at that timing, I just would better retire from trackside engineer, I even think to that extent. I do not agree with the penalty, but I'm not regretting the decision. Besides, it was positive that we managed to score point in such circumstances.


Next race is double header in GB, its venue Silverstone used to be known as high speed track, but in recent years it has more corners where you can go flat out, so its characteristics has become closer to Spa with lots of full throttle sections rather than high speed track, so will be tough for us compared to Hungary. In that sense, race in Hungary was crucial for us even more.

At Silverstone, PU's power deficit will be more conspicuous, so you have to reduce drag even by shedding downforce otherwise you cannot set decent lap times in dry condition, cannot race competitively either. Needless to say, the more you reduce downforce the tougher it gets at low-mid speed corners, so it depends on how well we deal with it. Anyway we will just do our best to aim for higher position as much as possible!

Great. Thanks for taking the time to translate this. Would definitely be interesting to read more of these.

[motohead]

Did anything happen to Grosjean in quali yesterday? I know his best time was deleted, but in the second best he was also 3 tenths behind Kmag. Traffic, yellow flags?

[search]

I don't think so. He said he had balance issues after making some changes to the car between FP3 and Qualifying

[eibyyz]

Silly question: How long are HAAS contracted to run Ferrari motors?

[Myrvold]

Silly question: How long are HAAS contracted to run Ferrari motors?

 

Unless they can find another team to buy listed parts from (unlikely to be RB and Merc, so I guess it will have to be Renault), then... forever?

[Montie]

No that's not what I meant but when a team completely changes it's driver line-up it often gives all the staff of that team the impression of a fresh start. For drivers it can also be good to chance team & atmosphere, to get a new perspective. It can kickstart people and break routine.

There is no need to replace Magnussen.

[Mark521]

Saturdays used to be sooo nerve wracking, hoping to get two cars into Q3.  Now's it's hoping to get one out of Q1.  I have no ill will against either driver but I think a driver change for next year (assuming there is one for Haas) would be helpful.  Probably couldn't hurt to change engines too but that's asking too much 

[Mark521]

An encouraging day    (and yes, a shameless bump to the loneliest thread on the board) 

[jjcale]

Even the team has no idea why they were fast    

[DutchQuicksilver]

I love this team for that There’s always something funny going on there. If it’s not the drivers or Steiner, it’s a statement like this

[paulb]

Even the team has no idea why they were fast 

Thats what I was wondering. Whatever it is, they need to bottle it and make more.

[Beggysmalls]

Maybe it was some Rich Energy ?

[Mark521]

Discouraging, I guess I jinxed them ☹

[Emilvang]

Not entirely terrible, I guess..

 

I just hope they change things up a bit next year, if they do decide to stay. A new driver might bring some positive change.

[Mark521]

Well, congrats to RG and the Haas F1 Team.  Shame for KM, was hoping he could sneak up into the points but he fell back pretty quickly after a lap or two after the tires warmed up.  A small ray of sunshine in a certainly overcast season.

[Baddoer]

Growjohn deserved a thumb up this day. You know what I mean.

Edited by Baddoer, 11 October 2020 - 16:06.

[Montie]

So Grosjean spilled the beans on how the team has struggled with car since winter testing. They know what issue is but the team can not fix it. But people will still blame the drivers I guess, regardless if they provide feedback and the team have the data.

https://www.motorspo.../?feed_id=10407

https://www.racefans...oblem-all-year/

https://twitter.com/...0103693313?s=21

https://twitter.com/...0538672131?s=21

[Rodaknee]

So Grosjean spilled the beans on how the team has struggled with car since winter testing. They know what issue is but the team can not fix it. But people will still blame the drivers I guess, regardless if they provide feedback and the team have the data.

https://www.motorspo.../?feed_id=10407

https://www.racefans...oblem-all-year/

https://twitter.com/...0103693313?s=21

https://twitter.com/...0538672131?s=21

 

 

The suspension problem affects Grosjean more than Magnussen, how?  Apparently the suspension alters when it gets hot, possibly due to using small parts which are more affected by heat.  Effectively they pair are racing cars who's condition changes.  Any decent driver should be on top of those problems as they are aware before the race starts the suspension is going to move around, but when it gets up to temperature, it should be okay, That's comparable to tyres wearing.

 

I'd have thought Haas could have welded a bit chunk of metal to the suspension as a heat sink or vented more air onto them.

[ARTGP]

The suspension problem affects Grosjean more than Magnussen, how?  Apparently the suspension alters when it gets hot, possibly due to using small parts which are more affected by heat.  Effectively they pair are racing cars who's condition changes.  Any decent driver should be on top of those problems as they are aware before the race starts the suspension is going to move around, but when it gets up to temperature, it should be okay, That's comparable to tyres wearing.

 

I'd have thought Haas could have welded a bit chunk of metal to the suspension as a heat sink or vented more air onto them.

 

 

The way the suspension deflects is not predictable. The driver doesn't know what the ride height of the car is at every moment so he cannot rely on the car having the same aero balance from corner to corner. Drivers depend on having predictable aerodynamics. Since a diffuser in ground effect is very sensitive to rideheight, it can completely ruin the balance of the car from corner to corner since the suspension load itself is what causes the hot control arm to bend making the car undriveable. It's nothing to do with being a "decent driver" and it's definetely not comparable to tires wearing where the tire produces a gradual shift in grip and/or balance over the duration of the stint. (unless it's a Pirelli that grains for no reason, and then does 52 laps...)

Edited by ARTGP, 26 October 2020 - 14:01.