Well EMSC, F1 is a passionate sport and attracts the more thought provoking person, so I guess, as we both know we will fall out on occasion.
Guys, in the nicest possible way. chill the f*ck out! Some people like trying to glean details from testing, others are just thankful to see cars going around a track again after going cold turkey for 2 months. If you prefer one way to the other, then that's what the 'ignore function' is for. Also, apologies for not making my point more eloquently, the swear filter (toggled at the bottom of the page), should be functioning at the moment, so if people are offended by vulgar language, making use of it may be appropriate.
DHC, yea, my view of "swearing" is that the words used are simply a formation of letters to produce a sound with a meaning, now being a pretty base and purposeful type of guy and spending my entire life in an engineering environment within manufacturing I use, as do all my colleagues, virtually any languague that seems appropriate at the time. Even to each other, for direct personal abuse. Although in high level meetings the use of certain words is curtailed for some reason, but attend a sporting event with the same group of people, say a rugby match, then the senario changes any anything goes. Now just go and whack your finger with a hammer accidentally of course and explore which words ease the pain most effectively, I really cannot see the degree of offence seen by some simply in the formation of a collection of letters.
I'm similar, you can't spend any length of time in labs without hearing a great deal of vulgarity. But not everyone is in the same situation, and whilst nobody I live with would be offended by reading a swear-fest on my screen, the situation may not be the same for everyone.
(SilverArrow: I've just seen this; sorry not to have responded sooner). Forgive my going over of some basics which you will be well aware of; but in the interests of thoroughness, they are necessary. Basic chronology: Any object possessing momentum follows a straight line unless a force acts upon it. Therefore if a tyre loses grip, it will cease to provide the necessary turning (frictional) force to influence the direction of travel. (This 'straight line' is more accurately described as a geodesic – since in the vicinity of a mass, such as here on planet Earth*, a downward tendency is induced through gravity). Tyres are the means through which forces are transmitted from car to tarmac. If the front wheels are providing sufficient grip and steered, the front end will turn. If the rear tyres are also providing the necessary grip, they will follow the front of the car around the corner since they're connected to it via the chassis. If any tyre loses grip, it will no longer be so able to influence the direction of travel and will only follow a curved path if dragged around by three others still doing their job. These three 'working' tyres are immediately subjected to increased work, since they are no longer getting help from the fourth. The increased workload will often lead to another tyre losing grip (often happening almost instantly, and usually at the same end), especially when the car is already at or near the limit (of available grip) – as should be expected with racing cars, since it is a driver's job to exploit all available grip as often as possible! However, if two tyres at the same end of the car lose grip, that whole end of the car will provide less friction (resistance to momentum); and hence, less turning force. If this loss of grip occurs at the front, the result will be understeer: the front will 'push' wider than the required natural line; i.e. it tries to go straight on. If this loss of grip occurs at the the rear, the result is oversteer, since this time the rear is trying to go straight on but the front of the car is still taking a tighter line (hence the term 'oversteer'). Or to use your terminology; yes, the rear will "step out" relative to the front. - - -o0o- - - For further reference: Please note that a loss of grip can be induced by three factors (or a combination of them) and that the surface being driven over plays a vital part in just how much is 'too much': steering too severely braking too severely accelerating too severely If action is not taken to regain control quickly enough, oversteer can result in a spin** because if the front continues to grip but the rear does not, the latter will be forced to rotate about the centre of mass. A similar lack of control at the front will cause the car to run wide of the desired line, and in the most severe cases, to go off the circuit (or into another car) in a straight line. *This may not apply to Jonathan Legard. **This may not apply to aliens. ***The ultimate 'controllable' oversteer is a doughnut. There is no intended connection between asterisks…
Right now I'm very thankful I remember the insane amount of work on forces in high school physics and engineering, else I wouldn't have understood any of that. Coincidentally it's all I remember from either subject as it's really the only part of the syllabi of either of those subjects that relates to motor racing
It's very surprising to see Red Bull down the list. I got the feeling after the four days that Red Bull had the best car. La Gazzetta even said a few days ago that Red Bull were 0.5 ahead of Ferrari in qualifying pace and 0.3 ahead in race pace. I know you can't read much into testing, but the numbers seem to make sense ---> "Most of the times do match reasonably closely - the 'potential' and 'high-fuel adjusted' times of both Red Bulls, for example, were within 0.3secs, and the same went for Raikkonen's Lotus. The Saubers' times were almost identical, as were those of Williams and Force India." In Benson's mostly ridiculous article last Friday he says there were "engineers who said Vettel's 1:18.5 was not as forbidding as it looked", which backs up Anderson's analysis. Could Red Bull be in trouble? I was also quite surprised with Mercedes being so high up the list. Anderson's analysis is backed up by recent comments by Lauda who said "my big joy is that the Mercedes can now compete with the top three teams" but in the same interview he also said he thought Red Bull had the best car, so something isn't adding up. The other strange thing is that Mercedes are in a good position despite having less downforce than the MP4-27. How does that make sense - how much of an advantage did McLaren have at the end of 2012 to make Mercedes one of the faster cars in 2013? Also what does that mean for the MP4-28 - is it a dominant car or something? Also just on Ferrari it gets even better! Although Massa's best lap was on a six lap run, he did an eight lap run in which his best lap was only a few thousandths slower than his best of the day, so Massa's adjusted lap should be much closer to Perez.
With these cars having 180lt fuel tanks (or so) which is around 140kg's I struggle to see how anyone can make any assumptions about how fast the cars are. They could have any fuel load and could be pushing by any set amount. I'd even say drivers are told to lift off a little per lap just to mask their pace. Often in the test we saw car's setting blistering sector times only to come round 2s off the pace. You can tell how settled cars look and if they have anything exciting on the car (unless its internal or under the floor), but after that its assumption after assumption, or to give it it's proper name... Benson.
Until I have seen the whole Melbourne weekend I will not be even remotely convinced the reigning triple constructor champions don't have the best car.
Prefer FFS myself, has a more meaningful resonance to it somehow, rids the tension don't you think !!!!!!!
Just following on from Gary Anderson's analysis. He doesn't take tyres or track evolution into account when calculating the adjusted laptimes. Benson says tyres were deliberately left out because it's "very difficult to put a number to each different compound". That's fair enough, but there's no excuse for not including track evolution, so I've worked out average best lap for day one and day four and calculated that the track improves on average by 0.355 each day: Average best lap: Day 1 - 1:20.397 (with anomaly = 1:20.740) Day 4 - 1:19.333 (with anomaly = 1:19.674) Therefore: Which means: 1. McLaren 2. Ferrari (+0.224) 3. Mercedes (+0.419) 4. Lotus (+0.459) 5. Force India (+1.060) 6. Red Bull (+1.253) 7. Toro Rosso (+1.368) 8. Sauber (+1.673) 9. Williams 2012 (+2.717) 10. Caterham (+3.380) 11. Marussia (+3.865) Given that Red Bull must be sandbagging, the tyre effect is unaccounted for, fuel loads are unknown and the cars will change considerably before the first race, this data is almost completely irrelevant....but Red Bull aside, I think it gives us a rough idea of where teams are at the moment, because: - As others have said, the midfield in general seem to have closed the gap to the top teams - As others have said, the top teams are close together in their own little group - As others have said, the midfield looks quite tight - As you would expect, Red Bull are sandbagging - As you would expect, the teams are way ahead of Williams' 2012 car - As you would expect, Caterham and Marussia are still the slowest cars
Some interesting analysis there, Forza. Actually, I believe yours is at least as good as the BBC's! Of course, like any media report, their's is weighted towards talking up what they perceive to be of popular interest; but as others and yourself have said, testing times are not definitive but with your sort of rigorous analysis, if one looks closely enough, various things can sometimes be revealed… Despite the statistics, with huge downforce in probably the most well-balanced car, my opinion is that Red Bull are ahead. (As I think you know, I have little regard for statistics when concerned with the present!). I also believe that Red Bull – perhaps more than any other team – have been able to follow a programme of analysis and development more precisely than others, and therefore have perhaps been able to proceed with less concern over what others have been doing. At this stage, Newey (and his entourage) is ahead and he knows it (in my opinion). I believe Ferrari, McLaren and Lotus all have the potential to be next: Ferrari and Lotus seem very close, both with well-balanced cars, neither of which appear to have McLaren's difficulty (as I see it). The McLaren appears to have lots of downforce but for the moment this seems too heavily weighted towards the rear, causing an imbalance in high speed turns and big, front-tyre-hungry understeer – which they are having some difficulty 'dialling out'. However, McLaren are resourceful, and although I personally do not see the solution yet, I would expect drivers, front wings, steering geometry, suspension, simulators, Woking et al to have worked it out by 2013's British Grand Prix. So these are my top four teams; and here in mid February, my personal belief is that only Red Bull have a clear (perhaps smallish?) advantage. Moving on, here's some daft, premature conjecture (probably better described as a random guess)… As things stand before the season proper begins, I see the Constructors' battle as similar to last year, with the Neweymobile currently standing favourite. Ferrari have a well-balanced work-horse: just what Alonso wants. I don't think the Ferrari is quite the quickest in terms of its potential but I may be wrong as it seems beautifully sensitive to small adjustments – probably more so than the McLaren at the moment (for instance) – which should make it relatively easy to set up for each circuit. This may lend an advantage in tyre strategy over the course of the season, and as most would acknowledge, Alonso has the capacity to play the long game. Then again, so does Button (and indeed, Perez), so if the McLaren is sorted out quickly, they should have a realistic chance to challenge both Vettel and Alonso. That said, I do not see Perez beating Button, despite McLaren's 'equal opportunities' policy. And lurking in the shadows with what looks like a very good car, Räikkönen should not be discounted: he will probably be a good bet for a professional punter trying to make money against a bookie… Top team rivalries: I do not see Webber presenting a problem to Vettel. All else aside, my personal belief is that (unfortunately) politics in that team will continue to play a part. =Vettel 1, Webber 2. Similarly, I do not see Massa as any threat to Alonso; simply put – and regardless of politics – I do not believe he has ever been up to Alonso's standard. =Alonso 1, Massa 2. A Button 'on song' is out of reach of all others, due to his fabulous 'technical' ability (very much like Damon Hill) so if the car gets anywhere close to 'in the zone', I do not believe Perez has the fundamental speed to beat him over a season. =Button 1, Perez 2. Rosberg and Hamilton should be filling in next (or exchanging places with Lotus drivers, described next). I do not think either have a realistic chance at the title in this year's ad hoc Mercedes but this should be a fascinating inter-team battle, especially in the early stage of the season. I also believe it is Rosberg's last chance to rise above the unenviable title of 'F1's most enigmatic driver' but despit embedded familiarity with the team, I just cannot see him dominating Hamilton as he did Schumacher, regardless of luck either way! =Hamilton 1, Rosberg 2. Räikkönen should have no difficulty beating Grosjean. =Räikkönen 1, Grosjean 2. Sauber, Williams, Force India and Toro Rosso should be a fascinating struggle but I do not see any of them challenging the top four teams. Most likely Drivers' Championship battle, as I see it now (February 11th/12th) is this: Vettel v Alonso with Button ready to pick up the pieces. Räikkönen, Webber, Hamilton, Rosberg (Grosjean?) will battle for 4th, 5th, 6th etc., with Räikkönen probably holding a small, temporary advantage as I speak… It should be fun! …
