:cornut: I love MA. On most other sites this would be a no holds barred, knock down drag out fist fight. But here on MA, it's two people respectful of each other agreeing to disagree. Wonderful! Jason
My thoughts exactly..love M/A as a platform to exchange opinions and ideas. Being the most watched sport in the world, F1 breeds a lot of passion, and I'm glad it can be expressed and debated
Absolutely, and I do understand Z06's points..... However, I disagree with the premise that the racing was better in times past - they still raced to a set of rules just like now, just different ones. And the racing may have been wilder and less strategized, but I think that's because the cars, engines, gearboxes tires etc were more fragile, if anything the systems in the cars of the last few years were almost too good, that's why we had processions, and in years past we didn't cause cars broke then - frequently. Cars also had flat tires, ran out of gas on the last lap and so on..... With today's computer systems and telemetry, it's almost impossible to have those heroics that used to make racing so unpredictable......now the pits know when the engine's going to fail well before the driver does. Changing the rules like this year adds in both the elements of failure, and the unpredictableness of before - at least till the teams get on top of things - and it also adds in a lot more variables to deal with. To some that seems artificial compared to the days when the race went to the guy who could keep his foot down harder and longer than the next - and not break the machine. But today's drivers cope with things so far and above what they did 20 years ago, not only are the cars so much more complex, the braking, cornering acceleration are so extreme compared to even the early 90's - well before the last turbo era anyway - these guys are amazing in what all they can do - the way they can multi task under these loads and still keep the car in the race! So yes, things are different, but I don't see it as a bad thing, I think these are exciting times and I look forward to the rest of the season!
Eloquently said! (spoiler alert!) For myself, I would also add that I'm an unapologetic geek, and like the new tech, and the demands it places on the drivers. That my ancestral countryman Kevin Magnusssen was given instructions on fuel management and yet ended up somewhere (rules fiddling notwithstanding) on the podium is just fine with me. Nikki Lauda played the numbers, he wasn't a balls to the wall driver, and yet we all respect him. As much as I admire James Hunt and the heroic men who preceded him, the scientific drivers who manage the most from their machines are closer to my heart. I'm in it for the technology. To think that a car can go 200 some miles on less than 40 some gallons of gas at 150+ miles per hour is just fantastic! I get off on the tech. The minutia, the politics, and the arguing. This is my baseball. Raw power has its place, and I appreciate that too, but finesse wins my heart.
Or at least it looked like that, so that's what you assumed. In the 'it was so good then' olden days, probably the majority of drivers were nursing car problems to the finish, like broken exhausts, but with no ship-to-shore radio, no-one knew until after the race. And you need to look back to the previous turbo era to see really awful races, where an otherwise-slow car that accelerated quickly could hold up a train of faster cars for the whole race.
I agree with your comments on the changes adding some unpredictability to this season. I was totally expecting so see every Renault powered car spontaneously combust on the track based on all the comments coming from testing (at least the one I wanted to the most, basically did)! I like the sound of the cars because I feel it lets you here more of what is going on with them. I can't remember who it was, but at one point you could actually hear someone locking their breaks up.
I remember Renualt's when they were sold here. Seems that heritage has made its way to the top level at F1. I still will enjoy F1, but find some of the rules quite perplexing. Maybe they could have the cars play a cool V12 soundtrack while harvesting kinetic energy. They just don't sound very good to me. I do love the way the new rules are making the cars harder to drive. The cream will rise to the top as they say.
I love watching F1 for the tech and the racing. I miss the sounds of the old cars but like the tech of the new ones. But F1 will loss a lot of fans if they continue with sloppy sensors, post race DQs, and other politics. They should figure out how and with what they are going to police rules before making them. I guess it just makes them like any other government.
I found the FIA's explanation for the disqualification: Now we only have one side of this story, and I'd like to hear Red Bull's rebuttal, but that's a pretty detailed set of reasons they've published.
Yes, but more fuel also means you run out before the end of the race! and they didn't..... I still say the FIA will stand by their decision, not because they're right, but because they say so! :crazy:
Well the rules are "You use what we give you" and Red Bull didn't. Wether or not they felt the sensor was faulty, and wether or not they actually exceeded the fuel flow limit is kind of irrelevant to the fact that they were told by the sporting authority to do something, and then didn't do it. Now, were Red Bull justified in ignoring a directive? Could be. On the other hand, all the teams at some point have done dodgy rules evasions. It's part of the sport to say "what can we get away with" and then try to game the system until they get caught. It might get overturned, it might not. I'm kind of glad that I'll have some drama to follow for the next two weeks as I wait for the next race.
Now let's backdrop what more fuel can do with what Adrian Newey was saying on Feb 17, from GrandPrix247: Adrian Newey has admitted that one of the issues that afflicted the Red Bull RB10, during Jerez testing last month, was down to overheating caused by the aggressive aero packaging, not helped by the Renault V6 turbo’s propensity to run extremely hot, as we reported in the aftermath of Jerez testing [here]. Speaking to about 200 guests at the RAC’s Annual Motoring Dinner, Newey revealed, “What stopped us at Jerez was a problem where the bodywork local to the exhaust was catching fire.” “Hands up on our side because that was a Red Bull problem. It was, you could argue, a result of aggressive packaging. We felt that we needed to take a few risks to try to get a good package that would minimise the aerodynamic damage of this very large cooling requirement.” “It is a problem which hopefully we can get on top of [in time] for Bahrain. It was really a lack of time… it was something that we could have proved out on the dyno if we’d managed to get everything together earlier.” “Renault have been up against it in terms of their use of the dyno, we have been up against it making the parts in time. I think had we been a couple of weeks further ahead then that could all have been done in private on the dyno, but unfortunately it was done in public.” The overheating problem was not exclusive to Red Bull. The other two Renault powered teams present in Spain, Caterham and Toro Rosso, also experienced problems which also caused limited running, way off the pace. Newey explained, ”The Renault seems to have a particularly large cooling requirement. Everybody of the three engine manufacturers will have a different target for how hot their charge air is going back into the plenum and Renault have given us a fairly challenging target, with all sorts of advantages if we can get there, but it is not easy to achieve.” Red Bull and the rest of the Formula 1 contenders begin the second chapter of 2014 pre-season testing at Bahrain International Circuit starting on 19 February 2014 (GP247) Subbed by AJN.
Yes, but I still maintain that if they were using extra fuel to cool the engine, they would have run out. If the fuel flow has to be so low to keep them from running out, they can't have turned it up..... The issue was they were told to use the FIA sensor which they proved was defective, the FIA admits it was inaccurate, yet they were told to use it anyway. How can that be right? Since they didn't, they lose.....
Was wondering yesterday whether there's a possibility that after Red Bull's appeal the FIA can/will reinstate Ricciardo's podium and give back his driver points and trophy but uphold the deduction of Red Bull's constructor points. Happy to see I'm in good company as today Steve Matchete suggested it's a somewhat likely scenario (assuming the FIA accept there was no performance advantage gained). Apparently it's been done before and though it seems familiar I can't remember a specific instance.
Depends on how much pad they had on fuel to begin with, and consider that the fuel is not used to cool at full on power and RPM, but when coming off throttle and part throttle. Ever notice how a lot of race cars shoot flames out the exhaust when they come off full throttle? What do you think they are doing? They aren't dumping unburnt fuel into the exhaust by accident... But that's just my 2 cents.
Racecar Engineering has a new free issue you can download. Of particular relevant interest was this nugget: Reading that, I gather that the cars should nearly never hit the max fuel flow anyway, and that safety cars can extend the range of the car's fuel usage. So it really seems that Red Bull didn't like the readings from the sensor, the FIA told them how to adjust it, and Red Bull did their own thing to adjust the readings that wasn't approved by the FIA. It's more of a "you're not the boss of me" thing that Red Bull did than a cheat. So yeah, Daniel should get his points and podium back, and Red Bull should not accrue constructors' points. It's between the team and the rules authority, not on the driver at all.
There are, essentially, two different fuel use rates, both of which are limited. If I'm reading it right that article primarily discusses average fuel use at different tracks. That is, fuel use rates, as averages, as calculated over the course of a race. This is important because of the limited size of the fuel tank and the ability to make a single fill-up last the full race distance, more challenging at some tracks than at others. But the other limit the teams are struggling to deal with is instantaneously measured real time fuel flow. Regardless of the average rate, at any instant, with the driver's foot pinned to the floor, they can't have more than a 100kg/hr rate of consumption. I think that's the limit RBR is accused of breaking with Ricciardo's car.
Maximum HP is not necessarily made at maximum fuel flow, it takes a lot of air to make maximum power, why folks tend to burn pistons (heat) when making the maximum....and given that one might cool things a bit when maximum power is not needed... An average fuel flow rate for a race leaves a lot of variables in between. All that said, RB was told what sensor to use, they did not....and my money is on it being because they wanted to flow more fuel (at less throttle) at some point than the approved sensor would allow.