The 2023 Formula One Season
- Thread starter Tony Lockhart
- Start date
In the race they weren’t slow, it’s just a difficult track to overtake on and the safety car came at the worst possible time for their strategy. If the safety car had come early or late they’d have been in a very strong position, even without the safety car I think Max could have got a podium. As it was he still came 5th.
Copperjacket
pfm Member
I’m pretty sure that the FIA announced a crackdown on flexing wings and may be this has effected Red Bulls more than others?
Tony Lockhart
Avoiding Stress, at Every Opportunity
There’s a lot of rumour-mongering going on.
I’m no Red Bull fan, far from it. However, it just seems that they’ve had trouble turning their tyres on at this track. During the race, Verstappen managed to get his up to temperature and was lapping at a decent pace. I think he may have been riding a very narrow tightrope, but he did it. If the rumours about flexi wings/floor were on the money, he’d have been lapped at least once.
But, let’s see what happens in Japan.
In qualifying a few things happened that resulted in RBR being slower than usual.
Firstly, very little time was spent above 280 kph, which is where the low drag of the RBR has such a dramatic effect. So at the moment it is not clear whether the flexi aero changes did or did not affect RBR.
Secondly, the RBR rear tyres were down on temperature (no data to prove this just knowledge of how tyre temp affects performance) for most of the lap and only got to the point in the last 2 corners of not losing time to their main competitors.
In the race VER was faster than the vast majority of the field, but still slower than Lewis and RUS, who were on newer medium tyres. Most of the field were on much older tyres and so were and would in any case be slower. I need to equivalence VER’s stint to the end with RUS’s stint, taking out the fuel effect and balancing tyre age.
I think that Lewis was right that it would be faster as a two stop race, complicated by needing to maintain track position vs being able to overtake. SAI demonstrated very well that it could be a one stop, but he might not have been able to keep Lewis behind him, had he needed to do that.
Paul R
pfm Member
Earlier in the season, at similar looking tracks, when out of position they've seemed to have more margin than today (I'm recalling perhaps Saudi Arabia?). Max may have been 5th but he was a long way back.
We'll know next weekend, if they're dominant again all is clear, if not then they've been hobbled.
If the drivers who start third had come to an arrangement to put Max in the wall at the first corner every time he was on pole, this season would have been awesome. It's fortunate for us Red Bull only have one driver.
Saudi is a much faster circuit than Marina Bay, the faster the better the RB performs due to its low drag. Max was a long way back in a large part because of that safety car timing I mentioned earlier. As Ian said in the race his pace was only bettered by the Mercs, but there are other factors in play of course. Anyway the long, tall and short of it is that I think you'll find normal service will be resumed in Japan.
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Paul R
pfm Member
There's always hope. And of course it's traditional to take the leader out at the first corner in Japan...
I do not think that I have posted the following anywhere.
I think the RBR concept is to generate the downforce as much as possible at higher ride heights and then stall the car aero at around 280 kph (they set the ride heights to achieve the stall at the speed that best suits the circuit), I.e. lower ride heights.
One of the consequences of this approach is that they will on occasion have tyre warm up problems in qualifying (not able to put enough energy into the tyre on the out lap), but in the race they are likely to have lower degradation if over heating is a problem for other teams (it generally is in high speed corners). So, for example, at Spa VER was quite average through Eau rouge but was still very fast by the end of the straight.
And at Singapore, the performance generally dropped off for the reasons that I have given earlier in the thread.
How you get the aero to work reliably in this way (I.e. very effective at pretty much any circuit) must be a difficult challenge as no other teams have achieved it.
I think the RBR concept is to generate the downforce as much as possible at higher ride heights and then stall the car aero at around 280 kph (they set the ride heights to achieve the stall at the speed that best suits the circuit), I.e. lower ride heights.
One of the consequences of this approach is that they will on occasion have tyre warm up problems in qualifying (not able to put enough energy into the tyre on the out lap), but in the race they are likely to have lower degradation if over heating is a problem for other teams (it generally is in high speed corners). So, for example, at Spa VER was quite average through Eau rouge but was still very fast by the end of the straight.
And at Singapore, the performance generally dropped off for the reasons that I have given earlier in the thread.
How you get the aero to work reliably in this way (I.e. very effective at pretty much any circuit) must be a difficult challenge as no other teams have achieved it.
Tony Lockhart
Avoiding Stress, at Every Opportunity
How about this for an idea:
Allow F1 teams to do as much testing as they like before and during the season, but, it has to be within the budget cap.
No more turning up at the first test session a few days before the season starts with an expensive pile of underperforming rubbish.
Allow F1 teams to do as much testing as they like before and during the season, but, it has to be within the budget cap.
No more turning up at the first test session a few days before the season starts with an expensive pile of underperforming rubbish.
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Graham B
pfm Member
That was a knife edge race all the way through, really enjoyed it. Very pleased to see Sainz get a win, and I thought the way he managed pace and gaps showed a lot of skill and clear thinking. If Ferrari had stopped for tyres at the same time as Mercedes, I wonder if they couldn’t have had an easy 1-2 though, and hopefully they will have reflected on their strategy timidity.
cutting42
Arrived at B4 Hacker Ergo
I loved the free testing era but it did mean a rich team could and did win by more. I wonder how they could manage the cost cap and extend testing
Tony Lockhart
Avoiding Stress, at Every Opportunity
The powers that be know exactly what the teams are spending and where, so it should be an easy process to monitor.
I have talked with a few people like who worked for a long time in F1 about the current situation. Which brought up the following points:
The wind tunnel / CFD limitations were brought in quite a few years ago to limit the rate of lap time reduction. This was then extended so that the amount of wind tunnel time was calculated based on the teams finishing position in the constructors championship (first gets least and last gets the most).
The ever tightening technical regs it has made it more difficult for teams to innovate to improve but above the should have made it easier for the grid to close up.
The budget cap should have brought the grid close together as spending on technical areas is limited to the same cap across the grid. The cap was introduced when money was a bit tighter for the small teams, but redistribution of prize money and additional sponsorship has brought greater income and team value across the grid. This has resulted in the teams being cash rich so they have continued to expand spending their money outside the budget cap to deliver performance a bit more indirectly. Mercedes and Alpine F1 teams for example have around 1000 employees, whereas when I left Merc in 2014 it had around 600.
Meanwhile the top 3 salaried employees, the owners and shareholders have become very rich as they are outside the budget cap. This has been achieved by making senior engineers redundant and recruiting new graduates to replace them and paying less than other industries. And hence F1 will not be attracting some of the best students as banks and other industries pay so much more, whilst the very experienced engineers are lost for good.
We concluded that there are too many limitations and they should free up the technical regs to encourage innovation as they already have wind tunnel time limits (the biggest area for performance gains) and the budget cap to manage spending. Whilst bringing the top 3 salaried employees and drivers into a larger budget cap to try to rebalance the budget spend.
Tony Lockhart
Avoiding Stress, at Every Opportunity
Another case of be very careful what you wish for, maybe.
davidjt
pfm Member
Or the law of unintended consequences. The brains employed by the teams have tended to be in a different league from those in the governing body. Ross Brawn was the obvious exception, but maybe he wasn't listened to?
Or perhaps it's simply the nature of a bunch of ultra-competitive people - find the unfair advantage and then fight like hell to keep it.
Or perhaps it's simply the nature of a bunch of ultra-competitive people - find the unfair advantage and then fight like hell to keep it.
Southeastern
She called me baby, like an old romantic
Speaking of Mr Brawn, new docuseries coming
https://whatsondisneyplus.com/first-look-at-disney-original-brawn-the-impossible-formula-1-story/
Graham B
pfm Member
With the introduction of the latest budget cap and the reporting that the spending difference between teams is now in the (mere(!!!)) tens of millions instead of hundreds of millions, has it really had much effect in practice, or have they all somehow found ways around it?
For example, AT, Williams and Haas should be getting much more wind tunnel development time than RB, Ferrari and Mercedes, but when Perez and Albon had their cars craned away at Monaco allowing detailed photos of the undersides, it was clear the floor of the RB was way more developed and sophisticated.
I would guess that the various exclusions from the cap are the reason, with the designer, chief engineer and chief aerodynamicist now being the (excluded) three highest paid and fiercely protected team members, but interesting in how the cap may or may not have had an effect.
For example, AT, Williams and Haas should be getting much more wind tunnel development time than RB, Ferrari and Mercedes, but when Perez and Albon had their cars craned away at Monaco allowing detailed photos of the undersides, it was clear the floor of the RB was way more developed and sophisticated.
I would guess that the various exclusions from the cap are the reason, with the designer, chief engineer and chief aerodynamicist now being the (excluded) three highest paid and fiercely protected team members, but interesting in how the cap may or may not have had an effect.