I will try to help by describing a typical F1 team’s structure. Typically the Technical director will have the Design Office, Aerodynamics, Vehicle Dynamics and Race engineering reporting to them. There will be a production director (amount of internal vs external production needs to be carefully managed) who will have composite, metallic components, inspection, sub assembly and car build reporting to them. The race team manager will have the race mechanics reporting to them, possibly along with logistics. HR, finance and marketing will be separate departments reporting to the CEO.
R&D doesn’t really exist as a department (the name does but it is not correct to call it that) as R&D is done by all departments in the areas that they need to develop new ideas in. When a team calls a department R&D they typically mean the Test department as that is where the 7 post rig, mutil axis corner rigs, damper test rigs, materials test rigs etc are held and used. Mercedes tried to create a real R&D department to do research and development around 6 years ago, but it was a waste of time as they just did bits of what other departments did and delivered little.
I don’t know what the relative spend is across the departments of a typical team. As a rough idea, a team like Mercedes will have around 150 people in Design, 200 people in Aero, 40 people in Vehicle Dynamics, 5 people in HR
Incredibly decent of Mercedes to give Williams the constructor-only engine maps for Felipe’s last race nice to see him go out on a high with a cracking and faultless battle with Alonso .
Anothe sub-par performance from Bottas, IMHO. OK, Vettel was excellent and didn’t put a foot wrong all afternoon, but Bottas’s poor start and poor stop / out lap cost him a chance in a car which seemed to just have the pace.
And of course, well done Lewis for a great drive through the field. Brand new engine, and the better tyre-strategy helps of course, but it says something about the Merc / Ferrari dominance that they’ve both started form the back this season, and both ended up 4th
In Bottas’ defence, it is one of the tracks that particularly levels the differences between the top 2, and the rest is down to Vettel’s ability to start well time after time.
Formula One’s new owners appear to be considering a replacement for the current F1 logo.
Three trademark applications registered today with the European Union Intellectual Property reveal the possible changes to the current design. The applications were submitted by Formula One Licensing BV.
Nice to see that Liberty Media are focusing on the really important stuff
Haas have a very different business model to the rest of the grid. What this has resulted in is a car that could compete from the start to get points, but will gradually become less competitive over time.
Their operational team is so under resourced that they have no idea whether they will be okay or fighting it out with Sauber at the back. And they pay Ferrari a lot of money for all this.
I am very interested to hear what is announced this weekend or soon after.
So, from that I take it that Sauber (apart from employing some very good people ) is much better resourced these days.
A tie in with the Alfa brand will assist with gaining funding. Icing on the cake ?
nice to see him go out on a high with a cracking and faultless battle with Alonso .
) is much better resourced these days.