It is essential to know which aero parameter needs maximising to improve performance otherwise effort is wasted.
OTOH knowing what needs to be maximised gives absolutely no clue as to how to maximise it.
That is the fundamental problem most teams have IMHO.
Actually 20 races is much easier for some team members than the old days of 16 races but unlimited testing.
I worked 354 days in 1994, for example. I was tired then.
My experience also tells me that understanding the flowfield is poor. But it also tells me that the aero engineers have weak tools to tell them if an aero solution is better or not (I have lost count of the number of big aero kits at all teams that do not work at the track, for mainly this reason!).
Whilst these tools will not tell you directly how to improve the flowfield or suggest ideas as to how to do so, they will tell you when things are much more likely to be a real improvement or not. Hence my comment that they provide a learning facility, whereby some aero engineers will learn from the very direct, good / bad feedback, how they should try to improve the flowfield to make the car faster.
One team this year followed their aero tracker to develop the car and future releases and found that they were under performing. So at a recent race they introduced an aero kit that was worse according to the tracker, but would be easier to drive (opinion based which I do not like as there are engineering ways to do this, but when opinions are better than their trackers, that team, like many others, has a big problem), and it was quicker.
Yes, when I joined Toyota they had a complex method for analysing whether a change would give a better lap time but my older, simpler system did lead to more updates that gave performance. It isn’t super sophisticated but it worked better than what they had, though they went back to it around the beginning of December 2008 so the 2009 car which was quick at the first race was slow by Monaco so yes it is super important but, for example knowing more rear downforce at a 100mm rear ride height would be a gain isn’t useful information if nobody knows how it could be achieved.
It is easy to underestimate the role of driver confidence though and a setting which the sim calculated slightly slower at São Paulo was actually 0.5 secs per lap quicker - partly driver confidence, partly tyre deg (and probably partly weakness in the sim tyre model)
Interesting, the scuttlebutt around the general powertrain engineering circles according to what MrsKettle heard was that there was a lack of consideration given to development full stop, with the idea from senior management that the design would be pretty much fixed for the year.
Unsurprisingly it seems RBR (and others) are trying to block any FIA changes which would help reduce the ‘porpoising’ experienced by several teams.
It turns out the engine was probably the least good aspect of the car, Ian has probably done the comparative analysis of the engines of that era.
I was only involved in aero development for 2008 car and concept for 2009, plus some race engineering changes so not really up to speed on anything engine related.
At the end of the pre season testing I believe Bridgestone unofficially told the Toyota management that taking fuelk load into account the Toyota was the quickest of the 2009 cars with the Brawn about 0.1 to 0.2 slower and the others miles away.
Anyway they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by going back to the aero release criterea that hadn’t been good before, so it went from podium despite starting from the pit lane at the first race to back of the grid by Monaco in May 
Quite right too.
If all cars had a big problem it would point to a need for a rule change, but they don’t so being rollercoastered into a rule change by well connected politics from the technically less competant should be stamped on.
IMHO
It’s an interesting issue and as with most, has two opposing sides.
It’s not in RBRs interest to have an issue resolved if it may mean they lose what is, after all, an advantage. One they have either designed around, accounted for, or lucked-out on. (That doesn’t matter.)
On the other side is the claim that it represents a safety issue. Either in terms of outright race safety, or to personal health.
It’s not a problem exclusive to one, or even two teams. I find it interesting that several teams have a very, very similar - significant - issue that their testing and modelling appears to not have exposed, and which they are all struggling to resolve.
Those teams that can’t build a quick car within the rules must drive slower to keep their drivers safe.
I agree with f1eng about this.
I should point out that I don’t disagree with Frank (or anyone) on the matter of changes. Some teams are not having issues, suggesting that whatever the design rules are, they do not inherently mean there will be an issue. I doubt RBR are running a higher ride-height than Mercedes (for example), so the solution is there, somewhere. That several teams are unable to find that solution is surprising.
I’m a little surprised to see this, but ‘health & safety’ is perhaps the biggest stick that can be currently waved in any situation.
For anyone thinking this is bending to Mercedes, it certainly isn’t. If anything, it is the opposite. As I understand it, the FIA has effectively decided to set a limit to how much ‘porpoising’ (ride height oscillation) a car can do. If this limit is exceeded (on a track by track basis) the offending team will be forced to increase their ride height, or be disqualified. As such, these steps will have little or no effect for teams not experiencing an issue.
Mercedes would have been far more keen to see a mandatory minimum ride height, which would help them, and potentially slow teams not experiencing the issue.
Can’t say I’m too happy with this change, as any mid season change is more often than not a bad thing.
I’m counting the seconds til Horner asks for the budget cap to be scrapped to accommodate the changes, despite him being the big winner (cos they got it right.).
Leaving aside the rationale, it seems a MASSIVE can of worms for the FIA to have opened: never make a law if you can’t or won’t police it, right? Once teams start getting penalties / DQ’s then the shit will really hit the fan
My immediate thoight is that this will now be a season of (even more) btching and carping, and all because some teams did a better job than others.
I think they very much will, if you consider that they’ll almost certainly be relatively faster than those teams who’ve had to jack the car up
It depends how big a change they make, and where.
Probably the easiest thing to do would be to jack up the outer edges of the floor 25 or 50 mm.
This will completely change the flow under the car and will require a huge amount of work to re-optimise, particularly for those doing it right now.
Exactly,
Except there’s a budget cap, so if they were to allow the work to be done on these changes, I assume they’d have to loosen it but - and my God, it pains me to say this - that’s hardly fair on RB, so it’d have to be for all teams, so RB just gets extra wonga to work on the 23 car rather than redesign the floor.
All roads lead to Shitsville, as far as I can see: there aren’t any particularly great outcomes
Right now, RBR are going to effortlessly romp-away with the season whether or not the changes happen, so that’s moot. I don’t buy the whole ‘Hammy was faking it’ schtick - he looked fucked at the end of Baku, and other, younger drivers have been complaining just as loudly ever-since - and like it or not, they are athletes, and don’t usually complain lightly of physical issues, so this porpoising needs sorting ASAP.
I do feel it’s a poor show from those teams that have got it badly wrong - especially with the benefit of the expertise we have here explaining some of the reasons why - but it’s not going to be fixed for a couple of years at least without rule changes, so…
Ricciardo in particular did a good job of describing how bad it was. Could they not do a bodge job of fixing it by everyone having active suspension and use that to combat the bouncing? Just as a spectacle, the cars look and sound shit bouncing about all over the place, should imagine there’s some pretty chastened engineers at certain teams.
Pick one.
Also pretty sure it’s against current regs.
It is wise for the FIA to write new regs to limit the health effects of excessive porpoising. I am sure that the late great Sid Watkins would concur, especially given his NHS role as a neurosurgeon.
There is increasing evidence that repeated trauma to the brain predisposes to early dementia. This appears to be the case in rugby, American Football, soccer as well as boxing. Even repeatedly heading the ball in soccer may be a factor. If that proves to be the case, repeated vertical oscillating trauma to the brain with porpoising might all lead to early dementia.
If the FIA do not act (even mid season) to list the potential harm to the drivers, the FIA might end up on the end of very large suits in years to come.
