Soldato
how? ferrari and mclaren have mega budgets to work out whats best with those changes. Force india have a small factory outside silverstone?
F1 2009 Season discussion/development thread
- Thread starter Duke
- Start date
how? ferrari and mclaren have mega budgets to work out whats best with those changes. Force india have a small factory outside silverstone?
Soldato
Good, 'cause qually has been an absolute mess ever since they started buggering about with it ahead of the '03 season. Aside from the wait for the guys at the pointy end of things to go out and do a run, there was nothing wrong with the old 1 hour, 12 lap system.
Some of us here can remember those banzai laps Senna used to put in under that system. And since I'm told that a certain British driver who happens to be the current champion is "Senna-esque", I'm sure he could provide some excitement if that system returned.
Soldato
Soldato
Well, if most of the McLaren car is identical to that of F1-India, say, then a good driver for F1 India, should be able to beat Heikki. The driver's skill will be of prime importance.
Having lots of money to spend would be great, however, there would come a point where there wouldnt be much to spend it on (as most of the parts will be standardised for all teams) and any areas they do spend it on, will have less effect in terms of lap times.
Right now, with different teams running totally different chassis', McLaren can be 1s/lap faster, with ease.
Last edited:
I agree that MS used to do most of his overtaking in the pits, however, he did this because it was the easiest and quickest way to get past someone on the track. He did it because he was intelligent and didnt want to make life difficult for himself.
Before refueling came into being, he was still fantastic. He finished in 3rd place in the 1992 WDC, behind the unbeatable Williams and won a race in 1993, in a vastly inferior car.
What separated MS from the rest (apart from his brute speed), was that he understood the rules better than anyone else and made full use of them. They changed the qualifying system in order to prevent him from dominating and even that didnt work. In 1994, the FIA pulled out all the stops to prevent him from winning the WDC, but he won anyway. When he moved to Ferrari and began dominating, the FIA changed the rules to stop his domination and he and Ferrari adapted, again.
Had refuelling been banned, he wouldve started overtaking on the track and been successful at it. He was the most complete racing driver in F1, which included overtaking.
Twice he couldn't pass Villenueve in a BAR when he was in a friggin ferrari! Both times it cost him a needed race win. If he could have passed on the track when needed then he should have done it then
Those BAR's he couldn't pass were dogs as well and if he couldn't pass him at Spain and Silverstone then he really isn't that great an overtaker.
I agree that he made full use of the rules and was a master of the sprint races. Without that I doubt he would have won half as many races. The ferrari strategy was normally faultless as well for that sprint type racing.
"He finished in 3rd place in the 1992 WDC, behind the unbeatable Williams and won a race in 1993, in a vastly inferior car"
So what Jenson finished 3rd in a Honda behind a vastly superior ferrari and we know what you think of him
Soldato
"Unbeatable"?
In the case of the championships, maybe. But the FW14B and 15C, for all their technical wondrousness, weren't the most reliable cars F1 has ever seen though. And they were beaten to the win on a number of occasions - the aforementioned Schumacher getting them once in '92 and once in '93 (at Spa and Estoril respectively), Senna getting three wins in '92 and five in '93, Berger nabbing a couple in '92.
So six wins in 1992 were made in cars that weren't a Williams. And six again the next year. 12 out of 32. 37.5%.
Not a bad strike rate given the awesomeness of those Williams cars and the talent they had driving them!
So what Jenson finished 3rd in a Honda behind a vastly superior ferrari and we know what you think of him
Its important to note that while I dont think much of Button now, I do believe Button was a decent driver when he finished 3rd and won a race. During the early part of his career, he was trying hard. However, during the last 18 months, he has become what he is now - a guy who got beat by the oldest man in F1.
At no stage have I said that the Button of old was bad. Finishing 3rd behind the all-conquering Ferrari is almost like a championship win.
I do agree that they werent the most reliable, compared to the cars being produced today, where you have a McLaren not breaking down for an entire season. However, during that era (1992/1993), the Williams were as reliable as any other F1 car produced.
Secondly, when a car other than a Williams was winning in 1992/3, it was due to either a Williams breaking down OR sheer brilliance from the race winning driver.
Lets go into detail:
1992:
Mansell wins first 5 races
Race6: Monaco, Mansell comes in for an extra pit stop, as a wheel nut wasnt tightened. When he comes out he is stuck behind a much much much slower Senna. In those days, the cars were wider, so there was nothing Mansell could do.
Race7: Mansell crashed and Patrese had technical problem. Hence, Senna won. Take note, this was the only race that season that a Williams was not on pole. 15/16 poles is a very very high success rate.
Race8,9,10: Mansell wins all 3 races, including Silverstone, during which he set his pole position lap, on a dry track, which was about 2.5s faster than the next non-Williams car and 1.9s faster than his team mate - a feat that we have since never seen.
Race11 (Hungary) - Patrese in a Williams wins.
Race 12 - Mansell leads for much of the race, but then it starts raining and that man, Michael Schumacher wins his first race.
Race13 (Italy) - Patrese led until the close to the end of the race, when his car broke down. Mansell also broke down. This allowed a non-Williams to win.
Race14 - Mansell wins.
Race15 - Patrese (Williams) wins.
Race16 - While leading, Mansell is shunted from behind by Senna. Both retire.
Williams secured 15 out of 16 poles.
Williams scored 164, where the 2nd placed team score 99.
Mansell secured his title in only the 11th race of the season.
In an unprecedented move, arguably the best driver of the time - Senna - announced he wished to drive for Williams, for free, as the Williams really was head and shoulders above any other car. By far.
I could do the same thing for 1993, but you get the picture. When Williams turned up to a GP meet, they were expected to get pole and win the race. The other competitors were hoping for a Williams break down. Thats all they could hope for.
The highlight for me that year was Mansell's qualifying lap at Silverstone. That 1 lap told us just how fast the Williams was and how hopeless other teams/drivers must have felt.
Soldato
See that dot over there, sunama? That was my point. You missed it by a couple of parsecs
How much closer do you think it would have been if Senna's car had held together more often? How much less reliable would the Williams have had to be before they got overhauled over the course of the year? People do bang on about this - "oh, 1992 was so dull, the Williams cars were always winning and no-one stood a chance". The Ferrari 2002 and 2004 campaigns rated far higher on the domination scale. Yes, the Williams FW-14B was a fairly safe bet for the win every time it hit the track. But did it dominate on the level of the Ferrari F2002 or F2004?
I don't think so.
As for '93 - I've spoken at length about that year. The Williams drivers came home in a 1-2 once. One single time. And Senna wasn't exactly blown into the weeds by Prost across the year despite a massive power deficit and a McLaren that wasn't exactly on top form. A little more luck (like not getting clobbered by Hill at Monza, who went on to win that race) and a little more reliability from the McLaren (it broke on him 4 times, Prost's Williams only broke down once IIRC) and we would have seen a different story.
***edit***
I had a niggling thought in the back of my head, and had to look it up. The FW-14B won 10 times in '92., and we all point to it and say that it was an utterly dominant car and anyone that beat it either got lucky or needed an incredible amount of skill. So why doesn't the FW-18 get the same plaudits, given that it won 12 races in '96?
Last edited:
Going back to a point on the last page on 60% scale wind tunnels - that doesn't mean that those teams who've built full size wind tunnels have wasted their money... Dad used to work in the wind tunnel industry, and read that statement as "60% scale models".
Soldato
It means 60% scale models. F1 teams use either a 50% or 60% scale model in their wind tunnels - some teams are also able to test full size (ie, 100% scale) cars whether it is in their own tunnel or contracted out (ie, Windshear). No team tests exclusively with full size models though - that would just be stupendously expensive and time consuming.
Another question about the wind tunnels rule, it also states 50 m/s which is (according to google) 111mph, now does the fact that the models at 60% size mean that the speed of the airflow also scales? but even then it's 'only' around 185mph, which the cars regularly go faster than, so does this mean that it's now impossible to actually test a part up to the full speed of the F1 car? (obviously could do it with CFD though...)
Liking the ban on refueling though, even if some of the other changes are pointless/suck.
Liking the ban on refueling though, even if some of the other changes are pointless/suck.
Soldato
I'm going to go ahead and assume that it was just me who breathed an enormous sigh of relief when The Messiah™ didn't win the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year.....
- Joined
- 30 Jul 2006
- Posts
- 12,130
I was delighted to see that Chris Hoy won and the cyclists did so well - bikes for the winI'm going to go ahead and assume that it was just me who breathed an enormous sigh of relief when The Messiah™ didn't win the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year.....
Soldato
Hamilton doesn't look happy in the picture on the bbc site as Hoy accepts the award
Soldato
he looked happy enough to me
but yeah another time he`s finished second when he should have won lol
Last edited: