F1 Testing week 2 @ Jerez

FrankJH said:
Would be very surprised if Williams offered JV £12m a couple of years later (unless it was a multi year amount))
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Oh they did Williams himself said they offered to match JV's BAR retainer to get him to stay. Williams himself said it wasn't about money.

sunama said:
I actually thought that Hill was prepared to take less. In the end he went to Arrows (was it?), where he was paid £7M. Many people including myself, felt that he sold out. I don't know how much of it is true and how much of it is just made up..
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It was well known at the time he wanted 10 million as a champions wage. He was upset that they didn't bump his wages, Williams has said the decision to get rid of hill was taken in 95 when he bummed around in the best car.

Mclaren offered Hill a tongue in cheek wage of £1 million per win or something like that. He took that as an insult and went to arrows as the only seat left and for the money.

Every year I hope for some sort of rivival from Williams if only to stop them going bust :(
 
dannyjo22 said:
What about the 600m rule for the rear wing, the teams are starting to say it's not going to be enough already.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/89479

Why the hell don't they properly FIA fund and test this stuff before poor teams spend cash on something that will likely get binned.
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Funny, Alonso takes another shot at Petrov. I like Ferrari and all, but Hamilton would have found away around him. Not sat there and whined about it all race.

That's coming from someone who isn't the biggest Hamilton fan.

As for the wing I don't think we'll have an idea until we see it used in anger. I wonder if taking away the extra area on the sides of the rear wing(part that extends beyond the top plane) would make a difference. My guess is one of its functions is to help funnel air from the diffuser, increasing the dirty air behind the cars. That's just a thought, I'm far from an expert.
 
Yeah I read that.

Some are saying that the movable rear wing should be permitted to be activated through the length of the entire straight and not just the final 600m, however, I think we should just wait and see what happens.

Give it a few races for drivers to get used to using the device and then make judgements.
 
BoostedDC2 said:
Funny, Alonso takes another shot at Petrov. I like Ferrari and all, but Hamilton would have found away around him. Not sat there and whined about it all race.

That's coming from someone who isn't the biggest Hamilton fan..
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Clearly you didn't watch the race or you would have seen Hamilton doing exactly that behind Kubica. The fact of the matter is for that race the renault had good traction and speed out of the corners where it mattered.

Mr Jack said:
Well, it's not supposed to be an automatic "pass now" button is it?
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Nope agreed but if it makes little difference it wasn't worth the money in the first place.
 
Agreed on both points.

The movable rear wing is supposed to make passing slightly easier. Where previously you could be stuck behind a car which is 2-3s/lap slower than you, hopefully the movable rear wing will make overtaking a possibility.

Hopefully.
 
Still don't understand the reason for the arse about face method of bringing back in more overtaking.... Rather than just looking at why there was a lot of overtaking in the past - ie no stupid levels of downforce and disrupted air....

Roll on 2013 and a return of ground effect.
 
Potentially yes. Ground effect can remove the need for a front wing as was the case for most of the '82 field.

If you can run a balanced car with little additional front downforce then the effect of running in turbulent air is reduced so cars should be able to follow each other more closely through fast corners.
 
rpstewart said:
Potentially yes. Ground effect can remove the need for a front wing as was the case for most of the '82 field.

If you can run a balanced car with little additional front downforce then the effect of running in turbulent air is reduced so cars should be able to follow each other more closely through fast corners.
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One problem though is that in 1982, the cars were not as dependent on aerodynamic downforce as they are today.

In 2011, you could probably take off the front and rear wings and the car will generate more downforce than a car with wings would've 20 years ago.

So much money and time has been spent on developing techniques to generate downforce from every part of the car, that most teams were able to recover most of the lost downforce, over a single Winter (when wing sizes were reduced for 2010).

My belief is that the dependency on aero is so great that unless something radical happens, it is highly unlikely that we shall see one car following another closely, as we might've seen say 15 years ago, ever again.
 
Sunama - the reason they're looking at bringing Ground Effect back is to reduce the reliance on wing based aerodynamics. This will have a knock on effect of much less disruption of the air behind the cars - and with the cars being less reliant on clean air - they'll also be able to follow much closer.
Potentially, it will fix close racing.
 
rpstewart said:
How can you say that the ground effect generation was not dependent on aerodynamic downforce???
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That generation of F1 vehicle was dependent on aerodynamic downforce (AD), but not nearly to the same extent as today's vehicles.

You only have to look at the fact that the size wings have been reduced, yet the speeds which the cars are doing through corners is at an all time high. Last year, the RBR cars were taking some of the corners at various tracks (which traditionally require the driver to lift off the throttle), flat out.

You cannot tell me that AD is not at an all-time high.
 
PinkFloyd said:
Potentially, it will fix close racing.
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I understand this.

But the same was said when they reduced aero for last year. They got rid of most of the extra appendages. They reduced wing sizes. Yet, come race time, it made virtually no difference whatsoever. The faster car behind found it difficult to run in the dirty air of the slower car in front*.

The best example of this was in the last race of 2011, where Alonso was one of the fastest cars on the track and was stuck behind Petrov. He tried VERY hard, where towards the end of the race, he was taking risks and was repeatedly falling off the track...it made no difference.

*Hamilton accepted. ;)
 
sunama said:
That generation of F1 vehicle was dependent on aerodynamic downforce (AD), but not nearly to the same extent as today's vehicles.
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If losing 5s a lap because you get a stone stuck in your sliding skirts doesn't show dependence I don't know what does.

sunama said:
You cannot tell me that AD is not at an all-time high.
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Engineers will always find more downforce year on year regardless of the method used to create it.
 
It's downforce, but relatively clean exit air, where as modern ad needs clean entry air and leaves a dirty wake. Moveable rear wing is a joke, artificial overtaking rather than car/driver skill. Don't care if it works of not its a stupid idea.

Need more mechanical grip, things like side skirts and enough engine power to lose the rear end on any corner.
 
AcidHell2 said:
Need more mechanical grip, things like side skirts and enough engine power to lose the rear end on any corner.
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This, I agree with 100%. Less dependence on aero (ground effect is an aerodynamic trick) and greater dependence on the grip between the contact patch of the tyre and the tarmac.

Should this happen, it will be up to the driver just how brave he wants to be. A skilful and brave driver will feed more power into the tyres (for a fast lap time) than a driver with less skill.

What we saw in 2010 (especially with the RBR cars), was them take certain corners absolutely flat out, without a care in the world - the same corners which have traditionally sorted the men from the boys.

I'm still not sold on ground effect sorting out all the problems in F1. I just don't see it. If I had my way, I would completely get rid of the front and rear wings and replace the current tyres with wider ones, for extra grip.
 
sunama said:
You only have to look at the fact that the size wings have been reduced, yet the speeds which the cars are doing through corners is at an all time high. Last year, the RBR cars were taking some of the corners at various tracks (which traditionally require the driver to lift off the throttle), flat out..
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Have cornering speeds got higher than say 2004 where 3 unchanged circuits the lap records still belong to 2004?

Montreal/Brazil/Melbourne

What corners do you think the red bull was taking flat that they weren't in 2004?

I personally don't think they are increasing DF levels by that much, just regaining what keeps getting taken away?
 
dannyjo22 said:
Clearly you didn't watch the race or you would have seen Hamilton doing exactly that behind Kubica. The fact of the matter is for that race the renault had good traction and speed out of the corners where it mattered.
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Actually I did watch the race and your are correct Hamilton couldn't pass Kubica, who was on old tires if I remember correctly. However, I think Kubica is a much better driver than Petrov, but yes the Renault did have the speed where it mattered.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but did anyone else get the sense that Alonso just thought Petrov should have gotten out of his way, like he was a lapped car? I think that's what bothered me most.
 
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