Motorsport Off Topic Thread

dannyjo22 · 12 Sep 2014 at 11:22

How the hell will they tell massa that his team mate is faster then him

MarcLister · 12 Sep 2014 at 13:04

dannyjo22 said:
How the hell will they tell massa that his team mate is faster then him

Tell him before he gets into the car to go to the grid on a Sunday afternoon.

JRS · 12 Sep 2014 at 17:20

Toto Wolff says that the radio ban is vague and requires "further clarification". In other late-breaking news, the Pope is indeed Catholic as many of us had suspected.

"There will inevitably be some controversy so it will need further clarification as to how much essential on-track procedures will be affected," he said, according to BBC Sport.

"It will require a significant effort from the teams to understand how best we can work around it," he added, claiming that preparations, including tyre and brake temperatures, on the warm-up lap for the start of a race are a particular issue.

Nice one, FIA

Skeeter · 12 Sep 2014 at 18:16

Do we have any information on the penalty for breaching this rule? If it's a race affecting penalty how do the FIA think the "fans" they seem to want to appease will react to the WDC being decided due to a radio message.

Oh god, imagine the mess if Nicos engineer highjacked Lewis' radio and shouted "Brake later into turn 1!" and got him penalised

.

I would not be at all surprised if the teams decided to just ignore the FIA and carry on.

The way F1 is governed is so backwards.

this_is_gav · 12 Sep 2014 at 21:12

Skeeter said:
Do we have any information on the penalty for breaching this rule? If it's a race affecting penalty how do the FIA think the "fans" they seem to want to appease will react to the WDC being decided due to a radio message.

Oh god, imagine the mess if Nicos engineer highjacked Lewis' radio and shouted "Brake later into turn 1!" and got him penalised .

I would not be at all surprised if the teams decided to just ignore the FIA and carry on.

The way F1 is governed is so backwards.

They could just as easily sabotage his car before the race if they really wanted to.

The rule requires clarification, certainly, but it needs to go much further. The proposed tyre-blanket removal I liked (though not for the cost saving reasons as much as giving the drivers that little bit more work to do), disallow all non-safety related pit-car messages (ie obstacles or dangerously high brake temps/wear and the need to retire on safety grounds).

What we'll end up with is a few events where it will be minimal radio traffic, growing to a decent amount by season end, and by Melbourne next year they'll all have forgotten the rule.

dannyjo22 · 12 Sep 2014 at 21:23

This is so knee jerk and retarded I can only think and hope that something extremely suspect has been going on that they don't want to let us in on.

this_is_gav · 12 Sep 2014 at 21:37

It is very odd timing, given that we've less than a third of the season to go and this isn't the sort of rule you introduce mid-season.

Glaucus · 12 Sep 2014 at 21:41

dannyjo22 said:
This is so knee jerk and retarded I can only think and hope that something extremely suspect has been going on that they don't want to let us in on.

Retarded is an understatement, can't believe most people on the f1 show agreed with the rule.

People where acting like the engineers are driving the cars. Rather than just saying someone else is breaking 5m later and going faster than you in turn 3.

Flibster · 13 Sep 2014 at 01:15

FIA Confirmed 2015 Calendar

Australia - March 15
Malaysia - March 29
Bahrain - April 5
China - April 19
Spain - May 10
Monaco - May 24
Canada - June 7
Austria - June 21
Britain - July 5
Germany - July 19
Hungary - July 26
Belgium - August 23
Italy - September 6
Singapore - September 20
Japan - September 27
Russia - October 11
USA - October 25
Mexico - November 1
Brasil - November 15
Abu Dhabi - November 29

Skeeter · 13 Sep 2014 at 11:22

this_is_gav said:
They could just as easily sabotage his car before the race if they really wanted to.

The rule requires clarification, certainly, but it needs to go much further. The proposed tyre-blanket removal I liked (though not for the cost saving reasons as much as giving the drivers that little bit more work to do), disallow all non-safety related pit-car messages (ie obstacles or dangerously high brake temps/wear and the need to retire on safety grounds).

What we'll end up with is a few events where it will be minimal radio traffic, growing to a decent amount by season end, and by Melbourne next year they'll all have forgotten the rule.

But you simply cannot drive an F1 car to its maximum without the assistance of a team to digest the information and advise you on how best to use the tool under you.

this_is_gav · 13 Sep 2014 at 12:22

Skeeter said:
But you simply cannot drive an F1 car to its maximum without the assistance of a team to digest the information and advise you on how best to use the tool under you.

Good. If the driver who better understands what's going on around him and under him and gets that little bit more as a result then that's a good thing.

But I'd be staggered if we see any difference from the outside.

Skeeter · 13 Sep 2014 at 12:32

What? Aren't you firmly in the hatred of fuel and tyre saving preventing drivers pushing all the time camp?

And how can a driver tell the details of the inner workings of the power unit? It's a completely unrealistic expectation, which will just result in cars being setup with a safety margin and drivers unable to change it.

What if a driver has an issue that means his engine is down on power in a certain mode. Changing mode would fix it and get could race, but the team can't tell him to change it so instead he limps around dropping down the field?

Do you really want to hear drivers interviews saying "I only had 80% power because the team weren't allowed to tell me which mode to use to get 100% back".

this_is_gav · 13 Sep 2014 at 12:48

Skeeter said:
What? Aren't you firmly in the hatred of fuel and tyre saving preventing drivers pushing all the time camp?

Me? Hell no. I was one of the few at the start of the season up against many of these recent fans saying it's hardly the first time we've had huge fuel-saving in F1 and it didn't suffer for it the last time.

The tyre issue isn't ideal, but if they stuck the old Bridgestones on there'd be a degree of tyre management going on as the precedent has been set. Thankfully it's not as pronounced as many were fearing.

Skeeter said:
And how can a driver tell the details of the inner workings of the power unit? It's a completely unrealistic expectation, which will just result in cars being setup with a safety margin and drivers unable to change it.

It's not up to the driver. It never has been. Back in the day the radio was used to tell a driver to slow down to cool an engine and that was it. We don't hear that many messages about protecting an engine, more performance related and fuel saving.

Skeeter said:
What if a driver has an issue that means his engine is down on power in a certain mode. Changing mode would fix it and get could race, but the team can't tell him to change it so instead he limps around dropping down the field?

You make it sound like they're banning radio completely. I'm fairly sure if a car is 10 seconds a lap off the pace the FIA aren't going to throw the rule-book at them for fixing it. :rolleyes:

Skeeter · 13 Sep 2014 at 13:03

They have banned all car performance related radio. Telling a driver which engine or dif setting to use is banned, and its something that currently happens all the time. The Toto statement suggests all the clutch and start procedures a driver gets told would also be banned, which is information they definitely don't have access to.

Bottom line, the ban on teams sending messages about the cars performance will mean performance is limited by what the teams can't say, which is retarded.

this_is_gav · 13 Sep 2014 at 13:10

Skeeter said:
They have banned all car performance related radio. Telling a driver which engine or dif setting to use is banned, and its something that currently happens all the time.

If the penalty is a 5 second one, it's not going to stop a team changing a setting if it's a sufficiently bad problem. If it's disqualification or lost points then that's a very different matter.

Skeeter said:
The Toto statement suggests all the clutch and start procedures a driver gets told would also be banned, which is information they definitely don't have access to.

So if they don't get a good practice start or suffer a mode malfunction they have to do what Hamilton did in Monza, mash the throttle and hope? Oh dear. I wish they all had to do that!

Skeeter · 13 Sep 2014 at 13:53

No, the point of the practice starts is to use the results to calculate the predicted best settings for the actual start. If they can't tell the drivers the results of their calculations then all the drivers will just be making best guesses and having average starts. I.e. not driving the car to it's full potential.

Hang on... isn't there a rule about that too? One sec...

this_is_gav · 13 Sep 2014 at 15:00

Skeeter said:
No, the point of the practice starts is to use the results to calculate the predicted best settings for the actual start. If they can't tell the drivers the results of their calculations then all the drivers will just be making best guesses and having average starts. I.e. not driving the car to it's full potential.

And I repeat, that's a good thing. I want variation and the unexpected.

JRS · 13 Sep 2014 at 21:40

Skeeter said:
But you simply cannot drive an F1 car to its maximum without the assistance of a team to digest the information and advise you on how best to use the tool under you.

How do you know?

I'm serious here. Maybe it'll turn out all along that everyone on the grid has been getting help from the pit wall and....oh, I dunno, Sergio Perez is actually the most naturally talented driver since Gilles Villeneuve. Ban all radio, telemetry et al and we might find out.

Skeeter · 13 Sep 2014 at 23:48

Lewis was unaware of what one of the buttons on his wheel was a few races back. If drivers don't even know what the controls are, how can they know the details of what they all do, and which ones to use in any given situation, as they don't have the sensor information.

An F1 car is incredibly complicated. Setting it all to 'default' and telling the drivers to make do makes a mockery of the technological advancements the teams have made.

As I posted earlier, changing the wording to say "performance of the driver" rather than "car" is much more sensible. That bans engineers telling the driver how to drive, but doesn't ban him telling him how to configure his car. Even the justification for this ban from the FIA says its due to messages telling drivers where to brake and what lines to take, rather than which engine mode to use and their fuel useage.

If you ban all setup information yet leave the cars infinitely configurable you won't find out who the best driver is, you will just have a game of pot luck as to who set their default settings up best before taping all the buttons down and praying. Do we really want to see a car off the pace because nobody told the driver to twist a dial?

Jester* · 14 Sep 2014 at 08:18

Just add a button on the steering wheel "restore factory defaults" haha.