United States Grand Prix 2015, Austin - Race 16/19

The_Abyss said:
I'd also be very annoyed if I was getting married, seeing as my last marriage was just 4 months ago :)
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They've been known to last less time than that. ;)


Considering that Mercedes is pretty much already running it's baseline 2016 engine it makes sense for Ferrari to do the same thing.

On the downside, all Hamilton pretty much needs to do now is finish in the points.
 
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Skeeter said:
Rain? During a race? In America?

So... its cancelled then?
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Funnily enough, they seem to be doing rather more wet weather driving in 'mer'ca these days than ever before. Clearly never going to happen on ovals (can you imagine trying to get a wet weather tyre to hang together at Talladega?), but certainly on the road courses. Meanwhile, back in The Alleged Pinnacle Of Motorsport™ they seem to wobble between being overly cautious and pulling things to a halt in conditions that 15-20 ago would have just started to make things halfway interesting....and doing what they did at Suzuka, leaving cars in no way set up for rain circulating the track with recovery vehicles sat waaaaaay too close to the action :(
 
JRS said:
Funnily enough, they seem to be doing rather more wet weather driving in 'mer'ca these days than ever before. Clearly never going to happen on ovals (can you imagine trying to get a wet weather tyre to hang together at Talladega?), but certainly on the road courses. Meanwhile, back in The Alleged Pinnacle Of Motorsport™ they seem to wobble between being overly cautious and pulling things to a halt in conditions that 15-20 ago would have just started to make things halfway interesting....and doing what they did at Suzuka, leaving cars in no way set up for rain circulating the track with recovery vehicles sat waaaaaay too close to the action :(
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The problem is that the better wet tyres get, the more spray you get, so if it does rain properly there's no chance of them running. There's such a narrow window between the wet tyre being suitable and the running having to be neutralised. In the 90s to the mid 2000s it was aquaplaning which usually stopped races, whereas now it's visibility that's the main issue.

Most of my frustration comes from the safety car starts, especially when the teams immediately switch to inters.

I think most frustration this weekend will be about tyres. Teams won't want to take away from their quota in practice if they think qualifying and the race will be wet, so even if conditions allow I can imagine there'll be limited running. :(
 
JRS said:
Funnily enough, they seem to be doing rather more wet weather driving in 'mer'ca these days than ever before. Clearly never going to happen on ovals (can you imagine trying to get a wet weather tyre to hang together at Talladega?), but certainly on the road courses. Meanwhile, back in The Alleged Pinnacle Of Motorsport™ they seem to wobble between being overly cautious and pulling things to a halt in conditions that 15-20 ago would have just started to make things halfway interesting....and doing what they did at Suzuka, leaving cars in no way set up for rain circulating the track with recovery vehicles sat waaaaaay too close to the action :(
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I predict 20 laps behind a safety car wasted, and then everyone imediately changing to inters as soon as it pulls in as it was out way to long.

The FIA are utter retards when it comes to rain. They should actually look at the America approach, where if its to wet to race, they stop and wait until its dry enough again.
 
this_is_gav said:
The problem is that the better wet tyres get, the more spray you get, so if it does rain properly there's no chance of them running. There's such a narrow window between the wet tyre being suitable and the running having to be neutralised. In the 90s to the mid 2000s it was aquaplaning which usually stopped races, whereas now it's visibility that's the main issue.
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Take a look at footage of the '96 Spanish GP, and tell me that visibility issues are a newish thing ;):D

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JRS said:
Take a look at footage of the '96 Spanish GP, and tell me that visibility issues are a newish thing ;):D
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I didn't say it was a newish thing, just that it's proportionally more of a safety concern than it has been in the past.

I can't view the video at work, but my (usually fallible admittedly) memory is saying it was misty with the water hanging in the air, which was as much of a problem as the spray itself, possibly making it look worse to us looking from further away, but possibly a little better for the drivers.

Given the number of drivers making mistakes and hitting things (Hill span twice before he finally cocked it up once and for all, didn't he?) you could argue it was still the water which was the bigger problem. You don't get that so much now (on the wets), only when the weather deteriorates so much that it has to be stopped anyway (Nurburgring 2007, Montreal 2012).
 
this_is_gav said:
I didn't say it was a newish thing, just that it's proportionally more of a safety concern than it has been in the past.
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Maybe.

this_is_gav said:
I can't view the video at work, but my (usually fallible admittedly) memory is saying it was misty with the water hanging in the air, which was as much of a problem as the spray itself, possibly making it look worse to us looking from further away, but possibly a little better for the drivers.
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You're right that trackside cameras sometimes make things look worse. But the onboard cameras don't often lie, and they tell the visibility story pretty well!

this_is_gav said:
Given the number of drivers making mistakes and hitting things (Hill span twice before he finally cocked it up once and for all, didn't he?) you could argue it was still the water which was the bigger problem. You don't get that so much now (on the wets), only when the weather deteriorates so much that it has to be stopped anyway (Nurburgring 2007, Montreal 2012).
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I'm not sure what was going on with Hill/Hill's car that day. He wasn't exactly a mug in the wet (hell, the Brazilian GP was hugely wet that year and he won that pretty convincingly), and his team-mate didn't struggle anywhere near as badly.
 
this_is_gav said:
I didn't say it was a newish thing, just that it's proportionally more of a safety concern than it has been in the past.

I can't view the video at work, but my (usually fallible admittedly) memory is saying it was misty with the water hanging in the air, which was as much of a problem as the spray itself, possibly making it look worse to us looking from further away, but possibly a little better for the drivers.

Given the number of drivers making mistakes and hitting things (Hill span twice before he finally cocked it up once and for all, didn't he?) you could argue it was still the water which was the bigger problem. You don't get that so much now (on the wets), only when the weather deteriorates so much that it has to be stopped anyway (Nurburgring 2007, Montreal 2012).
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The issue with rain in F1 is the flat floor and plank (its an issue in a number of other areas too!).

F1 cars have a massive, flat bottom that means they float, and then a long plank down the middle of them, mm's above the ground (or scraping it, if your RBR) that acts like a rudder. It means that as soon as there's a few mm's of standing water the floor of the cars start defining their direction, rather than the drivers steering inputs.

So the solution is to remove the plank and replace it with stategically placed skid blocks, and then remove the requirement for flat floors. Simple. Ground effect, faster cars able to follow each other, and an ability to race in more than a light drizzle, all in one!

But no, the FIA won't do it :(
 
JRS said:
You're right that trackside cameras sometimes make things look worse. But the onboard cameras don't often lie, and they tell the visibility story pretty well!
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Like I say, I can't see at work so I'm going off memory. I might watch it again over the weekend, just to watch Schumacher drifting that nasty looking thing around.



JRS said:
I'm not sure what was going on with Hill/Hill's car that day. He wasn't exactly a mug in the wet (hell, the Brazilian GP was hugely wet that year and he won that pretty convincingly), and his team-mate didn't struggle anywhere near as badly.
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Villeneuve wasn't exactly fond of the rain either. Hill never sat in the middle in wet races. Suzuka 1994 was one of his best performances in some of the worst conditions I've ever seen in F1 against one of the regarded masters of the rain in a car which some claim had traction control (surely it would have shown up at Suzuka if ever), but then at Spa a year later he couldn't overtake the guy on the wrong tyres.



Skeeter said:
But no, the FIA won't do it :(
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I'd love to know their reasoning, as it can't be as simple as "no", but F1 doesn't do open. Frankly it's a miracle we've got some of the radio broadcast. :(
 
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They are scared of ground effect. There is a reluctance to allow it due to the issues it caused with safety back in the 80's, but nobody on the board seems to have realised that the world has moved on.

Having flat bottomed, low cars with massive wings bolted to them is actually a very out dated view of aerodynamics in Motorsport. Almost everyone outside of budget single seater series have moved on to better ways. Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes all build road cars with aero technology far more advanced than the crude bolt ons they attach to their F1 cars. Just look at the fiddly, complex front wing and massive rear wing bolted to the La Ferrari.... Oh no wait, there isn't one! Their F1 cars share more aero thinking with the F40 than anything they have built in the last 20 years.
 
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I assumed it was more a case of if it's wet, then they've got a chance of a better result, especially with Ferrari taking a penalty, so there's no point in throwing away the chance of a podium here. That's not a story though.
 
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