The F1 thread

PC_Dave

Heartfeltdawn said:

Excellent article on Alonso's race. Winning a race in the best car is something a few drivers could do. Taking a car that is shit fully intact and on paper even more shit when broken into a good points finish is the mark of someone truly special with a car. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/43973625

I couldn't read that article. I can't read anything Benson writes - the brown-nosing makes me feel physically sick.

Cols

PC_Dave said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

Excellent article on Alonso's race. Winning a race in the best car is something a few drivers could do. Taking a car that is shit fully intact and on paper even more shit when broken into a good points finish is the mark of someone truly special with a car. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/43973625

I couldn't read that article. I can't read anything Benson writes - the brown-nosing makes me feel physically sick.

To save you the horrors of having to read Benson, I’ll summarise.  The tea tray and diffuser were both badly damaged, resulting in the loss of 20 points of downforce.  Additionally, part of the front ballast was lost.  Despite this, Alonso brought the car home in the points while lapping on average 0.5s/lap faster than Vandoorne... in a car which was theoretically 0.5s slower.

Pretty special performance, I’d say.

PC_Dave

Cols said:

PC_Dave said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

Excellent article on Alonso's race. Winning a race in the best car is something a few drivers could do. Taking a car that is shit fully intact and on paper even more shit when broken into a good points finish is the mark of someone truly special with a car. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/43973625

I couldn't read that article. I can't read anything Benson writes - the brown-nosing makes me feel physically sick.

To save you the horrors of having to read Benson, I’ll summarise.  The tea tray and diffuser were both badly damaged, resulting in the loss of 20 points of downforce.  Additionally, part of the front ballast was lost.  Despite this, Alonso brought the car home in the points while lapping on average 0.5s/lap faster than Vandoorne... in a car which was theoretically 0.5s slower.

Pretty special performance, I’d say.

Thanks mate, I was worried i'd have to read it.

20 points of downforce?  20 downforces? I wonder what constitutes the measure of a downforce.

Heartfeltdawn

@PC_Dave ;

Cribbed from someone posting a bit written by Pat Symonds:

https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8250&sid=fedae0fee8e34d0154769e9c3c6ee084&start=30#p458408

Whole thread is well worth reading. Someone writes in the thread that Whitmarsh in an interview said that losing a front wing end plate is worth 10 points of downforce. So losing 20 points is roughly equivalent to driving a whole race with a pretty damaged front wing. 

Cols

Paddy Lowe: “A point is Formula One code for a hundredth of a fraction of ‘cl’, where ‘cl’ is the downforce coefficient. Physically a Formula One car has a downforce coefficient of let’s say 3 to 3.5. So 30 points would be 30 hundredths which would equate to 0.3. So 30 points might be getting on for 10 percent of the downforce on an F1 car and that could be worth about a second a lap.”

not_the_dj

There’s some great in car footage of Alonso getting his damaged car back to the pits (posted on the F1 Facebook page, not sure if the link will work). 

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/1032144670275848/

Cols

Williams slowest in FP1... but Kubica is over a second faster than Stroll.

stickyfiddle

All of this isn't helping my opinions of Paddy. Maybe he's just hamstrung with a shitty budget, but Force India seem to do far better with less, and still attract great drivers. 

As for McLaren, I actually wonder if Alonso's skill is actually hurting the development, since he can drive so well around problems that maybe he can't give clear enough feedback about what's wrong. It's also killing Stoffel's career, cos he looks shit next to Fred, but probably wouldn't be if the car was better sorted. 

Aaand for my final point... any bets on who Max "get driven into by" (i.e. crash into) this race??  

sinbaadi

I wouldn't fancy being LeClerc's teammate either!
The only positive Van Doorne has is that nobody expects him to be as fast as Alonso.
Make no mistake, Alonso will be a goldmine for the team in terms of his feedback and reaching the potential of the car.  His ability doesn't blind him to what is hurting his laptime, but with F1 I'm quite sure the solution is (9 times out of 9) more downforce, less drag.  Alonso can't really influence those fundamentals.

Cols

stickyfiddle said:

Aaand for my final point... any bets on who Max "get driven into by" (i.e. crash into) this race??  

I note with interest the presence of Magnussen right behind him on the grid.

chillidoggy

Cols said:

Williams slowest in FP1... but Kubica is over a second faster than Stroll.

Knock that off their quali times, and where would that have put him?

EDIT - Possibly 10th.

Fretwired

Cols said:

Williams slowest in FP1... but Kubica is over a second faster than Stroll.

It must be dawning on them that they have two poor drivers. Woolf has offered to help them (he wants to copy Ferrari). It would be interesting to see what Hamilton and Bottas could do with the car. I bet they'd be more than a second faster than Stroll.

Fretwired

stickyfiddle said:

As for McLaren, I actually wonder if Alonso's skill is actually hurting the development, since he can drive so well around problems that maybe he can't give clear enough feedback about what's wrong. It's also killing Stoffel's career, cos he looks shit next to Fred, but probably wouldn't be if the car was better sorted. 

Aaand for my final point... any bets on who Max "get driven into by" (i.e. crash into) this race??  

I think McLaren have made a major step forward with the new nose. Alonso seemed happy that the new developments were working and the engineers seem confident that they know what the problem is .. their only problem medium term will be the Renault engine. Still nowhere near the Mercedes or Ferrari in terms of power.

stickyfiddle

Fretwired said:

stickyfiddle said:

As for McLaren, I actually wonder if Alonso's skill is actually hurting the development, since he can drive so well around problems that maybe he can't give clear enough feedback about what's wrong. It's also killing Stoffel's career, cos he looks shit next to Fred, but probably wouldn't be if the car was better sorted. 

Aaand for my final point... any bets on who Max "get driven into by" (i.e. crash into) this race??  

I think McLaren have made a major step forward with the new nose. Alonso seemed happy that the new developments were working and the engineers seem confident that they know what the problem is .. their only problem medium term will be the Renault engine. Still nowhere near the Mercedes or Ferrari in terms of power.

Except that's all bollocks, isn't it?

Because Red Bull are snapping at the heels of Merc & Ferrari and McLaren are maybe 0.2 ahead of where they've been all season, except only when Alonso is driving, because Stoff is still 11th behind two Haas-es and one Renault, and only not-2-Renaults because Hulk's gearbox died.  

And even Alonso's best time was almost a second slower than the slower Red Bull. 

I'm quite sure the new nose has helped, but they're not slow because of Renault. And I'm not convinced the last 3 seasons because of Honda. At least, not entirely.

Fretwired

stickyfiddle said:

Fretwired said:

stickyfiddle said:

As for McLaren, I actually wonder if Alonso's skill is actually hurting the development, since he can drive so well around problems that maybe he can't give clear enough feedback about what's wrong. It's also killing Stoffel's career, cos he looks shit next to Fred, but probably wouldn't be if the car was better sorted. 

Aaand for my final point... any bets on who Max "get driven into by" (i.e. crash into) this race??  

I think McLaren have made a major step forward with the new nose. Alonso seemed happy that the new developments were working and the engineers seem confident that they know what the problem is .. their only problem medium term will be the Renault engine. Still nowhere near the Mercedes or Ferrari in terms of power.

Except that's all bollocks, isn't it?

Because Red Bull are snapping at the heels of Merc & Ferrari and McLaren are maybe 0.2 ahead of where they've been all season, except only when Alonso is driving, because Stoff is still 11th behind two Haas-es and one Renault, and only not-2-Renaults because Hulk's gearbox died.  

And even Alonso's best time was almost a second slower than the slower Red Bull. 

I'm quite sure the new nose has helped, but they're not slow because of Renault. And I'm not convinced the last 3 seasons because of Honda. At least, not entirely.

It's not bollocks .. :-)

Red Bull have a genius designing their car .. Woolf admitted he wouldn't give Red Bull Merc engines as he expected them to beat Mercedes every race. Adrian Newey is probably worth a 0.56 second or more - the Red Bull is clearly the best designed car. McLaren will hit a development wall as they clearly don't have the expertise to match Red Bull in the car design stakes and will want more horsepower from Renault. If Honda get their act together Red Bull could be back as number one on the grid.

sinbaadi

Fretwired said:

stickyfiddle said:

Fretwired said:

stickyfiddle said:

As for McLaren, I actually wonder if Alonso's skill is actually hurting the development, since he can drive so well around problems that maybe he can't give clear enough feedback about what's wrong. It's also killing Stoffel's career, cos he looks shit next to Fred, but probably wouldn't be if the car was better sorted. 

Aaand for my final point... any bets on who Max "get driven into by" (i.e. crash into) this race??  

I think McLaren have made a major step forward with the new nose. Alonso seemed happy that the new developments were working and the engineers seem confident that they know what the problem is .. their only problem medium term will be the Renault engine. Still nowhere near the Mercedes or Ferrari in terms of power.

Except that's all bollocks, isn't it?

Because Red Bull are snapping at the heels of Merc & Ferrari and McLaren are maybe 0.2 ahead of where they've been all season, except only when Alonso is driving, because Stoff is still 11th behind two Haas-es and one Renault, and only not-2-Renaults because Hulk's gearbox died.  

And even Alonso's best time was almost a second slower than the slower Red Bull. 

I'm quite sure the new nose has helped, but they're not slow because of Renault. And I'm not convinced the last 3 seasons because of Honda. At least, not entirely.

It's not bollocks .. :-)

Red Bull have a genius designing their car .. Woolf admitted he wouldn't give Red Bull Merc engines as he expected them to beat Mercedes every race. Adrian Newey is probably worth a 0.56 second or more - the Red Bull is clearly the best designed car. McLaren will hit a development wall as they clearly don't have the expertise to match Red Bull in the car design stakes and will want more horsepower from Renault. If Honda get their act together Red Bull could be back as number one on the grid.

I think it's a massive contradiction to say that RBR are competitive with the Renault engine because they designed a great car, but McLaren are not competitive with the Renault engine because they have the Renault engine.

stickyfiddle

sinbaadi said:

Fretwired said:

stickyfiddle said:

Fretwired said:

stickyfiddle said:

As for McLaren, I actually wonder if Alonso's skill is actually hurting the development, since he can drive so well around problems that maybe he can't give clear enough feedback about what's wrong. It's also killing Stoffel's career, cos he looks shit next to Fred, but probably wouldn't be if the car was better sorted. 

Aaand for my final point... any bets on who Max "get driven into by" (i.e. crash into) this race??  

I think McLaren have made a major step forward with the new nose. Alonso seemed happy that the new developments were working and the engineers seem confident that they know what the problem is .. their only problem medium term will be the Renault engine. Still nowhere near the Mercedes or Ferrari in terms of power.

Except that's all bollocks, isn't it?

Because Red Bull are snapping at the heels of Merc & Ferrari and McLaren are maybe 0.2 ahead of where they've been all season, except only when Alonso is driving, because Stoff is still 11th behind two Haas-es and one Renault, and only not-2-Renaults because Hulk's gearbox died.  

And even Alonso's best time was almost a second slower than the slower Red Bull. 

I'm quite sure the new nose has helped, but they're not slow because of Renault. And I'm not convinced the last 3 seasons because of Honda. At least, not entirely.

It's not bollocks .. :-)

Red Bull have a genius designing their car .. Woolf admitted he wouldn't give Red Bull Merc engines as he expected them to beat Mercedes every race. Adrian Newey is probably worth a 0.56 second or more - the Red Bull is clearly the best designed car. McLaren will hit a development wall as they clearly don't have the expertise to match Red Bull in the car design stakes and will want more horsepower from Renault. If Honda get their act together Red Bull could be back as number one on the grid.

I think it's a massive contradiction to say that RBR are competitive with the Renault engine because they designed a great car, but McLaren are not competitive with the Renault engine because they have the Renault engine.

Exactly. And moreover, if we ignore RB for a second, McLaren have also gone from "the best chassis on the grid with a shit engine" last year, to "maybe slower than Enstone-Renault who have the same engine". Which strongly suggests that the McLaren chassis is no better than the Renault chassis. 

I just think the excuses have run out and it's time to accept that McLaren is a midfield team now, and has been for a long while now. They're basically following William's post-BMW trajectory, except they didn't even get results with their works partnership before it all went to shit

Fretwired

sinbaadi said:

Fretwired said:

stickyfiddle said:

Fretwired said:

stickyfiddle said:

As for McLaren, I actually wonder if Alonso's skill is actually hurting the development, since he can drive so well around problems that maybe he can't give clear enough feedback about what's wrong. It's also killing Stoffel's career, cos he looks shit next to Fred, but probably wouldn't be if the car was better sorted. 

Aaand for my final point... any bets on who Max "get driven into by" (i.e. crash into) this race??  

I think McLaren have made a major step forward with the new nose. Alonso seemed happy that the new developments were working and the engineers seem confident that they know what the problem is .. their only problem medium term will be the Renault engine. Still nowhere near the Mercedes or Ferrari in terms of power.

Except that's all bollocks, isn't it?

Because Red Bull are snapping at the heels of Merc & Ferrari and McLaren are maybe 0.2 ahead of where they've been all season, except only when Alonso is driving, because Stoff is still 11th behind two Haas-es and one Renault, and only not-2-Renaults because Hulk's gearbox died.  

And even Alonso's best time was almost a second slower than the slower Red Bull. 

I'm quite sure the new nose has helped, but they're not slow because of Renault. And I'm not convinced the last 3 seasons because of Honda. At least, not entirely.

It's not bollocks .. :-)

Red Bull have a genius designing their car .. Woolf admitted he wouldn't give Red Bull Merc engines as he expected them to beat Mercedes every race. Adrian Newey is probably worth a 0.56 second or more - the Red Bull is clearly the best designed car. McLaren will hit a development wall as they clearly don't have the expertise to match Red Bull in the car design stakes and will want more horsepower from Renault. If Honda get their act together Red Bull could be back as number one on the grid.

I think it's a massive contradiction to say that RBR are competitive with the Renault engine because they designed a great car, but McLaren are not competitive with the Renault engine because they have the Renault engine.

There is no contradiction. The Renault engine is under powered compared to the Ferrari and Mercedes engines. Red Bull have the best car so they have managed to overcome some of the power disadvantage. But Red Bull won't be staying with Renault.

Red Bull lining up 5 and 6 on the grid in Spain  while McLaren is in 8th with Alonso - the time difference is massive. It could also be argued that Alonso wrings the neck out of any car he drives. Look at where his team is .. the difference is the car. Both the Renault and McLaren will need Renault to up their game and get more power as they don't have an Adrian Newey to tweak their car.

HAL9000

Cols said:

Paddy Lowe: “A point is Formula One code for a hundredth of a fraction of ‘cl’, where ‘cl’ is the downforce coefficient. Physically a Formula One car has a downforce coefficient of let’s say 3 to 3.5. So 30 points would be 30 hundredths..."

Am i missing something or is this just a long and wordy way of saying 'percent'?

Garthy

Fretwired said:

sinbaadi said:

Fretwired said:

stickyfiddle said:

Fretwired said:

stickyfiddle said:

As for McLaren, I actually wonder if Alonso's skill is actually hurting the development, since he can drive so well around problems that maybe he can't give clear enough feedback about what's wrong. It's also killing Stoffel's career, cos he looks shit next to Fred, but probably wouldn't be if the car was better sorted. 

Aaand for my final point... any bets on who Max "get driven into by" (i.e. crash into) this race??  

I think McLaren have made a major step forward with the new nose. Alonso seemed happy that the new developments were working and the engineers seem confident that they know what the problem is .. their only problem medium term will be the Renault engine. Still nowhere near the Mercedes or Ferrari in terms of power.

Except that's all bollocks, isn't it?

Because Red Bull are snapping at the heels of Merc & Ferrari and McLaren are maybe 0.2 ahead of where they've been all season, except only when Alonso is driving, because Stoff is still 11th behind two Haas-es and one Renault, and only not-2-Renaults because Hulk's gearbox died.  

And even Alonso's best time was almost a second slower than the slower Red Bull. 

I'm quite sure the new nose has helped, but they're not slow because of Renault. And I'm not convinced the last 3 seasons because of Honda. At least, not entirely.

It's not bollocks .. :-)

Red Bull have a genius designing their car .. Woolf admitted he wouldn't give Red Bull Merc engines as he expected them to beat Mercedes every race. Adrian Newey is probably worth a 0.56 second or more - the Red Bull is clearly the best designed car. McLaren will hit a development wall as they clearly don't have the expertise to match Red Bull in the car design stakes and will want more horsepower from Renault. If Honda get their act together Red Bull could be back as number one on the grid.

I think it's a massive contradiction to say that RBR are competitive with the Renault engine because they designed a great car, but McLaren are not competitive with the Renault engine because they have the Renault engine.

There is no contradiction. The Renault engine is under powered compared to the Ferrari and Mercedes engines. Red Bull have the best car so they have managed to overcome some of the power disadvantage. But Red Bull won't be staying with Renault.

Red Bull lining up 5 and 6 on the grid in Spain  while McLaren is in 8th with Alonso - the time difference is massive. It could also be argued that Alonso wrings the neck out of any car he drives. Look at where his team is .. the difference is the car. Both the Renault and McLaren will need Renault to up their game and get more power as they don't have an Adrian Newey to tweak their car.

Everything you've written today is utterly wrong.