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Open Wheel Racing 2018- with less winglets.

alfablue said:
Ok, then why dismiss 2008? Or even 2007, when Hamilton should have won the WC had it not been for a bad call in China? Neither year, McLaren was the dominant car, and Hamilton put the car in places it should not have been. Or 2013, when Hamilton moved to a pretty poor performing Mercedes team, in the last year of those rules, against a dominant Red Bull, and still won a race and was 4th overall? Took a series of pole positions, too.

It's not as if Lewis has always had the best car ever.

And for me, I don't consider Senna the best ever. I think his legend is overplayed. He enjoys a status based on the availability of being able to see the races live, as I see it. Drivers like Nuvolare or Fangio or even Stewart and Clark could not rely on that kind of live coverage. And much of the endless hype that sportscasting brought to TV starting when ESPN opened it's doors. I also don't think Hamilton is the best of the best, and don't even think he thinks of himself that way. Getting Schumi's numbers, that looks to be pretty legendary, but not much more than that.
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I’m a Hamilton fan, I just don’t think he’s as good as Senna and I think numbers don’t tell the entire story. From what i’ve Seen on tv and interviews with former drivers only Clark rivals Senna. EDIT: this is coming from drivers who did not race against Fangio or Ascari etc

I grant you 2013 for sure.
 
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alfablue said:
Those two plus Chilton were all the same team- Carlin. And they have been competing, but were still beat by Juncos racing.
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Has to be a huge blow to Carlin as he’s trying to catch-up to the big 3-4 teams.

McLaren was far too optimistic. If Alonso wants to seriously win Indy he should approach Penske, Ganassi or Andretti. Or...think outside the box and ask Ed Carpenter since his team is always at the pointy end of the grid at Indy it seems.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2018- with less winglets.

solovsfett said:
Has to be a huge blow to Carlin as he’s trying to catch-up to the big 3-4 teams.

McLaren was far too optimistic. If Alonso wants to seriously win Indy he should approach Penske, Ganassi or Andretti. Or...think outside the box and ask Ed Carpenter since his team is always at the pointy end of the grid at Indy it seems.
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Well, thanks to the "GP2 engine" comment, Andretti is off the table since they run Honda engines. But, yea- I'd bet that Ed Carpenter would be happy to add a third car, and a 3rd data point to his team. Take an already fast team and give them more information would be a good thing.
 
alfablue said:
Well, thanks to the "GP2 engine" comment, Andretti is off the table since they run Honda engines. But, yea- I'd bet that Ed Carpenter would be happy to add a third car, and a 3rd data point to his team. Take an already fast team and give them more information would be a good thing.
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I missed that comment, was with regard to F1struggles with Honda a few years back?
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2018- with less winglets.

manurespreader said:
For those of you wondering about high rake cars.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/47838557
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Nice find! And thanks for posting that. It's been really interesting to see the field copy the Newey concept, even though Mercedes has had continued success with the low rake design. One comment in the article was very odd, though- at the end:

However, on a low-rake car, the floor sits lower against the tyre face. As the car goes around the track and sees the same movement up or down, the gap between tyre and floor will change much more. This can make the job of tuning the aerodynamic devices harder.
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Even though, Mercedes has been able to consistently tune their car better than the rest of the field. And this year, they have been able to tweak the concept so well that they may have solved their low speed downforce issues of years past- which we will find out more this weekend. But no question that Mercedes has been able to tune around the tires far, far, far more effectively than other teams. Yes, they had their weak tracks, but the delta is much smaller than the rest of the field robustness issues.

Newey may be great, but he's not everything.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2018- with less winglets.

alfablue said:
Nice find! And thanks for posting that. It's been really interesting to see the field copy the Newey concept, even though Mercedes has had continued success with the low rake design. One comment in the article was very odd, though- at the end:



Even though, Mercedes has been able to consistently tune their car better than the rest of the field. And this year, they have been able to tweak the concept so well that they may have solved their low speed downforce issues of years past- which we will find out more this weekend. But no question that Mercedes has been able to tune around the tires far, far, far more effectively than other teams. Yes, they had their weak tracks, but the delta is much smaller than the rest of the field robustness issues.

Newey may be great, but he's not everything.
Click to expand...
During the second week of winter testing, Mercedes brought in 1500 new parts. Almost all of them were aerodynamic in nature.

Williams is finally making progress vs the rest of the field and they are bringing the gap to the field down slightly every race. It could be that at Monaco, finally, they are equal to the lower mid field teams.
Renault has got to be the biggest disappointment of the season so far. If it's not an engineering error, it s a driver error or something else. I see the organizers are working to have a number of components be spec. this week it was fuel delivery systems. They also are working towards 25 GP's, which I think is 4 too many.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2018- with less winglets.

After watching F1 from almost 40 years, I have come to expect Renault to underperform. They are the only factory backed team that hasn't really demonstrated that they are WC capable, as a whole team. Their powertrains have done great things, but the team... eh. The 2005 & 2006 seasons that they did win was more Flavio Briatore than Renault. And that has proven to be their peak starting in '77.

They are a crazy team, recently- where customer engine teams have consistently been better. How does that happen for such a big corporation?

Did you see Marc's Vlog about the expansion of races- it's going to be the hardest on the workers. I'm not a fan. Worse, for us personally, we had planned out our first year of retirement where we go see the Spanish GP and then Monaco after taking a trans-Atlantic cruise. Now that's out the window.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2018- with less winglets.

alfablue said:
Even though, Mercedes has been able to consistently tune their car better than the rest of the field. And this year, they have been able to tweak the concept so well that they may have solved their low speed downforce issues of years past- which we will find out more this weekend. But no question that Mercedes has been able to tune around the tires far, far, far more effectively than other teams. Yes, they had their weak tracks, but the delta is much smaller than the rest of the field robustness issues.
Click to expand...

Let's not forget the affect of the thinner tread tires Pirelli is using this year to cut down on the blistering. The three races last year where they used those thin tread tires turned into a huge advantage for Mercedes. Now that they are using these tires all year, it should be no surprise Mercedes is dominating like none other. For whatever reason (though, I'm sure Mercedes knows...), their chassis is able to handle the thinner tread tires better than anyone else and get them into that perfect operating temperature range. That's been the biggest struggle for Ferrari (and naturally Haas) this year -- getting their chassis to get the tires in the proper temperature range.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2018- with less winglets.

alfablue said:
Did you see Marc's Vlog about the expansion of races- it's going to be the hardest on the workers. I'm not a fan. Worse, for us personally, we had planned out our first year of retirement where we go see the Spanish GP and then Monaco after taking a trans-Atlantic cruise. Now that's out the window.
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I don't think Spain is totally dead. Mostly dead perhaps... (Notice how they did not announce the date for the Dutch GP? It was supposed to be announced as the same date Spain always gets. But they held off, just saying they will "squeeze" it in before Monaco. That tells me Spain is not (yet) off the calendar.)

So, do the Dutch and Monaco GP double. That can be just as fun.
 
Russell Jaslow said:
Let's not forget the affect of the thinner tread tires Pirelli is using this year to cut down on the blistering. The three races last year where they used those thin tread tires turned into a huge advantage for Mercedes. Now that they are using these tires all year, it should be no surprise Mercedes is dominating like none other. For whatever reason (though, I'm sure Mercedes knows...), their chassis is able to handle the thinner tread tires better than anyone else and get them into that perfect operating temperature range. That's been the biggest struggle for Ferrari (and naturally Haas) this year -- getting their chassis to get the tires in the proper temperature range.
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True, but it was all teams that asked for the tire change.

Still, after 5 years of domination, you would think one team would try to copy the concept of low rake.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2018- with less winglets.

alfablue said:
True, but it was all teams that asked for the tire change.

Still, after 5 years of domination, you would think one team would try to copy the concept of low rake.
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All teams asked to stop the blistering. I think it was Pirelli that came up with the solution. And, I don't think teams realized and/or appreciated the consequences of a thinner tread tire. For whatever reason, Mercedes has it figured out while the others don't. Does it have to do with the rake they chose? Something else? I have no clue. That's starting to get above my pay grade...
 
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