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Regarding Kubica's comments about his car vs Russell's
"The discrepancies between the cars were revealed as an 8 per cent difference in aero balance front/rear under braking despite the same settings. Kubica’s car aero balance migrated much further forwards than did Russell’s, making it more of an oversteering handful between turn-in and apex. There could be many reasons for this, but it suggests a difference in torsional stiffness between the chassis. Again, the hurried build of the cars may have played its part in this. It may be significant that in post-race testing at Bahrain, Russell – in Kubica’s chassis – was actually slightly slower than Kubica. At the time of writing the discrepancy between the two cars had still not been fully understood.
So, the verdict is still out. Don’t write Robert off just yet. Apart from anything else, he is eight years rusty in any sort of racing at all. After all he’s been through, he deserves a little more time and opportunity."
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opinion/f1/mph-dont-write-kubica-just-yet
Yet this weekend he's talking about killer understeer
mashr
Yet this weekend he’s talking about killer understeer
If you mean the autosport article, I think he was talking about the track. I remember Ferrari or someone saying last year that everyone struggles with understeer there. IIRC it's from working the front end hard into turns 2 & 3
Fair point, yeah it was this quote "Of course on this track you have quite a lot of understeer so understeer is kind of a killer here, so we have to wait and see."
mashr
Member
Fair point, yeah it was this quote “Of course on this track you have quite a lot of understeer so understeer is kind of a killer here, so we have to wait and see.”
Either way it sounds like they're a fair bit off the pace still !
I've been really enjoying catching up on the 'Beyond the Grid' podcasts - I'd not been aware of them until this week; there's some really interesting and detailed interviews Tom Clarkson has done - Luca de Montezemolo and David Coulthard's have been my highlight so far. Also liked Kimi saying that a happy wife is a happy life!
Ref the article about Williams, I read another article which I can't find now but the summary was that Williams had screwed up by becoming a business with leaders who were in it for the money/expecting it to be like a traditional business rather than running it like a race team. The suggestion was that some of the top figures in the last 10 years or so were very poorly chosen and that Claire Williams while capable was not the right person to be heading up a racing team - her brother who does the heritage Williams work supposedly would have been better. Also that Paddy Lowe was effectively hamstrung by the team structure and hence couldn't turn things round.
Of course it could be someone with an axe to grind with the benefit of hindsight but a lot of it rang true.
Scrabs view of it - well informed:
https://twitter.com/ScarbsTech/status/1103416368416935937
https://twitter.com/ScarbsTech/status/1103417818593271808
Interference from the commercial side on the engineering side
Kubica has been the quicker Williams this weekend FWIW. Still slow though.
Also that Paddy Lowe was effectively hamstrung by the team structure and hence couldn’t turn things round.
Doesn't surprise me at all, I remember Adam Parr saying that's what Williams was like when he arrived there. Nobody knew who reported to who, conflicting layers of authority etc.
Great stuff from Bottas!
Got to love the mind games from Hamilton, especially within the team:
he's been stellar all weekend. I've been struggling and fighting the car all weekend.
...even on a bad day I’m 0.023 behind you on your best day!
Got to love the mind games from Hamilton, especially within the team
I don't think it was mind games. Bottas seems to have things sorted, Hamilton has been looking uneven and both drivers know that. I think Hamilton will be the more worried of the two, he's the guy who has to improve, not Bottas.
I think I like Leclerc "Leclerc, meanwhile, opted to lay into himself: “****! I did mistakes. Come on Charles, argh. Shit. ****ing stupid. ****ing stupid.”
Normal service resumes for Kvyat.
boring race 🙁
Yeah, shame. Looked like it might come alive in the last 10 laps but didn't quite happen. Surprised at the relative lack of pace from Ferrari though they screwed up their strategy with Leclerc losing points
not sure how theyll fill 6 minutes for the youtube highlights
not sure how theyll fill 6 minutes for the youtube highlights
The battle for 10th place was riveting.
Ferrari lost a place to keep Vettel happy.
Same as Red Bull last year revolving around the stroppy Nederlander.
alain prost look thrilled to wave the chequered flag at the end of the 1000s GP............ i think even he was bored with it.....
Sadly, a really dull race. Never mind - Baku next.
Boring race but some onboard footage was good. Lewis going into the first corner and hearing the trail braking and gear changes as the corner tightens. I dont remember the last corner being taken so fast either.
We did whatch the heavily edited version, wait for channel 4 coverage to start then onto 4OD whatch only the Quali sessions (fast froward then make a cup of tea while the adverts are playing) soon as q3 ends put C4 highlights on caught the formation lap turn coverage off as soon as the winner parks up.
Daffy
Subscriber
Sadly, a really dull race. Never mind – Baku next.
Should be more in Ferrari and RedBull's favour I think as it's a low downforce track.
They didn't show this in the broadcast for some reason, but Perez got a good start:
Also it looks like the thing with Kubica's car might be legit:
Russell described his lap as ‘very poor’ while Kubica’s car had been refitted with his original floor and wing. When they had swapped them over in Friday practice in an effort at tracing the anomaly between the two identically set up cars, Kubica had been faster of the pair – confirming the problem but not the root source.
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/reports/f1/2019-chinese-grand-prix-report
Bored whilst waiting for the washing machine to finish and the lawns to dry enough to cut I went over to F1.com and found this little short about the Lotus 49. A nice little tribute to what I think is the most beautiful F1 car ever. Well in a couple of it's iterations anyway.
Where does F1 find such boring voice over artists though?
https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2019/4/Damon_Hill_drives_father_Graha m's_legendary_Lotus_49.html
http://www.motorsportretro.com/2014/06/for-sale-ex-graham-hill-lotus-49b-to-auction-at-goodwood/
New regs for 2021. Looks like proper ground effect is back!
https://motorsport.tech/formula-1/f1-2021-regulations-overview-by-craig-scarborough
Do we know why the centre downwash wing idea was killed off? Not seen anything about it in a good while, I assume they just couldn't get it to work
IIRC
1. It looked shit
2. It actually wouldn't make all that much difference
2021 believe it when i see it.
Some amount of ground effect is key to achieving the stated aims for 2021 so it's a shoo-in to be in the regs in some form or other.
Wheel fairings and those areo scrapers are both hideous; I hope they don't make it in. And that nose and front wing combo looks like Fingermouse.
A year ago, people were saying they would stop watching because the halo was so hideous. Twelve months later everyone's forgotten about it. Those scrapers do look a bit silly, but I think most people would rather watch silly looking cars with lots of overtaking than awesome looking cars that just trundle around line astern for two hours.
Also, there have been some hideous looking cars in the past, but that doesn't stop people prattling on about how everything used to be awesome
Stealth edit to show it in an even more unflattering light.
Just finished watching the Netflix Documentary from last years season. Very good. Well worth a watch.
I've always had a soft spot for that March as it was one of the cars in our first Scalextric set as a kid. Though to be honest, even then we argued over who got the JPS Lotus.
That March 711 is horrific, it looks a generation older than it's predecessor. It sired the appalling Eilfelland E21, a car so aesthetically wrongheaded that it arguably took until 2014 for Caterham, Lotus & McLaren to roll out anything approaching this level of hideousness
https://www.blenheimgang.com/eifelland-e21/eifelland-e21-13/
Yep, that's ugly.
it arguably took until 2014 for Caterham, Lotus & McLaren to roll out anything approaching this level of hideousness
Have you forgotten the FW26 from 2004? 🙂
A year ago, people were saying they would stop watching because the halo was so hideous.
Yeah, agreed. I'm just hoping the gains from each of those are marginal enough to not be worth the aesthetic cost.
Lest we forget the eye-gougingly hideous wheel covers on the Brawn…
I think most people would rather watch silly looking cars with lots of overtaking than awesome looking cars that just trundle around line astern for two hours.
This is where I differ a little from a lot of opinion, in that I don't think "more is more" when it comes to overtaking. What I think's needed is more prospect of overtaking—more dogfighting—but not necessarily more passing. Monaco 1992 was an iconic race precisely because of overtaking being difficult, but the prospect of it being palpable.
DRS was all about More Overtaking and it's not really a satisfying solution: the only thing stopping it being far too easy is the following-car aero problem that they're trying to solve. I don't massively care how much overtaking there is, within reason; what makes for the entertainment is the lead-up to it and the fight to achieve it. It's a bit like a comparison between basketball and soccer: with the former you expect points on each attack, whereas the latter has a lot more rise and fall with the build-up to what may or may not be a goal. I'd hate for F1 to turn into a lottery of who ends up pulling the last overtake before the flag, maybe even more so than I'd hate it to turn into a battle of who sits in front of the most powerful engine and keeps their foot in longest.
The 70's wasn't kind to F1 cars... Arrows A2 and the "Smurf hat" Ligier spring to mind
I quite like the Arrows. I mostly admire the aero designers' work in the days before computers, since when we've converged on largely identical basic shapes with as many fussy little appendages as will fit in around the regs.
The Ligier was ludicrously ****ty, though, clearly.
Have you forgotten the FW26 from 2004?
Yes, I had! The whole connivance looks as though a model had been assembled from card and had make it to full size production. Let me guess without googling, it was an aero disaster and was quickly canned before the end of the season?
I don't mind that Arrows either, uniquely 70s excess in the same colour as your auntie's Mk2 Escort.
Was the logo on the Ligier sized to fit the airbox, or vice-versa?
Let me guess without googling, it was an aero disaster and was quickly canned before the end of the season?
Pretty accurate guess, once they'd shitcanned the front end mid-season, it was actually an okay car.
Looking forward to this weekends race. Here's a little reminder what happened last year...
Red flag already in practise. Think it was Russel's williams. Sounds like either the floor failed or it hit a loose manhole cover.
Manhole cover apparently.
Could be Russell's weekend over with Williams spares shortage problems.
Crikey, Williams just aren't having any luck eh?