should the radio ban stay?

[Eric Mc]

Lewis has asked for the cockpit and steering wheel set up to be changed before the next race. He want's this configuration -





It even has a halo device, I noticed.

[Bincenzo]

Trabi601 said:

My view is this.

If the car is too complicated for your driver to understand it, then you have to make it easier to operate.

Alternatively, if you think it's not actually that complicated, but your driver is too thick to understand it - replace the driver with someone who does.

Allowing radio messages isn't the solution.

Spot on. I also think Hamilton is one of the laziest F1 drivers on the grid who is becoming increasingly alienated from the rest of the paddock. IMO, of course.

[37chevy]

HarryFlatters said:

The ban on coaching is reasonable, the ban on troubleshooting car issues is a step too far.

Spot on

[alangla]

I'm sure years ago the cars used to have to pit & a laptop would be plugged into a socket in the cockpit to allow electronic faults to be resolved.

How about... Limited adjustment while on the move (e.g. brake bias, energy recovery level, one or two other things) and allowing the team to adjust settings wirelessly via a loop antenna embedded in the pit box area. The car could receive updates from the team while it was stationary in the pits in much the same way that front wing angles are adjusted by mechanics while stopped, but only basic stuff could changed while on the move. This should still allow the teams to tweak the car's setup for each stint, but would allow the drivers to concentrate on driving, rather than faffing about with all those controls on the wheel.

[Adrian W]

alangla said:

I'm sure years ago the cars used to have to pit & a laptop would be plugged into a socket in the cockpit to allow electronic faults to be resolved.

How about... Limited adjustment while on the move (e.g. brake bias, energy recovery level, one or two other things) and allowing the team to adjust settings wirelessly via a loop antenna embedded in the pit box area. The car could receive updates from the team while it was stationary in the pits in much the same way that front wing angles are adjusted by mechanics while stopped, but only basic stuff could changed while on the move. This should still allow the teams to tweak the car's setup for each stint, but would allow the drivers to concentrate on driving, rather than faffing about with all those controls on the wheel.

Isn't one of the current fundamental rules of motor racing that you can take data from the car in a race but cannot send data to the car? I thought this is to effectively stop the engineers remotely controlling the car.

[Evangelion]

My personal opinion is that the team and driver should be allowed to say anything they like over the radio, but that should be the only permitted contact between car and pit.

[swisstoni]

Trabi601 said:

swisstoni said:

Trabi601 said:

Would this discussion be happening if it had been Nico struggling with the settings?

What's your point?

You tell me. I think it's quite obvious.

I ask you what's your point and you reply 'you tell me'.
Fair enough.

[Ahonen]

swisstoni said:

Trabi601 said:

swisstoni said:

Trabi601 said:

Would this discussion be happening if it had been Nico struggling with the settings?

What's your point?

You tell me. I think it's quite obvious.

I ask you what's your point and you reply 'you tell me'.
Fair enough.

Surely your correct reply then is: "Your mum".

[ZX10R NIN]

Jasandjules said:

ETA - and wasn't Kimi also having problems?

Kimi's problem was hardware not modes.

Personally I think the diff engine modes etc should be set after qualifying & be unchangeable after that period, the radio ban is fine with me, the fact it was Hamilton who couldn't work it out is just one of those things I bet he'll know how to do it quickly next time.

It's not like it happens often I think the rules should be left as they are if you can't work round a problem come into the pits at the end of the day it's not like it happens often even Toto put it down to being one of those things so lets leave it.

[Jasandjules]

However I also used to enjoy the radio chatter as a general thing - I found it added something to the race... Now we hardly hear anything..

[BoRED S2upid]

Yes keep it as it is last year was rubbish you need to cool the brakes a little more, save a little bit of fuel, change to map 3 to aid with the last point... Dear god let them just race to the finish if that's on the podium or at the side of the road with a fault.

They can still earn them of imminent danger which is fair enough.

[AndrewEH1]

What was stopping getting Hamilton into the pits to change tires while and engineer holds a sign out with what modes to change? Obviously the stop might be a little longer and it'll look mega unprofessional. But against the rules?

[TheHighlander]

AndrewEH1 said:

What was stopping getting Hamilton into the pits to change tires while and engineer holds a sign out with what modes to change? Obviously the stop might be a little longer and it'll look mega unprofessional. But against the rules?

That was my thoughts exactly but I suppose they would of weighed this up at the time, loss for a pit stop and just carrying on.

[hairyben]

blueg33 said:

Teams should make the car simple to use/intuitive.

This, really, the teams havent really thought the implications of the radio ban fully through. Theres only so much computer a man can try to understand when youre an inch from a massive crash every other second.

Well, that and the fact the fia probably word things the same way the iee do (electrician regs) - why have a simple line of text when you can have 17 pages of legaleze that can be interprited in 900 diferent ways and needs constant ammendment/cclarification but makes you feel more cleverer than if youd written a simple rule?

[Mr_Thyroid]

hairyben said:

blueg33 said:

Teams should make the car simple to use/intuitive.

This, really, the teams havent really thought the implications of the radio ban fully through. Theres only so much computer a man can try to understand when youre an inch from a massive crash every other second.

Well, that and the fact the fia probably word things the same way the iee do (electrician regs) - why have a simple line of text when you can have 17 pages of legaleze that can be interprited in 900 diferent ways and needs constant ammendment/cclarification but makes you feel more cleverer than if youd written a simple rule?

Or certain drivers should knuckle down, concentrate, put down the celebrity bimbo and read the manual.

There have been many comments on here in the past about how manual gearboxes were great because the caused the drivers to make little slip ups. If one driver doesn't know all the setting then great, it increases the unpredictability of the racing. Of course in the last race it kind of prevented Hamilton from racing Perez, which was disappointing, but if it was the other way round it would have been great to see Perez catching and passing Hamilton for a podium spot - that is the kind of excitement we want to see.

It's just another skill that some drivers have and some don't - this is a non-issue.

[greygoose]

Trabi601 said:

My view is this.

If the car is too complicated for your driver to understand it, then you have to make it easier to operate.

Alternatively, if you think it's not actually that complicated, but your driver is too thick to understand it - replace the driver with someone who does.

Allowing radio messages isn't the solution.

I agree, if there are so many options then they don't know what to do then it just seems ridiculous and adds to the feeling that the driver doesn't really matter much.

[Eric Mc]

The nature of a problem with a steering wheel set up is that it is a technical problem possibly outside the control of the driver and will persist - perhaps for the whole of the race. Missing a gear would be a momentary mistake - the type a driver might make under pressure - a very human error.


Fans respond to "human" error. They don't really respond to an error in programming.

[rsbmw]

Mr_Thyroid said:

Or certain drivers should knuckle down, concentrate, put down the celebrity bimbo and read the manual.

There have been many comments on here in the past about how manual gearboxes were great because the caused the drivers to make little slip ups. If one driver doesn't know all the setting then great, it increases the unpredictability of the racing. Of course in the last race it kind of prevented Hamilton from racing Perez, which was disappointing, but if it was the other way round it would have been great to see Perez catching and passing Hamilton for a podium spot - that is the kind of excitement we want to see.

It's just another skill that some drivers have and some don't - this is a non-issue.

For what we know, Hamilton may have understood his wheel and all of his settings perfectly. The engineers programmed something incorrectly which meant he then didn't know what was causing a problem, and they couldn't tell him what they had done wrong. Not a lot he could do with that situation except as he said himself on the radio started changing things, which he was told not to do. All the comments about Hamilton not knowing how to use his wheel are fairly stupid, as that's not what happened here. If the team had been able to tell him "change to xyz", in sure he would have known what to do on his wheel to accomplish that.

[AndrewEH1]

rsbmw said:

Mr_Thyroid said:

Or certain drivers should knuckle down, concentrate, put down the celebrity bimbo and read the manual.

There have been many comments on here in the past about how manual gearboxes were great because the caused the drivers to make little slip ups. If one driver doesn't know all the setting then great, it increases the unpredictability of the racing. Of course in the last race it kind of prevented Hamilton from racing Perez, which was disappointing, but if it was the other way round it would have been great to see Perez catching and passing Hamilton for a podium spot - that is the kind of excitement we want to see.

It's just another skill that some drivers have and some don't - this is a non-issue.

For what we know, Hamilton may have understood his wheel and all of his settings perfectly. The engineers programmed something incorrectly which meant he then didn't know what was causing a problem, and they couldn't tell him what they had done wrong. Not a lot he could do with that situation except as he said himself on the radio started changing things, which he was told not to do. All the comments about Hamilton not knowing how to use his wheel are fairly stupid, as that's not what happened here. If the team had been able to tell him "change to xyz", in sure he would have known what to do on his wheel to accomplish that.

According to Mercedes, as hear on C4F1. Rosberg had made an adjustment on the wheel himself, which later caused an issue, he therefore was able to undo what he had done. Hamilton's had the wrong setting from the start of the race so therefore couldn't know what to change to correct it.

Rosberg is billed as the 'smart one' and Hamilton the 'celeb racer'. I suspect each are as smart as each other and know as much technical information that it is humanly possible to retain. Remember that in the garage (and back at Brackley) the engineers are dedicated to a 'small' part of the car and will know the it back to front and upside-down. To expect a driver going at 220mph to be able to diagnose and fix a complex software issue is foolish.

[Emeye]

AndrewEH1 said:

According to Mercedes, as hear on C4F1. Rosberg had made an adjustment on the wheel himself, which later caused an issue, he therefore was able to undo what he had done. Hamilton's had the wrong setting from the start of the race so therefore couldn't know what to change to correct it.

Rosberg is billed as the 'smart one' and Hamilton the 'celeb racer'. I suspect each are as smart as each other and know as much technical information that it is humanly possible to retain. Remember that in the garage (and back at Brackley) the engineers are dedicated to a 'small' part of the car and will know the it back to front and upside-down. To expect a driver going at 220mph to be able to diagnose and fix a complex software issue is foolish.

I like to think of the current crop of F1 drivers as pilots, rather than drivers.