The Official 2017 Spanish Grand Prix Thread **Spoilers**
Discussion
PhillipM said:
The cars are passing it at 100+mph 6 feet away complete with massively wings, undertrays, diffusers, etc, all making huge amounts of shifted air, and they aren't moving it....but a little hose from 60ft with a marshal holding it will do it?
I think all you'll do is put a marshall in A&E when he lands.
Not 60ft from behind the armco, from the grass but not on the track. It would be a safer option than running onto the track in a gap and possibly better than red flagging or safety car in the race.I think all you'll do is put a marshall in A&E when he lands.
Is it safer him dragging a heavy, reinforced 2" diameter hose and nozzle all the way across the grass and then standing there trying hit a bit of debris at the right spot to make sure it doesn't come back on track, or is it safer him just sprinting across and picking it up in half the time?
PhillipM said:
Is it safer him dragging a heavy, reinforced 2" diameter hose and nozzle all the way across the grass and then standing there trying hit a bit of debris at the right spot to make sure it doesn't come back on track, or is it safer him just sprinting across and picking it up in half the time?
Possibly 
Just had one of those, 'how could they fix this without another red flag' moments and threw the first thing I thought of out.
PhillipM said:
I think all you'll do is put a marshall in A&E when he lands.
Or a spectator/cameraman etc., not a good plan. Would be better to knock it out of the way with something like a bowling ball made of ice which will harmlessly melt away. Alternatively use a specially trained bird, perhaps a buzzard, or swallow (African).FourWheelDrift said:
When you get small pieces of carbon fibre on track I always think why they haven't got some kind of high pressure air gun that a marshal could use to blow it off the track without getting on or close to the track themselves. One assigned to each marshals post that goes around to every race.
Might not work at Monaco or other street circuits though as it'll just blow it into the armco on the other side and shatter it even more.
A little bit different, but a friend of mine who is a landscape gardener and I were chatting about the way all the marshalls come out with brooms to sweep away accident debris. This is particularly funny in Japan where they use old-fashioned twig brooms. Anyway, over a beer, we came up with the idea of issuing clean up crews with patented, purcpose built, carbon fibre (wrapped), rebranded leaf blowers. We were going to pitch them as the "Bernie Blower 2000". Might not work at Monaco or other street circuits though as it'll just blow it into the armco on the other side and shatter it even more.
Ineveitably, in the morning, we were both sober.
patmahe said:
What I don't get is that we've had 3 years of this now and it seems to be getting worse rather than better. If the car was fast when it runs that would be something, or even reliable but a bit off the pace.
Where are the signs this will get fixed, a company with Honda's resources should be better than this. If I was McLaren, at this stage I'd be looking for a way out. Almost anything is better, even going begging to Mercedes for a supply and re-establishing themselves as competent because right now I am starting to fear for their survival if something does not change.
Apparently this engine had run in Aus, Bahrain and China? So Its done a few miles (literally).... at least it isn't the updated engine theyre supposed to be bringing. Where are the signs this will get fixed, a company with Honda's resources should be better than this. If I was McLaren, at this stage I'd be looking for a way out. Almost anything is better, even going begging to Mercedes for a supply and re-establishing themselves as competent because right now I am starting to fear for their survival if something does not change.
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Friday 12th May 16:29
budgie smuggler said:
housen said:
you think the oil is leaking from the carbon fibre chassis ?
Thanks for that. No, I meant it may have been an installation issue i.e. an oil line came loose rather than the engine s
tting itself and subsequently dropping the oil.Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 12th May 11:44
London424 said:
Anyone get any of the long run data?
Yep. Just finished looking at the Soft (didn't bother with the Medium tyre):
Some observations.
1) Glad to see Bottas being more consistent with his long runs here. Suggests he's locking into the car better. Bodes well.
2) Ferrari have some work to do, as they do look off pace (especially Vettel). I think they're being very conservative today, Kimi put in a couple of mid 25s laps but he had a PU issue during his long run that meant the pit wall were advising him to go easy on the full throttle sections. If they still look off pace in qualifying/FP3, a Merc 1-2 is likely.
3) There doesn't appear to be a huge increase in pace from RBR. Verstappen suffering a bit more deg than the likes of Massa, even though they look to be at the head of that pack. I think they had trouble with warm up of the Medium tyre as well.
4) A very close fight between Massa, Hulkenberg and Sainz for the Q3 spots and top of the midfield, but Williams seem to have better deg on the Softs, so they should win that fight, in theory. Their team mates look off pace so I didn't bother with plotting the data.
5) Had to do a double take on Vandoorne's long run. I'm still having difficulty believing it, in Russia McLaren were 3s/lap off pace and now look like around 1.5-1.8s off pace over a stint! I'm
6) Overall, cars are losing around 2-2.5s over 20-odd laps on the soft tyre, so there is some room for strategy, all runners were aiming at a 1-stop, but not sure if a Soft/Soft/Medium strategy might work with an aggressive undercut. Will be interesting.
Edited by Dr Z on Friday 12th May 17:30
Doink said:
A vortex cannon springs to mind
Meh. Carbon conducts right?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_fTC_Ud_k3U
The pics by dr z on page 2 show how ridiculous the aero technology is. Trying to model the effects of that lot on a computer must be just about impossible. In other words, the teams at the bottom are never going to be able to get even remotely close to the brains and computing power the top bods are putting into it.
I'm feeling a bit conspiracy-ish about it. It would not be hard to write the rules to state cars must have clean unfussy edges etc to reduce the development gap between the haves and have nots, yet year after year they don't. All those bits and pieces is mental.
I'm feeling a bit conspiracy-ish about it. It would not be hard to write the rules to state cars must have clean unfussy edges etc to reduce the development gap between the haves and have nots, yet year after year they don't. All those bits and pieces is mental.
CoolHands said:
The pics by dr z on page 2 show how ridiculous the aero technology is. Trying to model the effects of that lot on a computer must be just about impossible. In other words, the teams at the bottom are never going to be able to get even remotely close to the brains and computing power the top bods are putting into it.
I'm feeling a bit conspiracy-ish about it. It would not be hard to write the rules to state cars must have clean unfussy edges etc to reduce the development gap between the haves and have nots, yet year after year they don't. All those bits and pieces is mental.
They do it at other levels of the sport. F3 has a more simple design which allows high cornering speeds with the ability to slipstream, at least at Monza. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwAkO61b3l0I'm feeling a bit conspiracy-ish about it. It would not be hard to write the rules to state cars must have clean unfussy edges etc to reduce the development gap between the haves and have nots, yet year after year they don't. All those bits and pieces is mental.
F4 has what is virtually a plank.
I would not like to see too many limitations on what the designers and aero engineers can do but being able to follow closely behind the car in front, as well as not having to drop so far back on fast corners, seems to me to be the one thing that will improve F1 no end. Restrictions do not necessarily reduce costs. Indeed, they will more likely increase them as teams look for an advantage, so on balance, the idea of a set design of front and rear wing is preferable, at least for me. I accept it will not be for everyone.
CoolHands said:
The pics by dr z on page 2 show how ridiculous the aero technology is. Trying to model the effects of that lot on a computer must be just about impossible. In other words, the teams at the bottom are never going to be able to get even remotely close to the brains and computing power the top bods are putting into it.
I'm feeling a bit conspiracy-ish about it. It would not be hard to write the rules to state cars must have clean unfussy edges etc to reduce the development gap between the haves and have nots, yet year after year they don't. All those bits and pieces is mental.
It's not impossible at all. This kind of daft, elaborate aero is a direct symptom of the state of computer modelling. You don't need supercomputers, although that speeds things up. CFD tools are widely available and usable on a fairly average, recent pc.I'm feeling a bit conspiracy-ish about it. It would not be hard to write the rules to state cars must have clean unfussy edges etc to reduce the development gap between the haves and have nots, yet year after year they don't. All those bits and pieces is mental.
Catatafish said:
It's not impossible at all. This kind of daft, elaborate aero is a direct symptom of the state of computer modelling. You don't need supercomputers, although that speeds things up. CFD tools are widely available and usable on a fairly average, recent pc.
But it must get ever harder to be accurate and get good correlation, the more complex, and the more interaction between more features there are? 
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