Discussion
I’ve always said that picking Kubica would be a mistake. I totally get the romance of the story - good driver gets seriously hurt and comes back after recovering a decade later - but the cars are so different and he’s older with the natural effects that has. I think the fairytale could fade quickly.
TheDeuce said:
Petrus1983 said:
Well that seems a double disaster.
Not only ridiculously slow - but Kubica is almost 2 seconds slower than his newbie teammate and a massive 5.6 off the pole time.
He's said in every interview the car has no grip. When he pushed, he lost control and clipped a wall.Not only ridiculously slow - but Kubica is almost 2 seconds slower than his newbie teammate and a massive 5.6 off the pole time.
But yes, Russell managed by comparison far better.
His prize: has to drive the Williams in a full race now.
I know that was Robert’s mistake but still...
Petrus1983 said:
I’ve always said that picking Kubica would be a mistake. I totally get the romance of the story - good driver gets seriously hurt and comes back after recovering a decade later - but the cars are so different and he’s older with the natural effects that has. I think the fairytale could fade quickly.
He's a couple of months older than Hamilton. He's hardly over the hill and, IMO, racing drivers hit their peak in the mid 30's anyway.Kraken said:
He's a couple of months older than Hamilton. He's hardly over the hill and, IMO, racing drivers hit their peak in the mid 30's anyway.
I think there’s a difference between evolving and growing with the sport rather than returning to it. I’d love to be proved wrong though. Smollet said:
The Hypno-Toad said:
TheDeuce said:
If they were to manage a double DNF, they're in with a shot of the worst start to a season ever achieved.
In order to do that they would have to paint the car red and change its name to LIFE. If I remember correctly the LIFE only made out it of the pits for the odd rare lap before spectacularly imploding and was 13 seconds slower then next car in pre-qualifying. Again according to my fading powers of recall I think that when it turned up at the FoS a few years ago the new owner didn't actually fit in it and was hanging out of the car and the clutch when bang on its first run.
Nothing beats Mastercard Lola surely? Forced by the sponsor to go racing a year early, arrive in Melbourne massively unprepared and so off the pace they fail to qualify before the freight arriving to the second round but no staff as the team had it's sponsorship cash pulled and went bump as a result.
DanielSan said:
Nothing beats Mastercard Lola surely? Forced by the sponsor to go racing a year early, arrive in Melbourne massively unprepared and so off the pace they fail to qualify before the freight arriving to the second round but no staff as the team had it's sponsorship cash pulled and went bump as a result.
By comparison Williams staff arrived but with no car 
I'm going to revise my question: Is this the worst start to a season for an established, multiple championship winning team?
TheDeuce said:
He's said in every interview the car has no grip. When he pushed, he lost control and clipped a wall.
But yes, Russell managed by comparison far better.
His prize: has to drive the Williams in a full race now.
Will Buxton reporting that Kubica said he clipped the wall because the car actually worked as it should for the first time that weekend, giving him too much speed..But yes, Russell managed by comparison far better.
His prize: has to drive the Williams in a full race now.
The most worrying thing for them, alongside the low performance level of the car, has to be that they seemingly have no technical direction to develop what they have to improve. In the last few months they've lost their technical director, their chief designer, their head of aero and their head of performance, with no obvious replacements for any of them.
While I'm sure they still have many very talented engineers, without the right direction and motivation they won't be able to pull together and develop the car out of the hole it's currently in. And just who is even going to want to go in there and try to sort them out?
While I'm sure they still have many very talented engineers, without the right direction and motivation they won't be able to pull together and develop the car out of the hole it's currently in. And just who is even going to want to go in there and try to sort them out?
rscott said:
Will Buxton reporting that Kubica said he clipped the wall because the car actually worked as it should for the first time that weekend, giving him too much speed..
I heard. Not sure what conclusion to draw from that statement though.But fair enough, if the car suddenly felt different I can accept it's very easy to get caught out.
On the other hand, he also said this:
“I think qualifying was also quite difficult in terms of the general feeling in the car and suddenly the feeling massively improved for the last run. But then I complicated my life with a silly mistake,”.
“It was not even a mistake from overdriving or something, it was purely bad evaluation of the space, which is a bit embarrassing".
Other than damaging the floor, this didn't really affect anything at least. He was going to be on the back row tomorrow with/without the crash. With the caveat that he did damage the floor, damage at Williams right now always begs the question 'Did you bring a spare..'.
thegreenhell said:
This sounds like it's the tub - the front section where the suspension is mounted. It would make sense, if it's failing/flexing too much it would make sense of why they have to be cautious of running over kerbs, it would also explain why they have been repairing, not replacing prior to quali, and it would explain why Kubica said of qualifying, that the car was suddenly working properly. They had saved their 'spare part' for quali and race so it would be fresh, not just repaired.Most of all, it would indeed be a thing that would take months to rework. If adding strength requires an alteration of it's shape, then it will require a change of everything on the front 2/3 of the car. It's a return to the wind tunnel, the drawing board. It would to all intents be a new car really.
I suppose that's Williams done until at least the end of the summer break. No wonder they have been pulling the car back to the pits for inspection after short runs in testing and practice.
Of course, I could be wrong... The above is just what would make the most sense to me, given what is known.
TheDeuce said:
thegreenhell said:
This sounds like it's the tub - the front section where the suspension is mounted. It would make sense, if it's failing/flexing too much it would make sense of why they have to be cautious of running over kerbs, it would also explain why they have been repairing, not replacing prior to quali, and it would explain why Kubica said of qualifying, that the car was suddenly working properly. They had saved their 'spare part' for quali and race so it would be fresh, not just repaired.Most of all, it would indeed be a thing that would take months to rework. If adding strength requires an alteration of it's shape, then it will require a change of everything on the front 2/3 of the car. It's a return to the wind tunnel, the drawing board. It would to all intents be a new car really.
I suppose that's Williams done until at least the end of the summer break. No wonder they have been pulling the car back to the pits for inspection after short runs in testing and practice.
Of course, I could be wrong... The above is just what would make the most sense to me, given what is known.
Petrus1983 said:
If you’re correct do you expect full race distance to be achievable or does it only affect performance?
If I'm correct it's a trade off between pace and distance. The gentler they go, specifically avoiding high dynamic forces, such as hitting kerbs, the longer they can run before it becomes a major problem.With woven fibre materials, you can get slow wear and tear, caused by flex, the material becomes more pliant the more it is flexed. But in theory, you would design the components so that their inherent strength is sufficient to not flex enough to cause degradation in the first place. It could be that what they have designed is strong enough to not flex under normal conditions, but if the car was loaded into a corner and then hits a kerb, you have a pre-stressed component that then has a high dynamic force imposed upon it. Ideally each critical component would be able to handle that, it's a predictable scenario of course! Yet, clearly, something on that car isn't up to the job.
Edited by TheDeuce on Saturday 16th March 15:15
skwdenyer said:
Discovering a “fundamental fault” might explain why Paddy became well-acquainted with the door...
Putting out a car with a fundamental flaw... That's so 2018.I'm not going to rush to attribute blame to Paddy as I don't know - but it doesn't look good to have an in-built design flaw two years on run.
TheDeuce said:
If I'm correct it's a trade off between pace and distance. The gentler they go, specifically avoiding high dynamic forces, such as hitting kerbs, the longer they can run before it becomes a major problem. Yet, clearly, something on that car isn't up to the job.
If that's true and something is likely to fail before reaching race distance that's a very scary situation at a circuit like this with high speeds and concrete walls all around the circuit...Gassing Station | Formula 1 | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff