Why were the new teams in 2010 so crap?
Discussion
I’m gonna assume it all comes down to money but where they any specific reasons that hobbled them? Any rule changes or anything like that?
They were miles off in 2010 and continued that way until they were all gone.
Was watching Canada 2011 last night and had almost forgotten about them.
They were miles off in 2010 and continued that way until they were all gone.
Was watching Canada 2011 last night and had almost forgotten about them.
There was in interesting interview with i think mike gascoin? when he talked about the starting up of the team. And he had 1 person at the time. they had to pretend it was the secutary taking a call for someone wanting to join them when infact it was his wife or something on the home phone. I forget the actual story but basicly early on they bulls
tted their personell departent.
tted their personell departent.Brainpox said:
On top of the above, I think they were all using the Cosworth engine which was new for 2010, and was the budget-friendly option at the time.
The 2010 entries were, allegedly, selected because they were using Cosworth engines. Of course, the more teams buying the engine the more funding Cosworth had to develop it and the better it would be. I have nothing to back the rest of this other than my memory, which is unreliable at best. No doubt, the PH community will uncover the truth. The FIA wanted a spec-engine and that was the Cosworth. Initially, there was talk of the spec engine being given more technological freedom to allow it to be around 10% more powerful than the factory engines. The idea being to enable the smaller teams to better compete with the big manufacturers. By the time the newcomers were committed, this idea had been quashed by the big teams with the argument "why should we spend £100m's developing an engine when the minnows can buy something 10% more powerful for a fraction of the price?", along with it went the budget cap. I believe part of the concern was that a McLaren, Red Bull or Williams could take the spec engine and have a big advantage over the likes of Ferrari, Renault or Mercedes. Thus the newbies were saddled with trying to compete with the established teams with the least powerful engine and the smallest budgets; they had no chance.The cosworth engine was not the issue with the teams lack of pace, all of the small start up teams had very little aero development or the money to develop good aero
every driver that drove the cosworth engined cars was complimentary about the power level (780bhp vs the renault of the time 740 ish)
however the renault was in the red-bull and Newey's briilance more than made up for a lack of bhp
how do I know this I worked for Marussia at the time and then returned to Cosworth in 2012 and I remember the Silverstone debrief with Virgin ( as marussia was originally known) mechanical grip and speed in the low gear corners was a match for redbull the high speed corners were about 50 kph down .....
this meant the tyre was never 'switched on' as the Virgin never generated enough downforce to do so
and as the tyre was made for the top teams the smaller teams had very little chance of doing so
every driver that drove the cosworth engined cars was complimentary about the power level (780bhp vs the renault of the time 740 ish)
however the renault was in the red-bull and Newey's briilance more than made up for a lack of bhp
how do I know this I worked for Marussia at the time and then returned to Cosworth in 2012 and I remember the Silverstone debrief with Virgin ( as marussia was originally known) mechanical grip and speed in the low gear corners was a match for redbull the high speed corners were about 50 kph down .....
this meant the tyre was never 'switched on' as the Virgin never generated enough downforce to do so
and as the tyre was made for the top teams the smaller teams had very little chance of doing so
350Matt said:
The cosworth engine was not the issue with the teams lack of pace, all of the small start up teams had very little aero development or the money to develop good aero
every driver that drove the cosworth engined cars was complimentary about the power level (780bhp vs the renault of the time 740 ish)
however the renault was in the red-bull and Newey's briilance more than made up for a lack of bhp
how do I know this I worked for Marussia at the time and then returned to Cosworth in 2012 and I remember the Silverstone debrief with Virgin ( as marussia was originally known) mechanical grip and speed in the low gear corners was a match for redbull the high speed corners were about 50 kph down .....
this meant the tyre was never 'switched on' as the Virgin never generated enough downforce to do so
and as the tyre was made for the top teams the smaller teams had very little chance of doing so
Great post, thank you. The 50kph difference must have been a bit sobering.every driver that drove the cosworth engined cars was complimentary about the power level (780bhp vs the renault of the time 740 ish)
however the renault was in the red-bull and Newey's briilance more than made up for a lack of bhp
how do I know this I worked for Marussia at the time and then returned to Cosworth in 2012 and I remember the Silverstone debrief with Virgin ( as marussia was originally known) mechanical grip and speed in the low gear corners was a match for redbull the high speed corners were about 50 kph down .....
this meant the tyre was never 'switched on' as the Virgin never generated enough downforce to do so
and as the tyre was made for the top teams the smaller teams had very little chance of doing so
Piginapoke said:
350Matt said:
The cosworth engine was not the issue with the teams lack of pace, all of the small start up teams had very little aero development or the money to develop good aero
every driver that drove the cosworth engined cars was complimentary about the power level (780bhp vs the renault of the time 740 ish)
however the renault was in the red-bull and Newey's briilance more than made up for a lack of bhp
how do I know this I worked for Marussia at the time and then returned to Cosworth in 2012 and I remember the Silverstone debrief with Virgin ( as marussia was originally known) mechanical grip and speed in the low gear corners was a match for redbull the high speed corners were about 50 kph down .....
this meant the tyre was never 'switched on' as the Virgin never generated enough downforce to do so
and as the tyre was made for the top teams the smaller teams had very little chance of doing so
Good stuff yeah.every driver that drove the cosworth engined cars was complimentary about the power level (780bhp vs the renault of the time 740 ish)
however the renault was in the red-bull and Newey's briilance more than made up for a lack of bhp
how do I know this I worked for Marussia at the time and then returned to Cosworth in 2012 and I remember the Silverstone debrief with Virgin ( as marussia was originally known) mechanical grip and speed in the low gear corners was a match for redbull the high speed corners were about 50 kph down .....
this meant the tyre was never 'switched on' as the Virgin never generated enough downforce to do so
and as the tyre was made for the top teams the smaller teams had very little chance of doing so
A shame it happened in Bernies era as I think liberty could have got a system through where as the first year new teams ran to a lower weight limit that rose over the next 4 years or something cost free but similar.
Great post, thank you. The 50kph difference must have been a bit sobering.
350Matt said:
The cosworth engine was not the issue with the teams lack of pace, all of the small start up teams had very little aero development or the money to develop good aero
every driver that drove the cosworth engined cars was complimentary about the power level (780bhp vs the renault of the time 740 ish)
however the renault was in the red-bull and Newey's briilance more than made up for a lack of bhp
how do I know this I worked for Marussia at the time and then returned to Cosworth in 2012 and I remember the Silverstone debrief with Virgin ( as marussia was originally known) mechanical grip and speed in the low gear corners was a match for redbull the high speed corners were about 50 kph down .....
this meant the tyre was never 'switched on' as the Virgin never generated enough downforce to do so
and as the tyre was made for the top teams the smaller teams had very little chance of doing so
I think Virgin made their life harder by not tunnel testing the car. I don't know about now, but back then I don't think the models were good enough to pick up the small gains required by F1.every driver that drove the cosworth engined cars was complimentary about the power level (780bhp vs the renault of the time 740 ish)
however the renault was in the red-bull and Newey's briilance more than made up for a lack of bhp
how do I know this I worked for Marussia at the time and then returned to Cosworth in 2012 and I remember the Silverstone debrief with Virgin ( as marussia was originally known) mechanical grip and speed in the low gear corners was a match for redbull the high speed corners were about 50 kph down .....
this meant the tyre was never 'switched on' as the Virgin never generated enough downforce to do so
and as the tyre was made for the top teams the smaller teams had very little chance of doing so
Another overlooked factor is a lack of appreciation for just now much infrastructure and institutional knowledge is built up in teams that have been operating for 20 years or more. You can buy in talent, but to put the systems and processes in place that work efficiently and effectively takes a huge amount of time, effort and refining.
Agreed
Nick Wirth was originally of the opinion that wind tunnel testing wasn't required and all the CFD work would be enough to produce competitive parts and to be fair to him this approach had worked on other race car projects
however it turns out a tunnel is a rather useful bit of kit to at least calibrate the CFD....
once a tunnel datum was established it showed the aero team had an enormous amount to do to try and get downforce on the car .
and this is in addition to all the other new team stuff as mentioned
Nick Wirth was originally of the opinion that wind tunnel testing wasn't required and all the CFD work would be enough to produce competitive parts and to be fair to him this approach had worked on other race car projects
however it turns out a tunnel is a rather useful bit of kit to at least calibrate the CFD....
once a tunnel datum was established it showed the aero team had an enormous amount to do to try and get downforce on the car .
and this is in addition to all the other new team stuff as mentioned
350Matt said:
Agreed
Nick Wirth was originally of the opinion that wind tunnel testing wasn't required and all the CFD work would be enough to produce competitive parts and to be fair to him this approach had worked on other race car projects
however it turns out a tunnel is a rather useful bit of kit to at least calibrate the CFD....
once a tunnel datum was established it showed the aero team had an enormous amount to do to try and get downforce on the car .
and this is in addition to all the other new team stuff as mentioned
I think that was a fundamental misjudgement of just how optimised and F1 car is compared those of any other series in motorsport. The tunnel definitely plays a key role in calibrating the digital tools, and likewise the real car plays a key role in calibrating the tunnel!Nick Wirth was originally of the opinion that wind tunnel testing wasn't required and all the CFD work would be enough to produce competitive parts and to be fair to him this approach had worked on other race car projects
however it turns out a tunnel is a rather useful bit of kit to at least calibrate the CFD....
once a tunnel datum was established it showed the aero team had an enormous amount to do to try and get downforce on the car .
and this is in addition to all the other new team stuff as mentioned
It's a long way to come from a standing start.
This:
egomeister said:
Another overlooked factor is a lack of appreciation for just now much infrastructure and institutional knowledge is built up in teams that have been operating for 20 years or more. You can buy in talent, but to put the systems and processes in place that work efficiently and effectively takes a huge amount of time, effort and refining.
Caterham exemplified this. They had the infrastructure of a midfield team with an army of employees yet struggled to break into the lower midfield. Paddy Lowe recently made a good point about how F1 is all about people and talent.350Matt said:
Agreed
Nick Wirth was originally of the opinion that wind tunnel testing wasn't required and all the CFD work would be enough to produce competitive parts and to be fair to him this approach had worked on other race car projects
however it turns out a tunnel is a rather useful bit of kit to at least calibrate the CFD....
once a tunnel datum was established it showed the aero team had an enormous amount to do to try and get downforce on the car .
and this is in addition to all the other new team stuff as mentioned
I know Wirth had a thing for CFD as his company was involved with designing and developing the Acura ARX LMP2 car but I'm guessing its cheaper than running a wind tunnel 24/7 and an army of aerodynamicists.Nick Wirth was originally of the opinion that wind tunnel testing wasn't required and all the CFD work would be enough to produce competitive parts and to be fair to him this approach had worked on other race car projects
however it turns out a tunnel is a rather useful bit of kit to at least calibrate the CFD....
once a tunnel datum was established it showed the aero team had an enormous amount to do to try and get downforce on the car .
and this is in addition to all the other new team stuff as mentioned
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