Massa Spin / Aerodynamic stall

[jon-]

I found this question on "Ask James Allen" really interesting. His answer however somewhat disappoints.

ITVF1 said:

Massa has yet to get off the mark due to his driving errors. Ferrari explained that his spin in Sepang was caused by the aerodynamics stalling on his car, i.e. he lost downforce. How is it so finely balanced that his mistake in running over a kerb on the exit of turn six stalled the aerodynamics, when they run over kerbs all the time?

Sean Monaghan
Cambridge

Lots of interest in Massa this week! Well Sean, the thing about F1 is it’s a very small world and the drivers’ performances are minutely scrutinised.

The engineers from his own team and all the others teams know in detail how every driver is matching up.

It was common currency over the winter testing that Massa did not seem to have adapted to the loss of traction control and engine braking systems as well as Kimi and he’s started the season nervously.

I think you have to give him time, as we did last year with Alonso and Kimi adapting to Bridgestones from Michelins.

But I don’t think he’s as complete a driver as Kimi, who will always come out on top in that pairing.

James "the cock" Allen must have miss placed his dictionary when looking up the word aerodynamics.

Had anyone else heard that excuse? A stall point in certain aero situations is a dangerous thing to have.

[kevin ritson]

TBH I think Ferrari are hiding behind an excuse - Massa lost it all on his own at Melbourne and he has indeed been rather poor in testing. JA's reply is flawed in that he sounds as if he's avoiding the question altogether when in fact he's saying he doesn't believe Ferrari.

[GarrettMacD]

kevin ritson said:

TBH I think Ferrari are hiding behind an excuse - Massa lost it all on his own at Melbourne and he has indeed been rather poor in testing. JA's reply is flawed in that he sounds as if he's avoiding the question altogether when in fact he's saying he doesn't believe Ferrari.

It's almost as if a bloke who's named his son Enzo is afraid of saying it like it is... Massa f'ucked up.

But I can see why he's being diplomatic about it - he won't be on our screens when F1 goes to BBC, so he'll probably be looking for another PR job in F1 - wasn't he in PR for someone like Arrows???

[jon-]

GarrettMacD said:

kevin ritson said:

TBH I think Ferrari are hiding behind an excuse - Massa lost it all on his own at Melbourne and he has indeed been rather poor in testing. JA's reply is flawed in that he sounds as if he's avoiding the question altogether when in fact he's saying he doesn't believe Ferrari.

It's almost as if a bloke who's named his son Enzo

Tell me this isn't true?

[Racefan_uk]

Brabham, apparantly.

ETA: Brabham was the team he was Press Officer for. And yes, he named his son Enzo.

Edited by Racefan_uk on Wednesday 2nd April 11:32

[Eric Mc]

Losing downforce when riding curbs was a definite problem in the early 80s. With much downforce comimng from underfloor aerodynamics, side pods and skirts, having the car lift off over a curb instantly lost it a lot of suction and they could depart the road extremely rapidly as a result.

I'm not so sure that the modern cars are anything like as susceptible to this type of problem.

[jon-]

Racefan_uk said:

Brabham, apparantly.

ETA: Brabham was the team he was Press Officer for. And yes, he named his son Enzo.

It would have been far more amusing if he'd named his son Brabham. That poor kid is going to get some serious stick in the playground, unless of course he's adopted and is Italian... and still lives in Italy.

[rubystone]

In this week's Autosport, Mark Hughes writes that Ferrari claimed that the spin was caused by the aero balance being upset by the kerbing on turn 6 (2 corners before the one he spun on)...Hughes condemns this - he feels (and FWIW I think he's correct) that the airflow wil have had plenty of time to attach in the space of 2 corners.

I think that Massa forgot that he didn't have his electronic safety net; simple as that

[Eric Mc]

"Track Causes Driver to Lose Control"

Pathetic excuse - in my opinion.

[Le TVR]

rubystone said:

he feels (and FWIW I think he's correct) that the airflow wil have had plenty of time to attach in the space of 2 corners.

True.
For a stall condition to exist the boundary layer vortices will have separated from the aero surfaces. Ignoring the 'low speed' stall I can only see angle of incidence and ride height left.
Incidence is never going to change on a F1 (unless you're cheating..) so what about ride height?
If the front wing which is operating in the sheared flow of ground effect dropped enough to stall, the airflow could be disturbed to the rear diffuser he would lose rear end grip. But as soon as the heights and incidences are restored the stall condition disappears.
Dont tell me that they havent got all those parameters covered by telemetry.

[dxb335d]

i think Massa made a mistake, things like that happen when your on the limit. He needs to Tone it down, get his head together and he can (as he have seen previously) put in some stirring performances.

I dont think he is World champion material (just yet) but with age comes experiance and maturity.

[RedexR]

Its pretty obvious in my opinion , the lack of traccy control - (rule changes) has found some some drivers lacking...and some now showing their true abilities in an F1 car.

[Riverside]

Le TVR said:

rubystone said:

he feels (and FWIW I think he's correct) that the airflow wil have had plenty of time to attach in the space of 2 corners.

True.
For a stall condition to exist the boundary layer vortices will have separated from the aero surfaces. Ignoring the 'low speed' stall I can only see angle of incidence and ride height left.
Incidence is never going to change on a F1 (unless you're cheating..) so what about ride height?
If the front wing which is operating in the sheared flow of ground effect dropped enough to stall, the airflow could be disturbed to the rear diffuser he would lose rear end grip. But as soon as the heights and incidences are restored the stall condition disappears.
Dont tell me that they havent got all those parameters covered by telemetry.

If the car is still bouncing the ground effect could still be lacking (enough to make the difference). That should be evident on the telemetry & could have continued long enough to upset the car two corners later.

Note on the telemetry front the standard ECUs reportedly have fewer ports than the magnetti marelli ones Ferrari were using in previous years so it may be that they genuinely don't have a better picture of what happened & the aerodynamic explanation has been given because there isn't enough information to rule it out. I don't think Ferrari have historically been afraid to blame the driver when something was their fault. New boss might equal new attitude there though.

[130R]

I like Massa and he is certainly not slow, but with Alonso waiting in the wings he can't afford to make any more mistakes.

[fastfreddy]

I'm surprised Ferrari haven't blamed it on disruptive airflow coming from the back of the other cars, specifically silver coloured cars, leading to a protest which would then result in the Mclarens having to run without rear wings for the rest of the season.

[Dr JonboyG]

An excuse I heard put forward was that he went down an extra gear, to 1st instead of 2nd, and that's what fked him.

[Nicholas Blair]

Maybe a big knob got in the way - yes, James Allen.

[rubystone]

Riverside said:

[

If the car is still bouncing the ground effect could still be lacking (enough to make the difference). That should be evident on the telemetry & could have continued long enough to upset the car two corners later.

Note on the telemetry front the standard ECUs reportedly have fewer ports than the magnetti marelli ones Ferrari were using in previous years so it may be that they genuinely don't have a better picture of what happened & the aerodynamic explanation has been given because there isn't enough information to rule it out. I don't think Ferrari have historically been afraid to blame the driver when something was their fault. New boss might equal new attitude there though.

Do you really mean "ground effect"? The cars are effectively flat-bottomed - "ground effect " is not allowed....There's a not inconsiderable distance between turns 6 and 8 and furthermore, there's no "suspension" to speak of on the cars beyond the sidewalls of the tyres - they don't "bounce" at all. Ferrari have enough telemetary information to determine whether the gear he was in and the revs he was running were appropriate and indeed consistent, for that corner as compared with his other laps.

In short he dropped it.

Final point - historically, Ferrari have never blamed their drivers - certainly not in the Todt era at any rate.

[carbonfootprint]

As far as I can see from onboard footage it is definately a loss of mechanical grip not aero unless there was some kind of freak occurance e.g. a strong tailwind gust - possible I guess considering the weather at the time

This is unlikely as the local wind direction (at that corner at that time) was directly into the corner as viewable by the dust he created after coming to a stop

Touching the first kerb as he did wouldnt have done jack aerowise IMO

[Riverside]

rubystone said:

Riverside said:

If the car is still bouncing the ground effect could still be lacking (enough to make the difference). That should be evident on the telemetry & could have continued long enough to upset the car two corners later.

Note on the telemetry front the standard ECUs reportedly have fewer ports than the magnetti marelli ones Ferrari were using in previous years so it may be that they genuinely don't have a better picture of what happened & the aerodynamic explanation has been given because there isn't enough information to rule it out. I don't think Ferrari have historically been afraid to blame the driver when something was their fault. New boss might equal new attitude there though.

Do you really mean "ground effect"? The cars are effectively flat-bottomed - "ground effect " is not allowed....There's a not inconsiderable distance between turns 6 and 8 and furthermore, there's no "suspension" to speak of on the cars beyond the sidewalls of the tyres - they don't "bounce" at all. Ferrari have enough telemetary information to determine whether the gear he was in and the revs he was running were appropriate and indeed consistent, for that corner as compared with his other laps.

In short he dropped it.

Final point - historically, Ferrari have never blamed their drivers - certainly not in the Todt era at any rate.

I do mean ground effect. Side skirts might be banned but the air that goes under the car is still managed.

If a car had no suspension as you describe then it would hop & skip off the road - of course they have suspension it's just very stiff.

It's a safe assumption that there will be sensors to monitor suspension deflection, gears & revs (as you say), steering angle and some airflow but there are fewer sensors this year (on a Ferrari at least) than they previously used so it may be that their explanation is what's left over after they have eliminated all the other factors they do have info on. I can see them being diplomatic with the truth if there was another plausable explanation but if it were purely driver error and they had data that said Massa just planted it I don't think they would lie outright.

As far as Ferrari's blaming drivers goes I might not be right but you're definately wrong
MS blocked the track at Monaco a couple of years ago in Q3, I'm pretty sure Todt didn't blame the car then