2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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Miguel
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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I'll dishonour such a long and nice post by replying with a single question:

With those approximations, which numbers do you get for Copse? That corner is perhaps the flattest high-speed corner that stays relatively unchanged, even if the new layout almost certainly affects the ideal downforce that cars run.
I am not amazed by F1 cars in Monaco. I want to see them driving in the A8 highway: Variable radius corners, negative banking, and extreme narrowings that Tilke has never dreamed off. Oh, yes, and "beautiful" weather tops it all.

"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." Niels Bohr

Reca
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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Minimum corner radius at Copse is about 150m give or take couple, and from the laps I have analyzed (which should be all qualifying, although I can’t bet on oldest ones as I’m not even sure I still have the videos), as minimum speed at Copse I have:

Year (driver): min speed [km/h] / lat [g].

2004 (Raikkonen): 267 / 3.75
2006 (Alonso) : 283 / 4.2
2009 (Vettel): 282 / 4.2
2010 (Vettel): 284 / 4.25
2011 (Vettel): 268 / 3.75
2013 (Hamilton): 271 / 3.85
2014 (Rosberg, damp): 237 / 2.95

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Artur Craft
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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Reca wrote: Very good match means, for example, that when, after having analyzed “blindly” the audio of a qualifying lap, I compare “my” derived speed data with the reference points (apex, end of straights etc) of FOM graphics, the difference is within 1km/h, more than good enough for me. (BTW, in favorable light conditions, like at night, the speed data shown on some drivers’ dash display are visible, and a few times I verified these match exactly the FOM graphics data, so I consider FOM graphics a reliable reference).
I also did this and already posted here that FOM telemetry info is a match for the dashboard speedmeter, indeed. :wink:

Previously, I never believed in this speed values extrapolated from engine noise because I heard Spanish TV did this for their typical Alonso qualifying laps and the speed shown in their videos is VERY different in many corners. For instance, sometimes, there is a hairpin where the actual minimum speed is around 60kmh and the Spanish tv graph shows 80kmh.
If your comparison is so precise to be within 1kmh error range, then it's a very good one.
Reca wrote:
For older data I can’t do similar verifications, but the reference speed data available for speed traps, plus the comparison of total distance travelled, sector differences and similar, allow to keep a reasonable confidence in the results.
As for how I estimate lateral acceleration, that too I explained couple of times already when I posted similar data, repetita iuvant though (and there goes the once per year usage of Latin to justify the 5 years wast... err... happily spent enhancing my education level by studying it...), I made a program which calculates a plausible racing line, by minimizing an opportune fitness function of lateral acceleration, velocity and other parameters, using as limits the track borders from satellite image.
Again, that’s obviously not 100% accurate reproduction of the racing line followed, but it’s close enough that small divergences from the real one would hopefully only cause limited change of estimated lateral acceleration. Good enough for my needs.
I like your sense of humour and that's another positive thing that you and others also bring to this forum. :mrgreen:

Can I ask you a favour? It's ok if you can't do it, but if eventually you have some time and desire to do it, can you run this program with Raikkonen's lap that I posted(it was his 2005 pole), please? I would like to know how it compared to Massa's lap.

edit: I wrote that before seeing that you already did it for T8 :oops: won't delete, though, as I will, then, ask if(take whatever time you need)can you compare some Suzuka qualifying laps? The list is this:

_Schumacher 1999 pole with Tv speedmeter(not FOM's though, so I guess this is NOT from telemetry so it might be sound estimation as yours') But I guess Brundle's voice will disrupt and unavailable the sound analysis...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZlS-AB4-ik
_Schumacher 2001 pole
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2imu9 ... -2001_auto
_Schumacher 2003 qualifying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZnolwXv6uM
_Raikkonen 2003 qualifying (Brundle again, so I guess not possible)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBA0w5OfTVI
_Webber 2004 qualifying (damp track)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFipnmtqpd0
_Schumacher 2004 pole
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3ehsv ... ka-2_sport
_Trulli 2009 Q3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahjoSjPq4tQ
_Vettel 2009 pole
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xaoyuo ... -lap_sport
_Hamilton 2010 Q3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg3gL4Tn-lM
_Alonso 2012 Q3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XPdUIDjcH4
_Webber pole 2013 (speedmeter already here but I guess the lateral aceleration comparison can be made)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHzH6GpNd-s

and finally, this year's:
_Rosberg pole
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwUcVQEP9o0
and Alonso's Q3 with Spanish tv unofficial speedmeter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zBNE8ydvmE

Sorry if I'm asking something that takes too much time and effort, I have no idea how difficult/easy it is to make this analysis

Miguel
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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Reca wrote:Minimum corner radius at Copse is about 150m give or take couple, and from the laps I have analyzed (which should be all qualifying, although I can’t bet on oldest ones as I’m not even sure I still have the videos), as minimum speed at Copse I have:

Year (driver): min speed [km/h] / lat [g].

2004 (Raikkonen): 267 / 3.75
2006 (Alonso) : 283 / 4.2
2009 (Vettel): 282 / 4.2
2010 (Vettel): 284 / 4.25
2011 (Vettel): 268 / 3.75
2013 (Hamilton): 271 / 3.85
2014 (Rosberg, damp): 237 / 2.95
Wow, thank you! These 2006 war tyres were really special!
I am not amazed by F1 cars in Monaco. I want to see them driving in the A8 highway: Variable radius corners, negative banking, and extreme narrowings that Tilke has never dreamed off. Oh, yes, and "beautiful" weather tops it all.

"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." Niels Bohr

Radley
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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Weren't the mph/kph trap speeds higher in 2014?

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Artur Craft
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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I knew the WEC would show how hyped the Interlagos performance of 2014 cars were.

The new tarmac gives plenty of more grip. The qualifying record was already broken in FP2 and that will fall even more in qualifying.

Qualifying record dated from the Peugeot era (2007) : 1m 18.787s

Webber already destroyed that with a 1.18.349s

To give a reference, Peugeot set the record at Sarthe, in 2008, with a 3.18.5 while this year Toyota got pole with a 3.21.78.

Last year, the fastest time in Interlagos(QLF) was 1.20.7 and, in the 2012, it was 1.22.3

Not only this but unlike with Pirellis, whose Softs lasted 5 laps in the race(and Mediums also degraded a lot), the tyres in WEC have quality:
Julien Canal, G-Drive Racing, No.26 LMP2
“The thing that is incredible is the tarmac. It is saving our tyres incredibly. No drop off really at all. No degradation. It is like a go-kart, really amazing. You can do a very good lap time after 10 or 15 laps. Even off the racing line it seems very good and no real problems with rubber pieces because the tyres are keeping so well.
Darryl O’Young, Aston Martin Racing, No.99 LMGTE Pro
“The car has been running really well all day. The grip levels with the new surface is amazing which suits our car. In the low speed corners it feels so nice and we have a good advantage over the others here I think.

“Tyre degradation is dependent on track temperature but we haven’t seen anything that significant really.

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hollus
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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Radley wrote:Weren't the mph/kph trap speeds higher in 2014?
Higher than in 2013, but not higher than in 2004 AFAIK.
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Artur Craft
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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Nope, sometimes higher than even in 2004, nevermind 2013. Why do you think the 2014 cars are not that far behind in laptimes?!

Top speed trap in 2004 QLF : Brazil-324kmh , Bahrain 324kmh, Barcelona 326kmh, Canada 341kmh, Hockenheim 332kmh, Monza 363kmh
Top speed trap in 2014 QLF : Brazil-343kmh , Bahrain 329kmh, Barcelona 338kmh, Canada also 338kmh, Hockenheim 332kmh, Monza 354kmh

I picked only tracks where qualifying was on perfectly dry track on both years.

In Canada and Germany they are matched at top speeds. At the ultra low drag Monza config, the 2004 car reached 2,5% higher top speed.

Elsewhere, the 2014 car reached higher speeds. Not by much in Bahrain(1,5%), reasonably more at Barcelona(3,7%) and a big advantage at Interlagos(5,8%)

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hollus
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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That's interesting! There is fantastic post by Reca in page 4 (go and see it, really) suggesting that in Bahrain, Hockenheim and Monza top speeds were equal or ahead in 2004. I mean the very top might have been equal, but top at most straights is clearly in favor of 2004. But I guess it depends on which laps were compared!
Still, a few km/h at the top speed in the few seconds where you are drag limited won't gain much lap time, and his post prove that for the longest part of most straights the 2004 car were clearly ahead in speed.
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Moose
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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hollus wrote:That's interesting! There is fantastic post by Reca in page 4 (go and see it, really) suggesting that in Bahrain, Hockenheim and Monza top speeds were equal or ahead in 2004. I mean the very top might have been equal, but top at most straights is clearly in favor of 2004. But I guess it depends on which laps were compared!
Still, a few km/h at the top speed in the few seconds where you are drag limited won't gain much lap time, and his post prove that for the longest part of most straights the 2004 car were clearly ahead in speed.
So your assessment is that they're losing time on the straights, losing time in the slow corners and losing time in the fast corners, and that's why they're able to lap at roughly the same speed, right?

Something doesn't add up.

Just_a_fan
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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The reality is that small variations in top speed is rather irrelevant to lap time. You're at that speed for such a short part of the lap that it makes little difference. Where you gain/lose time is in the slow bits because you're in those bits for longer so any gains add up more.

A good example from back in the 2004 era was Minardi. They often had some of the highest top speeds (I remember they even topped the speed traps on a number of occasions) but were always "slow" over a lap. Why? Because they lacked downforce and so were losing bags of time in the slow stuff (the corners).

One area where the current cars will gain time over the 2004 cars is in low-mid speed acceleration. They accelerate away from corners much better than earlier cars. Indeed, Coulthard said, in his recent piece driving the Williams for the BBC, that the acceleration is like nothing he's ever driven up to about 120-140mph. That, and the clever braking system, will really help with overall lap times. Oh, and the current cars aren't exactly short of downforce either.

With more engine performance over the next couple of years we can expect lap times to fall as the teams will run more downforce. I can see the current regs giving us some of the quickest F1 cars ever if they're left alone for 5 years.
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Reca
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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Finally got analysis of requested videos done, sorry for delay, busy days and could only give it little time.

I didn’t analyze all videos because some had issues, but some good results are available still.

1999 Schumacher, 2003 Raikkonen and 2009 Vettel have, as pointed out, commentary.
Vettel’s isn’t actually that bad, large parts of lap are clean while for the others possibly with some filtering/manual limitation of rpm range to search in, I could get something, but would take time and then wouldn’t be accurate so, also considering another 2009 lap, just bit slower, was available anyway, I didn’t bother. On MS’ and KR’s laps on the contrary is quite invasive making result just too noisy unfortunately.

On 2003 MS and 2013 Webber’s presumably something went wrong in the editing/compression (probably some frames got lost or something like that) as the lap duration measured on the video is shorter, respectively by about half second and 1s, than should be, which is more than enough to affect the travelled distance, relative position of corners’ minimum speed etc. and make comparison with other laps, and lateral acceleration, invalid.
Luckily I had another video of Webber’s lap downloaded last year, worse image quality but good audio and right duration so analyzed that one, for MS’ unfortunately I don’t have a backup.

For a couple of others then I could only do a partial analysis.

For 2001 MS I only did the rpm estimate:
Image
Reason is I have no speed reference data, and the track was different (I don’t have a scaled image for the old layout) hence different was the racing line and its total length, so I can’t convert the normalized speed, relative to peak, to an absolute value, at least not with acceptable accuracy.
If you have sources/data to solve that, just post them and I’ll complete the work on it.

Finally the 2010 Hamilton video, as you can see it’s not the complete lap, it stops at 130R and in particular misses the speed trap after it. I analyzed it still and used as reference the speed data for the intermediates, but, also considering the unknown on exact travelled distance, the accuracy in speed estimate is worse than it could be so probably just good as a more qualitative comparison:
Image

Too bad as the rpm signal on the contrary was very clean, all downshifts very neatly distinguishable etc. it was a perfect sample, just not complete.

That leaves basically only 4 usable laps of different years, and here speed vs position on track (keep in mind 2004 was damp track so it’s hardly representative of car’s potential, the fastest lap of race was 1” quicker for example):
Image

The time gap is always 2014’s vs the relevant lap.
Artur Craft wrote: [...]
Top speed trap in 2004 QLF : Brazil-324kmh , Bahrain 324kmh, Barcelona 326kmh, Canada 341kmh, Hockenheim 332kmh, Monza 363kmh
Top speed trap in 2014 QLF : Brazil-343kmh , Bahrain 329kmh, Barcelona 338kmh, Canada also 338kmh, Hockenheim 332kmh, Monza 354kmh
[...]
Remember that the speed trap is usually located in DRS areas, so even if in these specific points the 2014 cars can match/beat 2004’s straight line performance, it doesn’t mean that same can be done in all other accelerations, without DRS (plus there’s the possibility that maybe there isn’t enough energy to use full MGUK power whenever needed, albeit that will probably apply only to longest tracks, at least for Mercedes).
This year DRS was way more effective than in V8’s years, as rpm limit is so much higher than peak used, that in practice there’s no rpm limit, leaving all margin needed to get to the power limited speed; previously DRS speed gain was rpm limited, not power. (on top of that, the opening gap was also increased, allowing to adopt a longer flap’s chord while still being able to “flatten” it)

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Artur Craft
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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hollus wrote:That's interesting! There is fantastic post by Reca in page 4 (go and see it, really) suggesting that in Bahrain, Hockenheim and Monza top speeds were equal or ahead in 2004. I mean the very top might have been equal, but top at most straights is clearly in favor of 2004. But I guess it depends on which laps were compared!
Still, a few km/h at the top speed in the few seconds where you are drag limited won't gain much lap time, and his post prove that for the longest part of most straights the 2004 car were clearly ahead in speed.
The top speeds I posted were the fastest registered of any driver. Reca's analysis involved pole laps which were not necessarily the one with top speed trap.

If you go back to Reca's post and compare Bahrain, in the DRS zone, they are fairly matched. However, on the non-DRS ones, there is some interesting pattern there.

In the 3400m and 4100m regions, the 2004 has an advantage through all the full throttle zone because it exited the mid-speed corners(T11 & T13) with a higher speed.

Elsewhere(at around 750, 1600, 2400 and 4900m region), the 2004 car's speed starts to spread away only above the 200kmh neighbourhood.
note:At 1500m, there is a big difference in cornering speed because T4 was slightly different in 2004

In Hockenheim, it's pretty much the same as in Bahrain, while in Monza the F2004 is much faster through all the straights' extension

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Artur Craft
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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Reca, thanks SO much :!: =D>

Please, don't worry at all about the time it took to make it. I just hope these analysis do not give you too much work :wink:

If you want to try it, I found 2 other versions of the Schumacher 2003 video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVNApxdFHWk
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8lc7z ... schum_auto

As for the 2001 pole, I got the info of 304.1 kmh in speed trap(just after 130R) from this video:
http://youtu.be/YWJftDyIb2g?t=5m25s

The Hamilton analysis seems quite right, speedwise, compared with cars from around same era.

The 2004 qualifying was indeed in damp conditions and I guess cars could lap up to 2,5-3s faster in a normal rubbered in dry tarmac

It's impressive the straight line speed advantage of the 2014 car and how much time it gains already in the begining of the lap.

At 850m(just after T2), the 2013 is already ~0,35s down on 2014. While the 2004 and 2009 are lagging behind W06 by ~0,41s and ~0,7s, respectivelly

Also a big advantage for the 2014 car in the 4500 to 5300m, and 3200 to 3750m regions. The straight speed gap is too big compared to the 2009 and 2013 cars

That's how/why the 2014 laptime, in Suzuka, isn't so bad. It gains big time in the straights to make up for the huge deficit in the high speed corners.

It's also unbelievable what Schumacher does in Degner 1. He's the fastest despite the damp track(~250kmh at the apex at around 2300m). In the first Spoon(3900m), he's also the fastest.

I think around the Esses and at 130R the track was quite bad as, there, the F2004 is quite slow.

I wonder what would be the F2004's cornering speeds at the Esses, Degner and Spoon on a, rubberred in, perfectly dry track, and on slick tyres... :o

Reca, is it possible to analyse Webber's 2004 quali lap to compare with this(linked in my request post too)? I wonder how much downforce Jaguar had compared to F2004(Webber was P3 on the grid, 1s behind Schumacher's pole)

I guess those talks about 2010-2013 cars having more downforce than 2004 ones is completely debunked now with this.

I always believed that the top 2004 cars had quite more downforce than 2010-2013 ones due to it's much bigger diffuser(considerably bigger than even DDD, for instance)

@hollus, Schumacher's minimum speed in Degner 1 was ~250kmh while Rosberg's was ~210kmh. At first Spoon, it was 220kmh for the F2004 versus 190kmh of the W06. Adding the damp track factor, it's just a humiliation of the 2004 cars over the 2014 ones in the high speed corners.

We also already saw that in Silverstone's Copse, where ~240kmh was the speed of the 2014 cars on their qualifying simulations in FPs while 2006/2010 cars could go at over 280kmh

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hollus
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Re: 2014 pace vs. 2004 pace, where, how are they better?

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Artur Craft wrote: @hollus, Schumacher's minimum speed in Degner 1 was ~250kmh while Rosberg's was ~210kmh. At first Spoon, it was 220kmh for the F2004 versus 190kmh of the W06. Adding the damp track factor, it's just a humiliation of the 2004 cars over the 2014 ones in the high speed corners.

We also already saw that in Silverstone's Copse, where ~240kmh was the speed of the 2014 cars on their qualifying simulations in FPs while 2006/2010 cars could go at over 280kmh
I agree. Muuuch slower in the high speed corners. But interestingly, you are citing an ~17% deficit in speed, while the 2014 cars carry an 14% penalty in weight. Cars designers have clawed back a lot of what the regulations took back in power and in aero.
I am starting to think that the only think making 2014 cars look really slow is the weight limit. Which of course they are increasing for next year in their infinite wisdom now that nobody is complaining about skinny drivers anymore and that heavy FRIC systems are off the cars. :-(
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