Spanish GP 2010 - Barcelona

[Giblet]

Nice find Feynman.

[andrew]

So how does a wheel rim fall off? Faulty wheel? Track debris?

[Shaddock]

Hamilton set the fastest lap of the race on lap 59 (124.3) a couple of laps before the tyre let go. Common sense suggests that if his front left front tyre (on a right hand track) had worn away, then he'd be struggling for grip in turn 1 & 3 and well off the pace.

[Giblet]

These guys do full prolonged burnouts at shows and side events on a regular basis.

They showed a slow mo shot of Vettel or Webber at one point int he race, and the amount of sidewall flex is awesome. Enkei needs to do some evaluation with their rims, as they are what looks like exploded.

The driver controls the car so they have to manage their tyres.

No, you never said that the drivers could cause the tires to fail, but you just randomly said the above quote while discussing it, so you must see how your statement could be misconstrued. We know it was not the driver, let's move on.

[Poleman]

So how does a wheel rim fall off? Faulty wheel? Track debris?

In the replay there does not seem to hit any debris,so yes it was a faulty wheel i suppose,or something else in the suspensions geometry causing the rim to fall off...Either way seems its material issue and not driver's fault...It could as well have happened at any point of the race IMHO.

[andrew]

These guys do full prolonged burnouts at shows and side events on a regular basis.

They showed a slow mo shot of Vettel or Webber at one point int he race, and the amount of sidewall flex is awesome. Enkei needs to do some evaluation with their rims, as they are what looks like exploded.

The driver controls the car so they have to manage their tyres.

No, you never said that the drivers could cause the tires to fail, but you just randomly said the above quote while discussing it, so you must see how your statement could be misconstrued. We know it was not the driver, let's move on.

It was in responce to the post by Ringo.

[andrew]

So how does a wheel rim fall off? Faulty wheel? Track debris?

In the replay there does not seem to hit any debris,so yes it was a faulty wheel i suppose,or something else in the suspensions geometry causing the rim to fall off...Either way seems its material issue and not driver's fault...It could as well have happened at any point of the race IMHO.

Whitmarsh spoke about a piece of debris possibly causing the rim to fall off. Does anyone know enough about F1 wheel to know if this is possible?

[ringo]

I am clueless but If the rim is Aluminum alloy, which does not have an infinite fatigue life like steel, brittle aluminum too, then may be if it is under load then suddenly impacted by a stone, maybe it could fail.
The tyre forces are so great as well. Either 64 laps may have been the endurance limit of the wheel with high loading, or some debris was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Brittle things also have poor impact strength, and tend to propagate cracks when they fail, and fail very suddenly. I.e. if the F1 wheels are designed to be hard, they could be designed to be tough instead so i don't really know.


Anyone knows if the wheel is completely forged or if the broken piece was welded on?

[WhiteBlue]

So how does a wheel rim fall off? Faulty wheel? Track debris?

In the replay there does not seem to hit any debris,so yes it was a faulty wheel i suppose,or something else in the suspensions geometry causing the rim to fall off...Either way seems its material issue and not driver's fault...It could as well have happened at any point of the race IMHO.

Whitmarsh spoke about a piece of debris possibly causing the rim to fall off. Does anyone know enough about F1 wheel to know if this is possible?

Lol, same lame theory as Ron Dennis in 2008. I do not believe those guys. McLaren never published the reason for the Kovalainen crash at Barcelona in 2008. It is most likely a design flaw they want to keep under wraps to their own drivers. Funny it only happens in Barca and to the left front wheel. This is according to Bridgestone the wheel and tyre which really takes a beating on this particular circuit.

[segedunum]

Fastest lap of the race. Almost if Redbull is geared to be fast specially for qualifying. In the race the Mclaren is the quickest once again. Or maybe it's the driver.

The fastest lap means very little in all honesty when it is set on low fuel when you have no hope of victory and are fifteen seconds back down the road. When it all counted Mark Webber still pulled out six or seven tenths on any given lap whenever he needed it.

The simple arithmetic is that McLaren have to find between half a second and a second in downforce to be able to compete for victories and certainly to get track position in qualifying.

Having said all that though, half a second should be enough because I'm certain McLaren with their tyre modelling systems are getting more out of the tyres during the race and are further ahead in knowing when to conserve them. Red Bull look too uncertain in that department, so that's a definite plus for McLaren.

[segedunum]

Yep, that is a definite rim failure and not a failure where you see the canvas being worn, so this is a mechanical problem of some kind. Put Lewis Hamilton's tyre management back on ice. This is not his fault.

[ISLAMATRON]

could it be the shroud connected to the brake duct? a stone can get in there and machine the wheel down... did they have have those during Heikki's shunt

It could have been stones from Vettle's off that did the job.

[Ray]

There is no way Lewis caused that tire failure. Replays clearly show something on the wheel itself failed and the tire went down because of that. There was nothing Lewis did to contribute to that failure. Full stop.

[WhiteBlue]

It surely was the wheel and not the tyre. Hamilton could not have done anything different. The team has to design a left front wheel that can stand the loads of the Barca circuit for 66 laps and not for 64. Unfortunately compared to Vettel Lewis had no warning prior to the failure so he could not save anything from the mishap. Vettel realized that his brakes were gone and was coached by the team. He checked in to have the tyres changed, the suspension checked and got advise to drive without the brakes. If Hamilton's wheel had gone at the start of the straight and he had a chance to slow down and limp home he might have ended in the points. This way he was classified 13th and that was no help. With less damage P8 or P9 would have been possible. But that is racing. Sometimes the sh!t hits the fan.

[jon-mullen]

+1 to the two above. I blame Lewis when I burn my toast in the morning, but this one probably wasn't his fault. I could see the argument if he'd had an off, but just driving around normally trading fastest laps with the other guys at the end of the field...?

Plus there was a lot of crap on the circuit all through-out the race (did anyone else notice the sparkly stuff that was flying through the air at one point?), it could have happened to anybody. Good thing it happened to him, though.