My 2010 Data Thread

[747heavy]

how would we possibly explain the parallel trends all cosworth teams show on average?

I almost think we should compare the other way round using HRT as a baseline as these obviously are NOT developing their car and should now also have converged towards the optimum in setup .They might have found the odd thing or two but from race three or 4 on I´m quite sure their car has not improved in terms of potential.

Good question Markus.
Maybe it shows the influnence of the engine to overall performance.
Following along this line, it would mean Valencia is the track, where engine performance is less critical.
What I find interesting is the large difference between Monaco and Hungary, if we keep in mind, that both are "relative" slow and both are max downforce tracks.

I will make the comparsion the other way round, using HRT as baseline, let´s see what comes out of it.

BTW: I would say it the other way round, the RB& was make to fit these tracks
It would not surprise me, and makes sense. The venues are known to the teams, so you design your car, make the compromises with the tracks you race on in mind.
So RBR maybe have seen these tracks as "mission critical" for their WCD/WCC campain.

Have a great weekend Markus

[marcush.]

cool 747h ,that leaves me with my workload for this weekend instead of scraping all the times..

ha and the cossy paralellism is in my view not driven by the engine it is simply the RedBull superiority that is creating these paralell bumps..

But I´m looking very very much forward to your HRT baselined analysis.

Hispania tech boss Geoff Willis has praised his two drivers, saying they are almost solely responsible for the progress that the team has made.

Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok faced a tough task at the start of this season, as the two rookies joined the Formula One grid with a brand new team that failed to take part in a single test in the pre-season.

As such it was always going to be difficult for the team to catch even the midfield outfits, however, slowly but surely that is what Hispania are doing as they close the gap.

And to prove my point some words by Geoff Willis:(source planet F1/7july 2010)


"You can clearly see we have been maintaining pace and if anything compared to the leading cars, closing up. We were 6.5% off the pace and now we are typically 4.8-5% off with qualifying time.

"The car is fundamentally the same, so I think that has come from the drivers. Both of them have worked well with the team and have a good working relationship."

[747heavy]

so why change the drivers then ???? - looks like you just get rid off the only source of your improvement.

No - just kidding. I can follow your/his logic. On the other hand the percentage anakysis is maybe a little bit misleading in itself. As one could argue, that HRT is improving at a faster rate then RBR orr the teams in front of them (closing the gap). This is "true" but if you start with such a low baseline it´s easier to find a 20% or 30% gain. They gain 2sec "easy" and RBR is all out to bring 0.25sec a race. We both know, that it is the last 0.10 sec which is difficult to get and which cost you the mega bucks in development.
If you wanted to make a "valid" joke and calculate laptime gain/cost-money spend, most likely HRT will win hands down.

On a side not, what I found interesting as well, is how similar the Lotus and HRT lines look.
O.K. they are on a different base level, but the tends are nearly identical, with Virgin following a different trendline. So same engine, similar aero concept as well maybe??? - dunno just something which striked me as odd/interesting

[PlatinumZealot]

You guys should post the sources of your data anytime you do any analysis.

[marcush.]

so why change the drivers then ???? - looks like you just get rid off the only source of your improvement.

No - just kidding. I can follow your/his logic. On the other hand the percentage anakysis is maybe a little bit misleading in itself. As one could argue, that HRT is improving at a faster rate then RBR orr the teams in front of them (closing the gap). This is "true" but if you start with such a low baseline it´s easier to find a 20% or 30% gain. They gain 2sec "easy" and RBR is all out to bring 0.25sec a race. We both know, that it is the last 0.10 sec which is difficult to get and which cost you the mega bucks in development.
If you wanted to make a "valid" joke and calculate laptime gain/cost-money spend, most likely HRT will win hands down.

On a side not, what I found interesting as well, is how similar the Lotus and HRT lines look.
O.K. they are on a different base level, but the tends are nearly identical, with Virgin following a different trendline. So same engine, similar aero concept as well maybe??? - dunno just something which striked me as odd/interesting

your quote of :last tenth most difficult...I would subscribe to it no question ,BUT:
RedBull have made significant steps coming from the best base to start with...so in effect this year has shown everyone that their concepts are fundamentally wrong in this context as RedBull is already quickestplus can find the biggest gains + is able to integrate other conceptstrengths -like f-duct-

my idea at the beginning of the year was. Redbull will have a hard time to find more than the odd tenth and the other teams will quickly reel in and at this point of the season the top4 or 5 would fight eye to eye.that has not happened obviously.

[747heavy]

base data (lap times in Qualifying) where taken from F1.com in my case.

[747heavy]

BUT:
RedBull have made significant steps coming from the best base to start with...so in effect this year has shown everyone that their concepts are fundamentally wrong in this context as RedBull is already quickestplus can find the biggest gains + is able to integrate other conceptstrengths -like f-duct-

I would agree with that Markus.
If you want to call it that the RB concept seems to be better/faster to start with, but is also more "scaleable".
They can add to it with other components like the F-Duct and still improve it.

Where some other teams "top-out" with there base concept rather quickly, and then are on a plateau, from where improvements are difficult to get/find.

I think Brawn last year and now MGP are good examples, of teams which hit a "glass sealing" with there car performance rather quickly.

[marcush.]

or they have not found the sweet spot.
my cumbersome experience told me not to work on areas that do not restrain the preformance of the car I´m working on.So putting effort into the wrong areas will do next to nothing for your performance.(a half tenth improvement will not show if your driver has a spread of 3 seconds per lap with no changes made..).
same goes for setups .If you ain´t close it does not make sense to try minute steps .Wrong is wrong .You stand a good chance to improve changing in significant steps.

[747heavy]

@ Markus

Here is the qualifying times analysis using HRT as baseline
all times are from F1.com
the way the graphic reads is % faster then the time HRT achieved in Quali.
Means as higher the reading as faster the car was in relation to HRT.
It´s an "all out" car performance analysis, using the fastest time posted by the best car of each team during Qualifying, it does not matter if the time was done in Q1 Q2 or Q3, the fastest time counts.
Therefore, it does not necessary represent the starting order or the final order after qualifying.


http://i805.photobucket.com/albums/yy33 ... alysis.jpg

[marcush.]

cool..many thanks!
saved my sunday!

[747heavy]

So Marcus,
if we follow your line of thought (and I see merrit in it), and we assume that HRT did not bring any performance updates, we can say, that by concentrating on making the best out of what they have (set-up) they made some decent gains for a large part of the season (so far).
It looks like that by Canada/Valencia they have hit the sealing, since then they started to fall back again, or the others improve at a higher rate, with their updates.

But clearly we can see/say, that there is something to be gained from concentrating only on set-up or "driver-tuning".
Allowing your drivers to adapt to the car, and getting the best out of the package(car) and themself.
And I agree with you, that some teams with their updates are just "confusing" themselfs, and for the drivers it is difficult to adapt to a major concept change, like EBD or F-Duct with the limited test/practice time.
They surely leave something (laptime wise) on the table, by trying too hard/quick to go ahead.

On the other hand, it may pays off in the later part of the season, as they will have more time to get on top of the things like EBD/F-Duct/Flexi wings. In the short term, I would agree, you have a fair chance to confuse yourself, and shot yourself in the foot, as far as race results go, by being to ambitious, and wanting too much, too quick.
Especially, if you are allready a bit lost (MGP?)in understanding your car/concept.
Adding more variables may don´t make the task at hand any easier.

[Caito]

It could be that cosworth reamins constant, and what you're actually seeing is the variability of the fastest car.

[747heavy]

It could be that cosworth reamins constant, and what you're actually seeing is the variability of the fastest car.

Yes true,
any comparsion will always depend on which reference you choose/use, and can be interpreted in two or more ways.

[marcush.]

truth is ,you cannot only look at the times...you also have to look for the story behind,for example HRT were in uproar a bit with Senna not driving in silverstone...that hurt for sure...
and you can savely say HRT lacks downforce : Barcelona ,silverstone and Hungary were for sure not suited to their car.

but compare the trend from Barcelona -Montecarlo-Turkey-Canada -Valencia ! Very very different tracks yet HRT creeping closer the whole field in fact within 5% in Valencia..

the amazing thing is Virgin had big difficulty to leave HRT behind ..so for Virgin the preseason testing was quite useless and it took them till silverstone to start
making progress adding performance..while HRT were creeping closer and closer..to almost no difference timewise....

so in all a very fascinating graph we get here and I´m looking forward to how this
will develop till the end of the year...will the overall spread close again or will it be more horizontal?

[ESPImperium]

Let me sate how i create my graph for the teams, and it is quite simple. I dont take the fastest lap of the weekend, i take Quali laps, taking Q3 times ahead of Q2 times no matter if they are faster, and same with Q2 times over Q1 times. On the occasions of drivers sitting out Quali or havent set a time, i then take their FP3 time as a reprosentitive time. This way i feel that i can judge the way develop more accuratly. May not get out right pace i know, but i feel it more accuratly gives the ballance of pace in Quali and Race Pace.

marcush has the best interpritation of the graphs, but there are some right off races, Malasia is one for all teams, and id expect another before the end of the year for all teams. There are a couple others for specific teams tho.

As for Hispania, for a team that has only put about 5% new parts on their cars since Bahrain, they have came along way, understood their base package better than Virgin and got on top of the niggles quicker. Virgin have wasted best part of half a season getting on theese, Lotus understood things from about Barcelona on properly and HRT understood from Canada onward. On that HRT have seen a base improvement of arround 5%, Virgin about 2% and Lotus about 5%. Id expect to see theese figures fall as Lotus still have some pre-arranged things to come, so expect to see arround 1.5% there, Virgin now will see more improvement as they know whats what now, but the recent change of facility at Wirth Research may cause problems, so id say about 2% there, as for Hispania, they will still be slow, but relyably slow, putting Virgin under pressure in the race. And driver dependant for HRT, can go faster, but the team have 4 drivers ready to use for any race now, so that will hamper their end figure and trend.

The teams that have improved the most from season start are BMW Sauber and Williams, altho Williams took a dip in the middle, but thats because Rubens insisted on a full Wind Tunnel recalibration as the parts they were coming to him were wrong, as Barcelona seeks testiment to. It clearly shows the BMW Sauber was running underweight in the pre season as they cannot replicte their pace on season.