Nebhotep wrote:Could it be the case that the tires' construction decides the world champion in 2011 and beyond?
- Will it be the sole determining factor? No.
Will it be one of the few large changes from 2010 to 2011 that teams and drivers will need to adapt to? Yes.
Will the comparative success of the teams and drivers adaptation to the tires specifically have a large effect on their 2011 success? Yes, for sure.
Jersey Tom wrote:y the way, I'm going to go ahead and say the line "Schumi prefers oversteer" is complete and utter BS, that gets perpetuated all over the place. It makes me cringe every time I see it.
-Complete and utter BS? I'm not sure if I would go that far. The point that is attempted to be made by this, overly popular, statement, is based on a valid idea. At least in my opinion anyway.
The term "oversteer" is incorrectly used. I think the characteristics Shumi prefers in comparison to some other drivers is a heavily front-end dependent car. By that I mean, a car that uses front-end geometry to communicate the grip at both front and rear very heavily. This is mostly in terms of driver "feel"
The younger drivers, have grown up driving cars with tires that have peaky slip angles, stiff tires and suspension and high-speed, aerodynamic over mechanical grip biased suspension. The stiffer and smaller the tires, the stiffer the suspension, the higher the downforce, the less front-end geometry is often used. Less caster, which is used to compensate for higher aerodynamic load and the stiffer more weight sensitive tires. This means often times the easier to adapt to, the safer and easier car to drive and feel/find the limit will leave a car that will push the front-end before losing the rear on medium to highspeed corners.
You can say they all slide out of the slower corners, in heavy power down situations, but that is very different than a closer to "steady-state" medium-high speed corner balance.
Schumi would like to be able to dial in more or less steering angle to play with the cars rotation. This can really only happen if the car, near the limit, will lose rear grip before front. This, to work, requires a car that is comparatively soft in the rear and stiff in the front. This doesn't mean the car is balanced incorrectly and it also doesn't mean it is not using the full potential of the available grip at both axles. It only means that when near the limit, instead of the front falling off in terms of grip, the rear will do so first.
Considering different levels of mechanical vs. aerodynamic grip, the length and degree of corners, steering angles etc. etc. It is impossible setup a car that will lose grip at both ends at the same time, consistently. Not to mention, more importantly, simultaneous grip lose from both axles would be near impossible for a driver to push to the limit.
The current car, in comparison to what Schumi would prefer, is more dependent on a narrow range of steering angles and more sensitive to throttle and brake applications. This type of car tends to understeer at the limit. Schumi is the type of driver that would probably struggle with "feel" and would describe the car as "numb", "unresponsive" or "uncommunicative"
Schumi would like to play with both steering angles and the throttle/brake to find the limit of the car.
A younger driver, for instance, Nico Rosberg, would probably describe a car schumi likes as "twitchy", "pointy" or "unstable"...
Tires have a large effect on this, the difference in how the front tires respond to more or less slip angle, steering angle etc. and how the rear loses and regains grip laterally, whether smooth lose, with maybe less overall grip, or very peaky, with more overall grip.
I wonder if this made any sense?
