2011 Testing - Jerez - 10th to 13th Feb

[raymondu999]

RMS? Root Mean Square? As in AC vs DC voltage?

[myurr]

McLaren's running looks like it's been cut short by a shortage of parts. That's not unusual or a sign of any problems. At least they didn't have any explosions or stoppages on track so presumably it's all minor things - possibly CF bits being warped by exhaust heat, that kind of thing. The only down side so far has been that they've probably gathered less data than they would have liked.

Whilst they launched the car only a couple of days after the other teams many of the launch parts were made of plastic rather than being the real thing, so I would imagine that they were based off of early designs and were not the finished article. It sounds like they were designing at least a week longer than the other teams and that has given them less time to produce the parts they needed for the test.

Also the car is much more of a revolution than evolution when compared to the Red Bull and Ferrari, so it's not surprising there have been more minor niggles as they sort the car out.

I'd expect them to have had enough time to produce many more parts for the next test which will give them some good running, then in Bahrain we'll see an update for all the cars which will reset things at least to a degree.

[Richard]

I think there could be better reference points for calibrating the photos. The tyres provide a 660mm reference, that is also rounded. Using teh bodywork rules gives sharper points over longer distances.

Reg 3.16.1 defines the sharkfin/airbox dimensions. That kink in the sharkfins must be 1000 from the rear wheel centreline. Also the crash structure and rear wing end plate are limited to 595 & 600mm from the rear wheel centreline, lets say that is 600mm - I'm sure we'll tolerate that 5mm rounding error

That gives 1600mm reference dim from rear of car bodywork to the kink in the fin profile. Those cars without the angular fin can use 600mm to the rear of the wing end plate or crash structure

Finally, there is another check in that the leading edge of the front wing has to be 1000 from the front wheel centreline. There is a rule about the nose being a max 1200mm from the front wheel centreline, I suspect most cars use that other than Williams.

So, I'd expect to see overlays featuring the rear wheel centreline and rear bodywork matching on every car. The kink on the fin should also exactly match for cars with angular fins. You can use these points to stretch the cars for height and length (separately of course).

You'd then see cars with different wheelbases due to:
- Longer air box (ie the driver is further forward)
- Longer distance from airbox to front wheel centreline

myurr - thanks for the links to the psd files. I'm unable to edit that format for a couple of weeks, but hope to have play with them soon.

[myurr]

Richard, could you build up an overlay image that we can then use to resize the cars and make them fit that template?

[Jakkals]

From another forum:

Ferrari 463,
Red Bull 395,
Mercedes 338,
STR 327,
Sauber 320,
Renault 277,
FIndia 264,
Williams 253,
McLaren 233,
Virgin 216,
Lotus 198.

Seems to me that the cars that required more of a revolution to catch up to last seasons leaders (McLaren, Renault, et al)have difficulties in getting their concepts sorted and set-up, therefore the obvious less time on the track so far. The cars that are evolutions of already good concepts (RBR and Ferrari) have fewer niggles and are able to conduct good long runs. Makes you wonder if it was a good decision from McLaren to launch the new car later?

Bet RBR and Ferrari are the teams with the best tyre data at the moment, and they will have the advantage at the start of the season because of that.

[vall]

RMS? Root Mean Square?

yes, call it standard deviation is you wish

[Richard]

Here are the diagrams from the FIA regs. Take care over dimension 4, some cars have shorter noses, ie Williams. Stretching the cars in horizontal and vertical to fit those templates should give you a reasonable comparison.

[myurr]

Makes you wonder if it was a good decision from McLaren to launch the new car later?

Depends on whether the concept works or not.

Bet RBR and Ferrari are the teams with the best tyre data at the moment, and they will have the advantage at the start of the season because of that.

Again it depends, McLaren have enough data to get started with their new car, but they're the only team to have back to backed with the old car and so arguably have even better data.

[vall]

Bet RBR and Ferrari are the teams with the best tyre data at the moment, and they will have the advantage at the start of the season because of that.

Again it depends, McLaren have enough data to get started with their new car, but they're the only team to have back to backed with the old car and so arguably have even better data.

Isn't that irrelevant? I mean, you may have as much data as you wish with the old car, but ultimately what matters is the type behavior with the new car. So, I would think that the teams that completed most laps with the new car will be in the best position understand the tyre behavour.

[feynman]

I'd say it is relevant.

If you only have new car on new tyre data, and something is not working as expected, where do you start looking?

If you can engineer an unbroken thread, old car/old tyres, old car/new tyres, new car/new tyres ... then you at least give yourself half a chance to start making some meaningful projections and predictions.

If you have years of simulator data, and track data, that's a valuable, expensively acquired resource ... you don't cheaply throw it all in the dumpster and start afresh. Not if you can avoid it, surely? If you can figure out a way to parlay that into a head start on the new tyres, then I'd say it's worth a shot.

[Just_a_fan]

Isn't that irrelevant? I mean, you may have as much data as you wish with the old car, but ultimately what matters is the type behavior with the new car. So, I would think that the teams that completed most laps with the new car will be in the best position understand the tyre behavour.

If the old car is e.g. 0.5s faster on the new tyres than the old tyres and your new car is slower on the new tyres than your old car then you know you've got problems. Likewise, if your old car is 0.5s slower and your new car is 0.5s faster than that then you know that the new car / tyre combo is working and, crucially, that the new car is 0.5s quicker than the old car.

Also, if you know what your old car would do on the new tyres then you also have a feel for how the opposition are doing with their respective new car/tyre combo.

[RacingManiac]

Considering how much Computer Aided Engineering is in use nowadays, the more data point you can correlate to your model from real world, the better for your modeling accuracy. And that helps in everything that you do. Be it as this car, next car, or just all the incremental steps in between. If they can't trust their model then all the work will be for nothing.

[Jakkals]

Again it depends, McLaren have enough data to get started with their new car, but they're the only team to have back to backed with the old car and so arguably have even better data.

That's not entirely true. Everybody tested with the Pirellis end of last season at Yas for exactly this reason, to have base data to compare their new cars with. I still think that the teams that have the most mileage on the new cars at the moment, have the better data sets to model with, and to get workable tire strategies in place by Bahrain.

[feynman]

But those beta prototype tyres at the end of last year are different from what they are running now, so the thread is broken.

Yes you could say, clean-sheet, let's pound round on what we've got and get as much data as we can, or you could instead say let's try and correlate what we've got to what we used to have, and see if we can re-use some of that data and shortcut the test and development program.

Two ways to skin the same cat, not clear yet which will pay off over the length of a full season.

[vall]

I appreciate McLaren's systematic, scientific approach because I am myself a scientist. But I think that it would make sense to test the old car/new tyres back in the summer before starting the new car design. Thus they could design the new car around the new tyres behevior.

Now the new car has been designed with fixed weight distribution, the suspension is fixed, etc. So, the tyre behivior should depend how you actually set up the car. Now you need to see how the tyres respond to different set-ups, fuel loads, etc, and to do that you need mileage with the new car to accumulate data. And McLaren are clear behind the other team. This is my opinion, but perhaps I am missing something.