Red Bull RB9 Renault

[aral]

And yet, the RedBull is slower down the straights than the other top end cars

Gearing! A fact that has often been acknowledged by Red Bull. It is part of a trade-off.

You don't gear short unless you know you have a low top speed already, or trouble accelerating, both of which are indicators of high drag.

Of course you can gear short, irrespective of drag! Red Bull concentrate on closer gearing to provide better acceleration out of corners, as they have superior mechanical grip. That is why their top speed with DRS open (less drag) is barely better than others without DRS open. Look at lap times. Despite lower top speed, their overall lap time is normally better than than every other team.

[beelsebob]

You don't gear short unless you know you have a low top speed already, or trouble accelerating, both of which are indicators of high drag.

Of course you can gear short, irrespective of drag!

You can, but you don't.

Red Bull concentrate on closer gearing to provide better acceleration out of corners, as they have superior mechanical grip.

Except that they don't have superior mechanical grip, as evidenced by repeatedly getting eaten alive in the initial phase of the start.

That is why their top speed with DRS open (less drag) is barely better than others without DRS open. Look at lap times. Despite lower top speed, their overall lap time is normally better than than every other team.

Sure – there's a trade off in gearing balancing acceleration against top speed, but what you're describing is something that can be trivially done by all teams. If simply gearing any car shorter made your lap times better, all teams would do it, right now. Red bull are gearing their car shorter than the other teams for a reason – because a characteristic of their car is different to a characteristic of the other teams. The trivial way to explain that is "because it's more draggy", as that would explain both the need for shorter gearing (to compensate for slower acceleration due to drag, and for a lower top speed), and the fact that the car appears to have more downforce (but also drag to compensate for it).

[BreezyRacer]

Red Bull - New Rear Wing incl leading edge hole

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BK345eFCEAELfQH.jpg:large

Is that an inlet on the endplates?

[Matt Somers]

Red Bull - New Rear Wing incl leading edge hole

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BK345eFCEAELfQH.jpg:large

Is that an inlet on the endplates?

Yes, as I captioned it 'Red Bull - New Rear Wing incl leading edge hole'

It's becoming somewhat of a trend now....

[aral]

You can, but you don't..

Better tell Red Bull that!

Except that they don't have superior mechanical grip, as evidenced by repeatedly getting eaten alive in the initial phase of the start.[/quote}

Your opinion seems to differ to that of a lot of others. The speed with which RB can exit corners, is a result of mechanical grip, nothing to do with aero etc.

Red bull are gearing their car shorter than the other teams for a reason

For the reasons that I have stated, and also discussed by Brundle etc.

[stefan_]

Monaco 2013 - Wednesday (22.05.2013)

[beelsebob]

Except that they don't have superior mechanical grip, as evidenced by repeatedly getting eaten alive in the initial phase of the start.

Your opinion seems to differ to that of a lot of others. The speed with which RB can exit corners, is a result of mechanical grip, nothing to do with aero etc.

No, it's because it maintains a higher mid corner speed, and hence gets out of the corner faster too.

[Artur Craft]

About "Red Bull having the most df but being jeopardized by the Pirellis", I wouldn't trust that claim that Pirelli have access to all teams telemetry and data and, therefore, knows RB have the most df.

So how else is Pirelli going to make suitable tires that will last on every car(which they dont btw but that's a whole other story)?

They need that data to make the suitable tires, else it will be all guesstimates and they'll get it wrong major time at some point in a season, if not at the start already.

You need to have a big difference in what you expect and what is the max load on the tires. The figure of 20% is mentioned on the article. In F1, downforce fluctuates much less due to tight regulations.

Maybe not even Marussia/Caterham have less than 20% than top downforce car.

Pirelli doesn't need to know the exact downforce figures of the F1 cars to provide suitable tires to all of them. They just need to know the rough level of df of this current generation of cars and design tires with a large enough window to cover it

Example: Let's suppose Pirelli was told that the downforce level(at top speed) of the cars was around 1800Kgf and let's suppose with a big load transfer that one of the rear tires could have 45% of that load when cornering at very high speed(a la Copse). So, Pirelli would know that a single tire would need to withstand at least 1100kgf eventually(df+car weight+load transfer in this example).

Obviously, it's recommendable to design tires with a enough margin to it, so they could very well design a tire to cope with 2500kgf and be very well safe with it. No need to know exact and specific figures of every single car

[wesley123]

It needs good info on how the forces go through the tire(not downforce alone, but also weight, and power from the drive train will go through a tire).

With different set ups, different levels of df, and even different levels of acceleration and engine power, to make a guess that would suit equally for every team would be impossible. Therefore they need the telemetry data. Without that, making a suitable tire for every car is pretty much impossible. Also the telemetry gives insight to how a tire behaves, if it will fail, how it will fail and why it would fail. I dont think Pirelli could make a mid season tire change without access to the telemetry and seeing where things went wrong.

[Robbobnob]

And yet, the RedBull is slower down the straights than the other top end cars

Gearing! A fact that has often been acknowledged by Red Bull. It is part of a trade-off.

You don't gear short unless you know you have a low top speed already, or trouble accelerating, both of which are indicators of high drag.

They gear short to increase their overall average speed around a track. More time can be gained per lap by minimising the time spent at lower speeds than the time gained by increasing the highspeeds as they spend a larger percentage of the track time travelling around corners than they do on the straight.

I totally disagree with the notion that Red Bull lack in low speed traction, IMO that is one area where they excell, certainly in the last couple of seasons. You dont win Monaco without very good low speed traction, combine that with the success in Singapore and Baharain all tracks which are dominated by lowspeed corners Red Bull's track record speaks for itself.

By gearing lower they are making a strategic use of their edge in low speed traction allowing them to get off the corner apex's quicker than their rivals, trading for time gained on the straights.

[beelsebob]

You don't gear short unless you know you have a low top speed already, or trouble accelerating, both of which are indicators of high drag.

They gear short to increase their overall average speed around a track. More time can be gained per lap by minimising the time spent at lower speeds than the time gained by increasing the highspeeds as they spend a larger percentage of the track time travelling around corners than they do on the straight.

Somewhat going round in circles here... But... Again, if it were a simple matter of "gear short, you gain in acceleration zones what you lose at top speed, and more" then all the teams would be gearing that way – this isn't complex stuff, they'd just do the maths, and figure out at what ratios they're most optimal. Red Bull are not gearing short for this reason any more than any other team is. The point is that the maths works out for RedBull to require a lower top speed and shorter gears than it does for other teams. There's a reason for that – given that we know they have the same power as the other renault teams, and pretty much the same power as everyone else modulo a percentage point or two, there's only one reason why their maths would work out differently – drag. RedBull absolutely does have more drag than other teams, because there's simply no other way that the maths would work out more optimal to gear short for them than for anyone else.

[thisisatest]

You don't gear short unless you know you have a low top speed already, or trouble accelerating, both of which are indicators of high drag.

Of course you can gear short, irrespective of drag!

You can, but you don't.

Red Bull concentrate on closer gearing to provide better acceleration out of corners, as they have superior mechanical grip.

Except that they don't have superior mechanical grip, as evidenced by repeatedly getting eaten alive in the initial phase of the start.

That is why their top speed with DRS open (less drag) is barely better than others without DRS open. Look at lap times. Despite lower top speed, their overall lap time is normally better than than every other team.

Sure – there's a trade off in gearing balancing acceleration against top speed, but what you're describing is something that can be trivially done by all teams. If simply gearing any car shorter made your lap times better, all teams would do it, right now. Red bull are gearing their car shorter than the other teams for a reason – because a characteristic of their car is different to a characteristic of the other teams. The trivial way to explain that is "because it's more draggy", as that would explain both the need for shorter gearing (to compensate for slower acceleration due to drag, and for a lower top speed), and the fact that the car appears to have more downforce (but also drag to compensate for it).

red bull make a conscious decision to gear their car for the fastest lap. it is not the fastest way through a race, unless youre in front. you need to trade back some slight acceleration gains for more top end speed to get around cars on the straights. remember AbuDhabi last year: vettel was going to start from pit lane, so the team changed the car around, including going for a taller seventh gear (and probably taking of a bit of wing), to aid passing.
other teams weight the benefits of the passing aids heavier than red bull. it's a philosophical difference imo.

[Jonnycraig]

Lazenby on SkyF1 talking about RB; 'we all know they have the best car, certainly in terms of downforce'

I imagine poor old Bob has just smashed his tv.

[marcush.]

that rear suspension rockerarm is a massive piece of kit sure aimed at reducing installion stiffness issues due to the awkward angles in the pullrod ..and feeding the loads into the cf structure at favourable places..
https://imageshack.us/a/img209/4256/reddd.jpg (picture to befound above onthis page)

[stefan_]

Monaco 2013 - Thursday (23.05.2013)

Analysis: Red Bull Front Wing Adjuster