RB Traction Control yin yang

[turbof1]

Ok, gentleman please. I know this is a yin yang topic, but as this is also f1technical, we are supposed to deliver a high quality of yin yang. Let's keep the personal issues out of this, ok? Richard already has enough head aches moving unrelated stuff out of the normal topics, what is supposed to do when we finds debates not fitting in a ying yang topic? Please spare the man!

[fasterthanyou]

SectorOne,

Please clarify when exactly Alonso with new tires was slower than Vettel with 26 laps old tires. This never happened in Singapore.

[SectorOne]

SectorOne,

Please clarify when exactly Alonso with new tires was slower than Vettel with 26 laps old tires. This never happened in Singapore.

Sorry typo. 16 lap old tires. So if you see 26 in older posts it´s really 16.
Not sure why 26 stuck in my head.

[MrBlacky]

I don't get it.

Why should VET be that much quicker in the race, but only scratches the pole by 1 tenth?

[Stradivarius]

I made a plot that shows most of Vettel's and Rosberg's lap times. I have excluded the worst laps for both, i.e. inlaps, outlaps and laps behind safety car. I have probably included a bit too many of Rosberg's laps in traffic, but I have removed the worst ones towards the end. I also removed Vettel's last laps and, where he clearly slowed down.

Using linear regression, I have added a trend line for both of them. These lines are separated by around 0.5 s at the beginning and a little more than 1 s at the end.



Notice how Rosberg's lap times improve a lot at the beginning and then, significantly more than the general trend, and then he is quite close to Vettel's pace for the rest of the stint. Vettel's development is more normal, as he goes fast at the beginning with supersofts and then the tyre degradation more or less counteracts the fuel load reduction.

I think this plots demonstrates clearly that when the difference between Vettel and Rosberg was greatest, Vettel was following a normal trend, while Rosberg was deviating upwards from the trend. On the first 4 laps, Rosberg is very slow, but he then speeds up. I can't see any evidence that it is Vettel who is very quick and then slows down.

Then, after the safety car, it's again Rosberg who is very slow, not Vettel being very quick. It should be noted that the linear fit isn't really realistic here, because you would expect the lap times to drop more than normally after the safety car. The reason for this is that the drivers are not wearing their tyres as much during safety car, but they are making sure to burn the fuel to keep their car at the optimum weight. This means that we should expect a step down in the lap times after burning fuel for some laps without degrading the tyres as much as normal. So Vettel's laps, which seem to be a lot quicker than the trend suggests, are not really that much faster than what one would expect. Also, it is clear that on the second stint, Vettel had no reason to go slow, as he was fighting Alonso, who had finished his stop. Vettel needed 25 seconds on Alonso and had to open the gap.

[fasterthanyou]

SectorOne,

Please clarify when exactly Alonso with new tires was slower than Vettel with 26 laps old tires. This never happened in Singapore.

Sorry typo. 16 lap old tires. So if you see 26 in older posts it´s really 16.
Not sure why 26 stuck in my head.

I don't remember the detail of the race but according to laptime graph Alonso is actually faster before the pitstop, traffic maybe or tyre not up to temp?

[SectorOne]

I don't remember the detail of the race but according to laptime graph Alonso is actually faster before the pitstop, traffic maybe or tyre not up to temp?

Could be the case yes, or even pressures, or that the SS simply is so much quicker that even on a worn set they are still quicker then a fresh medium.

But to make things as simple as possible, you look at the first couple of laps in the race, Vettel and Rosberg having clear path ahead of them and just gunning it to establish themselves in the race.

The first four laps Vettel pulled away with an average of 1,5 seconds per lap. This is the elephant in the room.
Now if you want to find out the tire life among other stuff then using all of the available laptimes is good.
But if you want to find out the ultimate pace, what the car really can do, using all the laptimes will skew the facts.
Based on the simple fact that they are tire limited still, even though they have better compounds now.



You have this short burst of explosion which then transforms into something more controlled.

[Stradivarius]

The first four laps Vettel pulled away with an average of 1,5 seconds per lap. This is the elephant in the room.

And yet, Rosberg matches these times just a few laps later. Why don't you consider the possibility that the big difference was a result of Rosberg being very slow at the beginning? His lap times drops significantly.

[turbof1]

The first four laps Vettel pulled away with an average of 1,5 seconds per lap. This is the elephant in the room.

And yet, Rosberg matches these times just a few laps later. Why don't you consider the possibility that the big difference was a result of Rosberg being very slow at the beginning? His lap times drops significantly.

He explained why. When looking for ultimate pace, taking all laps into account will make it seem less. Vettel was effectively told after those laps "maintain gap".

[SectorOne]

Stradivarius - I´m not sure how many times i should explain the same thing. I think we are up to about 54 times at this point.

[turbof1]

It is difficult to get a mathematical view on this. Vettel pushed in the beginning, then settled down and actually tried to match the pace of his closest opponent. A driver holding back isn't showing true pace. Rosberg might have or might haven't took it a bit easy in the first few laps, we don't know really know.

What we do know: after the safety car both Rosberg and Vettel were in the same stint; both didn't went in for new tyres. During that time Vettel blasted Rosberg off the timing table. Both drivers pitted one last time. Surely Rosberg didn't have a reason then to hold back before pitting? He had to pull up as big a gap as he could towards the ones he might had to fight later on after he pitted. One possible remark on this could be that Rosberg tried to go to the end with his tyres. Do we know that for sure? No.

Again, putting a real number on it is difficult and this discussion could go on forever. My suggestion: everybody agrees to disagree. You all aren't going to get anything better out of it.

[Stradivarius]

The first four laps Vettel pulled away with an average of 1,5 seconds per lap. This is the elephant in the room.

And yet, Rosberg matches these times just a few laps later. Why don't you consider the possibility that the big difference was a result of Rosberg being very slow at the beginning? His lap times drops significantly.

He explained why. When looking for ultimate pace, taking all laps into account will make it seem less. Vettel was effectively told after those laps "maintain gap".

This seems to be down to simple logic: Vettel pulled away on the first 4 laps and then the difference got smaller. There are two possible explanations for it: Vettel was fast, but then slowed down, or Rosberg was slow and then speeded up. Looking at the lap times, I think it is quite obviuos that the latter was the case here. The lap times don't normally drop by 1.5 seconds in 3 laps. Normally, the super soft tyres loose most of the performance on the first few laps and then the change from one lap to the next decreases. After a few laps, Rosberg was matching the times that Vettel was doing with new tyres. As you see in the plot I posted, it is Rosberg's times that deviate most from the trend.

On lap 5 Rosberg is running close to Vettel's pace and the fuel load has been reduced a little bit, and the track has rubbered in a bit. On the other hand, the tyres are worn a bit more. Maybe you could add a couple of tenths to Rosberg's time on lap 5 and then it is comparable to Vettel's time on laps 2, 3, 4. But that doesn't add up to a difference of more than one second.

For the argument to hold, that Vettel was slowing down, you need to assume that the lap times drop naturally with 0.5 s per lap because of reduced fuel load and improved track conditions. But I can't see anything that indicates such a rapid improvement. The trends we see, suggests a significantly smaller/slower improvement.

[Richard]

This image says it all. Laptimes are heavily influenced by strategy & traffic. That's why debating laptimes is so futile and frankly a waste of brain power.

Now lets get back on topic please:- RB traction control, is there any evidence for it, what might it be?

[GitanesBlondes]

And yet, Rosberg matches these times just a few laps later. Why don't you consider the possibility that the big difference was a result of Rosberg being very slow at the beginning? His lap times drops significantly.

He explained why. When looking for ultimate pace, taking all laps into account will make it seem less. Vettel was effectively told after those laps "maintain gap".

This seems to be down to simple logic: Vettel pulled away on the first 4 laps and then the difference got smaller. There are two possible explanations for it: Vettel was fast, but then slowed down, or Rosberg was slow and then speeded up. Looking at the lap times, I think it is quite obviuos that the latter was the case here. The lap times don't normally drop by 1.5 seconds in 3 laps. Normally, the super soft tyres loose most of the performance on the first few laps and then the change from one lap to the next decreases. After a few laps, Rosberg was matching the times that Vettel was doing with new tyres. As you see in the plot I posted, it is Rosberg's times that deviate most from the trend.

On lap 5 Rosberg is running close to Vettel's pace and the fuel load has been reduced a little bit, and the track has rubbered in a bit. On the other hand, the tyres are worn a bit more. Maybe you could add a couple of tenths to Rosberg's time on lap 5 and then it is comparable to Vettel's time on laps 2, 3, 4. But that doesn't add up to a difference of more than one second.

For the argument to hold, that Vettel was slowing down, you need to assume that the lap times drop naturally with 0.5 s per lap because of reduced fuel load and improved track conditions. But I can't see anything that indicates such a rapid improvement. The trends we see, suggests a significantly smaller/slower improvement.

Unfortunately it makes more strategic sense to simply maintain the gap as needed once it becomes obvious no one else has the pace to match it. We all know the tires being what they are, requires teams to figure out the best way to maximize the overall tire life each stint, while still maintaining a pace that doesn't cause them to go backwards. It comes down to simple risk/reward, and the smart play is not to take any unnecessarily stupid risks from a strategic standpoint.

I've seen nothing to indicate the W04 as driven by Rosberg was capable of matching the potential of the RB9 at Marina Bay.

As I said in the race topic, I think people still haven't quite got it in their head how good the RB9 is when piloted by Vettel. Great drivers in worldbeater cars have the luxury of backing off a lot more than a good driver in a good car can because it takes a lot less work to open up a gap as needed.

[Stradivarius]

Unfortunately it makes more strategic sense to simply maintain the gap as needed once it becomes obvious no one else has the pace to match it. We all know the tires being what they are, requires teams to figure out the best way to maximize the overall tire life each stint, while still maintaining a pace that doesn't cause them to go backwards. It comes down to simple risk/reward, and the smart play is not to take any unnecessarily stupid risks from a strategic standpoint.

First of all, it is my opinion that it is relevant in this topic to have some idea of the actual speed advantage that Red Bull has, since a very large speed advantage that has come very suddenly is more likely to be the result of some new system or device, as for example traction control. If Red Bull is performing more or less at the same level as usual, I think it is less likely that they are using TC or something else.

I agree that it makes sense to maintain the gap and looking after the tyres. But here I am considering Vettel's first laps while he built the gap. On these laps, Rosberg was much slower, so after 4 laps it looked like Vettel was superior. But then we saw that a laptime below 1:53 wasn't impossible for Rosberg to do, and he got quite close already on lap 5.

Let me just try to illustrate what I mean with an example. Let's assume that Vettel is capable of doing 1:52.5 and improving his laptime by 0.1 s for each lap for the first 6 laps if he doesn't think about tyre life beyond 6 laps. So he can do 1:52.5, 1:52.4, 1:52.3, 1:52.2, 1:52.1 and 1:52.0 on laps 1 to 6. But after 4 laps, he understands that Rosberg is already more than 7 seconds behind, so he doesn't do 1:52.1 on lap 5, he does 1:52.5 instead and keeps a similar pace after that to keep his tyres alive.

Let's further assume that Rosberg is running 1:55.0, 1:54.5, 1:54.0 1:53.5, 1:53.0, 1:52.5. Maybe he hasn't warmed his tyres properly on the warm-up lap or maybe he has a small flat spot or something like that, but the problem goes away gradually.

So what we observe (in this hypothetical case is then):

Lap 1: Vettel pulls away by 2.5 s
Lap 2: Vettel pulls away by 2.1 s
Lap 3: Vettel pulls away by 1.7 s
Lap 4: Vettel pulls away by 1.3 s
Lap 5: Vettel stops pushing
Lap 6: Rosberg is on the same pace as Vettel
Lap 7 -> : Rosberg and Vettel run on the similar pace and the gap increases with only one second during the next 10 laps. They both make their tyres last for a similar length of the stint.

Would you conclude here that Vettel was generally 2 seconds per lap faster than Rosberg, because he was pulling away with 2 seconds per lap at when he was pushing? Do you think the times prove that Vettel would be capable of going 2 seconds faster than Rosberg all the time?

I would say that Vettel's best lap while he was pushing to the maximum is 1:52.2, which shows his speed. Two laps later, Rosberg was only 0.3 s slower than this lap. Let's say that slightly smaller fuel load and improved track conditions is worth -0.4 s in lap time, but tyres worn for 2 laps more is worth +0.2 s in lap time. In that case, Rosberg has shown that he is capable of running only 0.5 s off Vettel's ultimate pace. Are these numbers unrealistic? Do the lap times usually improve much more than 0.1 s per lap?