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Webber likes to get his braking done in a straight line, whereas Vettel (and the RB7, RB8b & RB9) likes to throw the car at the apex.JimClarkFan wrote:Jackie Stewarts driving style has often been talked but does any driver still brake in a straightish line and power through the corner or are all modern F1 drivers trail brakers?
I'm not sure how "throw the car" matches "he doesn't excite the car"? I guess its all about context, do those comments infer that he throws the car, but not to the extent of sliding the rear end? Unlike Hamilton in 07 who seemed to get close to power sliding around some corners (OK that's an exaggeration but you get the point).Jonnycraig wrote:Horner: "he doesn't excite the car, he doesn't over slip the car, his inputs are very small not generating wheel spin or handfuls of oversteer."
Webber likes to get his braking done in a straight line, whereas Vettel (and the RB7, RB8b & RB9) likes to throw the car at the apex.
Copied and pasted from an Autosport article posted in this thread earlier this year:richard_leeds wrote:I'm not sure how "throw the car" matches "he doesn't excite the car"? I guess its all about context, do those comments infer that he throws the car, but not to the extent of sliding the rear end? Unlike Hamilton in 07 who seemed to get close to power sliding around some corners (OK that's an exaggeration but you get the point).Jonnycraig wrote:Horner: "he doesn't excite the car, he doesn't over slip the car, his inputs are very small not generating wheel spin or handfuls of oversteer."
Webber likes to get his braking done in a straight line, whereas Vettel (and the RB7, RB8b & RB9) likes to throw the car at the apex.
Also, I thought the Vettel+RB secret lies in getting on the throttle early to maximise EBD downforce, whereas Webber was unable to do that. A timid approach results in less EBD hence less downforce. So perhaps throwing the car results in more downforce and less tyre wear?
Which would mean Vettel's style is a function of the car, if he drove like that in a non-RB car he'd be destroying the tyres?
Sebastian Vettel - The Turn-in 'Rotation-meister'
Like Alonso, Vettel is medium-hard on the brakes but less brutal with the initial steering. He prefers the car to be quite nervous and pointy on entry and is ready to remove some of the initial lock once the front has gripped and caused the rear to step out. He has a great feel for pivoting the car in this way to quicken its direction change.
With the Red Bull’s exhaust-enhanced rear downforce he was the first to develop a counter- intuitive technique of taking what would normally be excessive speed in, getting the front in and then using the resultant oversteer to get him the direction change early in the corner.
Conventionally, this would be counter- productive; the slide would continue after you’d got the direction change, losing you momentum and more than losing what you’d just gained. But with exhaust-enhanced downforce like he had in 2011, he would at this point get back hard on the throttle and have the exhaust gas do its stuff by nailing the back end. So he’d get to have his cake and eat it.
It’s a very unnatural thing to do – with the tail threatening to slide too far, the last thing you feel you want to do is stand on the gas. But Seb proved brilliantly adept at it. When the 2012 regulations took most of the blown-diffuser effect away, the Red Bull initially was merely competitive – and into the bargain Vettel’s superiority over team-mate Mark Webber evaporated. But into the last third of the season Red Bull had not only got a significant chunk of exhaust-derived downforce back via re-shaping of the rear bodywork, but had also introduced a tweak in the rear suspension that gave the car a roll-oversteer characteristic into slow turns.
This got Seb back his quick direction change – and now with enough exhaust-enhanced rear downforce to tame that slide once he got back on the throttle. It loosely replicated the behaviour of the 2011 car, enough to allow Seb back what he termed “my tricks”. Watching the RB9 in action at Barcelona testing through the slow section at the end of the lap it’s very clear that the trait has been retained, maybe even enhanced.
The car positively rotates around itself as the rear rolls, nice and early into the corner, getting the car perfectly lined up with the apex and enabling the steering lock to be removed as he nails the throttle. It’s a beautiful case study of technology and technique developing together.
How much the impetus has come from Adrian Newey and the Red Bull vehicle dynamicists and how much from Vettel isn’t clear, but it isn’t important. It’s almost certainly been an organic development, a direction to follow that has allowed the driver to take full advantage of his strengths and perhaps leading the engineers in a direction they wouldn’t have otherwise thought to go. Why, after all, would you ordinarily want to introduce roll-oversteer into a car?
http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/22058 ... y-the-restFurthermore he has fine tuned his qualifying and starts which then give him clear air to keep his car cooler and tyres more intact. He has a fluidity and precision which means that he doesn't slide, spin or overheat the fragile Pirellis into a zone where they lose grip, further enhancing the pace, and meaning he can travel further and faster than any other driver which then opens up his strategy options. One over-anxious spin up of the tyres, or lurid slide, can thermally impair them for a few corners or even laps. He simply doesn't allow that to happen while carrying super high speed with incredibly accurate and deft inputs.
I saw this first hand when he drove me around a kart track in an Infiniti road car last week. He had completed just three laps when we jumped into a second available car. His fluid and confident command of the hitherto undriven car and grasp of the sinuous track was immediately apparent. He was in charge and totally unflustered. He has a style and confidence I would expect of any top level driver, but he's also been able to translate that at much higher speeds on race day. And in F1 2013 the payback is simply huge due to the tyres.
Back in the Bridgestone days he wouldn't have had such an advantage but the smart and hard working drivers with the believing and supportive designers and engineers always find an edge, just as Schumacher did with Ferrari a decade ago when he could win races with one pitstop, or four, just as he pleased.
I'm thinking about other examples where a driver's technique was so effective, and Senna's pumping of the throttle of his turbo engine during his amazing qualifying laps comes to mind. Along with Mansell's sheer brute strength and determination with the physical cars of the early 90s, and Alonso's dramatic use of the steering wheel in his rear weight biased 2005/6 Renault.
I checked out my views out about Vettel with Adrian Newey and he agrees. Driver and car have merged into one to become virtually unbeatable. Vettel told me after the race that he made only one mistake all race which was a premature gearshift, or short-shift as it's known. After 55 laps that's all he had to berate himself for and you really have to think he could have won that race by a minute had he not been held back.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A09vlmgw9HE[/youtube]Two photographs, two similar cars - and two very different driving positions. In the aftermath of Sebastian Vettel's seventh F1 win of the 2013 season, we dissect the differences, on the same corner, between Sebastian Vettel and his Red Bull team-mate, Mark Webber. Rob Wilson, who works, and has worked, with many of the top F1, IndyCar, GP2, GP3 and F3 drivers, explains why Seb can be looking one way whilst Mark is looking another.
http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/22058 ... -abu-dhabiWatching the cars through there during their long runs on Friday, the contrast between how the two Red Bulls were being driven was stark.
Vettel would enter a corner carrying a lot of momentum but was not trying to make the direction change all in one move; instead he'd let the car run out slightly wide after the apex, the speed still coming down and only then complete the turn. Normally, the slow exit this gives would damage the lap time but on a section of track where the gap between the turns was so small this was no longer the case. Only once the car was fully turned was he then getting clean and hard on the throttle and thereby the load on the rear tyres was minimised.
Webber by contrast was driving in a much more traditional and aggressive way, getting the direction change completed by the apex, carrying in a lot of speed and then trying to get as early and hard on the power as possible, even before the cornering load had come off the rear tyres. The car would accelerate out there, twitching and nervous as the rear tyres struggled to provide both cornering and tractive force at the same time. It was very quick - until the rear tyres overheated after a few laps.
The interesting point is that Vettel's technique here was not at all like how he normally drives the car. Usually, he accentuates the turn-in, getting the rear to slide wide before the apex, then standing on the throttle to use the exhaust flow to provide extra downforce that kills the rear end slide once it has accomplished the direction change. The key is Vettel's adaptability and his always-open mind about where the biggest area of advantage is on any given track in any given situation.
That blend of delicacy and dynamism is a Vettel speciality and has been rewarded extremely well during the Pirelli era because of the fragile nature of the tyres. In the days of more robust tyres, Webber was a master at maximising the braking grip and he remains slightly faster than Vettel through the high speed bends - a point that Vettel himself acknowledges. But Webber's all-out aggressive driving style has been punished hard by the more subtle requirements of the Pirellis.
lol - no blame intended, was just wondering if you had seen any on your travels.raymondu999 wrote:JimClarkFan, if you're talking about the latest influx of Vettel driving style posts, please don't blame me lol. I just bring whatever I can find here, just that right now there are a lot of Vettel driving style analyses out there!
From earlier in this thread:JimClarkFan wrote:lol - no blame intended, was just wondering if you had seen any on your travels.raymondu999 wrote:JimClarkFan, if you're talking about the latest influx of Vettel driving style posts, please don't blame me lol. I just bring whatever I can find here, just that right now there are a lot of Vettel driving style analyses out there!
You and others have their ear to the ground more than me regarding F1, should you happen to find some good analyses of other drivers be sure to post them
Fernando Alonso - Making Understeer Interesting
Fernando is medium-hard on the brakes and with a bit of overlap between braking and cornering. Then as he’s coming fully off the brakes he applies a lot of lock very quickly, initially partly stalling the front tyre to give a sort of false understeer. Occasionally the front will bite better than he anticipates and with so much lock on that can induce the rear into suddenly stepping out – and it’s then you see him applying punches of oversteer to which he’s very attuned, as if he’s half-expecting it. More usually the understeer stays through most of the corner and the balance is maintained with more or less throttle.
It’s a less extreme version of the technique that was very evident in the rearward-heavy Renaults of 2003-’06. But it wasn’t invented for those cars, they simply allowed him to amplify it to good effect. “I’ve always driven like that – ever since karts,” he said back in 2003.
It’s a technique that allows him to take in enormous momentum, making the car very alive but without the hazard of too much oversteer. It lends itself to great repeatability, but puts a slightly low ceiling on ultimate peak grip. But it’s consistent, makes the car malleable in that crucial, early part of the corner and it keeps strain off the delicate rear tyres. It’s a great fighting technique, working over a wide variety of lines and grip levels as he uses the throttle to fine- hone the car’s placement.
It’s a bullying technique, dominating the car rather than going with its flow in the way, for example, Kimi Raikkonen would. It’s quite similar, in fact, to how Felipe Massa drives but is less aggressive on the brakes, slightly earlier and therefore more consistent, with fewer line-altering lock-ups. It was a technique that allowed Alonso to minimise the penalty of the trait of 2010 and ’11 Ferraris not bringing their front tyres up to temperature quickly enough.
Because he doesn’t actually need the ultimate front grip; so long as he gets some sort of turn-in he’s manipulating the angle with brakes and throttle, almost rally-style. It’s a long way removed from the minimal-input neutrality Michael Schumacher used to stretch the Ferrari elastic in the tyre-war days, but in the Pirelli era Alonso’s more physical technique is probably more effective. Michael was still trying to drive his way in the control-tyre era, using steering lock only grudgingly on his Mercedes, his brain hard-wired to feel that steering lock equalled momentum loss. But when the tyre cannot support the momentum, the car refuses to adopt a stance of sliding neutrality after just the slightest hint of steering lock. Thus the Alonso method is much more adaptable.
With the higher grip of the 2013 Pirellis it’s going to be interesting to see if that still applies. If it does not, expect Alonso to adapt, just as he did when going from Michelins to Bridgestones in 2007 – though it took him a few races.