Actual 2014 gearing from online videos

[hollus]

Source? Are you sure they changed the ratios? Teams often change the gears themselves, without changing the ratios. It would make little sense to use the one allowed change at Monaco...
Edit: no change of ratios for Toro Rosso at Monaco:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHL3bRfSFws

[pob]

I thought it would be odd too From the Canada race thread:

- who has already used their allowed ratio change (if anyone)?

https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/472336722739875841

[hollus]

Thanks.

The data in the video I just linked (including Vergne at Monaco) matches perfectly with data taken from Kvyat's car in Australia (very first post in the thread). So unless they are running different ratios in both cars, no changes for Toro Rosso. I haven't found footage for Kvyat in Monaco, though, but changing the ratios for one driver only sounds unlikely.

[Juzh]

Not sure if this was mentioned already, but Peter Winsdor says merc and FI are utilizing the same ratios. Just an information.

[hollus]

Update after Monaco. Many 1st gears snatched (but use with caution, as even in Loews there is wheelspin). Also the data for all teams is now based on multiple data points from video footage. And added Mercedes' 8th gear (yay!).

And the gear ratios:

Gear	Merc.	Will.	McLaren	F.India	T.Rosso	R.Bull	Lotus	Marus.	Ferrari	Sauber	Cater.
1	13.597	15.808	19.379	14.551	15.991	19.023		14.776	15.378	15.768	
2	11.509	11.238	12.579	11.562	12.429	13.508	13.612	11.917	11.403	12.197	13.800
3	9.577	9.600	9.347	9.519	9.305	9.913	10.173	9.570	9.425	9.411	10.016
4	7.879	8.021	7.732	7.904	7.713	7.825	8.006	7.723	7.708	7.751	7.885
5	6.299	6.824	6.344	6.293	6.486	6.460	6.725	6.682	6.628	6.761	6.561
6	5.105	5.702	5.454	5.122	5.471	5.524	5.704	5.819	5.784	5.882	5.548
7	4.299	4.953	4.839	4.396	4.723	4.886	5.039	5.149	5.113	5.214	4.967
8	3.888	4.401	4.373		4.281	4.418	4.350		4.608	4.667	4.484

Interesting points:

No gear changes spotted so far since Australia.

1st gears are racing gears. Most (but not all) drivers and teams used it at Loews, but also some drivers used it at other points in Monaco and even in China. The teams with the shortest 1st gears are more reluctant to use them. Lotus seems to avoid it even in Loews, Grosjean would go as low as 4500rpm in 2nd, but not shift down. Button used it but only some times. For Red Bull, in the footage I managed to get, Ricciardo would take Loews in 1st gear, but Vettel in 2nd. Most others seemed happy to go to 1st gear every time.

The new data for Sauber puts their 4th gear in line with all other 4th gears.

The 3 Ferrari teams are almost identical.

The gear spacing for Mercedes is like an accordion. I think a lot of thought and simulation work has gone into that.

Hamilton used 8th gear in China (for a tiny bit after slipstreaming with DRS, and then starting below 10500rpm). Their 8th gear is very close to their 7th. The gear ratio of 3.888 would suggest a top speed of 480Km/h at 15000 in 8th, but I am not sure they are planning to go there . More realistic is to hit 360Km/h at 11250rpm or 370Km/h at 11563rpm.

[Juzh]

More realistic is to hit 360Km/h at 11250rpm or 370Km/h at 11563rpm.

This was also mentioned in one of Peter's videos. Merc is targeting optimum revs for 8th gear in monza (probably in slipstream). That's why so long 8th gear.
That said. Williams had no trouble hitting 347 in spain with their short gears, so more proof gearing is almost irrelevant this year.

[thedutchguy]

For what it's worth: The official Mercedes 'track guide' video for Canada on Youtube shows Lewis doing a lap in the simulator. Even on the long back straight, the car doesn't go up to eigth gear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B_TKiE7B_8

Ik think so far we've only seen Rosberg use 8th gear one or two times in China, for the rest they seem to have it just the satisfy the regulatory demands.

Also interesting is this video in which driver coach Rob Wilson explains braking techniques. He says that the back of the car sheds as much as 200KGs of downforce on downshifts. That might be another reason Mercedes had opted to use less gears. Less problems during acceleration (less tyre wear due to torque changes during upshifts) and better stability under braking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj0_gO84XIo

[PlatinumZealot]

I would take that figure with a pinch of salt from Rob Wilson. The general principle is correct though... the pitching of the car and decelerations can cause loss of aero performance.

[hollus]

I'd like to update this and I am looking for mode videos to spot when any teams makes any significant changes. But from Austria I got Massa's pole lap (no changes to the gear ratios there), and from Canada even less, and that's it!
Have fans stopped posting them? Am I just too late two days after the race? Has the FIA just gotten better at removing them? And what happened to those full onboard races?
If anybody has any videos, please share. Thxs.

[Juzh]

I'd like to update this and I am looking for mode videos to spot when any teams makes any significant changes. But from Austria I got Massa's pole lap (no changes to the gear ratios there), and from Canada even less, and that's it!
Have fans stopped posting them? Am I just too late two days after the race? Has the FIA just gotten better at removing them? And what happened to those full onboard races?
If anybody has any videos, please share. Thxs.

I'm sure they're out there, just hard to find, and you can miss them easily.

[Cold Fussion]

I'd like to update this and I am looking for mode videos to spot when any teams makes any significant changes. But from Austria I got Massa's pole lap (no changes to the gear ratios there), and from Canada even less, and that's it!
Have fans stopped posting them? Am I just too late two days after the race? Has the FIA just gotten better at removing them? And what happened to those full onboard races?
If anybody has any videos, please share. Thxs.

Your best bet is to find the full on-board from the race, often they have the telemetry data overlayed.

[Juzh]

Maybe you can find something useful in here:
http://www.canalplus.fr/c-sport/c-formu ... layerEmbed
Haven't watched it yet, so I don't know how much telemetry is in there, if any.

[hollus]

Thanks guys. With Bottas in that video and Massa's pole lap, I became convinced that I had a mistake in Williams' 5th gear since Australia, making it a bit too short. It is corrected now. I don't think this reflects a change of ratios, since all other gears from 3rd to 8th match the old numbers perfectly. The error was a 3% one, again, so I probably got data from a practice session where a wet map was activated with slick tires, or something like that.
I also found some other videos, so I captured 8th gear for Marussia and I added some more data to all their other gears.
And I also found videos for Ferrari and Force India, with no changes.



Corrected and updated gear ratios:

Gear	Merc.	Will.	McLaren	F.India	T.Rosso	R.Bull	Lotus	Marus.	Ferrari	Sauber	Cater.
1	13.597	15.808	19.379	14.551	15.991	19.023		14.776	15.378	15.768	
2	11.509	11.238	12.579	11.562	12.429	13.508	13.612	11.871	11.403	12.197	13.800
3	9.577	9.600	9.347	9.519	9.305	9.913	10.173	9.533	9.425	9.411	10.016
4	7.879	8.021	7.732	7.904	7.713	7.825	8.006	7.713	7.708	7.751	7.885
5	6.299	6.635	6.344	6.293	6.486	6.460	6.725	6.667	6.628	6.761	6.561
6	5.105	5.702	5.454	5.122	5.471	5.524	5.704	5.811	5.784	5.882	5.548
7	4.299	4.953	4.839	4.396	4.723	4.886	5.039	5.149	5.113	5.214	4.967
8	3.888	4.401	4.373		4.281	4.418	4.350	4.603	4.608	4.667	4.484

Still no changes detected for any team since the start of the season. (Edit: see below!) But they'll have to change, won't they? Likely before Spa? A least the Ferrari engined teams will have to, right?

What top speeds are people expecting of Spa and Monza?

[Juzh]

Still no changes detected for any team since the start of the season. But they'll have to change, won't they? Likely before Spa? A least the Ferrari engined teams will have to, right?

What top speeds are people expecting of Spa and Monza?

Why would they need to change? Unless there's an incremental issue (doubtful, they'd change already in that case) I don't see anyone changing gear ratios for 2 high speed races. It's not like you're gonna go any faster with longer gears.

I predict around 340 for spa and close to 360 in monza during the race. Somewhat less in quali.

[hollus]

Sacrbs twitted this weekend that "Toro Rosso confirmed they renominated their gears before Monaco for a longer 1st gear."
Which actually was already said in the comments (I missed that part first time around) in the tweet from Tobias Guener that I challenged before: https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/472336722739875841 Well, that explains the discrepancy, they only changed first, and I was lacking that first gear until Monaco. I didn't think that they would change one gear ratio only, but that is indeed the case. I take my challenge back, and apologies if they are due.

Below is a graph combining Kvyat's data from Australia in various colors (the linear regressions belong to that), with Vergne's Monaco data in magenta. I omitted first, as that's where the data a few posts above came from. Ignore the trouble with 7th, he barely ever used it in Monaco, so the data is contaminated with gear shifts and braking events. And of course he never touched 8th in Monaco, but it is clear to see that there are no changes from 2nd to 6th indeed, and most likely to 7th. I'll keep an eye for changes in 8th, but apparently there is no reason to doubt Tobias Guener in this, and then there will be no changes.


This is actually very interesting, and in my opinion a bit bizarre. This single ratio change effectively counts as changing them all, right? While their current 8th gear will get them just fine even through Monza, did they get all other gears just right? Does it really not matter at all? One would think that in this optimization oriented era there would be a little bit of optimization in the other gears with all the data accumulated...
So now it looks quite possible that teams without a Ferrari engine might very well not change at all. I still think that the ones with Ferrari engines will have to change before Spa to get the necessary top speeds. This also means that I'll have to go through the videos with a fine comb. I was expecting all ratios to change as a whole, which would be easy to spot, but since that's not the case... time to revisit that 5th gear from Williams, maybe it wasn't an error but another instance of changing a single ratio?

Edit: Nope, no change in the Williams, I confirmed my error in their 5th in Australia.