2014 Hungarian Grand Prix - Hungaroring

[spadeflush]

Mercedes have had 5 total car failures (HAM Australia race, HAM Germany quali, HAM Hungary quali, HAM Canada race, ROS Silverstone race)

1 driver having 4 out of 5 failures by random chance is not even close to being statistically significant
In fact by my calculations either driver having 4 or more out of a total 5 car failures is ~37%! (so ~18.5% for Hamilton to have 4 or more out of 5 failures, someone can check my maths)

Sample size 5 is not large enough to statistically conclude anything although it is truly sad that Hamilton is getting so many reliability problems. If you consider Rosberg's Canada issue, it kind of compensates for something. Had he been in dirty air with different brake bias (and different brakes?) that could ve well been a "total car failure".

[beelsebob]

You're both right - a sample of 5 is no where close to statistically significant. I get 15.6% chance of one particular driver having 4 out of 5 though - 31.2% chance of either having 4 out of 5.

Explanation:
Driver A has a 50% chance of having the first failure.
Driver A has a 50% chance of having the second failure (a 25% chance of having both).
Driver A has a 50% chance of having the third failure (a 12.5% chance of having all 3).
Driver A has a 50% chance of having the fourth failure (a 6.25% chance of having all 4).
Driver A has a 50% chance of not having the fifth failure (a 3.125% chance of having the first 4 failures, and then not the 5th).

There are 5 possible arrangements of the above situation, moving the failure on driver B through the ordering. The result - there is a 5 * 3.125% = 15.625% chance of driver A having 4 of the 5 failures.

[iotar__]

Weather forecast: rain may be back - second half mostly, the only chance for sth interesting but it will probably change tomorrow .

[ringo]

Statistical percentages doesn't mean anything in this context. In a season with with 19 races, Having 4 or 5 mechanical issues is basically throwing away a quarter of your hard work and investment. A multi million pound team, with manufacturer backing shouldn't be operating with so many failures.
I can't tell when was the last time i saw a Ferrari engine burn to the ground.
Mercedes have operational issues, they aren't victims of some random natural disaster that they have no control over and statistics acts as some kind of comfort that it can happen to anyone.Every single issue that has happened so far with the car could have been rectified with better quality management.

[SectorOne]

I do not think this is right for a modern F1 car.
- Lowering camber can work in both directions...you still need camber to get the tires working and once you go for slicks you need as much camber as you can get.

You will still have heat in the tires. The reason for the camber is because when it rains the lines change to more of a V-shaped nature, minimizing lateral loads as much as possible. Less camber puts more tire on the ground in those situations.

- Raising the car is done by the tires. And you may loose downforce with it, something you do not want when it is wet.

Aquaplaning does not care about how much downforce you have.

- The suspension is already as soft as aero allows. Again: You can soften it, but loosing downforce ruins your race.

Not if you aquaplan from running a dry setup on a pissing wet circuit.

the majority of the corners in Hungaroring during wet sessions will be so slow that aero barely has any significant effect.
It´s all mechanical grip on a super slipper surface.

[zeph]

It would appear that Vettel is getting his groove back. He finished ahead of Ricciardo last weekend and today he was near .2s faster in Q3.

[basti313]

Not if you aquaplan from running a dry setup on a pissing wet circuit.

You are right. But modern F1 cars do not race on pissing wet circuits.

[ringo]

I don't think any of us can speak to a wet setup on an f1 car.
From what i gather from guess from a far it's just a setup with more down-force from the wings and a slightly higher ride height. And since recent times the need for a wet setup has gone since charlie whiting red flags the races till the track is basically dry. So i don't think there is such thing as a wet setup anymore outside of more wing on the car. Gone are the days when F1 cars drive with monsoon tyres with big rooster tails blinding the drivers behind.

[SamH123]

You're both right - a sample of 5 is no where close to statistically significant. I get 15.6% chance of one particular driver having 4 out of 5 though - 31.2% chance of either having 4 out of 5.

Yes same for me, just I was quoting odds of '4 or more' because we would be saying the same thing if Hamilton had had all 5 car failures.

Ringo - our point was only to show that bad luck is almost as likely to be one sided than it is be actually balanced, I agree Mercedes should be doing better, they can be focus more on reliability than other teams

[Phil]

This may sound a bit silly, but didnt Toto at some point say (or was it Paddy) that both sides of the garage are incredibly eager to beat the other? I also wonder to what degree the teams servicing both drivers/cars are split - on one hand, surely you have the engineers for each side, but then you probably also have the crew that are shared across the garage (i think the pit crew are shared?). At which point would a team like Mercedes conduct an investigation into why and how things like this seem to be failing?

What i do wonder to what degree they are concerned about this. Despite all the car issues, they are comfortably on track to securing the WCC in no time and the WDC will follow as well. At this rate, do they really care given the position they are in? Or eould they just put it down to "bad luck"?

[Waywardism]

I guarantee they do care, it won't stop them this season but next season other teams could be more competitive. If there is a reason for their poor reliability other than bad luck, they're going to want to nail it as soon as possible. Plus it's not good for their brand image to have their cars failing on track all the time.

[Gaz.]

This may sound a bit silly, but didnt Toto at some point say (or was it Paddy) that both sides of the garage are incredibly eager to beat the other? I also wonder to what degree the teams servicing both drivers/cars are split - on one hand, surely you have the engineers for each side, but then you probably also have the crew that are shared across the garage (i think the pit crew are shared?). At which point would a team like Mercedes conduct an investigation into why and how things like this seem to be failing?

What i do wonder to what degree they are concerned about this. Despite all the car issues, they are comfortably on track to securing the WCC in no time and the WDC will follow as well. At this rate, do they really care given the position they are in? Or eould they just put it down to "bad luck"?

Despite comfortably hauling in 25 points or more at 9 of 10 races and rarely being outscored (only two occasions have they been beaten - Mclaren in Australia and RedBull in Canada) I think Mercedes must be quite concerned with the finger pointing, the accusations, the rumours etc. What is more damaging, reliability woes (only five issues in ten events but would you sink £40k into a Mercedes-Benz if there was a ten percent chance you'd be recovered on a low loader within 6 months?) or the accusations of foul play?

[GSBellew]

This may sound a bit silly, but didnt Toto at some point say (or was it Paddy) that both sides of the garage are incredibly eager to beat the other? I also wonder to what degree the teams servicing both drivers/cars are split - on one hand, surely you have the engineers for each side, but then you probably also have the crew that are shared across the garage (i think the pit crew are shared?). At which point would a team like Mercedes conduct an investigation into why and how things like this seem to be failing?

What i do wonder to what degree they are concerned about this. Despite all the car issues, they are comfortably on track to securing the WCC in no time and the WDC will follow as well. At this rate, do they really care given the position they are in? Or eould they just put it down to "bad luck"?

Despite comfortably hauling in 25 points or more at 9 of 10 races and rarely being outscored (only two occasions have they been beaten - Mclaren in Australia and RedBull in Canada) I think Mercedes must be quite concerned with the finger pointing, the accusations, the rumours etc. What is more damaging, reliability woes (only five issues in ten events but would you sink £40k into a Mercedes-Benz if there was a ten percent chance you'd be recovered on a low loader within 6 months?) or the accusations of foul play?

With all due respect, there is a world of a difference between an F1 car suffering a failure & the potential for a production car suffering a failure, I sincerely doubt any potential Mercedes customer was put off placing an order or cancelled an order due to the failures of either of the F1 cars this or any other year.

Failures are to be expected in any case where anything is pushed to the limit and beyond it, it's always been part of F1 and any form of Motorsport, it's just been less prevelant in recent years with the engine freezes etc.

[Gaz.]

This may sound a bit silly, but didnt Toto at some point say (or was it Paddy) that both sides of the garage are incredibly eager to beat the other? I also wonder to what degree the teams servicing both drivers/cars are split - on one hand, surely you have the engineers for each side, but then you probably also have the crew that are shared across the garage (i think the pit crew are shared?). At which point would a team like Mercedes conduct an investigation into why and how things like this seem to be failing?

What i do wonder to what degree they are concerned about this. Despite all the car issues, they are comfortably on track to securing the WCC in no time and the WDC will follow as well. At this rate, do they really care given the position they are in? Or eould they just put it down to "bad luck"?

Despite comfortably hauling in 25 points or more at 9 of 10 races and rarely being outscored (only two occasions have they been beaten - Mclaren in Australia and RedBull in Canada) I think Mercedes must be quite concerned with the finger pointing, the accusations, the rumours etc. What is more damaging, reliability woes (only five issues in ten events but would you sink £40k into a Mercedes-Benz if there was a ten percent chance you'd be recovered on a low loader within 6 months?) or the accusations of foul play?

With all due respect, there is a world of a difference between an F1 car suffering a failure & the potential for a production car suffering a failure, I sincerely doubt any potential Mercedes customer was put off placing an order or cancelled an order due to the failures of either of the F1 cars this or any other year.

Failures are to be expected in any case where anything is pushed to the limit and beyond it, it's always been part of F1 and any form of Motorsport, it's just been less prevelant in recent years with the engine freezes etc.

Yet Mercedes still will not like a flaming car on the back pages of every British paper regardless of the truth and they've made a meal out of their F1 successes this year in their marketing campaigns so the reverse will apply, deserved or not.

[Chuckjr]

Maybe Paddy Lowe is not the engineer people think he is?

Ham had all kinds of reliability trouble at Macca, and now Paddy followed him to Merc and look at what is happening...