Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team 2015

[PlatinumZealot]

THe Arrivabenne Show... He continues the emotion. I think this is what Ferrari needs. There was the Luca show, but Luca was quite negative. Arrivabenne is more positive as his name alludes.

[Unc1eM0nty]

It can also be atrubited to the fact that Allison is appearently only high level employee that was entrusted with design of SF15T. I doubt anyone from the old managment/engineering (Fry, Tombazis, Marmorini etc.) had much say in design of the new car judging by their past eforts.

But Allison admitted that he's had no input in the design of the SF15T, he said he's offered guidance & direction on what areas to push forward with.

[giantfan10]

It can also be atrubited to the fact that Allison is appearently only high level employee that was entrusted with design of SF15T. I doubt anyone from the old managment/engineering (Fry, Tombazis, Marmorini etc.) had much say in design of the new car judging by their past eforts.

But Allison admitted that he's had no input in the design of the SF15T, he said he's offered guidance & direction on what areas to push forward with.

not a complete picture.
Allison said that he hasnt turned a screw or built a part for the car.. he does what every other technical director does... decide the direction of development...decide what part is worth developing and what part is not worth the carbon fiber its made of... he was being modest... he is the man with the final picture of the car in his head ... kind of an orchestra conductor.
of course simone resta did all the hard work designing the concept but allison is the person who has the final say on what goes on the car or not...that makes him the most important person in the direction the car goes

[Phil]

Arrivabene has endeared himself to me in a fair few ways, not least when lighting up a cigarette half way through an interview. But I came across this story of him having a direct intervention in the design process for this year.
This guy keeps going up in my estimation....

I remember it was the 10th or 12th of December and I was asking Simone Resta, and Rory [Byrne], we were watching a picture of the car and I said what can you do to transfer the weight of the car a bit more in front? Because I said Kimi likes to feel the car in this way and Sebastian is more or less the same. They said we need six months. I said what can you do in three? They said we have to work day and night. I said OK, I’ll work together with you guys, come on.

http://en.f1i.com/news/10176-arrivabene ... nges.html?

Very nice quote. Wondering about Kimi and Vettels preference, I do wonder what the whole Alonso factor is about. Now, there's absolutely no denying that Alonso is a brilliant driver. And with his departure, many believed Ferrari was a sinking ship. And yet, here they are, in a state that can only be described as positive and in a very upwards trend. They may not be closer at winning WDCs than they had been in 2010 and 2012 during which Alonso was also part, but they certainly seemed to have put two consecutive years of subpar performance behind them. While it's easy to point to different design choices in the car and perhaps a different design team and different regulations, I do wonder at times if Alonso may have hampered them in some way.

If we look at 2014, or even 2013, the story was usually the same. Alonso, pulling what seemed to be a dog of a car into results while his team-mate(s) struggled. Massa struggled and one assumed he never quite got to his former self after his accident. Yet, at Williams, he is performing on an arguably much higher level. Or is the car and team and the fact we don't have an Alonso to compare him to directly flattering his performance? What about Kimi? After a brilliant year at Lotus what can only be described as a successfull comback, he goes to Ferrari, only to be slaughtered by Alonso. Yes, he had his fair share of bad-luck, but even on a good day, he rarely made up the deficit Alonso kept putting between them.

Could it be, that a driver of Alonsos caliber - who arguably can perform in just about anything, mislead the team that they were on a good path? In that sense; 'we have one driver [Alonso], who can get to N out of the car, and his team mate who is N-5 - hey, lets keep designing in that direction and not focus on the driver who is underperforming'. This perhaps is all a bit simplistic, but in any team Alonso has driven (sans 2007 at McLaren against Hamilton), he is usually on a different level. I do wonder if there is a reason for this - other than the fact that he is undoubtedly a brilliant driver.

For a team and car to perform at its best - you need everyone operating at a very high level of their potential. You need a driver who can exploit and drive the car as close to the limit and potential it has to offer - and you need a team to design the car in that way. A driver such as Alonso or it seems Hamilton have a very wide operating window to perform on high levels. Give them a challenging car, and they will still extract above average performance out of it. On the other hand, there are clearly other drivers who have a more narrow operating window and are more dependant that the car meets certain requirements. Vettel seemed to demonstrate this too - after 4 years of flawless execution at the wheel in a EBD car, his match-up in a car not to his liking and against Ricciardo and again and again, he came out looking very subpar. And yet this year, he is in an environment he likes and he is performing again. Would Alonso be performing even better? Or Ricciardo?

IMO - no one can perform better than the car. The will always be a certain 'potential' a car offers - a theoretical maximum, e.g. the perfect lap and that will be the absolute limit of the car. How well a driver can get it to that theoretical max is dependant on how well that car suits him. A easier to drive car will have the driver perform closer at its limit (more potential extracted), a more difficult car will make it more difficult. Doesn't mean that a driver with a narrow-operating-window couldn't outperform another driver with a higher-operating-window if the car suits him. They will in theory just be closer to one another. Handling characteristic and preferences might yield an advantgae to one or the other, depending on how important it is to a driver...

Long post with lots of questions, no answers. But I do wonder...

[iotar__]

Arrivabene has endeared himself to me in a fair few ways, not least when lighting up a cigarette half way through an interview. But I came across this story of him having a direct intervention in the design process for this year.This guy keeps going up in my estimation....

I remember it was the 10th or 12th of December and I was asking Simone Resta, and Rory [Byrne], we were watching a picture of the car and I said what can you do to transfer the weight of the car a bit more in front? Because I said Kimi likes to feel the car in this way and Sebastian is more or less the same. They said we need six months. I said what can you do in three? They said we have to work day and night. I said OK, I’ll work together with you guys, come on.

You don't really believe in that kind of marketing gimmick stories. I'd love to hear their part and what happened afterwards. Don't you think it's a crucial part that is missing? Omission and lack of details (if they changed it by 0,000001 aka "a bit" does it still count?) are parts of marketing. I came and said many things, what happened later? Well... Anyway it still seems not enough forward to me.

It reminded me how they tried to squeeze "a car better suited to a specific driver" from Allison. Responses:

"We will only know for sure once we are running on the track, but I hope that the SF-15T will be much more comfortable for him with both a stronger front end in mid corner and more support from the rear under braking," said Allison. Raikkonen could also be helped by stronger rear tyres from Pirelli - which will help improve confidence when cornering. "It will be the rear casing that is the most significant," explained Allison. "It allows the car better support under combined loading conditions and gives the driver more confidence through the corner as a result."

Yep, stronger front, stability under braking, confidence from tyres in cornering. How specific is that? Sounds to me like ANY driver would benefit from it, he described a better car. Plus most significantly tyres that weren't design by Ferrari and are the same for everyone. Maybe they were like that because Arrivabene asked for it too ?

He didn't hire any high profile people responsible for 2015 car, Allison, De Beer, Resta and so on, they were there already, his input in design is zero. All the engine re-shuffling happened before him too. He did fire Tombazis/Fry and "brought back" Byrne with this ridiculous press conference despite him working in 2014. His input is drivers: Guttierez (money), Vergne, keeping Raikkonen (not really his choice - contract), I'm not sure about Vettel. Wasn't is Mattiacci with Marchionne?

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Arrivabene has endeared himself to me in a fair few ways, not least when lighting up a cigarette half way through an interview. But I came across this story of him having a direct intervention in the design process for this year.This guy keeps going up in my estimation....

I remember it was the 10th or 12th of December and I was asking Simone Resta, and Rory [Byrne], we were watching a picture of the car and I said what can you do to transfer the weight of the car a bit more in front? Because I said Kimi likes to feel the car in this way and Sebastian is more or less the same. They said we need six months. I said what can you do in three? They said we have to work day and night. I said OK, I’ll work together with you guys, come on.

You don't really believe in that kind of marketing gimmick stories. I'd love to hear their part and what happened afterwards. Don't you think it's a crucial part that is missing? Omission and lack of details (if they changed it by 0,000001 aka "a bit" does it still count?) are parts of marketing. I came and said many things, what happened later? Well... Anyway it still seems not enough forward to me.

It reminded me how they tried to squeeze "a car better suited to a specific driver" from Allison. Responses:

"We will only know for sure once we are running on the track, but I hope that the SF-15T will be much more comfortable for him with both a stronger front end in mid corner and more support from the rear under braking," said Allison. Raikkonen could also be helped by stronger rear tyres from Pirelli - which will help improve confidence when cornering. "It will be the rear casing that is the most significant," explained Allison. "It allows the car better support under combined loading conditions and gives the driver more confidence through the corner as a result."

Yep, stronger front, stability under braking, confidence from tyres in cornering. How specific is that? Sounds to me like ANY driver would benefit from it, he described a better car. Plus most significantly tyres that weren't design by Ferrari and are the same for everyone. Maybe they were like that because Arrivabene asked for it too ?

He didn't hire any high profile people responsible for 2015 car, Allison, De Beer, Resta and so on, they were there already, his input in design is zero. All the engine re-shuffling happened before him too. He did fire Tombazis/Fry and "brought back" Byrne with this ridiculous press conference despite him working in 2014. His input is drivers: Guttierez (money), Vergne, keeping Raikkonen (not really his choice - contract), I'm not sure about Vettel. Wasn't is Mattiacci with Marchionne?

For the first time, I agree with you.
So often we have seen a new TECHNICAL LEADER joining a team, sometimes in the middle of the season OR at almost end of it and we all are made aware that, by that time the next year's car has TAKEN BIRTH and hence the new leader's inputs are to be seen in the year next to next. So, that is a confirmation that, by mid of a year, generally a certain direction is zeroed in and the development starts. By end of that year, A WHOLE LOT is in done state, the concept is done and refining and performance enhancement ideas are being worked on.

Now, here is someone who, as publicly known, a marketing/brands pn from a certain Business establishment, associated with a racing team, purely from a financial perspective, joins the as the leader and VOILA, talk about understanding a driver's achilles heels and driving abilities and goes to the technical team and DEMANDS them of WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION changes, from rear to the front, which brings to life that driver's abilities !!! All of this, in December-January time frame (yeah, he joined at end of November, but I am presuming he would have spent time in understanding Kimi ) and the technical team goes BOOM and done, here you go Kimi, the car suits you now !!!

Success truly masks mediocrity and someone talking nonsense is being hailed, just because now the person is sitting on top of that throne. Hail the new leader !!!

[GPR-A duplicate2]

I do wonder at times if Alonso may have hampered them in some way.

Could it be, that a driver of Alonsos caliber - who arguably can perform in just about anything, mislead the team that they were on a good path?

Couldn't stop from jumping in.
In an era of so much of technology, where the engineers know even if a driver farts in a car ("DON'T FORGET TO DRINK SOME WATER"), what is that the engineers do not know about the car that is being driven on the track, for which they depend upon a driver to help them understand or learn? In an era, where testing is limited and only simulator is available, who is doing the simulator work and helping the engineers get to know what they want (did I hear someone saying development driver)? What are all those glitzy, fancy, sophisticated, expensive sensors and data providers (ECUs) doing on the car? How is that 100s of engineers, specialized in the areas of mechanical, electrical, hybrid systems, chemical, suspension, various components of PU, tyres, aerodynamics and damn every single aspect of that automobile, gets deceived from an UNQUALIFIED (knowledgeable doesn't equal to qualified) individual called "Driver" and end up collectively creating a multi million sh** box?

Probably in the bygone era, due to lack of all the sophiscated systems, engineers had a great deal of reliance on a driver to understand the behavior of the car. But in an era, where technology has grown so much and the sports has become so much commercial and requires a driver to be so much involved in marketing aspects, how much of a leading job a driver is doing in the engineering work. Yes, a driver has certain driving preferences and wants THAT COMPLEX PIECE OF AUTOMOBILE to work according to those characteristics.

A Driver with a wide operating window is a gift to the engineers. If a driver is sensitive like a Kimi Raikkonnen, who simply can't drive if the front end is not as accurate to his liking, it is a very constraining environment for engineers to be creative. If they have a driver like Alonso, they know that even if they have to compromise on a certain aspect of the car, which would enable them to lift the overall performance of the car, they can definitely be more creative.

We are talking about international, competitive and talented organizations, not the back yard garage boys. The world of racing engineering has gone through a great deal of evolution and with that the roles, responsibilities and expectations have also evolved. The accountability and responsibility of developing a competitive equipment, keeping in mind the driver preferences, is solely on those engineers. A driver is an end user, who should deliver the results, close to the optimum of the design. I think people should stop the nonsense of DRIVER DEVELOPING THE CAR theory.

[CBeck113]

I do wonder at times if Alonso may have hampered them in some way.

Could it be, that a driver of Alonsos caliber - who arguably can perform in just about anything, mislead the team that they were on a good path?

Couldn't stop from jumping in.
In an era of so much of technology, where the engineers know even if a driver farts in a car ("DON'T FORGET TO DRINK SOME WATER"), what is that the engineers do not know about the car that is being driven on the track, for which they depend upon a driver to help them understand or learn? In an era, where testing is limited and only simulator is available, who is doing the simulator work and helping the engineers get to know what they want (did I hear someone saying development driver)? What are all those glitzy, fancy, sophisticated, expensive sensors and data providers (ECUs) doing on the car? How is that 100s of engineers, specialized in the areas of mechanical, electrical, hybrid systems, chemical, suspension, various components of PU, tyres, aerodynamics and damn every single aspect of that automobile, gets deceived from an UNQUALIFIED (knowledgeable doesn't equal to qualified) individual called "Driver" and end up collectively creating a multi million sh** box?

Probably in the bygone era, due to lack of all the sophiscated systems, engineers had a great deal of reliance on a driver to understand the behavior of the car. But in an era, where technology has grown so much and the sports has become so much commercial and requires a driver to be so much involved in marketing aspects, how much of a leading job a driver is doing in the engineering work. Yes, a driver has certain driving preferences and wants THAT COMPLEX PIECE OF AUTOMOBILE to work according to those characteristics.

A Driver with a wide operating window is a gift to the engineers. If a driver is sensitive like a Kimi Raikkonnen, who simply can't drive if the front end is not as accurate to his liking, it is a very constraining environment for engineers to be creative. If they have a driver like Alonso, they know that even if they have to compromise on a certain aspect of the car, which would enable them to lift the overall performance of the car, they can definitely be more creative.

We are talking about international, competitive and talented organizations, not the back yard garage boys. The world of racing engineering has gone through a great deal of evolution and with that the roles, responsibilities and expectations have also evolved. The accountability and responsibility of developing a competitive equipment, keeping in mind the driver preferences, is solely on those engineers. A driver is an end user, who should deliver the results, close to the optimum of the design. I think people should stop the nonsense of DRIVER DEVELOPING THE CAR theory.

So, you believe that the engineers, who most likely never have driven a Formula 1 car, or will ever do so, take no imput from the people that actually drive them? Especially when those individualy are usually the best paid members of the team (I mean real teams that pay their drivers because they want quality, not Sauber, Manor or the other pay drivers).

Yes, the engineers design the cars, but the most important feedback they get is from the drivers. They tell the engineers what they like about the car and what they don't like. This feedback is then used to see if a setup change will be enough, or if they need to make design changes to make the drivers happy. I personally believe, mainly because the Ferraris over the past years did not get faster during the seasons, that Alonso had the say in which direction the development of the car (mainly balance, steering and braking characteristics) should take, and never got it right, for whatever reason. He is (also my opinion, don't want to start a flamewar with this!) the fastest driver on the grid, hands down. He just can't make a car faster by discussing its traits with the engineers - maybe because he could drive a turd faster around the track than most humans an F1 car, and never needed to learn how to describe what he feels.

So, in a nutshell - the engineers design the cars with the input from the drivers, so they most certainly have their say.

[bhall II]

Arrivabene has endeared himself to me in a fair few ways, not least when lighting up a cigarette half way through an interview. But I came across this story of him having a direct intervention in the design process for this year.
This guy keeps going up in my estimation....

That's sorta like how NASCAR drivers always seem to have a sponsor's product in-hand whenever they're photographed after a race.



And if you're a Marlboro Man, like Arrivabene...

I wouldn't put much stock into anything he says on the technical side, though. He's a marketing guy, through and through.

In my (occasionally not-so-humble) opinion, I think the best thing that's happened to Ferrari in a long, long time has been the clarification of responsibilities on the technical side. James Allison now has total authority over the car, and that's exactly how it should be.

I don't know why anyone ever thought it was a good idea to have a "Technical Director, Chassis" along with a "Director of Engineering," or whatever Pat Fry was called.

That said...

Could it be, that a driver of Alonsos caliber - who arguably can perform in just about anything, mislead the team that they were on a good path?

Absolutely!

If for three or four seasons in a row the car has the same problems, that means you are not developing in the right directions, and it’s the driver’s fault.

For example, a driver who tends to prefer understeer isn't likely to be as affected by, say, a lack of front suspension installation stiffness as a driver who prefers a strong front-end. In fact, it will play right into his hands to an extent, because he actually wants the front-end to give up.

If that driver is quicker than his teammate, his input will tend to skew interpretation of any data collected if it also shows a very clear, but totally unrelated, benefit to the layout elsewhere - like on the aero side.

For the other guy to get what he wants, he'll likely have to deal with some side effects.

I hate it when there is no front end on the car.

And right now, if we sort out the front end we lose the rear and it is trying to balance it out - and somehow get it working.

We’ve improved things throughout the whole year.

The car is much more to his liking now than it was then, but there are certain fundamental characteristics that are sort of ‘baked in’ to a car when you lay down its architecture.

That architecture is not really modifiable in a given year. You can make it better, and we have made it better, and we continue to make it better. But there are limitations.

Hence...


Twigs and trunks

None of this is to say that Alonso couldn't be as quick, or even quicker, than Raikkonen with the new, more robust, layout. Who knows?

Nonetheless, it's always beneficial to have as much control over a system as is necessary, as it means the system will more readily respond to setup changes, without going completely overboard, because that would mean it's too heavy.

For whatever reason, Ferrari wasn't able to properly strike that balance until this year, as evidenced by the night-and-day difference in the handling of the SF15-T versus the handling of last year's car. It's not just down to the better driveability of the current PU. (In fairness, if the problems were caused by poor feedback, Massa is as much to blame as anyone else.)

And I've completely lost the ability to be brief.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

So, you believe that the engineers, who most likely never have driven a Formula 1 car, or will ever do so, take no imput from the people that actually drive them? Especially when those individualy are usually the best paid members of the team (I mean real teams that pay their drivers because they want quality, not Sauber, Manor or the other pay drivers).

You mean to say the engineers who design the high end Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Buggatti's, need EXPERIENCE OF DRIVING THEM to create such beasts? The actual data available through a variety of equipments on the car is more scientific evidence of a car's performance. Like I mentioned, it is the job of engineers to UNDERSTAND THE DRIVER PREFERENCES (OPINION/LIKELINESS/COMFORT whatever you call it). Best paid does not mean, they SHOULD give you best opinions.

I personally believe, mainly because the Ferraris over the past years did not get faster during the seasons, that Alonso had the say in which direction the development of the car (mainly balance, steering and braking characteristics) should take, and never got it right, for whatever reason.

In business world, the highlighted is called as INEFFICIENCY.

So, in a nutshell - the engineers design the cars with the input from the drivers, so they most certainly have their say.

Was Alonso responsible for the stupid wind tunnel that they had, results of which were not correlating at all, to what was to be seen on track? That was one of their fundamental problem. Their wind tunnel was giving results as performance enhancement and when they bolted parts, it was making the car slower !!! Did Alonso also told them how to design the wind tunnel? Was it Alonso WHO GAVE ALL THE INPUTS to design their hybrid systems of 2014, which lacked the efficiency to perform? There was not one innovative idea that was on a Ferrari in the last few years. Did Alonso stopped their brains from functioning, while Red Bull was pioneering performance in a variety of ways? The bunch of idiot (I apologize here, this is frustration of having been a Ferrari fan in the past) engineers from Ferrari simply used to come to Winter testing with a skeleton and were looking around for things and then going back to COPY them.
They have simply made a scape goat of Alonso for their own inefficiencies. How did the current car became competent? Did Vettel started working with Ferrari from last year itself? All of last year, they were still getting the feedback from the same driver, Alonso.
In reality, it still is for engineers to build competent cars with innovative ideas to gain performance step on their competitors. Drivers can only help them refine certain behavior of a car.

[ferkan]

Wait, did you just say engineers at Ferrar/Lamborghini/Porsche don't need drivers input about handling of the car? Ferrari's road test drivers are VERY valuable to them and you can't get that job easily no matter the talen. Raffaele De Simone was groomed by Dario Benuzzi at Ferrari to be their main test and development driver, who was their chief test driver for over 20 years. Raffael's input in cars performance and characteristics is crucial for the feel and drive-ability of Ferrari's road car. There are many better drivers then him, but Ferrari say he is the best at his job because he has got perfect feel on what the car should handle like and he is engineer as well.

Not saying Alonso is to fault for how Ferrari's turned out last 5 years, but JA did imply that the best characteristic of their current drivers is that they will "constantly nag" about every little detail of the car that needs to be improved, and that their bad driving is not result of their talent/ability but cars inability to deliver good performance on the track. I think we can all agree that Alonso is perhaps the best driver on the grid when it comes to driving anything that moves, but when car is perfectly suited for each driver, there are several that are as fast as he is.

[bhall II]

[...]
Drivers can only help them refine certain behavior of a car.

When you have 20 or so cars on the grid, all within seconds of one another and each consisting of thousands of parts that make use of widely disparate technologies and disciplines throughout a huge range of conditions, what you've termed as refinement is quite often the difference between winning and losing.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

[...]
Drivers can only help them refine certain behavior of a car.

When you have 20 or so cars on the grid, all within seconds of one another and each consisting of thousands of parts that make use of widely disparate technologies and disciplines throughout a huge range of conditions, what you've termed as refinement is quite often the difference between winning and losing.

Well Said. But if a group of engineers bring out a dog, you don't then simply start making nonsense of a driver being responsible for the dog. No amount of driver input is going to help it make competitive. It would still be the engineers who have to make it competitive by identifying the areas leading to performance deficit. An engineer takes feedback from driver, but has to use his own wisdom to understand if that feedback is going to help improve the performance or not, relative to his understanding of the root cause.
Even Senna left McLaren in search of a better car. What stopped the GENIUS from staying at McLaren and DRIVING THE DEVELOPMENT of the car? Was he responsible for the sloppy MP4/6B, MP4/7A, MP4/8? How did he managed to make a championship winning car, MP4/6 into a dog the next year, by his feedback? If that is true, then he was VERY BAD AT DEVELOPING A CAR.
If Drivers are the KEY FACTORS in driving the development of a car, which I don't agree although they are one of the factors, a rookie (one full year's worth of experience) Sebastian Vettel is HALF THE GENIUS behind the creation of RB6, 7, 8 and 9. So, with that it is unfair to give all the credit to Newey and his team.

[bhall II]

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not to trying to make any definitive or categorical statements one way or the other. I just want to express a possibility.

Fernando Alonso is widely reputed to favor a car that tends to understeer rather than oversteer. That means, from his perspective, the front suspension isn't quite as important to his overall setup as something like throttle response, or "driveability," because he expects the front-end to give up on corner entry, and, more than the steering wheel, he uses his right foot to rotate the car around the apex.

That also means he may not be particularly sensitive to potential flaws in the suspension unless something goes horribly wrong.

Kimi Raikkonen, on the other hand, is much, much, much more sensitive to the front-end, because he wants it to be as planted as possible.

"Since the go-karts, if it doesn't turn and the front doesn't bite I've never liked it. My driving style is more about trying to carry the speed into the corners and keep it up in the mid-corner. It's the way I'm used to doing thing but obviously it changes every year and with every car, but I still think it's the fastest way and when you get the car working for you as you want the fastest maximum speed - for me at least - can be found that way.

"It's something that's lacking from the car right now and if you cannot put the car where you want and brake where you want because of locking or sliding the front then it becomes a guessing game about where you are going to be. And if you miss a little bit the corner you are going to miss a lot of speed on the next straight. It sounds like a small thing, but around one lap when you keep guessing every corner it creates quite a big deficit. A few races it has been pretty okay and then most races it has been like that where you fight every corner and then the time difference is quite big."

I think it might be somewhat telling that after three years of pull-rod layouts that more or less looked the same, this year's layout looks to feature substantially more robust components. Designers tend to want such components to be a thin as possible for aero purposes, so there must have been a compelling reason to change.



Enter: installation stiffness.

...one issue here is, [with poor installation stiffness] that you end up with a spring
at "end of the chain", over which you may don't have any control in terms of damping. Now if you manage to get this spring into resonanz, you can face a complete loss of control over contact patch loadings, leading to a massive, sometimes sudden reduction in grip, under certain condition ( for example in a certain (car/bike) speed range through corners).

Another issue here, is that with a spring element you always induce some lap/delay in your overal system response, and this may shifts with exitation frequencies.
In simple terms the difference in time (lag or lead) between the peak of your spring force and the peak of your damping force, in a simple mass, spring, damper system.

something along the lines of this:

That basically means the suspension is given to seemingly random vibrations on occasion and a constant delay between input and response.

Kimi Raikkonen says he hates the situation he finds himself in with the handling of his Ferrari Formula 1 car at the moment, following a disappointing US Grand Prix.

The 2007 world champion came home 13th and one lap down on race winner Lewis Hamilton at Austin on Sunday, as his race was marred by front-end problems that plagued him all weekend.

"Here was again one of the most difficult weekends," Raikkonen told reporters after the race.

"Japan was similar - we fight with understeer the whole weekend and whatever we do we can't seem to get rid of it.

"Then you can expect in the race to destroy the front tyres.

"Obviously I hate the situation the way it is and the way things are going, and I cannot solve it by myself."

Raikkonen added that the main frustration with his problems was that he and Ferrari have been unable to pinpoint what is causing them.

"To try to drive slowly in certain places didn't make any difference [to the life of the front tyres] so I don't understand it really," he said.

"Wherever we finished it's pretty disappointing. Not being able to solve certain issues is frustrating.

"Hopefully something comes up and we find what the issues are.

"I appreciate some help and obviously we try to help each other to fix these issues, but if we knew the issue it would be easier to solve."

The Finn said that team-mate Fernando Alonso - who finished sixth - is not as sensitive to the front-end difficulties with the 2014 Ferrari.

"In certain places, yes, it's the same issue, but I think he doesn't mind too much when the front is sliding," he said.
Fernando Alonso

"So the effect is not so big then. It's a bit of a different story."

ALONSO BATTLES VIBRATIONS

Alonso only just held onto sixth at the end of the race, beating Sebastian Vettel to the line by half a second after his car developed a serious vibration in the closing stages.

"I had huge vibrations on the tyres for the last two laps," said Alonso. "I could not even see the track, basically.

"I tried to control the pace. I was asking for the gap from behind to cross the line just in front of them.

"But then Vettel overtook [Kevin] Magnussen and there was no time to save any more so on the last lap I was flat out with huge vibrations."

See where I'm going with this? (That makes one of us!)

I suspect, but obviously cannot prove, that Alonso's insensitivity to front suspension issues dogged the team for years. While a pull-rod layout is theoretically just as capable as a push-rod layout, its characteristics are nonetheless very different, especially in terms of how loads are transferred to and through the chassis. So, when the team made the change from push-rod to pull-rod in 2012, which was a dramatic shift, and its fastest driver damn near drove it to a World Championship, the team probably just assumed there were no problems or they didn't properly appreciate the issues when they popped up, because, again, their #1 guy was seemingly OK with it all.

Even if Massa had reported anything, it would have been very easy to dismiss his complaints, given Alonso's pace with the same layout. But, that doesn't mean they were unaffected by them or that the car wouldn't have benefited if they were corrected, because it's always best to have as much control over a system as possible.

Admittedly, that's just a vague, handwavy hypothesis. But it nonetheless demonstrates one way in which poor feedback can potentially lead to developmental problems. It's not malicious; it just happens.

[giantfan10]

your hypothesis is absolutely correct... most of it is factual and the portions that you took your best shot at are the most plausible explanations i have seen on this forum.