Following the demotion of Ron Dennis as the company's chief, McLaren Technology Group has announced that Zak Brown has accepted the position of Executive Director. The former McLaren F1 driver is set to start work in December.
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Ha. Well you are right about the downforce.. they just didn't have enough of it in japan, as some of us predicted.
Alonso managed only 16th place, his worst finish of the season, with team-mate Jenson Button further back in 18th spot.
"Our race reflected the whole weekend: it was just anonymous," said Alonso.
"To finish 16th and 18th is a rather nasty surprise, especially after finishing seventh in Singapore, and seventh and ninth in Malaysia, just a weekend ago.
"I hope this was an exceptional and unique event, and that we'll return to business as usual at the next race, in Austin. "
"It was clear that the layout of the track didn't suit our package โ we lacked downforce through the faster corners."
techman wrote:if you consider suzuka to be more power circuit than mexico and brazil then i guess the F1 engineers got it wrong, you need to take over their jobs. just look at the average top speeds. of these two tracks. i guess you guys will next say monaco is more a power circuit than mexico and brazil and i will not be suprised there is not point debating as you have shown no understanding and knowledge of the track.
Not saying Suzuka is more power dependant than Brazil or Mexico, but looking at average speeds is a poor choice of judging power sensitivity. Both Brazil and Mexico City are at extremely high altitudes and thus much higher top speeds can be achieved. Added to that, a driver can be at full throttle while cornering, as in the case of 130R, and this scrubs speed off. Rather look at percentage of lap at full throttle for a better idea.
Suzuka has a full throttle percentage of 66%. 5th highest on the calendar. Monza (76), spa (70), silverstone (70), barcelona (67%) are in front, all others have less than 66%. Interlaggos is 50% and mexico is 45%.
techman wrote:if you consider suzuka to be more power circuit than mexico and brazil then i guess the F1 engineers got it wrong, you need to take over their jobs. just look at the average top speeds. of these two tracks. i guess you guys will next say monaco is more a power circuit than mexico and brazil and i will not be suprised there is not point debating as you have shown no understanding and knowledge of the track.
You are joking right?
High speed turn tracks are also Power sensitive tracks. For tracks with high speed turns like Silverstone and Suzuka You can't get away with trimming off down-force, and you can't even crank on the down-force and hope you some how make it on the straights.. It just won't work! Good aero and a good engine is mandatory. RedBull qualified 7th last year and finished 13th.
techman wrote:if you consider suzuka to be more power circuit than mexico and brazil then i guess the F1 engineers got it wrong, you need to take over their jobs. just look at the average top speeds. of these two tracks. i guess you guys will next say monaco is more a power circuit than mexico and brazil and i will not be suprised there is not point debating as you have shown no understanding and knowledge of the track.
Suzuka is a power track and one of those that offer not alot of electricity recuperation, which means that cars with weaker internal combustion engines suffer even greater loss of both traction on high speed corners (due to the lack of speed which reduces the grip) and overall speed which translates in less heat in the braking zones, which means less electricity produced by the recuperation units. Not to mention that electricity is used for patching the power of the engine in areas where power deficit exists trough acceleration and cornering, which causes batteries getting drained by the time they are needed for the straights.
If i would get the money to start my own F1 team, i would revive Arrows
Their downforce is very good, they were exceptional through the Esses. The places that Alonso suffered relative to Rosberg wasn't the straights, it was under braking, and under acceleration. Turns 1 & 2, uphill on the Dunlop curve, entry to Degner 2, entry to Spoon Curve, and the entry to Casio Corner. The Mercedes trail breaks much better and accelerates out of traction limited aero dominant curves much better. It also has better acceleration from 220kph on, top end power doesn't seem to be too bad, the powerband is just limited and peaky in comparison.
The chassis isn't horrible either, but the way the power unit is integrated into the chassis is still at least a year behind. Also the suspension is lacking, but this has been a problem all season. It's like they didn't even bother to make many suspension changes, or maybe they did and we were just never savvy to them.
Given the big change and the knowledge that trying to fight for a championship this year is rather pointless I don't blame them to focus all their resources on developing something for next year suspension wise and ignore this year as it doesn't really carry over. There is a lot of low hanging fruit given next year's changes, so focusing on areas they can exploit next year at the expense of some things that could make their car quicker this year but waste time developing next year, seems rational. In any case, getting the chassis working with the power unit becomes easier when it's power band is much broader, also experience helps. They'll make at least a similar relative step forward as they did from 2015-2016, they'll be at least the 4th fastest team from the first test.
i tend to agree its like the big year is realy 2017 if you noticed the timeline
honda started from scratch in 2015 in order to learn their new young engineers (after all honda pay the bills ) for a reason.
in their second year 2016 they exceeded ferrari and mercedes second year
now 2017 seems the other manufacturers will reach a ceiling kind of , while honda will be able to reach their level of powertrain or come very close at least thats what i believe.
techman wrote:if you consider suzuka to be more power circuit than mexico and brazil then i guess the F1 engineers got it wrong, you need to take over their jobs. just look at the average top speeds. of these two tracks. i guess you guys will next say monaco is more a power circuit than mexico and brazil and i will not be suprised there is not point debating as you have shown no understanding and knowledge of the track.
Not saying Suzuka is more power dependant than Brazil or Mexico, but looking at average speeds is a poor choice of judging power sensitivity. Both Brazil and Mexico City are at extremely high altitudes and thus much higher top speeds can be achieved. Added to that, a driver can be at full throttle while cornering, as in the case of 130R, and this scrubs speed off. Rather look at percentage of lap at full throttle for a better idea.
Suzuka has a full throttle percentage of 66%. 5th highest on the calendar. Monza (76), spa (70), silverstone (70), barcelona (67%) are in front, all others have less than 66%. Interlaggos is 50% and mexico is 45%.
We meet again
I haven't put a stopwatch on all the circuits but I have done three
2015 pole laps % full throttle on FOM graphic.
Suzuka 52%
Spa 61%
Barcelona 41%
If correct these paint a very different picture to the numbers you show, which I know come from f1fanatic.
I'll try to find some time to check mine.
Fortune favours the prepared; she has no favourites and takes no sides.
Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty : Tacitus
I fear Mexico may be another bad race, but hopefully nowhere near as bad as Suzuka was. Brazil, I'm not so sure about, but Austin should definitely be good
Exactly, average speed is irrelevant to how much power hungry is a circuit. Throttle percentage on the other hand gives a good picture of it. Also, Proteus nailed it as we told. Just leave the trolls alone, seems pointless.
Honda is more or less 80hp down to all others (proven by GPS data), so you think that they can develop the chassis as they want?
SAYS WHO? why r u speading bs. I know andrew benson said about 80 bhp down to mercedes he has no proof to it and he said he thinks its 80bhp down and thats at the start of the season , but its his opinion. what bs is this.. show me the facts dont spread rumours.the fact that you are believing the mclaren bs about their overated chasis shows you ignorance.
just watch and see mexico and brazil where it is considered to a power circuit, it will at least better than suzuka for mclaren.anyway cant wait till next year and this bs will stop and eric.b job is on the line.
mclaren could not even get there car to be good with a mercedes in 2013 and 2014 , i am not sure if they can make a good chassis in 2017 . but lets hope.
I don't think Mexico or Brazil are power tracks
did you have look at the track? its mainly dominated with long straights and engine power counts a lot. its not a monaco mate.
I have looked at the track ... RosBerg spent 36.94 second in sector 2 last year(the slow section) and only 33.something seconds in sectors 1 and 3 combined. So more than half the track is slow.
Mexico harder to tell, The sector time is pretty even split between each sector. S1 is 2 straights slit by a 90 degree turn. It's hard to tell from the map about the rest. Can't tell if there is hard acceleration or just hold speed while you go through a bunch of turns.
techman wrote:if you consider suzuka to be more power circuit than mexico and brazil then i guess the F1 engineers got it wrong, you need to take over their jobs. just look at the average top speeds. of these two tracks. i guess you guys will next say monaco is more a power circuit than mexico and brazil and i will not be suprised there is not point debating as you have shown no understanding and knowledge of the track.
You are joking right?
High speed turn tracks are also Power sensitive tracks. For tracks with high speed turns like Silverstone and Suzuka You can't get away with trimming off down-force, and you can't even crank on the down-force and hope you some how make it on the straights.. It just won't work! Good aero and a good engine is mandatory. RedBull qualified 7th last year and finished 13th.
loner wrote:in their second year 2016 they exceeded ferrari and mercedes second year
Huh?
In their "second year" Ferrari went from the worst engine to almost equal with the best, went from 4th in the constructors' championship to 2nd and won 3 races.
In their "second year" Mercedes won 16 of 19 races and won the drivers' and constructors' championships. Same as in their first year.
They did this and supplied other teams with PUs as well.
loner wrote:in their second year 2016 they exceeded ferrari and mercedes second year
Huh?
In their "second year" Ferrari went from the worst engine to almost equal with the best, went from 4th in the constructors' championship to 2nd and won 3 races.
In their "second year" Mercedes won 16 of 19 races and won the drivers' and constructors' championships. Same as in their first year.
They did this and supplied other teams with PUs as well.
How did Honda exceed Ferrari and Mercedes?
The idea here is in absolute terms, I. e. the 2016 Honda (= 2. year Honda) is similar in power to the 2015 Ferrari (= 2. year Ferrari). In relative terms of course you are right, Ferrari jumped from rubbish in 14 to rather good in 15 (still quite a bit worse than merc I'd say, especially in quali and reliability), while Honda went from utter crap to bad, but in the ballpark.
After asking alot questions to the right people. What went wrong at Suzuka?
Must run high DF at Suzuka but with little wing as possible.Must get max DF from underside of car so all the other teams ran their cars as low as possible.(just leave enough skid-pad to be legal)
Mclaren can not lower the rear any more and they can't add more wing because they would lose too much speed.They run low front with high rear ride height.The diffuser was just too high off the ground to work at Suzuka.I think that is the rear suspension problem they have been having all year.At Suzuka and Monaco it seams they needed more adjustable ride height than suspension design allowed.
So a car that worked only 2/3 of the lap and ate tires.Even the harder tire didn't work because they couldn't get heat into them.
Trying to reduce the categorisation of tracks as power or chassis by a single number is tricky.
Using %age of full throttle would underestimate circuits with long high speed corners where the driver modulates demand just below full throttle. The first sector at COTA is a case in point.
Using average speed is also flawed. In seeking fuel efficiency the teams try to minimise top speed and maximise corner speed. The most efficient lap would be where the car runs at a constant average speed. So given a choice of ways to achieve a lap time the teams add downforce to run quicker in the corners and slower on the straights, which may or may not show how much power they have.
And today's F1 is very interconnected. There is so much dependency between the suspension, aero, tyre heating system (sometimes called brakes) and the energy deployment systems that trying to pin down performance at a given track to one factor is, IMHO, impossible.
At Singapore last year Mercedes performed badly. Was that because it's a chassis track or a power track? Or was it because Mercedes failed to find the combination of all their systems that got the car to its full potential?
Fortune favours the prepared; she has no favourites and takes no sides.
Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty : Tacitus