Zynerji wrote: ↑27 Dec 2020, 17:04
diffuser wrote: ↑27 Dec 2020, 05:56
nzjrs wrote: ↑26 Dec 2020, 18:36
(not picking on you) but I wonder what the overlap of people is that believe that drivers do/do not have significant influence on the design of the car 'Hamiltonstappen is good at developing cars' vs those that do/do not belive that drivers have/have not information about the PU operation and influence on its mapping.
I think cars are built based on science with the understanding that they must give drivers confidence. So there is a fine tuning. It is also hard to deferentiate between driver feedback and all the data that is collected. I'm sure all the feedback that the drivers give is double checked with data.
I think the biggest misconception is that cars are designed for one driver over another. When the reality is they just design the features to make the cars as fast as possible. It just turns out that some drivers can take better advantage of the car's strength.
I agree. However, all parts are NOT the same.
Every engine will have HP differences.
Every carbon piece will have different weight.
A team could purposefully advantage a single driver over the other by simply collecting the best parts to build one car.
I think you're greatly overestimating the differences in HP and weight. There are millions involved in making the best of the best, any weight more than needed is unneccesary and thus in general, won't pass 'quality control' if you may.
That goes for the engines aswell offcourse, so 'purposefully' advantage one over the other is highly unlikely.
at most this might happen with teams that are in financially unhealthier circumstances, like williams in the recent past. A team like Mercedes, a team like RedBull, have vast money to invest so they get the very best and no need to 'save'. Williams has to save, which is why they go for Aluminium/Titanium gearbox casings. When dealing with issues like that, there is no room to 'dispose' or 'redo' a part that has a minimal weight difference, so PERHAPS one driver gets a part that is 0,01 grams lighter than the other. Or perhaps one driver gets spark plugs that have done 4 hours less than the other. If any of this will even result in a performance 'handicap', it's not even going to be worth a tenth, a hundred, at the very best a thousanth of a second a lap. Meanwhile, the only reason such 'difference' would be allowed is because in the end it won't make a difference because they won't be fighting for points anyway.
If they would, then they'd make sure there is no opportunity lost, hence this would not happen.
It's not the material. It's how the driver and engineer deal with the material handed to him, and additionally, how much the team supports / is motivated to wring the most out of the material handed to them, where they also need all the feedback they can get from said driver. Even if the whole team including driver is fully motivated, but the driver can't give the feedback needed to improve, then the driver simply won't improve, no matter how talented they are. If a driver can give great feedback but is a sack of hay, blames the entire team but himself, then the 'camp' itself won't be motivated to wring the best out of the material and there won't be improvement.
If the driver is motivated, gets great feedback, but simply isn't really talented, then there won't be improvement either.
If instead you have a talented driver, that is motivated himself, and also motivates his team, including his own engineer, and is able to give valuable feedback, then there will be improvement. and this is exactly what RBR needs with the 2nd RBR seat, and is something that without any single doubt Perez will be able to achieve better than Albon will/can.
Let's put it like this.
If for some reason, a front wing endplate gets damaged during the start of the race, Albon will claim his material is prohibiting him from driving all out, will complain, and will not get the best result he can with the material he has.
Perez instead, in the same situation, will simply accept this 'handicap' and deal with it the best way he can, and as such, will get the best out of what he can.
this attitude will ultimately get the driver to finish for example P3, instead of P2 in a fully functional vehicle, whereas the 'negative' attitude, will see the driver tumble down to P6 at best.
Jones would come in and note oversteer in the sweepers, but then rule out a suggestion of a bigger front swaybar as it would make understeer at the hairpin worse. He didn't have an essay to recite, but rather could pinpoint the issues that cost the most laptime and then only contradict the setup change if it would lose laptime elsewhere. Of course, such driver analysis was more important in the days before data logging.
