Ramifications and speculation around TD045 and how it affects team operations

[AR3-GP]

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ryan-vel ... member_ios

…and Mercedes are ‘at it’ as well from the look of the link.

Everyone seems to be doing it!

How does an engineer playing in cad during his personal time mean Mercedes are at it?

Given his comments, it sounds more like his project was as much about making a parametric model as it was anything else (not a simple task when it comes to an object as complex as a car).

This is a CFD baseline model, with watertight and parametric surfaces for ease of modification, while maintaining high surface quality. Both the rulebook, books and research papers have been used to aid my design as I evaluated and tested different concepts and aerodynamic direction.

It's training outside the budget cap. I'm sure all employees at most teams have been encouraged to "entertain themselves" with work related projects to sharpen their skills. Parametric surfacing and parametric wind tunnel models are big time savers.

[Vanja #66]

Oooh, are we assuming Merc F1 team gave him permission to use company PC off work to "hone his skills"? Well I guess in reality all teams must be doing that if one teams is doing it...

[AR3-GP]

Oooh, are we assuming Merc F1 team gave him permission to use company PC off work to "hone his skills"? Well I guess in reality all teams must be doing that if one teams is doing it...

He probably has a work laptop which he's allowed to take home.

[peewon]

Oooh, are we assuming Merc F1 team gave him permission to use company PC off work to "hone his skills"? Well I guess in reality all teams must be doing that if one teams is doing it...

I think the implication is that if FIA wants to start looking outside the official boundaries of an F1 team for possible cost cap violations, they are putting themselves in a situations which are extremely murky and convoluted. The decisions become increasingly subjective with no clear cut definitions and puts too much power in the hands of the FIA. This inherently undermines the competitive fairness of the series due to their checkered history of favoritism.

[bluechris]

Noone can watch what anyone is doing in their homes. They can have anything they want as long the software is not payed from the mother company.
The point is how big is this in real world usage and in my mind it is. No matter the work you do, if you have time and you love your work, you try things in your personal machines for your own benefit and learn but eventually you help your company first.
This is at least what my mind says according to my experience after 34 years at work in IT department. The testing that i do to learn is come basically from home testing and then i present solutions to work.
So i don't believe F1 and the tools they use are only working in the factory and no-one now or ever can police that.

[Just_a_fan]

Is CATIA a home PC CAD system?
I suppose that would depend on how deep your pockets are?

But the point of my post was to show how cloudy this TD is in reality.

Using ‘work’ tools away from work as a way to learn & gain knowledge is a net benefit, but how do the FIA determine what is inside & outside the regulation for accounting purposes?

If one accepts that a cost and resource cap are the right thing to do (and many don't, of course), then there has to be a "line in the sand" over which lies the land of bad things to do that get you in trouble. The FIA's problem, as we all know, is where to draw that line and how to monitor teams stepping over it.

I guess one has to wonder how useful a single lap top is for assessing the performance of an F1 car's aero. If it was that simple, the teams wouldn't have massive computer resources to do these things. Making use of the "big iron" back at base in some way (either the F1 team's "big iron" or a side-hustle project's "big iron") would be an obvious red flag. And I guess that's what the TD is aiming at stopping. Use of a side-hustle's resources to apply large amounts of naughty info to the F1 car.

[dans79]

I guess one has to wonder how useful a single lap top is for assessing the performance of an F1 car's aero.

most likely not verry good. If his model is even half way decent it probably has a few hundred parameters, so just opening the model will crush even a high end laptop depending on what CAD software he used.

This is something a lot of kids fresh out of college learn the hard way where I work. The company lets them pick their hardware and they almost always go for that new shiny mac laptop. They quickly learn that for real world R&D a laptop isn't up to snuff, not to mention the ergonomics.....

Making use of the "big iron" back at base in some way (either the F1 team's "big iron" or a side-hustle project's "big iron") would be an obvious red flag.

Yea, I would hope that's would be a firing offense!

[AR3-GP]

Is CATIA a home PC CAD system?
I suppose that would depend on how deep your pockets are?

But the point of my post was to show how cloudy this TD is in reality.

Using ‘work’ tools away from work as a way to learn & gain knowledge is a net benefit, but how do the FIA determine what is inside & outside the regulation for accounting purposes?

If one accepts that a cost and resource cap are the right thing to do (and many don't, of course), then there has to be a "line in the sand" over which lies the land of bad things to do that get you in trouble. The FIA's problem, as we all know, is where to draw that line and how to monitor teams stepping over it.

I guess one has to wonder how useful a single lap top is for assessing the performance of an F1 car's aero. If it was that simple, the teams wouldn't have massive computer resources to do these things. Making use of the "big iron" back at base in some way (either the F1 team's "big iron" or a side-hustle project's "big iron") would be an obvious red flag. And I guess that's what the TD is aiming at stopping. Use of a side-hustle's resources to apply large amounts of naughty info to the F1 car.

You wouldn't have to use a laptop to "assess aero". You could draw exploratory shapes in your free time due to idle curiosities and use that knowledge to present more finished ideas at work.

A few post above, a Mercedes engineer developed an entire LMP car in his free time. You don't think some engineer somewhere else plays around with "unrelated" F1 car surface models in his free time? They most certainly do. The lines are very blurry.

There's no doubt that there's a silent pressure in the industry now to use up your free, unpaid time, thinking about F1 and you will ultimately always find the willing participants.

[Just_a_fan]

Is CATIA a home PC CAD system?
I suppose that would depend on how deep your pockets are?

But the point of my post was to show how cloudy this TD is in reality.

Using ‘work’ tools away from work as a way to learn & gain knowledge is a net benefit, but how do the FIA determine what is inside & outside the regulation for accounting purposes?

If one accepts that a cost and resource cap are the right thing to do (and many don't, of course), then there has to be a "line in the sand" over which lies the land of bad things to do that get you in trouble. The FIA's problem, as we all know, is where to draw that line and how to monitor teams stepping over it.

I guess one has to wonder how useful a single lap top is for assessing the performance of an F1 car's aero. If it was that simple, the teams wouldn't have massive computer resources to do these things. Making use of the "big iron" back at base in some way (either the F1 team's "big iron" or a side-hustle project's "big iron") would be an obvious red flag. And I guess that's what the TD is aiming at stopping. Use of a side-hustle's resources to apply large amounts of naughty info to the F1 car.

You wouldn't have to use a laptop to "assess aero". You could draw exploratory shapes in your free time due to idle curiosities and use that knowledge to present more finished ideas at work.

A few post above, a Mercedes engineer developed an entire LMP car in his free time. You don't think some engineer somewhere else plays around with "unrelated" F1 car surface models in his free time? They most certainly do. The lines are very blurry.

There's no doubt that there's a silent pressure in the industry now to use up your free, unpaid time, thinking about F1 and you will ultimately always find the willing participants.

He modelled it, he didn't develop it. Anyone can sit down and draw up shapes but until they're run through proper CFD and WT time, they're just that - shapes.

It's no different to Newey sitting on the beach with his sketch book - everyone knows that engineers do that sort of thing by habit - it's part of what drives them. And that's fine.

Sitting at a terminal running full CFD on your F1 design is what the TD is about - and it's especially about not doing so at somewhere that isn't the F1 team's bit of the factory.

[Stu]

If one accepts that a cost and resource cap are the right thing to do (and many don't, of course), then there has to be a "line in the sand" over which lies the land of bad things to do that get you in trouble. The FIA's problem, as we all know, is where to draw that line and how to monitor teams stepping over it.

I guess one has to wonder how useful a single lap top is for assessing the performance of an F1 car's aero. If it was that simple, the teams wouldn't have massive computer resources to do these things. Making use of the "big iron" back at base in some way (either the F1 team's "big iron" or a side-hustle project's "big iron") would be an obvious red flag. And I guess that's what the TD is aiming at stopping. Use of a side-hustle's resources to apply large amounts of naughty info to the F1 car.

You wouldn't have to use a laptop to "assess aero". You could draw exploratory shapes in your free time due to idle curiosities and use that knowledge to present more finished ideas at work.

A few post above, a Mercedes engineer developed an entire LMP car in his free time. You don't think some engineer somewhere else plays around with "unrelated" F1 car surface models in his free time? They most certainly do. The lines are very blurry.

There's no doubt that there's a silent pressure in the industry now to use up your free, unpaid time, thinking about F1 and you will ultimately always find the willing participants.

He modelled it, he didn't develop it. Anyone can sit down and draw up shapes but until they're run through proper CFD and WT time, they're just that - shapes.

It's no different to Newey sitting on the beach with his sketch book - everyone knows that engineers do that sort of thing by habit - it's part of what drives them. And that's fine.

Sitting at a terminal running full CFD on your F1 design is what the TD is about - and it's especially about not doing so at somewhere that isn't the F1 team's bit of the factory.

A few days ago you and others were stating that the AMR Valkyrie and the mythical RB17 were what the TD is about.

Ferrari have split an element of their team off to develop the Ferrari LMH (and they have been quite open about utilising some F1 techniques in the car).
Audi will be bringing their own WEC experience to F1 with Sauber.

This guy at Mercedes may have done this project ‘for jollies’, but it will be a part of his learning experience (and he will be able to take what he has learned directly into his day-job).

None of those are wrong things to do.

Concurrent ‘black ops’ style programs run ‘off-the-books’ are wrong things to do.

Delineating the two is what the FIA need to do. An impossible task?

This is not limited to purely aero research, either.

[Just_a_fan]

the mythical RB17

Mythical? Red Bull still have their website up and still have requests for interest. It's a lot less mythical than the ability of a graduate to design an F1 car on his work lap top at the weekend.

[Stu]

the mythical RB17

Mythical? Red Bull still have their website up and still have requests for interest. It's a lot less mythical than the ability of a graduate to design an F1 car on his work lap top at the weekend.

Mythical? Absolutely is…
“a widely held but false belief or idea”
It exists for public consumption as a non-object (only a sketch, a price tag and a power output….!)

And the Mercedes chap? It was an LMH that he created (made absolutely clear in both his LinkedIn post & my post here.

#factcheck

[Just_a_fan]

the mythical RB17

Mythical? Red Bull still have their website up and still have requests for interest. It's a lot less mythical than the ability of a graduate to design an F1 car on his work lap top at the weekend.

Mythical? Absolutely is…
“a widely held but false belief or idea”
It exists for public consumption as a non-object (only a sketch, a price tag and a power output….!)

So the RB17 doesn't exist in any form and no work has been done on its design/development? Cool, thanks for the insider knowledge.

And the Mercedes chap? It was an LMH that he created (made absolutely clear in both his LinkedIn post & my post here.

Typo on my part. Mea culpa.

#factcheck

Fairly sure that if I ended a post like that I'd be getting told off by the mods for trolling.
But then, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[ValeVida46]

Re Catia being unobtainium for the layman.

Dassault Systemes (and some others) provide a huge student discount that isn't more expensive than someone who has a lower/mid range DJi drone hobby. So very much attainable, it can be downloaded on 2 or 3 systems so if you have any other nerdy mates, the prices halves or less.
Varies from country to country but if anyone is a "student" they can get quotes here:

https://www.3ds.com/products-services/catia/


If it's dubious an employee is running CAD on his home PC, we should also then consider paper and pencils on the off chance they might utilise these tools for an idea outside of work. Perhaps extended to recording of spousal engagement.
Can never tell if those Eureka moments happen at the most inopportune of times.

How these are even remotely comparable to ground effect hypercar development team, with a budget in excess of 150m dollars is anyone's guess.

[mzso]

Making use of the "big iron" back at base in some way (either the F1 team's "big iron" or a side-hustle project's "big iron") would be an obvious red flag.

Yea, I would hope that's would be a firing offense!

Why? If it's not explicitly against regulations, it's just another loophole...