kediown wrote: ↑09 Sep 2022, 23:08
I want to start the topic with specifying it more.
For example the engineers have decided to come with two different rear wing configurations to a track.
In continuation of my example, the team has brought a wing with low downforce and medium-low downforce.
They implement the wings on two different cars with two different drivers and one of the drivers have edge over the other one in lap times. Anyway, they start to lap around the circuit meanwhile the engineers are gathering data. After putting nice lap times and warm data to the engineer team and finish the session with similar lap times and similar tire degradation.
So, at the end, neither of the drivers managed to put an ideal lap over one run.
How do the engineers compare the efficiency of those wings for the track?
My pretty basic opinion is that they can take the ideal mini-sectors from those drivers to compare the efficiency of the wing, but I asked to this forum for a reason: I want a more detailed explanation.
Normally, simulation tests of new configurations prior to track running are required, to preliminary check if the new elements (rear wing in this case) can potentially be better for that specific track. Once approved and developed the new element, you will try your new configuration on track and check if the track data, collected by sensors, match with the simulations. If so, given for example that on simulations you have config B faster than config A, you would probably have this condition achieved also on track.
However, as
chrisc90 mentioned, drivers' feedback is very important: not necessarily the theoretically fastest configuration is also the real fastest one, because of driver's feeling (e.g. more difficult to reach the limit). Tyre deg and warm-up will have a role on the configuration choice as well.
Finally, as you said, also performance comparison by ideal mini-sectors is very useful to compare different configurations, regardless of the sim data. Still, you have to consider that mini-sectors performance is affected by numerous factors (track evolution, wind, slipstream, driver ability, etc.), so you would have to compensate these data, not always obtaining a clear picture of the overall performance (taking also into consideration the limited practice time).
