Red Bull RB19

[Vanja #66]

Lol, indeed. It's pretty clear their "Philosophy" is the secret sauce - ie, not chasing peak downforce, but aiming for stable, overall usable downforce.

As they say in my industry, perfection is the enemy of good.

Yes, philosophy is optimal and everything is oriented towards achieveing a perfectly stable car in as many conditions as possible. However, one more thing stands out and makes the "philosophy" work even better.

So...what is the secret sauce?

Wolff hinted at it after the first day of Bahrain testing The car is still running lower than any other car can, no matter how much work they put into susprnsion redesign, different compression rates, non-linear travel, etc.

There's one more thing preventing other teams from running lower and they aren't silent about it - plank wear. It's now confirmed RB are running the car slower on straights and in high-speed corners in races very often to avoid accessive plank wear so they could gain time in slower corners. A very sensible trade-off that also saves the PU a bit! If there's a secret sauce thoug, it's something about the plank installation, giving it more yield in the places where the wear is measured.

[Cs98]

Lol, indeed. It's pretty clear their "Philosophy" is the secret sauce - ie, not chasing peak downforce, but aiming for stable, overall usable downforce.

As they say in my industry, perfection is the enemy of good.

Yes, philosophy is optimal and everything is oriented towards achieveing a perfectly stable car in as many conditions as possible. However, one more thing stands out and makes the "philosophy" work even better.

So...what is the secret sauce?

Wolff hinted at it after the first day of Bahrain testing The car is still running lower than any other car can, no matter how much work they put into susprnsion redesign, different compression rates, non-linear travel, etc.

There's one more thing preventing other teams from running lower and they aren't silent about it - plank wear. It's now confirmed RB are running the car slower on straights and in high-speed corners in races very often to avoid accessive plank wear so they could gain time in slower corners. A very sensible trade-off that also saves the PU a bit! If there's a secret sauce thoug, it's something about the plank installation, giving it more yield in the places where the wear is measured.

Seems like an equally incredible theory. TD039 was only a year ago. Spa is the only track they've lifted for and it's also the only track with a massive vertical compression.

[matteosc]

Lol, indeed. It's pretty clear their "Philosophy" is the secret sauce - ie, not chasing peak downforce, but aiming for stable, overall usable downforce.

As they say in my industry, perfection is the enemy of good.

Yes, philosophy is optimal and everything is oriented towards achieveing a perfectly stable car in as many conditions as possible. However, one more thing stands out and makes the "philosophy" work even better.

So...what is the secret sauce?

Wolff hinted at it after the first day of Bahrain testing The car is still running lower than any other car can, no matter how much work they put into susprnsion redesign, different compression rates, non-linear travel, etc.

There's one more thing preventing other teams from running lower and they aren't silent about it - plank wear. It's now confirmed RB are running the car slower on straights and in high-speed corners in races very often to avoid accessive plank wear so they could gain time in slower corners. A very sensible trade-off that also saves the PU a bit! If there's a secret sauce thoug, it's something about the plank installation, giving it more yield in the places where the wear is measured.

Seems like an equally incredible theory. TD039 was only a year ago. Spa is the only track they've lifted for and it's also the only track with a massive vertical compression.

I agree: Spa was the exception in my opinion. Also RB has consistently been the fastest car in straights and often in high speed corners.
I think that their ability of running consistently low has to do with suspensions and aerodynamic characteristics (aero map) tuned to perfection.

[Sieper]

There was no set up time at Spa. There was just one FP and this got rained out. Who knows if they got the set up as wanted?

[Vanja #66]

Which would be the same as cheating an FIA sensor and should be treated as such.

Not necessarily, if I remember well the plank is actually attached to chassis and the floor comes in between. So it wouldn't actually be a flexi floor, but maybe locally flexible chassis. I'm sure there are some ways to do it completely legally and many more to do it within the gray areas.

[AR3-GP]

There's one more thing preventing other teams from running lower and they aren't silent about it - plank wear. It's now confirmed RB are running the car slower on straights and in high-speed corners in races very often to avoid accessive plank wear so they could gain time in slower corners. A very sensible trade-off that also saves the PU a bit! If there's a secret sauce thoug, it's something about the plank installation, giving it more yield in the places where the wear is measured.

A very interesting comment. We have already seen from the PU deployment maps that it's worth it to make a tradeoff where you harvest at the end of the straights, to gain more at low speed from deployment.

I never considered a team might apply this approach to their aero ride philosophy. Giving up a small amount of time in a high speed corner, to gain a lot more in low speed. It could be something that RB are doing.

[Stu]

Guys, don't tell anyone, but neither the "bypass" theory (presented for the third time by the same channel btw) nor the sidepods are RB19's secret sauce

So...what is the secret sauce?

Direction (the most correct one for the regulation set seen so far) combined with detail (maximising the benefit of the former). If PU output is broadly similar, these details are the ones that make a difference (much as in spec formulae data and operational efficiency are the difference between winning and not winning).

As far as secrets go, this one is hiding in plain sight.

[Farnborough]

Lol, indeed. It's pretty clear their "Philosophy" is the secret sauce - ie, not chasing peak downforce, but aiming for stable, overall usable downforce.

As they say in my industry, perfection is the enemy of good.

Yes, philosophy is optimal and everything is oriented towards achieveing a perfectly stable car in as many conditions as possible. However, one more thing stands out and makes the "philosophy" work even better.

So...what is the secret sauce?

Wolff hinted at it after the first day of Bahrain testing The car is still running lower than any other car can, no matter how much work they put into susprnsion redesign, different compression rates, non-linear travel, etc.

There's one more thing preventing other teams from running lower and they aren't silent about it - plank wear. It's now confirmed RB are running the car slower on straights and in high-speed corners in races very often to avoid accessive plank wear so they could gain time in slower corners. A very sensible trade-off that also saves the PU a bit! If there's a secret sauce thoug, it's something about the plank installation, giving it more yield in the places where the wear is measured.

While I can see what is meant here, I will offer a counter view.

RB didn't have a problem 2022, with original geometry and specifics of FIA enacted at that race in regard to controlling ride height etc. It absolutely trounced allcomers comprehensively in it's effectiveness.
Cut to this year, now with floor lift @ 15mm and throat of venturi lifted by 10mm (think that's correct dimensions mandated in design change) and still it can run really wherever they place it, ultimately with that pace advantage still in tact.

The other's, if they are not running low with risk if plank wear is not because RB have "falsified" plank mountings or whatever conjecture may produce, it's because most when lowered encounter "bouncing" as its now euphemistically called apparently.

These are very different reasons, there's not much the other teams appear to be able to access, without incurring aero accumulated problems they are either unable to solve or which they still don't understand.

The problem the opposition have is that they can't run as low if they wanted to, not the control of plank wear. It maybe true that there's more tolerance to plank rigidity, that's not the driver of the performance we see. It's a red herring in performance terms.

[Just_a_fan]

Which would be the same as cheating an FIA sensor and should be treated as such.

Not necessarily, if I remember well the plank is actually attached to chassis and the floor comes in between. So it wouldn't actually be a flexi floor, but maybe locally flexible chassis. I'm sure there are some ways to do it completely legally and many more to do it within the gray areas.

The plank is a sensor intended to prevent excessive low ride height. It is a sensor that is "read" after use rather than being real time. Designing a system that causes the sensor to read incorrectly is the same as fiddling with the fuel flow sensor, for example.

[Stu]

A sensor?? Not really, it is a device that may be measured for wear, if a team (any team) thinks that they may be scraping excessively and alert the drivers to ‘slow’ in order to avoid the excessive mess it is no different to instructing a driver to lift & coast to preserve fuel in order to preserve enough for the FIA to get the required sample at the end of the race.

Now that is covered can we get the thread back onto topic technical appraisal & discussion of the RB19 & quit trying to subvert each and every thread into a party-lines ‘debate’. Car threads are sacred.

[Just_a_fan]

A sensor?? Not really, it is a device that may be measured for wear, if a team (any team) thinks that they may be scraping excessively and alert the drivers to ‘slow’ in order to avoid the excessive mess it is no different to instructing a driver to lift & coast to preserve fuel in order to preserve enough for the FIA to get the required sample at the end of the race.

Now that is covered can we get the thread back onto topic technical appraisal & discussion of the RB19 & quit trying to subvert each and every thread into a party-lines ‘debate’. Car threads are sacred.

Oh, but it absolutely is a sensor, and it's an FIA sensor not a team one. It's used to detect excessively low ground clearance over a period of time. Just because it's not electronic, don't be mistaken that it isn't a sensor. The FIA measures it to ensure the teams aren't running too low - that's what it is there for. And the reason is for safety - so it's a safety critical sensor and thus anyone fooling it should be held to account.

And it is relevant to the car thread because it was suggested that the way the plank is mounted on the RB19 is beneficial to that car's performance. If that isn't car-specific then what is?

[chrisc90]

I agree there. Whilst not technically a electronical sensor, it does act as a ‘sensor’ to determine plank wear after the race. It just cannot be measured in real time.
It’s a bit like the old fashioned metal squeal shims on brake pads where they would touch when the pads get low.


What can be brought to discussion, is how the plank is mounted. I’d imagine this is pretty well detailed in the regulations, otherwise you would see teams with flexible rubber mountings between the plank and the chassis to allow it to compress/flex when it contacted the floor.

I wouldn’t strictly agree with Vanja where he states that is is ‘confirmed’ that ‘ RB are running the car slower on straights and in high-speed corners in races very often to avoid accessive plank wear so they could gain time in slower corners’. One race where the team have come out and said that they took the most radical corner on the F1 calendar where there is a HUGE amount of compression laterally in the car shouldn’t be taken as gospel. Especially when there was no free practice running in order to get the car setup properly. Just about everyone arrived in Spa with a pre-determined setup from the simulator based on predicted weather conditions.

Would RB have ran so low if they could run 3 hours free practice sessions? Would they have still lifted off half a second in sector 1? We will never know.

Given TD039, and how it is used to measure plank wear, I find it unlikely that there is any case of flexible chassis going on, as this would show in the tests they do when they measure deflection around the points on the plank to determine excessive wear.

[MIKEY_!]

http://postimg.cc/f3523tKq

A little bit obvious, isn`t it?

If Red Bull moves that inlet lip any higher they might be able to bury the side impact structure in it (next year obviously), similar to the RB14-16... the inlet leading edge on the RB19 is already so close to the leading edge of the Mercedes winglet. Not sure there would be much benefit though.

[mclaren111]

[organic]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F27AaABaAAA ... name=large

Spray goes around the rear wheels

Advantage locked in for years