Do F1 engineers or FIA officials surf forums to get ideas?

[Cam]

They're smarter than us, guys. Get over yourselves.

'Smart' people don't ever overlook any sources of information or inspiration. F1T is, arguably, one of the finest free, openly available sources for F1 related technical information, including photos, diagrams, theories, ideas, speculation and much more. If an F1 team didn't look in here regularly, they would be limiting themselves in so many ways.

Hello to all the teams! Love what you do.

[ForMuLaOne]

Indeed, a Forum can be a very good source for inspiration. Most "revolutionary" ideas of the past years were quite simple. The F-duct was simple and cheap. Blown diffusors was simple itself, of course the mapping took quite a lot of effort. I remember Red Bull having lots of fire inside their airbox This is what teams need, simple ideas no other professional was thinking of. Or how can you imagine that one team arrives with a f-duct while NO OTHER Engineer had the idea. Chance for finding ideas from thinking outside the box is really high in this forum. Even if most users do not match technical regulations, strong ideas need really strong heads to be refined and to match F1 regulations anyway. FIA could learn a lot from this forum because to me, they --- it up with every change in regulations. I really hate their work. There has not been a single idea that made Formula One attractive in a CONSTRUCTIVE way. They always chop off performance in aero areas and STILL the cars performance relies mainly on this area.

[raymondu999]

Yes, F1T is basically a fountain of crowdsourced knowledge. No one in their right minds would really overlook any free crowdsourcing resource.

[Greg Locock]

Hi, I'm playing scrabble. I've got the following tiles : J R E K X Q T and someone has played CIRCLE. I'd like to add 4 letters to the end of that to get a triple. Have you any suggestions ?

[Jersey Tom]

To answer the topic of this thread... I'd put money on the answer being "no." But let's break it down.

Do F1 (or other motorsport) engineers / employees surf forums? Yes. Do they surf forums for entertainment? Yes (like anyone else). Do they surf forums for the expressed intent of getting ideas? I'd say no. Is there an infinitesimal chance of picking up an interesting nugget of information? Maybe. But that's not the intent.

[Cam]

A question for you JT: has reading anything on this forum inspired you to make a change, a suggestion or considered another aspect relating to the race team, that you perhaps may not have considered without reading this forum?

[Jersey Tom]

A question for you JT: has reading anything on this forum inspired you to make a change, a suggestion or considered another aspect relating to the race team, that you perhaps may not have considered without reading this forum?

Has it changed anything I do? No, not that I can recall. Have I learned some things? Sure. I think CFD's interesting, and wasn't even aware of 'LES' or 'RANS' or similar acronyms... so I've had some opportunities to read up on some stuff rather than bugging people. But all of that which is news to me is second nature to those working in that field (be it in motorsport or otherwise).

At work I have more ideas than time as it is I just peruse here for interesting reading and entertainment.

[Red Schneider]

Look, I get what you guys are saying, but the idea that highly trained professionals would surf these forums for ideas is pretty amusing, considering that perhaps 1% of posters here even know what they're talking about, technically speaking, and a lot of the time it seems like you guys can't even agree on the nature of the concepts or phenomena that these professionals employ to make the car go faster.

The photographic logging of car developments is impressively detailed, and frankly far beyond what I could bother to keep track of, but that is record-keeping. Lastly, you have to remember that these teams do whatever brings the greatest marginal benefit, which is not the same as 'let's try to do everything possible all at once.' When developing the car they will focus on the areas that offer the most potential, which means that a front wing development that might bring 0.3s is prioritized over a bargeboard development that might bring one-sixth of that. Coming here for a brilliant idea just ain't a good use of anyone's time.

I worked for a major motorsport engine supplier, before I moved back to Ireland, and believe me, some were not so smart.

John

I believe you're referring to creativity and problem-solving skills, as opposed to 'book' knowledge of physics and engineering. The former are probably 90% of the reason Adrian Newey makes so much money.

[marcush.]

I have no idea why formula 1 people should be smarter than the rest of the world..wasting your brainpower and energy for a more or less useless activity is not a sign of inteeligence ,smartness or whatever.
To qualify for a living in motorsports for extended periods of time you need to suffer a desease which is called racing virus-usually uncurable but sometimes it just goes away and the cured just walks away without ever turning his head.
Well..we see copying at all fronts ....so why would anyone NOT use the tools at hand to research what others are doing ?
I have no doubt hordes of engineers who suffer sudden brainfade in their last problem solving task wade though the web and try to extract something useful even from the little pieces spilled here.
You can alsways learn a bit -as long as there is something more to learn .Some people think they know it all already-but those are usually not the ones to be found on the top of the rostrum on sundays taking the silverware home....

[Jersey Tom]

Well..we see copying at all fronts ....so why would anyone NOT use the tools at hand to research what others are doing ?

They do. But the best / most efficient tools or methods of improving your team are not internet forums.

As I alluded to before, in my experience there's never a lack of creativity or ideas, things to chase down to get performance. It's lack of time.

Edit - And I agree, nothing inherent to F1 or other motorsport engineers that makes them intrinsically more talented or capable than engineers in any other field. They do tend to have a lot of experience in skill in a specific area... and (by necessity) the ability to get things done quickly.

The former can be a drawback as much as it is a benefit.

[Greg Locock]

I can just imagine Chapman wandering into the design office at Hethel at 830 at night, to find some young chap surfing F1handwaving for ideas. "Why don't you do that on your own time son?" "Oh OK I'll do it when I get home" "what, you have time to stuff around on the internet when you get home? Off you go and don't come back" And thus ends another promising career.

[Jersey Tom]

Greg is once again quite on point.

[aterren]

I would think the web master could answer some of this quite easily by looking at the site logs.

As others have said, it would be surprising if people on teams did not visit the site but I hope it's for entertainment rather than a source of inspiration. Just like I hope my doctor does not consult WebMD when making my diagnosis.

[TheBaverianBasterd]

They're smarter than us, guys. Get over yourselves.

'Smart' people don't ever overlook any sources of information or inspiration. F1T is, arguably, one of the finest free, openly available sources for F1 related technical information, including photos, diagrams, theories, ideas, speculation and much more. If an F1 team didn't look in here regularly, they would be limiting themselves in so many ways.

Hello to all the teams! Love what you do.

Don't fool yourself into thinking F1 engineers come here looking for ideas Cam. Active engineers don't have time to be surfing the web looking for some magic bullet on an internet forum. It's nice to think they do, but not quite a reality. If you're putting in 16-20 hour days, somehow I don't see it happening.

[TheBaverianBasterd]

I can just imagine Chapman wandering into the design office at Hethel at 830 at night, to find some young chap surfing F1handwaving for ideas. "Why don't you do that on your own time son?" "Oh OK I'll do it when I get home" "what, you have time to stuff around on the internet when you get home? Off you go and don't come back" And thus ends another promising career.

Greg if you think someone working for Colin Chapman would even have had time to be surfing the internet, you are sadly mistaken. Work schedules were such that there was very little time for any life outside of doing your job.