Information that Drivers can carry over to a team

[PlatinumZealot]

In light of Hamilton going to Mercedes, isn't there tonnes of information he can give to them?

Like simulator lap times of the new MP4-28.
How to map the engine with "seat of the pants."
Steering ratios
Pacing of upgrades
Downforce balance etc?
Team operations?

I think the simulator lap times are very interesting though...

What really can drivers carry over to a new team?

[Nando]

His brain and flesh mobile, other then that. Perhaps useful to a team like HRT. Except maybe the simulator laptime thing.

[Richard]

Hamilton wouldn't be told about the 28 once McLaren knew he was moving. Perhaps he might have seen an early pic to know if it pull or push rod. Other than that any info he did know would have been fairly embryonic and probably too vague to be useful.

As for simulator experience, what help is it to another team to know a lap time? A stopwatch doesn't tell them how the car works.

I guess the only potential useful leak would be if McLaren had a magic bullet like the DDD or F-duct. Then Hamilton might be able to alert his new team that something existed. That would give them a heads-up on potential areas for development, but we get back to the point that knowing a magic bullet exits isn't the same as knowing how it works. For example how long did it take teams to replicate the F-duct and DDD? That was after they'd seen it up close up in the pit lane. So a driver trying to describe something that didn't even exist would be even harder to replicate.

It can also backfire, imagine if Merc poured resources into understanding the magic bullet. They'd reason that if McLrean are working on it then it must be good. They stick it on their car, go to testing, and McLaren laugh "we realised that was never going to work back in Nov".

So my conclusion is that if there is something conceptually simple like a DDD or pull rod, then then an idea might jump across, but the info is just as likely to confuse, distract and be misleading.

[CHT]

actually how much technical development information does Hamilton really know? For a team like Mclaren, they have seen drivers come and go, and I am sure certain sensitive information will be restricted to even the drivers (especially when they are out of contract).

[Jersey Tom]

As for simulator experience, what help is it to another team to know a lap time? A stopwatch doesn't tell them how the car works.

This is very much on point. And not to say their simulated lap times are necessarily anything meaningful anyway.

In any event, the driver is a driver - not an engineer. They'll be aware of some things process-wise I'm sure, but knowing is one thing and doing is another.

Driver might go from Team A to Team B and say "Well at Team A we had 100 lbf more downforce than you guys have." Ok, great. Doesn't help Team B in waving a magic wand and snatching more downforce from the ether.

[ESPImperium]

Depends on how technical the driver is.

Pedro De la Rosa took the F Duct from Mclaren to Sauber in 2010 as Sauber managed to copy it first once they saw the McLaren and how Pedro described it as McLaren has the F Dust rigged up as a momentary electrical switch in the simulator in 2009 seemingly in order to get the software to do it's stalling thing.

Other than that, it will all be down to steering wheel, and allot of smaller things that dont give a complete picture of the car. Maybes some suspension settings and what not, but that may be going into the almost adventurous zone. Also in the case of Hamilton he will be carrying over his Carbon Industrie brakes and his specification brake pedal as well.

Most things will not be carried over, unless Hamilton has a good memory and has been noting down specifics in a folder or note pad in his hotel room after each day. Even putting things on to a Excel spreadsheet. But i doubt that.

The only thing that Mercedes will have access to is base telemetry from Hamiltons first Engine Mapping from the start of the 2012 season i guess as any team with the same engine supplier can access that first mapping for their engine. So Id expect Mercedes already to have had that A/Bd with Schumacher, Rosberg, Bird and Hartleys runs in the simulator and car.

However a team like McLaren and Sauber will have next to eff all data like that with Perez and Hulkenberg.

It depends on how technical and experienced the driver is. Also how much access he has had to development and up till when.

[PlatinumZealot]

actually how much technical development information does Hamilton really know? For a team like Mclaren, they have seen drivers come and go, and I am sure certain sensitive information will be restricted to even the drivers (especially when they are out of contract).

He has so far described the handling and braking of the MP4-28, so at least we know he has driven it on the simulator...he even described the looks as "similar to the '27 but a little nicer looking."

[Lycoming]

simulator lap time will at best be within a few tenths of what the car can actually do. If qualifying remains as tight as it was last year, the information is not that useful, it would just tell you whether or not whatever version of the car they had at that time (which was months ago as he would know nothing of the -28 after contracts were signed) was midfielder or not, and I don't think they would have needed sim data to make a good guess on that.

He has so far described the handling and braking of the MP4-28, so at least we know he has driven it on the simulator...he even described the looks as "similar to the '27 but a little nicer looking."

which isn't terribly helpful. Though, I thought the -27 was the nicest looking of the 2012 grid

The thing I would expect Hamilton to bring that is of the greatest use is setups, but what works for one car may or may not work for another, and it's more a help to his engineer to get him a car thats to his liking than anything else.

I don't really expect a driver to carry much useful data from team to team unless he was an aerospace engineer who was regularly in the MTC looking at CFD readouts, wind tunnel results, wing mount FEA, etc. and Hamilton does not strike me as the kind of guy that would be doing that.

[PlatinumZealot]

As for simulator experience, what help is it to another team to know a lap time? A stopwatch doesn't tell them how the car works.

This is very much on point. And not to say their simulated lap times are necessarily anything meaningful anyway.

In any event, the driver is a driver - not an engineer. They'll be aware of some things process-wise I'm sure, but knowing is one thing and doing is another.

Driver might go from Team A to Team B and say "Well at Team A we had 100 lbf more downforce than you guys have." Ok, great. Doesn't help Team B in waving a magic wand and snatching more downforce from the ether.

I sort if disagree, because it depends on how the engineer uses what the driver tells him.
If a driver tells me "hey, my old team is using a gadget that when you use your hand to cover a hole in the cock-pit, the air blows through some duct attached to the rear wing and I get more top-speed." That is golden information. Never mind any maths or numbers.. the engineer will make those!

Any small clue is usually enough for an engineer to find out what kinds of principles and mathematics he needs to apply to get a certain result. For instance, I work in the food and beverage industry and last year I had gotten a clue about a certain global competitor that makes sauces, from their packaging supplier, that they use PET-bottles, but they only fill the sauce at 30 degrees Celcius without any preservatives. This was harmless information to the packaging supplier but THIS WAS GOLD!!! to us. Because we knew what was type of filling was possible on that certain product without spending on R&D and devoting months of work. After getting just those two pieces of information I and a project team have basically built up a 1/2 million dollar upgrade project; engineering work done, equipment ordered and everything just from those two tid-bits of info from a supplier...

[PlatinumZealot]

simulator lap time will at best be within a few tenths of what the car can actually do. If qualifying remains as tight as it was last year, the information is not that useful, it would just tell you whether or not whatever version of the car they had at that time (which was months ago as he would know nothing of the -28 after contracts were signed) was midfielder or not, and I don't think they would have needed sim data to make a good guess on that.

I mean lets, say he or Jenson is doing a 1:12.2 in Brazil on the Sim in the MP4-28. He notes the track temps, gear ratios, camber settings, etc....
He goes to Mercedes but this time he could only muster a 1:13.3 in the W03 - he plays with all the settings gear ratios etc and he can get no more. Assuming the two simulators are accurate, he must be quite shocked that the car is one second slower! There has to be some heads up giving to the design team and in turn some discussions made to "correct" the situation, the value being the team can react to change the design path months before testing.

[Lycoming]

Well... not really. As others have noticed, telling them that the car is slow doesn't tell you how to make it faster. You can't just drop in design features of the -28 because even if they did know what they were, they would not necessarily work the same way on the merc.

They're always trying to find as much improvement in performance as they can. Being told that they're slower does nothing to change that.

[snoop1050]

he can take his telemetry data

[Cam]

From what we saw from the comments that 'hamilton is starting to take an interest in the car all of a sudden' - one can only assume that he wasn't too involved previously, which if so, is a real shame. Any employee that can cross departments is valuable.

F1 is no different to any business, everything is private. From basic things such as suppliers, to internal business systems, to general chit chat gossip and speculation around the lunch room - all of this is great info for someone who can decipher it and join the dots.

That said, McLaren are smart. I would have been dropping bad info just for Hamilton to take along with him. Mercedes now won't know what to trust.

[Caito]

Static alignments values could be useful.

[siskue2005]

He can take setups of pirelli tyres to Merc
Merc have no clue how to setup their car for the Pirelli tyres