bhall II wrote:Let me preface this by saying that I'm not to trying to make any definitive or categorical statements one way or the other. I just want to express a possibility.
Any argument that makes way for learning, is a good exercise and worth it.
Thanks for all the great information.
bhall II wrote:
Fernando Alonso is widely reputed to favor a car that tends to understeer rather than oversteer. That means, from his perspective, the front suspension isn't quite as important to his overall setup as something like throttle response, or "driveability," because he expects the front-end to give up on corner entry, and, more than the steering wheel, he uses his right foot to rotate the car around the apex.
Now I have to salute the group of engineers who build that MP4-22. They had two drivers, who were almost total unknown quantities to the team (one rookie and one, a double world champion jumping the ship). On one hand they had a driver who, like you pointed out above, likes a car with understeer and another rookie (double world/defending champion now) who has admitted multiple times that, he likes an oversteery car.
How did they quite managed to have a car that worked for both and still was highly competitive?
bhall II wrote:
Kimi Raikkonen, on the other hand, is much, much, much more sensitive to the front-end, because he wants it to be as planted as possible.
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I suspect, but obviously cannot prove, that Alonso's insensitivity to front suspension issues dogged the team for years. While a pull-rod layout is theoretically just as capable as a push-rod layout, its characteristics are nonetheless very different, especially in terms of how loads are transferred to and through the chassis. So, when the team made the change from push-rod to pull-rod in 2012, which was a dramatic shift, and its fastest driver damn near drove it to a World Championship, the team probably just assumed there were no problems or they didn't properly appreciate the issues when they popped up, because, again, their #1 guy was seemingly OK with it all.
Even if Massa had reported anything, it would have been very easy to dismiss his complaints, given Alonso's pace with the same layout. But, that doesn't mean they were unaffected by them or that the car wouldn't have benefited if they were corrected, because it's always best to have as much control over a system as possible.
In Formula 1, I only remember very few years, where both drivers of a team liked the car and drove at their optimum. 1988, 2007 and 2014. Otherwise and in majority of the years, a car has always suited one driver OR built to the preferences of the leading driver, which is quite a norm. That is not the problem, but the problem is, when they repeatedly build dogs despite concentrating on one driver.
Even if a driver drives the engineers in a certain direction. Still, could those guys not create a car according to the driver's preference, which is highly competitive? Not that any driver drives them to a totally unknown territory and hence they wouldn't know how to build it in that direction. Can't an understeery or an oversteery car be still not remain highly competitive?
For the argument sake, do we really think that a driver can tell the engineering team to move from Push Rod to Pull Rod front suspension? The accountability and responsibility of such decision lies with the engineering team. And when they go in that direction, they have to build it efficiently. Isn't it arguable that, may be, just may be, engineers with better know how, would have made that pull rod front work like a charm for any type of driver? May be a Massa would have delivered better results, or may be Kimi wouldn't have struggled as much.
Post Brawn's departure, the Ferrari engineering teams have been on a sliding path. It is arguable that Kimi won in 2007 due to the intra team battle of McLaren. But Kimi was also laid off for not driving the later dogs to championships, Massa was shown the door and finally Alonso also left. Probably wisdom prevailed at Ferrari and after a lot of overhauling and bringing, arguably better engineers in the team, they seem to now move in the right direction with this year's car.
So many good posts lately you're racking up the points
