sato+honda=kaboom

[-shr3d-]

hey all,
interesting to read that they think Sato's driving style maybe responsible for all the engine problems he has suffered. I am a lil surprised that a driver can still put so much more stress on the engine compared to a teammate with all the electronic controls they have these days.
Do you think this would be caused by his throttle control or excessive use of engine braking to slow the car down? and will it come into play again this weekend??

[KJ]

From what I heard, Honda suspects that the cause of the blowups may be Sato's driving style. Specifically, Sato lets the revs drop down too low under braking. This puts more stress on an F1 engine since it's not meant to run at lower RPM's all the time.

- KJ

[-shr3d-]

interesting point kj.... especially since they mentioned during the commentary that maybe Buttons problem stemmed from the amount of laps at low revs which may have affected his honda engine..
whether the honda is more susceptible to vibration down in this rev range or not im not sure..

[Spencifer_Murphy]

KJ said about Sato letting the engine's revs drop too low on the downshift phase. But at canada he changed this, he studies Jenson's telemetry so he would start downshifting earlier and his engine still blew up. I don't think that Sato recieves 100% of the same spec engine that Jense does. Its funny how as soon as tis is questioned Sato is allowed to show his full potential and gets his first podium whereas Jenson knotches up his first retirement of the season. Very suspisious. Jock Clear in an ITV interview (ITV is the channel that shows F1 here in the UK for those of you who may not realisee) also believes that "luck-of-the-draw" is out of the question. He believes there must be a reason. But he also isn't entirely confident that it is down to Taku's driving style. Hopefully though this podium will be a turning piont for Taku and he will now start to clam down and not make so many mistakes in an attempt to impress. He's shown what he can do now, so the pressure is off. He can now drive as good as he knows he really can. I can't wait!

[-shr3d-]

they surely have the answers in the telemetry somewhere given the amount of data loggers operating on the car.... i could give some credence to maybe sato having some different bits in his engine but he seems to have the prob in races and not during the rest of the weekend and you would think any development parts would be run in Davidsons car on friday...
do we know definitely whether jensons retirement was due to gearbox or engine problems

[Spencifer_Murphy]

I agree the telemetry must show something, someone in the BAR team said it doesnt show anything (I think maybe Jock Clear said it but i am not sure). But I don't believe it for a minute, all those sensors, all that technology and all that money are not going to come up with nothing at all. I guess we may have to wait and see

[-shr3d-]

hey man, yeah im with you on this although there have been cases in the past where a motor has gone without showing anything on the telemetry.... but how many times has it happened this year... surely there must be some similarities showing in the data...
not sure whether we will find out since we havent heard yet...

[Guest]

KJ where did you hear this?

From what I heard, Honda suspects that the cause of the blowups may be Sato's driving style. Specifically, Sato lets the revs drop down too low under braking. This puts more stress on an F1 engine since it's not meant to run at lower RPM's all the time.

- KJ

[Guest]

not all problems show on telemetry,in fact you can only see what you have measured.In case of a problem you are not knowing about the root,it can get damn difficult to measure.
As Villeneuve had the same crew last year and the same horrible reliability I suspect it is the crew or the way the crew is running the car.

[-shr3d-]

good point guest..... i wonder how many of the crew have remained unchanged and whether it is something they are doing in the car prep that is causing the problems...

[Guest]

err,Guest is Marcush.,have difficulties logging on under my username.sorry.
Running cars with different drivers is a odd thing.One driver complaining about understeer ,the other finding the thing a nasty dog of a snapoversteer without even touching the setup.Same goes when you are not actually torquing thescrewsyourself and find them cracking open at different levels of torque when tearing the car apart.Ignorance and assuming things will be right are far and above the main reasons for dnfs,very often this is driven by lack of time I tend to hope...double checking everything personally.Saw a torquewrench recently at a race????

[-shr3d-]

hey man, havent seen that closely into the pits lately to see what tools they using, but surely with the amount of money spent and what is at stake, they would be doing pretty much everything to a specification and ticking it off when its done... except maybe in extreme situations like swapping an engine between cars in time for qualifying...

[Guest]

remember that Schu accident in silverstone?it was traced down to aovertorqued bleeder screw.so --- happens,I´m sure ferrari has got his act together in that area now.

[-shr3d-]

ahh good memory....... and yes Ferrari did make changes to their procedures and made a technical alteration to the brake setup to prevent that happening again (cant remember the details but sure someone will help us there)....
That happened once though, how many engines has Sato been through now, and always seems to happen during the race..

[Guest]

marcush.
It very often happens quite early in the race so how can sato be the cause for the failure?Is it him doing the launch of the car incorrectly?hm..
poor sato...again a dnf in france