2019 Renault F1 Team

[digitalrurouni]

What surprised me about the Ricciardo incident also was how long it was taking Kvyat to put the car in to reverse to get back on track!! IIRC in the video you could see he was fiddling in the back of the steering to get the car in to neutral. Is it that hard? They should just have an R button on the wheel and that should put the car in to Reverse and then they can get out of the way faster.

[Capharol]

What surprised me about the Ricciardo incident also was how long it was taking Kvyat to put the car in to reverse to get back on track!! IIRC in the video you could see he was fiddling in the back of the steering to get the car in to neutral. Is it that hard? They should just have an R button on the wheel and that should put the car in to Reverse and then they can get out of the way faster.

which can't be done because this would "overstress" the PU, it ain't a roadcar engine

[ispano6]

Yep, Cyril has missed every single target he has set the last few years. How does this guy keep his job year after year? Not only is the car slow but is very difficult to drive. Hulk and Ric both complaining. The braking is terrible also, probably 1 of the worst on the grid.

It's not only Cyril. They lost RBR as benchmark and now seem lost. Look at that low df setup they brought to this race... Seems like the engineering team was drunk when doing cfd and race simulation based on that package.

Yeah...losing RBR has nothing to do with this. Their new benchmark is McLaren. To be sucessful they need to be matching McLaren at a minimum.

Its still early, new regs and all.

Not true, wooing Ricciardo away from Red Bull was one of Renaults aim at getting information about RBs cars and operational tactics. It's probably more so that Renault is finding Ricciardo isn't as helpful in making their car closer to RBs. Maybe they feel now his salary is too much for the value he brings.
What's clear from Ricciardo's comments is that he very much needed the RB car and engineers to set up the car the way he needed it and RS was doing all they could to mimick RBs old car characteristics.

[PowerandtheGlory]

It's not only Cyril. They lost RBR as benchmark and now seem lost. Look at that low df setup they brought to this race... Seems like the engineering team was drunk when doing cfd and race simulation based on that package.

Yeah...losing RBR has nothing to do with this. Their new benchmark is McLaren. To be sucessful they need to be matching McLaren at a minimum.

Its still early, new regs and all.

Not true, wooing Ricciardo away from Red Bull was one of Renaults aim at getting information about RBs cars and operational tactics. It's probably more so that Renault is finding Ricciardo isn't as helpful in making their car closer to RBs. Maybe they feel now his salary is too much for the value he brings.
What's clear from Ricciardo's comments is that he very much needed the RB car and engineers to set up the car the way he needed it and RS was doing all they could to mimick RBs old car characteristics.

I feel this is maybe being slightly cyncial of the situation. DR was out of contract at the time Renault were ending their partnership with RB. Renault themselves needed a driver that wasn't contracted to RB (sainz) they would of course look at the market and see what was available. They hired a driver who had won races. this is a natural development path for a team looking to win again. Loads of drivers change teams and you could say they take ideas/secrets with them but really a driver is not a designer nor an engineer. Renault's aquisition of Budowski (sp) was much more like the kind of thing you are taking about as he knew details about ALL F1 cars from his time at the FiA. Toto Wolff was very unhappy with the timing of his move. However it takes more than just 1 or 2 or 3 people to completely fix a car or make it fast - look at Paddy Lowe at Williams - he should on paper have made that team top running but didnt. Look at Ferrari - for all their resources they haven't won at all in 2019.... Look at Haas - speed in testing isnt there...
However it is clear that since race 1 some teams have developed better than Renault although Spain with its - aero dominant nature should finally give us a Pecking order for the 1st part of the season. If Renault dont make Q3 in spain then they must surely consider this year's car as not what should have been delivered.

[diffuser]

It's not only Cyril. They lost RBR as benchmark and now seem lost. Look at that low df setup they brought to this race... Seems like the engineering team was drunk when doing cfd and race simulation based on that package.

Yeah...losing RBR has nothing to do with this. Their new benchmark is McLaren. To be sucessful they need to be matching McLaren at a minimum.

Its still early, new regs and all.

Not true, wooing Ricciardo away from Red Bull was one of Renaults aim at getting information about RBs cars and operational tactics. It's probably more so that Renault is finding Ricciardo isn't as helpful in making their car closer to RBs. Maybe they feel now his salary is too much for the value he brings.
What's clear from Ricciardo's comments is that he very much needed the RB car and engineers to set up the car the way he needed it and RS was doing all they could to mimick RBs old car characteristics.

If Drivers "KNEW" that much about cars and what the engineers are doing. They wouldn't be allowed to join a new team without a 1 year gap between switching teams. They might see alot of stuff but they don't have a Masters in Engineering. I believe a masters is the minimum to be able to understand everything. I doubt they have any idea what they're looking at, kind of like looking at a letter in a different language. The answers might be right there in front of you but you have no idea what it all means.

They got Ricardo cause he can flat out drive and cause it had a high probability of leaving RBR with one good driver. Unfortunately, the Renault isn't up to his standard yet even though the latter is true.

[PhillipM]

You need nothing of the sort, you just need to know where the car is lacking the most compared to the old one and have seen enough of a solution that the guys at the new team can work out roughly why, or be able to describe it well enough that they can work it out.

Look at Hamilton when he went to Merc initially and immediately wasn't happy with the brakes - Brembo and Merc worked on improvements to the bite and feel of them all season and even Nico eventually switched to the new setup even though he'd been happy on the old. Same scenario here really.

[Big Tea]

Yeah...losing RBR has nothing to do with this. Their new benchmark is McLaren. To be sucessful they need to be matching McLaren at a minimum.

Its still early, new regs and all.

Not true, wooing Ricciardo away from Red Bull was one of Renaults aim at getting information about RBs cars and operational tactics. It's probably more so that Renault is finding Ricciardo isn't as helpful in making their car closer to RBs. Maybe they feel now his salary is too much for the value he brings.
What's clear from Ricciardo's comments is that he very much needed the RB car and engineers to set up the car the way he needed it and RS was doing all they could to mimick RBs old car characteristics.

If Drivers "KNEW" that much about cars and what the engineers are doing. They wouldn't be allowed to join a new team without a 1 year gap between switching teams. They might see alot of stuff but they don't have a Masters in Engineering. I believe a masters is the minimum to be able to understand everything. I doubt they have any idea what they're looking at, kind of like looking at a letter in a different language. The answers might be right there in front of you but you have no idea what it all means.

They got Ricardo cause he can flat out drive and cause it had a high probability of leaving RBR with one good driver. Unfortunately, the Renault isn't up to his standard yet even though the latter is true.

Back in pre 'plug it in and read the screen' days, someone with zero technical knowledge would take a car to a garage and tell the mechanic about it. From this, most of the time they had a good idea of what was going on.

A design engineer told how a car behaves differently to the one that was just driven can have a fair idea of what the possible differences are. There is also going to be a lot of 'chatter' around the car that can be picked up too.

Knowing something exists and finding is is far easier than pucking an idea out of the air.

[dtro]

I'm reminded of last years McLaren when I look at this years Renault. In 2017 McLaren had the best chassis and all they needed was to plug in a more reliable engine and bing bang boom they were supposed to be as good as RB with the Renault. Flash-forward to 2018 and they have to eat a whole lot of humble pie as they come to the realization that woops, chassis isn't so good and we've got work to do.

Renault did not have a great chassis last year and this years car is a pretty clear evolution of last years concept except for some minor differences in the width of the front and rear wings and altered bargeboards. This year is going to be pretty painful for them I get the feeling.

Maybe if Cyril was less busy with the politics of F1 the car would be better. Maybe.

[Ground Effect]

I'm reminded of last years McLaren when I look at this years Renault. In 2017 McLaren had the best chassis and all they needed was to plug in a more reliable engine and bing bang boom they were supposed to be as good as RB with the Renault. Flash-forward to 2018 and they have to eat a whole lot of humble pie as they come to the realization that woops, chassis isn't so good and we've got work to do.

Renault did not have a great chassis last year and this years car is a pretty clear evolution of last years concept except for some minor differences in the width of the front and rear wings and altered bargeboards. This year is going to be pretty painful for them I get the feeling.

Maybe if Cyril was less busy with the politics of F1 the car would be better. Maybe.

Actually, it's the opposite. The 2019 car is an all new design...

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/rena ... r/4328031/

[Phil]

If Drivers "KNEW" that much about cars and what the engineers are doing. They wouldn't be allowed to join a new team without a 1 year gap between switching teams.

They might know more than you give them credit for though. Remember spy gate? Seems Alondo knew quite a bit at what Ferrari were doing at the time and what McLaren copied. Sure, drivers arent engineers, but they dont need to be to know what made their last car strong.

[PowerandtheGlory]

If Drivers "KNEW" that much about cars and what the engineers are doing. They wouldn't be allowed to join a new team without a 1 year gap between switching teams.

They might know more than you give them credit for though. Remember spy gate? Seems Alondo knew quite a bit at what Ferrari were doing at the time and what McLaren copied. Sure, drivers arent engineers, but they dont need to be to know what made their last car strong.

Of course the drivers ‘know’ bits from their cars... but from being told an idea or concept to fully intergrating this into a design and a part and making it work with all the other parts on a car, no driver will know that.
Thats why no team simply look at Merc’s front wing and make an exact copy - because it would need the whole car redesigned!
You can borrow or adapt certain ideas and concepts but its about the sum of the parts rather than a driver arriving from another team with a silver bullet.

[dtro]

I'm reminded of last years McLaren when I look at this years Renault. In 2017 McLaren had the best chassis and all they needed was to plug in a more reliable engine and bing bang boom they were supposed to be as good as RB with the Renault. Flash-forward to 2018 and they have to eat a whole lot of humble pie as they come to the realization that woops, chassis isn't so good and we've got work to do.

Renault did not have a great chassis last year and this years car is a pretty clear evolution of last years concept except for some minor differences in the width of the front and rear wings and altered bargeboards. This year is going to be pretty painful for them I get the feeling.

Maybe if Cyril was less busy with the politics of F1 the car would be better. Maybe.

Actually, it's the opposite. The 2019 car is an all new design...

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/rena ... r/4328031/

An all new design doesn't necessarily mean a new design philosophy, i.e. the same design philosophy but with updated manufacturing techniques would fit the bill of "all new design" but fall short of actually being a revolutionary design.

I may not have CFD vision, but I'm really good at Where's Waldo, in Renault's case he hasn't moved all that far compared to last year.

[Phil]

Of course the drivers ‘know’ bits from their cars... but from being told an idea or concept to fully intergrating this into a design and a part and making it work with all the other parts on a car, no driver will know that.
Thats why no team simply look at Merc’s front wing and make an exact copy - because it would need the whole car redesigned!
You can borrow or adapt certain ideas and concepts but its about the sum of the parts rather than a driver arriving from another team with a silver bullet.

Sometimes that’s just enough. Just take Ferrari’s battery system as an example; teams are poking around in the dark with allegations, hoping to strike gold. I would imagine a tech savvy driver such as Vettel would know what they are doing. If he were to leave the team and go to a competitor, the little intel he has would be probably enough to get his new team on the right path.

Sure, again, no one is expecting drivers to bring along detailled schematics etc - that would be absurd. But knowledge can be worth a lot; i’m sure Ricciardo had one or two things to tell about what his ex team were doing that was clever.

[diffuser]

If Drivers "KNEW" that much about cars and what the engineers are doing. They wouldn't be allowed to join a new team without a 1 year gap between switching teams.

They might know more than you give them credit for though. Remember spy gate? Seems Alondo knew quite a bit at what Ferrari were doing at the time and what McLaren copied. Sure, drivers arent engineers, but they dont need to be to know what made their last car strong.

Of course the drivers ‘know’ bits from their cars... but from being told an idea or concept to fully intergrating this into a design and a part and making it work with all the other parts on a car, no driver will know that.
Thats why no team simply look at Merc’s front wing and make an exact copy - because it would need the whole car redesigned!
You can borrow or adapt certain ideas and concepts but its about the sum of the parts rather than a driver arriving from another team with a silver bullet.

All Alonso needed to know was that someone had faxed the Ferrari guide to McLaren. Not sure how much he understood what was inside the manual. That being said, the line with Alonso is that he one of the drivers that was very technical. He's no Newey.

[PowerandtheGlory]

I accept that drivers will ‘know’ what their are doing and that can mean knowing high level stuff about batteries or setup etc etc., most drivers have a contract clause that says ‘they cannot be asked by their team to do anytging illegal or bring the sport into disrepute’ as this would be more damaging to their future employments prospects.
That being said- you could extend this to 2 engineers from rival having a drink late one evening after a GP or sharing transport home from a racr or even texting each other. And one says ‘oh we had a softer rear setup to aid traction’ thats just 2 friends comparing notes after a race. It all must happen. Im sure all the drivers chat to each other on the private planes home... sending a full design of a car is of course proper cheating- but the ebb and flow of personnel between teams cant really be cheating in a pure sense.