There is this narrative going around that Checo wasn't informed enough of what Verstappen was doing, so let's dive into it and see what's what. Lap 21 Checo Pits for Hard Tyres. HB tells him on exit MV's last time on hard tyres "32.2." Lap 22 a few minor setting changes 🧵
Lap 22 SP 1.31.5, MV1.32.27. Checo asks HB on lap 23, what is MV's last lap?" HB tells him "Max was a 32.2." Lap 24 HB comes on the radio and tells SP "Max a 31.9." Checo did a 31.86 on lap 23. 🧵
Lap 24 HB asks about balance on the hard. Lap 25 HB tells Checo "Max that time a 32.1, gap 17 seconds." SP does a 31.4 on lap 24. Lap 26 HB tells SP "31.9 for Max, gap 16.6." SP did a 31.4 on lap 25. 🧵
Lap 27, HB tells SP "Max's lap 31.9, 26 laps complete, 31 remaining." SP did a 31.58 on lap 26. On lap 27, HB comes on and tells SP where he is losing time and how he can improve turns 14 and 15. It goes on lap to lap that HB updates SP on each lap time from MV.
Lap 29, HB tells Checo where he is losing time in Sector 2 to Max. He then asks Checo "What is your limitation in Sector 2?" SP responds "Traction." Lap 29, HB comes on the radio while SP is in S3, and says "That was better in Sector 2." 🧵
Lap 41 HB tells SP "Max doing a larger lift and coast, there is margin to go forward on the bias (brake bias)." Start Lap 47 HB tells SP, "Max pitted. Expect him to be about 1 second behind." Lap 48, HB gives checo MV time behind "1 sec, adjust diff mid help in S2." 🧵
Even after MV passes SP, HB continues to give SP suggestions for how to improve his times. So IMO there is NOTHING to this narrative that RB didn't help SP like they did MV. Not sure where it came from, but as you can see from the radio messages, this is not true. #MiamiGP 🧵
So far it seems that MV and SP are racing very fair, and their off track relationship is healthy. Both Hugh Bird and Gianpiero Lambiase are as good as they get. At every race I've observed. Very good Race Engineering from both. 🧵
Sucks that people won't do the work to investigate themselves what happened, but throw shade at @redbullracing and Hugh Bird. It's unfair. The team has done a great job this year so far in managing both drivers and allowing them to race. Just my $0.02 take it or leave it.
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Lots of talk about tyre degradation, tyre temps, balance, and the like. So I think it's time for a refresher course on tyres, grip, and degradation. I'll try and cover all of this in this thread, but stay at a high level (because it's incredibly complex) for general understanding.
Firstly, we should understand that as a car goes around a corner, the input angle of the driver to move the tyre relative to the direction of travel creates a slip angle. This slip angle creates the forces at the contact patch that act to rotate the car about the Center of Gravity (CoG) through the corner (moment).
If we focus in on a single tyre, then we see that with increasing slip angle (with constant Normal Force), the lateral force to turn the car is increasing until a limit (sliding limit). After this point, increasing slip angle will result in less lateral force, as the tyre is no longer able to impart a force at the contact patch without sliding.
The rubber tyre behavior plays a key role in this as well. In the initial stressed region, the rubber acts as a linear elastic material with increasing slip angle (Figure in the middle). At a point, this transitions to an intermediate phase where the rubber acts non-linearly. This non-linear stress response generates a hysteresis within the material that manifests itself in a heating response. This is termed hysteretic heating, and can be a key to generating bulk tyre temperatures.
The grip at the contact patch is greater as the load at the patch is increased. This means that the lateral force that can be generated from the same tyre is greatly increased with increasing normal force. This is why downforce for race cars matters so much. As you increase the load, the turning force that can be applied is increased, as well as the load limit for sliding at increasing slip angle. The coefficient of friction between the track surface and the rubber plays a key element in this as well. With different track types, the surface has more or less grip potential. Essentially more or less coefficient of friction.
People often ask me, "where can I find great information on motorsports and aerodynamics?" So how about a thread of some of my favorites? And no, I don't get paid to endorse these. I just think F1 Tech is a great place to share knowledge! Also, this is NOT an exhaustive list, but some that stick out to me. Feel free to add yours as well below!
Video below by Vyssion and JJN.
Let's start with some of my favorite books on car aerodynamics! "Race Car Aerodynamics: Designing for Speed" by Joseph Katz is goated. A really great book covering all types of race cars and written for anyone at any level. I highly recommend this book.
Another book that is sort of an extension of Katz is one from Simon McBeath called "Competition Car Aerodynamics." It's like a newer version of Katz book, and with a bit of very simple CFD in it as well.
Is the RB20 great? Or is Max Verstappen + the RB20 great? I spent some of the weekend looking through the telemetry. And here is what I have found. In summary, Max Verstappen is a Swiss f*cking watch. Well, maybe a Dutch watch. Let's look at it in this thread.
Looking at the macro view level lap times to gage consistency, you can see that it's incredibly consistent irrespective of compoud. Credit to Checo as well, his lap times in Bahrain were also very consistent, but also consistently 5-tenths to 1 second slower per lap. But why?
Looking over the a single lap, many show similar characteristics. It's like death by a thousand paper cuts, or in this case by 15 corners. The intricacy and precision of driving from one corner to the next builds delta from corner to corner.
Was the RB19 of MV really slow on the straights compared to the other teams? Or was something else going on? We know that MV wasn't fortunate to gain any DRS or slipstream after passing LN, but what else was going on? Let's understand this more in the thread below. 🧵
If we look first at the pit straight into Turns 1 and 2, comparing LN and MV, we see something peculiar. MV never upshifts to 8th gear, but holds 7th. Thus, his engine RPM is higher and he doesn't lift into T1. He does, however, lose time slightly to LN due to the lower speed. 🧵
Looking at the onboards, LN is 1.336s behind MV so he may catch a very slight tow, but the top speed delta here is 4kph with LN reaching 300kph. By MV never upshifting to 8th gear he limits his T1 entry speed, but doesn't have to lift as a result. 🧵
Well that helps to solve that mystery. Had also heard that this plank was painted so they could observe the wear patterns better. Looking at this, the plank wear is quite low overall. How about a thread comparing my observations of the RB, Merc, and Ferrari wear patterns.🧵
The bib looks to be running quite low. Possibly some forward rake, as most suspect. RB is able to run their forward floor very low, and still ride curbs and manage bump tracks like Monaco. A bit more left sided mid wear. 🧵
Mid floor looks pretty stable with little wear. Same preferential left side wear from previous image along the length of the mid floor. No floor flexing going on here. 😉 🧵
There is a quote in here that perfectly summarizes what I have been trying to say about the complexity seeing an image of a floor, and then getting a floor to work well.
"Talking to an engineer from the Milton Keynes team, not too worried about the photographs taken of their.."
"..underbody in Montecarlo, he explained to us that it is easier to work on the cross section of the channels while the slope (height) variation part inside is much more complicated to the tunnel and the simultaneous generation of eddies; an infinite job, among other things.."
".., since a car never works with a constant height but has many external elements, such as bumps, and dynamics, such as roll, pitch, etc., which greatly complicate the design of what it is the most important aerodynamic component of these new F1 cars..."