Formula 1 - 2014 Season

[tongue_of_colicab]

Is there an article discussing this? Sounds interesting. I always thought that the home team has an engine advantage, but in case of e.g. Ferrari, it was always negated. I am also not quite sure what you mean by layout, as I guess that the regulations basically fix all that and make it quite different. I also heard that they not only use the same engine but also the same gear and other engine related stuff?

Futhermore, I still think that the Merc car is very efficient wrt tyre wear and aerodynamics. I can only speculate about the RB...it just gets overshadowed at the moment and it is difficult to classify the different parts of a car. It could be that RB has the best aerodynamics because of Adrian Newey :smile:

That was probably the case in the days when teams could use multiple engines per weekend and do all the testing they liked. With limited production the works teams would obviously get the latest specs first.

The current engines all have to be homoligated and with no testing or development you want all your engines to be the same to collect as much relevant data as possible.

 

[Gubbi]

They are running the same engine.

The difference is the Mercedes had been designed for the engine from day one whereas the other teams designed their car and then received the engine.

They are running the same engine if you don't consider the intercoolers part of the engine. Mercedes uses a compact charge cooler, whereas all other Mercedes powered team use air-to-air coolers which take up more space.

Cheers

 

[DJ12]

Due to them knowing about the engine and designing their car to suit. Next year they won't have this advantage.

 

[Gubbi]

Due to them knowing about the engine and designing their car to suit. Next year they won't have this advantage.

It'll be much less of an advantage, but they will still know the specific limits of the engine in detail and can optimize integration more.

Wrt. engine freeze. The split turbine+generator and electric compressor of the Mercedes not only gives a big packaging advantage, but also allows for faster throttle response, higher thermodynamic efficiency (important in a fuel restricted scenario) and much easier integration with the electric power unit (primarily software complexity).

The freeze is stiffling for competition and innovation and needs to be lifted, IMO. As it is Renault and Ferrari has no way to catch up.

Cheers

 

[-tkf-]

It'll be much less of an advantage, but they will still know the specific limits of the engine in detail and can optimize integration more.

Wrt. engine freeze. The split turbine+generator and electric compressor of the Mercedes not only gives a big packaging advantage, but also allows for faster throttle response, higher thermodynamic efficiency (important in a fuel restricted scenario) and much easier integration with the electric power unit (primarily software complexity).

The freeze is stiffling for competition and innovation and needs to be lifted, IMO. As it is Renault and Ferrari has no way to catch up.

Cheers

I agree, this one shot design, live with the consequences for a season rule, is really messing things up. There must be other ways to level the playing field. For example share the earnings in a more fair way towards the small teams..

 

[Kaotik]

Spanish media is at it again.
Barca claims Ferrari is considering firing Kimi after the season, too, because of his drinking habits. According to Barca, the last straw was his flight from Tokyo to Moscow after Japanese GP, where he partied, drank and annoyed everyone the whole fight.

Then again, in reality, Kimi was never on such flight, as he flew from Nagoya to Helsinki after the Japanese GP, and slept the whole flight on row 1 as witnessed by finnish F1 broadcaster team and others.

 

[cjo]

I agree, this one shot design, live with the consequences for a season rule, is really messing things up. There must be other ways to level the playing field. For example share the earnings in a more fair way towards the small teams..

Or just giving the teams more money from the broadcasting rights than they get at the moment...

 

[Davros]

I agree, this one shot design, live with the consequences for a season rule, is really messing things up.

something I only found out since buying f1 2014 (dont btw)
gear ratio's are chosen at the beginning of the season (not by you in the game) and are fixed.

 

[DieH@rd]

Hulk stays in Force India next season.

 

[Phil]

I said it in the case of Ham and I say it now: every F1 driver can go from last place to podium with this years Merc...it is quite a boring season. I don't blame Merc...but all the other teams for being so slow.

If only this were true. The only reason Nico made it work, was because the tire choice was far too conservative. He effectively did a ~53 lap undercut to everyone else. Were the tires more aggressive, we would have seen a much better race. Having said that Bottas/Williams ran far too conservative. They gambled that Nicos tires would go off and that he would be able to challenge for 2nd place, when he should have stepped on it all the way. They simply got it wrong. Yes, the Mercedes is quick, but the tire situation helped immensily at Sochi.

 

[-tkf-]

something I only found out since buying f1 2014 (dont btw)
gear ratio's are chosen at the beginning of the season (not by you in the game) and are fixed.

Wow that is crazy

 

[Davros]

Cost cutting gone too far methinks plus if you get it wrong it could cost big time. They've also moved to 8 gears to prevent anyone having too short a ratio

 

[Kaotik]

Cost cutting gone too far methinks plus if you get it wrong it could cost big time. They've also moved to 8 gears to prevent anyone having too short a ratio

Best part is, that these changes to "reduce costs" come so often they only raise the costs really

 

[Dave Baumann]

Best part is, that these changes to "reduce costs" come so often they only raise the costs really

In this particular instance it is one that will result in reduced costs as it will save teams from having multiple sets of ratios across the different circuits. This is a fairly sensible, low impact (in terms of end user appreciation) cost saving measure.

 

[Davros]

well they start pre season with 30 ratio's which they choose 8 for the season so they have to make/buy them anyway- guess its cheaper cos they only need duplicates of 8 but are cogs expensive ?
you can get them here £10 each
http://f1partsfinder.co.uk/

 

[Silent_Buddha]

well they start pre season with 30 ratio's which they choose 8 for the season so they have to make/buy them anyway- guess its cheaper cos they only need duplicates of 8 but are cogs expensive ?
you can get them here £10 each
http://f1partsfinder.co.uk/

The quality and precision required are higher than that for your average automobile.

Because of that, you can't likely use off the shelf parts, which means limited production runs and no economies of scale to reduce the cost of each part. Which means each part must by necessity cost multiple times that of store parts. Especially if you have to CNC each individual gear.

Relative to the cost of the engine? It's small. But it's still going to be expensive.

For example, aftermarket rims for a car might cost you anywhere from 100-500 for your average rim. While a custom CNC job will likely start at 500-1000 and go up from there depending on the complexity of the RIM and quality of the CNC shop.

And considering that economies of scale for gears will be much better (meaning far great cost reductions) than those for aftermarket rims for a car... And CNC costs won't go down significantly for a gear compared to a rim...

Assuming, of course, they can't use stock automobile gears.

Regards,
SB

 

[Dave Baumann]

They use custom, in-house (certainly for the big teams) milled gears from solid titanium (or other equally, or better, strong / light material that is just as, or more, expensive).

So, yes, while they may make a bunch for pre-season testing they are only doing it for one car and maybe only one set is needed for each as they won't be as critical for redundancy during testing. For a race meeting they are likely to be carrying, locally, at least 4 sets of each gear ratios (one and a spare for each car), which will make things significantly more expensive if you are hauling multiple sets around as well.

For the smaller teams they may also just get a recommendation from the engine manufacturer as to the gear ratios which will cut down cost on the testing selection and likely won't disadvantage them too much during the season.

 

[IainF]

The other point about setting a limited number of gear ratios at the beginning of the year is that they have to come up with a compromise set of ratios that covers all the circuits for the year whether they are high speed, low speed, street etc. This means that teams are trying to come up with a configuration that either maximises their strengths or mitigates their weaknesses but can't easily do both.

In the past where it was unlimited choice of ratios then the fast team or teams very rarely got it wrong with ratios and had optimum performance at every track (within the general characteristics & limitations of their car of course). This could make it very hard for the 2nd tier teams to gain an advantage at any given circuit over the 1st tier runners or at least their major rivals.

However Williams this year have demonstrated (by luck or design) they have been able to leverage a very slippery design with relatively high gearing and a great engine, which has allowed them to really challenge on some circuits.

It hurts them on occasion on the high downforce ones but I guess they take that on the chin because overall it is to their advantage across the season. I think limiting the ratios is good because my gut feeling is that 2nd & 3rd tier teams can optimise so that they can punch above their wieght on some circuits and occasionally threaten an upset.

 

[Lightman]

I just wanted to add that teams are allowed one change of final gear in season!
I think McLaren used their joker gear change for Suzuka, not sure about other teams.
It is also not clear to me if once changed they can go back to previous spec gear at will or have to stay with new ratio till the end of season, but from wording used to describe McLaren's move it's the latter.

 

[-tkf-]

My issue with locked down stuff is simple, you make a mistake and you are paying the whole season.

It's an expensive sport, share the earnings more evenly. The teams with the most money is still most likely to win, earn more money and then win again. It's a very tough sport to get into.