Composite laps

[gcdugas]

If a team wanted to mask their lap times during a test they could work it like this....

Do a five lap run... on lap one the tires and systems are warmed up etc. Lap two begins with an all out assault on sector two but they start a corner before sector two so the corner entries are real and not compromised to affect the whole sector time. The rest of lap two they could go at 95% and then begin an all out assault on sector one, again starting a corner early to keep things faithful to what they would encounter during a race or quali lap. Then they would go at 95% for sectors two and three before doing lap four where the all out assault would be on sector three. Then lap five would be a whole lap at 95% effort. So you have a five lap trial with three hidden "golden times" which you can assemble for an idea of the car's pace over a complete lap and few opposing teams would be able to interpret the times unless they had full knowledge of the intent and effort spent. This way they could have a "composite lap" of the three hot sectors for purposes that would aid the engineers.

Surely this must happen all the time. I can't be the first person to think of it.

[Tim.Wright]

If a team wanted to mask their lap times during a test they could work it like this....

Do a five lap run... on lap one the tires and systems are warmed up etc. Lap two begins with an all out assault on sector two but they start a corner before sector two so the corner entries are real and not compromised to affect the whole sector time. The rest of lap two they could go at 95% and then begin an all out assault on sector one, again starting a corner early to keep things faithful to what they would encounter during a race or quali lap. Then they would go at 95% for sectors two and three before doing lap four where the all out assault would be on sector three. Then lap five would be a whole lap at 95% effort. So you have a five lap trial with three hidden "golden times" which you can assemble for an idea of the car's pace over a complete lap and few opposing teams would be able to interpret the times unless they had full knowledge of the intent and effort spent. This way they could have a "composite lap" of the three hot sectors for purposes that would aid the engineers.

Surely this must happen all the time. I can't be the first person to think of it.

good stuff, then you get 5 laps of rubbish data and everyone on F1technical start bashing your team

Why exactly would you want to mask your performance?

Tim

[Pandamasque]

Not a very good idea ))

As a simracer I hate when sector splits are located in places like the braking zone (take Magny-Cours before the hairpin). So if you make a small mistake under braking you mess up 2 sector times at once and get no idea about your real performance on that lap.
What you suggested is a more efficient way of wasting testing time.

[Danlizzyman]

Seeing as teams like to have as much data as possible for each fuel load, tyre, etc. in a given run, why would they, instead of getting 5 laps of data from 5 laps, want 1 lap of data from 5 laps. Surely understanding the changing condition of the car as the fuel load drops and the tyres wear down is more important than trying to fool rival teams. Since your "golden lap" is pieced together over several laps, its practically worthless because it contains different fuel loads and tyre performance.

If a team did employ this technique and convinced the other teams that they had a slow car, would the other teams take a few weeks off before the season begins?? Give the teams some credit, I'd like to believe that they are more positive thinking than that!

[Richard]

Do you think the drivers are super human?

With the variables of tyres and fuel, plus testing high downforce v low downforce, none of use really know if we are seeing a McL on heavy fuel against a Ferrari on light fuel, or the other way around.

Also, sometimes the drivers are asked to do steady consistent laps to compare data from different parts. Its easier to do those at a slightly slower pace than doing fastest laps every time.

[Moanlower]

Are sector times hidden for other teams? I presume not.

[DaveKillens]

It's a very good idea, and has been done in the past. Colin Chapman liked to mess around with other teams, and many times had his drivers never do a lap flat-out, but instead ease off in one section to disguise lap times.

These days, with the limited testing, no one can afford the luxury of wasting valuable laps or time on playing mind games. Right now, there's not enough test time to satisify any engineer.

And with modern timing, just about anyone can intrepret the data to realize what's really happening on the track. If, for instance, Alonso set the quickest times in sector one and two, but was a complete second off the pace in sector three, it's no secret what happened.

[ISLAMATRON]

Why waste time worring about what the other teams are doing? Just maximise every single thing on your team and your car and not worry about all that other sillyness.

When you are running a race, you only slow yourself down by turning your head to see who is behind you.