2017 F1 cars are not the fastest, cornering wise

[Artur Craft]

I decided to open a thread because, from what I read, it's generally believed that the current F1 cars are the fastest ones ever around the corners but I've stumbled upon a site that demonstrates that this is not true, actually.



There is even more info on the site:
http://motorsportzone.blogspot.com/p/ca ... aking.html

The author makes a very good point there. The RB6 Red Bull and the 2006 cars have a good margin of extra cornering force than the 2017 when you consider all the points made there.

I think that's why the cars didn't improve the 5s that they were predicted to. The comparison that the site made of Bahrain's qualifying laps shows that these wide slick tyres have quite underwhelming grip when compared to the narrow, grooved ones of 2006.

[NL_Fer]

2006 was full scale tyre ware between Bridgestone and Michelin. 05 tyres even lasted a full race. Also cars were lighter, fuel tanks were smaller. Better cog

[mrluke]

Also I am not convinced this claim is true, the 2017 cars are a couple of seconds quicker than 2004 or 2006 cars, I doubt this includes overcoming a corner speed deficit. If it does then that would give the 2017 cars a pretty impressive power advantage over the 2004 V10s.

[Juzh]

I'm inclined to agree with the analysis of campsa corner in the opening post. If you read the methodology used in all the measurements you can be pretty convinced the findings are real and as close to accurate as they can be. Most of the stuff posted on that site comes to almost the same conclusions I've also come to myself on for a few corners (2010 RB6 and 2006 renault as still the fastest cars ever trough campsa for example).

One thing about 2017 pirelli tires is that people forget to take into consideration is the ENORMOUS weight of 2017 cars. 2006 renault is faster trough the entire slow speed section in sector 3 in barcelona even on grooved tires, but is also running ~100 kg lighter.

[waynes]

that website is awful

[Wass85]

I don't know if it's true at all tbh, I've watched the pole laps of Australia, China and Bahrain and the 2017 cars have been the fastest in the high downforce corners out of all the comparison videos.

Now I'm not saying the likes of the 2006, 2010 etc... cars didn't have the potential to corner at those speeds but the 2017 cars enter these corners at a much higher speed and also keep that extra speed throughout the corner. Give the 2006 and 2010 cars that much power and they would be much faster IMO.

[Artur Craft]

Video doesn't work?

Also I am not convinced this claim is true, the 2017 cars are a couple of seconds quicker than 2004 or 2006 cars, I doubt this includes overcoming a corner speed deficit. If it does then that would give the 2017 cars a pretty impressive power advantage over the 2004 V10s.

The link is this one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN6lenTKRdg

But the blog/site is more complete, imo. The thing is, they/he measured it, it's not a claim. You can see how accurate the total laptimes are when obtained through the videos.

The 2014-2017 cars have quite more low speed torque even than the V10's, at least that's what I was told and read from the likes of Button. The torque/power of the ERS is instantanous and those what, over 200HP?, goes straight into the rear axle at any moment.

The 2017 cars also have DRS which might give an additional 1.5 to 2s improvement. On Juzh's comparison video of Schumacher 2004 pole(0.06s slower than Kimi, on Campsa, as by the site) and Kimi's testing lap, you can see that before T10(it's quite bumpy on the 2004 year), the 2017 car is only around 1s ahead and, without DRS, they would already be slower than the 2004.

Actually, I bothered to look around for that in more detail and, on the exit of Campsa, the F2004 is only about 0.4s behind the 2017 Ferrari, on Juzh's video, meaning the 2004 is only slower due to DRS. Check for yourselves

Comparing 2017 times with the 2006 cars is useless when it concerns to cornering speeds because the the latter had around 200HP, or more, less than the PUs of today, on top of the DRS.

As Juzh said, besides the tyre war compounds more than compensating for it's grooves and width, the 2006 cars also were 100kg lighter than today even with Q3 fuel. That's why they are quicker.

The screenshots proves very convicenly that Webber was doing pretty much 255kph the entire time. If they( some 2006 and 2010 cars) had more power, who knows how fast they could've been cornering there?! maybe even 270kph

that website is awful

As it's on google's blogspot, it's safe to assume it's not a professional site but rather some fan blog with technical posts about F1. I don't mind the aesthetics of it that much but very much appreciate the content there. The sites that I really dislike are the new ones targeted for mobiles/tablets. I MUCH prefered the official old sites of f1 and wec, for instance.

@Wass85, they win the comparisons because they were made with 2011 cars, weren't it? I think Juzh posted comparisons of some poles of Vettel in Melbourne and China, in 2011, and indeed the 2017 cars are faster but that's because the 2011 were really not that fast. The site puts them 10kph slower than the 2017 ones, on Campsa.

Wasn't RB6 doing 225kph on Vettel's dashboard, through T14, on his Australia's 2010 pole? Lewis was the fastest one there this year and he dropped it to 216, iirc.

[Wass85]

Video doesn't work?

Also I am not convinced this claim is true, the 2017 cars are a couple of seconds quicker than 2004 or 2006 cars, I doubt this includes overcoming a corner speed deficit. If it does then that would give the 2017 cars a pretty impressive power advantage over the 2004 V10s.

The link is this one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN6lenTKRdg

But the blog/site is more complete, imo. The thing is, they/he measured it, it's not a claim. You can see how accurate the total laptimes are when obtained through the videos.

The 2014-2017 cars have quite more low speed torque even than the V10's, at least that's what I was told and read from the likes of Button. The torque/power of the ERS is instantanous and those what, over 200HP?, goes straight into the rear axle at any moment.

The 2017 cars also have DRS which might give an additional 1.5 to 2s improvement. On Juzh's comparison video of Schumacher 2004 pole(0.06s slower than Kimi, on Campsa, as by the site) and Kimi's testing lap, you can see that before T10(it's quite bumpy on the 2004 year), the 2017 car is only around 1s ahead and, without DRS, they would already be slower than the 2004.

Actually, I bothered to look around for that in more detail and, on the exit of Campsa, the F2004 is only about 0.4s behind the 2017 Ferrari, on Juzh's video, meaning the 2004 is only slower due to DRS. Check for yourselves

Comparing 2017 times with the 2006 cars is useless when it concerns to cornering speeds because the the latter had around 200HP, or more, less than the PUs of today, on top of the DRS.

As Juzh said, besides the tyre war compounds more than compensating for it's grooves and width, the 2006 cars also were 100kg lighter than today even with Q3 fuel. That's why they are quicker.

The screenshots proves very convicenly that Webber was doing pretty much 255kph the entire time. If they( some 2006 and 2010 cars) had more power, who knows how fast they could've been cornering there?! maybe even 270kph

that website is awful

As it's on google's blogspot, it's safe to assume it's not a professional site but rather some fan blog with technical posts about F1. I don't mind the aesthetics of it that much but very much appreciate the content there. The sites that I really dislike are the new ones targeted for mobiles/tablets. I MUCH prefered the official old sites of f1 and wec, for instance.

@Wass85, they win the comparisons because they were made with 2011 cars, weren't it? I think Juzh posted comparisons of some poles of Vettel in Melbourne and China, in 2011, and indeed the 2017 cars are faster but that's because the 2011 were really not that fast. The site puts them 10kph slower than the 2017 ones, on Campsa.

Wasn't RB6 doing 225kph on Vettel's dashboard, through T14, on his Australia's 2010 pole? Lewis was the fastest one there this year and he dropped it to 216, iirc.

Yeah I think Vettel's minimum speed through turn 14 was around 225kph and Hamilton's 216kph. I've just watched their onboards and through 11-12 they were basically around the same speed.

Maybe Hamilton's tyres were giving up at the end of the lap?

[Juzh]

Wasn't RB6 doing 225kph on Vettel's dashboard, through T14, on his Australia's 2010 pole? Lewis was the fastest one there this year and he dropped it to 216, iirc.

Grosjean was the fastest car trough turn 13-14 in 2017, faster than even vettel's ferrari (not kidding).

[Wass85]

I've just watched all 3, Vettel's minimum speed was 205kph, Grosjean 211kph and Hamilton 216kph.

That's a big surprise given the supposed downforce of the Ferrari, I also noticed Hamilton was much slower than both coming into turn 12.

[Just_a_fan]

Who claimed that the 2017 cars would corner faster? The FIA/teams said the cars would be quicker and would have more downforce than any previous F1 car. Being heavier than previous cars was always going to make peak corner speeds tricky, especially on control tyres compared to the tyre war tyres of yesteryear. A year or two's development might see some record performances​.

[mrluke]

Is anybody able to provide speed and rpm pairs for the 2006 Ferrari? Preferably at Bahrain. I cant find any 2006 videos of the ferrari with telemetry. At the moment I am using Renault 2006 speed & rpm pairs which isn't ideal.

[Artur Craft]

Maybe Hamilton's tyres were giving up at the end of the lap?

On the speedometer and on motorsportzone analysis of the Melbourne qualifying laps, Hamilton was fastest through T14 with Grosjean a very close second, instead of Bottas or Vettel, iirc. (edit: yeah, you saw that latter )

Grosjean was the fastest car trough turn 13-14 in 2017, faster than even vettel's ferrari (not kidding).

Yeah, I saw that on the Australian data from the site. Hamilton was the fastest on T14, with Grosjean close behind, as said above, but Grosjean was the fastest on the fast chicane, at the begining of S3. But the gaps, from the top two drivers in each corner, were very small and within the "margin of error", iirc. Lewis was quite far behind on the fast chicane but the site/author claimed it to be partially related to him not running over the curb, as did Grosjean and Vettel.

We don't know how things will go with the new aero packages but the cars that will be battling to be the fastest, through Campsa, will definitely be Ferrari, Haas(let's see if they bring upgrades too), Mercedes and Red Bull. The other cars like the Renault, Mclaren and STR are all very deficient in downforce, compared to the top. Nailing the corner will be crucial and, preferably, drivers should run over the curb as much as they can

Is anybody able to provide speed and rpm pairs for the 2006 Ferrari? Preferably at Bahrain. I cant find any 2006 videos of the ferrari with telemetry. At the moment I am using Renault 2006 speed & rpm pairs which isn't ideal.

The usage of telemetry was very rare, on onboard laps of that time(even onboard pole laps weren't shown on tv, right after qlf. We had to wait for dvds and etc). Seldomly there was telemetry available and, when there was, it was usually on a Q1/Q2 lap. The positive side is that such speeds can be more or less (different lines will distort the actual speeds a bit when calculated through the means of the time through the corner) derived from the time "measurement"

[Wass85]

I'm guessing the Redbull of 2010 had more downforce than any current car of today.

[mrluke]

Is anybody able to provide speed and rpm pairs for the 2006 Ferrari? Preferably at Bahrain. I cant find any 2006 videos of the ferrari with telemetry. At the moment I am using Renault 2006 speed & rpm pairs which isn't ideal.

The usage of telemetry was very rare, on onboard laps of that time(even onboard pole laps weren't shown on tv, right after qlf. We had to wait for dvds and etc). Seldomly there was telemetry available and, when there was, it was usually on a Q1/Q2 lap. The positive side is that such speeds can be more or less (different lines will distort the actual speeds a bit when calculated through the means of the time through the corner) derived from the time "measurement"

I have the audio trace from the video which is essentially converted into a speed trace for both 2006 pole and 2017 pole, I just need to correct the gear ratios for 2006 and we can all have a proper data based comparison to look at.