"Psychological" upgrades

[ESPImperium]

In that case they should ban Rob Smedley from the sport. He's an unfair advantage and the best "psychological" upgrade an F1 racer can have :P

I think he tells a driver how to drive. He has the best RC Car in history i think!!!

Look at what he did with Badoer, Badoer told him to shut up, Fisi was more receptive to his comments, but Massa needs more input that Fisi.

Seemingly the Race Engineer that has the least to do on the pit wall is Algusauari engineer, as all he wants to be asked is tyre pressures and front wing adjustments before a pit stop and all Jamie wants to be told is when something is going wrong on the car.

Engineers are in 2 camps, the Rob Smedley "talk a minuite" camp and the Andrea Landi "Sponsored Sielence" camp.

But theres another phycological aspect of a driver, engineers in their ear. some have a positive effect, some have a more negitive effect. If a Driver-Engineer relationship breaks down, it can have a far more impactful aspect on the driver than something actually on the car. Drivers will ultimatly blame both engineer and car, but that will often mean the driver is on the way out of the team.

[raymondu999]

Somebody told me that Mark Webber had an new chassis in Spain, much like Sebastian switched to Randy Mandy for Turkey, but I can't seem to find anything on it. Anyone?

[WhiteBlue]

Somebody told me that Mark Webber had an new chassis in Spain, much like Sebastian switched to Randy Mandy for Turkey, but I can't seem to find anything on it. Anyone?

Mark switched from chassis 02 to 04 for Spain and since Turkey his old tub 02 is now Randy Mandy. At least this is what I can read from German sources.

In Monaco and probably also in Spain Vettel's Lucious Liz (tub 03) had damage to the lower front wishbone pivot point. A crack was propagating through the tub that reduced the rigidity of the chassis. The front part of the chassis gave way and the suspension geometry wasn't true any more. Consequently it became difficult to heat up the tyres and position the car into the corners.

It is thought that Red Bull do not have a new chassis 05 at this time ready for Sebastian to drive at Canada.

With hindsight going from 02 to 04 for Webber was probably a psychological upgrade because his old 02 seems to work perfectly for Vettel. Objectively Vettel would have been in much more need to switch from 03 to 04 because his tub had definite damage that probably already slowed him down in Spain.

[raymondu999]

So mark's old chassis, based on your German sources, is now Vettel's chassis? What happened to chassis 01? IF 02 to 04 was psychological it worked well for Webber though. How about that rollbar damage? Do they need chassis 05, or just a replacement part?

[WhiteBlue]

01 must have been the test car that they both used in Spain. That probably had some non regulation features and was never homologated because none of the drivers ever used it in a race.

I don't know about roll bar damage. What chassis are you referring to? If you think about the Turkey qualifying problem, that was a loose right rear shock linkage which damaged the lower wishbone assembly in the process of collapsing. The parts were all exchanged in parc ferme from Saturday to Sunday and the tub 03 is supposed to be fine.

[raymondu999]

I thought they had a roll bar damage that caused seb's lockups in q3 turkey?

[WhiteBlue]

I thought they had a roll bar damage that caused seb's lockups in q3 turkey?

I definitely wasn't damage to the roll over protection structure. If you refer to the shock absorber linkage and the wishbone damage we are probably just using different words.

[raymondu999]

Ay caramba. I'm sorry, I meant anti-roll. I have no idea what was going through my head.

[mx_tifoso]

...
In Monaco and probably also in Spain Vettel's Lucious Liz (tub 03) had damage to the lower front wishbone pivot point. A crack was propagating through the tub that reduced the rigidity of the chassis. The front part of the chassis gave way and the suspension geometry wasn't true any more. Consequently it became difficult to heat up the tyres and position the car into the corners.
....

How would a crack pass the quality tests/inspections? Especially when it is clearly known? Wouldn't it be a safety hazard if it goes as far as affecting the suspension geometry?

[WhiteBlue]

...
In Monaco and probably also in Spain Vettel's Lucious Liz (tub 03) had damage to the lower front wishbone pivot point. A crack was propagating through the tub that reduced the rigidity of the chassis. The front part of the chassis gave way and the suspension geometry wasn't true any more. Consequently it became difficult to heat up the tyres and position the car into the corners.
....

How would a crack pass the quality tests/inspections? Especially when it is clearly known? Wouldn't it be a safety hazard if it goes as far as affecting the suspension geometry?

They obviously only discovered the crack between Monaco and Turkey. Between the four fly away races they had no means to inspect the chassis for this kind of damage. I guess the damage must have been pretty minor initially to pass the inspection between China and Spain. Then between Spain and Monaco they had a back to back race without inspection. So it is all quite plausible.

[mx_tifoso]

“All the key parts on the car have a design life and a service life,” says Technical Director, James Allison. “When a component reaches its service life, it has to come off the car and return to the factory for assessment, and if that means shipping it to the other side of the world, then that’s what has to be done. That’s the case, for example, with our carbon suspension components, which need proof testing after each Grand Prix so that we can locate any potential weaknesses.”

....

Proof testing of components doesn’t just happen at Enstone, though. At each race there’s a travelling non-destructive testing expert on hand to keep an eye on critical components. “We can check a lot of the composite materials using ultrasound to locate any weaknesses,” explains Chief Engineer Alan Permane. “If we are running a new front wing then we’ll use this technique to scan certain points on the wing for stress fractures. We will inspect the wing after the installation lap and then after each run to make sure everything is performing as it should.”

There isn't any specific mention of whether they check the chassis with the ultrasound, so a crack just might have gotten through the basic visual(?) inspections. It's a rather interesting subject though.

[raymondu999]

I think this would be better discussed in the "Where did RBR go wrong" thread here: viewtopic.php?p=174916&f=1

[WhiteBlue]

I think this would be better discussed in the "Where did RBR go wrong" thread here: viewtopic.php?p=174916&f=1

That is true. Actually I think that it also belongs in this thread as well. The OP mentioned Vettel's problem with tub 03 in the opening post and suggested that people widely perceive the problem as "psychological". It turns out that the chassis had serious damage. This should be a hint to listen to drivers when they have problems with a particular chassis and not dismiss the remedy as psychological.

[marcush.]

with liuzzi also getting a new chassis ,I wonder if teams have found a new ways of getting drivers wich do not deliver as expected a fresh start ...and mark this new starting point with a .oh we have found some minor damage on the tub and need more time to assess the damage...cloud of smoke and anticipation...
As a driver I´d be more worried about how bad the car quality is in 2010 when tubs are braking up after so little use...and a few years back chassis accumulated alot more miles
and it was rather rarely heard of that chassis gave up.

[Belatti]

A very interesting topic, more so right now that Im performing race engineer duties.
We were able to teach a driver that has only 1 year in his back (and no karting) to left foot brake, then to brake (sic), then to have good pace with less mistakes and now only the most difficul thing has to show up: speed.

This was only possible with his will to listen, to sit down to see data acquisition and try what he was suggested to do.

Still we were lucky and won a wacky race in his 2nd race with the team. That should be definitively a good psycho upgrade: the "must win" pressure goes away, the confidence of knowing he has a good "more predictable than the previous" car that is also fast and, finally, a big passport to an upper series...

Back on topic of F1 psycho, what about Senna´s faith and his problems vanishing magically in Monaco while Berger´s still suffered?