Why do drivers still have to set up a car?

[tarzoon]

are you sure they all were equally dumb not able to come near the ideal setup arriving at time spreads close to what we see today? very unlikely .the spreads varied more from race to race so we can conclude that some teams had easier to set up cars or had better handle on adapting their machinery to all conditons ...but
to say DA is all and everything else is worthless is far from reality.

not at all! They all got a great talent and the difference between them is minimal. But even if minimal, it's enough to distinguish winners from the rest. A difference of 0.1s between two drivers in a 1m25s lap is 0.12%, and that's how different they are.

[speedsense]

Agree with marcush.

Telemetry is the great equaliser here! Not all drivers are as gifted as, say, Fangio. And even those rely on data to see what is wrong. Except Kimi. He relies on big balls. And intuition. And his engineers are constantly lost. And a splash of that good stuff that they produce in the Highlands.

The rest of them (IMHO) have to work hard, see a lot of data, understand what was wrong and getting it sorted. This is a learning process. It's like any other job that requires specific skills and a touch of intuition.

Besides, maths can be as accurate as a prehistoric scalpel. From my university years I learned that the data will always give you want you want to see. It's only a matter of squeezing it in the right way!

oh yes.I have had lengthy debates with collegues about how to look at data ...and the conclusion coming out of it was entirely different with the two methods we were considering.Luckily only my approach showed a correlation with reality and explained the failure mode.
Nevertheless i am aware that i could as well be wrong and the final truth wa something different alltogether...
so data and data analysis alone is absolutely nothing without the ability to put things in context.and that is were the driver and the engineer asking the questions (!) is coming into the game and making a powerful tool out of it.
The Driver engineer will go a long way without it.. just look at racing till the 80s ..in F1 1976 the time spread 1st to 22nd was as little as 2 seconds in Qualy..
are you sure they all were equally dumb not able to come near the ideal setup arriving at time spreads close to what we see today? very unlikely .the spreads varied more from race to race so we can conclude that some teams had easier to set up cars or had better handle on adapting their machinery to all conditons ...but
to say DA is all and everything else is worthless is far from reality.

Far from what I'm stating. The "old days" when you relied on the driver comments completely, where all about memory, recall and driver feedback. Some had very excellent recall, and became very successful because they did. They had an upper hand over other drivers who had just good recall. In those days, teams sought out drivers who not only had car control and racing ability, but ranked recall right up there in the top qualifications for a driver. The ones who didn't have good recall, where "hit and miss" on race weekends.
Enter DA, and recall has literally been pushed down the list of qualifications needed for success. DA does not replace the driver comments and input, but it does replace most of the recall skills that drivers need to have learned as a trait to be successful.
In the late 80's it may take three solid days of testing, to achieve the information and advancement of a car that now takes 1/2 day or less with DA. And allows a team to test several things at once and still keep track of all of it. In the old days, most of the time, changes where one thing at a time and lengthy tests where needed.
In a driver debrief in today's DA world, hardly ever is there a discussion or recall with a driver, that doesn't have a DA system to confirm the driver's comments or memory. Or hardly a driver that will try and "out do" the DA with his own memory, as DA greatly enhances even the best "recall experienced" drivers and takes the drivers who have not made recall a priority at the top of their "skills" list, and equalized that skill, through DA. Hamilton, Vettel, Kubica don't need the recall/feedback/memory skills of Schumi or Barrichello anymore, as the recording (DA) of their driving movements provides that for them and their engineers as well.


IMHO

[marcush.]

sorry for my to harsh words ..reflecting on it in view of what you wrote I have to agree with you .And for sure I would never say DA is not VERY useful and necessary.

[speedsense]

I will not debate if DA is useful or not .It is necessary .some effects will plainly go unnoticed or a matter of speculation with out having access to a wel thought out and executed measuring and logging and analysis of data...that was not the point.

My point is :How will you be abble to extract the RELEVANT data from your truckload of gigabites...you might look and analyse for days months or forever but just by looking up data or even putting maths functions on top of it it still is only a snapshot of reality
and has big potential for missing the broader picture ,eg getting lost in the jungle.

How about complete driver analysis in 30 minutes, with enough information that you overwhelm the driver with it. The difference is who, how experienced the analyst is..in F1 there are several data analysis people looking at specific areas of the car, to focus the data stream.

The point is nly the driver can tell you what he needs to go quicker when you have reached a certain level.By this i don´t think of him demanding more wing at the front but something like:
If the car would be able to turn in a bit sharper I could open the exit a bit more and flor the throttle 15m earlier..this is something you will be unlikely to extract from a DA analysis as you will not be able to even imagine that there might be something to find in that corner.

The "will" of the driver is not recorded. But the cause and effect of "why, how and where" the turn in isn't sharper and what part of the car is effecting it, speaks volumes as to making that decision.

Or the other way round :how will you know if your driver is on the correct path (no good teammate available) looking up your data stream? If he´s on the wrong path you can analyse for ages and the time just is not to be found...so having a spotter or more than one out on the track is also something to consider.

Having a spotter or several, on board video, are all just more information added to the mix. Add in DA, which records faster than human eyes or video frame rate, and records all of unseen things that video and people can't see from outside.
If the driver is on the wrong path, what's he doing in F1? DA cannot predict anything, it is reality and reality only and a recording of what the driver paints as a picture. Nothing more and nothing less...

[marcush.]

+1 agreed !

[Scuderia_Russ]

Hence why to follow the Carroll Smith way of doing things, always run the car at the end of the day with what you started with. It'll be a no BS test to see if a) the car improved, b) the driver improved, or c) all the feedback were BS or not.

The key is though the driver has to be somewhat in the dark about things.

Although I can see why you would want to keep the driver in the dark about this, personally I don't think it is a good idea. Particularly if he has started to take Copse flat then you raise the rear ride height and take a load of wing off it just as an example.

I say tell the driver and let the stop watch and the data do the talking.

[marcush.]

some drivers actually want a blind test.

that one is really amusing:sutil in hockenheim on a mixed set of tyres supersoft and Hard...

Obwohl Bridgestone in Hockenheim von Supersoft bis Hard gespreizt hat, ist mir beim Fahren mit einem "gemischten" Reifensatz nichts aufgefallen. Ich denke, das hätte man erst nach ein paar Runden mehr gespürt, aber wir mussten ja gleich wechseln, da das nicht erlaubt ist. Ich bin dann später noch einmal an die Box gekommen und habe Supersoft aufziehen lassen. Damit waren in den letzten 20 Runden ein paar ordentliche Zeiten drin, aber das Rennen war natürlich schon nach der ersten Runde im Eimer.

so he admits he did not feel something special with that bastard tireset...the same guy who says it would take schumacher quite a while to get the proper feeling for the current tires..i´m puzzled...

[raymondu999]

It's taking him a while too.

[marcush.]

I attended a seminar with JCRouelle a few years ago and he raved about Olivier Panis doing a blind test with michelin at the end of a two day tyre test..and he identified all 4 tyres of the bastard set they put on his car....))

[747heavy]

just to add to the confussion

To (try to) answer, the question of the thread - because he is a stakeholder/important part of the system. All the data in the world are useless, if the driver does not "want" to use a setup or drive n a specific way. IMHO the psychological aspects of tuning for optimum car/driver performance are still underrepresented in most forms of motor sport.
Sure you can show to the driver what he does (wrong), but it´s not so easy to say/know exactly why he is doing,what he is doing.

There is no doubt in my mind, that good DAQ/Analysis is useful, neccessary, but should be used with care, as it is easy to "upset" a driver with a too ambitious or detailed analysis.
I think every race engineer can relate to this.
Know what you say, but don´t say all you know

Sometimes life would be easier if we could race without the driver - from a enginnering point of view.

the driver thinks: I could be quicker if I just could get my engineer to set-up the car in a specific way.
the engineer thinks: The car could be quicker, if I just could get my driver to drive it in a specific/better way
winning means often to find the best compromise between the two on a given day/track.
This is what makes race engineerig the art/challenge it is. Sure good DA and analysis helps a lot, but it still has/needs a human factor to go with it.


Why I do accept most of what speedsense says, I have to disagree with this statement:

>>>Add in DA, which records faster than human eyes or video frame rate, and records all of unseen things that video and people can't see from outside.<<<<

Super high speed video will record as quick or quicker as any DA system, and some things are
much easier to "see" and to understand when "seen" then to be measured or/and calculated.
Even at F1 level sometimes seeing is believing
I remember a friend of mine working for a F1 engine supplier telling me about the day they just used a super high speed video camera to visualize fuel flow pattern and mixture in a F1 airbox/intake. What they learned by this simple test/video just blow all there extensive and carefull CFD analysis complete out of the water.

[marcush.]

@ 747heavy

+100 %match with all my experience working in motorsport.no confusion to me
when your driver does not believe in you and your ability to help him drive the car faster ,all is useless .If his trust is 100% even decisions you ´d say are
more guestimated than based on facts or a sound analysis will help to make him faster.don´t lie.never.don´t teach the driver.don´t put him into a defending position .HE IS THE HERO.YOUR HERO .at least for this weekend.
I admit it should be easier with Lewis ...

with regard to the high speed videos ... one picture is sometimes worth a thousand words or xMB of data put into graphs..when you can show the guy what is happening and why the coin drops almost instantly and one has a bit more respect for the extreme going ons ,something the data analysis does not really transport.