USGP Michelin Tires

[Guest]

Now I'm thinking about another topic: who's to blame for Indianapolis, which obviously there will be a lot of sources to be found.

1) Michelin
2) The FIA
3) The Teams
4) Ferrari
5) IMS

We don't need a discussion here about who's to blame but I put this question, to fellow engineers (and whoever else), if this makes for a good term paper or presentation. This class is supposed to be an engineering writing class.

Sure, here's my opinion.

You're an engineer or soon to be one, why don't you concentrate on the things that matter engineering wise.

There's always going to be politics in your engineering career, if you can't look past them now, then you may as well not bother and you can just be like the rest of the people that waste time and discuss the same thing and argue in circles - much like this thread in some places. It's quite useless really, indentify the facts, and work on them, let the whatever governing body worry about decisions, if you're in a technical position then your job is such, if it's management, then I guess you'll have more pull with the politics.

This thread was created to get a sense of what technically went wrong. Sometimes there are people on this forum that have inside info (scrutineers etc..) so I was hoping to see what they had to say about why it falied, especially since now we know it was a design flaw due to lack of testing (but then again, isn't every engineer failure?)

So I would propose doing a paper on Tires. Racecar Engineering mag has some very interresting articles. Plus you have the 'debacle' of the USGP, you have Kimi's front suspension collapse due to a tire issue, you have Schumi's tire incidents ... all from this year.

You can then look at the different types of tires, you can look at the possibility of slicks in the future, you can look at the advantages and disadvantages of having a tire manufacturer with over 50% of the teams vs. the other one.

Stay with the technical issues and let the media worry about the politics.

I'm always going to watch F1 I really don't care what happens. This year I picked up a subscription to racecar eng. mag and it's been well worth it. Especially things such as previews of technology or concepts that are in the works ... and then seeing them various pieces 'tested' on race day, and then sometimes in a later issue and analysis, I quite like it, it's a different view into being a racing aficianado.

Whatever you do, best of luck and keep us posted on the paper

cheers and beers !

[West]

Thanks for the suggestion, but it seems that if i do tires as well, it comes back to politics, to a point: should we go to a control tire, should there have been only one set of tires for qualy and race, etc.

The thing is also that I have to present to people who are not engineers at all, maybe sociology or whomever. But I like the tires idea; it seems basic enough for everybody to understand.

I like the Raikkonen idea as it brings up safety issues: driver or team decisions and vibrations. Schumi's lack of pressure blow out also is a good point but I may need some more info as to why a single set of tires may have provoked that failure.

All I know I want to do something with F1, something that could be made into a 15 minute presentation without people, including myself, say "huh."
But it seems now safety in F1 could be a good thing: did we compromise entertainment for safety this year?

[GuestAgain]

Guest wrote:
There's always going to be politics in your engineering career, if you can't look past them now, then you may as well not bother and you can just be like the rest of the people that waste time and discuss the same thing and argue in circles - much like this thread in some places. It's quite useless really, indentify the facts, and work on them, let the whatever governing body worry about decisions, if you're in a technical position then your job is such, if it's management, then I guess you'll have more pull with the politics.

History is littered with examples of catastrophic accidents as a result engineers/scientists not being able to articulate the dangers or consequence of decisions taken by governments/management/bodies you name it. How can any responsible engineer leave decisions to governing bodies? The engineer must guide or influence those decisions.

[Smeerak]

Now I'm thinking about another topic: who's to blame for Indianapolis, which obviously there will be a lot of sources to be found.

1) Michelin
2) The FIA
3) The Teams
4) Ferrari
5) IMS

We don't need a discussion here about who's to blame but I put this question, to fellow engineers (and whoever else), if this makes for a good term paper or presentation. This class is supposed to be an engineering writing class.

Sure, here's my opinion.

You're an engineer or soon to be one, why don't you concentrate on the things that matter engineering wise.

There's always going to be politics in your engineering career, if you can't look past them now, then you may as well not bother and you can just be like the rest of the people that waste time and discuss the same thing and argue in circles - much like this thread in some places. It's quite useless really, indentify the facts, and work on them, let the whatever governing body worry about decisions, if you're in a technical position then your job is such, if it's management, then I guess you'll have more pull with the politics.

This thread was created to get a sense of what technically went wrong. Sometimes there are people on this forum that have inside info (scrutineers etc..) so I was hoping to see what they had to say about why it falied, especially since now we know it was a design flaw due to lack of testing (but then again, isn't every engineer failure?)

So I would propose doing a paper on Tires. Racecar Engineering mag has some very interresting articles. Plus you have the 'debacle' of the USGP, you have Kimi's front suspension collapse due to a tire issue, you have Schumi's tire incidents ... all from this year.

You can then look at the different types of tires, you can look at the possibility of slicks in the future, you can look at the advantages and disadvantages of having a tire manufacturer with over 50% of the teams vs. the other one.

Stay with the technical issues and let the media worry about the politics.

I'm always going to watch F1 I really don't care what happens. This year I picked up a subscription to racecar eng. mag and it's been well worth it. Especially things such as previews of technology or concepts that are in the works ... and then seeing them various pieces 'tested' on race day, and then sometimes in a later issue and analysis, I quite like it, it's a different view into being a racing aficianado.

Whatever you do, best of luck and keep us posted on the paper

cheers and beers !

dammit ... I keep forgetting to log in ... that post was mine.

And you're welcome for that suggestion, and yes, that sounds like a great idea, "did we compromise safety for entertainment".

Again, let me know how it turns out !

As for the last post , yes the Engineer must guide the decisions, but if every decision was based on efficincy and safety then the cars we have (on the road) today would be perfect. The bottom line is that if you're working for a large car company, you do what your told and therefore you have to use your skills to get as much safety/performance/whatever out of the project. If you don't like where the project is heading, you can resign because someone else will do the job.

I will never work for a major automotive corp for that reason.

again my opinion (and we can start another thread in in the off-topic section and continue it there, but let's not do that here.)

[manchild]

No comment...
http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_ ... t_id=25081

[West]

Thanks for the suggestions, but I will be dropping the class. Frankly, three to four weeks isn't enough time to do a paper and a presentation for this class (engineer writing), while doing the same for another. But I will keep these ideas in mind as I will be taking the class in the fall. By then I hope I will have your interest and hopefully more resources at that time. Besides, it's my only other class that quarter, which means a helluva lot more time.

The fact that I'm in San Diego most of the time contributes to this, as I don't have internet connection there. And I would hate to spend my San Diego time at the library.

Again thanks. Safety vs. entertainment or safety vs. cost cutting are my favorite ideas at the moment.

[manchild]

RBR joins 6 teams...
http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_ ... t_id=25098

http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_ ... t_id=25097

[manchild]

It looks like the war is over
http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_ ... t_id=25213

[manchild]

The FIA World Motor Sport Council has voted overwhelmingly to accept the recommendation of the FIA Senate regarding events at the 2005 United States Grand Prix and cancel the guilty verdicts against the seven Michelin teams.

[Guest]

AMD (Ferrari technical parther) becomes FIA official technology partner and Olympus (Ferrari technical parther) does the same for official F1 web site.

[Scuderia_Russ]

Have you thought that they both don't settle for second best?

[manchild]

AMD (Ferrari technical partner) becomes FIA official technology partner and Olympus (Ferrari technical partner) does the same for official F1 web site.

I forgot to mention Bridgestone (Ferrari technical partner) as partner of official F1 web site

http://www.formula1.com/race/circuitmap/749.html

[manchild]

Indy type track surface causes chaos in NASCAR race

Months after the Indianapolis debacle at Indianapolis, when seven teams withdrew from the United States Grand Prix, on the advice of tyre supplier Michelin, on safety grounds, NASCAR racers at Lowe's Motor Speedway at the weekend suffered an unbelievable number of failures, causing a number of yellow-flag periods, which, in turn, caused the event to over run.

"This is the biggest joke in racing I've ever seen,'' Kevin Harvick told reporters, after crashing out of the event. "It's terrible. Everybody is out there, knowing that at any moment their tyres are going to pop. It's pretty disgusting and pretty embarrassing for our sport.''
Things were so bad that at one stage, Tony Stewart radioed his pit crew and asked for a renewal of his life insurance policy.

It's now understood that the problem that caused the Goodyear tyres to suffer an inordinate number of failures is down to the track surface, which had recently been smoothed, using the same process used at Indianapolis.

http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_ ... t_id=26320

[DaveKillens]

I watched most of that race, it was pathetic. Apparently, the track grinding/smoothing added around 5 MPH in average lap times. This added speed transferred more energy into the tires than expected, leading to many, many tire failures. It was really pathetic. But it was a NA$CAR race, and the fans enjoy restarts, and a bunched up field. Personally, I didn't watch the last quarter, it was really sad.
But this occurs a lot in NASCAR, crappy Goodyears failing with alarming frequency.
So Manchild, it was a situation with some parallels with Indy '05. But NASCAR is so different, the culture is so unlike F1, it's really hard to make direct comparisons.
As a footnote, the company that bore the most criticism, Michelin, enjoyed watching Renault win both the driver's and constructor's championships. How many years has Ferrari/Bridgestone kept Michelin from getting to the title?
When Renault wrapped up the manufacturers' title in China, not only was there a party at Renault, but the people at Michelin had just as strong reason to celebrate too.

[manchild]

It is a shame that NASCAR isn’t under FIA jurisdiction… I’d just like to see if Mossley would dare to sh*t all over Goodyear as he did all over Michelin...