F1technical.net

I had noticed how, throughout the entire weekend, Michael was constantly adjusting the brake bias on his car. And I really mean constantly - at least 5-6 times per lap on every lap, starting with a Friday's practice session right up until he crossed the finish line.

I know that Michael loves to play with the brake bias, but he was doing it way too often. Does anybody have any idea why? I can understand an adjustment here and there - I mean that's why they have those settings on the steering wheel - but why so often?

Thanks


Edit: Tomba, sorry for posting this in the wrong category...I wasn't paying attention when I did it.

He's that good. Shu adjusts the brake bias for the different corners. We've all heard that Formula One drivers are able to extract the absolute ten tenth's from a car. Well, he stays on top of all the different braking scenarios for each corner, by settting up the brakes for each corner.

DaveKillens wrote:He's that good. Shu adjusts the brake bias for the different corners. We've all heard that Formula One drivers are able to extract the absolute ten tenth's from a car. Well, he stays on top of all the different braking scenarios for each corner, by settting up the brakes for each corner.

Well, that was what I thought at first. It is clear that, ideally, an engineer would like to have the perfect brake set-up specifically designed for that corner. But, since Max won't allow it, it is up to the driver to do just that with the controls he has on his steering wheel.

Perhaps I've never paid that much attention, but I've never seen him do it that often. Like I said, I know he likes to do it, but what I saw today was jaw-dropping. The man clearly has both the skill and the courage.

But Massa arguably equaled him in qualifying without doing it. I doubt if it's worth that much.

yea, it can be argued. But Shu, a man with tons of experience, knowledge, and talent does it. I would assume that preparing for each corner makes things flow easier for him, and he is getting the best out of his car. It would be comfotring to know that if you approach a difficult braking area that tends to want to take the rear of the car sideways, that you have preset the car to be more benign.

I suppose its like downshifting to him.

Enter a corner, adjust the brakes, brake, downshift.

Its all part of a routine.

Could be so but he definitely had problems with front brakes locking too.

When Massa spun at turn one, I thought it could be a brake repartition problem, because he locked the rear, while the other drivers, for instance MS or DC, had the most of time front locking issues here. By the way I can't remember of any driver having rear end stability issues on heavy braking points, as showed by all the tough overtaking moves, wich makes me think that most of them were confident in their car's behavior under braking. So perhaps Massa did try to solve the problem encountered by the ferrari, but applied to much force to the rear. that could explain why MS was so steady on brake configuration during the whole week end, just because ferrari didn't find a solution to smoothly adjust the brakes.

vyselegend wrote:as showed by all the tough overtaking moves, wich makes me think that most of them were confident in their car's behavior under braking.

Button certainly was, especially early on in the race.

I thought changing the brake bias during the race was to try to help stop oversteer or understeer during the race? I think Jenson Button has his brake bias 100 percent in the front when he was oversteering too much acouple of years ago in a race?

If you were entering a corner where you have to turn and brake hard (like turn one at Nurburgring) the last thing you want is the back locking up and spinning you out. So in that situation, you add more front and remove from the rear. That way, you can be confident you won't have the car swap ends in that turning/braking situation. Later on that same track, going down the back straight, you enter a hard braking zone that leads to a quick left and right. The braking is primarily straight, so you have as much rear brake as possible, because the car is braking in a straight line.