In reply to Keith Tanner :
Interesting reading. I wish I had any interest in formula racing at the time and I paid more attention. It caught my eye because it was obviously a big money racing operation, not some local team or college. For all I know it could have been an F1 team (although with what I think I know now that seems unlikely).
Keith Tanner said:NY Nick said:So the big word of the day today is porpoising. That is the car gets sucked down to the ground by the ground effect, it gets too close, stalls releases the car and then it gains downforce again, rinse and repeat.
That is interesting but maybe more interesting to me is they didn't predict it, and their rolling floor wind tunnels didn't see it because they floors are less rigid than asphalt. Maybe even more interesting is they all found it yesterday. Engineers in the factory worked solutions yesterday, floors are being built now and the expectation is a bunch of new floors are going onto cars tonight. Holy crap that's impressive.
Porpoising is a known problem with cars that rely on ground effect. I suspect it was expected but not to what degree.
The "let's just cut a chunk off this and see" concept is one I love. The floor is going to be replaced anyhow, let's give this a try. A bit reminiscent of the story behind the development of the 917K where John Horseman chopped a chunk of the tail of the car off to the horror of Porsche engineers. BTW, if you haven't read Horseman's book "Racing in the rain" (no, not the one with the dog) it's worth hunting down.
And that porpoising is exactly why it was originally banned IIRC.
alfadriver said:In reply to Tom & Keith :
Funny that I could never really explain what Alonso did to my wife- as he's still her favorite driver. Although, she also thinks he should have stayed retired.
I know of 3 people who've encountered Alonso (two on flights and one after hours) and said that Alonso sat a graciously chatted about racing for extended periods of time (like a 4 hour flight). He may no be as big a shiny happy person as his exit from McClaren might lead one to believe.
In reply to Tom1200 :
If I were Honda, I wouldn't have been too happy with him.
In reply to z31maniac :
With Indycar making it work in the 80s and ever since, it's curious that it's a problem for F1 cars now. For a problem that was solved well over 30 years ago in a "lesser" formula to somehow the solution got lost is, well, a mystery. Did none of them know any from from Lola or March, or even Reynard? Or Penske? Or worse yet, did Dallara's Indycar team not have a meeting with Haas?
Keith Tanner said:In reply to Tom1200 :
If I were Honda, I wouldn't have been too happy with him.
Agreed but it's not uncommon for people to behave one way at work and a completely different way at home.
My wife and I know a semi famous director; he's extremely demanding on set (I'd never work for him) but off set he's a genuinely decent human being...............he just can't turn off the perfectionist side at work.
Keith Tanner said:In reply to Tom1200 :
If I were Honda, I wouldn't have been too happy with him.
And if you had to drive that GP2 engine, you might not have been happy with them, either.
I don't care for Alonso at all, but he was honest about the whole Honda debacle.
Posted this in another thread, but thought it relevant here too: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/haas-to-drop-uralkali-branding-for-final-day-of-f1-testing/8466022/
In reply to Javelin :
He might have been honest in his opinion, but he was also a paid driver whose paycheck was paid in part by Honda and who was actively trying to bring down the reputation of the company. He ate up the media attention that came from his antics. Nothing nice to say? Keep your mouth shut. If he were my driver, he'd have been fired so fast he'd have whiplash.
I don't care if he's a good person when he's chatting to a fan about himself. He's a liability to a team, no matter how many world championships he managed to get over a decade and a half ago.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Honda's performance brought down the reputation of the company, not Alonso.
alfadriver said:In reply to z31maniac :
With Indycar making it work in the 80s and ever since, it's curious that it's a problem for F1 cars now. For a problem that was solved well over 30 years ago in a "lesser" formula to somehow the solution got lost is, well, a mystery. Did none of them know any from from Lola or March, or even Reynard? Or Penske? Or worse yet, did Dallara's Indycar team not have a meeting with Haas?
Couldn't tell you. I suspect there are a multitude of reasons why. Mostly ovals vs road course? Ride heights? Weight? Amount of downforce produced? etc.
In reply to Javelin :
Alonso stomping around and whining and hanging out in a lawnchair in his driver's suit did nothing to help. Definitely not a product of a "no blame" culture. He acted like a spoiled child and brought nothing constructive to the problem.
06HHR (Forum Supporter) said:Posted this in another thread, but thought it relevant here too: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/haas-to-drop-uralkali-branding-for-final-day-of-f1-testing/8466022/
Funny how that totally wasn't the Russian flag last year, it was just red white and blue stripes.
I have to applaud Vettel for having the nerve to say something.
Keith Tanner said:In reply to Javelin : He acted like a spoiled child and brought nothing constructive to the problem.
Contrast that with Castro-Neves early Indy car career; the car was dog yet he kept that to himself.
Me personally I prefer someone who can remain gracious rather than being petulant..............sadly there are many drivers who behave this way...........I like drivers who have that internal fire and don't feel the need to fling thier toys out of the crib.
At least Alonso isn't attacking cab drivers..................or at least not yet. LOL
In reply to z31maniac :
Back in the 80's, CART ran more than enough road courses with relatively open rules for ground effects. I'm sure they had the same problem when working it out, but they did, and it's been working great since Jonny Ruthoford won the 500.
Still- this is something that was known, and solutions have been found. It should not have been a surprise to any F1 team. Heck, they can't even blame the tires, since Indycar has been on low profile tires for a long time, too.
This was one area where I hoped that Haas' relationship with Dallara would have helped them. It may have, but with the little time they have gotten to run....
I am really interested in this porpoising problem and how they are going to solve it. Reading all the reports on it, I gather that the more downforce a car makes, the more likely it is to happen so it's interesting that the Mercedes was doing it the most and the Red Bull the least. Will they just raise the ride height and sacrifice downforce? I suspect last years FRIC suspension could have been tuned to prevent it but this year they only have conventional coil springs/dampers. If the porpoising happens at a particular frequency, I bet some clever dampers could minimize it but may sacrifice mechanical grip. This season is shaping up to be VERY interesting. Oh yeh, my respect for Vettel grew more with his stance on Russia
Only sort of F1 related- Haas just got more exposure time to what they actually make/sell on Battlebots than they do for F1.... There is a Haaspital at the Battlebots event- full CNC work for any of the competitors.
I wonder how many F1 nominal viewers know that Haas is a machine tool maker, even.
In reply to loosecannon :
One interesting thing about the porpoising coverage- they showed it was really bad on Ferrari. But Ferrari was both fast and very durable- putting in a TON of laps.
What I was thinking was two stages of springs- where the stiffness goes up just as the ground clearance gets low enough to stall the aero. If that's legal. Need some trick dampers to deal with that.
Is the high nose maybe a factor? The front wing doesn't stall out as early as the underfloor, minimizing the porpoise.
alfadriver said:Only sort of F1 related- Haas just got more exposure time to what they actually make/sell on Battlebots than they do for F1.... There is a Haaspital at the Battlebots event- full CNC work for any of the competitors.
I wonder how many F1 nominal viewers know that Haas is a machine tool maker, even.
Battlebots is the greatest reality show ever!! Tombstone is still the scariest bot on that show
alfadriver said:In reply to loosecannon :
One interesting thing about the porpoising coverage- they showed it was really bad on Ferrari. But Ferrari was both fast and very durable- putting in a TON of laps.
What I was thinking was two stages of springs- where the stiffness goes up just as the ground clearance gets low enough to stall the aero. If that's legal. Need some trick dampers to deal with that.
Those are called heave springs, you'll remember the rear one coming off a car and really screwing up Felipe Massa in Hungary years ago. Here's a pretty good breakdown of all the new suspension regs.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.tech-tuesday-how-2022s-suspension-overhaul-could-shuffle-the-competitive.4PoTMQ9jbaWotbTdd4bp8j.html
And a statement from F1 just popped up on Facebook for me indicating they will not hold the Russian GP.
In reply to z31maniac :
Not entirely unsurprising. Much like Haas, I don't think there's any way that they could have gotten their money from Russia, so that makes it a little easier for them to make the hard decision.
In reply to wae :
Does Fittipaldi have money to pay? I wonder if Andretti can start buying out HAAS
trigun7469 said:In reply to wae :
Does Fittipaldi have money to pay? I wonder if Andretti can start buying out HAAS
Gene really needs to get rid of Gunther. He's the one that isn't capable of getting stable sponsorship. Nor supply stable leadership. The team started out well, but the longer it's gone on, the worse it's gotten, and that starts at the top.
Heck, one he even approached the idea of Rich Energy, he should have been reprimanded, since Rich Energy does not actually sell a product in numbers that can sponsor a billboard let alone an F1 team. But that debacle started the decline, and then going for Russian money for sponsorship was never a good idea- too unstable.
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