Jump to content
 

The non-railway and non-modelling social zone. Please ensure forum rules are adhered to in this area too!

Formula 1, 2020


Andrew P
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • RMweb Gold

Quote from the BBC online coverage of testing 

 

Quote

Posted at 8:168:16

Illness halts Vettel

Sebastian Vettel was meant to take part in the testing session today for Ferrari - but is feeling unwell, so Charles Leclerc will drive instead.

 

Sick of his teamate????

  • Funny 5
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
4 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

It looks like Kubica was driving Raikkonen's car. That seems a bit strange.

If I were an F1 driver, I would want to familiarise myself with the new car as quickly as possible.


Just watching the Sky F1 ‘Story So Far’ summarising the day, Christian Horner was saying in his interview that the teams are only allowed to bring one car - he also said they have more engineers and mechanics at testing as they also have a night shift getting the car set up tomorrow’s testing. 
 

Also Mercedes have brought some innovative design to the rear suspension to increase the rear downforce - should be interesting to see how that all pans out in Australia.

  • Informative/Useful 4
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

Very interesting snippet gleaned from the BBC's coverage of testing

 

Quote

Racing Point’s technical director Andy Green has spoken to the media. Naturally, he was asked about the 2020 Racing Point RP20 looking like last year’s Mercedes W10.

“It shares some resemblance in some areas,” Green said. “Lots of cars look like other cars and I don’t think ours is particularly different to anybody else’s. We've seen a change from where we were last year. We saw where the RP19 was developing to, it wasn’t making the gains we were hoping for. It was clear if we carried on, we weren't going to end up where we finished in the championship last year. That wasn’t going to be acceptable.

“We have one more year left in these regulations. It was time to try something new, to take a risk, and we've taken a very, very big risk with what we've done with the car. It made sense to do what we've done, to take the underlying architecture we’ve had for many years. We've been using their [Mercedes] gearbox since 2014. We're a year behind with their gearbox and always have been.

“As we found in the last few years, trying to develop the Red Bull philosophy, the high rake philosophy, which lots of people have emulated, became increasingly difficult with the gearbox we have from MGP. They are a different philosophy, a lower rake philosophy, than anyone on the grid. It's difficult to try and shoehorn and develop around a different philosophy from the underlying architecture that you have."

The rules dictate that teams have to design the aerodynamic surfaces of their cars themselves, and Green insists that, despite the obvious similarity, that's what has happened.

“We decided to take a risk, to tear up what we've done in the past few years and start again from scratch from what we could see what MGP have been doing. There's nothing special in the information we've got, all we've got is what we see - that's what we started from and what we developed from. I don’t know whether it's going to pay off. I don’t think what we’ve done is new as far as taking a team’s concept and doing it ourselves. That has been prolific in F1 since the earliest days.”

 

So it seems that Merc's low rake design has been dictated by their gearbox rather than any desire to strive for a different approach. It may be that this controlling factor has lead them and now RP/Aston Martin down this path .....

  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
24 minutes ago, RedgateModels said:

So it seems that Merc's low rake design has been dictated by their gearbox rather than any desire to strive for a different approach.

 

It could just as easily be that the gearbox was designed around using a low rake, making unsuitable for high rake geometry.

  • Agree 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

Merc's driver moveable steering rack looks interesting. I expect there will be intense FIA scrutiny to discover if it infringes any existing regulation. Since it likely carries a weight penalty to implement - the rack should only move in the designed path but otherwise should be 'rigid' relative to the car structure - that would imply either some weight saving has been possible elsewhere, or the car otherwise had to be ballasted to come up to the minimum dry weight. At least there's a simple out if it is determined illegal, bolt up solid; and I would be surprised if Merc haven't designed for that, as on a circuit like Monaco that might well be the best configuration.

  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

Merc are hardly sandbagging so far. Lewis has set FTD - on harder tyres than most, C2. Kimi has come closest, but on ultra-softs, C5. The Ferraris appear very ordinary so far, with Vettel being a second off Kimi's best, but on C4, two levels softer than Lewis's time. This morning Lewis did 106 laps on the C1 hardest compound, but was only a second off the pace, set in that session by Perez, on C3.  

 

Reliability appears generally good, which it should be for a new season of little change. 

  • Agree 2
  • Informative/Useful 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...