[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

I think that this is a very sensible solution as the bouncing appears to be a serious problem, not only towards the long-term health of the drivers, but it also has (road) safety implications too.
I think it is in the nature of racing drivers to endure discomfort in the pursuit of a good lap time and disregard the potential problems, so some sort of legislation would prevent teams from 'forcing' their drivers into such uncomfortable/dangerous situations.
The only potential drawback I can see in this is the possibility of teams not wanting their sensitive data to be common knowledge throughout the grid. (I know that up and down oscillation data won't give away too many secrets, but teams like to keep all of their data to themselves).

On the grounds of safety is the FIA not empowered to push through regulations on their own? Sure consult the teams but, I don't see much reason for genuine concern. If you do want to filter the data than just apply a true/false mechanism that does not give any date but just goes red if the porpoising exceeds the set parameters.

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

It would be very quick to implement. They just need to use the existing accelerometers and cameras in place for impacts, and define the parameters.

Originally Posted by AnnoyedMoose

Why bring in fancy rules to counteract the porpoising? It's 100% within the teams control to stop it. Yes the car would be slower but that's the penalty you pay for not designing a car as well as others. Teams and drivers are all acting like it's something that is impossible to control so the FIA must slow everyone down. I wonder why.....

I would also be a 100% in the teams power to built a very safe car at the expense of performance if the FIA did not prescribe a minimal weight. The fact is, that teams would compromise drivers health and safety to gain performance. It's just human nature, that's how we are wired and raised. Especially the competitive types that are needed to be successful in an F1 setting.

You need a governing body to protect the drivers health and safety from the natural desire of an F1 team to do everything for performance. It's so for minimal weight, for multiple other parameters and this would be just the same.

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

I agree with what you are saying here, but I think how you are saying it is confusing people. Chilibowl and I talked about this same thing in the Mercedes thread a few months ago...

https://tentenths.com/forum/showthre...153954&page=38

You are not talking about some type of active control system, but rather a feedback loop that focuses on drivers health. In the discussion linked above, the idea was to use existing accelerometers that area already in place in the drivers earbuds. The FIA would probably set both a maximum threshold and also some type of measure of sustained impacts (accumulative over time) in which if a driver experiences this, there will be a penalty.

The point here is that drivers should not be in the position of telling their employers "raise the ride height to preserve my health". If given the option, the drivers will do as they are doing today. Trade health for speed. Given this will be car, track and setup dependent, teams should see via the data from free practice if they are going to run afoul of this regulation and adjust ride height. Will they be slower? Yes, but the alternative should be more painful (grid and/or finishing position reductions and if a team is a pervasive repeat offender, then potential point removal, etc.)

The current regulations have examples of doing this already. For example the crash tests for the survival cells have specific deceleration targets that can't be exceeded. The challenge is to create regulations to protect drivers against aggregate acceleration (or more likely "jerk" which is the rate of change of acceleration) is that they would need to base the limits upon sound science and not be arbitrary values. For example they probably should not look at the measurements of what Hamilton or Russell is experiencing (when at it's worst) and saying "that is too much". That may very well be correct, but it needs to be backed up by some literature somewhere. But that data probably does exist somewhere. Someone has probably already researched this. Public military research would be a good place to look for this. Even if the data is incomplete, FIA could use it for guidance.

I frankly think the comments from some drivers (including recent ones by Russell) is actually asking for this type of regulation in a round about way. They are basically saying what I am saying above. Which is... If you leave it up to me, I am not going to say "no" to my team. But at the same time they say "it is a problem". So it is left up to everyone to put two and two together. That "someone" needs to address this. And I don't think this is about asking for more money to break the caps.

If this might not be fully enacted this year, it could be done this year as a voluntary experiment. Setup some prototype thresholds and review the data to see when it would have raised red flags. Provide this data to the teams during the year (after each time the car has a session, such as practice, qualifying, race). Then let the teams decide what to do. And... publish a public report at the end of the year. Maybe some teams may choose to dial it back if an end of the year report shows they are putting their drivers health at risk.

The other alternative is an active control system. Which is what I think some might think this proposal is. Which is effectively some version of active suspension. Which I have posted about before and there is no need to go into it here.

Richard

100% in agreement. I missed Chilibowl and your exchange because I don't generally often read team threads. Gary Anderson has also been suggesting it recently: https://the-race.com/formula-1/gary-...away-bouncing/

The big question is, is it really creating a potential health problem? The cars all have accelerometers on them and even the driver has an in-ear accelerometer. The FIA can look at this data and very quickly determine if the acceleration loads are too high and someone is going to suffer because of it, or if some teams are simply crying foul with no real problems other than an unwillingness to change their set-up to reduce the tyre bouncing.

I'm not dead set against active suspension long term as long as it leaves the driver of handling the car and the bumps and is cheap and light. but that would be something that could potentially be looked at longer term. For now the use of the accelerometers would seam a fast, cheap and fair solution.


Sure Mercedes would not like it because they then would loose the most performance, because they handled the phenomenon the worst. Well though look to them I would say. Do a better job next time, drivers health and safety goes first.