Quote:
Originally Posted by Casper
[Engineers] have some ludicrous way out there ideas and sometimes need a stern talking too in my very limited experience. I had a true stand up with one because of the stupid stuff he was trying to foist on us.
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Your approach seems
VERY counter-productive to me. Are you sure you at least evaluated and understood the potential of the ideas properly before quashing them?
Without the Frank Dernies of the world saying "let's write a computer program to optimise suspension geometry" (computing was radical stuff in the mid-1970's) "let's get a wind tunnel", "let's build an active suspension system" and so on, Williams Grand Prix
Engineering (emphasis) wouldn't have got where they did... [Interview with Frank Dernie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWRQDbB0EJU ]
If that was quashed under "racing teams don't need wind tunnels, those are for eggheads building airplanes, I'm not wasting money on a three-axis force balance and data logging equipment to go with it either, what on earth is that for", they would not have found their advantage with Jones in the ground-effect years.
Similarly, "a racing car with a CVT, that's stupid" would have not allowed for development of this Williams FW15C CVT prototype banned for it's potential (increased) dominance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3UpBKXMRto
Of course a plentiful supply of sponsor dollars helped.
But I think it's exactly that abundance of radical thinking that keeps race teams like Red Bull Racing (the rumours of systems of borderline legality like flexi-wings during the Vettel years are too many to mention
) and Mercedes Grand Prix at the head of the pack.
Recall the McLaren-Mercedes with the knee-operated fluidic "f-duct" to stall the rear wing and gain straight line speed... radical, crazy but it worked and found an improvement in laptime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9QMYTiYHIk
Just this very year, Mercedes Grand Prix exploited the loophole that moving the steering wheel fore and aft is considered 'steering', to introduce a system that toes in as the wheel is pulled back on the straight (for reduced aero drag and better straight line stability) and toes out in the corners as the wheel is pushed forward:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_uKHNJLSQs
Chief engineer James Allison had a wry grin when talking about this cleverness to the press, just as he should have. I supposed you would have quashed this idea as radical thinking for minimal benefit and a waste of money?
A concept drawing or working study, like say active suspension concepts that seemed impossibly radical in the early 1980's, can within 5-10 years be turned into a real innovation on the race car with laptime benefit after all!
...Ever since Supercars in the early to mid 2000's caught up to the build quality of 1990's Super Tourers: everything placed on the floor, the driver as far back as possible, plenty of carbon and weight-saving; there hasn't been much in the way of interesting widespread technical progress in Supercars, which is a shame.