[Official] Qatar Grand Prix 2021: Grand Prix Weekend Thread - Round 20 of 22

[Skam85]

Originally Posted by ascarracinguk

….yeh….let the car sit there for a few laps and call out a VSC as soon as Max sets fastest lap, then withdraw the VSC just after Lewis crosses the line so he can’t respond LOL…..

The reflection of your tin foil hat is blinding you. Max already had the FL well before the VSC.

[ascarracinguk]

Originally Posted by Skam85

The reflection of your tin foil hat is blinding you. Max already had the FL well before the VSC.

What tinfoil hat? That comment was posted tongue in cheek….you need to get that chip off your shoulder

[ascarracinguk]

Originally Posted by Skam85

Alonso and Michael Schumacher finished 1-2?

Max and Hamilton are better than alonso, up there if not better than schumacher

[Skam85]

Originally Posted by ascarracinguk

Max and Hamilton are better than alonso, up there if not better than schumacher

lol.

[numbnuts]

Green is "better" than yellow .
Anyone who says different is a ?;**$#@ .
That is all .

[Taxi645]

Bizarre season, it's gonna be so tight till the end.


P.S. RB sometimes seems so focused on their No1 driver that they screw up the other drivers strategy. Perez really lost third due to his team.


Awesome job by Alonso.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

I was surprised to see so many tyre failures especially some what Pirelli said was within their working life.

What life did they say? On the 5Live coverage, there were comments that Pirelli would be surprised if the tyres lasted beyond 30 laps, and I think all failures were 30+ laps?

[BTCC frog]

Last time Fernando Alonso finished on a Formula 1 podium, Lewis Hamilton was a one-time champion.

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

What life did they say? On the 5Live coverage, there were comments that Pirelli would be surprised if the tyres lasted beyond 30 laps, and I think all failures were 30+ laps?

On C4 they were quoting 30 laps life for the mediums and 40 laps for the hards. Bottas's puncture happened at 34 laps on mediums, I think. The others were a little below those figures, especially the hards.

[Sodemo]

I suspect Red Bull are preparing to throw in a well timed protest against the Merc rear wing on the Friday of Saudi Arabia.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

I suspect Red Bull are preparing to throw in a well timed protest against the Merc rear wing on the Friday of Saudi Arabia.

Karen's pretty much confirmed it:

Ahead of the Qatar GP - "Make no bones about it, if we see it on the car here it will be protested," Horner added that he didn't think Mercedes would use that rear wing in Qatar and that a protest was perhaps more likely for 2021's final two rounds, where there is a "massive dependency on straight-line speed".
"It's probably less of a factor here, than particularly Jeddah and Abu Dhabi," he said. "But you could have a situation like in Brazil where the car is quite literally unraceable."

Red Bull Racing threatened prior to the Qatar Grand Prix that a protest would follow if they saw the flexible rear wing again. Why there was no protest in the end Christian Horner explains. ''In the race we saw the speeds on the straight in line with our expectations. That's for the first time in a lot of races and that's encouraging,"

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

I suspect Red Bull are preparing to throw in a well timed protest against the Merc rear wing on the Friday of Saudi Arabia.

That's automatic isn't it? I can hear Horner saying right now to Marko, 'What can I whinge about before/at/during/after the next race...'



Enjoyable race, primarily for Alonso's terrific third place. Lovely to see the old fella up on the podium. Good weekend for Alpine.

[S griffin]

Caught the highlights last night. Great recovery from Max, but he needed something to happen to Hamilton if he was to have any chance of beating him, having started further down

Alonso, great drive from start to finish and looked after his tyres well too. Unlucky for Lando to get a puncture when on for fourth place. Great drive by Stroll to 6th

Hopefully the tyre failures are a one off and nothing more

[ascarracinguk]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

Karen's pretty much confirmed it:

Ahead of the Qatar GP - "Make no bones about it, if we see it on the car here it will be protested," Horner added that he didn't think Mercedes would use that rear wing in Qatar and that a protest was perhaps more likely for 2021's final two rounds, where there is a "massive dependency on straight-line speed".
"It's probably less of a factor here, than particularly Jeddah and Abu Dhabi," he said. "But you could have a situation like in Brazil where the car is quite literally unraceable."

Red Bull Racing threatened prior to the Qatar Grand Prix that a protest would follow if they saw the flexible rear wing again. Why there was no protest in the end Christian Horner explains. ''In the race we saw the speeds on the straight in line with our expectations. That's for the first time in a lot of races and that's encouraging,"

The problem is that Mercedes DID use the Brazil wing in Qatar as far as im aware...sure i saw an interview from Toto confimring it....

....so if its passed scrutineering plus all the additional checks at the weekend, what can they protest. If its passing the tests, the only way to get it changed, is to change the tests?....a bit late for that, surely

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

That's automatic isn't it? I can hear Horner saying right now to Marko, 'What can I whinge about before/at/during the next race...'

The problem is summarised in the 'what'. How can they raise a protest, if they don't know what they are protesting.

Jenson Button has a simple theory as to why Red Bull haven’t protested Mercedes’ wings yet: he doesn’t think they yet know what exact element they’d be protesting.

"I don’t think they know what Mercedes are doing,” Button said while on punditry duties with Sky F1. “I think it’s very clever what Mercedes is doing because they have picked up a lot of straight-line speed, and you don’t get that by horsepower – unless it’s 50 horsepower. So it’s very clever, and I think Mercedes have got one over on Red Bull."

This is where Red Bull are stuck - you can't go to the FIA and demand a protest just because you don't understand why another car is quicker than yours. They now seem to be clutching at straws:
Red Bull have insisted for some time now that there is something going on with the Mercedes W12 that is giving it a major straight-line speed advantage. While initially it was speculated that the Brackley squad was running a trick to cool their engine, there’s also been talk about their rear wing.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner alluded to this on Friday at the Qatar Grand Prix. “I think that this is something even more advanced,” he told Sky Sports. “It’s hidden in the way that it operates, so it’s harder to spot from a camera. But you can see the straight-line performance since Hungary, and particularly in the last two grands prix, has gone exponential. I think that obviously concerns us, and that’s why Adrian [Newey, chief technical officer] and Paul [Monaghan, chief engineer] have been discussing it with the FIA.”


Are we really supposed to expect the FIA to listen to a protest from a team who are claiming that, because they don't know where the performance comes from, it must be illegal?

[steve_r]

And there is the inconvenient fact that a Honda powered car was top of the speed traps in Brazil. As if we need to muddy the waters any further.

[ascarracinguk]

Originally Posted by steve_r

And there is the inconvenient fact that a Honda powered car was top of the speed traps in Brazil. As if we need to muddy the waters any further.

Indeed. I do wish people would look through Horners BS....if they checked the speed traps, they would see that it isnt the Merc that is quick, but that Max was virtually at the bottom of all the speed traps.

[Greem]

"gone exponential" is a terrible bit of hyperbole.

No, Christian, it hasn't. If it had they would be far, far quicker.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by ascarracinguk

The problem is that Mercedes DID use the Brazil wing in Qatar as far as im aware...sure i saw an interview from Toto confimring it....

....so if its passed scrutineering plus all the additional checks at the weekend, what can they protest. If its passing the tests, the only way to get it changed, is to change the tests?....a bit late for that, surely

Marko thinks they've changed something in the way the wing operates:

Asked if Mercedes have been making changes amid the protest threat, Marko replied: "It is difficult to tell from the outside, but we can see it from the data. At least there is movement."

So I guess they'll be back to making a protest about the engine fitted for Brazil?

[Sodemo]

If the new Merc engine is worth 5-6kph, then id disagree with what Jenson said about gaining performance from the engine alone. I still think they have something trick on the car (legal or illegal). Someone mentioned it had something suspension related at the rear which is lowering the back of the car at speed?

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

Someone mentioned it had something suspension related at the rear which is lowering the back of the car at speed?

Yes - Gary Anderson explained it here.

In summary, they are stalling the diffuser through a suspension arrangement (that is perfectly legal) -
"When you are going down the straight, both [side] suspension linkages are compressing. So the springs compress, the car is getting lower to the ground and also [a] third spring is compressing because the two rockers are going in the same direction. And the downforce builds up on the car at the square of the speed, so in other words when you are at twice the speed you have four times the downforce. When that happens, the load builds up on that suspension assembly and depending on the geometry of the linkages driving the third spring what you can do is have that linkage go ‘over centre’, meaning basically the rate of compression of the third spring which on the straights is holding the car up reduces.
This allows the third spring not to operate at the same ratio and basically it reduces in its rate of compression and in turn support, meaning the rear of the car will drop faster. When you hit the brakes, the rear of the car will rise and the diffuser airflow will reattach and produce the downforce for braking stability and corner balance."

There is a consensus that they have been trying to achieve this all season, and only at the British GP upgrade package did they find the right setup to make this work. Then, it proves effective on long-straight circuits as best demonstrated in Turkey.

The aerodynamic update [introduced at Silverstone], which centred on the car's midriff, appears to have made the car less of a handful and easier for the team to find the performance sweet spot of the car over a range of conditions, thus making it easier to tune this suspension 'trick' at different circuits too.

• The forward vertical deflector was cut down, which in-turn allowed for the venetian blind-like slats to be extended forward
• The main vertical deflector was also detached from the sidepod's leading edge wing, removing the arched section that had previously framed the sidepod's shoulder.
• The 'wave' floor section which had been an imposing feature on the W12 since the start of the season was also tuned.
• The single, more prominent floor scroll, was replaced by a pair of scrolls instead.
• Eight angled fins were added, in order to course correct the airflow that moves around the sidepod.

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

If the new Merc engine is worth 5-6kph, then id disagree with what Jenson said about gaining performance from the engine alone. I still think they have something trick on the car (legal or illegal). Someone mentioned it had something suspension related at the rear which is lowering the back of the car at speed?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFDGz7afFKw

The video is claiming it is because the linkage goes over-centre passed a certain point the spring rate drops progressively and the car will sink faster from a certain speed onwards.

The main limitation of this system is that you of course don't want this to happen in the fast corners as you will loose time. So there is a limited speed envelope in which the system will help you. If you have only few fast corners that are grip limited then you set that point for a lower speed because the gain you have on the straights is larger than you loose in those few corners.

For Brazil it is hard to say which fast corners are grip limited. 6 and 7 for sure, but 3 and 12 might still be full throttle even with a stalled diffuser. If so that might help to explain why the effect was so large in Brazil, because they then could choose to sacrifice corner 6 and 7 for a greater benefit on the straights.


An altogether much more efficient system would be one, where for instance something like the heave damper shown in the video (https://youtu.be/HFDGz7afFKw?t=338) opens up when centred (close to symmetrical forces left and right when not cornering on the straights) but closes with sufficient side load in the corners). If there is a system that connects this to the base of the springs you can have a spring base that is firm when there is a closed circuit (in the asymmetric position), but allows the base of the spring to move out of the way due to a lack of hydraulic resistance when the circuit is open in the symmetric position. That way the suspension opens up only in the central position on the straights to make it drop and stall the diffuser and stays firm in the corners for maximum downforce.

This system would have a much bigger working envelope and does requires significantly less set up compromise, because you can both maximize corner as well straight line performance.

I suspect such a system would not be legal, but I would not know on the basis of what technical regulation.

[wnut]

Great post Taxi.

"I suspect such a system would not be legal, but I would not know on the basis of what technical regulation." Taxi 645

Difficult to argue that the set up isn't wholly or solely for aerodynamic benefit, moveable aerodynamic aid?

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

I suspect such a system would not be legal, but I would not know on the basis of what technical regulation.

I am pretty certain that if you are aware of the system that Mercedes have introduced and there is a Youtube video of it, and it was not legal then not only would Red Bull have protested it, or at least have asked the technical team at the FIA to clarify the legality, but so would have most other teams as well.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by wnut

Great post Taxi.

"I suspect such a system would not be legal, but I would not know on the basis of what technical regulation." Taxi 645

Difficult to argue that the set up isn't wholly or solely for aerodynamic benefit, moveable aerodynamic aid?

I can't find the reference right now, but I recall reading somewhere that the design is legal because it 'only acts on the external forces applied to the car'.