Is F1 missing easy ways to fix its on-track problems?

With the top three teams winning GPs so far, would you say F1 has reached the so-called 'engine convergence', and is it wrong to introduce a brand new engine given one manufacturer will tend to get the upper hand?
rznfqb, via Instagram

Any time that the regulations change with either the engine or chassis, there is an opportunity to get it right or get it wrong. Everyone follows the path of best returns from their research, but sometimes you can go down the wrong path - just as Renault did in 2014 and Honda did in '15.

Recovering from that poor choice of direction is both time consuming and very expensive. It's not really anyone's fault, it's just that somewhere along the line someone made the wrong decision.

Over the four-and-a-half years that we've had these hybrid regulations, the engine manufacturers have definitely got closer. I still think Renault and Honda need to find that little bit, but there are another two years to go before the planned engine change for 2021 comes into play. So there's time for them to catch up with Mercedes. But for now at least, no-one is coming away from a race weekend embarrassed.

I don't think we should be having a major change to what we currently have. Yes, we should dot the i's and cross the t's, but the concept should stay the same, just with a major cost reduction for engine supply for the customer teams.

The MGU-H, which I wasn't a fan of when it was introduced, is what appears to be getting dropped. But it's probably one of the best things that has come out of the 2014 hybrid regulations. It's ideal for the road car industry, where small-cubic-capacity turbo engines are the trend, as you can use that motor to spin up the turbo, reducing any lag and also hold the turbo back at higher engine rpm to reduce the boost pressure and, in turn, the fuel consumption. And at the same time as charging up a small battery pack solely for what I would now call the MGU-Turbo.

Add to that package an electric motor and a bigger battery pack and you have a hybrid version of more or less the same car. With everyone going fully electric, it's too much too soon - go halfway and allow time for battery development and the required charging stations etc to be put in place.

When designing an F1 car, did you ever give any consideration to making it less sensitive to turbulence to make overtaking possible? To what extent is this actually possible, or would it cost too much performance?
Sven Weber, via email

We never really put much thought into how the car would perform in turbulence, but what we did was to make sure that the aerodynamic surfaces weren't working at their limit. As an example, if we were doing a wing angle sweep, and let's say it performed well at 19 degrees and fell away at 20 degrees, then we would make sure we wouldn't set the car up with a wing angle of more than 18 degrees.

A driver will only drive consistently at the bottom of the peaks and troughs of an aero profile

The same applied with other surfaces. We would always stay away from the critical angles or expansion rates of a diffuser, so I suppose by doing that we inherently had a car that would cope with a level of turbulence.

The answer to the last part of your question is yes it did and would still cost you aerodynamic performance. But what needs to be remembered is that the driver will only drive consistently at the bottom of the peaks and troughs of an aerodynamic profile. They may venture into the peak area, but once bitten twice shy. So after a visit through the gravel trap without any real understanding of what happened, they will stay away from pushing the limit too far.

Given the difficultly in closely following and thus overtaking due to the turbulent airflow/wake of modern F1 cars, why doesn't the FIA look at creating a standard profile for the airflow coming off a car? In essence, the car must leave the air behind it as relatively undisturbed as is technically feasible. In theory, wouldn't this be a better work-around than trying to make the cars less sensitive to turbulent airflow? Just as modern F1 cars have a fuel restriction limit, they would also have an aero limit.
Ryan Patterson, via email

That's not such a silly idea and it would be reasonably easy to police.

If a scaled version of the aero rake that we see all the teams using during Friday practice was fitted behind the windtunnel-model car, and an airflow profile of both airspeed and direction was created, you could ask the teams to show they are within that airflow structure.

Then it wouldn't be down to the regulations themselves to define it, with the onus put on the teams to find a way to make it possible to follow more closely.

The FIA could have one or two of these aero rakes full-scale, and data-logging systems during pre-season testing or on Friday could allow for random checks to be made to see that the cars comply with that defined airflow structure.

As you say, it's a bit like the fuel flow restriction. It wouldn't make up for the basic fact that the leading car is punching a hole through the airflow and that the airflow behind the leading car is also being pulled along by it, which in turn means that the following car is running in a lower atmospheric pressure and reduced airspeed, as that is a big percentage of the downforce loss of the following car.

If you read between the lines, you can see I'm not a big believer in the idea that eliminating the outwash from front-wing endplates is the answer to all the problems. Yes, it will in effect make the cars' aerodynamic cross-section that little bit smaller, which will have a small effect, but then for 2017 the cars were made wider and with wider wheels, so is it any wonder the problem has just got worse?

Fernando Alonso has gained lots of credit for being a versatile driver after winning Le Mans and going well at Indy last year. Is there such thing as a versatile driver, or a not versatile one, and how does that make life easier or difficult for a team?
Andrew Smith, via email

Fernando Alonso is one of the top drivers of the past two decades. Put him in anything and he will do as well as that package is capable of, as will quite a lot of other drivers.

Winning Le Mans against privateer opposition is not quite as rewarding as when the works Audi and Porsche teams were there. If Toyota didn't win this year, then it would have been down to the team losing it. Remember, Toyota's nearest LMP1 opposition finished 12 laps behind, with a budget a fraction of the size.

Fernando said last week he didn't want to have trophies around him that he didn't deserve. Well, the trophy for Le Mans is well deserved - but it is deserved for the attrition that is the 24-hour race, not for the competition of the 2018 field. With the other manufacturers pulling out, the WEC is going through a tough time.

Winning Le Mans is well deserved - but for the attrition that is the 24-hour race, not for the competition of the 2018 field

As for Indy, yes, he was right in there with a chance of victory and through no fault of his own it was all taken away. Indy is about going through the practice days methodically and being with the best teams, and the Andretti squad is one of those with bucketloads of experience. Remember, Takuma Sato went on to win that race driving for the same team, which also won the year before with Alexander Rossi.

Alonso is one of the best and to prove it he has two F1 world championships under his belt. Give him the tools to do the job and he will achieve it, but if the tools aren't right up there then, no, someone else will grab the limelight.

He has appeared in 300 grands prix and won 32. As a comparison, Lewis Hamilton has competed in 213 and won 62. Yes, you can say Lewis has been in a better car, but there is always a reason for everything.

When we had driver like Jim Clark, who one weekend would be driving in F1 and the next weekend - if not the next day - would be driving a Lotus Cortina, then that is what versatility is all about.

Who has the edge coming into this weekend's French Grand Prix? The momentum in the top three teams seems to be changing a lot in the past few races
@F1Dynamics, via Twitter

As it's a new track for everyone it will initially be all down to who has the best simulation tools. After that, it will be down to the backroom boys to optimise the set-up overnight from the data gathered on the Friday.

Over the past couple of races Ferrari did that just a little bit better than Mercedes or Red Bull, but the competition will be tough and the tyres once again will be major factor - or at least blaming them will be a major factor. Remember, the thinner tread will again be used at Paul Ricard, as it was in Spain.

Other than Spain, initially, I don't really remember Ferrari or Red Bull actually putting their lack of overall performance down to the tyres. Yes, both have had their problems in that area, but I think they have committed to the fact that getting them working for qualifying is down to each individual team.

Mercedes seems to want to blame the tyres for the deficit, as opposed to the fact that it hasn't got the handle on how to make them work correctly.

I'm intrigued by the range of set-up change that can be done on a modern F1 car and just how precise these changes are. Can you elaborate on what changes are available to the engineers and just how small are the adjustments they make?
Daniel Holdforth, via email

Everything can be altered as required - ride heights, tyre pressures, vertical stiffness, roll stiffness, toes, cambers, castors, kingpin alignment, trail, steer angle weight jacking, weight distribution and aerodynamic distribution to name but a few.

The big thing is getting the compromise of all that correct, so that's why so much vehicle dynamics and aerodynamic simulation is required.

The big thing about set-up is getting the compromise correct

The adjustments can be as small or as big as you fancy. On ride height, the driver will actually feel the difference on half-a-millimetre of front ride height and 1mm at the rear, so aerodynamically the car's front wing and underfloor are critical to ground clearance.

Toes and cambers are more about how you are working the tyres and what the overall temperature and temperature spread is compared to what you're trying to achieve.

The steering weight jacking is about the compromise of high-speed to low-speed car balance; you can increase or decrease the load across the car depending on if you have understeer or oversteer. But just to spoil the fun, the FIA has now put a limit on this.

The other question I have is about the inertia damper. I understand this to be a rotating weight that is spun by suspension movement. My understanding would be that its operation works by making suspension more compliant on slow undulations by pulling on the suspension (inertia mass moving faster than the suspension) and adding resistance on sharper suspension movements (inertia mass moving slower than the suspension) with the effect being greater at the start of the suspension movement. Is my understanding correct? How heavy is the inertia mass and how fast is it spinning?
Daniel Holdforth, via email

Your understanding is pretty good other than that every team that uses an inertia damper will use it differently and it will be a different weight and rotation speed. You can't just go to a car parts supplier and buy one, you need to come up with why you want it and what you need to achieve that requirement.

It's basically what it says on the tin, a damper, but it works slightly differently from what we know as a hydraulic damper, and really a mass damper is, I think, a better name for it.

The suspension movement moves the mass, so if the suspension movement is slow then it does very little, but if the suspension input is fast then the mass damper will be accelerated. And when the suspension input is finished, the mass damper will still have energy in it and will try to keep going in the same direction until that energy is dissipated.

Basically, you are blending out the peaks and troughs of the suspension movement, giving you a more stable aerodynamic platform.

As I said above, I'm pretty sure everyone uses something different, but hopefully this helps your understanding.

In an ideal world, would you bring back the old-fashioned H-pattern gearbox and a clutch pedal to F1? Would it even be possible? Watching classic racing videos on YouTube, one can only be enamoured by the sheer skill required to drive a car at such speeds while shifting gears via heel and toe.
Jay Menon, via email

Unfortunately we will never go back to the old days. Once we, at Jordan, had got our heads around the paddleshift and made it reliable, I put a picture of the Jordan 191 gear-lever assembly on the drawing office notice board with a note saying 'lest we forget'.

Anything can be done, but we will never again see the driver having to heel and toe or hang onto the gear lever ready for that next gearchange. Some drivers even used to like balancing themselves by holding onto the gear lever, so the chance of bringing back driver errors by missing gears is long gone.

We will never again see drivers having to heel and toe or hang onto the gear lever ready for the next gearchange

The skillset required to be a top F1 driver has changed dramatically since the early 1990s. Back then, the driver could add something to the equation of how to make the car go faster. Alain Prost wasn't called the Professor for nothing.

Now, all that's done by the backroom boys and the car's performance is data and simulation driven. Yes, the driver still has to have the talent to go out there and wring the car's neck, but when they complain of too much understeer the engineers will consult the data before making a decision on which direction to take the set-up.

Renault suggests Red Bull has fallen behind because it doesn't use the same fuel supplier. What difference can the fuel specification make and why?
David Stevens, via email

If Red Bull is really losing out on performance with its fuel supplier, then the works Renault team is further behind chassis-wise than it looks.

Fuel used to make a big difference, but with the FIA having specified in minute detail what can be used to make up the fuel composition, the differences are diminishing. Now, I would be very surprised if there was more than 5bhp between an engine with the ultimate fuel designed specifically for it compared to just a well refined fuel maximising the use of the allowable additives in the FIA's specification.

Yes, it's always better to have it than not have it, but so are technical relationships with these huge oil companies. The money they put in probably pays for a reasonable development programme, and if you balance that out, 5bhp is worth around five hundredths of a second. But an extra few million in the piggy bank can very easily be worth multiples of that.

Over the past four years, plus a bit of this one, Red Bull has been fairly vocal in its criticism of Renault. So, I think this is Renault firing a shot across Red Bull's bows to say 'it isn't all our fault'.

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