Looks like Spanish t.v. have been doing their homework, pretty insane stuff for Felipe and Fernando to take they're hands off the wheel! Hope you guys enjoy this, especially those of you who speak Spanish, cheers http://axisofoversteer.blogspot.com/2010/05/in-practice-and-qualifying-alonso-and.html
Wow-pretty interesting. You can see here where Alonso is reaching across to the left side with his right hand, I guess to adjust the brake balance. Image Unavailable, Please Login
It's amazing that Ferrari would adopt such a system. I would think it's only a matter of time before someone has a huge off with all the hand shuffling they have to do especially with the brake bias. I hope it's only temporary. I would think they don't need it for Monaco next week.
Lets hope for Monaco they at least switch the brake bias to the right side so the drivers won't have to reach across the cockpit. For Monaco there's at least 3 spots where they can us it. On the main straight, on the uphill straight after the first turn, and in the tunnel all the way to the chicane. Maybe the straight after the chicane. Who knows, with everyone running such high downforce levels in Monaco the F-Duct could be quite useful.
In the "old days" drivers had to take a hand off the wheel dozens of times per lap to operate the gear shift...
The point is that if they want to change brake balance while operating the duct they have to take both hands off the wheel.
+1 However, this is where I get confused (!)..... According to the various "steering wheel" threads, they can adjust the BB from there - Is the "manual" adjustment simply coarser? Cheers, Ian
They showed it on TV today, and it was very clear to see what was happening: The driver covers the duct with his left hand. The brake balance switch is on the LEFT side of the wheel. The driver can't reach it with his right hand while he's holding the steering wheel like he's supposed to do.
It's one thing to take your hand off to change gears for a sec, quite another to take it off and leave it off for a whole straight while messing with brake bias with the other hand.
+1 They even made it easy for us to see with "odd" gloves and black foam pieces. But, they're twiddling with something that's not on the wheel - According to the tech vids, they've got "+/-1", "+/-10" and a manettino for BB adjustment on the wheel. But they're messing with the LHS of the cockpit (not the duct).... That's what I don't get. Cheers, Ian
It still looks like he's able to "hold" the steering wheel with this thumb and index fingers. A bit like when you're coasting in a car down an empty freeway. But there was a moment during the race where he was going down the final turn into the pit straight, where he had to correct slight oversteer with just his right hand because his left was already blocking the duct. Looks like the device will be banned, though, for the 2011 season as agreed on by all the teams.
I just read that on planetf1. I suspect that teams will figure out a way to stall the rear wing without driver intervention. Adding a few "free' KPHs down the straights is too much to just give up.
So they're banning the F-duct next season? Very typical isn't it? First they declare it's ok, then ban it sometime later.
I would think they could develop a self stalling wing at a certain speed. Adjust it to stall just faster than the fastest sweeping turn. Got to say Ferrari's system is pretty Rube Goldberg in taking the driver's hands off the wheel when Mclaren had it figured it out for everyone to copy. But that would acknowledge Mclaren's cleverness wouldn't it ?
I think the self stalling idea is what Ferrari tried first. They had those two flaps that shoudl have caused the rear wing to stall if pressure was equal on them. They probably did not have enough time to optimize it and they went with the manual blown wings. In the past, I think teams did this by having flexable wings. At high enough speeds the wings changed their angle of attack. I love these ideas and really wish engineers were set free to legally come up with more.
The problem for every other team is that McLaren molded the inlet and ducts into the monocoque chassis; and the FIA homologated all the chassis before the first race and no changes are allowed for the rest of the season. That means no other team can drill holes in the top of the footbox, for example, to mold in a similar inlet and duct, so they have to come up with Rube Goldberg solutions to try to get close to the same effect. Similar issue if anyone wants to copy Mercedes new airbox - Mercedes had the vertical fin as the high part of the rollbar structure within the airbox for the first 4 races. In Spain, where they introduced the new engine cover with the dual airbox inlets set down and back, they keep the existing fin as a rollover structure. Since none of the other teams had a similar rollover structure, instead they all use the hoop over the air inlet, they can't eliminate the air inlet because they have to keep the hoop.
I noticed that in an onboard video of Rosberg, where they said that the Mercedes has the brake balance control at the left side of the cockpit, not at the wheel... but I didn't see Alonso messing with something there. Then again, maybe we saw videos from different situations Agree, but the problem with moveable / dynamic aero is that if taken to the extremes (and they always take it to the extreme), if something doesn't work the way it should, it can get nasty very quickly. See the ground effect cars which suddenly lost drag and became uncontrollable. Big safety issues there.
