F1 driver experience & car reliability

Money. The top teams can spend more money on development of the car and chassis. Also Ferrari has a bunch of bright engineers that understand fully that "it is not the fastest car on the track that wins" If we take a look at the # of engine meltdowns that Ferrari, Williams, and Mclaren have had over the past 2 seasons. you will see that Ferrari has had none in a race. In fact the last meltdown in a race was by RB ant Indy. And he did not back off that much once the problem was detected.

Kimi on the other hand seems to have a lot of engine failures. I would say it is partly due to his style of driving and Ilmor producing engines made of glass.

 

This has always been true. Jimmy Clark use to bring home a car with 1/2 the tires left and enough brakes to do another 1/2 race distance and the engine sounding sweet. His team mate use to bring home a completly worn out car (when he finished).

McLaren has been in engine problems since the ban of Berylium for engine parts (aluminum Berylium for piston wrist pins, and nickle berylium for valve seats.)

Kimmi's problems are in his head first, and then he needs to step up and develop the car back into a leadership position.

MS simply knows how to get the most out of the car without punishing the car, RB can get almost out of the car, but tends to punish the car more (at least the previous 2 years).

F1 cars are unwilling to take a lot of punishment (overrevs, hanfisted shifts), and the new 1 engine rule is separating those who can avoid punishment (Alonzo, Trulli, Button) from those who cannot (Kimmi).

 

did someone say something about reliability?
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

By the looks of it, it seems as if the better driver is the one who can bring a car home without it being dead. So has that been consistent with all of the WCs? Or is that the difference between winning one WC vs 6? (I've grown up in a F1 world where there has been only one WC, and that's Schumi. Well it seems that way anyway.)

I'm asking because if that's the case then Kimi has a long way before he is a champion, same goes for JPM. They both seem to beat up their cars pretty well during the race.

 

Good drivers always get the speed out of themselves and take it easy on the car. They work with the car to coax speed out of her, others fight the car to the very end ... fighting the car looses time and stresses components.

Next time you are having a bit of fun on a windy road, try thinking about that and your driving may improve (if you do not do this already ).

I have been passengers with many fools that think the only way to drive a car fast is to punish it ... and then I have had passengers relax completely while I am on it and comment afterwards that my gear changes, etc. were so fast AND smooth.

A car is a machine, there is NO machine that works better being abused, they all work better when we fully understand how they work and work with them.

I think Fangio, Jim Clark and Stewart were masters of this, with the Senna, Prost and now MS being the modern players.

Pete

 

Pete, now your talking.

Tony

 

BUWAAHAAAA HAAHHAAAA!!!