BBC - drivers and car design comparison

Great analysis again by Anderson, summed up nicely by this

but if Alonso had won the championship it would have been a true drivers' championship because it would have been in a car that wasn't worthy of it.

Hope the beeb get a good replacement for Jake Humphreys who did a great job of knitting all of it together. Coullthard and Jordan are superb too, but the addition of anderson makes it so much better than anything else before it.

 

Great great article.

 

Not sure if I understand this correctly. How does turning in on the brakes give Understeer? I would think that the weight transfer off the rear would more than likely give Oversteer?

He then mentions that releasing the brake causes the car to rotate about the nose (Oversteer). Again, I don't understand that, I would think release of brakes would cause a weight shift rearward, resulting in more rear grip and a tendancy to understeer.

What am I missing here?

 

Good points - I was thinking along the same lines. Couple of notes;

- As I'm sure you already know, it's all about the traction circle. Braking & turning will exceed it sooner than straight line braking as the tire can only provide so much grip. However, your point about weight transfer is well taken - More weight on the front under braking (with or without steering input) will increase the overall size of the TC.

- I didn't like his "rotate about the front" comment either - Maybe he's writing to the lowest denominator, but again, as we know, cars rotate about their 2nd polar moment. [Slight simplification as CofG is also involved, but it'll do for our purposes.]

OTOH, these things are so stiff now, I wonder how much weight transfer there actually is? Maybe that's it?

In any event, seems he's making guesses the same as the rest of us...... Interesting reading nevertheless.

Cheers,
Ian
EDIT: Maybe Procoach has some insights? Peter?

 

Ooh. I love it when you talk techy.

 

Hahaha you dirty rat..

 

Who you callin a rat?
Ya weasel ya.

 

I like robots and tech..

 

OK then,

Ya silicon based weasel ya.


Better?

 

Am more worried that I like Tech, and you love it..

 

Gotcha.

You think that tech is two timing you with me.

 

LMAO ....I give up...

 

Yup.
We've pretty well killed this thread.

Next!

 

LOL

Hang on we got 4 months to go

 

It depends on the construction of the tire. The traction it can provide is a curve based on load, if it exceeds a certain amount, it loses grip which can cause the understeer, so if they are operating the tire near that point where it starts to lose (lateral) grip and then transfer weight to the front, it will wash out. The rear can maintain grip because it's under that loading point where it starts to lose grip. Then accelerating out of the turn the opposite happens as the weight transfers to the rear - the front gets back into it's area of max lateral grip and the rear moves over the threshold where it starts to lose grip so it swings around. On a car with a lot less aero, the opposite would happen as it'd be under the load area where it makes max grip so the the front would gain some grip as weight transferred to the front and the rear would lose grip causing oversteer if you turn on entry.

I found the comments on driving style pretty insightful. If you remember Alonso at Renault, his 'driving style' was that he would use a lot of steering input to get the car into the turn, almost like he was man handling the car. Mclaren were somewhat worried that he wouldn't be able to adjust to the car, but it turned out that he doesn't actually have a driving style, he just drives the car how it needs to be driven, so his 'driving style' at Renault was more the car's driving style than his. It's this ability that means he can be competitive in pretty much any car at any time where most other drivers need a car that suits them to be competitive.

 

Ahh, that makes sense. Being a mere mortal, my track car has very little aero grip as compared to mechanical grip, so this is way outside my envelope!

 

Great comments, thanks.

I too remember the comments on Freds style being particularly "brutal" at initial turn-in with the Renault - He really yanked the wheel hard to get the sucker to rotate. As you implied, one of, if not the best, at adapting his style to suit the car.

Cheers,
Ian

 

He switched style in more than one way when joining the Scuderia.

A lesson in why it is foolish to try and parse these guys at long distance.

Not that we should stop.

 

Sure seems that way!

Anyone know if he also changed "management" at the same time? Or did he just grow up a little?

What else are we gonna do?...... Sure, we're all guessing and pissing in the wind (some with TF hats on of course), but as long as it remains civil and troll free, it's all good, right?

Cheers,
Ian

 

All good. Keeps us off the streets away from the unsuspecting public.

Fred seems able to adapt in many aspects. From the interpersonal to the mechanical.