More Important: Engineers Vs Driver?

think we've had this discussion before. A crap driver could win in a great car but a great driver couldn't win in a crap car. And since there are no crap drivers in F1, when a new team is dominating the sport for a couple of seasons, it's mostly due to the engineers getting everything about their car just right for their drivers.

Of course, the competition in F1 is tight enough that you need good drivers in addition to great engineers

 

Goes without saying. The difference between the fastest and slowest cars in Q1 in Korea, both professionally designed, was over 6sec. Let alone what Vettel would come up with. Iirc, Newey has a RB5 and drives it.

 

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Newey looks knackered already and all he's done is get his overalls half on!

 

I want to disagree with most of the above.

Newey is an Architect not a designer nor an engineer (but skilled in all three); Designer might be appropriate in casual conversations.

Engineers take the architects plans and analyse then to see how best to make each part--things like how many layers and in what orrentation should the carbon fiber be laid out. Engineers also analyse the telemetry to fully understand where the car is less than optimal and condense same so that the architect can direct continuing development of the car.

Mechanics are responsible for constructing the car, adjusting the car, and repairing the car. The pit crew are mechanics, the guys sitting in front of LCD screens are engineers and driver managers.

Drivers are responsible for not hitting things, not breaking thinigs, and finishing races.

A great architect with a lousy engineering team cannot make a front running car.
A lousy architect with a great engineering team cannot make a front running car.
A front running car and a lousy driver will not have a winning season.
A mid-pack car with a stupendoulsy great driver may win a few races, even a championship.
A back-maker car with a stupendously great driver will be a mid-pack finishing car.

In the pit-stop era, one cannot have a front running car without a great set of mechanics (changing tires in just a few seconds).

But when one puts together a great architect, a great engineering team, and a great driver--magic happens.

 

That's not accurate in the context of F1 and maybe racing in general.

Race Engineers aren't like professional engineers, and don't generally specify the materials used, layup schedules, etc. In F1 they don't generally even specify the mechanical design, since it's constrained by the aero anyway. They take simulation and live data, and driver feedback, and optimize the car, as it is designed. Of course they work closely with the designer but they aren't designers.

 

IMO A clever race engineer is one that can interpret a given set of restrictive parameters or rules, and find the edge somewhere, Newey has done this, so has Brawn recently.

More or less in the grey area rule zone.

The better the driver the better he will excel with such a car, if a driver can give great feedback, in other words he has the skill to know how the car could be better with various tweaks as he races, the better all round the car will be, it's a combination.

But the engineer/designers needs to come up with a good package of a car to begin with, so I'd say the engineer is more important.

 

Differance between best car and mediocre car is seconds.
Differance between best driver and mediocre driver in the same car is tenths.

 

+1.

 

+2

The gap between the front and the back is indeed "seconds", but around a ~3+ mile road course is still pretty minimal. Almost certainly closer overall than it's ever been IMO. Even with the newbies struggling.

I think I'd also stretch the difference between the "best" and "mediocre" to >1 second in most cases...... Thing today is they're *all* studying each others data. IIRC Phil was lifting thru St Devote a few years back - He had to see Freds telemetry before he'd try it himself for example [and also got a kick from Rob on the pitwall IIR ]

Cheers,
Ian

 

Interesting.

 

+3

Pete

 

I finally figured out the problem I have with this.

Between two cars that are seconds apart, it's not the engineer's fault that one car is so much slower. He can only work with what the designer has given him.

They say, if you want to find seconds fix your driver, if you want to find tenths fix the car (meaning: the engineer).

It's true that the difference between two drivers in the same car is tenths, but is that because of the driver or because of the engineer? I think the two work together and at the top level (F1) they are truly a team, of equal importance.

 

A long time truism of the sport indeed.

My only "argument" is that the margins in F1 today are so tiny we're looking at 0.3 second *max* between teammates - The #2 doesn't last long unless he's a *lot* closer than that these days......

Both..... But at the end of the day, irrelevant [Not arguing here btw, just my 02c ]. They have to work well together for sure, but;

Dunno I'd go quite as far as "equal importance" - I think even Rob and others would say that at the end of the day it's the jockey who's got to deliver - All "we" can do is make the car the best we can. [And if it's a POS that can be hard work at times - Often because the driver lacks confidence which the engineer needs to restore and around we go ]

Cheers,
Ian

 

I am sure that no matter the car or the engineer, I would be able to add several seconds or more to a lap time........that is if I could squeeze into the damn thing!

 

agreed. both are important, but having the best car is more important.