Tag Archives: red

2014 Brazilian GP Tech Highlights

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Back-to-back events never really give teams a chance to bring anything new to the table at the second GP event and Brazil was a classic case of this as the F1 circus headed straight from Texas to Interlagos.

Much of the weekend’s practice sessions was spent analysing components ahead of 2015, using large pitot tube arrays to gather information about critical areas where airflow is passing. Whilst CFD and wind-tunnel testing are pretty reliable it is important to transfer the knowledge gained in the factory to the track, hence why the often-used C-word, correlation, is vital to the performance of an F1 car. Continue reading →

Analysis: Pitstops – How are they so quick?

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This post was requested by email. Unfortunately I managed to delete the email so I can’t mention who asked for it! Apologies, but here it is for you…

At the US grand prix last year Red Bull performed a pitstop in 1.923 seconds, the fastest in F1 history. OK, that isn’t strictly true because as much as they like to brag about it, the car was stationary for 1.923 seconds. The actual pitstop time is recorded from the moment the car enters the pitbox to when it leaves the pitbox. FOM place timing gates at these points and this is the time we see on our screens. So really, considering a driver’s reaction time to the green light is about 0.2 seconds and it takes a couple more tenths to get in and out of the pitbox, you’re probably looking at an overall time of 2.2-2.3 seconds. Impressive.

Red Bull – and all of the top teams at least – can measure the stationary time of their car using cameras placed on the boom(s) of the pitbox, hence why they were able to proudly announce their ‘world record’. Continue reading →

Analysis: The good and not-so-good of each car – Part 1

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This post was requested by @robb___alexander on Twitter. I have another post coming up that was asked for via email so please get in touch and I’ll see what I can do as the summer break continues.

To say that a car has a “bad” feature would be incorrect – it’s rare that a team designs something bad. No team designs something bad because they have the data to tell them that it isn’t. However, there is a competitive order so clearly some cars have worse features than the top guys. In this piece I aim to dissect each car and pick a few plus a minor points from them.

Changing the minor points will not necessarily make the car quicker because it is all about the complete package. Take Mercedes as an example: if their power unit is so good, why do the manufacturer team still have such an advantage over the likes of Williams and McLaren? Their car overall is the performance benchmark and it is composed of a number of technical solutions that make it one of the most dominant cars in the sport’s history. Continue reading →