Driver's importance in car development

[jens]

There have been so many discussions about drivers' role in car development, so that let's come to a concrete conclusion in one specific topic now. There have been opinions that the loss of Alonso has dropped Renault backwards and on the other hand has helped McLaren back to the top. There have been opinions that thanks to the loss of Räikkönen McLaren has got better and with him Ferrari is now struggling. How responsible are for example Toyota, Honda and Toro Rosso drivers for the lack of competitiveness of their teams? How much can one team gain with top test drivers? Or lose without them?

In the history part the most popular discussion is of course about the significance of Schumacher's role in the rise of both Benetton and Ferrari. But also for example how important part did Hill play in the rise of Arrows during 1997? Or did Renault drop in 1984 just due to the loss of Prost?

There are many questions and now the floor is yours' to find answers to them. :)

[OmarF1]

Technically speaking I do not think that drivers know as much as an engineer but the key to consider a driver a good car developer it is the quality and sensibility of his feedback and the capacity to keep his team motivaded IMO.

Cheers.

[ioan]

The accuracy of the feedback is what is needed. With all the measuring devices they have these days engineers know everything that happens with the car, they only need the drivers to tell them how they prefer the car to behave.

[trumperZ06]

;) U can't make a silk purse out of a Sow's ear.

:D Unless you have a car that will handle.... you are Toast in F-1.

If the car will handle.... ie. corner while going over the rumble strips... then the engineer needs to set it up to suit the drivers style.

[Valve Bounce]

Some test drivers are very good at providing feedback, others not so great. That does help the team to sort teh cars during development and also help set up the cars for each circuit.

[Rollo]

How do you get the info you need to tell you about the car's handling? Only the man with the bum in the seat can do that.

In terms of total inputs into a car's performance over a weekend, I think that the driver's amount to about 20% overall. They're the ones sitting in the car who are supposed to give feedback on how the car feels and reacts. In terms of very small twitches, they should be sensitive to whether a car needs more over or understeer, how easily power is able to be fed and even the balance of the car.

It might be true that you can not make a silken purse out of a sow's ear, but if the driver isn't ego driven enough to stick it up the designers to tell them that they have provided a sow's ear in the first place, then the designers won't know where it needs improving or in extreme cases to chuck it all in and start again.

Prost frequently told the people at Renault that their car was too conservative; they should have listened to him. He damn well nearly won the season in 1983, and after Renault and Prost's falling out, they never again had their driver providing the data they needed. Prost went on to win World Championships while Renault as a team died.

This process starts well before the season begins. Ferrari and Renault can chuck a car on track every day of the year and search for miniscule improvements. It is interesting to not that for season 07, only 2 teams have snagged every honour. At Renault they lost just a single member of staff and now they're in the wilderness; I'd say that's entirely due to a) losing the driver's ability and b) losing useful feedback. The designers, engineers are all 100% unchanged.

[Hawkmoon]

It's an interesting question. Take a guy like Alex Wurz. He has a reputation of being an outstanding test driver. So much so that McLaren, if I remember correctly, designed their car to fit his taller frame when he was their test driver a few years back. McLaren also tried to keep when he left for Williams but the lure of a race drive was enough for him to jump ship.

Now, if Wurz is the great test driver that he is reputed to be, his input should be very valuable to Williams and see them improve their performance more and more as time goes by. The problem is that Williams aren't significantly improved over last season despite having Wurz's input for the last 18 months or so.

So I don't think any driver can overcome a weakness in the engineering department. If he could, he'd be an engineer, not a driver.

I doubt that Alonso has had any input into McLaren running at the front this year. By that I mean that the '07 car was designed last year without his input. I think the fact that McLaren has gone from winless in '06 to top of the class in '07 is more due to the change in tyres and the rev-limited engines. I believe that if Raikkonen was still a McLaren driver they would still be were they are today.

A good driver can provide leadership and be a focal point for a team. He can't overcome engineering weakness, no matter how good his input is.

[Rollo]

I doubt that Alonso has had any input into McLaren running at the front this year. By that I mean that the '07 car was designed last year without his input. I think the fact that McLaren has gone from winless in '06 to top of the class in '07 is more due to the change in tyres and the rev-limited engines...

A good driver can provide leadership and be a focal point for a team. He can't overcome engineering weakness, no matter how good his input is.

Balderdash!

Alonso's first official test of a McLaren was 15 Dec 2006:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/56040
The MP4-22 didn't actually get launched until 15 Jan 2007 with an official shakedown some 2 days later.
http://www.motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=241355&FS=F1

Are you seriously suggesting that for a whole month, Alonso provided no input with regards improving the motor car? What did McLaren do, put him on gardening leave?

McLaren are paying him c.£20m. I should think that as an employee they'd be using every single bit of data he could provide. A driver is not merely a hired bum in a seat to steer the car.

To suggest that the drivers weren't helping to improve the car until and beyond Mar 18 is a nonsense.

[Valve Bounce]

Before we get too carried away with this argument, I'll seek some input from Schnell and see whether he can come up with some inside info.

[IMSAFAN1]

The importance of driver input is vital to the cars performance. As a former engineer with a sportscar team, how can I know what changes need to be made to the setup if the driver can't communicate the information back? In F1 driver feedback is very important. The delicate balance of the car setup is on such an edge that the driver needs to tell his engineer what is going on in the car. A driver alone cannot make a car successful but a driver alone can cause poor results if he can't communicate information. Testing...testing...testing....that's what does it...not on race weekends.

[Hawkmoon]

Balderdash!

Alonso's first official test of a McLaren was 15 Dec 2006:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/56040
The MP4-22 didn't actually get launched until 15 Jan 2007 with an official shakedown some 2 days later.
http://www.motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=241355&FS=F1

Are you seriously suggesting that for a whole month, Alonso provided no input with regards improving the motor car? What did McLaren do, put him on gardening leave?

McLaren are paying him c.£20m. I should think that as an employee they'd be using every single bit of data he could provide. A driver is not merely a hired bum in a seat to steer the car.

To suggest that the drivers weren't helping to improve the car until and beyond Mar 18 is a nonsense.

I disagree. What exactly could Alonso do to a car design in the last month of it's design phase that could dramatically alter it's performance? Don't McLaren have two design teams, one working on this year's car and another working on next year's ? The MP4-22 had been on the drawing board and it's fundamentals put down long before Alonso first got into a McLaren on Dec 15.

The MP4-22 was already a good car before Alonso got into it. He can certainly help to make it better but he couldn't change it from bad to good. Not even in 12 months, let alone one.

[Valve Bounce]

The importance of driver input is vital to the cars performance. As a former engineer with a sportscar team, how can I know what changes need to be made to the setup if the driver can't communicate the information back? In F1 driver feedback is very important. The delicate balance of the car setup is on such an edge that the driver needs to tell his engineer what is going on in the car. A driver alone cannot make a car successful but a driver alone can cause poor results if he can't communicate information. Testing...testing...testing....that's what does it...not on race weekends.

I agree. However, in F1, there are opportunities for test driver input during friday practice by the test driver as well as the two race drivers. Here, the drivers used to provide input for tyre selection and race setup for the various circuits. I think teams coming below 4th place in the previous year's WCC are permitted to use the test driver during friday practice.

[leopard]

McLaren might have been a fast car before Alonso joined them, He without any doubt, driver who can maximize the speed superbly that it also has good reliability. If he has no contribution on the speed development at least he has contribution on the reliability.

Drivers, as any other profession, are supposed to learn from their experience about their daily bread and has a good know-how about optimizing its strength and overcoming its weaknesses. Although as structure of organization it was responsibility of engineers but drivers are the user that can give appropriate feedback and the result is finally on their shoulder. People will know better the driver for its performance instead of persons behind him.

Engine is not something abstract to learn about and drivers have the same opportunity as engineers if they want and realize that it was important for their career. I'd rather consider electronic device is the hardest part of assembling a car, and with the ban of TC would be benefit at least from this point of view.

[Valve Bounce]

The MP4-22 was already a good car before Alonso got into it. He can certainly help to make it better but he couldn't change it from bad to good. Not even in 12 months, let alone one.

No!! quite true. But if McLaren could have gotten their hands on a spare set of Ferrari plans, that might help. :p :

[555-04Q2]

It is critical for a driver to be able to give the design engineers info on how mods/designs stack up on the car. Engineers estimate a design will do X but the driver and the lap times determine if X has been achieved or they are sitting at Y and need to do Z to get to X.

[Valve Bounce]

It is critical for a driver to be able to give the design engineers info on how mods/designs stack up on the car. Engineers estimate a design will do X but the driver and the lap times determine if X has been achieved or they are sitting at Y and need to do Z to get to X.

And the train departs from point A 15 minutes after the cyclist departs from point B, and a car then leaves point A 20 minutes after the cyclist arrives at the halfway point between point A and point B, when will car meet the cyclist?

[555-04Q2]

And the train departs from point A 15 minutes after the cyclist departs from point B, and a car then leaves point A 20 minutes after the cyclist arrives at the halfway point between point A and point B, when will car meet the cyclist?

At 3:15pm at point C ;)

[markabilly]

At 3:15pm at point C ;)
get there--unless it is Lance Armstrong doping again then the train runs over both car and rider at point C

The real question is why would anyone ride a bicylce down the rail road tracks......................

[markabilly]

who says at least 50% of the drivers on the grid are useless...and what makes hamie great is the mclarent blood in his veins along with the fact that he ain't some recycled driver from another program.............so see F. "recyled" Alosno should feel right comfy...........................

[jso1985]

who says at least 50% of the drivers on the grid are useless...and what makes hamie great is the mclarent blood in his veins along with the fact that he ain't some recycled driver from another program.............so see F. "recyled" Alosno should feel right comfy...........................

LINK PLEASE!!

[MontoyaRules]

I think that drivers are very important in the development of the car.
For example Montoya was bery good at this and Mclaren should have listened more to his input instead of building the car more towards kimi's style because it didn't bring them any championships for so long.
Now with Alonso in the car the mclaren is so much better.

[markabilly]

LINK PLEASE!!


Per the request here is one

http://msn.foxsports.com/motor/story/7070814

[555-04Q2]

LINK PLEASE!!

He's right, this topic was covered by our local F1 TV Show Absolute F1 last night. Ron is an idiot and has always been one :down:

[Valve Bounce]

He's right, this topic was covered by our local F1 TV Show Absolute F1 last night. Ron is an idiot and has always been one :down:


Agreed!! but he's a bloody rich and successful idiot.

[555-04Q2]

Agreed!! but he's a bloody rich and successful idiot.

Yeah, I'd put up with being him if I could have half his money :p :

[Valve Bounce]

Yeah, I'd put up with being him if I could have half his money :p :


Me too. I'd even be prepared to walk around with a T shirt acclaiming I'm a bloody idiot.

[markabilly]

some folks don't need a t-shirt...........
Besides the article really betrays two things about RD

1) Ron real opinion of the value of the driver contribution ---that it ain't much, more like they only screw up his fine work, as much as said so back when RS and JPM were driving at McLArent...something to the effect we have the best cars and with the tire advantage (Ferrari and Bridgestone had a little problem with their "rears" as u may recall), but as usual the drivers have failed us...

2) Who is the current favorite of Ronnie to win the championship, the one with Mclarent in his blood (guess that explains the skin color of Hamie....matches the color of the car) who is a rookie and got only to do what he is told or that recycled driver from another team....

So based on that, we have pretty good authority that for a driver that is NOT useless and recycled, the driver's importance is just to do what he is told.....the others are just useless

[wedge]

A good driver is one half of the equation. The other half is a good set of engineers and technicians working in the wind tunnel who can analyse data.....

[Schnell]

In the pre digital days Deigner engineers like Colin Chapman relied on a key driver in his case Jim Clark. But today the subject is far more complicated and involved than anyone has alluded to. You have to understand that hundreds of components, electronic, aero and mechanical have to be track tested after they have been designed and manufactured. "Car set up for the drivers" is the last and final tweek to the already extensively tested components, and mere 'car set-up' can change from day to day, being subject tiny changes in the atmosphere, humidity, tempreture, track condition.
The main purpose of the driver in the development of the car, is not just to give "feedback" it's to accumulate DATA for the engineers to download and try and make some sense from. To achieve this the tester has to stay on the tarck not be a hero and stick it in the gravel (the race drivers can do that bit in the race) DATA aquisition is what it's all about!
Things that work in the Lab and the wind tunnel don't always work on the track, e.g. wind tunnels arn't subjected to sudden blasts of crosswind that afflicts circuits like Barcelona.
F1 cars are closer now to aerospace technology and physics, that's why so much testing goes on it's pukka hi-tech research. Forget fancy notions of "car development", if a tiny 'step' is found that's a bonus, big break breakthroughs are more akin to a lottery win!

[markabilly]

In the pre digital days Deigner engineers like Colin Chapman relied on a key driver in his case Jim Clark. But today the subject is far more complicated and involved than anyone has alluded to. You have to understand that hundreds of components, electronic, aero and mechanical have to be track tested after they have been designed and manufactured. "Car set up for the drivers" is the last and final tweek to the already extensively tested components, and mere 'car set-up' can change from day to day, being subject tiny changes in the atmosphere, humidity, tempreture, track condition.
The main purpose of the driver in the development of the car, is not just to give "feedback" it's to accumulate DATA for the engineers to download and try and make some sense from. To achieve this the tester has to stay on the tarck not be a hero and stick it in the gravel (the race drivers can do that bit in the race) DATA aquisition is what it's all about!
Things that work in the Lab and the wind tunnel don't always work on the track, e.g. wind tunnels arn't subjected to sudden blasts of crosswind that afflicts circuits like Barcelona.
F1 cars are closer now to aerospace technology and physics, that's why so much testing goes on it's pukka hi-tech research. Forget fancy notions of "car development", if a tiny 'step' is found that's a bonus, big break breakthroughs are more akin to a lottery win!



Time to put radio controls in those cars since the drivers are probably messing up the car handling by being inconsistent--many years ago frank Williams attacked Michael Andretti when he said the car was oversteering, but Frank said the data showed that the car was not oversteering, but the driver was causing it to oversteer....

[wmcot]

In the pre digital days Deigner engineers like Colin Chapman relied on a key driver in his case Jim Clark. But today the subject is far more complicated and involved than anyone has alluded to. You have to understand that hundreds of components, electronic, aero and mechanical have to be track tested after they have been designed and manufactured. "Car set up for the drivers" is the last and final tweek to the already extensively tested components, and mere 'car set-up' can change from day to day, being subject tiny changes in the atmosphere, humidity, tempreture, track condition.
The main purpose of the driver in the development of the car, is not just to give "feedback" it's to accumulate DATA for the engineers to download and try and make some sense from. To achieve this the tester has to stay on the tarck not be a hero and stick it in the gravel (the race drivers can do that bit in the race) DATA aquisition is what it's all about!
Things that work in the Lab and the wind tunnel don't always work on the track, e.g. wind tunnels arn't subjected to sudden blasts of crosswind that afflicts circuits like Barcelona.
F1 cars are closer now to aerospace technology and physics, that's why so much testing goes on it's pukka hi-tech research. Forget fancy notions of "car development", if a tiny 'step' is found that's a bonus, big break breakthroughs are more akin to a lottery win!

I agree with that, but I'd also like to add that with all the money spent on R&D, a car will only reach a certain level of performance. The really good test drivers are then able to "tweak" a few hundredths here and there and turn a good design into a great design (or a bad design into a somewhat better design, hopefully.)

[wedge]

Time to put radio controls in those cars since the drivers are probably messing up the car handling by being inconsistent--many years ago frank Williams attacked Michael Andretti when he said the car was oversteering, but Frank said the data showed that the car was not oversteering, but the driver was causing it to oversteer....

Just when did Michael Andretti ever drive a Williams????

[markabilly]

Just when did Michael Andretti ever drive a Williams????


You are so right, it was RD--i guess i am just getting adverse to even thinking his name :confused:

[Valve Bounce]

I agree with that, but I'd also like to add that with all the money spent on R&D, a car will only reach a certain level of performance. The really good test drivers are then able to "tweak" a few hundredths here and there and turn a good design into a great design (or a bad design into a somewhat better design, hopefully.)


It is highly unlikely that you will get an argument from Schnell on this point. However, I suspect he is trying to be as even handed as possible on this subject, even though I am sure he knows the value of really, really good feedback from a great test driver.

[leopard]

idiot won't be rich and successful ;)

That sounds like a slice of a large comment and was interpreted that way.

He might have been extremely impressed with some new debutants whose their talents weren't too much worse than the senior drivers.

[jso1985]

Per the request here is one

http://msn.foxsports.com/motor/story/7070814


:s

thanks...

[trevortherevver]

A driver can help in the car's development in two ways. One is to drive quickly and consistently all day long while giving good and consistent feedback to the engineers. Examples are Schumacher, Senna, Prost, Lauda in F1, de Ferran, Bryan Herta and Wheldon in American racing.

The second is to get the car around the track as quickly as it can possibly go when it matters. I doesn't help directly. It just motivates everybody in the team to work that bit harder because they know that any improvements they stumble across in the wind-tunnel, on the CAD station or on the dyno will be taken advantage on the track. Examples here are Schumacher, Senna, Prost Raikonnen and Montoya in F1, Castroneves, Kanaan, and Dixon in America.

Where I work we certainly rely a lot on the driver's feedback. You can't test everything in the lab.

[Valve Bounce]

Where I work we certainly rely a lot on the driver's feedback. You can't test everything in the lab.

I didn't know that there was that much need for fast milk carts. :p :