Formula 1 Racing newbie questions
 

With time on my hands, I find myself channel surfing for car shows. I’ve begun recording and watching Formula 1 races. Although there are relatively few pit stops, the speed of tire changes is impressive.

I’m sure many have noticed that pole position and race wins almost always go to Mercedes. Great for Mercedes, but boring for viewers.

In the simplest terms, my newbie question is “why”

Is it just that Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas are just such superior drivers?

Or, are their cars superior to the others? Unless they wreck, most cars finish, so it would seem reliability isn’t a factor. I had thought that the cars were built to a uniform specification such that the car itself wouldn’t be that much of a factor. Of course, I could be way off base on that.

Mostly just curious...

Give it time. It will change.

I'm not a Formula One freak but suggest the movie Senna.

Senna and Prost were sofa king good yet equally obnoxious.

MONEY!!!!

F1 is not a spec series...each team has to design and build there own component...

Mercedes employees 1000s of people, the smaller teams do the same amount of work with 1/4 the amount of resources...

This is going to be a looooooooong thread.

F1 is the only racing series left wherein teams are required to design and build their own chassis. They can buy engines (or "power units" in today's hybrid power parlance), but the elite of the elite design and build their own engines as well. This is the polar opposite of any kind of a "spec" series. Some of that has crept in, yes, in an effort to "control" costs, so we do see "handout" items. I think electronics, maybe some brake, maybe some transmission stuff - I'm sure someone more knowledgeable can help on this.

The big teams spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars per year to put two cars on the grid for what, 18-20 races in a normal year? The down-grid teams simply cannot compete with that. And, even with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend, top teams cannot simply buy the most critical component - engineering talent.

Yes, they can hire innumerable extremely bright engineers. Everyone in F1 easily fits that description. But the very best of the best - the "savants" - are the ones who win in F1. Not the drivers. Adrian Newey is a prime example - he was Williams when they dominated. Then McLaren. Now Red Bull. Ross Braun was another. Team principles are darn near equally important. Cars and drivers are kind of secondary to talent in those positions. Right now, Mercedes and Red Bull have some of the best. Ferrari lost theirs when Braun left, and has suffered ever since. Follow those guys - team principles and engineers - and you will see that wherever they land, the teams win.

I feel like Max Verstappen is on the verge of flipping the table on the Mercedes boys. It might not be this year but next season maybe?

Every year one team will find a technical advantage in their build design and often run the table. For many years it was Ferrari, then McLaren, then Red Bull, now Mercedes. During the season some teams will adapt and make a play for the lead. It is interesting both in terms of top drivers and cutting edge racing technology.

The top teams attract the top engineers and drivers. Eventually, the team fills up with large egos and some top engineers, drivers, or managers go to other teams.

Right now Mercedes has the best engineers and some of the top drivers. This will probably change when some key staff member leaves.

OP, welcome to F1 and what a 1st question to answer :eek:

I've been involved in the design of F1 cars that have finished in every position of the constructors championship and nearly every position (only missing a 1st and 10th place) of the drivers championship.

One of my favourite projects was being responsible for the design of everything needed to make the Ferrari pit stop as fast as it could possibly be done when the pit stops went to 'no fuel' and tyre change only. Learned a lot, was great fun but made watching each race quite stressful. Would love to apply this knowledge/way of thinking to something worthwhile like a battlefield or operating theater scenario but I've never looked into it. Maybe one day when I get bored of working in F1 I'll see if anyone wants my help.

Not seen everything in F1 but seen a lot, could write a book on my experiences of winning and mostly losing in F1 but it would be a mind numbing read.

Firstly an F1 car are the most technically advanced, complex, fastest (on a road course) and expensive cars racing. Nothing comes close, if I had to chose the closest related race car it would be the last of the works LMP1 cars.

Only spec parts are tyres and FIA sensors/data logging boxes and few other non-performance parts. The big teams like Mercedes, Ferrari, Redbull and Renault, nearly every single component of the car is bespoke for each team, even down to some of the materials used in the manufacture of parts. The other teams are supported in varying ways sharing parts like the power unit, gearbox, rear suspension and other parts allowed within the rules.

The big teams like Ferrari and Mercedes have around 2000 people and have operated on annual budgets approaching $0.5 billion. This has been scaled back in recent years but to show the contrast the smaller teams operated on less down to under $100 million and under 500 people. The difference sounds a lot but only adds up to 2 or 3 secs difference per lap.

In a nut shell I think Mercedes are the dominate team (for now ;)) for a number of reasons, I've tried to list the most effective first in respect to improving the odds of winning :confused:

Teamwork, to continuously win in F1 everything needs to be right on the limit of the performance envelope as time is performance. This is from how quickly parts can be designed, analysed, manufactured, assembled, lab tested and track tested. Everyone single person needs to work as part of a team as the weakest link ultimately sets the performance pace of the team. Another aspect of team work where Mercedes wins is they don't hide from their problems or apportion blame. They lay open the problem and work out a fix and how to stop a repeat failure

Money, this buys you resources, equipment, people and time. Time being the most valuable, The more time you have the more ways you can find ways of doing things wrong so you find the magic way to do it right. Money buys the best materials, testing, design iterations, validation methods, processes, strategy methods, track to wind tunnel correlation etc, etc It doesn't buy the best people but it does help. One aspect of performance money buys which is seldom mentioned is 'attention to detail' in every aspect of adding performance to the car ie saving every single gram of weight, making every single part as close to the limit of failure as practically possible.

People, from the fastest driver which Hamilton is one of them, to the best designers, aerodynamists, manufacturing, marketing, race crew, mangers/leaders. Mercedes certainly doesn't have the best person in every role but they make the best of more peoples strengths than any other team.

Experience, this is vital, experience of working together as well of experience of doing things different ways and most importantly experience of the different ways of getting things wrong so you find the best ways of getting it right

Continuity, knowing how the other guy in the team thinks/works ie how he's going to do something even before he's done it. Also processes that are continuously refined/adapted as the game changes. When everything is on the limit of failure, things will go wrong, if they don't you're not pushing the limits enough. When someone over steps the limit, the best reaction is to pick them up, dust them off and carry on, that person will come back stronger, the team becomes stronger as people know pushing the limit won't cost them their job. This is an aspect of a successful F1 team that can't be under estimated.

Sure I've missed out many aspects but hopefully this help to explain in some way why Mercedes are winning all the time

Captain Ahab, that was a great post. Thanks.

At their average speeds 2 or 3 seconds is a huge difference. This season in MotoGP the top ten bikes are often covered by less than 1 second.

What is crazy, a 3 second pit stop is considered SLOW!

Red Bull is the top of the heap for fast pit stops. Under 2 seconds!

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So, let me get this straight...

Each team can build their engine with no restrictions on HP?
Likewise, they can also build a unique aero kit, suspension etc?

Oh by the way, did I also notice that the Aston Martin entry has a Honda engine?

the power is limited by the fuel flow restrictions
both in per second and total race use
the red guys had a cheat on the fuel flow restrictions last year and got caught

Aston Martin is paying for ad space on the red bull honda car this year

next year the former force india car will be called Aston Martin this year that car is called racing point

lotus started that BS by selling naming rights to john player cigs in the late 60's

They can build the engine, but it has to be a certain displacement, and run on approved fuels, and the ECU is one part the FIA makes universal as I recall. To get the most HP out of that restrictions is the magic Mercedes has figured out, and the teams only get three engines per year with no penalties. If they need a 4th engine it cost a penalty of starting at the back of the qualifying.

So it is like saying build me an engine that is in these parameters, and if you can get more HP, great.

Again the Aero can't be bigger than the specs, but they all look a bit different as different engineers come up with was to make maximum down force and minimum drag.

The Red Bull team has a Honda engine, but Aston is a sponsor. I have never understood that one. Lance Stroll's dad (Racing point) the pink cars just bought Aston so that will change next year.

I'm a design engineer at Mercedes F1. Unfortunately I'm not allowed to say anything helpful. But Captain already said everything better than I could, and I agree with everything that's been said.

F1 teams must be a constructor, with their own chassis, aerodynamic parts and most other bits on the car. Engine manufacturers tend to run their own "works" teams, or customer teams can buy engines. In the old days, customer teams existed where they would simply buy the whole car and run it. Nowadays, teams are only allowed to buy in certain parts, yet they have been pushing the limits on this. Haas started the current trend, Toro Rosso/Alphatauri also has a similar history with their sister team Red Bull, and Racing Point's 2020 car got a lot of attention (do read about it).

F1 is an engineering championship as much as a driving one, which is what got me hooked in the first place. In contrast, F2, one tier below F1, runs spec cars and the young F1 hopefuls put one a great driving show. As a personal comment, I just want to quote the Captain again: "Mercedes certainly doesn't have the best person in every role but they make the best of more peoples strengths than any other team." I know what Jeff is trying to say about rock star engineers. But I think he also knows that there are many other pieces of the puzzle for success. That's why famous team principals/technical directors don't always win everything (Paddy Lowe?).

For the record, Mercedes hasn't been the team with the biggest budget in the last few years, so money doesn't automatically mean success. I have worked in a 200-person racing team before, and I can hardly believe that F1 teams like Marussia/Manor managed to design, build, upgrade, and show up to every race with 2 cars with about the same size workforce. Those who were there still speak highly of their time, and this is a team that scored a total of three points in its entire history. It just goes to show, it would be really unfair to say anyone in F1 is any less capable than anyone else.

Mercedes F1 youtube channel has a lot of good content like race debriefs and technical pieces that might help you get more into F1.

Won, some day in the future, when you're retired, I'd love to hear your war stories.

No more grid girls. :(

Yes....now they have "grid kids". Who are they trying to appeal to?