Maybe more to the point, Ocon doesn't bring enough money with him meaning they need to select a less qualified driver to make their budget. Watching in detail the episode where Drive to Survive focused on Ocon and Perez before Force India was sold showed me a young driver, Ocon, focuses on the team and showing his skills and Perez holding on at all costs making stupid mistakes. Life ain't fair I suppose

And I've often wondered something. Either the cars of any given team are only so fast that their place on the grid is pretty much consistent other than aberrations, or that a better driver would actually improve on that typical position.

So then the question comes down to, does the team take a lesser driver's money and finish in place x or do they take a better driver and finish higher in the order improving financial gains in other ways offsetting the driver's financial contribution?

So, is it mainly the car and the team or is it mainly the driver? Well, I think it can't be absolutely one or the other, so there is conundrum.

Interesting post Bahrain testing. George Russell was second slowest when driving the Williams last weekend, but when swapped over to the Merc during testing, he topped the timesheets.

I wonder how little Schumacher did, comparing his times in the Ferrari vs those in the Alfa Romeo.

zeke, interesting thoughts. Would be interested in hearing what others think. Watching the Drive to Survive episode on Force India, it seemed clear that Ocon was getting more out of the car than Perez. At one race, Bahrain last year I think, he had Force India starting 4th. That was above Red Bull, McLaren, Renault, etc. Listening to Will Buxton on that episode, it seemed clear that in his opinion Ocon was more mature and had more potential. I think I remember Ocon pretty much out qualifiying Perez pretty regularly, but Perez gets the ride in the new team owned by daddy Lance since he brings Mexican cell phone money.

LeClerc seems the new model of young driver, anti Verstappen. I think Ocon falls in that same category. Did he get a Mercedes development drive this year?

I think in F1, right now, it's 90% car and 10% driver. At that level, all the drivers have a lot of talent, regardless of whether they bring money or not. The driver deals are done long before a team knows anything about how well its car will do for the season, so the thought that they might use a better driver that brings less money to pull the car up in the rankings and get more money at the end of the year probably doesn't happen. I'd wager they've all thought of it, though.

Ocon is the reserve driver for Mercedes this year.

This is the prevalent thinking from what I can tell. And yet engineers heavily rely on drivers' input to improve the set up on their car. I tend to think that the cars are more equal than we think. That doesn't reign true for the power package, especially the engine. Other than gearing, engineers have little control over that aspect. So the big HP teams will find themselves at the top half of the grid.

But the whole set up aspect is beyond daunting. If the engineer doesn't have the tools, e.g., huge data log from all races at all tracks in all weather conditions, tire data and aero data, and a driver that can tell 3 mm height adjustment regardless what the on board real time data shows, then said engineer is starting at a impossible deficit before FP1. And precious little time to catch up. Once a team lags, they have a exponential amount of data to find and catch up to the leaders which, of course would essentially mean outspending the leaders. Now that's a catch 22, for sure.

This is true in all forms of racing including NASCAR which is terribly much simpler than F1. So, even with a good F1 development driver (AKA reserve) who gets a scant few laps, a driver is really an important part of the package.

Was McLaren unable to do better than virtually last place in spite of Alonso? That had to be well and truly the car. Ron Dennis and his spying kept them at pace and when that can of worms was exposed, McLaren didn't have enough proprietary engineering to prevail. That would appear to be the case to someone like me.

The best way to solve the driver vs. car issue is to way simplify these cars. By that I mean take away many of the variables. I certainly don't want to see F1 running a full fleet of Dalara's like INDY car, but if there are less things to adjust, then the possibility factor gets reduced whereas today the chassis setup possibilities are incomprehensible to almost anyone.

It was said that some 25 years ago, A.J. Foyt, while still a driver, got out of his Champ Car at Indy and smacked a suspicion arm with a hammer. If I understand the story, he changed the inside rear tire's toe by a fraction and the car went better. IIRC, this was well beyond Foyt's prime as a driver and also beyond his ability or desire to match the financial investment someone like Penske put into the endeavor.

The point being that while Penske's masterful crew would have systematically made minor adjustments and consulted their computers, Foyt was busy throwing his laptop across the pit and using his butt to adjust the car.

We need more butts and less voodoo adjustments in F1. They can still spend millions on the first few inches of the nose shape but they all run the exact same halo. Let's extend that idea to some of the other parts of the car and bring the driver more back into the equation. At least then we will know who the better drivers are.

All of racing talks about financial caps. This is an idea that will never work and keep racers happy. The public won't know the difference. No, the answer is not in spec cars, but cars with some specs while other aspects remain open to development. NASCAR got this all wrong and look at what has happened. I say that, and then look at the teams that have a top driver and the best engineering even with a spec car. What would seem to be a crude machine responds to a 1/2 lb of tire pressure.

So you can see why F1 is out of control and the last half of the grid will continue to change names and ownership while sucking up huge fortunes while we watch the same 8 cars parade at the front at a blistering pace so fast that passing is, well, not part of racing anymore.

The conclusion of this diatribe is to basically agree with javadog with added thought.

I think this is a very complicated issue and those of us on the outside can only speculate. I'd like to point out that so far this season, both the first place and last place teams currently run the same engine...

F1 went down the toilet, years ago. Unfortunately, you can't undo what you've learned. I'd be happy if we could turn the clock back to around 1990 and run those cars and engines.

This new "green" engine crap and the ridiculous aero appendages... I hate both of them. Can't stand DRS, the tire rules, the lack of refueling, the parc ferme restrictions, the lack of tobacco sponsorship money, etc.

Can't stand the Brits that now provide our commentary.

Miss the grid girls...

your set up story reminds me of an incident at I think Rennsport III. Was there with Jay Jarvis, rest in peace Jay, who built my clone. He was the Racer's Group crew chief for some time. He was there with some customers and not Buckler's team. If memory serves, the Racers Group cars were last in qualifying. Apparently they were set up in his NASCAR Moresville operation and sent to Laguna. Those guys had never been to NoCal and did not understand the track from my recollection.

Jay showed me his log book from Laguna for like 30 years. Every track session, temp, wind, humidity, cloud, no cloud and then every suspension setting. All recorded by hand as it happened. Buckler asked for help, Jay went to his book with climate much like that day and found similar cars. Said, "try these settings". They went from last to fastest.

Old school. Need more old school in racing.

Adrian Newey's book, which I just finished, covered a lot about different driver personalities/styles and car problems. The car problems these days are almost always aero issues. He talked about problems where minor changes in ride height due to spring rate, braking, bumps, etc could wreck havoc on otherwise good aero setups which would then take a lot of wind tunnel, flo-vis-fluid, and CFD to figure out. He wrote that he McLaren's big problem was they picked different ideas from the other front running cars to build their car and ended up with a mess vs Newey who makes improvements on the previous year's design unless there's a need for a completely new design due to rules changes.

It was really interesting to read how much of a difference the teams would make race to race with new aero parts.

Been reading interesting theories from various sources re: Ferrari's performance.
Seemingly, In Australia they had an issue with cooling their harvesting system and in order to protect it, had to turn down the engine and increase cooling also with some extra fuel consumption that forced coasting at the end... That combined with Pirelli's new narrow gauge tyre – which was used only at a races last year - having less rubber on the tread and being harder for Ferrari to switch on...

In Bahrein they had most of that fixed, but apparently one cylinder shut off on Leclerc's car, not mechanically but electrically (short circuit in the injection for that cylinder) and the engine was no longer generating enough power to make the recovery system function properly so they HAD to shut it down that time, explaining Leclerc's pickle and yet no mechanical damage.

In the same vein RIC almost got tagged for not putting the wheel back on his Renault but explained to the stewards the car's warning system warned him of possible electrocution, so he jumped out and said "F$% it" ;-)

Part of me is fascinated by this tech, but a bigger part of me wishes they'd bin it all before someone gets zapped and went back to screaming V12s and call it a day. It's ruining races.

I agree. Theses are race cars not iPhones. There is such a thing as too much tech.

Except that it's not voodoo, there is science that's backing up all the changes. The best driver is the one who can control the vehicle and pace in such a way that the adjustments in setup are seen by the telemetry. Once you have that kind of repeatability, the path to optimal setup is much clearer.

I actually think once hardcore AI takes hold of the decision-making on setup there will be much more parity between all the cars. The machine-learning algorithms will be able to understand and comprehend data much faster than humans and suggest all the right changes.

The constructor's insistence on building tech because it is supposedly relevant to road cars is amusing to me...
I can't afford a Ferrari... People who can don;t give 2 $hits about KERS. If anything I wouldn't buy a Mercedes because their constant winning annoys me, and I am no fan of their drivers at all... Renault can win all its wants it will always only be known for good sport hatchbacks and diesel appliances. RedBull sells energy drinks and everyone knows their tie to aston is pure marketing, and I also cannot afford an Aston...

Really then, why ? Want some batteries with some brake recovery for some boost for passing ? sure... Drop the rest and give us wailing engines at 19000 rpm. The efficiency of combustion engines in F1 is *already* spectacular without the electric crap compared to our cars... Sell your cars on that instead !!!?

It really was better back then. https://youtu.be/auXfAHHNSFo

Well of course there is. You just don't read my writing style enough. When it's so complicated that there is talk of AI taking over, that's fooking voodoo.

Adrian Newey wanted to do some road car design so Red Bull work on the Aston car is more than just marketing

There in lies the irony! Red Bull is a soda maker helping Aston make a hyper car so that their star engineer can pull a Gordon Murray for his legacy. Aston is the car maker here and they get their expertise from the energy drink people ! Aston don’t really make F1 engines (hell they buy them from Mercedes for their super cars). Red Bull has Honda as a manufacturer. What does Aston do for red bulls? tea? Chassis engineers? Doubt it :-)

Thought your 90% vs 10% was a bit on the low side for the driver but wasn't sure so I asked a friendly F1 engineering director and he came back with 80% vs 20%

Curt thanks for that video link, brought back some good memories for me, as a thank you from the team I worked for I was very lucky and watched a F1 race from the garage/pit wall in Monaco, the speed :eek: the speed is incredible :cool: TV doesn't do it justice

Deschodt, without reading your post I mentioned out loud today at work, followed with a heavy sigh 'I miss 20,000rpm V10's' someone replied 'you can't say things like that' :D

ZAMIRZ, not sure if you've read about Roborace a fledgling AI race car series, very cool sci-fi looking cars not sure why anyone would watch this without the variable element of a human driver

Today's F1 tech is amazing, wish I could show you guys what I see at work as the level of detail that goes into designing and building an F1 car has more in common with the stuff NASA does than any road car.

Redbull is a weird company. Although an overwhelming majority of their revenue comes from energy drinks, there is much more to the organization than that. Saying Aston gets their "expertise from the energy drink people" is naiive. The chemist mixing the different flavors of Redbull in their experimental lab isn't moonlighting at Aston Martin. Through some arrangement (most likely Aston paying Redbull), they are getting technical expertise from the Redbull Racing F1 team based in Milton Keynes, UK. They also get some real estate on the F1 car and the associated brand tie-in. This isn't much different than Williams Advanced Engineering doing the Jaguar CX-75 or Singer DLS.

Aston Martin doesn't have the capital to do a ground-up globally homologated large displacement engine on their own so they buy from AMG. It's just smart business and works well for the needs of their core buyer.

Yes, I'm aware of roborace. No, not interested in watching it (yet), but give it some time and I think it has some potential.

The AI will aid in the setup, but not in the actual driving. I know this is going to turn into a gray area, but the rules governing it right now are pretty good in my opinion and the evolution should follow some sort of human decision making where acceleration, braking and steering input are off limits to technology intervention with concessions for driver safety.