How F1’s current breed of cars expose struggling drivers
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- We’ve seen Formula 1 drivers experience some wild performance swings since ground-effect aerodynamics came back.
And this doesn’t just apply to the obvious examples: drivers like Nicholas Latifi, Logan Sargeant or Lance Stroll. Even drivers held in much higher regard, with better track records behind them and/or reputations for metronomic consistency, have fallen victim to the confidence trick imposed by this new generation of F1 car.
Drivers like Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo, both race winners who were largely revered in F1 pre-2022, have had their reputations shredded in this iteration of Formula 1.
In the case of these two, the malaise has lasted so long their very presence on the grid has been called into question - but even drivers who have generally performed strongly in these cars have still had acute moments of struggle.
00:00 Difficult beasts
01:49 Driving style challenge
05:15 Narrower knife-edge
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The fact that Alonso went from "this is a lovely car to drive" to "the car is undriveable" in 6 months
tbf that was because of the track rod damage
That was track specific and damage related. I'm sure the car still feels just as good but it's not developed enough compared to the competition.
Hyperbole from an f1 driver never heard of such a thing.
they _did_ admit to taking the wrong developmental path. it's not like their car is competitive atm and he's still making those comments
Flexi wings got banned my friend. That’s why the car sucks now.
It really seems like when a driver gets lost now, they get REALLY lost
I'd like to see a graphic of the #'s bins per race over the last recent years.
F1 now is closer than it has ever been in my lifetime, even including Max and his absurd Red Bull. Back in the 90s 1st to last in Quali was usually well over 5 seconds, now it's usually less than 2. In races it used to be just a few cars on the lead lap by the end, now it's most of them. Being 2 tenths down in the past was bad, but now it's often the difference between a podium and the bottom third.
@@fix0the0spade never mind having just a few cars on the lead lap, you’d be lucky if half of them even made it to the last lap.
It’s no coincidence that the drivers that have performed consistently well even on bad weekends, are Hamilton, Alonso, and Verstappen.
the best on the grid @the moment no doubt
Finally someone talking sense and not necessarily making about silver arrow vs raging bull. Appreciate you G
@@planetzing7796seriously. Real F1 fans recognize talent regardless of team affiliation. I’m a Hamilton fan but I fully recognize that drivers like Max and Fernando are incredible and we’re lucky to get to watch any of them.
@@tony9146 - Agreed Tony. I’ve watched F1 since 1994 when I was a child, and the talented drivers stand out if you know what you’re watching. Max is an ATG, I think it was clear he would be a couple of seasons ago, but his first few seasons weren’t spectacular… he crashed a lot, spun a lot, raced too hard (which in my opinion, he still does,) and although he’s overcome and matured, people forget that Lewis drove a near faultless debut season and should’ve won the championship in his first year, beating an ATG in the same car!!
…anyone who saw this guy arrive on the scene after watching hakkinen, Schumacher, Damon Hill etc knew instantly just how good this kid is / was. These new fans seem to think he only won because of the dominant Merc he had. But forget that he was targeted by Merc because he was an outstanding talent.
Max has achieved great things, and gets a lot of praise, rightly so… but it’s odd to me that there’s a guy on the grid still, who has done everything Max done, but DOUBLE! And yet, he seems to almost get forgotten about or criticised! …and he’s done it in more than one team, AND while being one of the cleanest racers I’ve ever seen. (Few mistakes lately, but he’s nearing the end of his career. Give the guy a break.)
PLUS…. Let’s also just add, that after Abu Dabi 2021, he got out of the car, congratulated Max and took that robbery on the chin. Like a professional.
He is s bit of a nob In interviews etc sometimes, I will say that, but I put that down to social anxiety, camera anxiety more than anything. He’s worried about his image. But as a racer, I put him up there with Jim Clarke, Sterling Moss, and Graham Hill, as pure class.
Theres a reason they are the only ones on the grid with world championships
I think this shows us that teams that didn't have experience with underfloor downforce before are now having to learn from scratch. As for red bull newey has immense knowledge on the old ground effect rules . So it is no suprise he k ows what the car needs to remain stable.
And totally why the new regs went in this direction to favour the long standing ground effects designers team.
@@malidan3895Not these pointless conspiracies again, please.
@@malidan3895 Long standing ground effect? He designed a couple of indycars 40 years ago, which were using a totally different style of ground effect and had to run in ovals.
@@malidan3895yea the same way Mercedes got the blueprints for hybrid engines way before everybody which allowed to enter new regs with 200hp over anyone. That was totally fair right?
Sorry if I have to destroy some illusions here - first Newey actually never worked a lot on an "old" F1 Ground Effekt Cars. The Fittipaldi Team he started working at actually stopped very shortly thereafter. So his experience on these cars is limited to a few months. But even if he would have experience on the old Ground Effect Cars - Newey would not be the only one with great knowledge about the first F1 ground effect cars. In fact, there's Neil Oatley at McLaren who was already building ground effect cars when Newey had just graduated. There is Willem Toet at Alfa who was already building ground effect cars when Newey was studying. Ferrari's consultant Rory Byrne, who had a major influence on the Ferrari of 2022, also built ground effect cars before Newey even came to F1. So there are quite a few people in F1 who certainly have no less knowledge than Newey in this regard. Sorry, but it is simply nonsense to portray Newey here as having the great ground effect knowledge and no one else. In addition, the Red Bull underbody actually works more like the old flat underbodies.
What RB did very different, they emphasized the curvature around diffuser kink (mandated by rules) and they opened up the diffuser side wall to let the air from the top of the floor enter there to feed and energize the vortex. This makes the floor work more like classical flat-floor with diffuser, as it doesn't rely on ground proximity for optimal performance. Energizing the vortex reduces the pressure in diffuser, which in turn also drives the front of the floor and reduces overall pressure under the floor.
In fact, the Ferrari was the faster car until the summer of 2022. Then came TD039 and the cars had to go higher, which put "real" ground effect cars at a disadvantage. While all the other teams were effectively set back by almost a year, Red Bull could simply develop further and got a huge development head start. You have to be aware of this. And then all this is already less impressive but just logical. So sorry - Newey is neither the great magician nor anything else, but they simply got a huge development head start last year through the TD039 and were lucky that they put on a different concept, which happened not to be dependent on low vehicle heights like those of the others.
Uh, Daniel was struggling before ground effect in 2021. Perez did great at the beginning of 2022 and 2023 but red bull tends to develop in a direction he isn't comfortable with. Lando said the 2021 car also wasn't nice to drive and those characteristics carried over to the new generation. Idk, I don't think drivers are struggling because of ground effect. If anything teams like Mercedes are, compared to where they were. Any team that porpoised a bunch.
I'm always amazed that people don't take into account more often that the direction Red Bull moves in with development always hurts Perez. When the car is out of the box, he does very well (two wins in the first five races this year) but when the development moves towards Max (understandably, a much faster driver and clear No.1, he's a safe bet for championships), he falters.
@@ethanlyon5458 I don't buy that at all. All teams will make a car as quick as possible. Yes they have the drivers input but there is no way should Checo be doing as bad as he is. That is on him and nothing else really.
Max said many times at the beginning of the season, he was struggling with the car. In Miami he found a way to drive the car quicker/better. Checo is able to look at the data and see how Max drives.
I am a Checo fan but he just isn't a capable enough driver to be in a top team. It reminds me of Hamilton and Bottas. On his day Bottas could beat Hamilton but it was few and far between.
The fact Checo is likely to lose P2 in the championship says more about Checo and Max than it does the RB.
@@klzeccwozi1290 easy fix, just drive like Max lmao.
@@ethanlyon5458And again the classic "the car is developed for Max." Any evidence for this?
@@TypeRTeg It's crazy people still believe this, clearly when they designed a whole entire new car they just made the best fastest one they could..... Max just adapts better
Modern ground effect requires way more stiffer suspension in order to become effective and behave consistently.
But some drivers requires that "feedback" in order to feel the car that softer suspensions provide.
They are the ones who openly shun simulators and call them pointless because simulators don't convey real car movements.
Some drivers however are more adaptable to low "feedback" suspensions,
because simulators are fundamental in their training regime and therefore are more adept at getting "cues" elsewhere beside car movements.
I understood that reference
Yeah that would explain why Aston Martin are nowhere now because Fernando is known for poor development feedback
The "behavioral consistency" implied here,
refers speicifically to the "downforce" generated by the ground effect structure (floor), which is affected by the floor height relative to the ground.
This is due to the fact that current ground effect F1 cars do not use side skirt to contain the under belly airflow
Softer suspension would make for a bounciers car, which would make maintaining and managing the floor height less consistent which consequenly also make the effective downforce induce by ground effect floor less consistent.
That is the consistency refered here.
You should stop thinking that these ground effect cars are the only ones that are super stiff. That's not true. You have to look at the cars from the mid-late 90s and early 00s. Or the old Ground Effect cars - they were just as stiff.
That’s a reasonable take, that probably explains why Max is so dominant as he spends a ton of time on simulators and sim racing in his spare time 😅
That last line is key. We want cars that will enable the best drivers to shine, and highlight those who aren't at that level
Spot on. That's one of many reasons why the FIA should be congratulated for their step change
Its good to see that F1 is difficult to master, car set up, understanding the limit,, changing driving style. It seems right that the challenge is back for the teams and the drivers.
This vid goes a long way to explaining the intricate nature in an excellent informative way. Great stuff.
I think the other issue is that a ground effect car behaves fundamentally differently than any other car they have raced in. This means the communication between driver and mechanics over car setup is different. I think what Max and Redbull have done is figured out how the car needs to be setup so that Max can get the most out on race day. Other teams are still having problems on figuring out how to setup the car to take advantage of driver preferences. Drivers are having problems because the car is not behaving the way they are used to. They can get the car dialed in for one track, then the next the car is not behaving the way they expected it to. This makes it hard for the drivers to be consistent, because the car is not consistent.
There is always variation between tracks, that’s why they do a lot of sim work before each race weekend - to get an idea as to how to configure the car setup wise beforehand.
Communication is important, sure, but it generally comes down to the driver being able to work with a given car and the way the overall design concept that the team believes is fastest & has developed the car around.
Changes can be made to make the driver feel more confident, but to get the most speed the driver has to be able to adapt to the car when it is setup the way it was meant to be driven (and often this results in a car that feels less generally “well balanced”). This has been the case for a very long time with F1 cars.
With the current cars the interaction with the track surface is much more critical/the car is more sensitive to differences. This can result in a car that doesn’t always maintain a consistent feel track to track.
Yes
Large reason RB design was to stabilize the car. It's why they had little porpoising
Others went for max down force ignoring that there will be so much variation because of body roll and track level so there was an ever changing down force, causing inconsistency in driving
100 percent agree!
@@Rearmostbean A major factor that helped Red Bull was having an aerodynamic genius such as Adrian Newey, who's worked with ground effect IndyCars early in his career. He has experience with that type of aerodynamics, and knew what to look out for and what to avoid. His designs makes it easy for Max and the engineers to extract the most out of the car.
@@BullittStang Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and McLaren also have aerodynamic designers who were building cars during the ground effect era in F1.
Sure Newey is brilliant, but he's not the only one familiar with these kind of designs, you can clearly see that Ferrari had the upper hand in 2022, until Mercedes complained and the FIA made the other teams raise the ride height...
You know that the problem is severe when Perez with *ONE OF THE MOST DOMINANT CARS* in F1 struggles to get into Q3. 💀
When they said on coms in Qatar he failed to reach Q3 in 7 of the 16 or 15 races this season is damming.
I mean, he went from scoring multiple podiums for Sauber in 2012 to languishing behind Button at McLaren the very next year. His success has always been highly car-dependent.
@@PH-jv4ikPerez already said that since the 5-6th race the upgrades are working against him
@@RoaringM00Nthat’s completely on him. He said himself that the upgrades did make the car faster, he just doesn’t have the skill or adaptability to make proper use of them.
@RoaringM00N he started his slump before then. Also the RB is quite neutral so thats no excuse
"In my opinion" Newey was primarily responsible for the RB19's suspension because he knew how important anti-dive and anti-squat was to keeping a ground effect car level in the corners. A level ground effect car equates to a consistent feel which is one of Red Bull's advantages. To gain maximum speed and reduce tire wear, the car is set up to oversteer. Many driver's don't like this, including Checo, but Max adapts to it very well. If done right, you can brake early, allowing the backend to rotate and then get on the power sooner to get higher speed down the proceeding straight. The longer the straight after a corner the better the RB19 performs. It also explains why the RB19 isn't the best though continual low speed corders; there are no straights to pull away.
You got that wrong... The Red Bull is a very oversteery car, which Perez doesn't like as he prefers understeer, which is a slower way of driving and that's why Newey didn't go that way.
You mean oversteer, but yeah you nailed it. Since Max is so good at adapting to that driving style, and since a "pointy" (oversteery) car is objectively a faster car in formula racing, it's no wonder that the RB19 is so dominant with Max behind the wheel
@@outlawfps3948 You are correct. Thanks for the edit!
Also explains why every time Perez has spun its been the backend coming out opposite of the direction of the corner. We have seen this a couple times from Max, but only in practice sessions when he might be trying out different lines or pushing the car hard through certain corners
max can adapt to anything. I'd almost be inclined to ignore Max as a source of eedback because whatever you give him, he can drrive it.
Max is the only one who the car hasn't eaten alive over the past 4 years. Maybe it's time to wonder whether trusting driver feedback to a guy who can drive anything is the best idea, especially if it constantly leaves the other driver behind.
7:41 that rb ride height specification has to be one of the most beautiful side profiles from an aesthetic pov in modern f1 tbf
With ground effect you are basically balancing on a knife edge between grip and no grip. Some drivers are better than other to find the sweet spot.
This edge is also why the porpoising occurred.
Lotus did develop a twin chassis car with one for the mechanical forces and one for the aerodynamics just to make the most of the ground effect at the time. It was banned.
'aerodynamic parts must remain immobile in relation to the sprung part of the car'.
Max, Fernando and Lewis are world champion. Not saying guys like Lando or George can't reach that level but imo there is a clear step between these three and the rest.
This was a really good man! Love the voice of this guy.
A difficult technical subject very well explained, thanks 👍
I really think that Verstappen and Alonso’s adaptability is a result of their time and interest in other motorsport categories outside of F1.
Max has only raced in go karts outside of F1....
Yeah, but on simulator he drives all but F1@@therealjimshady100
@@therealjimshady100he does insurance sim racing. Like, a lot.
@@ethanwatt-dz3xq sim racing..... its not real
@@therealjimshady100do you not think that it at least uses a different driving style than F1? It sim. SIMULATION
Well the cars are also notoriously sensitive to setup since so much downforce is from ground effect & that is very dependent on ride height.
Thus car/suspension setup plays a huge role & track surface plays a role in this.
So not getting the right setup or spending time with a bad setup during practice can throw drivers off.
A seven time world champion somehow gets left off the list of drivers who struggle with the new car. Strange isn't it? :)
These cars look horrible to drive in onboards and the drivers' techniques and feedback over the past 2 years has done nothing to change my observation. The 2017-2021 cars may not have been the greatest racing, but they did allow drivers to exploit their talent outside of adaptation to relatively high weight, rock hard suspensions, and weird aero.
They make the 2017-21cars look like the 2000s cars and those cars where even trucks within themselves lol
I don't know the regulations made us go back in technology suspension wise
i know it’s only a game but when i drove the 17-21 compared to these ground effect cars now in the F1 video game. These GE cars seem to be very understeery at the front and turn like a boat where as the 17-21 you can just throw the car in every turn. i don’t like these new cars they are not really enjoyable to drive in the game
@@NovaDaGoatI only played 2021 and 2022, the difference is huge.
They might get used to it
F1 as a whole is moving backwards honestly it is the "top tier of motorsport" but innovation is discouraged massively
Personally I don't get why teams like manufacture teams are still in F1 other than maybe money, like what use is F1 to them you can't innovate to make up the difference it's all body and floor now. 1980 to 2020 was the golden age of seeing F1 teams pushing tech as far as they could where they could for speed. These new regulations are just slightly more adjustable IndyCars
This video is an attempt to Elevate certain drivers in using other driver performances throughout the season by eliminating their car performance. Bravo 👏 👏 👏
Sorry but you lost me, Max,Lewis & Leclerc is a short corner driver and often brakes earlier than others because they rotating car at early apex, according to you V shape drivers brake late and that is not true for any of them. Go look at RB telemetry Max brakes consistently before Perez but carry more speed through corner.
Yup V'ing off a corner is slowing down early rotating the car (heres where you would like some oversteer to help wih turn in) and get on the power fast
The U line typically has a later apex compared to the V line
I wish 'The Race' would preface their videos with "In our opinion". They present these videos as if they're stating facts. Perhaps they would be better suited to commenting on politics.😄
@@kratos9223 Because the arm chair listeners who gets their info from gossip collumns about driver contracts know more.
@@joetri10 You're right; we should solely rely on this channel for our information and not bother cross-referencing any of their opinions with other sources. After all, they work closely with all F1 teams and have access to valuable telemetry data that other teams can only dream of. I apologize. How dare I question the validity of this channel?
@@kratos9223 This is the case on every single F1 video analysing something. Nobody likes being told something they don't understand so they just default on claiming these people know nothing.
I mean there's one video by a guy called driver61 who goes in depth about Checo Perez's driving style... And the comment section at one point was just a sea of 'LOL na, it's just he can't handle pressure LOL''' or just endless amount of people who paused the video at 1 second, gave their expert opinion and left..
F1 fans are more braindead than football fans, and that says A LOT.
This is one of the best f1 related videos I've ever seen
I think the drivers are exposing how sh*t the cars are !
Perfect comment
There are teams where the difference between the drivers is big so definitely is not the car problem.
@@givemeabreak8784 It becomes a problem when upgrades are developed to favour the driver who is faring better, then the scissors actually widen.
@@givemeabreak8784 yes but generations the cars are bad
It's weird the regs went back to allowing ground effect. The ground effect "era" we talk about was all of, what, like 5 years tops? It took a little while before Lotus's concept spread throughout the grid so it was really just like '79-'82 when it was in full force, and it was limited in '81 although the limitation got loop-holed around.
But the drivers at the time hated it because of how rough, bumpy, inconsistent, and dangerous the ride was. Sound familiar?
The 2022 regulation change was aimed at making cars more able to follow eachother closely.
Instead of losing ca. 40% downforce 0.5s behind another car, they lose around 20 ~ 25%.
That helps extending on track battles.
To do that, the cars needed to depend less on top surface downforce, which is easily affected negatively by running in the draft of another car.
Instead the rule makers made a conscious move towards ground effect aerodynamics, since that is less affected by the draft from a car in front.
The downforce is still needed to produce a certain laptime, to make F1 cars go fast around a track.
@@tver The reality is there probably just isn't a solution to that problem. In principle, passing is no harder today than it was in the past because by nature there's only one racing line that's only wide enough for one car. The reason F1 was so much more dynamic in the past (90s and earlier) is because there were huge performance differences between cars, engines, and tyres. The leaders were multiple seconds faster than the back and lapped the majority of the field, all top 5 on the lead lap was uncommon. Reliability was a crap shoot and helped even out the results across the season, but within individual races the same kind of top team domination we see today still happened then too, except there were much higher chances of the leader blowing an engine and someone else winning, so you could still get multiple teams in the championship hunt. Aerodynamics were more primitive and about brute forcing the issue instead of being highly engineered with intent. Technology wasn't as close to the bleeding edge as it is today so a team could come up with something new next year and win and prevent multi-year dynasties. All of these factors have disappeared over time as technology has improved. The field is so similar now that passing just isn't easy, and never will be. They've all optimized the cars beyond the point of there being any room for large performance gaps between teams.
I applaud the effort to bunch them up closer together by reducing the dirty air. But I think it's futile and without DRS or some other temporary boosting mechanism or perfomance mixup like tyre differences, passing is still going to be really hard. And in the meantime the cars are tougher on the drivers.
TLDR, passing in the past was never due to good driving enabled by weaker aerodynamics allowing closer following, it was because one car was a lot better than the other. And when there did occasionally end up being different teams with similar performance cars, they couldn't pass back then either.
Tracking the teammate differential just underlines the thesis of this story. Well done.
The difficult balance of straight line speed and downforce for cornering and adaptability to take different approaches to high speed and low speed corners must be having more impact on drivers who are set in their ways. Rookies who developed a style in F2 and other single seat formats but are new to F1 appear to be benefitting from learning the craft in the tougher conditions because Piastri and Lawson are showing a lot of promise. Maybe not Sargeant so much.
Finally a narrator and a narration that don't pierce the ear. There's space for breathing in this more normal, not rushed narration.
So what your saying is just bring back the 2012 rules
fia should allow adaptive suspension to dynamically change the ride height, so the car can maintain stability while giving the driver some compliance in suspension.
The FIA innovates by making the cars slower and taking away any advantage a team gets (See Williams with that type of suspension in the 90s)
Yup I know and cvt and fan car. Even ground effect cars were banned before@@hankrearden5460
Why? So the less talented drivers have a chance to win? Or the less talented designers can hide their failures? Apparently some drivers can perform great, and some teams are able to create an excellent car. The others just have to try harder or accept they're not cut out for the job.
Well, this is a good question. IMHO Lewis is a very talented driver and his car is clearly slower than red bull's. And Mercedes' engineers obliviously know their stuff or they wouldn't win 8 constructor tiles.
The thing is the ground effect car is really difficult to predict/control by using only mechanical parts. Even red bull's car is not working very good on high grip Singapore track.
By involving adaptive suspension, teams could have better prediction/control of the car. This would not only benefit teams have slow car, it would also make faster cars more stable. And more stable and predictable cars are safer for divers.
Teams may even save their budget, because they do not need to make physical parts to test new ideas, they could only change the software of the adaptive parts.
All in all, this is a sports of men, not comparing who has the best car, I would rather see all the teams have similar performance car made budget friendly than only one or two manufacturers have the best cars and win every race.
@@peterdegroot8623
@@hankrearden5460 Incorrect. The FIA regulates and designs the future of F1 in order to improve racing, improve safety, reduce irelevant development, allow relevant development, and overall to improve the marketability of the sport as an industry.
The teams undermine most of those aims because that's their selfish short term ambition. The teams must all trust that the FIA will haul them in as required, for the good of the industry.
Your level of understanding of the industry is prenatal.
The Race agreeing that Max and Alonso are better drivers than Hamilton and other drivers on the grid!! that's something I never thought will hear on this channel!!
You started watching this channel today ? They slander Hamilton at every opportunity
@@Terrencetulani hahaha.. nice joke..
Perez has always been known to be one of the worst qualifiers on the grid way before 2022. Even in 2021, he’s still struggling to match Verstappen at a similar scope to before Perez started punting others in Japan. Ricciardo was already struggling in 2021 despite no ground effects, and even Stroll was struggling to match Vettel in 2021 via finishing over 20s behind in some races. All of these “exposed” drivers came down to one or two simple things. Lack of confidence and the lack of raw speed. Ground effect and the narrow setup window has nothing to do with their lack of performance.
Explain Carlos Sainz then. What about Lando Norris? Or Fernando Alonso? It’s an issue that’s happening all over the grid to the best and worst drivers alike
@@mrsoisauce9017 Sainz & Alonso are doing great this year, not sure what you're talking about
@@mrsoisauce9017 where are you going with this? Sainz struggled against Leclerc in 2021 and in the first year of the ground effect. This year Sainz got the confidence to nail his laps. My statement still rings true
Perez isn't the worst qualifier on the grid by any margin as he can well enough put the car in good places pre 2022 and 2021 anyways, ofcourse he shined more in the races, this whole thing proves how the car going away from a driver can really leave them lost and not even simulators can help the drivers sometimes in gaining confidence
@@sandalphoncpusainz defeated Leclerc in 2021, dude almost every youtuber focuses on drivers and personalities, the Race finally uploads a video focusing on engineering concepts and root causes and not that much in drivers and you bring drivers back into conversation.
Great job explaining the cars and how teams and drivers struggle with them. Far as I’m aware ground effect aero was started so cars would be able to race each other more closely due to not losing so much downforce when close - from what I’ve heard from drivers, they still really struggle with this even if a bit better so is there some quantifiable way to say ground effect has made the racing better?
I'd say the quantifiable way of showing ground effect has made the racing better is in the data of how much downforce is lost when travelling at X distance behind another car. At the start of this era they were only losing about half as much downforce when following closely compared to the amount lost in the previous era. This allowed battles to continue for longer without overheating the tires as much, for example Verstappen and Leclerc going at it for lap after nail biting lap at the beginning of last year. Compare that to 2021 and earlier seasons where drivers would set up an attempt at a pass, and if the attempt failed would often have to back off for a bit to cool the tires before making another attempt. I think that last year had some of the best wheel to wheel racing of any year in F1's history. That's obviously a subjective statement but I wouldn't be surprised if it were backed up with data, such as the number of total passes made over the season being much higher than average.
The unfortunate thing is that with the speed of development and rapid gains we're seeing by every team, the loss of downforce when following closely has increased quite a bit this season compared to the start of last season. It's still a noticeable amount less than in the previous era, but as the development race marches on we are heading back in the direction of drivers being unable to keep their tires in the right window whenever they get close to the car ahead. I'm not saying there hasn't been some really good racing this season either, but at the same time the extended wheel to wheel battles already seem to be a bit more of a rarity this year.
TLDR: To answer your question quickly though after two very fluffed out paragraphs, for quantifiable proof of better racing I'd look up statistics of total on-track passes made over the season compared to previous seasons, as well as the % of total downforce lost when following closely compared to previous years. Also I just thought of this one, the % difference in lap times between teams, and the % difference between fastest and slowest team compared to previous years. (Even better could be taking the % difference between the 2nd fastest and 2nd slowest team instead to reduce chance of a huge outlier skewing the data). Closer lap times breeds closer racing.
@@Shortstuffjo omg! Now that’s a proper reply. Okay I asked for it and got the info I wanted so thank you. I suspected as much when I made my comment that statistics would show the cars are able to stay closer for longer without suffering too much as I know how ground effect works. Even with all the above info, the drivers themselves really aren’t much happier - I listen to post race comments from drivers every race weekend and they aren’t convinced ground effect aero is the answer, to sum it up. Though I have a feeling the drivers will always find something to complain about as 19 of them aren’t going to win :) really for better racing we need a closer field!
The excellent drivers in F1 are the ones that can adapt and make cars work
So much credit was given to #4 in the standing. The car was better early in the season and the rest of the race for 2nd teams caught up. Any driver will tell you. The car..
It's maybe because the cars are heavier now and it's like the f123 game the back end kicks out too easy but I think it goes back to the ground floor effect and these cars I think is just too big and heavy for it , it have to change the size and weight of the cars
Ground effect cars appear to defy the laws of physics. There’s no way they should stick to the track but they do. Some drivers can cope with the speed and G sensory input and some can’t. The ones that can’t will be slower in the same car than those that can. Their personal limit has a ceiling whereas the best drivers are easily able to adapt to evolving technologies that bring seemingly impossible cornering speeds.
The physics is brain numbingly simple around ground effects cars. You're literally just forcing a low-pressure zone under the car, and since high pressure tries to equalize low pressure, the high pressure from above the car "pushes" down on the car so it can get to the low pressure stuff under the car.
They don't defy the laws of physics at all. The very opposite in fact. They utilize the laws of physics very efficiently and to great effect. You don't mean G sensory input, you mean G-forces. But in fact, you don't have much G-forces in a car. A car has to deal with the same gravity as you, me and even aeroplanes. Forces a driver encounters are large due to the acceleration and deceleration. When a car brakes, for example, the driver will basically maintain the same momentum, which would propel him forwards out of the car (except that the driver is strapped in). Acceleration just gives a huge push in the back. Cornering however, is where you really encounter huge forces. While the body is strapped in, the head basically flops about.
Cars before the groundeffect rules were faster. It's just that those cars had such sensitivity to clean air flow (to produce the downforce) that whenever they got close to each other, the disrupted airflow broke the clean air flow and thus made cars lose downforce and speed. And if you lose speed when you get close to your opponent in front of you, that makes it really hard to battle them and to overtake them. (And then watch 2021 again and see Max' supremacy as he keeps finding lines that differ from his opponents and keeps him in the attacking game.)
@@FrancisFjordCupola I should have written - To the driver ground effect cars appear to defy the laws of physics....
The fact that F1 cars are now fundamentally different to other categories in how they are generating downforce has got to be another factor to throw into the mix. U vs V is all well and good but even drivers who are in their preferred mode are struggling indicating that perhaps engineering and physical aspects such as car rigidity is something that they are not finding it easy to get accustomed to, the inability to feel the car and connection to the track
I love 'driver-style' videos. More 'driver-style' videos 🙏
I wonder if Lance and Daddy Strollbucks have those naughty-kid conversations around the dinner table… “if you don’t finish in the points tomorrow, I’m going to give all your toys away to other GOOD little boys, who DESERVE them”…
I for one love that we have cars that demand more driver skill and range to get the most out of.
I reckon Max's (and his peers) sim racing experience has gotten him used to driving with less sensory information ie feeling the car move beneath you. This has let the team be more aggressive with the anti-dive/squat suspension to make the platform more stable which would normally would compromise a driver's feel, but Max is able to overcome that by relying a bit more on the other information like the steering, sound, feedback from the tyres, etc.
Meanwhile Checo isn't glued to IRacing every other waking moment and is having to make set-up compromises as a result, as well as deal with an inherently more oversteery car than most would be happy with.
9:22 is a graph that's very telling. At one end the small difference teams have drivers that're very matched in skill. McLaren, Mercedes, etc. and we know it. Look towards the other end, you see teams with a very good driver and a weaker. RB, AM, AlfaRomeo...
Ground effect cars take, well...the absolute confidence it's gonna stick, the skill and the balls to brake not later but less....
Bonkers!!!
2026 regulations should bring back fan car, with bigger battery should be enough to power the fan!
The best solution to the ride height issues is to bring back active suspension. This technology can be much more advanced than it was back in the day and probably stands a better benefit to advancing consumer car engineering than the hybrid engines have.
The truth is Fernando isn't the most adaptable driver because 2021 and 2022 Ocon a mid driver could easily match and beat him.
I think Alonso was a better driver than Ocon in both years. not as much as 30-year-old Alonso would have beaten him, but still a lot of good and constant performances in a very strange team.
I don't know a driver on the f1 grid who can adapt to the car better than Alonso.
Keep dreaming. Ocon didn't beat Alonso, he scored more points because he had less mechanical issues.
@@erikahuxley well than why on mean pace both year he was 0.056s faster?
I wonder if it would be beneficial to bring back active suspension to F1 to solve the ride height issues.
It would become too easy no need to setup cause it will automatically adjust for you as per GPS tracking position on each corners. Then might as well make an AI to drive the car
@@valconir1619AI racing is in its infancy. It’s just not able to produce consistent results IRL yet.
I’m very curious how they have only counted alonso and max as good flexible consistent drivers and left out Hamilton
Hamilton is consistent, but not as flexible as Alonso and Max. While his teammate, Russell, is the exact opposite of Hamilton
That ending was savage 😂
u have to start linking this background music, banger alert
What makes all the more interesting is when you consider NO driver on the grid had previous experience to driving Ground effect cars prior to 2022 so it really was down to the teams to learn. Unfortunately for the field, Only Red Bull had THE guy who knew about this phenomenon so its hardly a surprise they ended up hitting the ground running.
should we allow more rigorous on track testing for new gen cars? I feel like all the teams could have benefitted from more testing and development on the '22 cars and that has sort of carried over. It almost seemed like the teams had very little understanding of their cars at times. only allow the extra testing when a new generation of cars are due for the next season
Maybe in the future when a new concept is introduced, more testing should be allowed in that first season then drastically reduced as the seasons come by. At least the teams can understand the car more
@@EthanRom i kind of wish testing was more than it is at the moment in general. for drivers like sargeant and de vries (and even zhou last year), the lack of testing hurts their ability to show how good they really are. coupled with the fact f1 has bought into the idea of sprint races, it gives the drivers even less time to adjust to the car over the weekends before absolutely pushing to the limit. i feel like more testing is especially important for teams, but also for the newer drivers to gel with the car. i worry for the future talents who probably won't get the chance to showcase themselves fully because of this, especially with how cut-throat f1 can be. at least the f2 car is being designed in a similar manner to f1 now though, so it should make that f2-f1 transition a lot easier for some
weird how you did a video about this a few days after Driver61
It requires a different suspension geometry that naturally controls body roll & dive with acceleration and braking, but that’s just the first step. The second is to maximise the underfloor taking advantage of lateral expansions that don’t connect to ride-height and using the underneath of the beam wing to extend the diffuser. Then work on maximising front airflow …. This process goes on for a dozen steps to make a fast Ground Effect car. Its Mercedes who followed the simple 1980s, make it stiffer & closer to the ground model that has failed and hurt its drivers. We’ve seen four teams now (in)consistently out perform them over the last two years, that’s about half the field. You’ve not done it right Merc, getting the FIA to change the rules didn’t work either.
Mercedes unintentionally made the already dominant redbull become even more dominant
In the 20 teens MV and FA didn’t win much so did they struggle or were their cars not up to scratch when compared to the merc for the most part? They were still great drivers! I fail to understand your point. MV and FA we’re hugely frustrated making FA had to take a ‘sabbatical’ in the hybrid era. It more so seem you are trying to slight LH in this vid by your sidelining or omission IMO
yeah the merc is like seconds ahead
@@woodenhoelike the redbull is now?
@@therealjimshady100 and 2011/2013
@@therealjimshady100 even more so at times. In 2014, 15, 16 and to a lesser degree in 2020, the Mercedes could qualify 0.5s ~ 1.5s faster than the next fastest car with ease, as well as having a similar margin in race pace.
Back then the cars were also a lot further apart in term of performance difference between the fastest and slowest car. Where nowadays being 0.5 s off from Pole in Q2 may cause you to miss Q3 “hi, Checo!” back in 2016 that still made P4/P5 a safe bet at worst. Often the difference between P1 and P2 could be 0.5s “Hi Bottas!”, with P3 being a few tenths further off.
The difference between the best and worst car is now more or less 1.8 s. Back then it could be more than double that margin.
@@tver so you're saying that maxs car hasn't been pretty much a second a lap ahead of his competitors for most of the season? 😂
I want Alonso and Max at Red Bull and let's see who wins the Drivers title. What a battle that would be!!
if there's a 3rd car, I would like to see Max, Alo, Ham in the same team, that way it would shut one camp of fans
@valconir1619 well we did already see one of those combinations happen. I'm an Alonso superfan and a bit of a Hamilton denier but even I can't deny that phenomenal 2007 season
@jamesrichards2980 could have been even better. One of Alonsos weakest seasons and Hamilton was a rooki
to solve a lot of this they couldve just allowed teams to keep with their dampers and fluid reservoirs from 2021 and before. now that teams are under the cost cap its time to allow them to come back
this exposed thing it's funny to me cause in 4chan in the F1 subthread every grand prix there's always comments of EXPOSED like with Perez. Fernando, Hamilton, etc
Especially a Canadian with Fernando who has a list of his faults
I think the fia messed up not atleast THINKING about making the skid plate rules less strict when it comes to wear. I feel like merc and Ferrari would’ve actually had a chance against redbull if the could’ve worn the plank to get the performance they wanted. Yea redbull could’ve to but I think it was obvious to see that especially Ferrari wanted to be more “crude” for lack of a better word and “beat the car up” for performance. If redbull would’ve been forced into the same camp I feel it would’ve changed things.
I think your reply is a bit messed up. The plank is there to keep taps on enough of a ride height. Senna and Ratzenberger died and the same could happen to modern drivers if stuff broke off. That's the good thing; now air is used to create air pockets. No parts that can break off and turn a machine into an unguided projectile.
Mercedes f***ed up with their porpoising abilities and got rescued by the FIA. There was no need for that. The FIA should have stood their ground and just told them to go design a better car. Ferrari had their chances in 2022 but they had their issues with reliability, both mechanical and biological. Leclerc had plenty of screw-ups and wasted opportunities. Like thinking he could do a free pit stop, grab a fastest lap away from Verstappen, only to crash his car. Not to mention Ferrari strategy: plan A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I? Ultimately Ferrari also made wrong choices in their development direction.
The FIA has done well over the years. Except at the start of the hybrid era when they basically gave Mercedes all the rules they lobbied for, with them having an engine they had to actively tune down to make it appear as if F1 were a competition. That Mercedes era was a huge failure. Ground effect rules? Not so much.
@@FrancisFjordCupola i knew a comment like yours that didn’t understand the intent of my statement was gonna happen. We all know WHY the plank exist. IMO I think it’s an OVERSIGHT using the same exact plank design as the previous generation on a ground effect car. I feel as though there is a better solution that’s just as safe and can bring the setup window of the cars to a wider range
Asking for Le Mans content but the WEC (World Exposure Championship) being covered will suffice
At end of season every driver except for Max and Checo, of course, should try and drive the RB19 to have a feel of driving a championship car give them confidence they will never get when they drive their own team car again.😅.
I'm pretty sure that most will struggle like Checo. The way the RB19 is set up only allows real racers to make it a supersonic rocket ship. If a mediocre driver like Checo can't handle it, it's gonna work against you. That is what's happening to Checo right now. It is also a setup that is proven to be the fastest IF you can handle it properly. And THAT is exactly the point. (Not so) surprisingly that most legends preferred the same kind of setup.
I guess so
Explaining why LeClerc and Hamilton failed scrutineering searching for race pace, I'd love to know how many others would have failed as they only checked top 4 (which is normal, it's presumed you won't risk it because you could get checked but seems some drivers needed to risk it at the bumpy track with little practice)
Bwoah, Kimi should have stuck around.
This is not a bad thing at all, it's a very good thing. F1 cars need to be hard to drive and drivers that aren't good enough should be exposed.
I’m not sure about alonso adapting well as others have pointed out he’s not having such a good time at the moment. Apart from verstappen they’re all struggling
Alonso has greatly adapted to the Aston Martin. In the meantime, Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari have all had multiple updates and upgrades. A driver can adapt to their car. They cannot adapt to someone else's updates. Besides that, there's always that one track where a package can simply fail to execute properly. Singapore, cough cough.
this is literally driver61's latest video
Both Ferrari drivers find the car bad: they are bad and struggle! Wtf is this video.
Max has only ever driven a RB, would be interesting to see how he does outside of an RB
Hey, how come you changed the thumbnail?
They brought back ground effect after 40 years so why not bring back active suspension ?
Kudos to McLaren, went from the back of the field to front runners in a short amount of time.
All cars show struggling drivers. 😅
Active suspension. Why not?
LN, GR, and LH should be included with MV and FA.
You were saying?
*Daniel Ricciardo gets P4 in quali in that godforsaken AlphaTauri*
Rather than concentrating on how the drivers try to adapt to a particular car design, maybe a look at how the aerodynamicists and engineers adapt the car around the drivers.
So Verstappen really is that good huh
Who would've known, the guy who's making world records for 3 years is that good
To say checos reputation to be on the grid is completely tarnished is just absolutely silly.. he’s still very good and completely deserves a spot on the grid
Newey is the reason for the season, we judge people for who they are and their abilities.
i dont think because this new generation f1 car for some driver too hard to adapted , simply some drivers just cant consistently on highest level in whole season , it happened on every f1 season , not really because this new generation ground effect , in some way im just talking exactly same thing like this video said , just not about new generation ground effect , and drivers learn from experience, they grown be a better driver , some might goes othe way around , no matter what type of f1 car, good driver always find a way to go fast , im not in f1 journalists , surly they in f1 circle , knew lot of thing about f1 , of course no one 100% sure why , maybe just combination of things . sorry for my poor english.
Alonso’s masterclass of driving 🔥🔥🔥
Would any f1 team run wheel brows if they didnt have to?
No. They are mandatory and help smooth the airflow and reduce outwash. The latter is exactly what teams look for to improve the performance of their car, but negatively affects a car’s ability to be followed closely by a similar outwash dependent car. If you don’t go for similar outwash flow structures, you’ll leave a lot of laptime on the board.
If you want to further limit the quest for outwash by designers, the wheels need to be completely shrowded, turning F1 into a non-open wheel series.
Does that mean, it feels better than in previous years to become a better driver in F1?😅
The glazing of Alonso and Verstappen over Hamilton by this narration is insane
if a driver can't give max performance out of the car everytime while their teammates can they're just not good enough for f1. perez and daniel is a good example.
People who think that RedBull developed the car for Max driving style are not true F1 fans or might have short term memories. Vettel won 4 titles with RedBull but had to leave RedBull when Daniel started driving the car faster than him. Marko simply mentioned that he has to learn to adapt to the new car design and the car will not be developed for his style.
Ferrari used to be like that.
That is what old school racing is all about. You need to find the right driver who can milk every millisecond from the car. not pay drivers or drivers who always prioritizes their ego over their team interests.
The ground effect cars just extremely exaggerate the existing problems for most teams honestly. The cars have the same issues while also being MUCH more sensitive to adjustments that are inherent to… well… PHYSICS lmfao. There’s only so much the teams can do, it’s very much on the drivers to learn how to drive a car that doesn’t tell them everything if they want that raw speed. This is why the simulator is useful despite what Hamilton says lol. Adaptability is required when you practice on the sim, and it shows when your adaptability is limited in this gen of car.
Max and Alanso are adaptable, didn't Max struggle when RB rear biased last year, isn't Alanso struggling as we speak. Every driver has driving style that is always favourable. Max struggles to Perez when it's rear biased. Nobody is talking about the current F1 line has the most competitive drivers ever in the sport. 17/20 drivers in the grind can win if given a good car.
Alonso openly complains about the car specially after the introduction of updates,
but during weekends he would generally adapt and deliver expected results.
That's the same for Max. We would see him complain during practices and even during qualis but still dominated during races.
The only time they both struggled was during Singapore.
Aloso is falling in the points largely because of AM are being outdeveloped by their near peer competitors.
BS! The way the RB19 is set up only allows real racers to make it a supersonic rocket ship. If a mediocre driver (like Checo) can't handle it, it's gonna work against him. That is what's happening to Checo right now. It is also a setup that is proven to be the fastest IF you CAN handle it (Like Max). And THAT is exactly the point. (Not so) surprisingly that most legends preferred the same kind of setup.
I doubt that has anything to do with it. These cars are way more understeering than the older generation, and rely way more on great exit traction in slow corners to extract laptime.
Yet, Perez isn’t thriving. At all.
Between Baku and Miami, RBR didn’t bring any updates. Yet Max’s performance skyrocketed after he said he used Baku’s race as a testing session.
Perez’s performance is constant. Peaking at race 1-4 and simply flatlining with the pack catching up a bit through updates. And overtaking him in one lap pace.
The difference is that Verstappen "struggling" was at worst going even with and still frequently 2-3 tenths faster than Pérez, and if you want to get technical, then _every_ car on the grid is now less pointy than what Verstappen was used to driving before 2022. Even the "pointy" design of the 2023 Red Bull is visibly far more understeery than most of the 2021 grid, because that's how these new cars are.
With any art; be it sports or otherwise, "style" is a series of difficult to break habits that can just as easily hold you back as they can help you. To thrive at a higher level you have to be able to throw that style out and remake yourself.
alonso as an adaptable driver? absolutely
verstappen though? i'm not sold on that idea
i would put Piastri above verstappen in terms of adaptability
I just despise these cars, they look so slow and clunky. I never feel like I did back in 2021 where max and Lewis were just throwing into a corner and the car just stuck. Even Max doesn't seem like he's able to throw the car into the corners, Max is just overcompensating for the issue. The big tyres are also awful looking.
It might be time to put robots into those "cars".
Bring back active suspension
I think the fans don’t realize how difficult it is to actually drive one of these cars fast. We see Max getting the pole almost every race. Perez is still a great driver but he’s not at the level of Max. He never was and he’s just losing ground to him now. I’m sure I could make it around one of these courses in an F1 car but I would be way off their pace. If I could make it a whole lap without spinning out I’d be happy. These guys are always at the ragged edge of control. Push the car as hard as you can but don’t lose control. Some are just better than others even among the elite.
Rather than forcing ground effect cars they should leave it as an option for the teams to implement.
The teams that dont implement it wont have nearly enough downforce
They can create downforce in other ways@@jacob2808
wasn't it better to describe the driving stile with understeer and oversteer instead of u shaped corner and v shape
It's the other way around, the drivers expose struggling cars.
Nope, BS. The way the RB19 is set up only allows real racers to make it a supersonic rocket ship. If a mediocre driver (like Checo) can't handle it, it's gonna work against him. That is what's happening to Checo right now. It is also a setup that is proven to be the fastest IF you CAN handle it (Like Max). And THAT is exactly the point. (Not so) surprisingly that most legends preferred the same kind of setup.
Ground effect with active suspension.
Hmmmmm 🤔
Verstappen is the most adaptable driver on the grid, rain, track conditions, track layout, it doesnt matter, Max will extract the peak performance everytime no matter what is thrown at him. Its no coincidence that hes near the front of the grid in every session for about 3-5 seasons now.
No F1 car is perfect.
Mercedes W11, RedBull RB6, Ferrari F2004, Williams FW14B: are we a joke to you?