The comparison is evident. The idea Honda developed the bike for Marquez specifically and this is the reason of their decline is betrayed by the fact the supposedly ‘well-handling’ M1 built for everybody, has also declined. It suggests that what we’re seeing is more a case of Ducati making gains in aero and handling.
You said Max has had control over the development of the car. his comments suggest he hasn’t had the kind of influence he would want.
Either way ,please show me the CFD… the aero structures… anything at all… that show specifically how the car design is geared towards Max. The whole ‘likes a pointy end’ thing isn’t enough.
Maybe, but had Marc been on the bike the last few years and won races on it, no doubt we’d see the same ‘built-for-marc’ comments and honda would be in the same boat regardless. This is why I talk of confirmation bias.
Spot on. He could show moments of brilliance, but he would also dump it quite regularly. The Repsol Honda was a bad bike that was being held afloat by a remarkable rider. It is is prone to washing the front unexpectedly and making it very difficult to ride.
I think we are giving entirely too much credit to the input of drivers/riders on vehicle development in the modern era.
There was a time when many drivers truly understood the mechanics of the vehicles and could provide useful and relatable insights to the engineers and mechanics. Today the driver drives and provides feedback of what he feels. The engineers and designers interpret said feedback and look at data from on board instrumentation and go off to develop adjustments that they think will improve the vehicle. The days of a driver/rider truly being involved in design are long past.
Those two sentences contradict each other at some point. The engineers either take into account driver feedback or they don’t, and if they do the driver is involved in the design. I don’t think even Fangio, Lauda, Senna or any other stars from the past were fabricating their own vehicles on days they weren’t driving - they were giving feedback the same as today.
From a personal accountability perspective I don’t understand this. I subscribe to the belief that if you’re the lead of something, in this case the lead driver/rider, as well as a member of a team (no “I” in team) you take responsibility for all results! (even to the point of - if something is genuinely ‘not your fault’ you still take responsibility, at least in public)
Just giving driver/riders a 100% pass on the ultimate result of what is build is crazy talk to me, and imho doesn’t reflect reality, but as the saying goes, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
I believe some of the disconnect here is the engineers are chasing outright theoretical peak performance and that doesn’t necessarily work in the real world as a few teams have found out in the last couple years. Having a wide operating window with a slightly lower peak performance is often better over a race versus a narrow window with blistering potential pace.
You can take accountability, but every time I read ‘designed for ’ it’s almost never followed up with actually how and why.
the aerodynamics of F1, and no MotoGP, are insanely complex. How exactly are the front wing, floor, diffuser and rear wing designed to benefit Verstappen?
I don’t understand the gap in understanding how the lead driver giving feedback will affect how all of those things are designed. It seems like a direct correlation, unless you’re asserting that the Red Bull engineers are just like, “Yeah, whatever Max” and go on the merry way making whatever they feel like that day??
Again, you have to present how a driver can influence these things. Max literally says he adapts to whatever he is given, that’s his ‘style’.
So, with that in mind, how does the design of all these elements, and how they react at different heights, speeds, angles and flex, take into consideration the driver’s style.
Say, for instance, that Max keeps giving feedback that the car understeers too much. Well, the engineers will seek things, via their comprehensive modeling systems that theoretically will help alleviate the problem. That is, all the heights, speeds, angles and are modeled together not apart from each other in order to find a cohesive working platform that addresses all the inputs which go into it, while trying to avoid any negative or unforeseen knock on effects.
So, yes after the input is given at the beginning it’s really all up to these models and their accuracy and ability to see the future, both in terms of seen and unseen issues. But the initial driver input was there, and it’s obviously not a trivial part of the process as it leads the rest.
Max may say that he ‘adapts’ to whatever he given, but if the other side of that statement is that what he is given is not at-least-an-attempt to address his very own feedback, I call BS. I can’t accept that is how Red Bull operates, and I can’t accept that Max (or his dad who always has something to say about everything) would abide it this long. If it’s really like that he needs to leave. If not, then he’s driving what he’s taken part in, even if the engineers good faith effort is currently falling short.
I think you’re just being argumentative and pedantic Alan, because you like being the contrarian. And to be very clear, I’m not mad at that! I enjoy debating with you on here and we are all friends and it doesn’t affect my opinion of you. But you DO debate back more than anyone else on this forum on many topics. And that’s totally fine. I still like you.
Max isn’t designing the car. He doesn’t need to know how aero vortices are shed down the floor. But if he says “the car has a weak front end at apex” it is up to the engineers to take that and convert that feedback into design elements to solve that issue he’s feeling. So if the best driver on the team is continually saying the car needs more front end, the engineers and designers will continue to hunt for performance in that direction. If the second driver is saying “the front end is fine” they aren’t going to be as willing to go in that direction. If you had two drivers in the team of Max’s caliber but were differing on their opinions of what the car needed, then you might see less talk of “Max leading car development” because both drivers would need to be satisfied with the car too. Since Ricciardo (not of Max’s caliber but obviously very good and probably the best they’ve had since) left, no driver has been close enough to Max to have meaningful feedback for the engineers to develop the car forward. This is a strength and weakness of Max. He is good enough to drive around issues and because of that, he leads the team in a direction that gets tougher and tougher for another driver to deal with.
That being said, I don’t think it’s such that the car is designed AROUND Max to start. All F1 teams are just trying to design the best car possible. Red Bull just happens to have one guy who is really f*cking good telling them which direction to go, and a less talented seat filler in the other car. Who are you going to listen to as an engineer? A 4-time World Champion or a guy who has less than a season in F1?
And it isn’t only aero that they are working with. Think of the literal thousands of other things like steering rate, geometry, weight distribution… All that could have massive differences in how the car feels. I mean, look at some of these other drivers who have had “feeling” issues with the car, and when resolved they start performing again. Last year Magnussen hated the brakes until they switched components near the end of the year, and all of a sudden he was back on form and found confidence again. Alonso has complained various times about the power steering feel on the Aston not giving him the feedback he needs to feel the car. There could be dozens of little things like that too that are subconsciously tuned to Max’s style and are affecting the other drivers in negative ways they don’t even realize.
I am not contrarian I think most so-called ‘rational’ or ‘logical’ thinking is wrong. OK, that would make me a contrarian but not out of a deliberate attempt to stoke debate.
I don’t think is really what’s happening though. max has been complaining about the car even back to 2023 in his dominant season. We can pick examples of teams with great development drivers going backwards too, it’s a lot of confirmation bias. Button liked a neutral car, which apparently is great for development, and he only won when the rules changed and the driver had zero input, for example.
the cars, or the systems that build them, are insanely complex and I don’t see how the design phase is influenced that much by driver feeling to the extent at which is posited. The team will have all the sensory data. They’ll know the aero map and balance shifts through corners.
We also have to factor in exploitation of the rules. I don’t see how getting wings to flex and all the other stuff we don’t hear about, but massively affects performances, comes into play. I think this really it the root of McLaren’s success atm.
What we see is that the ‘Max’s style’ is often that he likes a lot of front end and can handle it. The traditional thought is engineers want to dial front end in because that’s the fastest way to build a car from an aero standpoint. So in theory the RBR should be down the road… yet it isn’t.
Yuki is doing much better than expected. Sure, it’s free practice but he seems to have a good feel of the car, much better than Lawson did at least. Even if he doesn’t perform within 1-2 tenths of Max, as long as he gets the car in Q3 and picks up a few points it will be a successful weekend (and driver swap) for RBR.
So, my Haas hockey buddy says they have a trial floor pan change to try to address the porpoising they are getting in high-speed corners, and they also have some changes developed for Monaco. (Previous years they’ve not bothered to do one-off stuff for that race.)
Apparently the team principal is one of the few Japanese F1 uppers who don’t work for Honda. He has the expected work-ethic, and was in the gym late with my buddy – last 2 in the American facility, well after hours.
Will be interesting to see if those things pay off. While I’m a nominal fan of Haas as an American team, I’m more a fan of the sport generally, and it’s sad to see the state of affairs.
IMO, testing needs to be drastically opened up – allow each factory one non-championship HOME TRACK they can use for new driver development, parts testing, etc. at a much higher total hours than currently allowed. It would improve the whole sport, and I’m not convinced it would really cost much more. Sims are nice, but real world is nicer…
