Mechanical Sympathy...

[shiny side up!]

Yet another Honda grenade left Tabooma sidelined in Canada... again bringing up the question of whether or not a driver can be responsible for the life of the engine with all of today's electronic controls.

Interestingly, all year long the BAR team and Honda have said that it was just luck of the draw, and there was no reason to blame Sato for his seemingly horrible luck, but after Canada there was this quote from Jenson:

"There has been a difference in our driving style which could have caused some of the problems, I know he was trying to change that but I'm not sure if he managed that in the race here."

( link: http://www.planet-f1.com/news/story_16045.shtml )

I think that anyone who has raced any motorized vehicle knows that there are many things you can do to hurt your equipment, whether it's tires, suspension, brakes, transmission, engine... and I don't think you can ever completely eliminate that with electronic controls. On the engine front, at 19,000rpm, there is enough inertia in the rotating assembly to easily have spikes above the rev limiter, especially in the midst of lurid spins like Taku had in qualifying and the race.

Anyway, it's been discussed before, but where to people weigh in on the driver input vs. engine reliability issue?

[climb]

After so many demonstrations, with Jenson concluding trouble free races, and Takuma breaking engines, its undisputable that the drivers' stile has an impact.

[climb]

... Above all considering that any conspiracy hints have no room at Bar, since Taku is a bloke from Honda.

[garcon]

Martin and james were discussing this during the race. As Martin said, with the semi-auto gear box and limiters, it's impossible to actually over-rev the engine, but there must be some differences in driver style that have an effect on engine durability.

The other point - purely speculative it should be stressed - was whether BAR may be putting development components in Sato's car...

[shiny side up!]

Oh yes, good point climb, I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not expect not desire to see any suggestions of conspiracy in this thread! I'm not trying to rip Honda or Sato here, they are just serving as an example...

Besides, why blow up Sato when he is behind Button??



As for developmental parts in Sato's car, why would they do that? They are running tests weekly, why risk any unproven parts in a GP and chance a giant plume of smoke eminating from your car? Not exactly the brand-association the marketing department is looking for. However, I guess it could be a possibility...

:confused:

[Kicking-back]

Jenson hints it's down to driving style...

Well, given Sato has had lots of blow-ups and he hasn't, he would say that, wouldn't he!

[Inigo Montoya]

Originally posted by climb
... Above all considering that any conspiracy hints have no room at Bar, since Taku is a bloke from Honda.

What does the "B" in BAR stand for again?

[Glen]

Driving "in" the Traction Control all the time has got to do something detrimental - all that extra vibration, and hot cylinders having ignition cut and then reinstated... it makes sense to me to suggest that a driver that is more gentle and sensitive and doesn't slam the throttle down would be kinder on the car. Plus there is the boost button which shouldn't be over-used. Then there are gearbox, differential and engine-braking settings which must have some influence. And the way in which you use brake and gas at the same time.

All-in-all I reckon there is plenty of potential for harming the car, esp. if the car is marginal in the first place.

DC has had a bit more luck than Kimi this year - DC is a renowned smooth driver, second only to Jenson, whereas Kimi has publicly said that he won't make allowances for the car and the best he can do is pedal it as fast as he can and see what happens.

[Kicking-back]

The mechanical problems DC has had this season have not been so radically different to those of KR.

That suggests that the suggestion there's a big contrast in driving styles there is exaggerated.

Furthermore, Kimi only had one mechanical failure in the whole of last season - doesn't sound tough on machinery to me.

[Glen]

They have a similar number of engine failures because the failure rate is virtually 100%! What I was referring to was that Kimi's has usually gone first.

I believe there is a big difference between their driving styles, and it seems widely acknowledged that DC is virtually the smoothest driver out there (together with JB).

Also, my interpretation of Kimi's attitude comes directly from what he himself said. He is entirely correct to expect the team to build a car that can be raced without blowing up though, by the way, I am just using the McLaren example to illustrate the point.

[shiny side up!]

This has nothing really to do with this thread ( ), but something interesting I noted in the telecast yesterday... watching DC's pitstop from behind, when they drop the jacks and the car is sitting stationary waiting on the fueling to be complete, the engine raises off idle to a launch speed... and you can see the exhaust start to glow cherry red for the few seconds that it is at that higher rpm. Just thought that was cool!

[Peter Mallett]

You may not be able to over rev on upshifts but I'd assume you can on the down shift. These are semi automatic gearboxes which means that you could conceivably down shift from sixth to fifth whilst the rear wheels were turning at sixth gear speed. Thus when the gears engage the engine can over stress itself.

Some drivers like to use engine braking because it enduces an amount of oversteer and alows later turn in. If that is what Takuma is doing I'd suggest it would have a bearing. (If you'll pardon the pun).

FYI, this is the same concept as having a rev limiter on a race car. It only works whilst going up through the gears and not when the engine is in overrun mode.

[neil_davidson2]

I think that Taku is without doubt harder on his car than JB, and it's probably a cumulative effect. The more he slides, spins etc and boots the engine to get it pointing back in the right direction (or as Peter suggests uses it for steering) then the more stress he's putting on the components. You could probably get away with this back in the old days (last year seems so long ago) but a single engine for the weekend is going to suffer exactly this sort of failure.

[Peter Mallett]

Another point.

Last year when BAR and Honda were testing they found Jenson much more able to adapt to a new engine than JV (not a comment about JV BTW). I mention it only because it was worthy of remark at that time.

[neil_davidson2]

Casting the memory back didn't Jenson suffer from a higher number of failures than Ralf in the year they were in the Williams together? I seem to remember at least some of that being put down to JB using the engine for braking/steering so perhaps mechanical sympathy is something he's learned or adapted to in the intervening years.

[Peter Mallett]

good point.

[Jordi]

Surely it can't all be down to mechanical sympathy from the driver. A failure can happen for many things. It's like in 2002 when Barrichello didn't start at three or four races, why did that happen?

Besides, this is F1. These are supposedly the best cars on earth, they should be able to withstand whatever it takes. It's like that story with Gilles and the Ferrari driveshafts, if I recall correctly. Intially he was breaking many of them 'cos he was hard on the car, but at the end Ferrari had the best driveshafts in F1 because they worked at Gilles' level...

[Kicking-back]

The team needs to build the car strong enough for the driver.

If Sato was in a 2004 Ferrari, it wouldn't be blowing up all the time.

[Gt_R]

There's this huge uproar when Ralf said JPM didn't take care of machinery and caused his own retirement(remember the "saving my engine" quote), while Head insisted drivers can't cause mechanical failures? It's a huge debate here.

I don't know much (sigh..should have taken up Mechanical Engineering in University ), but i do think that electronics don't cover everything and it is possible that some aspects of the car's reliabilty could be affected by drivers. For example, TC doesn't mean that all cars usign same tires/brakes would have the same tire/brake-wear if a driver is more aggressive than the other.And i think it extends to the various components to certain extents.

[marvander]

I think its a combination of the two: driver style and mech. failure. Sometimes one, other times the other and other times a combination of driver style and some random mechanical fault.

[Peter Mallett]

The Telegraph is reporting today that DR thinks there may well be a link to the driver and the reliability issue.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/mai...5/ixsport.html

"There has to be a common denominator in the fact that Taku has had five engines blow and Jenson [Button] none. Statistics don't lie. The engines and cars are identical," Richards said.

Sato is a work in progress, a project Richards is determined to get right. "It is easier to slow a quick driver than to speed up a slow one," he said. "We have to temper Taku's enthusiasm a bit, lower expectations a little."

[fog_shadow]

i'd rather eat maggots than trust the words coming out of DR's face hole.

fog_shadow

[Peter Mallett]

You want chips with those?

[Mattracer]

EWWW!!!!!!

[Revracing]

F1 engines I would think are extremely balance sensitive, meaning that to get all that power all the rotating components and combustion forces are as near to perfect balance as possible for the current level of understanding and technical ability. That being the case, would it not follow that a more aggressive driver that naturally tends to push the car past it's limits (ie fight the on board computer) would encounter Traction Control more often, which in turn would upset the stress balance in the engine and could lead to more blow ups.

Your thoughts...