Grand Prix Rejects

CarlosFerreira wrote:

RejectSteve wrote:

mario wrote:perhaps Wirth was a little overconfident in his abilities following the success of the Acura's in the American Le Mans series, where all of the Acura entries have been designed with CFD?

I don't know if the ARX-01 cars were CFD'ed but they were built upon Courage LC75 monocoques but the ARX-02a LMP1 car was an entirely CFD design. However, while it was a successful car in its class, it didn't actually have any competiton so how good it was has to be questioned. Wirth is keen on his CFD, but didn't Sauber use it too? What Sauber did, however, was use the wind tunnel to confirm what the computer said. Wirth seems so overconfident, as you say, that CFD is as good as anything that he refuses to use a tunnel to refine his design.

Is Wirth worth it?

Mind you, the smallish fuel capacity seems to have nothing to do with the CFD. As far as I can tell, the fact that just using computers has produced a car that is roughly in the same ball park as a Lotus and an HRT and not far away of the leaders' raw pace pretty much confirms the process is worth it. If we were suddenly to find out the Virgin suffers buffeting at speed or something like that, than we could all criticize the CFD.

Mind you, I am a bit of an anorak for these things and I am mightily with the idea that car works without ever seeing the inside of a wind tunnel.

I didn't want to imply that CFD was at fault (although, having studied a course on fluid dynamics, I do harbour a slight reservation of CFD when used in areas such as highly turbulent flows, or dealing with unusual geometries and flow conditions, due to the limitations of CFD models). And from the onboard footage of Glock during the Bahrein free practise sessions, the car does seem to be unstable at the rear, particularly through fast corners and under braking (they were really struggling in the old Turn 12 (or Turn 18, as it now is) although whether that is down to weight transfer issues or aero problems, I cannot say).

What I was trying to imply was that Wirth was probably over confident in his abilities as a designer, following his success in ALMS, and decided to push for a more radical design, when he should have held back a little. After all, this is the first time that he has tried to produce an open wheeled car. The comments about CFD were meant to be more about the fact that he could well have prioritised the aerodynamic design, and thought about the packaging and mechanical components afterwards - the fact that they are having problems with picking up all of their fuel seems to indicate that they might have neglected some mechanical issues.

mario wrote:What I was trying to imply was that Wirth was probably over confident in his abilities as a designer, following his success in ALMS, and decided to push for a more radical design, when he should have held back a little. After all, this is the first time that he has tried to produce an open wheeled car. The comments about CFD were meant to be more about the fact that he could well have prioritised the aerodynamic design, and thought about the packaging and mechanical components afterwards - the fact that they are having problems with picking up all of their fuel seems to indicate that they might have neglected some mechanical issues.

Oh yeah, absolutely subscribe to that. The point made about the Acura being based on an existing chassis (which I ignored) is a good, fair one; they didn't need to worry too much about the oily bits in the ALMS car, but they needed to in the Virgin. Yup, it shows - and Mike Gascoygne is probably laughing his head off all the way to the finishing line, these days.

Virgin F1's plans to introduce a car with a fuel tank big enough to finish races in time for the next grand prix may be scuppered by the current volcanic ash air crisis.

The team was forced to seek FIA clearance to introduce a new chassis earlier this year, after discovering that it had designed the car with a tank that was too small to finish races.

However, the Virgin race cars and personnel are currently stranded in Shaghai, meaning work has been delayed.

The Spanish Grand Prix is on 2 May.

from: http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArtic ... rs/248992/

If they repeat the dismay showing from China (none of the cars started, Glock's car was on the grid with the front wheels in the air when everyone else set off for the warm up lap), not terribly sure the delay in the fuel tank upgrade is any necessary.

CarlosFerreira wrote:If they repeat the dismay showing from China (none of the cars started, Glock's car was on the grid with the front wheels in the air when everyone else set off for the warm up lap), not terribly sure the delay in the fuel tank upgrade is any necessary.

Reminds me of the time when one of the BMW-Williams was left up on the jacks (although in that case it was the rear jack) after a restart - I can only guess that they made the same mistake, which was panicking when realising that they had to clear the grid, and forgot the jack. At least there was hardly anybody behind Glock, so it wasn't that likely that somebody would run into the back of him, but it was quite rejectful nevertheless - with the DNF only adding to it.
Still, their current finishing record is no worse then Sauber at the minute, but with HRT beginning to close up and the big update Lotus have planned for Barcelona, they need to improve rapidly. At least on the bright side, it looks as if FOM has managed to get the teams equipment from China to Spain after a few delays - they are expected to arrive later today. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/83099

mario wrote:

CarlosFerreira wrote:If they repeat the dismay showing from China (none of the cars started, Glock's car was on the grid with the front wheels in the air when everyone else set off for the warm up lap), not terribly sure the delay in the fuel tank upgrade is any necessary.

Reminds me of the time when one of the BMW-Williams was left up on the jacks (although in that case it was the rear jack) after a restart - I can only guess that they made the same mistake, which was panicking when realising that they had to clear the grid, and forgot the jack. At least there was hardly anybody behind Glock, so it wasn't that likely that somebody would run into the back of him, but it was quite rejectful nevertheless - with the DNF only adding to it.

It's come to this, then - comparing Virgin to Williams.

On a more serious note, it's a bad sign that Virgin were the first new team with a car out, but have not capitalised on the advantage of that fact, and may find themselves playing catch-up to Lotus and HRT quickly. The Simtek stigma is looming large.

CarlosFerreira wrote:On a more serious note, it's a bad sign that Virgin were the first new team with a car out, but have not capitalised on the advantage of that fact, and may find themselves playing catch-up to Lotus and HRT quickly. The Simtek stigma is looming large.

Well, I hope neither Glock nor di Grassi will be killed. The Virgin seems the fastest of the noobs (sorry, newbies), at least with Glock. They now need to focus on reliability.

Phoenix wrote:

CarlosFerreira wrote:On a more serious note, it's a bad sign that Virgin were the first new team with a car out, but have not capitalised on the advantage of that fact, and may find themselves playing catch-up to Lotus and HRT quickly. The Simtek stigma is looming large.

Well, I hope neither Glock nor di Grassi will be killed. The Virgin seems the fastest of the noobs (sorry, newbies), at least with Glock. They now need to focus on reliability.

I'd rather try and make reliable fast than make fast reliable.

thehemogoblin wrote:

Phoenix wrote:Well, I hope neither Glock nor di Grassi will be killed. The Virgin seems the fastest of the noobs (sorry, newbies), at least with Glock. They now need to focus on reliability.

I'd rather try and make reliable fast than make fast reliable.

I know what you mean, but the car is arguably the fastest of the 3 new teams already. So, the next logical step is work on the reliability, because the car is proving to be problematic in this regard.

Phoenix wrote:

thehemogoblin wrote:

Phoenix wrote:Well, I hope neither Glock nor di Grassi will be killed. The Virgin seems the fastest of the noobs (sorry, newbies), at least with Glock. They now need to focus on reliability.

I'd rather try and make reliable fast than make fast reliable.

I know what you mean, but the car is arguably the fastest of the 3 new teams already. So, the next logical step is work on the reliability, because the car is proving to be problematic in this regard.

I was just making a general observation. I'm basically saying the prospects of Virgin are far worse than either Hispania or Lotus.

thehemogoblin wrote:I was just making a general observation. I'm basically saying the prospects of Virgin are far worse than either Hispania or Lotus.

Are Virgin prospects worse than Hispania's? I think that, apart from the strapped budget, they can improve a lot.

Phoenix wrote:

thehemogoblin wrote:I was just making a general observation. I'm basically saying the prospects of Virgin are far worse than either Hispania or Lotus.

Are Virgin prospects worse than Hispania's? I think that, apart from the strapped budget, they can improve a lot.

There's something about Nick Wirth that just oozes 'consummate failure' to me.

thehemogoblin wrote:

Phoenix wrote:

thehemogoblin wrote:I was just making a general observation. I'm basically saying the prospects of Virgin are far worse than either Hispania or Lotus.

Are Virgin prospects worse than Hispania's? I think that, apart from the strapped budget, they can improve a lot.

There's something about Nick Wirth that just oozes 'consummate failure' to me.

Let's give him the benefit of doubt.

Phoenix wrote:

thehemogoblin wrote:

Phoenix wrote:Are Virgin prospects worse than Hispania's? I think that, apart from the strapped budget, they can improve a lot.

There's something about Nick Wirth that just oozes 'consummate failure' to me.

Let's give him the benefit of doubt.

Simtek was his benefit of the doubt.

thehemogoblin wrote:

Phoenix wrote:

thehemogoblin wrote:I was just making a general observation. I'm basically saying the prospects of Virgin are far worse than either Hispania or Lotus.

Are Virgin prospects worse than Hispania's? I think that, apart from the strapped budget, they can improve a lot.

There's something about Nick Wirth that just oozes 'consummate failure' to me.

I would disagree that HRT have better prospects then Virgin Racing. For a start, HRT only have a budget of ~£35 million - Virgin Racing has a marginally bigger budget (~£37-40 million), with Lotus said to be the best placed on ~£50 million.
Thanks to the breakdown of communications between HRT and Dallara, with Dallara effectively abandoning the project and, HRT are now having to reverse engineer the car in order to understand the car that Dallara built (with the accusation from Kolles that Dallara have refused to own over the designs to the car). As a result, HRT cannot bring updates when they are still trying to understand what the car is like at the moment - meanwhile, both Lotus and Virgin Racing are bringing big upgrades to Spain for the next GP. Whilst I don't think that the HRT car is that bad - in fact, given Dallara's experience with open wheeled cars, it should be reasonably competitive, and with fine tuning would probably be on par with the other new teams - the longer that the process of reverse engineering the car takes, the further ahead the other new teams can get as they bolt on their upgrades.
After all, Kolles is talking about updating the car in house - yet HRT has very little in terms of resources, with virtually no capacity to build things in house (they rely on sub contractors), and a very inexperienced design team (hardly anybody within HRT has experience of racing, let alone F1). Wirth might not have had much success in the past, but at least he has facilities he can build upon, and he has a team of people who have experience in running a major project.

Certainly, though, Lotus does seem to have the best prospects of the new teams - they have the most experienced work force, a strong leader, the biggest budget and probably the most resources. thehemogoblin has a point when saying that it is easier to make a reliable car faster then a faster car reliable - Virgin Racing might have a slight edge on one lap pace, but there is no point in having that when you're not finishing on Sunday.
It isn't inconceivable, with the points now going down to 10th place, that after the Barcelona upgrade (which Lotus reckon should get them to within striking distance of Sauber and the rest of the lower midfield), that in a chaotic race, or one with high attrition, they might just sneak a point before the season is out (possibly at Canada, where accidents are quite common, or if one of the street races has a sudden but intense shower) - unlikely, admittedly, but not implausible (attrition got them up to 13th place at Australia, after all).

In fact, I seriously doubt HRT will survive the season. Whether if the Dallara chassis is good or not, those declarations were very unfortunate, and indeed a knee-jerk reaction from a team that relies a lot on them to develop the car and has limited experience and resources.

Phoenix wrote:In fact, I seriously doubt HRT will survive the season. Whether if the Dallara chassis is good or not, those declarations were very unfortunate, and indeed a knee-jerk reaction from a team that relies a lot on them to develop the car and has limited experience and resources.

Colin Kolles has shown he can run teams on shoestring budgets though, which neither Fernandes nor Wirth have. We'll have to wait and see.

thehemogoblin wrote:

Phoenix wrote:In fact, I seriously doubt HRT will survive the season. Whether if the Dallara chassis is good or not, those declarations were very unfortunate, and indeed a knee-jerk reaction from a team that relies a lot on them to develop the car and has limited experience and resources.

Colin Kolles has shown he can run teams on shoestring budgets though, which neither Fernandes nor Wirth have. We'll have to wait and see.

The main reason I think they're screwed is because they've thrown stones into his own roof by criticising Dallara's work. They need them to develop the car, after all.

Looks like they only have one big fueltank for this one:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsp ... 658124.stm

Seeing as Glock's getting the big tank, what's the bet that his car dies after two laps whilst Di Grassi's continues to the end?

thehemogoblin wrote:

Phoenix wrote:

thehemogoblin wrote:There's something about Nick Wirth that just oozes 'consummate failure' to me.

Let's give him the benefit of doubt.

Simtek was his benefit of the doubt.

I never understand why people keep ragging on Nick Wirth for that, after all they were significantly better than the Pacifics, the other new team in 1994. And as an F1 chief designer, Wirth is only marginally less successful than Mike Gascoyne (actually significantly more successful if you take it on a per race basis) yet nobody talks about Gascoyne being a 'consummate failure'. In fact, at one point he was the most highly paid F1 engineer in the paddock.

Egging on Wirth for 94 is a tad unfair, the Simtek wasn't THAT Bad of a car, and Simtek had real trial by fire that season, first losing Roland at Imola and then having Montermini break his legs.

I wouldn't say they we're bad, just VERY unlucky.

DonTirri wrote:Egging on Wirth for 94 is a tad unfair, the Simtek wasn't THAT Bad of a car, and Simtek had real trial by fire that season, first losing Roland at Imola and then having Montermini break his legs.

I wouldn't say they we're bad, just VERY unlucky.

Not to mention the 95 car was not that bad, apart from the reliability. It did battle with Ferrari's. That's not something every backmarker can say.

DonTirri wrote:Egging on Wirth for 94 is a tad unfair, the Simtek wasn't THAT Bad of a car.

And, as Rejects go, it was a beautiful car.

Dom wrote:nobody talks about Gascoyne being a 'consummate failure'. In fact, at one point he was the most highly paid F1 engineer in the paddock.

He was/is like Toyota F1. Shedloads of dollars for hardly any results. Im not sure but didnt he tend to get fired the season before a successful one?

coops wrote:

DonTirri wrote:Egging on Wirth for 94 is a tad unfair, the Simtek wasn't THAT Bad of a car.

And, as Rejects go, it was a beautiful car.

Right. And F1's coolest team name ever.

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:

DonTirri wrote:Egging on Wirth for 94 is a tad unfair, the Simtek wasn't THAT Bad of a car, and Simtek had real trial by fire that season, first losing Roland at Imola and then having Montermini break his legs.

I wouldn't say they we're bad, just VERY unlucky.

Not to mention the 95 car was not that bad, apart from the reliability. It did battle with Ferrari's. That's not something every backmarker can say.

Délétraz battled with McLaren and Häkkinen in the European GP in 1995. Before doing what was he doing...

Phoenix wrote:Délétraz battled with McLaren and Häkkinen in the European GP in 1995. Before doing what was he doing...

I suspect that might be more indicative of how much of a dog the '95 McLaren was than the Délétraz/Simtek package being a good one.

Virgin made a silly amater error. The fuel tank needs to be over 180Litres for the distance at least! Its common sense.

HRT might not last however there cars have finished 5 out the 8 races (very slow though) and virgin....Once!
Sponsor of course wants results but also finishes. I could see virgin pulling out or moving to another team.

Dom wrote:

Phoenix wrote:Délétraz battled with McLaren and Häkkinen in the European GP in 1995. Before doing what was he doing...

I suspect that might be more indicative of how much of a dog the '95 McLaren was than the Délétraz/Simtek package being a good one.

Deletraz was driving a Pacific anyway...

DonTirri wrote:

Dom wrote:

Phoenix wrote:Délétraz battled with McLaren and Häkkinen in the European GP in 1995. Before doing what was he doing...

I suspect that might be more indicative of how much of a dog the '95 McLaren was than the Délétraz/Simtek package being a good one.

Deletraz was driving a Pacific anyway...

Deletraz was in F1 supposedly thanks to bags of money. That Simtek keeled over mid-season '95 instead of taking Deletraz (for nothing more than 1-3 extra races) says just how bad of a combination that could have been. Say what you want about Nick Wirth, but not even Deletraz was worth Wirth's time.