“Don’t put me under pressure” – The best unheard team radio from Melbourne

11 comments on ““Don’t put me under pressure” – The best unheard team radio from Melbourne”

1. 

   MichaelN
   29th March 2024, 13:07

   And be careful of front saturation turns 11 and 13.

   I know the ‘no driver coaching’ wasn’t that popular when it was briefly enforced, but these things do kind of detract from the myth of F1. I get why teams do this, but it does make it feel a bit like the drivers are puppets on the strings of a guy sat behind a laptop looking at tables of numbers. Not exactly heroic.

   On a different note, props to Haas for apparently having a solid working relation between their two drivers. That reads like a very smooth swap with a good eye for the team’s interest.
   1. 

      TylerS
      29th March 2024, 13:24

      I feel like the rule that drivers must ‘drive the car alone and unaided’ needs to be re-written to reflect the modern era of radio instructions coming from the team. In the past I imagine that was meant to quell any possible use of remote control from the teams making settings changes on the car without the driver having to do it (i.e. the team changing diff and brake balance settings for the driver at each corner), and wasn’t intended to pertain to radio messages telling the driver what settings to change. I personally don’t mind the teams telling the driver what settings to change on the fly. These cars aren’t stick-shifts with three buttons any more, and the drivers can’t reasonably be expected to handle the huge amount of info that’s capable of displaying on their wheel AND still drive the car competitively.

      So I’d be fine with the rule being re-written to say something more like ‘the driver must be responsible for making any changes to the car while driving’ as a way to allow the team to tell them what changes to make. To me, that’s still the driver driving the car alone and unaided. I don’t think ‘unaided’ needs to go back to the interpretation of ‘you can’t even tell the driver which switch is in the wrong position’, like with Hamilton at Baku. That will just lead to a dangerous situation with a driver being distracted trying to fix too many settings and being unable to fully focus on racing.
      1. 

         AlanD
         29th March 2024, 13:48

         Tyler, I take the opposite view, that these coaching messages from the pits are detracting from the racing. I felt it was right that Hamilton lost places in Baku because he had a switch in the wrong position. It was his fault, he was the driver, he lost the race as a result. I don’t buy into the idea that there is so much info and so many buttons to press that the driver cannot be expected to cope. Firstly, that is poor engineering and ergonomic design, and if all drivers were faced with this problem, teams coming up with better designs which didn’t overload the driver with useless info would gain an advantage. Secondly, the drivers who are better at learning how to drive their car, and better at assimilating data, better at working out for themselves where the tyre wear is occuring, where they could easily brake later, etc, would also gain an advantage.
      2. 

         MichaelN
         29th March 2024, 14:53

         These cars aren’t stick-shifts with three buttons any more, and the drivers can’t reasonably be expected to handle the huge amount of info that’s capable of displaying on their wheel AND still drive the car competitively.

         Just to highlight this: one probably also feeds into the other. If it’s possible and allowed to adjust a dozen or more different settings, and to off load the mental side of that to an external engineer, that will quickly become the optimal way to do the race. It’s totally fair that the teams do this, and it’s like Schumacher dialing in brake balance every corner taken a couple steps further. But other things that would improve performance are either not possible to change (like tyre pressure), possible but no longer allowed (like adjustable front wings), while others are possible and regulated (like adjustable rear wings).

         In an era where F1 struggles to insert some performance variables into the races, this seems like an easy thing target. The difference won’t be huge, but it’ll make the drivers a bit more important again. For good and bad. Teams would no doubt adjust the cars’ setup to be a bit more middle of the road, and – like AlanD notes – simplify their operation, so the drivers can still make changes to, for example, the deployment of the battery. It wouldn’t be a major change by any means, but there’s just something about an engineer telling an F1 driver to take it slightly easier to one specific corner – and doing so in the middle of the race – that feels a bit off.
   2. 

      Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
      2nd April 2024, 20:35

      The ban was unpopular for several reasons – one of which was that it was obvious that not only did the FIA not know the difference between driver coaching and less controversial uses of the radio, but neither did the teams. It also became obvious that attempting to run without radios would lead to lawsuits – and even a raft of exceptions wasn’t going to help if a problem that the FIA did not anticipate occurred.

      The only way to make it work for F1 would be to take out a lot of what enables F1 to happen at all.
2. 

   pcxmac (@pcxmac)
   29th March 2024, 21:00

   In Ferrari’s defense its been a long time since they had a 1-2 and it might be a long time hence forth till RBR have another fall from first place. That said, Ferrari if they do show sure genuine pace, where its feasible they will continue to fight for first, there will be less conservative racing between the two drivers.

   Getting the 1-2 was a very impressive milestone, but definitely not the last. Charles is gonna have to learn to race with a heavy race car, cause it looks like hes optimized for low fuel running, and if hes still losing out in pole position, then he probably didn’t have the pace.
3. 

   Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
   29th March 2024, 21:44

   Intrigued and amused by the Ferrari engineer’s last message (before he bursts into song.)
   What’s Carlos allowed and encouraged to drink? A secondary drinks bottle with Ferrari champagne – open in case of victory?
   “Pick up” is, I assume, collecting rubber, gravel and stuff on the tyres so the car’s not underweight – but wouldn’t draining the drinks bottle counteract that?
   1. 

      AlanD
      30th March 2024, 14:04

      Yes, you are right, pick up is about picking up whatever dense debris you can on the tyres to give an extra five kilos or so of weight on the tyres, to ensure they are not underweight. The driver is being told to drink as much as he can at that point becuse he has been in a flat position for best part of two hours, perspiring etc, and if he is dehydrated, when he stands up to get out of the car, there is a chance he will be light headed, so drinking all the remaining drink at that point helps counteract this. It might seem that this will reduce the weight of the car but apart from the fact that we are only talking about half a kilo of liquid, remember that the weight is going into the driver, and the driver plus helmet is also weighed at the end of the race, and that is added to the weight of the car. If I recall correctly, the driver is not allowed anything to drink after getting out of the car until he has been weighed, which is another reason to remind the to drink from the car bottle while he has the opportunity.
   2. 

      Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
      2nd April 2024, 20:37

      @bullfrog Drinking from the bottle would counteract that, but this is more than balanced by the benefit it gives the drivers in staying upright once the adrenaline’s worn off.
4. 

   AlexS
   1st April 2024, 22:41

   I think that is correct, the driver weight is part of “car legal weight” so fluid in the bottle or in the driver have the same result.
   1. 

      Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
      2nd April 2024, 20:38

      It does until the driver sweats it out, some of which will happen before the weighing.

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