Thread: Webber's Hydraulics

Originally Posted by wedge

Heel & toe is just a basic requirement of 'advanced driving' for better downshifts. They pretty much know that you have to match engine speed with the correct gears on downshifts. F1 drivers are given all sorts of cars to play with personally and for hospitality eg. VIP hot laps.

Anthony Davidson and Jenson Button have mentioned the Honda Civic Type R (EP) as their favourite road cars, and they've done their bit for Honda PR!



The ECU blips the throttle. As I just mentioned at the top of this thread, there was a radio transmission from DC on the warm up lap at Turkey when DC complained about the car not blipping the throttle properly on downshifts.

The question remains:
Is it possible to be using the paddles in some inappropriate manner or rythm that would sooner or later cause issues with some component such as with Webber or KR?

Or can one simply shift at random up and down and the electronics et al, will always work perfectly to avoid damage

I know that despite the great braking capacity, in the past it was possible to abuse brakes such as they would be damaged or the discs even explode---

Originally Posted by markabilly

The question remains:
Is it possible to be using the paddles in some inappropriate manner or rythm that would sooner or later cause issues with some component such as with Webber or KR?

Or can one simply shift at random up and down and the electronics et al, will always work perfectly to avoid damage

I know that despite the great braking capacity, in the past it was possible to abuse brakes such as they would be damaged or the discs even explode---

The right paddle is for upshifts, the left for downshifts. The electronics do all the work and the hydraulics is actual mechanism that changes gears.

Brakes aren't really good comparison because they're a mechanical device.

Originally Posted by wedge

The right paddle is for upshifts, the left for downshifts. The electronics do all the work and the hydraulics is actual mechanism that changes gears.

Brakes aren't really good comparison because they're a mechanical device.

Not trying to argue, but what i am curious is if doing the paddle thing at the wrong moment is something like forcing a gear shift. It took me awhile many years ago to realize that forcing the gearshift seldom damaged the gear per se, but could cause many issues elsewhere, including piston rods popping through the engine block.

So for those in the know, is there any thought that the generic term of hydralic failure is hiding some type of gearbox failure because the hydraulics, etc, just could not handle the wrong shift at the wrong time, or has the electronic sophistication reached a point, that one can do no damage no matter how or when they paddle?

Originally Posted by Fiero 5.7

Over the years, it seems that most of Webber's failures have been hydraulic related.

Thankfully your good friend Garry Walker is here with some statistic analysis on your claim.
Webber has retired from 28 races due to car problems, 6 of them have been due to hydraulics.
I am not very sure, but I think that really isnt most...
Added to that, it is a bit rich to blame either of the RB drivers for this years car problems, unless you think they both suddenly forgot how to not kill the gearbox for example?
Newey and his co-designers have just overdone it a bit.

Originally Posted by wedge

In some ways I would agree with you there. Mario Ilien remarked at the beginning of this year that Kimi is a car breaker because he's very hard on the car over kerbs.

You mean the comment he clarified a day later saying it was FABRICATED by the newspaper which published it.

Marks been unfortunate to move from one team that was implementing a difficult seamless shift gearbox (Williams) and suffering the teething problems that go with it to another team (red Bull) that is implementing a difficult seamless shift gearbox and experiencing the teething problems that go with it.

Originally Posted by markabilly

Not trying to argue, but what i am curious is if doing the paddle thing at the wrong moment is something like forcing a gear shift. ?

no.

[QUOTE=markabilly;334685]or has the electronic sophistication reached a point, that one can do no damage no matter how or when they paddle

yes. more than 10 years ago...

[quote=Mickey T;335385]no.

Originally Posted by markabilly

or has the electronic sophistication reached a point, that one can do no damage no matter how or when they paddle

yes. more than 10 years ago...

Thanks

Guess that means that outside of running the car into something or riding around too hard on the brakes, there just is not much that the driver can do break an otherwise healthy car (and I do put emphasis on healthy, as I suppose if the car were having some engine/drivetrain issue, the driver could still enhance the potential for an explosion or speed up the process so that it blows sooner rather than later but otherwise...)

Originally Posted by wedge

A driver should push the car to the limits and understand its limitations and its the job of the rest of the team to raise that limit.

That reminds me of the story told about Gilles Villeneuve's propensity to break Ferrari driveshafts, which the team then strenghtened.

Originally Posted by Garry Walker

You mean the comment he clarified a day later saying it was FABRICATED by the newspaper which published it.

Regardless, my point is that there are some people who believe in 'making your own luck' such as Martin Brundle. He has pointed before that its possible to damage the car over bumps and kerbs since they set up the cars as stiff as possible. So you can imagine the shock that gets transfered onto the car: the rear dampers and anti-roll bar sit on top the gearbox. There was a time when you could damage the CV joint quite easily from smacking the kerbs and kerb-hopping.

I think there's an unwritten rule that says that teams using customer engines shall not blame the engine for a mechanical DNF under any circumstances. So if RBR have had an engine failure, one that didn't result in gigantic cloud of stunningly obvious white smoke, then you can bet that they put it down to something vague like hydraulics rather than coming out and saying that their Renault motor just shat itself again.

I not so sure that one driver can "hit" curbs harder than another, unless the other guy stays off the curbs completely. Seeing as how drivers need to use the curbs to get a good lap time, I don't think that any driver out there is staying completely off the curbs.

And surely the force transmitted through the suspension when a curb is hit is a direct result of the weight of the car and the speed it is doing? The only other variable, I suppose, is the angle at which the curb is hit.

DC's car weighs the same as Webber's, so unless Webber is going much faster over curbs, thus transmitting more force through his suspension than DC, I don't see how his driving style is the problem. Could Webber's angle of attack be detrimental to his car's health? Again, I don't see how. The apex of a corner doesn't move and all the drivers are trying to hit it, so how much variance can there be between the angle that one driver hits it as opposed to another?

I have a hard time believing that anyone, based on random fate, can be that unlucky. In Turkey, he was the only one to break down. You say Mark has nothing to do with it? There were those that raked Ron over the coals for throwing that nice Hamilton kid to the F1 wolves and how rushing him into the big show so fast with a 2 time WDC was going to shatter his confidence. Well his confidence doesn't look shattered. You going to tell me that has all been luck? The kid's skill and driving style has had nothing to do with his success? I think some of the reliability problems that follow Mark and Kimi are of their own making, somehow.

the fact that the "unluckiness" is happening in 3 different teams could suggest Mark is doing something wrong...

Originally Posted by jso1985

the fact that the "unluckiness" is happening in 3 different teams could suggest Mark is doing something wrong...

I don't necessarily think he's doing anything "wrong", I do think there's something to his style that require reinforcements to be made on certain areas of the car.

if it was driving style someone somewhere should of picked that up surely!

Originally Posted by ozrevhead

if it was driving style someone somewhere should of picked that up surely!

Yeah, I too would think that someone that gets paid far more than I do and is supposed to be smarter than me would have figured that out by now also. However, as we all know, that isn't always how it goes.

If what has been said is true in postings to my questions, about the electronics and design of gearboxes and engines being so "electronic" that the driver can not abuse them with "random paddling", then it must be pure mechanical failure from a source other than driver

And if hitting curbs is not destroying/damaging suspension, it is difficult for me to see how it would be causing these failures in the absence of obvious chassis failure

I don't know either. Mark is quite a bit taller than the rest of the herd. Maybe it has to do with a stretched drivers tub. I don't know.

Originally Posted by markabilly

If what has been said is true in postings to my questions, about the electronics and design of gearboxes and engines being so "electronic" that the driver can not abuse them with "random paddling", then it must be pure mechanical failure from a source other than driver

And if hitting curbs is not destroying/damaging suspension, it is difficult for me to see how it would be causing these failures in the absence of obvious chassis failure

Some drivers are more agressive in the car and abrasive on the equipment. It stands to reason that if you can drive consistently fast with minimal stress on the car, you will have less chance of a failure that may be underlying but not fatal unless the car is stressed to the max.

Same with tyres. Some drivers complain more about tyres that go off because they are ragged where others are stressing them less and protecting their longetivity.

There is so much fluctuating force going into a car that banging it over curbs and the such will expose any weakness that another driver may not uncover. I dont know if this is the case with Mark because he doesn't strike me as the sort but he does seem a little too unlucky.

Luck is a tangible force in F1. It's true you make your own luck but sometimes it's better to have a lucky driver than an unlucky fast one.

Lucky and fast seems to be the likes of MS, FA and LH while unlucky and fast would be KR and MW. MS is a great case in point. He made a lot of his luck but even on the days when he wasn't the quickest, he would pick up places and wins by getting the car over the line. Some say it's luck but us older heads might say it's race craft over speed.

Call it what you want, I'd just like to see what the man could do with a decent car that doesn't break.