Screw Ferrari

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Originally Posted by ioan

1.They have excellent drivers, the best one I would say.
2.They have a superb car, maybe the best out there, so kudos to their engineers.
This is why they are in contention for the titles.

3.They also have a a mediocre race management team.
This is why they are 2nd in both championships while having the best drivers and the best car.

BMW are 3rd and are doing an excellent job.
Renault are 4th and are doing the best job possible given the circumstances.
STR are 6th and are clearly doing an excellent job too!
You don't see them throw race away with stupid strategy or stupid decisions, while they are pushing hard to catch up with the front runners.

Ferrari are now 2nd and doing a very amateurish job in the pits and on the pitwall.

I criticized them every time when they did things wrong, since the start of the season. And every time you came and said it's OK because they are still on top.

Now they aren't on top anymore after losing a 20+ points advantage!
You say it's OK cause they are still in the hunt for the title.

I'm curious what will you say after they lose both titles because of their poor management. :rolleyes:

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I agree that Ferrari's strategists are average or even below-average of the current F1 field. Maybe the management falls into the same category, although it's a bit harder to say that, because the success and acculumated points account give a general judgement to their work. 2009 gives a better answer for this. But despite some poor areas Ferrari generally is a top team.

Yes, after mid-season it seemed that at least the WCC is in the bag for Ferrari and no-one can stop them, but they have managed to gamble away their clear advantage with great consistency... almost like McLaren last year. So you see, it seems normal for top teams to have a dramatical loss. ;) After the season of 2007 it was McLaren's management, who was bashed to be the worst one of F1. Now you seem to feel their superiority due to gaining advantage over Ferrari. And in 2006 after midseason Renault looked unbeatable, but despite this the title fight became interesting by the end of the season. Surely Ferrari's mistakes annoy you, but tell me, which team doesn't make mistakes?

You mentioned Renault. Well, after 2007 they totally stopped their engine performance upgrades due to engine freeze unlike other manufacturers. This is a serious misjudgement by their management.

STR/RBR management has IMO made significant mistakes too. With one strong team Red Bull could be close to BMW in the WCC.

BMW has been doing a fine job yeah, but they aren't faultless either. I remember at least in 2007 they had clumsy pitstops at times. And if early concentration on 2009 doesn't pay off, they'll be heavily criticized for not making the most of the 2008 season.

I think you've too much got used to Team Schumacher era, when during some periods they totally dominated and took 1-2's in most of the races. Yes, it's obvious, current team is not as complete as the Team MS. But it seems Team MS era has heightened your expectations too high - you expect your team to totally dominate and if they don't do it, they are a dismal failure. You're pretty much a maximalist and this is a result of "too much success". If Ferrari falls to P5 in the WCC, you may start looking at the situation a bit differently... I'm simply trying to look at the positive side - they are still in the title fight. If they lose in the end, we may criticize them. But they haven't lost yet.

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Originally Posted by jens

I think you've too much got used to Team Schumacher era, when during some periods they totally dominated and took 1-2's in most of the races. Yes, it's obvious, current team is not as complete as the Team MS. But it seems Team MS era has heightened your expectations too high - you expect your team to totally dominate and if they don't do it, they are a dismal failure. You're pretty much a maximalist and this is a result of "too much success". If Ferrari falls to P5 in the WCC, you may start looking at the situation a bit differently... I'm simply trying to look at the positive side - they are still in the title fight. If they lose in the end, we may criticize them. But they haven't lost yet.

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I don't expect them to totally dominate, I expect them to be able to capitalize on an excellent car and on excellent drivers.
The most difficult part in F1 is to get the car right. Than you need great drivers.
And than you need not to make stupid mistakes.
They are lacking in the last department, the one that is the easiest to get right and the one that can negate all the advantage from the first two.

As I said, I can not praise their management on what they showed this season. I can praise the engineers and the driver(s) however.

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Originally Posted by ioan

I've been a Ferrari fan for 19 year now, and I won't jump of the sinking ship.
I will however criticize them when criticism is due. What is so difficult to understand?! :rolleyes:

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Criticism is fine and warranted in many instances. We also have to have a measure of patience as a team goes through changes. Those who are placed in charge will make mistakes (as they did last year even though they won the WDC and WCC) and hopefully they will learn from them. That's the critical part!

As far as the pit light system is concerned, the team began that system thinking it would be an improvement. Now that they have used it under the pressure of race situations, they will have to re-think the system and put changes in place or abandon it. This is really no different than any other modification done to any system or even to the car.

Remember when Jean Alesi raced the Ferrari in the wet with the novel "traction control" system? Everyone was praising the system and how well it worked. That same system cost them many races.
Ferrari were also the first to implement the semi-automatic "paddles" on their wheel. That idea worked really well... everyone is using it now. I recall them having problems when that was initially implemented.
When MS joined Ferrari, they went from the V12 to the V10 engine. They had one of the most powerful engines on the grid before the change. The new V10 was less powerful and the other car components were not used to the new vibrations that the V10 was churning out. This 'change' cost them too.
Surely there are more examples of them 'trend setting'?
In all of these cases, they persisted in developing the idea (even though the arm-chair expert may have sneered at their initial failures), and they got to #1 with it.
Don't, as an arm-chair expert, write off the pit-light system until Ferrari do. If they find a winning solution, it won't take long before all the teams start implementing it.
One of the simple solutions to their fuel rig issue would be an automatic switch on the car side of the fuel connector which shows the driver a light while the rig is plugged in. As soon as the rig comes out, the light goes off (rather than rely on a mechanic to press a button). As a backup, have a lollipop man standing doing nothing until there is a problem. If the driver pulls away and the lollipop man sees a problem (like a faulty light sending the driver off again, or oncoming traffic), then he can drop the lollipop on the driver and the team can recover.
I do see the future in the lights once the problems have been ironed out. Lollipop men releasing cars is both time consuming, and, its not as if lollipop men have never sent cars off with the fuel rig still plugged in.

The problem with their lights system is that it isn't automatic at all. It requires the OK of 3 people to give a green light.

The lollipop man solution involves only one decision taker.
The lights system involves 3, thus the probability for errors is also 3x higher.

It's a clear cut for me.

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Originally Posted by ioan

The problem with their lights system is that it isn't automatic at all. It requires the OK of 3 people to give a green light.

The lollipop man solution involves only one decision taker.
The lights system involves 3, thus the probability for errors is also 3x higher.

It's a clear cut for me.

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Thats the thing, with the lollipop system, when the 4 tyre guys and fuel man are done, they put a hand up in the air saying they're done. Then the lollipop man gives the final go-ahead.

With that system, its the same, only difference is when 4 tyres are done, and fuel is done, it goes to green, therefore cutting out the reaction time of the lollipop man from seeing his crew signalling they're done.

With Valencia, it was Kimi's driver error of going before it went green. With Massa, it was a human decision which let Massa out unsafely. And again in Singapore, it was a human decision which let him out with hose still attached.

So the system itself hasn't actually failed yet. As all errors stem from human decisions, which could have easily have been made by a lollipop man.

So I don't think its a case of get rid of the system, I think its just a matter of improving the decision making of the pit crew.

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Originally Posted by PolePosition_1

Thats the thing, with the lollipop system, when the 4 tyre guys and fuel man are done, they put a hand up in the air saying they're done. Then the lollipop man gives the final go-ahead.

With that system, its the same, only difference is when 4 tyres are done, and fuel is done, it goes to green, therefore cutting out the reaction time of the lollipop man from seeing his crew signalling they're done.

With Valencia, it was Kimi's driver error of going before it went green. With Massa, it was a human decision which let Massa out unsafely. And again in Singapore, it was a human decision which let him out with hose still attached.

So the system itself hasn't actually failed yet. As all errors stem from human decisions, which could have easily have been made by a lollipop man.

So I don't think its a case of get rid of the system, I think its just a matter of improving the decision making of the pit crew.

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The system itself is faster as it eliminates time needed by the lollipop man to get out of the way, but they have 3 times more decision making individuals involved.

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Originally Posted by ioan

The system itself is faster as it eliminates time needed by the lollipop man to get out of the way, but they have 3 times more decision making individuals involved.

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Well, with a lollipop man, when the guy doing the tyre has finished, he puts his hand up in the air. Making a decision. With the traffic light system, when the man has done a tyre, he pushes a button confirming he finished.

So for sure a decision is made, but its not much different to a lollipop man.

Only difference I can see is you have a man overlooking everything and making a final decision. With hindsight, this is safer but slightly slower. With the traffic light system, if they could improve the performance of the pit crew, to make less errors, they could essentially have the best of both worlds.

http://www.rbssport.com/f1StrategyGameFiles/

Well, to all those people that fancy being F1 stratagists :D

I only managed 148th at Silverstone :(

356th at Monaco. Stupid safety car!

Edit: 95th when I changed to a 3-stop strategy :D