In the Monaco practice coverage, did you catch Pedro de la Rosa indicating that they changed diff mappings (and maybe engine mappings) with those thumbwheels on a corner-by-corner basis? I wonder if every driver/team is doing that, or if Pedro was showing off or playing mind games? I does remind me of watching Schumacher adjust brake bias on three or four turns a lap - which was a revelation as well.
Peter Windsor's comment about downshifting specifically stated that from talking to de la Rosa, he said that "quite a lot of drivers in Formula One drivers... on downshifts now, don't even think about going from fifth, fourth, third, second, and just doing correct downshifts. They just whack the paddle, maybe eight times, knowing that it's just going to go down through the gears for them. And they do more paddle shift than they have gear changes to do..."
Assuming that Windsor's explicit account was correct, the engine/transmission control system apparently prevents selecting too low a gear - in this example, it doesn't select first - perhaps to prevent over-revving. Or perhaps they just set up transmissions not to select first at all, because it's unlikely that they use the gear on track. I'm usually watching for gear selections, and I don't think I've ever really noticed a first gear turn.
Fun, too, to hear Masa's engineer suggest that he try a lap while holding down the "minus one" button on his front wing to try out that balance.
3 comments:
Yes, I caught and thought much about those. One thumbwheel controls diff locking adjustment and the other one selects a map to control the amount of engine braking. And yeah, I also took it to imply that they're changed for each corner.
I've been noticing in general that stability under braking is a HUGE issue for them, as you might guess with 5g+ of braking (1g of that from more than 1000lb of aerodynamic drag at the end of long straights.) Keeping the back wheels in the back does indeed seem to be an issue for them.
I wondered about Windsor's downshifting comment too. He seemed to me to be saying this was a way around the ban on semi-automatic shifting--something about "as long as you do them all within a half a second" which I didn't really follow.
Or as you suppose it could just be that there's a lock-out on first above a certain speed--or maybe even a general safeguard against any downshift that would overrev the engine?
I do recall some years back that F1 teams argued for keeping their expensive electronically shifted transaxles on the grounds that they saved more money than they cost because they kept drivers from missing shifts, which blew up even more expensive engines. Perhaps they're taking advantage of this functionality.
Tim: "Or as you suppose it could just be that there's a lock-out on first above a certain speed--or maybe even a general safeguard against any downshift that would overrev the engine?"
That's what I was suggesting. I'm always surprised to see F1 cars in 2nd gear for even very low-speed turns - I don't recall actually seeing a vehicle in 1st during a lap.
Reserved for standing starts and pit exits, I suppose. Even 35 mph would be a lot faster than zero.
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