26 ms·

Formula One’s sharpest car designer is also its master of loopholes

127 points by jbredeche 4y ago

Melting_Harps 4y ago
Non-paywall link: https://archive.ph/oQH1A https://archive.ph/oQH1A Adrian Newey was held as a God who could see air travel in his mind when designing new chassis' and their aero design and packages, and I remember the Vetell/RB domination days wherein this man could do no wrong and practically walked on water. Gigi Dall'Igna is his 2 wheel counterpart, and has a reputation for going insane with the aero packages at Ducati, ride height systems etc... and is held equally high esteem in the Motorcycle World. Sadly, I personally can't see how this remains to be the case any longer... RBR with Newey or Dall'Igna with Ducati have been in championship dry-spells for a really long time (last year's win for RBR was the first championship where Mercedes didn't dominate all season like they have since the introduction of the V6) and have only managed to come 2nd best for some time. I don't doubt the prowess of either when it comes to designing cars or bikes, that much is clear and the work speaks for itself; where I fail to give them praise is in understanding that they simply cannot put themselves outside of the engineering domain and realize that the total package of how a chassis is developed must be tailored to suit the pilot if it is to win consistently. Being strong in one domain(s) (aero or bypassing regulations) is fine if your pilot can drive/ride around its other deficits, but unless you have that 1 in a billion talent fully committed to this goal it simply won't work to deliver championships: hence why RBR's win last year is considered to be a fluke, and likely a form of cheating if some are to believed: I don't know the full details just the clips as I stopped watching F1 after the Alonso Mclaren-Honda partnership as it was just too brutal to witness such giants fall. When Vettel, the golden boy and prodigy of the RBR program, drove for Redbull it was clear by how they treated Webber that it was Vettel's team and the chassis was bespoke for ONLY him. This ushered in perhaps one of the dullest eras of F1 which ultimately was a precursor for the Mercedes domination that followed it. At no point in time could Newey come up with anything to rival what Mercedes seemed to have perfected in the V6 era off the platform that Ross Braun (a true genius of the sport) built with the use of the blown diffuser. Personally speaking, I think F1 has lost it's way, it is no longer the pinnacle of motorsports as it is confined to appeal to a larger audience instead of pushing the limits of both man and machine: the V10 and V8 eras were likely the last gasp what it was. V6s were fine, the 80s had them and it made the racing immensely interesting, but in a drive to shoehorn the V6 hybrid systems into road cars (when the truth is EV is the future) it lost it's place in a way that I doubt it will ever recover from. If this is what it took to make F1 appeal to broader audience, I hate to say it, but the cost was too high.
- ocb 4y ago
  > Sadly, I personally can't see how this remains to be the case any longer... RBR with Newey or Dall'Igna with Ducati have been in championship dry-spells for a really long time (last year's win for RBR was the first championship where Mercedes didn't dominate all season like they have since the introduction of the V6) and have only managed to come 2nd best for some time. I don't buy this. The basis for TFA and the reason Newey is back in the spotlight is because of this current season. RBR is the only team that has nailed the regulations change. The porpoising issue alone makes this clear.
  - Melting_Harps 4y ago
    > I don't buy this. Good, I'm not selling anything, simply taking a more critical look at the recent past: all I'm seeing is the FIA doing what it always does, reshuffles the pack after the racing gets dull which (inadvertently?)always creates another domination era. Newey is without a doubt an unrivaled aero-savant, and since they re-introduced ground effects, so of course this was going to favour RBR who owe their entire legacy on making the most out of the aero packages during the Vettel era. I've read this article [0], and I think Toto's case is just one of sour grapes which he and Mercedes benefited from when it went to V6, it still stands to reason that it's more circumstantial than it is a re-birth of Newey's infallibility. Its interesting because they made Honda decide to stay after being adamant of leaving after having been humiliated for countless years (Alonso: GP2 engine!), which makes me think RBR and Newey knew all along of what was coming and gave them a reason to stay. And in an era in which keeping major manufactures is the name of the game they'll do anything to keep them there at all costs. 0: https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/61854923 https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/61854923
    - Denvercoder9 4y ago
      > Its interesting because they made Honda decide to stay Honda is leaving. Red Bull bought a license to keep using their engines, operated by their subsidiary RBPT. Honda still provides some engineering services this year, but from next year onwards RBPT is on their own.
tibbydudeza 4y ago
He still uses pen and paper - there is a staff of 3 engineers that takes his doodles and designs and inputs them into the CAD program Red Bull F1 team uses. His PA prints out his emails on paper and leaves a stack on his desk. When asked he said he is more efficient this way and he is bloody Adrian Newey - he is also a very good racing driver so he can "speak" the same language as their drivers.
- benhurmarcel 4y ago
  Having a dedicated CAD person handling the 3d tool for the designer isn't unusual. Efficiently manipulating complex CAD tools is a full time job in itself. I worked as a mechanical design engineer in aerospace and we always had technicians working basically full time on the digital mock-up, modelling designs produced and explained on paper, or commonly in paint.exe or Powerpoint even...
- mhh__ 4y ago
  When it comes to the emails and stuff he probably isn't more efficient that way at all it's just that he's still delivering value so people put up with it. The pen and paper is interesting but it must be just conceptual because racing cars get certain dimensions done by a machine rather than by hand then analyzed e.g. the vehicle dynamicists would lay down the rough suspension geometry
  - blitzar 4y ago
    Perhaps the real geniuses are the 3 engineers who take the cocktail napkins and make them fit on a car. The giant lego set of 15,000 pieces that is a F1 car is too great for any one person and a pen and paper to take all the credit for. In a way I feel like the 3 engineers should really have gotten a shout out somewhere in the puff piece.
    - RC_ITR 4y ago
      This is the classic 'who is smarter: architects or engineers' argument and I don't suggest you try to solve it on a forum full of software architects and engineers.
djyaz1200 4y ago
The book "How to Build a Car" by Adrian Newey is a fun and fascinating read.
- stodor89 4y ago
  Thanks, HN is my go-to place for book suggestions.
  - test1235 4y ago
    you might like https://hackernewsbooks.com/ https://hackernewsbooks.com/
    - adolph 4y ago
      I'm not 100% certain but HNBooks may need a link to Azn or GR to pick up on the fact a book is mentioned/recommended. How to Build a Car: The Autobiography of the World’s Greatest Formula 1 Designer by Adrian Newey https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35657708-how-to-build-a-car https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35657708-how-to-build-a-...
      - test1235 4y ago
        yeah - from the 'About' page: "All links to Amazon, Safaribooks and O'Reilly get extracted once a week from Hacker News posts." https://hackernewsbooks.com/about https://hackernewsbooks.com/about
- actuator 4y ago
  Can't recommend it enough. I started appreciating the whole sport way more after I read the book. Newey is a genius.
pella 4y ago
"“So often you can see when the front end designer hasn’t been talking to the back end designer,” Newey says.
Theodores 4y ago
At UK car meets in places like Goodwood you can see the early Newey cars in the pits up close. They are good to see as much of F1 design is different to normal automotive, parts only have to last the race to some extent. Fasteners can be quite primitive, it isn't all high tech. In the flesh the cars are smaller than you think so, with only fun day carting to compare with, you wonder how such aero changes could make a difference. This makes it more fascinating.
- CHY872 4y ago
  The early ones are smaller than you think. The Leyton House car he designed is about 4.4m long, 2.1m wide, and about 1m tall, sitting the top of the driver's head about 70cm off the ground. The current ones are ginormous in comparison, about 5.5m long, 2m wide. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DY0LvauM3Gw/maxresdefault.jpg https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DY0LvauM3Gw/maxresdefault.jpg
mhh__ 4y ago
Non-newey designers are underrated. Mercedes have built better cars than red bull but they don't get worshipped as much.
- impulser_ 4y ago
  Yeah, but I don't think one person has had as much success in developing F1 cars as Newey. His cars have won multiple championships with multiple teams during both the pre and post hybrid era.
- glanzwulf 4y ago
  Poor example to use because Mercedes has built the better engine and dominated the hybrid era. But if I ask you to show me their better cars pre-2014 what will you have? On the other hand Newey has been designing winning cars since the 80s, and that includes cart and multiple formula 1 championships. The man is a legend of motorsport and deserves the worship he gets.
  - mhh__ 4y ago
    Why pre-2014? Mercedes joined the sport with 2014 specifically in mind, the cars prior to that probably weren't the focus. Although "Mercedes" (Brawn/Honda) did win the championship... The W11/10 are arguably the best F1 cars ever, and not just because of the engine. The Mercedes that won all those races had really good chassis. Watch a comparison (I can't find it unfortunately) between the ferrari (illegal engine) vs the w11 (year after) at spa - the ferrari is so quick on the straights, and yet the mercedes is just so fast in the corners.
    - blitzar 4y ago
      2009 Brawn/Honda - average (at best) drivers, average (at best) budget. True chassis design genius. Same engine as the Mclaren, 1/3 the budget, a driver whos other offer of a seat was to pay for one at Toro Rosso; yet over a second faster in the first race of the year.
      - 4y ago
isaacfrond 4y ago
archive link: https://archive.ph/uHMpt https://archive.ph/uHMpt
skc 4y ago
Read the title and just knew it was about Adrian Newey
whinvik 4y ago
Strange headline since he missed the double diffuser loophole.
- topicseed 4y ago
  Oh, so one miss cancels all other achievements and overall mastery? I get your point but he scored so many loopholes that missing some is still a net win.
MomoXenosaga 4y ago
I don't get this sport. Give everyone the same car and we would see a battle between drivers.
- Xenoamorphous 4y ago
  Why would a battle bewteen drivers be more entertaining than a battle between drivers+makers?
- igortg 4y ago
  I understand the feeling. And many seasons a pretty boring because one car is just so dominating that it's a walk in the park for the driver to get the championship. But when teams get closer on performance, there's some aspects that are particular to it, like one car adapts better to a kind of circuit than the other, and this makes the championship swing for one side or the other. There's a kind of charming on not having this general equilibrium (that we see in many American sports). It much like La Liga or Premier League, where you have always 2-3 front-runners and the rest seems just acting in a supporting role.
- ealexhudson 4y ago
  Each car has a very different setup for each driver, and may well be designed differently for the drivers the teams have - who may have quite different driving styles and preferences. Being able to optimize both together is quite important for the series.
- originalvichy 4y ago
  One of the commentators likes to yse this line: the only things that are interchangeable between the top 3 teams’ cars are brake lights and tyres. Yet week in week out they are separated by less than 0,3 seconds to the finish line. The teams have gone through a great filter that makes the barrier of entry pretty limited, but there definitely is a place for the engineering battle side of F1.
  - cheeze 4y ago
    > week in week out they are separated by less than 0,3 seconds to the finish line I don't think that's true though, at least not this year. Separation this year has generally either been "within 1 second, or about 20" and seems to be every other race. I think the closest gap this season has been ~.5 seconds, but many races have been somewhere between 5 and 20 seconds. And that's only considering the podium spots. Generally we see the top 1-3 teams dominate, with the feeder/mid pack teams all being 20+ seconds behind. Look at Azerbaijan, 4th place was over a _minute_ behind first place. I love f1 but it's been many years since I've felt like the sport was truly competitive. This year is way better than previous years now that Mercedes isn't in a rocket ship, but it's still just a Ferrari Red Bull battle (with Ferrari reliability and management biting them in the ass race after race)
Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
This is essentially the same sport as it was in the 70s. There is an argument to be made about it being way more boring than the 70s given the ever increasing safety requirements. Cars are getting bigger and bigger while the track size stays the same, also more and more time is spent behind a pace car which was a rare thing back then, whereas now it pops out every race, sometimes multiple times per race. F1 increasing popularity it's either a master marketing campaign from Liberty Media or people having way more free time than they used to have.
- topicseed 4y ago
  To be fair, Hamilton winning each and every year got some fans bored. More competitiveness has definitely helped the sport explode over the last few months. DTS helping, obviously.
golemotron 4y ago
> “So often you can see when the front end designer hasn’t been talking to the back end designer,” Newey says. Newey avoids this problem, like so many others, with an elegant solution. On one of his cars, the front-end designer also happens to be the back-end designer. And when they talk to each other, it’s just Newey, at his drafting table, muttering to himself. Lessons for software?
- ableal 4y ago
  I seem to remember The Mythical Man-Month making a point about a single architect being more effective.
- the_other 4y ago
  It's not exactly new knowledge.
causality0 4y ago
Fans of F-1 like to go own about how its myriad restrictions create a level playing field where you're watching the pure skill of drivers compete against each other. Meanwhile every person on every team is working as hard as they can to invent a way to win without their driver being the most skilled on the track. This hypocrisy is why I have no time for F-1.
- topicseed 4y ago
  I think nobody who follows F1 believes the driver is the reason why a team or car wins. Nor does any F1 fan believe on a level playing field, the cost cap and restrictions try to narrow the gap between top and bottom teams.
- brodouevencode 4y ago
  In what sport is this not also true?
- mhh__ 4y ago
  I've never heard anyone who has been an F1 fan for more than one race say that
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  >Meanwhile every person on every team is working as hard as they can to invent a way to win without their driver being the most skilled on the track. Literally every type of racing is like this.
- timdellinger 4y ago
  ?? Perhaps you're thinking of Formula 2, where teams use the same engine, chassis, and tires. Winning is more about driver skill, and about execution on the part of the team. Formula 1 is widely regarded as a team sport where designing the best car is required for victory. There are a number of former world champion drivers who are currently driving for lower tier F1 teams (Fernando Alonzo, Sebastian Vettel), and they certainly have what it takes to be champion drivers, but they have inferior cars.
vegasbrianc 4y ago
Race the rules

127 points by jbredeche 4y ago

Non-paywall link: https://archive.ph/oQH1A https://archive.ph/oQH1A Adrian Newey was held as a God who could see air travel in his mind when designing new chassis' and their aero design and packages, and I remember the Vetell/RB domination days wherein this man could do no wrong and practically walked on water. Gigi Dall'Igna is his 2 wheel counterpart, and has a reputation for going insane with the aero packages at Ducati, ride height systems etc... and is held equally high esteem in the Motorcycle World. Sadly, I personally can't see how this remains to be the case any longer... RBR with Newey or Dall'Igna with Ducati have been in championship dry-spells for a really long time (last year's win for RBR was the first championship where Mercedes didn't dominate all season like they have since the introduction of the V6) and have only managed to come 2nd best for some time. I don't doubt the prowess of either when it comes to designing cars or bikes, that much is clear and the work speaks for itself; where I fail to give them praise is in understanding that they simply cannot put themselves outside of the engineering domain and realize that the total package of how a chassis is developed must be tailored to suit the pilot if it is to win consistently. Being strong in one domain(s) (aero or bypassing regulations) is fine if your pilot can drive/ride around its other deficits, but unless you have that 1 in a billion talent fully committed to this goal it simply won't work to deliver championships: hence why RBR's win last year is considered to be a fluke, and likely a form of cheating if some are to believed: I don't know the full details just the clips as I stopped watching F1 after the Alonso Mclaren-Honda partnership as it was just too brutal to witness such giants fall. When Vettel, the golden boy and prodigy of the RBR program, drove for Redbull it was clear by how they treated Webber that it was Vettel's team and the chassis was bespoke for ONLY him. This ushered in perhaps one of the dullest eras of F1 which ultimately was a precursor for the Mercedes domination that followed it. At no point in time could Newey come up with anything to rival what Mercedes seemed to have perfected in the V6 era off the platform that Ross Braun (a true genius of the sport) built with the use of the blown diffuser. Personally speaking, I think F1 has lost it's way, it is no longer the pinnacle of motorsports as it is confined to appeal to a larger audience instead of pushing the limits of both man and machine: the V10 and V8 eras were likely the last gasp what it was. V6s were fine, the 80s had them and it made the racing immensely interesting, but in a drive to shoehorn the V6 hybrid systems into road cars (when the truth is EV is the future) it lost it's place in a way that I doubt it will ever recover from. If this is what it took to make F1 appeal to broader audience, I hate to say it, but the cost was too high.

ocb 4y ago
> Sadly, I personally can't see how this remains to be the case any longer... RBR with Newey or Dall'Igna with Ducati have been in championship dry-spells for a really long time (last year's win for RBR was the first championship where Mercedes didn't dominate all season like they have since the introduction of the V6) and have only managed to come 2nd best for some time. I don't buy this. The basis for TFA and the reason Newey is back in the spotlight is because of this current season. RBR is the only team that has nailed the regulations change. The porpoising issue alone makes this clear.
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
  > I don't buy this. Good, I'm not selling anything, simply taking a more critical look at the recent past: all I'm seeing is the FIA doing what it always does, reshuffles the pack after the racing gets dull which (inadvertently?)always creates another domination era. Newey is without a doubt an unrivaled aero-savant, and since they re-introduced ground effects, so of course this was going to favour RBR who owe their entire legacy on making the most out of the aero packages during the Vettel era. I've read this article [0], and I think Toto's case is just one of sour grapes which he and Mercedes benefited from when it went to V6, it still stands to reason that it's more circumstantial than it is a re-birth of Newey's infallibility. Its interesting because they made Honda decide to stay after being adamant of leaving after having been humiliated for countless years (Alonso: GP2 engine!), which makes me think RBR and Newey knew all along of what was coming and gave them a reason to stay. And in an era in which keeping major manufactures is the name of the game they'll do anything to keep them there at all costs. 0: https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/61854923 https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/61854923
  - Denvercoder9 4y ago
    > Its interesting because they made Honda decide to stay Honda is leaving. Red Bull bought a license to keep using their engines, operated by their subsidiary RBPT. Honda still provides some engineering services this year, but from next year onwards RBPT is on their own.

tibbydudeza 4y ago

He still uses pen and paper - there is a staff of 3 engineers that takes his doodles and designs and inputs them into the CAD program Red Bull F1 team uses. His PA prints out his emails on paper and leaves a stack on his desk. When asked he said he is more efficient this way and he is bloody Adrian Newey - he is also a very good racing driver so he can "speak" the same language as their drivers.

benhurmarcel 4y ago
Having a dedicated CAD person handling the 3d tool for the designer isn't unusual. Efficiently manipulating complex CAD tools is a full time job in itself. I worked as a mechanical design engineer in aerospace and we always had technicians working basically full time on the digital mock-up, modelling designs produced and explained on paper, or commonly in paint.exe or Powerpoint even...
mhh__ 4y ago
When it comes to the emails and stuff he probably isn't more efficient that way at all it's just that he's still delivering value so people put up with it. The pen and paper is interesting but it must be just conceptual because racing cars get certain dimensions done by a machine rather than by hand then analyzed e.g. the vehicle dynamicists would lay down the rough suspension geometry
- blitzar 4y ago
  Perhaps the real geniuses are the 3 engineers who take the cocktail napkins and make them fit on a car. The giant lego set of 15,000 pieces that is a F1 car is too great for any one person and a pen and paper to take all the credit for. In a way I feel like the 3 engineers should really have gotten a shout out somewhere in the puff piece.
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
    This is the classic 'who is smarter: architects or engineers' argument and I don't suggest you try to solve it on a forum full of software architects and engineers.

djyaz1200 4y ago

The book "How to Build a Car" by Adrian Newey is a fun and fascinating read.

stodor89 4y ago
Thanks, HN is my go-to place for book suggestions.
- test1235 4y ago
  you might like https://hackernewsbooks.com/ https://hackernewsbooks.com/
  - adolph 4y ago
    I'm not 100% certain but HNBooks may need a link to Azn or GR to pick up on the fact a book is mentioned/recommended. How to Build a Car: The Autobiography of the World’s Greatest Formula 1 Designer by Adrian Newey https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35657708-how-to-build-a-car https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35657708-how-to-build-a-...
    - test1235 4y ago
      yeah - from the 'About' page: "All links to Amazon, Safaribooks and O'Reilly get extracted once a week from Hacker News posts." https://hackernewsbooks.com/about https://hackernewsbooks.com/about
actuator 4y ago
Can't recommend it enough. I started appreciating the whole sport way more after I read the book. Newey is a genius.

pella 4y ago

"“So often you can see when the front end designer hasn’t been talking to the back end designer,” Newey says.

Theodores 4y ago

At UK car meets in places like Goodwood you can see the early Newey cars in the pits up close. They are good to see as much of F1 design is different to normal automotive, parts only have to last the race to some extent. Fasteners can be quite primitive, it isn't all high tech. In the flesh the cars are smaller than you think so, with only fun day carting to compare with, you wonder how such aero changes could make a difference. This makes it more fascinating.

CHY872 4y ago
The early ones are smaller than you think. The Leyton House car he designed is about 4.4m long, 2.1m wide, and about 1m tall, sitting the top of the driver's head about 70cm off the ground. The current ones are ginormous in comparison, about 5.5m long, 2m wide. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DY0LvauM3Gw/maxresdefault.jpg https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DY0LvauM3Gw/maxresdefault.jpg

mhh__ 4y ago

Non-newey designers are underrated. Mercedes have built better cars than red bull but they don't get worshipped as much.

impulser_ 4y ago
Yeah, but I don't think one person has had as much success in developing F1 cars as Newey. His cars have won multiple championships with multiple teams during both the pre and post hybrid era.
glanzwulf 4y ago
Poor example to use because Mercedes has built the better engine and dominated the hybrid era. But if I ask you to show me their better cars pre-2014 what will you have? On the other hand Newey has been designing winning cars since the 80s, and that includes cart and multiple formula 1 championships. The man is a legend of motorsport and deserves the worship he gets.
- mhh__ 4y ago
  Why pre-2014? Mercedes joined the sport with 2014 specifically in mind, the cars prior to that probably weren't the focus. Although "Mercedes" (Brawn/Honda) did win the championship... The W11/10 are arguably the best F1 cars ever, and not just because of the engine. The Mercedes that won all those races had really good chassis. Watch a comparison (I can't find it unfortunately) between the ferrari (illegal engine) vs the w11 (year after) at spa - the ferrari is so quick on the straights, and yet the mercedes is just so fast in the corners.
  - blitzar 4y ago
    2009 Brawn/Honda - average (at best) drivers, average (at best) budget. True chassis design genius. Same engine as the Mclaren, 1/3 the budget, a driver whos other offer of a seat was to pay for one at Toro Rosso; yet over a second faster in the first race of the year.
    - 4y ago

isaacfrond 4y ago

archive link: https://archive.ph/uHMpt https://archive.ph/uHMpt

skc 4y ago

Read the title and just knew it was about Adrian Newey

whinvik 4y ago

Strange headline since he missed the double diffuser loophole.

topicseed 4y ago
Oh, so one miss cancels all other achievements and overall mastery? I get your point but he scored so many loopholes that missing some is still a net win.

MomoXenosaga 4y ago

I don't get this sport. Give everyone the same car and we would see a battle between drivers.

Xenoamorphous 4y ago
Why would a battle bewteen drivers be more entertaining than a battle between drivers+makers?
igortg 4y ago
I understand the feeling. And many seasons a pretty boring because one car is just so dominating that it's a walk in the park for the driver to get the championship. But when teams get closer on performance, there's some aspects that are particular to it, like one car adapts better to a kind of circuit than the other, and this makes the championship swing for one side or the other. There's a kind of charming on not having this general equilibrium (that we see in many American sports). It much like La Liga or Premier League, where you have always 2-3 front-runners and the rest seems just acting in a supporting role.
ealexhudson 4y ago
Each car has a very different setup for each driver, and may well be designed differently for the drivers the teams have - who may have quite different driving styles and preferences. Being able to optimize both together is quite important for the series.
originalvichy 4y ago
One of the commentators likes to yse this line: the only things that are interchangeable between the top 3 teams’ cars are brake lights and tyres. Yet week in week out they are separated by less than 0,3 seconds to the finish line. The teams have gone through a great filter that makes the barrier of entry pretty limited, but there definitely is a place for the engineering battle side of F1.
- cheeze 4y ago
  > week in week out they are separated by less than 0,3 seconds to the finish line I don't think that's true though, at least not this year. Separation this year has generally either been "within 1 second, or about 20" and seems to be every other race. I think the closest gap this season has been ~.5 seconds, but many races have been somewhere between 5 and 20 seconds. And that's only considering the podium spots. Generally we see the top 1-3 teams dominate, with the feeder/mid pack teams all being 20+ seconds behind. Look at Azerbaijan, 4th place was over a _minute_ behind first place. I love f1 but it's been many years since I've felt like the sport was truly competitive. This year is way better than previous years now that Mercedes isn't in a rocket ship, but it's still just a Ferrari Red Bull battle (with Ferrari reliability and management biting them in the ass race after race)

Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago

This is essentially the same sport as it was in the 70s. There is an argument to be made about it being way more boring than the 70s given the ever increasing safety requirements. Cars are getting bigger and bigger while the track size stays the same, also more and more time is spent behind a pace car which was a rare thing back then, whereas now it pops out every race, sometimes multiple times per race. F1 increasing popularity it's either a master marketing campaign from Liberty Media or people having way more free time than they used to have.

topicseed 4y ago
To be fair, Hamilton winning each and every year got some fans bored. More competitiveness has definitely helped the sport explode over the last few months. DTS helping, obviously.

golemotron 4y ago

> “So often you can see when the front end designer hasn’t been talking to the back end designer,” Newey says. Newey avoids this problem, like so many others, with an elegant solution. On one of his cars, the front-end designer also happens to be the back-end designer. And when they talk to each other, it’s just Newey, at his drafting table, muttering to himself. Lessons for software?

ableal 4y ago
I seem to remember The Mythical Man-Month making a point about a single architect being more effective.
the_other 4y ago
It's not exactly new knowledge.

causality0 4y ago

Fans of F-1 like to go own about how its myriad restrictions create a level playing field where you're watching the pure skill of drivers compete against each other. Meanwhile every person on every team is working as hard as they can to invent a way to win without their driver being the most skilled on the track. This hypocrisy is why I have no time for F-1.

topicseed 4y ago
I think nobody who follows F1 believes the driver is the reason why a team or car wins. Nor does any F1 fan believe on a level playing field, the cost cap and restrictions try to narrow the gap between top and bottom teams.
brodouevencode 4y ago
In what sport is this not also true?
mhh__ 4y ago
I've never heard anyone who has been an F1 fan for more than one race say that
throwaway0a5e 4y ago
>Meanwhile every person on every team is working as hard as they can to invent a way to win without their driver being the most skilled on the track. Literally every type of racing is like this.
timdellinger 4y ago
?? Perhaps you're thinking of Formula 2, where teams use the same engine, chassis, and tires. Winning is more about driver skill, and about execution on the part of the team. Formula 1 is widely regarded as a team sport where designing the best car is required for victory. There are a number of former world champion drivers who are currently driving for lower tier F1 teams (Fernando Alonzo, Sebastian Vettel), and they certainly have what it takes to be champion drivers, but they have inferior cars.

vegasbrianc 4y ago

Race the rules