F1 cars are so fast there is almost no chance to see how they actually move. Check out a great video provided by Toro Rosso: it's raw footage with no sound but recommend going full screen and enabling 1080P mode.
You can see slip angle, wheel spin, every drop of water kicked up off the Misano track by those Pirelli intermediates clawing for traction....even a lucky butterfly that somehow survived getting run over. Awesome, check out a second clip after the jump.
(ToroRosso via Next-Gen Auto)
Bonus video, a tour of the Toro Rosso factory in Faenza, Italy. Faenza is just south of Bologna, in Emilia Romagna, the land of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Ducati and of course Minardi, which is what Toro Rosso used to be.
That's pretty good. When the car is launching from a stop look at the rear wheels obviously wheel spin is going on but they look like they stutter is this the diff moving power around looking for grip?
ReplyDeleteAt a first guess i would've said Launch control/traction control, but they don't use it anymore. So it MAY be the diff shifting the power around.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at a dragster (Obvious differences, but still), they are much much softer tire wise and smoother, it seems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ug6w4ZjwVo&feature=related
Thanks for those great videos!
And what if it's traction control?
ReplyDeleteI suspect from a long time that the teams are using it despite the ban, and some recent on track observation I did confirmed me that feeling. From how the cars sound under acceleration, to me it seems that just Virgin and HRT are without TC.
Even if all the teams are using the MES Ecu, there are clever ways of implementing TC even with that, and they would be difficult to detect for the FIA.
Anyway, as said, I think the sound alone tells a lot and I'm surprised that nobody raised the matter still...
The racheting noise you hear is the exhaust blown diffuser, different than the ignition cut traction control of old. You can really hear that with the system turned up to 11 on the Hungarian Gp video.
ReplyDeleteWhat you may be seeing there might simply be the way tires behave on slippery surfaces when looked at on a micro level. I'll try to pose the question to Paul Hembery via twitter, maybe he'll shed some light.
The stutter might be the effect of the drivetrain's rotational spring stiffness. You want to try to keep the rotational inertia low, so that no torque is "lost" while accelerating.
ReplyDeleteTherefore parts have to be as light and small as possible, what reduces the stiffness at the same time. When preloaded they are wound up and at some point release exactly this preload. This torsional oscillation usually happens somewhere around 10 Hz for a drivetrain (with wheels).
The clutch is still slipping at that point and rapidly changing temperature as well.