Ask The Apex

[FB]

Brogan said:

The wheels are resting on the ground so the suspension only supports the weight of the car, not the wheels.

Bro, don't think of it in terms of the vertical load it's more the lateral load on the suspension units. The wheels/tyres create friction as they grip the road and if you hang a larger weight (mass) on the end of the suspension unit is has to cope with a greater lateral load on the suspension unit. Simlarly the gearbox and drive shafts have to trun a heavier load meaning they would have to increase in strength. One other point, the weight distribution of the car woudl change quite dramatically if you put 5% more of the cars weight at the furthest points away from the chassis.

 

[ATL11]

F1 timings, I have asked the BBC to try it as an idea, but didn't hear from them! But if we have a Web Page behind us could it help the idea?

Timings are to a thousandth of a second, which all well & good and wow fantastic Jenson is just 0.001 seconds behind Lewis! But what does that mean in regards to distance? Can we super imposed the cars image on the same shot on the finish line, to confirm the difference 1cm, 2cm's, 5cm's, etc, etc.

I can relate to the time, a thousand of a second is mighty close, but what's the corresponding distance? Just believe the viewer would get a better understanding how close these cars perform by something they can physically see.

Thinking of the calculation there are 2 ways to look at it (based on the car with the slower time & based on 1mph = 1.6093 kmh):

1 - Speed on the Finishing Line, i.e. 190mph (305.767kmh), therefore 0.001 second = 305.767 /60 (1min) /60 (1 sec) & /1000 (1 thousandth) = 8.49mm
2 - Average Lap time, i.e. 126 mph (202.771kmh), therefore 0.001 seconds = 202.771/60/60/1000 = 5.63mm

Some mathematician would be able to confirm which of the 2 theories would best suit?

But with my example if Jenson was 0.001 behind Lewis @ Spa, crossing the line @ 165mph there would be 7.3mm between them or the width of standard HB pencil. If you then superimposed the 2 McLaren's together on the Spa Finish Line, you'd see a better comparison on how close they were.

Just an idea, does it make sense?

 

[Brogan]

Well as we know the lap time for each driver and the lap length, it would be straight forward to work out the distance.

If I get a chance later, I'll do it for e.g. Hungary Q3.

 

[Enja]

I'm sure 5 live said it at Hockenheim.

0.002 between Alonso and Vettel was something like 6cm.

Can't quite remember, darn toot'n

 

[teabagyokel]

I would say that the Speed on the Finishing Line would be the more accurate of the two measures, since if Button follows 1 second behind Hamilton for the whole lap there will be a greater distance between the two in the faster areas than the slow curves because speed=distance/time.

Hence, if time is constant, and speed increases:

Time=Distance/Speed

Speed decreases ? Distance decreases.

However, not sure if the speed on the finish line is published.

 

[Brogan]

However, not sure if the speed on the finish line is published.

It's not, which is why you can only go by lap time.
And as in qualifying everyone more or less has a clean lap without anyone in front, then it's valid to use it as a guide.
Of course the lap time is over the whole lap so in practice, the distances will be different.

Circuit length is 4,381 metres and Vettel covered that distance in 78.773 seconds which gives a distance covered of:
55.61 metres for 1 second
5.561 meters for 0.1 second
55.61 centimetres for 0.01 second
5.561 centimetres for 0.001 second

This therefore is what I get for the top 10 qualifiers in Hungary.

Driver			Q3  		Gap (s)	Metres

Sebastian Vettel 	1:18.773 		

Mark Webber 		1:19.184 	0.411	22.74

Fernando Alonso 	1:19.987 	1.214	66.49

Felipe Massa 		1:20.331 	1.558	84.97

Lewis Hamilton 		1:20.499 	1.726	93.93

Nico Rosberg 		1:21.082 	2.309	124.76

Vitaly Petrov 		1:21.229 	2.456	132.46

Robert Kubica 		1:21.328 	2.555	137.63

Pedro de la Rosa 	1:21.411 	2.638	141.96

Nico Hulkenberg 	1:21.710 	2.937	157.47

At Germany, the gap between Vettel and Alonso in Q3 was 0.002 of a second which equates to 12.3972cm.

 

[teabagyokel]

I was giving an answer that assumed all variables were know, which obvs they're not, but the distance based on Finish Line Speed would be more accurate.

 

[siffert_fan]

Here are two questions entirely unrelated to Formula 1:

1. We are planning to take a trip to the UK next year, and would like to attend a hillclimb. We went to one 2 years ago (I cannot remeber the venue) and loved it. Which would you most recommend?

2. I would like to contact Brian Redman regarding his days with Porsche. Does anyone know how I could do so?

 

[Grizzly]

F1 timings, I have asked the BBC to try it as an idea, but didn't hear from them! But if we have a Web Page behind us could it help the idea?

Timings are to a thousandth of a second, which all well & good and wow fantastic Jenson is just 0.001 seconds behind Lewis! But what does that mean in regards to distance? Can we super imposed the cars image on the same shot on the finish line, to confirm the difference 1cm, 2cm's, 5cm's, etc, etc.

I can relate to the time, a thousand of a second is mighty close, but what's the corresponding distance? Just believe the viewer would get a better understanding how close these cars perform by something they can physically see.

Thinking of the calculation there are 2 ways to look at it (based on the car with the slower time & based on 1mph = 1.6093 kmh):

1 - Speed on the Finishing Line, i.e. 190mph (305.767kmh), therefore 0.001 second = 305.767 /60 (1min) /60 (1 sec) & /1000 (1 thousandth) = 8.49mm
2 - Average Lap time, i.e. 126 mph (202.771kmh), therefore 0.001 seconds = 202.771/60/60/1000 = 5.63mm

Some mathematician would be able to confirm which of the 2 theories would best suit?

But with my example if Jenson was 0.001 behind Lewis @ Spa, crossing the line @ 165mph there would be 7.3mm between them or the width of standard HB pencil. If you then superimposed the 2 McLaren's together on the Spa Finish Line, you'd see a better comparison on how close they were.

Just an idea, does it make sense?

On playstation games like Gran Tourismo, if you are setting hot laps or qualifying, as you cross the line completing a lap, you then get a ghost of your car on the previous lap as you go round.

Now i love seeing the Brundle commentated P1 quali laps, how cool would it be to see an on board overlay of Vettel vs. Webber... Alonso vs. Hamilton. I can be pretty sure, different drivers and different cars perform very differently say, in turn 6 as opposed to turn 11... this, armed with the timing of each as well, would be a great way of 'seeing' the differences on track. I mean, even Fifth Gear manages this with Tiff driving a Golf gti and a Civic type R...

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

Anyone any idea of what the margin of error on the timing systems is?
I've had a quick look around the web for up-to-date articles regarding how the timing systems works and the first result is a vintage Joe Saward article which describes 3 methods in use back in '89 - an onboard transmitter c/w under-the-track sensor, a timing beam, a photo-electric beam, and a video method at a high (well for then anyway) frame rate with a time code on each frame. The article suggests 10,000 of a second accuracy which I guess is 'good enough' but has it progressed dramatically since then?

 

[The Moderator]

I've split the posts off regarding which European GP to attend as The Grandstand is the best forum for those types of questions.
Please continue the conversation here: Which European GP?

 

[Brogan]

Regarding timing, etc. I'm fairly sure I saw the BBC use a ghost overlay on one of the programs earlier in the year.

They were using it to demonstrate the line drivers were taking into corners and to show how the pace into and out of the corner varied.

 

[Speshal]

Regarding timing, etc. I'm fairly sure I saw the BBC use a ghost overlay on one of the programs earlier in the year.

They were using it to demonstrate the line drivers were taking into corners and to show how the pace into and out of the corner varied.

I recall seeing that.

 

[Bullfrog]

Whenever I see that I think it should be used more often, haven't seen it for a while though.

 

[Jru]

Is it possible that the ghost image becomes an issue somehow for more than one camera angle? I think I remember seeing it but was the last time the BBC used it just from one position? A quick search doesn't seem to find a link to it anyway. I would love it if we could see that for the top few qualifying laps or team-mate comparison but for whatever reason we cant for now. Would be interesting if anyone did recall where the bbc did the comparison anyway

 

[Bullfrog]

The only ones I saw were for a single camera angle on one corner or complex.

If you think about it though you can only do it with 2 sets of footage from exactly the same camera, otherwise the perspective would be different and the comparison would be pointless. Seeing as the only difference in each panning shot is the car it should be fairly simple to run one set of footage in low transparency over the top of another set. Barring any changes in scenery the only thing you'd see of the transparent footage is the car.

 

[Jru]

Yup that seems about right. Its a shame a whole lap cant be done but I cant think of an easy way to work it. Going back to the original point, I guess if there was a camera down the finishing straight then they could ghost the positions of the car on the track as the pole qualifier crossed the line? With a bit more technology they could probably give an estimate of the distance between car and finish line as well to give an accurate distance difference not determined from average speed as was originally sought too. Apologies if I am rambling/recovering ground

 

[Brogan]

OK, here's one for the experts.

What's a "gurney flap" and what does it do?

 

[Nomad]

That is fairly easy. It is a strip of rigid material placed at the rear edge of the rear wing of the car. It enhanced the aero effect of the wing with little cost in drag. It was originally developed by Dan Gurney for use on the Eagle race cars. They are sometimes called wickerbills.

BTW, Dan Gurney is fast as hell on a motorcycle as well as in a car

 

[Brogan]

So basically it's the tiny little lip on the upper surface of the trailing edge of a rear wing (spoiler on a road car) ?

I had one of those on the boot (trunk) lid of my BMW