It has always been thus, Galahad. Anyone remember the original Simtek F1 car? Not the S941 that finally hit the track in 1994, but the prototype that Wirth worked up in 1993. That was a seriously outre design; cantilever suspension, upper wishbones doubling as wings, proper high nose... Extremely radical. Didn't work, of course. Wirth blamed it's abandonment on the banning of active suspension, but the number of new systems he was trying to introduce on a new car was unfeasible. The S941 that ran in 1994 was basically just an uprated Andrea Moda S921. It didn't even have a semi-auto gearbox when that was pretty much standard for other teams by 1994.
To be fair, I never called Wirth a clot. I just doubt his real-world ability. He is clearly someone who believes in shooting for the stars even when that is clearly not the best way to make progress. Admirable, in some cases, but every engineer needs some degree of pragmatism. I don't doubt for one minute that he believes that CFD is the way forward, but with the lack of understanding surrounding turbulent flow he can't possibly have all the data that the other teams have.
To be fair, I never called Wirth a clot. I just doubt his real-world ability. He is clearly someone who believes in shooting for the stars even when that is clearly not the best way to make progress. Admirable, in some cases, but every engineer needs some degree of pragmatism. I don't doubt for one minute that he believes that CFD is the way forward, but with the lack of understanding surrounding turbulent flow he can't possibly have all the data that the other teams have.
