re lrb another answer from the same interview with Fabiano Sterlacchini (Aprilia technical director):
How has the season been going so far for Bezzecchi and Savadori? What has their communication been with the team, with regard to the setup of the bike?
"Everything is super, super good. I believe that, for sure, considering our situation at the beginning of the season, without having the world champion, in terms of talent, in terms of the reference, because he's coming from the most competitive bike, there was something that was missing. But, at the end, we try to exploit the situation with the human assets that are working with us. For sure, the approach of the company has been that we try to exploit the presence of Savadori to debug (assess) some solutions. And sometimes, like, for example, in Assen, between the sprint, where we had the podium with the third position, with a reasonable gap around two seconds, then we had a really good race, super close to Marquez for all the races. For example, we put some different winglets on the bike that was tested the day before by Savadori. So, we tried to create a sort of system that Savadori was debugging (assessing), giving us his comments, and we then tried showed Bezzechithe analysis and took his comments and feedback. Obviously, now we have to change this approach."
don’t all the cars go through scrutineering after every race in some capacity? they must have previously passed skid wear checks right? how does this show mclaren has been cheating the whole time?
i’m not invested in them being legitimate i’ve been screaming that they’re illegal all season with little evidence except how disgustingly fast they were…i just don’t understand 😅
Good question anon.
Yes the scruteneering happens every race on a chosen number of cars. Skid wear specifically is done on all podium sitters and a few additional cars. So it's safe to say that the McLarens have gone through quite a few checks this season given the amount of podiums they've had.
The thing is, they passed all those checks because their plank didn't wear down. The cheating part comes with the reason the plank didn't wear down.
To put everything into perspective as to why the skid wear rule was introduced in the first place: after the crash and death of Senna it was said that the fact that the car was too low to the ground had an effect in the accident (don't ask me how I'm not that advanced in engineering). But essentially the reason was to prevent teams from running the car too low for safety reasons. Meaning if the plank is too worn your car was too close to the ground.
After the Brazil GP it was disclosed that some teams were using a trick that resulted in the plank not wearing down even with low ride heights. The trick was that they heated the metal rings on the plate, causing them to expand, and have the metal be the part of the car that touches the ground thus not wearing the plank. The ride height was still too low but the plank stayed intact. They had the benefit of a car that is low without the consequence of plank wear that could dsq them for safety reasons. Which is cheating because the reason the plank wear rule exists is to avoid low ride heights not the other way around.
For the entirety of the season they were checking the plank and the plank was fine so the checks passed. Also by the end of the races the metals had already cooled off enough for people to not notice or think anything of it. The reason I think they discovered it after the Brazil Sprint was that the sprint was too short and the metal hadn't cooled so the FIA delegates probably found it suspicious and realized what they were doing.
Now there is no confirmation as of yet that it was McLaren doing this trick but it's HEAVILY implied by them having this issue ON BOTH CARS the GP right after Brazil where the FIA discovered it. Not only that apparently the breach was severe meaning the plank wasnt worn down by a little amount but by a lot. Another thing that adds to it is that they had no time this weekend to really test how low they can go without their trick because fp2 which is the session when race pace is usually tested was cut short and noone did any testing for plank wear. McLaren also cited this as one of the reasons they made the mistake but my dudes, neither of the other teams had time to test race pace and somehow they got it right and you didn't. It smells like all the other teams had other relevant data from the other 21 GPs to go off of and you didn't because this is the first gp where you have to go racing without your little trick.
If it smells like a chicken and walks like a chicken or whatever that saying was...
Anyway I hope this explains it some more. TLDR Basically they did check them before but the plank was fine. The thing they used in order to have the plank be fine is the cheating part.
Also to mention one more thing. While having the car low does add some performance to it it doesnt mean that the dominance and speed they had was solely because of this. Don't expect them to suddenly turn into Sauber. Yes, it did help them a lot but it doesn’t mean it was the sole reason they were as fast and they were. It probably helped more with the balance and doenforce (meaning on certain tracks they had more gain than others) than overall performance. However with the number of mistakes their drivers are prone to i cant help but wonder how the car would have acted and whether the car would be able to compensate for their mistakes as much if the car was setup higher.
One of the surprises of these last two months was certainly the front wing that Mercedes introduced during the Singapore GP. An event, among other things, in which the Stuttgart company returned to winning ways thanks to the performances of George Russell. But what happened to the flexy wing that was talked about so much in Marina Bay?
The wing disappeared after Singapore, the explanation of Mercedes' choices
From what we know it does not seem to have been taken either to Austin or to Mexico (and it is no coincidence that the performance of the W16 is back to pre-upgrade). For Mexico City, there is a rather logical explanation. Bringing a wing that flexes under the action of downforce generated by air pressure onto a runway, where air, due to extreme altitude, is thin, didn't make much sense. But why not take her to Texas?
As far as we know and the themes we have explored in depth, the teams have, or rather, had a tendency to use flexy wings on type circuits ‘Stop & Go’ more massively so as to have a lot of load in the corners (preferably slow) and at the same time have a notable reduction in drag on a straight line. This explains why we didn't see them in Austin and how it makes their use quite likely, at least by Mercedes, in the Las Vegas GP.
Brazil has some somewhat border-line characteristics, while as for Qatar, we believe that due to the many medium-speed corners, the solution is being shelved. The GPs in which there is the greatest probability of returning to talking about flexible wings are therefore Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi (two long straights and medium-low speed corners).
Notes and reflections
But in addition to this, we would like to share our reflections. A reasoning. Why do technicians tend to use flexible wings more on type tracks ‘Stop & Go’ and not for example on tracks like Silverstone? This is because, it seems, they are able to have greater control of the resulting aerodynamic effects. Let's explain ourselves better. In slow, low-speed corners, the aerodynamic drag is lower, so the wing rises and allows you to have the right amount of load needed to make the turns.
Also, in a straight line, when the wing pressure is greater, the wing lowers, the drag is less and the top speed of the single-seater increases. This evidence can also be easily replicated on the simulator and on the CFD. Furthermore, they can always be verified on the track through adequate data collection.
The writer, however, is convinced, or rather, is not completely disillusioned by the fact that there may be benefits in using flexy wings even in fast corners (perhaps we will talk about them again in another location). The primary problem is that studying the behavior of wings in a fast curve is not easy because we are dealing with a ‘transient’. That is, a situation, to try to be understandable to everyone, which changes as many variables change and it is extremely complicated to keep them all under control. At least for the moment.
Guys I would reallyyyy appreciate if you added sources to your asks so that I don’t have to…
Mercedes introduced a new front wing during the Singapore GP. An appointment, among other things, in which the Stuttgart club returned to wi
Anyways, interesting article 👀 guess we will have to see if the wing makes a return in Brazil and Vegas (possibly AD too) that could make an important difference in performance and in the teams wcc standings…
The timing of Ferrari announcing they are changing the front suspension of next year's car, and still working out the direction for the rear suspension does seem to correlate with these last few races where Charles was doing a lot of data gathering after it was clear the suspension was not supporting the aero upgrades.
The current tests for the 2025 car are using a pull rod configuration instead of the push rod(which is what the current SF-24 uses)
Interesting timing. I think in the coming weeks Charles' performance specifically will be used to make more finalization on the choices for the rear suspension as well. That is a more key area and they probably need to take their time with it since they haven't run a push-rod rear suspension for this regulation cycle.
I think the data they have gathered since the upgrades has not only been informing solutions for this year, but more importantly next year as well. Since this year finally exposed the suspension as a key issue it makes sense that they want all the data possible if they are going to completely change directions.
It also may be that the pull rod on both the front and the rear supports a better front end. That also may be found. Teams that use the same configuration regardless of the method have seen better results in stability there, so it's a possible avenue. The real thing is that there does seem to be a performance disadvantage to the push rod rear if the front is the opposite. The teams that do use different configs on the front and rears have the push-rod rear suspension, and that seems to be important for balance.
At the very least the suspension seems to be a key focus for Ferrari in developments this year and next year. Considering what we've seen this is where we want the engineering focus to be. The aero packages have been strong, in fact the problem with the aero is that it's working as expected and the current suspension cannot support the improved aero performance.
Good to see the team identifying these mechanical issues and actually taking steps to address them long term.
I finally put the settings back on "high" after playing an overwhelming majority of my time in Wilds on the worst quality for best performance mode. Happy to say that a few handful hours back into it there has been no stuttering and no graphical trouble! The frame rate is definitely a little lower but it's capped at a solid 45 and that's good enough for me.
The only problem was unrelated: I started a quest and 7 minutes in a random joined and it immediately ended. It was a 30 minute long quest, so I'm suspecting this random might've triggered a built in anti-cheat protocol that bailed me out, but that's pure speculation. It was indeed strange behavior.
This is something I wanted to talk about before but never got to. A talk about video format problem.
I love the expansions in “American Dragon: Jake Long”. I loved them so much I wanted to find the French episodes to see how they talked about it, how things were translated etc... and since I had an Ipad, I decided to buy the episodes on the iTunes store. On the left is a screenshot of the episode “The Egg” I bought on iTunes. This is how the episode shows when I look it on my iPad.
On the right is a picture of the same episode, at the same moment, but from a lower-quality video on Youtube of the English episode. See a difference?
Now... I do have a low experience of the iTunes and Apple videos working. But is it normal that the video was refitted like that, and that I am unable to make it appear bigger? Is it related to me watching it on an iPad and would watching it on a computer make the video at a bigger format and allow me to see the full drawing instead of a cut version? But then how to do so, because right now my only computer is an Acer and I don’t have any Apple computer, so I would need to install all of Apple iTunes, right?
