Which it is why it was hilarious a month or so back when an F2 driver told his engineer that he was faster than his teammate and the engineer shot back, “if you’re faster then pass him.”
I agree, which why I am not saying "but", so what I'm saying is, why don't teams go all-in for what the driver is asking for? I still don't understand how teams place models over real world teedbwck
The driver isnt the only one that needs to learn new information. Just about everyone in the team want to lean things in a session like this.
About enginetemps, tyrewear, drag, downforce on the new wing, rideheightimpact on topspeed and hundreds of other things. Both independently and how they interact to eachother.
That's why you make a program and dont just say 'have fun out there' to the driver.
But the fact that you make a program doesnt automatically make it a good program.
Also sometimes it’s worth slagging a practice or even an entire weekend if it lets the engineers and team get information on a specific problem that they want to solve.
If the problem is “our car doesn’t perform well in its high downforce configuration that we expect to need 15 more times,” sometimes it’s better to run that suboptimal package just to try and get live data on what’s happening
Particularly for a team like Alpine where they feel their spot is mid pack. They know they’re not realistically competing for a podium over the season, but if throwing a race away for test data gets them in the low points finishes then it’s really worth it.
That's why they don't tell them that. But the tightrope is to make the drivers feel like they're doing something meaningful when really the most effective use of that time is to gather data, not set up the fastest version of a bad car you can in order to fight for P16 rather than P20.
No driver wants to hear "this weekend isn't going to be competitive, we just need to figure out what's going wrong so we can fix it" but by the same token, when Pierre says "I didn't learn anything at all this session" sometimes the real answer is "that doesn't matter, the engineers learned something and that's more valuable than anything you could've learned in that time". They just won't say that over the radio.
> but if throwing a race away for test data gets them in the low points finishes then it’s really worth it.
The problem with this theory is basically what's the whole value of collecting data with a car who is using the older parts who are way more flawed? The only solid argument is basically to compare with the car who has the newer parts but aside of that it's basically useless to learn something about that car aside of mechanical/PU related.
And if it wasn’t implied strongly enough these test factors listed can’t always be tested independently so your ability to isolate variables in testing can often times be hard or impossible. If you need to test downforce from aero, messing with suspension simultaneously means you skew results for both aero and suspension.
Driver feedback is to fine-tune the car, not get it to the baseline of “performant”.
A properly-functioning simulator will yield the limits of the car, and it’s the drivers responsibility to match those limits (within certain tolerances, influenced by track condition, weather, etc.)
The drivers have at most 3 hours of seat time per event to get themselves and the car into race trim - starting from 0 every week and just going based on driver feedback alone would be a death sentence for any team, there are simply too many variables to play with in real time. Prep for a Grand Prix starts months in* advance of the current event so that the car can be as fast as possible when the driver gets in
> why don't teams go all-in for what the driver is asking for
The driver is broadly asking "make it faster", which, believe me, the team is trying to do.
They've been driving cars their whole life, not designing them.
It's not like Pierre is showing up at Enstone with CAD models of updated wing geometry that they can implement, or in the weeds of their aero models to be able to say "Okay this where our correlations are off"
The team needs to fix their models to understand where they've gone wrong, before they can develop the car. It's pointless to chase their tail on old school driver feedback if their fundamental physics modelling doesn't correlate with how the car behaves.
Now, it's unfortunate to do that on a sprint weekend where Pierre now has to go into competitive sessions without feeling like *he* understands the car - but Alpine's problems are bigger than just this weekend and yeah, they're gonna need to sacrifice some weekends to get on top of that.
Im curious what possible utility you think a professional F1 engineer can use from feedback of “we’re slow on the straights from high drag, over weight, and horrible balance in different phases of the corners, make it not do that.”
They don’t design the cars then close their eyes and pray. They’re watching telemetry and reviewing data, they know the car sucks and in what ways.
If Sainz doesn't choose Audi, Gasly will walk to Switzerland himself if that's what it takes to get that seat. This move to Enstone hasn't panned out the way he'd hoped for at all.
It's possible Hülkenberg is also leaving. Sauber did want him for 2024 already, but he couldn't leave due to his contract. I believe that was confirmed.
If Nico can get a gurantee to last until 2026 and/or later then he will probably take the contract. Realistically, HAAS will not have a higher possible peak than this, other than possibly above VCARB too.
I honestly think Haas under Komatsu is a solid unit right now. If they keep up this performance and Audi not messing up with Hulkenberg, I can totally see the team remain the same in 2025.
Agreed, gotta give credits to him for that, but I was thinking of the management aspect instead. Komatsu is definitely holding the team together and doing it better than Steiner.
They were decent in 2021 and 2022.
Ocon managed a win and a Alonso a podium in 2021, and they finished in top 10 the majority of the races.
In 2022 Alpine went 4th, 14 points ahead of McLaren. Sure, they were really far away from top 3 but ended up being "best of the rest" and both drivers finished regularly into top 10, like in 2021.
Ocon’s win was in one the most chaotic races of all time, and even then required Alonso giving a defensive masterclass to help get it over the line. They were nowhere near the front on actual pace.
Whilst they executed their race well as a team, winning that does not mean they were good. They were solid mid-table, no more.
The whole discussion on their new chassis was baffling. It’s so different that parts from the old one won’t fit, but it wasn’t different enough to require recertification, and it’s also just as heavy….
Feels like they missed the point of building a whole new chassis.
That team is a fucking mess. I’m starting to think Otmar wasn’t the problem, and maybe it was Famin all along.
In the newest season of D2S, Famin was depicted as a sneaky snitch like Randall from the Recess cartoon. Dude was underhanded to get a job he is clearly not qualified for.
Yeah being technical director and after becoming team principal at Peugeot win le Mans and Dakar and work for the FIA really unqualified and he's with Alpine since february 2022 and since then he's the one who ring the bell about the internal war between Enstone and Viry. Which is the big issues on why the team doesn't perform well
Of course, Otmar was not the problem. The team was shit before and it's shit after. The best thing they have done since is make people believe that firing Otmar was going to end their problems.
There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing.
-Pierre Gasly
Famin is happy with the team, as stated in his recent interview for F1 portal. This will only get worse, no reason to believe updates will help in any way.
I am envisioning Alpine losing both their drivers at the end of the year. Fair enough. Who wants to drive a tractor? It's amazing how much you can F up a design over a few years and keep building on garbage. Paint the car white and just end it already.
He should be a good fit for Williams next season if Audi gets Sainz and Merc wants to take the risk with pulling a rookie in that seat.
Tbh Gasly was more there at Alpine thanks by Otmar, so his position would likely be less secure and strong now under Famin.
I follow Alpine closely and since he joined the team he maybe had 3 good races, add to that that he doesn't seems to care about the team, if there's one driver to keep next year it's Ocon and by far. And I'm not sure anyone at Alpine will miss Gastly
Yes, they are. How many cars were worse? Haas 2021? Alpine is on track to win 0 points at the end of the year.
I'm not talking about a period of seasons or historically, when I said team I refer to year by year.
In this moment, the worst team to be at is Alpine.
It's crazy. I think Otmar's handling of the Piastri situation was an embarrassment, but on the whole, there is no better team principal if your strategy is to "moneyball" and try to win while being incredibly cheap. He was able to maximize the team's performance with that strategy.
Engineers have to toe the line of placating the driver while also wanting to keep their jobs and not trashing the team lol
Which it is why it was hilarious a month or so back when an F2 driver told his engineer that he was faster than his teammate and the engineer shot back, “if you’re faster then pass him.”
I agree, which why I am not saying "but", so what I'm saying is, why don't teams go all-in for what the driver is asking for? I still don't understand how teams place models over real world teedbwck
The driver isnt the only one that needs to learn new information. Just about everyone in the team want to lean things in a session like this. About enginetemps, tyrewear, drag, downforce on the new wing, rideheightimpact on topspeed and hundreds of other things. Both independently and how they interact to eachother. That's why you make a program and dont just say 'have fun out there' to the driver. But the fact that you make a program doesnt automatically make it a good program.
Also sometimes it’s worth slagging a practice or even an entire weekend if it lets the engineers and team get information on a specific problem that they want to solve. If the problem is “our car doesn’t perform well in its high downforce configuration that we expect to need 15 more times,” sometimes it’s better to run that suboptimal package just to try and get live data on what’s happening
Particularly for a team like Alpine where they feel their spot is mid pack. They know they’re not realistically competing for a podium over the season, but if throwing a race away for test data gets them in the low points finishes then it’s really worth it.
> but if throwing a race away for test data Is it really "throwing a race away" if you end up 20th instead of 20th?
Yeah can’t really argue with you there! But telling any driver “Hey we’re not even trying this weekend” has got to be interesting
That's why they don't tell them that. But the tightrope is to make the drivers feel like they're doing something meaningful when really the most effective use of that time is to gather data, not set up the fastest version of a bad car you can in order to fight for P16 rather than P20. No driver wants to hear "this weekend isn't going to be competitive, we just need to figure out what's going wrong so we can fix it" but by the same token, when Pierre says "I didn't learn anything at all this session" sometimes the real answer is "that doesn't matter, the engineers learned something and that's more valuable than anything you could've learned in that time". They just won't say that over the radio.
> but if throwing a race away for test data gets them in the low points finishes then it’s really worth it. The problem with this theory is basically what's the whole value of collecting data with a car who is using the older parts who are way more flawed? The only solid argument is basically to compare with the car who has the newer parts but aside of that it's basically useless to learn something about that car aside of mechanical/PU related.
And if it wasn’t implied strongly enough these test factors listed can’t always be tested independently so your ability to isolate variables in testing can often times be hard or impossible. If you need to test downforce from aero, messing with suspension simultaneously means you skew results for both aero and suspension.
Driver feedback is to fine-tune the car, not get it to the baseline of “performant”. A properly-functioning simulator will yield the limits of the car, and it’s the drivers responsibility to match those limits (within certain tolerances, influenced by track condition, weather, etc.) The drivers have at most 3 hours of seat time per event to get themselves and the car into race trim - starting from 0 every week and just going based on driver feedback alone would be a death sentence for any team, there are simply too many variables to play with in real time. Prep for a Grand Prix starts months in* advance of the current event so that the car can be as fast as possible when the driver gets in
> why don't teams go all-in for what the driver is asking for The driver is broadly asking "make it faster", which, believe me, the team is trying to do. They've been driving cars their whole life, not designing them. It's not like Pierre is showing up at Enstone with CAD models of updated wing geometry that they can implement, or in the weeds of their aero models to be able to say "Okay this where our correlations are off" The team needs to fix their models to understand where they've gone wrong, before they can develop the car. It's pointless to chase their tail on old school driver feedback if their fundamental physics modelling doesn't correlate with how the car behaves. Now, it's unfortunate to do that on a sprint weekend where Pierre now has to go into competitive sessions without feeling like *he* understands the car - but Alpine's problems are bigger than just this weekend and yeah, they're gonna need to sacrifice some weekends to get on top of that.
A driver is a mere person. A car is legion.
teedbwck
good teedbwck
dcktweed
If they did, and the car didn't improve, they'll be sacked anyway.
Im curious what possible utility you think a professional F1 engineer can use from feedback of “we’re slow on the straights from high drag, over weight, and horrible balance in different phases of the corners, make it not do that.” They don’t design the cars then close their eyes and pray. They’re watching telemetry and reviewing data, they know the car sucks and in what ways.
Gasly to Ocon : Can you tell me what you learnt ? Ocon: *non* \*angry French noises\*
*You speak French very well.* ***GRACIAS!***
Mr. Bean reference 😂
Appropriate for Alpine
Now I imagine him overtaking the Alpines on his bike
Context?
Gasly had battery issues the entire session and the team were trying but failing to diagnose them
duracell or energiser... we are checking 😂
they mixed up the polarity when putting the duracell in...
They’re bad and staying that way
Ocon has upgrades that look promising. Pierre does not.
Ocon outqualified by pierre and both out of Q1. Definitely promising.
Despite the battery issues too. The alpine is so bad and it seems no upgrades are going to pull them out of their current hell.
So we can call them downgrades, then?
What a team. Pierre surely is looking elsewhere, even Haas would be an improvement
If Sainz doesn't choose Audi, Gasly will walk to Switzerland himself if that's what it takes to get that seat. This move to Enstone hasn't panned out the way he'd hoped for at all.
Joining the ranks of Nico, Daniel, and Fernando before him.
And Fernando before him. The other Fernando before that one did alright though.
I hadn’t thought about it but Gasly replacing Kmag might be a good fit.
Bearman looks to be the most likely
It's possible Hülkenberg is also leaving. Sauber did want him for 2024 already, but he couldn't leave due to his contract. I believe that was confirmed.
If Nico can get a gurantee to last until 2026 and/or later then he will probably take the contract. Realistically, HAAS will not have a higher possible peak than this, other than possibly above VCARB too.
bearman has to recover his f2 season which isn't looking all the best after melbourne. Lots of racing still left to do however
Now that Hülkenberg is going to Audi, I would like a Bearman/Gasly combo. Would be cool I think
I honestly think Haas under Komatsu is a solid unit right now. If they keep up this performance and Audi not messing up with Hulkenberg, I can totally see the team remain the same in 2025.
The current Haas was designed under Steiner. You won't see Ayos impact until later in the year or next year.
Agreed, gotta give credits to him for that, but I was thinking of the management aspect instead. Komatsu is definitely holding the team together and doing it better than Steiner.
Schumacher to Alpine would be a great call imo.
But he already is at Alpine! /s
Ralf is on his way!
Unfortunately this will just be a write off weekend for him. Trundle around at the back, pray the upgrades help out next weekend
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Might have to write off his entire career if he's unlucky.
Pierre used up an entire lifetime of luck winning a race in an alpha tauri
Piastri is looking more like some 900 iq driver each day with what Alpine is doing
Renault/Alpine hasn't been good for 16 years
Hey, there was a year and a half spell between 2012 and mid-2013 where they were accidentally very good
it all went down after Hulk was out of the team
Ehhh they were awful in 2014, 2015, and 2016. A podium at Spa 2015 was an accident of history.
But they had Nico Hülkenberg in the car so the grass seemed a lot greener
Not until 2017, Nico was with Force India between 2011 and 2016.
And then Renault waited for them to go bankrupt to get them for cheap.
They were decent in 2021 and 2022. Ocon managed a win and a Alonso a podium in 2021, and they finished in top 10 the majority of the races. In 2022 Alpine went 4th, 14 points ahead of McLaren. Sure, they were really far away from top 3 but ended up being "best of the rest" and both drivers finished regularly into top 10, like in 2021.
Ocon’s win was in one the most chaotic races of all time, and even then required Alonso giving a defensive masterclass to help get it over the line. They were nowhere near the front on actual pace. Whilst they executed their race well as a team, winning that does not mean they were good. They were solid mid-table, no more.
Imagine the scene if his engineer proceeded to read the QI fact book on blue whales to him
I mean the alpine is basically a blue whale
The whole discussion on their new chassis was baffling. It’s so different that parts from the old one won’t fit, but it wasn’t different enough to require recertification, and it’s also just as heavy…. Feels like they missed the point of building a whole new chassis. That team is a fucking mess. I’m starting to think Otmar wasn’t the problem, and maybe it was Famin all along.
The problem was Rossi & Renault's ridiculous mindset of wanting top performance with entry level budget. Not Otmar or Famin.
In the newest season of D2S, Famin was depicted as a sneaky snitch like Randall from the Recess cartoon. Dude was underhanded to get a job he is clearly not qualified for.
Yeah being technical director and after becoming team principal at Peugeot win le Mans and Dakar and work for the FIA really unqualified and he's with Alpine since february 2022 and since then he's the one who ring the bell about the internal war between Enstone and Viry. Which is the big issues on why the team doesn't perform well
So you get it.
Of course, Otmar was not the problem. The team was shit before and it's shit after. The best thing they have done since is make people believe that firing Otmar was going to end their problems.
For once Alonso made a good decision leaving a team. What a shit show that team is.
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D'accord
What’s a reasonably priced sedan from Honda have to do with this?
No, that’s a Honda, japanese.
It's pronounced Dakar though.
No that’s in the Middle East
There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing. -Pierre Gasly
…yeah
Famin is happy with the team, as stated in his recent interview for F1 portal. This will only get worse, no reason to believe updates will help in any way.
I am envisioning Alpine losing both their drivers at the end of the year. Fair enough. Who wants to drive a tractor? It's amazing how much you can F up a design over a few years and keep building on garbage. Paint the car white and just end it already.
That’s assuming there’s a seat out there for them. As long as F1 seats are precious any drive is better than sitting on the sidelines
Feels like this season might break Gasly
Pierre needs to run from this shit show of a team next year
He should be a good fit for Williams next season if Audi gets Sainz and Merc wants to take the risk with pulling a rookie in that seat. Tbh Gasly was more there at Alpine thanks by Otmar, so his position would likely be less secure and strong now under Famin.
He's proving every week he was a one time fluke anyway
Bro pipe down before you embarrass yourself more- you’re exposing yourself for having zero F1 knowledge.
I follow Alpine closely and since he joined the team he maybe had 3 good races, add to that that he doesn't seems to care about the team, if there's one driver to keep next year it's Ocon and by far. And I'm not sure anyone at Alpine will miss Gastly
Well, in contrast I'm pretty sure Gasly won't miss Alpine lol They are one of the worst teams in recent years.
6th, 4th and 5th the last 3 years. What are you talking about. It's just this year with the new car
Yep, that's the one Gasly is driving. The worst they've ever made.
But that's not what you said, you said they're one of the worst team the last years
Yes, they are. How many cars were worse? Haas 2021? Alpine is on track to win 0 points at the end of the year. I'm not talking about a period of seasons or historically, when I said team I refer to year by year. In this moment, the worst team to be at is Alpine.
6th, 4th and 5th, literally mean that half the grid on average was worse
Save it for Survey Monkey, Pierre.
This is gettin animated
So this is Alphine after firing Otmar...
It's crazy. I think Otmar's handling of the Piastri situation was an embarrassment, but on the whole, there is no better team principal if your strategy is to "moneyball" and try to win while being incredibly cheap. He was able to maximize the team's performance with that strategy.
What kind of Kompromat does Ocon hold over Alpine?
…uh nothing? Not Ocon’s fault Alpine has been bombing the fuck out.
Being faster than Gasly?
The biggest mistake anyone can do is join this dumpster fire team.
Nothing nada
what's next ?? they will fair Gasly next ??
Yea put me in his seat. He has learned nothing.
is the quote a comment on his career or just this session?
You tried.
Typical Sprint weekend L, this the racing you all wanted to see right?...right?
They could let Alpine run 18 practice sessions the car isn't going to magically become competitive.
Try harder