Honda F1 figures out its problems

vinuneuro · #1 08-14-2007, 02:43 PM

This is sad that it took two new aero guys to figure out that there's something wrong with the wind tunnel. Hell, 90% of us could'v told them there was something seriously wrong with the aero. This is what happens when the mechanical and aero guys point fingers at each other.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/61521

Quote:

Honda Racing will have to wait another month before they can expect to make significant progress with their troubled car, claims Rubens Barrichello.
Despite the recent arrival of new aerodynamicists Loic Bigois and John Owen to help drive development forward, Barrichello has revealed that major problems with their wind tunnel calibration means that there will be no quick fix to their troubles.
It comes after a disastrous Hungarian Grand Prix where neither Barrichello nor Jenson Button made it past Q1 - and Barrichello finished last.
Writing on his website, Barrichello said he was informed about the need to wait for progress before the Hungaroring race after travelling to his team's Brackley factory to meet the new staff members.
"On the week of the race I went to the factory in to visit the two new aerodynamicists who will work with us: Loic Bigois who came from Williams and John Owen from BMW," said Barrichello. "Both of these teams had great results this year.
"We had a very long talk and they made a great impression. I heard from them exactly what I expected to. They believe that our wind tunnel's calibration is wrong and because of that everything that has been developed has not been effective.
"We will have to change many things even parts of the structure inside the wind tunnel and it will be about a month until we are able to see changes.
"The best thing is that for us to be sure that next year's car will be good we need to change this year's car to know if the changes are going in the right direction. I'm sure they are, they have to be."

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noncom23 · #2 08-14-2007, 03:45 PM

God what a waste of money. But I guess Honda has plenty of money.

asawadude · #3 08-14-2007, 04:17 PM

I would be in the 10%.

rayxi · #4 08-15-2007, 02:49 AM

You would think that regular calibration would be a standard procedure with any high tech measuring equipment.

I worked in a research lab. It's a given that a calibration run was done before each series of measurements. I'm thinking about returning my Honda lawn mower now.

vinuneuro · #5 08-15-2007, 03:05 AM

You'd think so.. However, I doubt Honda built the wind tunnel. I bet their vendor goof'd the initial calibration and/or maintenance. Would've still expected them to figure this out closer to the beginning of the season though. They just doesn't have enough Japanese staff in their Britain based team :p. Renault had a similar issue earlier this season when their computers weren't correctly interpreting the data coming out of their wind tunnel.

Just for refrence, Honda finished 2nd in the Constructor's Championship two seasons ago, and faired pretty well last season too.

AzNMpower32 · #6 08-15-2007, 05:17 PM

It could explain why this season has been disasterous for Honda.

rayxi · #7 08-15-2007, 05:53 PM

Even if the wind tunnel vendor messed up the calibration Honda should have caught it early. It's one thing for the vendor to calibrate but the end user still needs to verify the calibration regularly by running a standard model in the wind tunnel before doing testing on the actual car/model. Maybe they do things differently in F1 compared to the general scientific community.

vinuneuro · #8 08-15-2007, 06:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rayxi

Even if the wind tunnel vendor messed up the calibration Honda should have caught it early. It's one thing for the vendor to calibrate but the end user still needs to verify the calibration regularly by running a standard model in the wind tunnel before doing testing on the actual car/model. Maybe they do things differently in F1 compared to the general scientific community.

Did you read past the second sentence

? Even still, the fact that they say many structural components will have to be replaced indicates there's something bad going on other than just calibration.

I don't give a damn how they do it.. let them try to do it with just cfd if they want.. as long as they're competitive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vinuneuro

Would've still expected them to figure this out closer to the beginning of the season though. They just doesn't have enough Japanese staff in their Britain based team :p.

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