Consistency vs outright speed ? Stewart vs Fittipaldi ? Senna
vs Prost? Schumacher vs Hakkinen ? Alonso vs Raikkonen?
Driving styles and techniques differentiate from driver to
driver and although this has come into the spotlight frequently times nowadays thanks
to onboard cameras, telemetry and the new media. While we all are familiar with
how important taking care of your tires in Formula One is this season in order
to achieve a good result , we fail to notice and appreciate another key aspect
of driving : Caressing the car, taking care of not just the tires but also the suspension
, engine , brakes etc.
“To finish first, one must first finish”
Over the last decade reliability problems in Formula Cars
have been few and far between as compared to the earlier eras. Reliability
really came into the spotlight for success during the dominant Ferrari years of
Schumacher. I don’t think we will ever see those levels of reliability ever with
a cap of 8 engines and 5 gearboxes one can use during a season even though
these limits were introduced cut costs and hence making reliability and
longevity of engines more vital than ever.
But can reliability be attributed to a driver? The way he
drivers the car? The way he manages the
resources of his car even though being on the limit?
We all know Senna was fast, lightning fast in fact. His key attribute
was driving on the limit , on the knife edge of grip. Every onboard video you
watch you can see him constantly fighting the car , making minute corrections
at every corner . He was also famously known for his constant tapping of the throttle
mid-corner or whilst coming out of a corner. Many attribute this as him being a
“human –traction-control device”, but did this come a cost?
During the 1989 season he had 6 retirements: One electrical failure,
one differential failure, two collisions, one engine failure and another
incident where he spun off due to gear selection problems and stalled his
engine.
 |
| Senna returning back to the pits after his engine failure. 1989 Canadian Grand Prix. |
Prost on the other had had only two retirements, the first
one of the season marked in the history books due to his collision with Senna
at the final chicane at the penultimate race at Suzuka and the other at final
race of season. Having already clinched the world championship, he withdrew
from the race due to atrocious weather and deemed the race unsafe. A race in which ultimately Senna retired as
well , colliding while trying to lap Martin Brundle.
An interesting fact is that in the 6 races Senna retired,
Prost managed to achieve four wins and a second place. In all gaining a total
of 42 points over Senna (Championship
points were awarded on a 9-6-4-3-2-1 basis ).
Smooth driving style?
So, what does a smooth driving style really mean?I shall try and explain this without getting too technical but rather keeping in mind the "feel factor" while driving. Much of this is applicable while driving your everyday road car as well.
- · Steering and throttle: A smooth driver will with precision and subtlety guide the car and mechanically tell it what it’s going to go through next, mind you it’s not as easy as gradual throttle or steering inputs. Gradually telling the car what its being subjected to next in terms of physics helps in using momentum , abruptly turning into a corner will make no use of momentum as a lateral force into corner rather lateral forces end up acting against the direction of the tuning of the car.It’s all about making the corners shorter, making the car know that a corner is coming in and angling it to the apex before the turning point. Making sure mid-corner that tire scrub and the angle of attack as well the lateral load on the suspension is as less as possible.
Although cutting the corner by going hard over the kerbs is ultimately faster over one lap , in a race distance constantly doing this might damage your suspension and end your race.
- · Breaking: Kimi Raikkonen once said that the most important part of driving a formula one car is judging breaking for a corner. Smooth driving is not as easy as always getting the breaking point for a corner right every single time, it’s more about how your foot comes on the break and how it goes off it . It’s also important to note the rate of which you turn into the corner as well and come off the break. Ideally, race engineers and driving coaches promote breaking in a straight line and then coming of the breaks entirely before turning into the corner however “experimentally” it seems that a slight amount of “trail breaking” is ultimately the most common technique with many onboard cameras showing us that drivers still do this. However, last amounts of trail breaking cause lockups and break failures.
- · Gear Shifts: The current breed of formula one cars have a semi-automatic sequential gearbox what this does it change gears with the help of paddles and although the transmission has two clutches , changing gears in a F1 car does require the driver to disengage the clutch before selecting another gear. As of the 2009 race season, all teams are using seamless shift transmissions, which allow almost instantaneous changing of gears with minimum loss of drive. Shift times for Formula One cars are in the region of 0.05 seconds.
- However, around 2 decades ago , The longevity of an engine and transmission in the race was entirely down to the driver as they used the same method of shifting, every road car with a manual gearbox uses. Shifting was done via a stick and the clutch would be disengaged every time to do so, missing a gear or having a bad shift meant putting extra load into the transmission which could lead to a failure , or extra load on the engine or delivering extra amounts of torque to rear wheels.
Currently in F1 , its no rarity to find drivers who adopt this smooth style. In fact, nowadays almost every driver on the grid is of the highest degree of professionalism ,skill and fitness that they all have adopted to changes in their driving style. A good example of this is when Michael Schumacher was one of the first drivers to smoothly and progressively come on the throttle rather than what was the conventional method in those days , the Senna-esque style of tapping the throttle vigorously. Now , every driver uses Schumacher's technique of "smoothness".
Another technique Schumacher promoted was left-foot breaking . And till last year , all drivers had adopted that technique as well , except for Reubens Barrichello.
Although the main advantage of left foot breaking was to be able to be on the throttle and break at the same moment. (in karting terms "double-peddling") This technique did allow drivers to control their left foot to come on and off the breaks gradually and not stomp on it with their right foot coming off the throttle in a hurried state and then hastily coming off the breaks to get on the throttle again.
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