BAR third in the Constructors? - I don't think so

[Wrex]

from Autorace.com
The 2001 season is BAR driver, Jacques Villeneuve's third season with the team and he admitted that contract wise, the 2000 season has been his best ever, adding that not driving for one of the top teams has the added advantage of less media attention, which makes life easier.

So far in 2001, the BAR team is in sixth place in the constructors' championship, trailing third placed Williams by 9 points.

Despite this, Villeneuve insists that he would not be satisfied by anything less than third place in the constructors' championship.

He also confirmed his commitment to the team and their future when he said: "There's no doubt right now. I'm not planning on going anywhere else. I am concentrating on this project and I don't have leaving in my mind. It's not 'what will it take to make me stay', it's more 'would something make me leave...'"

Does JV seriously think 3rd in the constructors is possible?

Does Honda have something we don't know about yet?

I cannot see BAR beating Jordan, let alone the Willams BMW. Should they reset their goals to trying to get in front of sauber maybe?

[Run Free]

IMO they have the full potential to be well ahead of Jordan also this year (like last year) and to fight with Williams.
But they must overcome their internal big problems and stopping to push Panis more than Villeneuve. Panis is a very good driver, but Villeneuve is another class.

Have you noticed that, in spite of Villeneuve topping the last day of testing in Valencia, there is no comment from the team until now?
In all the other occasions comments were enthusiastic and immediate...
I wonder if it's due to the fact that Panis had a very bad three day testing, was always way behind Villeneuve and they can't write, as usual, "Panis flying in Valencia"....

[R]

Fourth would be a more realistic goal for BAR this season. I honestly can't see them beating Williams. I definitely think they will beat Jordan though.

[Nicholas]

Beating Williams wouldn't be impossible, because Williams' reliability isn't exactly marvellous, only having 3 point-scoring situations out of twelve. If BAR sorts it out, maybe they can win on reliability.

It's possible, but not very. Villeneuve probably feels a bit let down by Honda: "Look at that in-camera footage of the BMWs at the start!"

[Jay]

If BAR can consistently finish both their cars in the points, they may have a chance if Williams unreliability keeps up.

But, if that Williams gets reliable, I don't think they have a chance. Unless Honda can provide a power boost that would make them on par with BMW, but that is unlikely.

One thing that I always found strange, is that the Williams almost always appear off pace in testing. Once again, at Valencia they were well off pace, with BAR at the front followed by McLaren and Jordan.

[Dino IV]

Very unrealistic. Not because of the abilities of the driver but because of the car. The car's aero is way too conservative and not ideal. Front wing is not optimal and the rest suffers from that. Their nose is not shaped that well so all kinds of modifications are needed with vortex-generators and so on, to get the best out of it in the long wait for a new chassis. They used the same undertray loophole as Williams did, but didn't design their chassis and splitter around it as well so they where actually initating it's ban, because of that. Furthermore their cooling is designed for tropical circumstances, so gives only drag and disadvantages when ambient is normal or cool, which is the case in the majority of the sessions. They changed the exhausts position to periscopes becuase Honda was going crazy about the long tubing and that's also a change for the aeropackage which should be dealt with. So all in all the car isn't optimal by any means and the squad should produce something better next year if they want to make their statements come nearer than fifth or sixth. When they are lucky they stay in front of Sauber this year. Jordan (when they get of the line ) and Williams (when they manage to finish ) are in a different league for now I guess.

[R]

Thanks, Dino. I didn't know there could be so much wrong with one car. As always, we can always rely on you to explain this sort of stuff to us.

[Dino IV]

Well, Brunner had a lot of criticsm on the BAR in his season preview and about a week ago I just asked the 'nasty' questions to the right BAR-guy and he was honest enough to admit it.

[Quino]

He should be concentrating on beating Panis and staying out of trouble all together. 3rd place is definatly not going to happen and he should know that.

[Nicholas]

Where can I read Brunner's preview?

[Bononi]

Dino,

What does Brunner have to do with BAR anyway ?

and

Who's the right BAR-guy you talked to ?

and

Where I can read this preview too ?

[Farc]

Where I can read this preview too

[Dino IV]

"What does Brunner have to do with BAR anyway?"

Nothing, he's just a brilliant designer, who's not caged by topteam-PR-obligations, so able to freely chat about the presented cars in a season preview.

"Who's the right BAR-guy you talked to?"

Well it's about aero-stuff, so their chief aerodynamicist would be the right guy.

"Where I can read this preview too?"

It was a season preview in a februari issue of the German magazin 'Auto Motor und Sport', which Quino brought under my attention. Brunner reviewed the new F1 cars for this season. Around that time I already named his most important points of criticism in a preview-thread by Peter Mallett so you could look that one up.

[RALFANATOR]

1.FERRARI
2.WILLAMS
3.MC LAREN
4.BAR
5.JORDON

U HEARD IT HE FIRST (LOL LOL LOL )

[Orange]

Read that article too Dino... It is based on this that I believe that Honda will buy BAR next year and either ditch Reynard, or force them to clean up their act... The chassis has always been the weak spot at BAR, so get them a good chassis, and they've got the engine and the drivers to be serious contenders. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to get a new car out this season, so 4th will be as good as it will get this year. Next year... watch out!

[senna12]

Having read this topic for the first time just now, I must thank Dino for the information he has provided with regards to the BAR chassis. Technical detail is really appreciated(especially in laymans terms!)

Like R, I had no idea of the extent of the problems. Why in the world aren't they doing something about it, or are they? Have they known about these problems since early testing? How much influence have the Honda chassis engineers had on the current Reynard? I certainly hope one of them has gotten on the phone back to Japan!

Are they continuing with this chassis because of the presence of Reynard in the team? This probably explains a lot of the off track problems with this team. I also hope that Honda purchase control and straighten things out soon. Jacques deserves better for his investment.

[Bononi]

Thanks Dino !

From what I see, BAR is completely stuck this year. With 3 years on their back I think they should be more evolved.

[Minardi fan]

The CONSTRUCTORS top 6 will read...

1. Ferrari
2. McLaren
3. Williams
4. Jordan
5. Sauber
6. BAR

...after Japan.

[Dino IV]

You're welcome, guys. Sharing info is what we're here for too, right?
I don't think Reynard has much to do with it directly. BAR is located in Brackley and they run their team like most of the other teams do. Reynard probably provided a handful of engineers, but designing the parts will be independent from other Reynard activities I guess.

I didn't mean to burn down the BAR design as a complete failure, but just to indicate that they have some not-so-easy-to-solve problems. The Ferrari and McLaren are aerodynamically the most extensively elaborated designs so they have sorted out things at best. Behind that everyone more or less has some design problems.
BAR has some severe ones, but Jordan on their part has been a little too extreme with their reduction of cooling intakes\exhausts and thus might run into problems as well at some hot racing days.
Williams did design their chassis, splitter and undertray for maximum exploit of their reg-loophole, which the FIA closed so cowardly when the FW23 performance showed to be more than their script expected. So Williams had to adept their undertray as best as they could, but aren't able to do much at the chassis except of some fine-tuning of the splitter's shape and position. Further back in the field, aero-problems increase with Jag needing a fully new aeropackage, Prost and Sauber in some minor problems, Benetton in huge problems closing their downforce deficit and Arrows in trouble as well, although the impeccable Brunner-designed Minardi is lifting the aero-stakes in the back of the field ofcourse.

What really struck me the most from what this BAR-guy told, was actually the lack of professionalism which I really didn't expect in F1 anno 2001. He was in full charge of the design process but pointed out, that they went ahead with a certain plan they came up with, designed the car and then were struck with surprises when every team presented their cars and they actually saw the solutions everyone else came up with. That really showed there's hardly any research, any scientific approach in the car design, but more or less the same basic principle as half a century ago when the experienced car designers sat together and discussed their ideas and decided what seems to be a good idea, system or shape and take it from there. Today they say they don't have time to be very extensive in their research towards the best solutions, so that old design principle really never changed into a more scientific approach. That's not what I thought I have to admit. I really thought that designing the car with so many people, money, computing power, data acquisition and testing facilities would have changed fundamentally, but it obviously didn't change much in it's basic principles, just in the techniques used.

For instance I asked why the BAR and Jordan differed so much although running the same engine. With the Jordan featuring a very pointed nose, radical frontwing, small sidepods, chimney-fins and periscopes, the BAR had none of those. He answered that they noticed all the differences at season start and tried i.e. some 40 McLaren style chimney configurations and didn't think any of those would solve any of their problems so refrained from using them. They changed to periscopes some GP's ago, but can't do much about the sidepods and nose because the chassis needs to be changed then and that was impossible mid-season. I didn't want to be rude so didn't ask why they opted for that frontwing and nose in the first place when someone like Brunner from pictures alone could tell it wasn't a good design, but I was really stunned by the lack of arguments for chosing directions in the design process. Most 'innovations' alledgedly come from just looking at the other cars (he mentioned copying by taking a series of different angle photographs) and trying to see what could be a valuable idea to copy to your car. Copycat galore ...

At BAR they know now the problems their design has come up with at different tracks and you see how they're franticly trying to improve things with some modifications. They feature small triangular shapes next to and under the nose which need to generate vortices flowing under the car in front of the sidepods. You don't see those on most of the other cars because their nose and frontwing designs obviously are more efficient in achieving the same without those vortex generators, which are really first-aid bandages in aero design. Fact is though that they run their windtunnel for 18 hours a day, 6 days a week, gathering so much data they scan through some of it roughly and archiving the rest on CD-Roms and storing them in an archive to never be looked at again. And still come up with designs which seem to be not properly working. Something is going wrong in the process wouldn't you say?

Makes you think. You probably all know the story of John Barnard who insisted of getting away from Maranello's everyday F1 hectic when he worked for Ferrari some years ago. He wanted and got his Ferrari Design & Development center in England and the basic idea behind it was that the engineers could focus entirely on new developments, on thorough research of new designs and really focus soleley on the new car for the next season. His argument was that the engineering department in Maranello never got to do that work because it was only 'ad hoc' jumping in on problems which arised with the running car, modifying and upgrading it from GP to GP, wasting valuable time. He wanted it to be a think tank, to improve the design process and really take things to another level. Knowing Barnard's impeccable status inside the F1 engineering community, the dozens of features he designed, still the majority of which is being used and implemented in every F1-car design today and the BAR story above, he has proven to be right about the FDD-concept. Unfortunately the Todt reorganization of Ferrari didn't acknowledge this at the time, but hopefully in the future we'll see the return of design offices like FDD, really lifting F1 to a next level in the way they're designing cars.

[senna12]

Thanks for the additional info, Dino. It looks like not a lot of research was done before the development! Time to open up that CD Rom archive, I think.

[Valve Bounce]

From the reality check Dino has given us, it would seem difficult. However, if you are going to set a goal, then you must aim high. If Jacques sets the goal at 5th place, the team will never get higher than 7th. When I started sailing, I tried to stay out of everyone's way. Then my friend told me one day that I could win, I could beat these guys, and you know what, I did. I only started sailing in July 1984, and all I wanted was to watch the races when the Enterprise World Championships came to Hong Kong in Septembr 1985. Then my friend told me that I should compete, I could beat half these guys. So I did. I came 21st out of 50 boats, and I was third Hong Kong boat home, ahead of another guy who had won the Colony Championships the previous year.
The point I am trying to make is: if you don't aim high, then your score will be low.

[Wrex]

Why don't they aim to win the world championship then?

While I agree with you VB about goal setting, a 'religion' as a Sales Manager I am more than familiar with, it is also important to keep your goals realistic and adjust them as circumstaces change.

I remember JV making this prediction at the start of the season, and at that time, I thought, although a stretch, an excellent target to aim for. However at this point, it has become unrealistic, possible yes, but highly unlikely. I personally think they will finish 5th unless they have problems, and then Sauber will continue capitalise as they have done. Taking Jordan for 4th would be a good goal, its 'aiming high' but is still realistic and acheivable.

[Bononi]

Originally posted by Dino IV
You're welcome, guys. Sharing info is what we're here for too, right?
I don't think Reynard has much to do with it directly. BAR is located in Brackley and they run their team like most of the other teams do. Reynard probably provided a handful of engineers, but designing the parts will be independent from other Reynard activities I guess.

I didn't mean to burn down the BAR design as a complete failure, but just to indicate that they have some not-so-easy-to-solve problems. The Ferrari and McLaren are aerodynamically the most extensively elaborated designs so they have sorted out things at best. Behind that everyone more or less has some design problems.
BAR has some severe ones, but Jordan on their part has been a little too extreme with their reduction of cooling intakes\exhausts and thus might run into problems as well at some hot racing days.
Williams did design their chassis, splitter and undertray for maximum exploit of their reg-loophole, which the FIA closed so cowardly when the FW23 performance showed to be more than their script expected. So Williams had to adept their undertray as best as they could, but aren't able to do much at the chassis except of some fine-tuning of the splitter's shape and position. Further back in the field, aero-problems increase with Jag needing a fully new aeropackage, Prost and Sauber in some minor problems, Benetton in huge problems closing their downforce deficit and Arrows in trouble as well, although the impeccable Brunner-designed Minardi is lifting the aero-stakes in the back of the field ofcourse.

What really struck me the most from what this BAR-guy told, was actually the lack of professionalism which I really didn't expect in F1 anno 2001. He was in full charge of the design process but pointed out, that they went ahead with a certain plan they came up with, designed the car and then were struck with surprises when every team presented their cars and they actually saw the solutions everyone else came up with. That really showed there's hardly any research, any scientific approach in the car design, but more or less the same basic principle as half a century ago when the experienced car designers sat together and discussed their ideas and decided what seems to be a good idea, system or shape and take it from there. Today they say they don't have time to be very extensive in their research towards the best solutions, so that old design principle really never changed into a more scientific approach. That's not what I thought I have to admit. I really thought that designing the car with so many people, money, computing power, data acquisition and testing facilities would have changed fundamentally, but it obviously didn't change much in it's basic principles, just in the techniques used.

For instance I asked why the BAR and Jordan differed so much although running the same engine. With the Jordan featuring a very pointed nose, radical frontwing, small sidepods, chimney-fins and periscopes, the BAR had none of those. He answered that they noticed all the differences at season start and tried i.e. some 40 McLaren style chimney configurations and didn't think any of those would solve any of their problems so refrained from using them. They changed to periscopes some GP's ago, but can't do much about the sidepods and nose because the chassis needs to be changed then and that was impossible mid-season. I didn't want to be rude so didn't ask why they opted for that frontwing and nose in the first place when someone like Brunner from pictures alone could tell it wasn't a good design, but I was really stunned by the lack of arguments for chosing directions in the design process. Most 'innovations' alledgedly come from just looking at the other cars (he mentioned copying by taking a series of different angle photographs) and trying to see what could be a valuable idea to copy to your car. Copycat galore ...

At BAR they know now the problems their design has come up with at different tracks and you see how they're franticly trying to improve things with some modifications. They feature small triangular shapes next to and under the nose which need to generate vortices flowing under the car in front of the sidepods. You don't see those on most of the other cars because their nose and frontwing designs obviously are more efficient in achieving the same without those vortex generators, which are really first-aid bandages in aero design. Fact is though that they run their windtunnel for 18 hours a day, 6 days a week, gathering so much data they scan through some of it roughly and archiving the rest on CD-Roms and storing them in an archive to never be looked at again. And still come up with designs which seem to be not properly working. Something is going wrong in the process wouldn't you say?

Makes you think. You probably all know the story of John Barnard who insisted of getting away from Maranello's everyday F1 hectic when he worked for Ferrari some years ago. He wanted and got his Ferrari Design & Development center in England and the basic idea behind it was that the engineers could focus entirely on new developments, on thorough research of new designs and really focus soleley on the new car for the next season. His argument was that the engineering department in Maranello never got to do that work because it was only 'ad hoc' jumping in on problems which arised with the running car, modifying and upgrading it from GP to GP, wasting valuable time. He wanted it to be a think tank, to improve the design process and really take things to another level. Knowing Barnard's impeccable status inside the F1 engineering community, the dozens of features he designed, still the majority of which is being used and implemented in every F1-car design today and the BAR story above, he has proven to be right about the FDD-concept. Unfortunately the Todt reorganization of Ferrari didn't acknowledge this at the time, but hopefully in the future we'll see the return of design offices like FDD, really lifting F1 to a next level in the way they're designing cars.

Just for info on BAR's trouble...

[BootsOntheSide]

"The CONSTRUCTORS top 6 will read...

1. Ferrari
2. McLaren
3. Williams
4. Jordan
5. Sauber
6. BAR

...after Japan. "

Blimey Minardi fan, not a bad peediction! All it needs is for Jordan to be reinstated from USA and have a good race here, or even jsut a vintage Alesi or aggresssion releasing glory day for Trulli, for this to be exactly true (Sorry, that's not very good grammar from me is it?)