Quote:
Originally Posted by mountainstar
And I'll tell you another thing I see is all this obsession with data logging and engineers and that blah blah you've got to have it in all these junior formula cars cause that's what they've got in F1. #1, most race engineers I have met don't know a damn thing about driving and all that data is two dimensional because you have to have the context of the whole situation from the person that actually sits in the car. I see a huge over reliance on it and drivers are not developing their own instincts and race craft and the ability to communicate and provide feedback.
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i agree with that - it's something i've heard from a driver who has worked with teams who should know better too. he mentioned that the data engineer is sometimes unwilling to listen to when something doesn't work but that his spreadsheet says will. there's a disconnect between reality and theory. the important thing is not that the physics and maths say it will work, but that the driver feels better able to drive the car quicker. you need engineers with, like mountainstar says, enough experience of actually dealing with cars and understanding them to know where a driver is coming from, and the understanding to be able to interpret the information in front of you. i think it's to do with the over-formalisation of qualifications as much as anything - how is it possible for people to get engineer jobs within top teams without having touched an actual racing car aside from posing with one as a fanboy and building a formula student car?
the data itself isn't a problem then, the issue is with how it's being used.