We’re Not the Only Ones
In David Coulthard’s latest column for ITV, he talks about yet another missed opportunity in Germany, the comparisons between Toro Rosso and Red Bull, and the future of KERS. But my favourite piece in his column, is just a couple of small paragraphs.
As an aside, I notice that the rear wing fell off the Toyota at Silverstone and it was a right-rear suspension failure that caused Glock’s crash at Hockenheim.
I didn’t hear of any investigation into the structural integrity of the Toyota – but presumably that will happen because when we had a suspension breakage in Malaysia we came under the spotlight of the FIA in a way that was publicly uncomfortable for the team.
Now, my first reaction to this was: “That’s because the Toyota didn’t smash into a billion tiny pieces!” Thinking about it, however, Coulthard does have a point. If there is a structural problem with the Toyota that has caused these last two failures, then it probably should be looked at.
So, why isn’t it? I can only conclude two possible reasons. Either the problems aren’t as Coulthard suspects, and they aren’t related to any vital components within the car. Or, it’s because the crashes were not as visible as the Red Bull failures. Of course, we all saw Glock crash and leave the car wincing, and there was plenty of debris on the track, but the car generally looked to be sound. When we watched Coulthard bounce across the kerb in Malaysia, there was carbon fibre flying off all over the shop. Given the information I have, I would investigate the Red Bull over the Toyota any day.
But, perhaps I am wrong. Are we seeing yet more inconsistency from the FIA again, or is this just Coulthard filling his column inches?
July 27th, 2008 at 3:19 pmAlianora La Canta said:
It appeared to be the same part that failed on the Red Bull each time, whereas the Toyota has different parts failing on each occasion. Different failures are what you’d expect from normal F1 cars; they’re just less reliable than the norm for 2008-spec F1.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:29 pmSteven Roy said:
I think it is purely down to the time of year. The Toyota has run half a dozen races before it started to fall apart so its basic structural integrity has been established. The Red Bull had problems at the start of the year so questions were asked as to whether it was structurally sound or not.
There is a clear inconsistency here as in everything the FIA does and again it creates the impression of the manufacturer owned teams being allowed to do things that result in other teams being harrassed like the McLaren/Renault nonsense last season. My belief was that they should not have interfered in the Red Bull case because apart from anything else a structurally unsound car is a slow car so if there was a problem the team would have sorted it.
Ever since structural components of the car changed from being metal to carbon composite in the early 80s one thing that has always been known is that the carbon composite will be massively strong if a load is applied in the direction intended but it will break like an eggshell if a load is applied in another direction. For example we have seen suspension explode when a driver drops a wheel off the track and catches the inside edge of the tyre on a kerb or track edge trying to get it back on track. No-one desigs suspension to take a load in that direction so it fails catastrophically if a high enough load is applied.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:35 pmme said:
wasn’t the first toyota failure a rear wing issue, one so bad that they had to revert to an older part. while the second failure was also related to the rear of the car (although the cause has yet to be confirmed by the team).
July 27th, 2008 at 3:38 pmme said:
i think the fia were right to step in, but it was DC’s driving prowess that they should’ve been investigating.
July 27th, 2008 at 4:01 pmChristine said:
Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that. By this time we know the Toyota is generally okay, if slow. When Red Bull were investigated, we had our doubts they could get through a race distance!
July 27th, 2008 at 5:24 pmJoe said:
When Red Bull had that incident in Malaysia, the car just seemed to disintigrate and looked very fragile. That’s cause for an investigation. Toyota, while the failure was bad. didn’t have such an extreme failure.
July 27th, 2008 at 5:30 pmme said:
it did fall to bits like a clown car didn’t it?
no-one got hurt in the rbr though did they?
July 27th, 2008 at 6:26 pmJoe said:
Nah, they were alright I think. If that had hit a barrier at 200 mph though, then the outcome may have been different.
July 27th, 2008 at 6:32 pmSteven Roy said:
I think Adrian Newey’s ego getting bruised was the only injury.
July 28th, 2008 at 2:03 amCorey said:
I think a big issue is the time of year as Steven Roy said earlier, along with the many bits of carbon fibre were flying of the RBR. However when I first saw Glock’s crash it appeared that the suspension failure occurred before it ran over the kerb and causing such a crash should be looked into. I hate to think of what could have happened had Glock slammed the wall with full side impact instead of rear first and agree with Coultard to some extent.
What the FIA needs is some way to appear uniform in its decisions so there isn’t so much speculation from the fans or even teams
Very true but thats the reason I was concerned with it because it seemed that riding the kerb didn’t cause the failure. Also note that Kovi during qualifying was like a rally car in that same corner with no failure.
July 28th, 2008 at 4:24 amJordan Allen said:
When you do think about it, when the RBR shattered into a billion pieces then all that energy was spread out over a very wide wide area and the few seconds it took to come to rest was enough to ensure that Couthard would not get hurt.
Now when the Toyota creams the wall, the timeline is milliseconds, and the Toyota held together (compared to the RBR) until contact witheh wall was meet.
Glock got the double whammy of a car that had tons more potential energy in it that needed to be reduced to nothing in a thousandth of the time.
Add on the fact that walls do not have much “give” throw in a little “Newtonian Physics about Inertia (Latitudial), sorry “me”) and you can see that while the wall stops the car at flat out speed, Glock is going to slam into his seat belts flat out, so he will have some cool looking bruise marks on his chest at the very least.)
July 28th, 2008 at 10:24 amme said:
toyota issued a statement this morning on this subject:
“Following Timo’s incident during the German GP, Toyota initiated a thorough investigation.”
“This initially established that a rear toelink (trackrod) gave way causing Timo to lose control of the car, but confirmed that there were no exceptional circumstances before or during the incident in the German Grand Prix.”
“Further investigation has established that damage sustained in the British Grand Prix two weeks earlier was the cause. During that race Timo suffered several incidents.”
July 28th, 2008 at 10:27 amChristine said:
They couldn’t find the damage in two weeks?
July 28th, 2008 at 10:35 amme said:
basically they looked but didn’t spot anything wrong. they also said:
“As is normal practice, some parts from the British Grand Prix were carried over to Hockenheim, including most of the rear right suspension. Although the parts were subjected to the normal test and screening process following the Silverstone race and passed fit for use at Hockenheim, it has become apparent that it did not identify an issue which subsequently led to the incident at Hockenheim.”
“As a result of this investigation, Toyota Motorsport has revised its inspection processes to include such cases and is extremely confident there will be no repeat.”
so it sounds like they’re blaming the inspector guy. toyota historically have had issues handling kerbs, so i guess they haven’t solved all those problems yet.
July 28th, 2008 at 10:43 amme said:
on the bright side, i guess max will be pleased to learn toyota are recycling some parts this year too.
no “one-time, thousand dollar” wheel nuts for a team that can’t afford to replace a single track rod. eh?
July 28th, 2008 at 12:33 pmSteven Roy said:
I think Corey has a valid point. The corner that failed was the unloaded corner. At that stage of a right hand bend the left wheels are still carrying the load and the right rear in particular is doing next to nothing. The right rear would only be subject to a load if it hit something or when the driver got back on the power. It was an unusual failure.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:59 pmDamaged Trackrod Caused Glock’s Accident » BlogF1 said:
[...] Sidepodcast point out, the structural integrity of the Toyota appeared to withstand the incident better than the Red [...]
July 28th, 2008 at 6:25 pmAlianora La Canta said:
no “one-time, thousand dollar” wheel nuts for a team that can’t afford to replace a single track rod. eh? {me - 3 comments ago}
I thought Toyota were the most free-spending team of the lot?
July 28th, 2008 at 6:29 pmme said:
so did we. on everything ‘cept trackrods apparently.
July 28th, 2008 at 6:57 pmSteven Roy said:
When Toyota arrived in F1 Ove Anderson was asked if they could match Ferrari’s spending. He replied that Toyota had enough cash in the bank to buy FIAT never mind Ferrari. Looks like they should spend some of the cash and get a little of Ferraris knowledge. The re-used a carbon suspension piece from a damaged corner. Even I know that is a bad idea. Risk versus potential gain again.
July 28th, 2008 at 8:14 pmJoe said:
I don’t understand Toyota. Apart from 2005, they’ve pretty much been standing still. There’s a very good comment in the F1 07-08 Yearbook about how the Communism way isn’t working for Toyota. It’s a shame because Ralf Scumacher ruined his career going there and I think Trulli is unfortunately doing the same.
July 28th, 2008 at 8:39 pmJordan Allen said:
Well, I for one think that Toyota is a pre-retirement centre for drivers. Both Schumacher and Trulli were in decent teams before Toyota, so you could say that because their careers where ruined already was the reason why Toyota was able to pick them up.