April 11, 2015

 

Red Archer VRT boss gives his views at some of the changes behind the scenes from a technical point of view as we enter the third month of the racing year.

As my habits command I'm going to try a brief synopsis of the changes that are taking place in Superleague 2015.
First of all calendar. No big surprises by the admins, not following F1 calendar as GPVWC tradition claims, though a decision to add couple more non-F1 related tracks would be more than welcomed by the members i believe.

Next subject: Cars! Most of the teams received their 2015 cars with surprise since the physics and technical specifications are those of 2014 with some partial changes in specific car parts.

Good news? Yes for the teams and drivers that were not forced to do extensive tests on the new cars, yes for the admins that saved time preparing a brand new car, no for the mystery of the league, no for the excitement of discovering the secret areas of the new unknown car. My opinion is that the decision was very much balanced and fair. Can't expect totally different cars every season and with major changes expected for next season teams can certainly work and show progress in this car too.

For visual representation of the physics change in 2015 compared to 2014 I have included a graphical comparison for the values. For example you can see that body drag start value is better than 2014 start value but max value is a bit less than that of last season. Same happens to most of the physics, that's why the lines meet at some point.

Only weight lines do not meet, all others find their 2014 values sooner or later, hence the similarity of the 2015 car.

Major issue coming . . . RnD and engines bid system changed! Finally GPVWC admins heard the voices of the teams that were starting a season with no expectation not even one good result since the development of their cars was already limited by the RnD points factor, money and personnel.

What changed?
Since mid season 2014 admins set a limit to the RnD points carried on to the next season. This prevented teams from holding their current development in favor of the next season upgrades. Very fair and good addition, will be clearly visible mid season 2015.

Team personnel: A totally unexpected move from GPVWC that almost equalised available staff with skill ratings from 5 to 7. Teams now can hire the crew without huge worry that the car cant develop enough cause of team personnel.

Is this good for the competition? Certainly yes! With sufficient money and fair management most teams can now develop a good car and be competitive in races.

Anything wrong? Guess not but it would be great if there were some uneven ratings in bigger level so the managers had more doubt and thinking of the strategy. For example instead of 5-6-7-6-7 rates of a designer (see rates at image on the side), with same average could be like this 4-5-7-9-6 or 7-5-8-5-6 so managers had to decide if they would risk to get a high mass rate sacrificing diffuser for example.

Risk taking managers would go for it taking the while safe managers would still have the option of a balanced personnel and still no team would have a clear advantage. Generally that was a good amendment in the league.


Now about RnD system changes. Anyone that has participated in 2014 season can understand the great difference. Teams at race four have upgraded cars, not significantly different (see latest upgrades image on the side) but the strategy moment has not arrived yet and most important is the fact that more upgrades are expected for many more races. The 20 days minimum delivery change helped to the side of competition still allowing managers to decide strategy.

Also the engines changes has now shortened the gap among engines. All the manufactorers can now develop their engine and the performance gaps now come from different strategies.Is it good? Yes of course, teams don't lose the train of points only because they didn't bid the correct engine, competition increased!

On the other hand. Criticism . . . desired changes that did not come!

Research and Development points gathering has remained same for ages and looks pretty boring. Reserves making laps for half an hour, reminds me of prisoners breaking rocks in Lucky Luke's US prisons. Why not prisoners do sports and art instead of . . . rock breaking?

Why not drivers that do the test session have a short sprint race with random weather and obligatory pit stop for example? Just an idea i repeat today in this article.
One more thing that could increase the competition and mystery dramatically . . . tyres selection.

Teams could make a selection for two out of three available compounds to take to the race. Huge work load for teams and drivers in race preparation, huge mystery increase for race strategy and unexpected results.

And finally a good word for the website changes, leagues pages now are more tempting and informative, standings can now give all info without the need of wiki or something else, graphical improvements, helmets, competitors page and more have given a joy to the visitors, thank you for that !