Coulthard’s concern over closing speeds
David Coulthard has blamed Mark Webber’s spectacular crash in the European Grand Prix on the difference in speed between the Webber’s Red Bull and Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus:
Obviously the Red Bull [has] massive top speed relative to the Lotus and it just catches the drivers out. You don’t want to have more than six, seven eight kilometres an hour difference between the fastest and the slowest cars.
David Coulthard
But speed trap data from the race shows the Lotuses were faster than the Red Bulls in a straight line in qualifying.
It’s clear Webber was going much faster than Kovalainen when he caught him and failed to avoid running into the back of the Lotus.
But perhaps the situation is not quite as straightforward as Coulthard – who remains a Red Bull employee despite having stopped racing for them in 2008 – makes out. Here’s how the two cars’ top speeds compared in qualifying at the race:
| Driver | Car | Top speed (kph) |
| Jarno Trulli | Lotus-Cosworth | 309.5 |
| Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Cosworth | 308.1 |
| Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 307.7 |
| Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 307.3 |
Coulthard’s words give the alarming impression that the Lotuses are far too slow to participate in F1 because they cause accidents like the one suffered by Webber.
In Q1 at Valencia Trulli was just 2.5s slower than the fastest driver. The new teams are getting closer to the front runners with every passing race.
And as the data above shows it’s not as if the T127s are cruising down the straights, massively slower than the front runners on every lap. If they were, Webber would have got past them very easily.
Part of the reason Webber was going so much quicker than Kovalainen was that he was slipstreaming the Lotus. We’ve seen other drivers hit cars while slipstreaming them in recent races – though not with quite such disastrous results.
Lewis Hamilton, for example, clipped Rubens Barrichello while overtaking him in Interlagos last year and Felipe Massa while passing the Ferrari at Melbourne this year. On both occasions one of the cars involved suffered damage.
If, as Coulthard mentions, the crash comes up for discussion in future drivers’ briefings, a reminder to drivers not to pull out of the slipstream too late would certainly be appropriate.
Especially as FOTA prepares to introduce adjustable rear wings next year, which could increase the chance of the kind of scenario Coulthard describes.
Read more: Webber hits Kovalainen and flips (Video)
Nathan Bradley said on 2nd July 2010, 11:23
Hmmm… Not entirely sure where DC is going with this.
The Lotus has been demonstrably similar to the Red Bull in a straight line for a while now. If it was going through a fast corner, I could understand.
Perhaps he is just trying to make Red Bull look good again, but I don’t think he should be complaining about closing speeds.
Nathan
Ady (@ady) said on 2nd July 2010, 12:05
I remember Couthard defending the Red Bull failures at the begining of the season. Attempting to move blame of the failures to non Red Bull parts (i.e. suppliers).
As it turns out, most of those failures were Red Bull parts. And as Edie pointed out, the design of a car will push the tolarances of the supplied components to their limit, and may not be the fault of the part, but the way it was used in the design.
Ady (@ady) said on 2nd July 2010, 12:07
I guess what I’m trying to say is I take DC’s comments like a pinch of salt. Always remember he is paid to represent Red Bull.
ashes1991 said on 2nd July 2010, 12:59
Ino what u mean, he’s too bias towards Red Bull, I think he should remember the teams he actually did well for! Who he actually won with!
Zibit said on 2nd July 2010, 16:40
In America we would call David Coulthard a Red Bull Shill.
He’s never said a bad word about Red Bull. It always somebody elses fault. He tried coming up with an excuse when the two RB’s collided a few weeks ago but was stumped.
Its insulting as a viewer to listen to DC.
(Yes I watch the races on BBC. Excellent coverage compared to SpeedTV here in America. Oh and the American announcers are even worse than DC.)
Mike said on 5th July 2010, 7:11
Hmmm…. I think his bias comes from being with the team. but I don’t think it’s quite as bad as you guys are saying.
I think people need to remember that this was a comment he made during the race.
Erik said on 5th July 2010, 14:48
I think it had much more to do with the fact that the Lotus breaked and hence the closing speed became huge, I think normal passing next year won’t be dangerous at all with flat wings.
miguelF1O (@miguelf1o) said on 2nd July 2010, 13:43
those top speed numbers are from Q3 or race i saw those images and i agree with coulthard about the difference in speed on that particulary spot of the track and in racing situation dont know why that happen but as we know redbull was probably running the engine at its highest power mode anyway mark was too impatient
miguelF1O (@miguelf1o) said on 2nd July 2010, 13:45
i think coulthard hes just defending his friend the difference in speed at that straight was clear and it was the cause of the incident but web fault
BasCB (@bascb) said on 2nd July 2010, 14:37
I think the difference in speed at that moment was there as Heikki was starting to decelerate (brake) earlier than Webber would, therefore the speed difference with Webbers fullspeed car in its slipstream as increasing until Webber brakes as well, but by that time he was already heading airborne.
Andy said on 2nd July 2010, 15:32
D.C is not quite righ that the closing speeds are the problem.
Webber said he was surprised at how early Kovalienan had to break for the corner. This is becasue the new teams lack the downforce of red bulll ,mclaren, ferrari etc, so need to be much slower through the corners.
Surely now when the new teams catch up and have more downforce on their cars then everyones breaking points would be relativly similar. so this will not be much of a problem of having acciedents of this magnitude next year.
Nitpicker said on 2nd July 2010, 16:07
It’s also the lack of downforce (and therefore drag) that allows the Lotus to go through the speed trap so quickly.
Remember Force India’s success at Spa last year due to their low-drag design. Watch out for the new teams when we return to Belgium!
Splint3r said on 2nd July 2010, 11:26
I dont think it was the top speed of the Lotus’s caused the crash like the above data suggest. Heikki had to brake earlier than the Redbull to take that corner, which caught Mark by surprise.
Todfod said on 2nd July 2010, 11:50
Exactly. DC should do his homework better.
Stuart said on 2nd July 2010, 11:33
The answer is extremely simple and nothing to do with speed difference.It’s simply braking ability.
The Red Bulls have by far the greatest downforce,and consequently much greater aerodynamic drag.This gives them the ability to brake much later than the Lotuses or similair.Webber got caught out by Kovalainen having to brake some 50 metres earlier than he Webber needed to.
The end result we we all saw.
Oliver said on 2nd July 2010, 12:15
Yep, downforce a key factore, and probably the brake balance of the Lotus not yet sorted out.
graigchq said on 2nd July 2010, 11:34
clearly kovy was on the brakes much earlier than the red bull. this coupled with the slipstreaming effect gave webber the extra speed on closing that caused this accident.
It’s also worth noting that this WAS NOT a straight per-se. The curved “straight” at valencia given they are travelling at over 300kph are pretty dangerous if you ask me, i didn’t think kovy was wandering too much side to side at all, but as you can see neither of them are travelling in a straight line, and so moving out of the slipstream woudl have been much harder.
If i was kovaleinen, i would also not have been entirely sure which side mark was going to pull past on, in that respect, kovy held his line giving as much space on left and right for webber to overtake, webber seemed to hesitate, and at 300+kph, hesitation causes accidents.
ashes1991 said on 2nd July 2010, 11:37
I have no idea what Coulthard was on about to be perfectly honest, he talks some right BS at times, I think he thinks because he was a driver he knows better than anyone else, but obviously had not looked at any of the telemetry. I heard Webber say that Kovy put his foot on the brake 80m before he did on the last lap! Which is obviously a huge difference and when your travelling at 200mph I can only guess you have no chance of reacting fast enough. But to be fair I think that Webber should have know he was following a much slower car and should have gave him a little room. I think that he was still angry from the previous pit error!
Rob said on 2nd July 2010, 12:05
Exactly – if Webber admits that he knew the Lotus would be braking much earlier than him because he had seen it happen on the previous lap, then he should have made allowances and probably didn’t really need to slipstream much anyway, because the difference in the braking points would have made it practically impossible for Heikki to defend his position. Perhaps because he had dropped back so far from the start Webber was taking an extra risk to gain a speed advantage and try to catch up to the leaders faster.
DC is not an impartial observer in this case, so we have to take his comments with some degree of scepticism…
Oliver said on 2nd July 2010, 12:12
I thought Webber was just out of the pits and next lap he crashed. I’m not sure he had followed the Lotus for long enough.
ashes1991 said on 2nd July 2010, 12:23
Yes he hadn’t but he the pit crew messed up and think he was really going for it, and ended up in an incident like Melbourne when he went into Hamilton. And I guess he just was in a zone he needed to catch the leaders and wasn’t taking any prisoners!
And totally agree Coulthard is not impartial at all. no matter what whether he looks a complete idiot or not he always sticks up for Red Bull.
ashes1991 said on 2nd July 2010, 12:25
Coulthard is that impartial he even made excuses up for Red Bulls failures at the start of the season, saying it must be an external part, turns out it was Red Bulls problem. Made him self look stupid a few ties this season!
Ilanin said on 2nd July 2010, 17:05
Yes, Webber did say that Kova braked 80 m before he did at that corner, but it seems somewhat implausible.
Webber hit Kovalainen on approach to turn 12. That’s the biggest deceleration on the circuit, 315kph/195mph to 76kph/47mph. A normal F1 car brakes at somewhere between 4 to 5g, which is to say a deceleration of 40 metres per second squared or more (with apologies for mixed units). Decelerating at 4g from 315kph to 76kph, an F1 car should cover a distance of about 92m.
I do not believe the Lotus is so slow that it has to start braking for Turn 12 almost twice as far away as the Red Bull. Especially given that the Red Bull is fast primarily because of high apex speeds in fast corners – Turn 12 is not a fast corner.
David said on 5th July 2010, 9:22
You don’t need theory. Just look at the footage. Kova braked 130-140m before the corner from the onboard footage. The Red Bull was braking about 80m before the corner.
That’s the facts.
Antifia said on 5th July 2010, 12:34
My guess is that the metric system is putting you off here (meters are not feet).. A F1 car is about 4.5 meters long, so 140 meters is about 31 F1 cars in line. Take a look at the footage again, pick the exact point where they collided, and see for yourself whether you could line up 31 F1 cars between them and the curve.
joe said on 2nd July 2010, 11:38
your topspeed data has killed DC’s stupid argument.
“Obviously the Red Bull (has) massive top speed relative to the Lotus”
I’d like to add that its helps to have a differnce in speed to overtake, Lets try and not have all the cars limited to a top speed or it will be like lorries trying to overtake on a deul carriageway!
RubinhoFan said on 2nd July 2010, 11:47
Oh great another excuse to ruin the sport. I am very disappointed in DC.
Jorge H said on 2nd July 2010, 11:55
DC is wrong about the top speed…
But in race pace the difference was massive and the difference in the breaking points might be the reason for that accident.
wasiF1 said on 2nd July 2010, 12:00
The reason why Webber crashed is that he misjudge the performance of his car & he was in the slipstream for too long time & Kovalainen did braked early I don’t think this have anything to do with the top speed of the cars.
Hallard said on 2nd July 2010, 19:36
Exactly right. I dont know why we people are looking for some kind of ‘a-ha’ explanation for this. Webber made a mistake, he slipstreamed too close and didnt expect the braking point for the lotus to be so early. Also, the hand-operated blown rear wing seems like a bad idea in this context. It was a driver error, and it happens.
LewisC said on 2nd July 2010, 12:02
I loved watching Coulthard and Mike Gascoyne’s little “discussion” on the BBC after the race. DC said his point, wouldn’t listen or discuss it when Gascoyne told him he was wrong, and then hid behind Jake :)
Don Speekingleesh said on 2nd July 2010, 12:03
Webber says Kov braked 80m earlier than Webber normally would for that corner. Which sounds odd, the differences in braking distances are hardly that big normally, surely? (Yes, yes, don’t call me Shirley (30 years today since the film was released!))
mateuss said on 2nd July 2010, 12:23
Well RBR says they are 30-20bhp down on power, with that sort of precision in their comments, you can easily interpret the 80m figure no larger than 40m.
David said on 5th July 2010, 9:23
cant you just look at actual footage/facts to determine the truth rather than make up theories when we don’t know all the data?
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 5th July 2010, 9:30
I think his point was that Red Bull have been vague about the facts.
Ilanin said on 2nd July 2010, 17:08
Yeah, I just posted a short analysis of this further up the thread. Assuming the G-force monitors you occasionally see are accurate, an 80m difference in braking distance is totally implausible.
Rob said on 2nd July 2010, 12:09
“I sure picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue!”
Oliver said on 2nd July 2010, 12:10
It’s amazing how often, Coulthard and Brundle get it wrong during live commentaries. Unfortunately as ex racers we often trust their opinions, which end up being misleading most times.
Even while watching the race, I had a feeling Heikki was brake testing Webber. Although this turned out to be wrong, in actual fact he just had to brake early for that corner. Perhaps they have a lot of TVs and events to monitor simultaneously that they end up missing crucial details.
Doug said on 2nd July 2010, 12:14
I’m getting bored of DC’s constant Red Bull praising.
BBC should be impartial and until DC quits being a rep for RB, he should not be on the BBC. Bring in Eddie Irvine instead ;D
WarfieldF1 said on 2nd July 2010, 13:00
Then it would get controversial!!
On the Webber incident, nobody fault but Webbers, even though he doesnt admit it.
http://www.planetf1.com/news/3371/6232778/Webber-Heikki-should-have-let-me-pass
Scribe (@scribe) said on 2nd July 2010, 12:20
The proximity wing seems like it’s going to be something we have to face up to next season. While there are significant detractors amongst the drivers, certain members of FOTA, and as was made clear to FOTA at the fan forum a significant majority of the fans. FOTA’s approach to it apppears to be quite admirable. Lets try it next season to see if it’s any good.
Personally I’ve changed my mind a little bit. On tracks like Spain and Valencia were it is held by all to be next to impossible to overtake due to aero, keep the proximity idea to spice up generally boring races. On tracks like Canada Spa and Intergalos were overtaking is common remove the proximity rule so as not to cheapen already good races.
UneedAFinn2Win said on 2nd July 2010, 13:12
You have just defined “Manipulated Race” my friend.
I am steadfast against having race results decided in advance by a committee or a computer simulation or an “expert” on when and where in a RACE another car will get an advantage, shooting past his opponent where the pre-approved overtake is to take place (be it proximity in time or yardage).
IF there must be a gimmick to help overtake, have the EQU to allow extra 1000 revs for 10-15% percent of race distance, at the drivers discretion. Should be easy to implement as it’s a standard part, would open up whole new strategies for teams to explore without adding costs or compromising safety. This whole proximity based aero BS is based on a fundamental error in thinking that fans want to just see overtaking. No, we want to see drivers BATTLING for position for the entire race, pushing the boundaries lap after lap.
Scribe (@scribe) said on 2nd July 2010, 15:06
UneedAFinn2Win point is that at certain tracks thats just not possible. In Spain, as proven by Schumacher and Button it is virtually impossible to overtake anyway. The wing wouldn’t make so much differance. I’m not entirley keen on the idea, however at certain tracks were the racing can be poor this alleiviates the dirty air effect slightly.
Complain all you like about the artificial effect and lack of skills, but I’m not suggesting we implement it in places were the advantage given would be ridiculous. Merley at places were the dirty air effect has an extreme detrimental effect on the racing.
An this in no way manipulates the result of a race pre lights out, or even after. it is simply a way of improving certain races on the calender which are a peranial bore and nightmare. Adds a new skill and ALLOWS drivers to fight for position in places were thats usually impossible.
But don’t get me wrong, on most tracks I object to the proximity wing because of the unfair advantage it gives to the following driver, however in Spain and Valenica you could almost say the following driver is unfairly disadvantaged.
UneedAFinn2Win said on 2nd July 2010, 16:42
You have just argued yourself that only certain “perennial bores and nightmares” are the tracks where the system is to be deployed, ergo, PRE-DETERMINED.
DaveW said on 2nd July 2010, 14:59
The only thing FOTA want to do is contrive the manipulation into a more racing-like appearance. The cheapest, most direct thing to do would be to have the Command Electronics access a telemtry channel whereby some elementary software can cut a driver’s ignition to tune of 50hp whenever the GPS says he is less than one second ahead of a non-lapped car. The device should be called the “complexity wing.”
It would also not be incredibly dangerous. It’s much better to have the car ahead slow slightly that have a car behind travelling at 200mph suddenly jump up 5mph seconds before a major braking event. What if the driver trail-brakes into the corner and doesn’t touch the brakes until he turns in, as, say at turn 1 in China, or if he has to avoid a dangerous “second move” from his quarry on a straight? The car will most likely snap around like a top, being grossly unbalanced. They are thinking about this at the level of a 10 year old or a Playstation game designer. Whitmarsh really disappoints me with championing this lunacy.
UneedAFinn2Win said on 2nd July 2010, 16:34
All Pit-to-Car telecommunication is not allowed, and for heavens sake, not SAFE!
The driver has to make split(thousands of a)second decisions to drive around basically a 200MPH carbon-fiber missile. If he misses a braking point, acceleration, turning into the apex, anything because some t**t in Race Control pushed a little red button to make the car do anything unexpected is stupidly dangerous! The BEST GPS in the world is accurate to within feet. These drivers need place their cars within centimeters in Monaco for example. No one outside the cockpit can have access to anything to manipulate the cars in any way!