2011-10-13
@adaco89 Adaco
Have you got any curious stories that may have happened with one of your drivers in a GP?
Ángel: On the pitwall, it sometimes happened to me that when I went to speak to Narain it would sound like “No rain”, and people around me would say, “no, it’s clearly not going to rain”.
Richard: At Super Aguri with Antony Davidson, Montreal 2006 the car was running in a points scoring position, which was not often happening in that team. Coming into the back straight he hit a Gopher at full speed. The damage to the car was enough to break a lot of the aerodynamic devices and fill the radiator full of fur. We had to retire….he was really upset!
@giovanniroales1 giovanni roales
Ángel Baena, Is it difficult to guide a driver whilst he is in the middle of qualifying or a race?
Ángel: More than being difficult, you have to be attentive, in qualifying you have to find the ideal moment for the driver to do a lap without traffic or you need to find a gap for his flying lap, above all you need to manage the moments in which he has to push. During a race it gets complicated with blue flags because you have to tell him when they appear, but at the same time you need to be on top of the engine, the tyres etc, so your work load starts piling up.
@adaco89 Adaco
Now that the championship is over, how are you taking on these last few races with Tonio and Daniel?
Ángel: For us things haven’t changed much because, unfortunately, we’re not in the fight for the championship. We’re still developing the car and trying things out to understand the tyres better for next year. Daniel is continuing with his progression as a driver and getting to know the circuits. We have to manage the evolution of the car but giving it time to adapt to the tracks.
Richard: We are pushing as ever, we are still targeting 10th place in the championship which is still achievable, it’s still very important for the drivers to know everyone in the team is pushing hard to keep their motivation high.
@Artu_Code Arturo Cortés
Ángel, with a rookie driver such as Daniel, is it easy or difficult to guide him in such a complicated sport such as this?
Ángel: Technically it’s easy because an F1 car is quite different to any other car but, at the end of the day, a car is still a car. He soaks in information very quickly and it is turning out to be very easy and gratifying because he learns so quickly.
@RacingVanessa Vanessa Hill
Daniel looks such a nice boy. How is in real live?
Ángel: Yes, he’s a great kid and a bit of a joker. Outside of the car he relaxes very quickly, but once he’s in the cockpit he changes his mindset and knows how to concentrate; he’s very responsible and hard working.
@RacingVanessa Vanessa Hill
What would you say Liuzzi’s main qualities are?
Richard: He has a very strong feeling for what is happening in the car, plus a good mental capacity to remember every small detail after driving. As an Engineer this makes my job easier, as the more detail we have the easier and quicker it is for us to try and improve the car with the data we collect.
@LauryCasti Laura Castillo
Do engineers get angry with their drivers much? What happens in case of conflict?
Ángel: We don’t normally get angry, it’s more them getting upset with the engineers if there is something obvious that we haven’t passed on to them. At the end of the day, we see it from a numerical point of view whereas they are putting their lives on the line in the car. But this doesn’t usually occur, just at very precise moments and you have to understand that for them it can be because of a dangerous situation.
Richard: No it’s not good to be angry with the driver, this can be distracting for both people. Differences of opinion always happen across the weekend, but they need to be discussed in the correct manner, clearly and objectively. Fighting gets you no where.
@RaulPozuelo Raul Cruz
Just how personal and close is an engineer’s relationship with his driver?
Ángel: At HRT it’s personal because you work a lot of hours together and it’s him who drives the car, which is a result of your work. The data is vital for the team and we share everything. The philosophy is to try and get both cars as close to the front as possible and from there to have a clean fight on the track. But we never annoy each other or hide information from each other.
Richard: In the end you are the sole point of contact during the sessions and in the race, so you need to develop a friendly relationship to be able to trust eachother. Without trust a driver can lose confidence in the people around him and he won´t perform at his best. We speak reguarly between races but socializing in the evening at a circuit is difficult as we tend to have very different time schedules.
@ivanF1 ivanF1
Could you explain how a driver’s feedback is used in the development of an F1 car?
Ángel: It’s used in many ways. They explain how easy or difficult it is to drive the car and get a fastest lap out of it and at what stage they get it. They explain the problems they face and their feedback is very important in order to the right set-up on the car.
Richard: We note everything the driver says. If its basic comments about the car setup, we use that directly at the circuit to drive the direction of the setup for that weekend. If it is comments about components on the car, for instance the feeling of the power steering, we take his comments and pass them onto the designers in the factory who will report back to us at which race we can receive the new updates. For some parts we fit which may only have a very small effect on the feeling of the car, we use our telemetry data to choose which parts are bringing good performance.
@eder_vazquez Eder Vazquez
What driving style do Liuzzi, Ricciardo and Karthikeyan have? Which of them adapts best to the F111?
Ángel: Although you might not believe it they have very different styles. Liuzzi is very technical with his comments and has a great feel for the car; he is capable of adapting very well to the car. Daniel is very smooth in general but especially with the accelerator. Karthikeyan brakes very well and it would have been interesting to see him race in Monza. The three of them adapt well to the F111 since it is quite a balanced car. It’s not hard to handle but its main problem is its lack of downforce which doesn’t allow it to compete against the frontrunners and that means that the tyres wear out quicker.
Richard: As Ángel said, Narain is very strong in braking and high speed corners and likes an aggressive oversteer car. Daniel is a very smooth driver with throttle application and steering and likes an aggressive car similar to Narain. Tonio is strong in high speed cornering and very strong in carrying a lot of speed through the corners, but prefers the car to have more understeer. Their strengths come into play at different circuits.
@eder_vazquez Eder Vazquez
What do you do in the sessions before qualifying? What is your routine?
Ángel: The first thing is to let the driver learn his way around the track, for which they usually need one or two stints. From there we make sure that the pressure, height and aerodynamics are correct. The next step is to try and improve the car with some changes to the set-up. Lastly, we compare the tyres that we are going to use in the race to see their degradation, how quick they are and, basically, which tyre will be best for qualifying.
Richard: The job of the sessions is to collect all the data the engineers need for qualifying and the race, and to provide the best setup for the driver. We need to collect a lot of information about the prime and option tyre, how they degrade, how the balance of the car changes with fuel. We need to very carefully decide the fuel consumption, because for instance in qualifying we target to finish the car with only 500grams of fuel left in the tank. Then we need to do a lot of work on race starts to optimize the performance for the race start on Sunday. Every part of the car receives a lot of attention.
@JorgHRT Jorge Viegas
Would you like to work with drivers such as Carmen Jorda or Maria de Villota in 2012?
Ángel: Personally I wouldn’t have any problems with that because I know both of them well and it has been a long time since a woman raced in F1. It would mean I’m working with my friends and that’s not bad at all.
Richard: I think that the driver line up we currently have is strong and I would keep it for 2012. However if they end up making a test for the team I would be happy to engineer them.
@JorgHRT Jorge Viegas
How did the opportunity of working in this project arise?
Ángel: In my case, I was at BMW Sauber and Adrian Campos has the possibility of creating a Spanish F1 team. At the end of the day we all want something that is ours and I was attracted by the idea of being able to be a race engineer again. It all came together and here we are.
Richard: Toni Cuquerella (chief race engineer) and I worked at Super Aguri together. He was race engineer for Antony Davidson, I was race engineer for Takuma Sato.
@FormulaPortal01 FormulaDeportiva
Richard, during the week what kind of work do you do with Tonio? How do you prepare for a race with Tonio?
Richard: Before the race we will discuss setup ideas we have, I draw on my experience, he uses his experience from other teams. We walk the circuit together on Thursday to discuss the features of the circuit, and so I can explain any new development parts we have for the weekend. In the practice sessions before the race we have to make sure we complete all of our tyre and setup work, these are the two most important areas that help us to make a quick car in qualifying and optimize for the best race strategy. Before, during and after every session we make detailed debriefs so we do not miss any important information.
@FormulaPortal01 FormulaDeportiva
Ángel, what did you study at university? Do you have any more studies? If so which?
Ángel: I studied Mechanical Engineering and, after that, Automotive Engineering. In my case, instead of doing a master’s, at that time it was a better option for me to move to England and become an automotive engineer so you could say that my master’s was to complete a second course at university.
@adaco89 Adaco
At which moment of a GP do you get most nervous, at the start or when one of your drivers is going to overtake the other?
Ángel: I get most nervous when the cars are on the starting grid ready to do their warm up lap. During those moments your heart is in your mouth and it feels like it goes on forever. The rest of the time I don’t get that nervous. At the start or in an overtaking manoeuvre, more than nervous, we’re alert because in both cases you need to react and being nervous doesn’t help. If there is an accident at the start, we have to see when we need to call the car into the garage or if it has been damaged, so we have to look at the data immediately and see if we need to change our strategy. When overtaking your tense but it is very satisfying.
Richard: Actually qualifying, it’s the time where all the timing and communications must come together perfectly. For many people it’s the most important session of the weekend, as all the cars are on new tyres and low fuel, it’s the true test of speed.
Credit: HRT Formula One Team (www.hispaniaracing.com)
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