Hamilton’s warning about correlation
On the sidelines of the recent Miami Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton explained that he had a negative and chasing weekend due to insufficient correlation compared to the setup he had decided in the days before at the Ferrari simulator.
The seven-time world champion therefore emphasized the work done in Maranello, going so far as to say that he no longer intends to use it in the near future.
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Smedley: “If there’s no correlation, you’re screwed”
On the High Performance podcast, Rob Smedley – English engineer at Ferrari from 2004 to 2013 – analyzed Lewis Hamilton’s words and spoke about the disappointment related to the updates brought to Miami by the Maranello team.
“It’s a somewhat demoralizing experience, because from a technical point of view, a vicious circle is triggered where you have to ask yourself: ‘What did we bring? What works? And what doesn’t?’“, Smedley began.
He then continued: “If there’s no correlation, for example if the wind tunnel or simulator doesn’t match the on-track data, then you have to start the entire reverse engineering process over again, going back to the wind tunnel. This then blocks all development, triggering a vicious circle”.
Smedley then noted that this could be a rather delicate phase for Ferrari: “So you end up wasting time in the wind tunnel, time limited by regulations. If you have to use that time to understand why your car doesn’t behave well on track instead of developing it, to put it in technical terms, you’re screwed.”
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