QUOTE (ZooL @ Jan 21 2010, 09:47)
Well I've been quite a vocal critic around here of Lacey.
He isn't good enough to be head of aero and he isn't proven to be the best in his discipline.
He got the concept of the car fundamentally wrong. We must have been the only idiots who didn't even understand the front aero solution required esp FWEP's.
I still believe we dont know what went wrong. People talk of wonderful development, but when you actually look back that was alot of development which was actually taking us even further the wrong way. All that development in the 1st half of the season was a waste of time goind further down the wrong path. Recall Whitmarhes words, they had to pull back and completely switch to another concept because they didn't understand what was going on and in essence went on to say they just had to blindly copy what others were doing because sometimes it just works.
Illey is an improvement. You may say the F60 wasn't great in his hands. BUT it had a better aero concept than the McLaren and hardly any development due to strategic decisions. The only real flaw the F60 had was the gearbox shape which blocked them from deploying an effective double diffuser, but that was just pure luck that McLaren had designed their gearbox the way they did and the way Ferrari did because neither of them expected the double diffuser area to be exploited.
I still don't think hes the right man, but it is an improvement.
I wish Lacey would still stay on the team though because its pretty likely he's a better aerodynamicist than members of the team he was leading.
Sorry for the delayed response.... as has been mentioned, you've completely misunderstood what the job roles are. The Chief Aerodynamicist looks after the car design, the Head of Aero is responsible for organising the department and making sure the people and tools are good enough.
Blame for getting the concept wrong lands mostly at the feet of the Chief Aerodynamicist, not having enough time / resource to get things tested is the fault of the Head of Aero.
golfball out.
Scarbs and company will "run the rule" over the cars.
.
