15 replies to this topic

[EddieJF1]

Anyone have any input on this debate? I tend to side with JV, in that adding mechanical grip is the way to go about slowing down the cars and creating a better show. Mr. Max gave a little attempt at this by reducing the car dimensions, but then they mandated the tire grooves!

HHF 2000!

[DangerMouse]

It's not aero downforce that's the problem - it's the type of aero downforce that causes problems, Modern F1 cars rely on down force mostly from wings which means clean airflow is required to maintain it.

Ground effect cars should be reintroduced but with strictly limited ground clearance to keep things sensible, then ban Gurney flaps, Barge boards, rear diffusers, any type of winglet, and then mandate that only flat single element front and rear wings are allowed up to a maximum surface area, with a very conservative maximum pitch angle allowed, these types of wing will not be very efficient and will cause lots of drag rather than downforce to keep top speeds in check, and they'll keep the sponsors happy as it's somewhere to put the advertising.

The cars could then run nose to tail without any dramatic loss of downforce.

[desmo]

Amen, DM! I hereby nominate DangerMouse to take Max's place at FIA.

[PDA]

Don;t blame Max. When such a proposal was made (I believe by Prost), it was vetoed bby, amongst others, Adrian Newey.


His point was that this would take away yet another area where design ingenuity can give improved performance, mandate everything, and there is nothing left for the designer to do.

[Jhope]

Adrian Newey has always stated that he looks forward to finding extra aerodynamical grip, since i guess it is his specialty. But what I don't understand, is if he always looks for the best Aero package, how come he also pays as much if not more time to mechanical grip? We've all seen how the Mac handles on curb stones, especially at monza and montreal.

Any takers

[DangerMouse]

JHope, the revolutionary "contractive" suspension system that isolates the bump and cornering forces from each other which McLaren supposedly runs were nothing to do with Newey, this system was run on the car late 1997 before a Newey design even turned a wheel.

The system isn't even a McLaren idea it was licensed from one of the GT car manufacturers.

Ferrari have reputedly built a similar system for themselves.


Prost only blocked the new regs along with McLaren, because they will be getting shiney new Merc motors in 2001. If you alter the aero rules substantially then McLaren may well loose their advantage, hence the Veto.

[tak]

The problem with F1 aerodynamics is two fold. First, about 60% of the downforce comes from ground effect. This downforce is greatly affected by turbulent air, pitch, yaw, and ride height of the car. This is why the active cars of early 90's were so effective--the active systems optimized the position of the chassis at all times to maximize ground effect downforce.
A great object lesson here is the 94 Williams. After active was banned, the 94 Williams was visibly difficult to drive. It wasn't until the mid 94 Williams appeared with SHORTER (in length) sidepods that the car became driveable. By shortening the sidepods, Newey reduced the under surface of the car--this actually reduced the overall downforce from ground effect, and more importantly, it reduced the pitch sensitivity of the car (the changes in downforce as the car pitches).
The second problem with F1 aero is it's state of development--computational fluid dynamics and wind tunnel time are optimizing wings and ground effect for 'ideal' parameters (such as free stream air, smooth track, steady state chassis). When the car is in non-ideal situation (in traffic, or sideways, or over bumps), the level of downforce CHANGES MORE than it did say 10 years ago. This is the price of progress!
DM's idea of specifying wing shape is a great solution. Put back on the great big bill board wings that are high drag and stable aerodynamic devices. I also say raise the wings, so that careful streamlining of the car is not as important as it is today--this will really help the small teams that can't spend 2000 hours in the wind tunnel every year!

[Keir]

This solution has always been an easy one.
Get rid of wings, PERIOD!!!
Leave the cars open wheel, bring back slicks, limit downforce to bodyshape only and restrict the overall dimensions.
Guess what happens?
The engineers go wild with creativty, slip-streaming returns, drivers get to drive again. Now, doesn't that sound terrible?
Apparently, Max thinks so!!!
What about you???

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"I Was Born Ready"

[CVAndrw]

About the same time Keith Duckworth came up with his one-size-fits-all fuel flow meter engine formula, Colin Chapman, embroiled up to his neck in trying to get the twin chassis Lotus 80 accepted, made what still seems the most logical aerodynamic proposal I've ever heard of:

Limit plan area. Period. I would qualify this by requiring that a certain percentage- say 75% or so?- be contained within the wheelbase to maintain the basic crush area around the survival cell, and then to add vertical deviation from the reference plane to the total plan area. This way you wouldn't necessarily have to ban wings, diffusers or even venturi tunnels, but you could intelligently control grip year to year in a much more progressive manner than adding those silly grooves.

But, like so many other of Colin's Big Ideas...

[Art]

They day F1 died.

Looking back at F1 the day it died was the day Chapmans dual chassis was banned. From then on BMW turbo wins Honda turbo V6 wins Honda V10 wins Renault V10 wins Mercedes V10 wins. It is the best engine and the best driver ever sense. When they give the engineers a free hand some Colin Chapmans will come on the sene and beat yhe big engine boys with an advanced car. Untill then it will be follow the leader.

Art NX3L

[davo]

DangerMouse is, I believe, onto something highly relevent. It is not the downforce but the type of downforce which is a problem in F1. Downforce which dramatically disappears when following in another cars wake is the problem.

Modern flat bottom F1s generate around 50% of their aero performance out of the flat bottom!

Indy cars seem to have less trouble with travelling in close proximity - with limited ground effect venturi tunnels (wing shaped undersides).

Getting back to limited ground effects - no skirts and "plank" defined ride heights would be a good step.

Another would be defined wing shapes - as per Indy - which can be designed to have large drag to limit speeds.

We left ground effect tunnels due to the high speeds, rigid rides and the blind alley it was considered technically. Flat bottoms seem to me to be technically very similar today.

Shaped bottoms thats what I want

[This message has been edited by davo (edited 02-28-2000).]

[EddieJF1]

Quote from F1 Live on 02-24-00:

"In an attempt to further improve safety
The FIA have put a lot of effort into trying to improve safety on the grand prix circuits over the past few years, mainly targeting the way the cars are designed so as to slow them down.

The powers that be believed that by making the cars run with grooved tyres and making the chassis' narrower, they would avoid accidents caused from driving at too great a speed. They also implemented new safety equipment to protect the driver in the event of an accident occurring despite all their attempts to curtail it.

It would now appear that they are changing their target from the cars and focusing on improving the safety at the numerous circuits around the world. At present, nothing has been confirmed, but it seems as if they are looking at four different possibilities.

1: Modification of the track surface in order to make it less adherent and therefore limit the speeds through the curves.
2: The replacing of current safety barriers with a new structure that would absorb the energy from an accident more effectively.
3: Modification of the gravel traps. On this subject, several possible techniques that may bring a solution to the problem are being studied.
4: Modifications of the actual track layout, in particular for the fastest circuits, which would consist of removing certain fast curves and replacing them by slower turns. This measurement would more than likely cause a general outcry if the Federation did in fact try to apply it in the future.

The FIA will have great difficulty in organizing any of the above in either the short or medium term. If work was to be carried out on the current circuits, it would prove to be extremely expensive and the organizers would hardly be willing to invest such phenomenal sums."

(On option 1) OK, I guess now we'll just make the track undriveable. How stupid is that! Here's the next possible suggestion from Max and the FIA: "We have seen that the current F1 circuits have become too unsafe, what with all their grip and asphalt. We will now be moving all F1 races to rally stages, to be run with the FIA WRC series. The F1 cars will run with the same specs as today, but will only run on sand, gravel, and snow stages. This is our only option to improve the sport."

How about this: Just sit all the drivers down in the hotel conference room and let them play GP3 for 2 hours? Let Bernie make the event a worldwide pay-per-view event, and everyone is happy, except for the fans (since we know they don't care about the fans). They could paint up their PC's in their proper liveries, they can slap ads all over the sides, etc. The only injuries you'd have is when DC bumps into Swerve while he's carrying his coffee and dumps it on Schumi. Safety for everyone!

But I digress.

HHF 2000!!!

[desmo]

This is a post I made in another forum, but it seems apropos here:

Alot of this nonsense is attributible to a psychopathology I refer to as
"Safety Nazi Syndrome". Once one buys into this logic, it tends to continue
to an absurd conclusion. This is because SNS is an ideology. Idealogues
can or will not acknowledge the downsides of their own positions. "Safety"
then trumps all other factors, and this poisons the ability to formulate
rational comprimises.
This is an insidious syndrome as it seems, on it's face, noble and even
rational without deeper and more thoughtful analysis.
Of course, safety is extremely important. This being said, why do the
powers that be ignore some obvious measures to make racing safer such
as: Smaller pit crews, fewer pit stops or measures to reduce wheel to
wheel "launches"? While at the same time proposing a raft of technical regs
that have the undeniable downside of eroding the considerable cachet that
has been built by F1 through many years of remarkably formula libre
specification.

[This message has been edited by desmo (edited 02-29-2000).]

[PDA]

It is an undeniable fact that the most exciting races over the last few years (maybe the only ones with any excitment at all) where those during which the track was wet. e.g. Magny Cours and Nurburgring in 99.

Maybe the whole solution to the problem of high speed carshes due to high cornering speeds, and boring racing could be inexpensively solved by putting sprinkler systems around the tracks. sprinkling just enough water to make it really slippery, but ot enough to cause excessive spray!

[f1speed]

Art, at the risk of having two threads on the same subject,(McLaren exhusts in side pods), McLaren claims that it increases downforce ( exhust upforce) and that it has been tried before but caused problems (reduced traction) when getting off the gas pedal. They claim that they have found a way to negate this effect. Wow! How could they do that! On limiting traction (mechinacal), does any other series try to do that? Driving with bad tires is just like driving with bad brakes. On limiting track surface traction, if you take away those blistering speeds we all like you take away F1. We already have a high performance low traction series, it's called Outlaw Sprint cars. Track modifications (New tracks) seem to be inevitable for safer racing. Every time you watch Monaco be sure to record it, it may be the last one you see. Can sombody tell me how to make paragraphs on this board?

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[Yelnats]

Whew!

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