I believe there is a current working group formed by the respective technical heads of different F1 teams to improve/facilitate overtaking maneuvers for the 2008 F1 season. What kind of areas will they be focusing on? Would a redesign of the front wing, i.e. reverting back to the front wing designs used 10 years ago. I get the impression, probably incorrectly that the current design whilst improving air flow over front tyres & minimising the risk of damage when going over kerbs, looses downforce when closely following another car as the raised ends of the wing catch more 'dirty' air than their predecessors.

No pit stops.Nothing else.

Based upon what little I've read, they appear to be focused on "active aerodynamics."



That would probably help a lot. The higher the wings are off of the road surface, the less ground effect they are in and thus are more sensitive to flow distortions.

I'd allow tire change stops but ban refuelling making pitstop strategy ineffective. Also a fuel limit per race but no freeze on engine development. Car width as up to '97, slicks and front and rear wing only. If TC is effectively removed, even better.

Active aerodynamic elements are IMO a way to pour enormous amounts of money for nothing to the benefit of car and engine manufacturing technologies. And contradict the spirit of the rules applied for so many years. I don't know why people still believe Mosley really cares about cost cutting. Everything FIA has done has led to the opposite.

I think his question is about the concerns of the technical working group in particular. Besides, there are enough threads about our wet dreams for F1 out there already aren't there?

If there are pit stops, there will only be boring strategies and that is why we have no racing today. It changes only when there is rain. You are farting in a thunderstorm if you try anything else. We have seen it work in decades before. The car must qualify as fast as it can over two hours on Saturday afternoon in the same configuration as it is in the race save for fuel load.
No pits stops except for punctures or wing damage. Everything else will take care of itself. The drivers will make the tires last and they will pass. Senna and Prost did. The rest is left to the competitive nature of the engineers and the pit crews will all go home and watch the race on TV.
There is no other way. None. None, I tell you. None.

Only endurance races have pit stops. F1 is the only exception. Fix that and you fix F1. WTF is the problem? Talk to you all in 3 weeks unless you can hear the drums from Africa..

Bon voyage, kill 'em good.

There is an article in 'The Paddock' regarding the work that Peter Wright and Tony Purnell are doing with the OWG(and future regs). What they're looking at doing is bringing down the downforce levels by about 50%, with probably a spec. underbody - with the centre of pressure forward, so as to keep the front wings' size to a minimum (aesthetic reasons, primarily). They considered spec front and rear wings, but have decided against and are looking instead to limit the planes ....

They're alos looking at banning "overlapping aerodynamic bodywork", which will get rid of all the flip-ups, winglets etc.

As for future regs, they're looking "probably" at turbocharged 4cyl 1300-1500cc engine with no boost or rev limits, but a fuel feed limiter....

And they're "asking the manufacturers" about whether tC etc. should be on the cars..???? Why ask the manufacturers? Take some note of the fans, maybe?

I am going back to the "overtaking/close racing/safety limit" solution I always recommend.

It was from one of F1's true thinkers , Keith Duckworth

Just put small speed bumps on the straights so the cars have to have suspension movement all the time. That limits ground effects and so slows corner speeds and increases braking distance.

Cost - about $100k per circuit, say $3m max one off cost for the whole of F1. No impact on engine design and if 1,000 F1 engineers across all the teams can't do what road car engineers have to do for every new car they launch then I am sure the road car engineers would happily show the F1 guys how.

Why MM and co. have to make it all so difficult I don't know. Actually I think I do. It's because then the major manufacturers can stay in F1 for publicity and claim its green ( green as in all the CO2 produced running 10 wind tunnels 24/7 each time the aero rules are changed!).

I agree but then all endurance elements should be removed too. 1 engine per 2 races, 1 gearbox per 4 (as planned). Teams and drivers should be given again the opportunity to prepare in the best possible way and take part in the race with their full capacity and capabilities.

They (the FIA) seem fixated on maintaining lap times and cornering speeds in fast corners, by introducing (complex, irrelevant and potentially very dangerous) active aerodynamics. IMO, a reduction in fast corner speeds, by a simple reduction in downforce, plus an increase in slow corner speeds by allowing active suspension and ABS (by a spec controller) would make more sense in a number of ways - improved overtaking opportunities, more relevant to road cars, better spectacle in fast corners, reduced acreage of run-offs. The net effect of these changes plus the proposed reduction in power, together with energy recapture, would be an increase in lap time - so what?

I really fail to see how active aerodynamics will improve overtaking, since the idea seems to be that in the zones that downforce is needed, the active aero will supply it to the same level as now.

yes but 2 x 40 min sprints with the 2 fastest laps in qualifying determining grids for the 2 seperate races. Works for Superbikes. F... this endurance crap.

Oh Christ, no......

Give us back Grands Prix, not f***ing sprint races.

Umm exactly what do we have now? Could you be so kind as to elaborate on what a "Grand Prix" is that you want back?

Surely you dont mean much older Grand Prix where the first few cars were lucky to be on the same lap? Staticstacilly speaking they finish now closer than any time in F1 history - on paper.

By the way, I said 40 mins, maybe 50, which I think is the right time as proved by Superbikes, good balance between strategy and speed, I didnt mention sprint race anywhere.

cheapracer, this is not intended as a dig, or a slight of any kind to you, but when did you start watching F1? It is a genuine question.

Personally I would like to see active underbody aero.

Rear wing lower element removed to feed air to the car behind or generally make a big gap between the rear wing and diffuser. No groovey tyres, no power steering, no fly-by fanny and no traction control but I'd love to see some clever differential though. Also, free number of cylinders. We have seen a vee five MotoGP bike so I won't be surprised if we see vee 7 or vee 9 2.4 liter configuration.

Or shall we get full electronic tech and take away a lots of aerodynamic? ABS, lateral traction control and yaw differential.

Every now and then....I'm stuck between wanting to see the drivers really work at it, but I do like the idea of tech freedom as well. I suppose if there was a massive drop off in downforce, I could be sold on the electronic gear - which I'm presuming would be generally sorted around each driver's particular style anyway....except, possibly , ABS. It seems a bit counter-productive to help enable the cars to race each other, and then help shorten the braking areas.....

Hello everyone!
(first message on the tech tread)

Well if we just consider the technical point of view, the problem to overtake is to get and stay close so the aero disturbance is the main issue to address.

Said that, the more the downforce is created by ground effect the less the car is sensitive to air flow change when following a car.

So actually we have high front wing, and limited rear diffusor while the rear wing can be "quite" free.

Concerning the front end:

In formula 3 cars there is an interesting point in regulation: the front wing main plane is homologated and must fit in mandatory dimensions.
So why not doing the same in F1?
Like the front wing height reduced to more "normal values" and a simple shape for the main element fitting in maximum dimensions and overhang position.
Would be quite easy to generate the same amount of downforce and limit the maximum value of it by picking up the good dimensions.

Then it would be up to the team to design end plates and flaps according to their needs.
To be honest i think that the actual front wings with their very high mount is the ugliest thing we saw in F1.

Then one step further, Same idea as before but with a FIA designed front wing main plane made by one designated supplier and free flaps and end plates for example?
The control of maximum downforce would be ensured easily and this would reduce downforce sensivity when following another car (as well as stoping suspicions on front flex wings)
Another "side effect" would be to reduce the need of development in wind tunel for the front wing or at least reduce the possible gains in this area between a vastly founded team and smaller ones.

For the rear, changing the rules to a smaller rear wing but bigger rear diffusor would also improve stability for overtaking.
Ok the braking stability of the rear axle is more dependent of the wing than the diffusor aerodynamicaly speaking.
So one solution would also be to improve the range of efficient ride height for rear downforce via the rear diffusor.
Looking at cars like Formula nippon, they have small "skirts" on the side of the rear part of the flat bottom thus vastly improving air flow stability under the rear of the car with ride height change.

Then again, the balance between actual regs and such kind of regs can be done by reducing the rear wing to achieve same amount of downforce.
Also, less importance given to the rear wing less gain possible in this area with bigger development and tests.

Well, that's my opinion. But what you gurus think of that?
I mean just technicaly speaking?

Ben38

ps: as there is no presentation post in this tread I introduce myself here:
Name: Ben
What I do here: Flood racing related to keep busy at work
Nationality: Froggy
Age: too young to be called old
How I arrived here: one of the very very very old gurus (I insist on very old he will like it ) showed me this BB
What i do: try to keep living from motorsport
Here it is

About traction control, as long as sanctioning bodies will keep thinking that you need wheel speed information to perform a good and efficient traction control cars will always have.
As example i set a traction control system on a friend's modified road car without wheel speed information and the ECU is just a 1000$ amateur level unit...

The systems in use in professional racing can perform very very good traction control without speed data. They just need more tests to be set than classical system.

About electronics and prohibited sensors, many championship regs ban to link wheel speed sensors to ECU ok.
But the data logger can have these sensors and for all the system i saw using a ECU and a data logger separated there always was a CAN link between the two electronic units.
Did someone writing regs ever realised that CAN link or equivalent are mutliplex based system so informations can be sent both way simultaneously?
Well not really for the moment and it is something very difficult to check i agree.
So when it is impossible to check i would make it free to use anyway. Better to allow clearly the thing and go for a controlable system than to hide it and have systems very cost demanding to develop for the same result.

Ben

Keith Duckworth may have been a, "true F1 thinker" (whatever that means), but it would appear that´s where his thinking not only started, but also stopped. He obviously never considered the fact that other forms of motorsport used the same circuits. But, as we already know, he wouldn´t have been the first "great thinker" to overlook that small detail.

I thought that GP2 has proved that real Venturi tunnels with skirts on the side are what we need. And removing pitstops won't change a lot, just watch some F3 races.

It was the view of Duckworth that he was approximately two to three times as smart as a normal person. If you couldn't quite see the sheer brilliance of say, building speed bumps into racing circuits in the manner of a mobile home park, you just weren't operating at his level. It is impressive to witness the power of a superior human intellect at work. For example, Keith would eventually convince himself that he invented the four-valve racing engine. That cannot be accomplished with just plain, ordinary thinking.

Forget the short (sprint) F3 races. The reason the longer F1 races would be better without pitstops is that the races would develop, set-ups would become much more a matter of compromise and different cars would have varying comparitive pace throughout the races. AND, position changes would have to take place on-track.

Much as I can be pretty certain it isn't going to happen, there is, I believe, a strong argument that now might be the time to look at stopping the practice of refuelling stops in F1. Witht the mooted return to turbo motors there is going to be an increase in engine temperatures, and we'll likely get back to those old glowing intercoolers......increasing also the danger of fire. It has been said before, but bears repeating, that it is a matter of time (of when, rather than if) that F1 has a major fire incident during refuelling. How that incident is dealt with (and possibly where it happens will greatly influence that) and its possible ramifications (people ablaze on live TV - not good advertising...) could greatly impact upon the stability and health of F1.

Did he invent the internet?

26 guys took their cars to the grid, a green flag was waved (yes, green, not the absence of red) and the first one to cross that same line for the 70th time in a row, non stop, was the winner. Then Gordon Murray (do I remember right?) came up with these mechanics dressed up like drivers carrying a fuel hose. Before that if you wanted to be ahead of someone you had to overtake him, not wait for him to stop and collect his position.

Allegedly it was Fangio and co., in that famous Nurburgring race in '58, if you would believe Dr Lawrence...



AFAIK these active aerodynamics will arrive after the first wave of changes (provisionally arriving in 2009), whose overall goal is to reduce aero by 50%. All sounds pretty good, although it will be interesting to see what Pat Symonds and Paddy Lowe bring back to Renault and Mclaren. Or rather, it will be interesting to see what Ferrari make of it all.

Welcome to the board and thanks for joining in. Good stuff there, hope you'll stick around and contribute. As the mod I say nevermind stepping on egos or toes and bash right in there. It can get a bit spirited at times but personally I like it that way.

Thanks for the welcome!
(I started to think this bunch of people here can't say hello )

As i browsed this BB for quite some time till it was possible to register again I am a bit aware of the warm talks on some topics but this what makes it interesting isn t it?

I am here to stay and wouldn t mind some of those "fights" from time to time (within the acceptable range of course)

Welcome.

I think the idea is that the active aero will reduce the drag on the straights so that Vmax is the same with the reduced power, and will give the same downforce:mass ratio as now in the turns, to maintain cornering speeds. The effect will be to keep laptimes the same while reducing fuel consumption. That rather misses the point IMO.

If it works like this it will just lead to the opposite costs will explode
The team with the biggest simultation ressources will basically get a huge advantage.
Adding to engine development to reduce fuel consumption for same power...
Groupe C car regs were based on fuel consumption. It gave very interesting results in terms of car diversity but when manufacturers got involved the costs exploded and when they were gone so was the championship...

I am not sure how clever Keith Duckworth was but he did seem to think things though in a logical way AND looked for simplicity, not complexity in solutions ( although his cam gear drive perhaps missed that goal). Do not pre assume that the speed bumps can't be simply screwed into the track for F1 and unscrewed for bikes etc.

Also nobody said they had to be put on the corners. The idea was on the straights to force a clearance between car and underfloor. That destroys ground effect downforce levels. Peter Wright , who is credited ( along with Colin Chapman) with inventing ground effects actually has said you can't de invent it as it is a natural phenomenon.

If you want more overtaking you need less corner speed and more straight line speed. To do that requires some kind of alteration to the L/D ratio or to lower both L and D. What I can't get is why F1 has to look at such complex ways of acheving such a simple objective. I am probaly too old and cynical but I think that complex solutions like active aero etc. suits the current team status quo by requiring massive wind tunnel time, CFD processing and simultation. All the things that the current top teams spend money on.

To make close racing (not particularly overtaking) possible, downforce should be reduced to the absolute minimum by banning wings and diffusers. Regardless how downforce is generated, it has a massive effect on the racing. Braking zones are shortened significantly, cornering speeds are artificially higher and it makes the car more or less a train on rails.

With downforce practically removed there's room to abolish other technical restrictions, such as for the tyres and minimum weight.

Why don't you just watch formula ford instead?

Without being as harsh as RHM i would say that downforce is part of formula cars
Even Formula renault has a diffsor and adjustable wings
No downforce is typicaly for touring cars and even these cars have a wing no?

Considering the speed the car are achieving no downforce would quickly make them airborn...
Thing is downforce is part of every race car now even if there is no diffusor or wings there will still be studies to at least reduce lift created by the body shape. On many touring cars the rear wing doesn t effectively produce downforce, it mainly cancel the natural lift from the body shape.
And there is other ways than wings and diffusor to make downforce there are just less efficient.

And for a fan point of view, if you take off the downforce the cars will be very slower.
What fans will think if cars are lapping 15 seconds slower than before?
Then a gp2 car will be quicker as for a f3000 as for a champ car as for a formula nippon or a world serie car
Where is the point to have a top Formula supposedly the best one being slower than other ones?
Then even if you keep just a little bit of downforce the car will need to be at least a bit quicker than other cars.
What if a LMP car is quicker?
How the still tremendous budgect spend in the F1 will be justified? As said on some other posts if one has 1billion to invest and is willing to do it nothing will stop him not even regs and formula 1 is (and logicaly) the biggest funded race serie in the world.

Downforce is part of modern world and now it is so comon than even a amateur build race car use it.
Too late to take it off

I watch Formula Ford too. But what about it? Isn't Formula 1 a drivers' championship in the first place?

There is no question IMO, that GP2 technical regs produce better racing than F1. If that is true, then it should be fairly simple to see why. Regs more in the direction of GP2 would therefore solve the problem. Why does it matter if lap times are slower than they are at present? If all we want to see are the fastest lap times a 4 wheeled vehicle can possibly produce, then we should simply scrap all restrictions and have an open formula.

Well, lap times are not that important of course but they still need to be quicker than other formulas or the Formila 1 credibility would be vanished if a car costing not even 10% of a F1 can lap quicker.
For fans also it is a difficult position to defend.

If there was no rules the car would be so quick that no dirver could stand the Gs...
Imagine a monster with wide slick tires, skirts and fan to suck the car to the ground.
Then add as many power as the new technologies can produce.... With an fully open category no need big budgects to build such a monster.
Todays car are quicker than 20 years ago with half the power and so in many categories: WRC / Groupe B
F1 V8 2,4L/ F1 turbo etc...

GP2, F3ES etc. rely on artificial ways to make racing more interesting, such as reversed grids. And even then the racing is tedious except on odd occasions. GP2 may be slightly better because it has underbody downforce, and that may be a pointer for F1, but the basic problem is that substantial downforce destroys good racing. It beats me why people can't think of downforce as just another extremely expensive driver aid, like ABS or TC. You then look at the whole picture and decide which driver aids help F1 in a) the racing spectacle, and b) the development of technology with wider relevance. Looked at like that, it makes sense to ban downforce and allow ABS, TC, in fact active systems of all types (which are commonplace in road cars). These systems, unlike downforce, have no effect on the cars around them, and that's the crucial point as far as the quality of racing goes. I agree with Ben (in a different thread) that TC (and I would say other active systems as well) have little influence on driver ranking. To say that to allow active systems would mean that anyone could drive an F1 car is like saying any pilot could fly an F22 - true but at the same time meaningless. Racecar driving is an evolving set of skills, and, looked at mechanistically, the driver is another active control system which, as it becomes redundant in one area, is put to use in others. It may be difficult to predict which areas, but a racecar that uses all its resources well will be quicker than one that doesn't, and the driver is just another resource.

What the man said...

Amen to that.

I've argued in the past that downforce itself isn't the problem, but the ability of the car behind to follow closely. In this regard, regulated underwings and vestigal if any front wings would be a positive step.

Having just sat through a very dull Malaysian MotoGP though I can assure you that dull racing is not just a result of downforce. I have a sneaking suspicion that the more money is involved in a series the closer the participants are to the optimum configuration for the given rules set. In this event the "procession" in the race is just an indication of who's got the best package, and the fact that driver aids are involved or not is irrelevant.

Some of the best car racing finishes this season have been in Sportscars. The ALMS race at Laguna was closer than the MotoGP or F1 races last weekend.

Ben

That is exactly it.

Is it likely that the optimum configuration can have been achieved almost instantly with the start of the 800cc 'era'? And can the amount of money in MotoGP have changed so drastically since last year, which Kenny Roberts snr. described as something along the lines of the best ever?

I am a total GP motorcycle noob, so don't judge me too harshly if I am missing some rather important concepts.

But one of the side effects of driver aids is that driver errors (particularly in car racing) are 'smoothed' out. Gear changes are no longer missed, and TC helps in terms of consistent corner speed. Without driver aids drivers will make more errors, and from errors come overtaking opportunities.

If the races become a preocession of best packages then, surely, the simplest way to alter that is to put more control back into the hands of the drivers. There's nothing quite as unpredictable as human input, after all.

Hello,

One must pay attention to all details before judging downforce.

Some points following that line with the starting sentence "You can't compare(overtaking wise).."

-GP2 and F1 because F1 drivers do far less errors.
-F1 with former F1, Current F1 are 10 seconds quicker than 15 years ago (which was the last peak performance area, 1993), not running on the same tracks.
-Can't compare F1 and endurance races where a LOT of passing opportunities are there just because it is endurance (more time on track=more chances to make errors driving or engineering wise).

Overall bear in mind that what a series hasn't got from another one is generally backed up by another thing that is exclusive to her.

The F1 is about speed, the driving aids, downforce bring speed which in turns brings difficulties for the driving aids and downforce.
I won't go again into enumeration but one example: because of downforce (and thus the speed) downforce variations, tire lateral acceleration and grip vary accordingly and make loss or gain of them supra fast posing difficulties in driving especially under braking and cornering.
Watch compare champ car and a top F1 car under braking and cornering, look at the driver's wheel, in champ car he fights the wheel because there's no power steering but very few handling conditions changes occur, while in F1 the have to retain, regain traction every time because the slightest change just throw your balance away.

We need to look far beyond the "it's a driver aid" before judging because if we stay at the "it helps the pilots so it is not good for driving style" then let's go back to non synchronized gear boxes so that drivers will be forced to do rev matchings/double clutching if they want to go more than one lap.


Actually a Traction control is a lot more than a tool allowing you to smash the throttle, it requires you to understand how it works (each team's TC work differently, so does braking systems etC..) to maximise the effect, and in the TC case, the drivers have to set up it for almost each turn in a lap.

Now i don't mind its banned next year, this will make some changes, that's cool...


Downforce is just like slicks, slicks were introduced because we discovered that, in contrary to the other surfaces they worked far better on asphalt than others..


By the way, the new 2009 aero rules adopted will go toward more overtaking and yet as much if not more downforce(at least under some circumstances).

The problem was never there were too much downforce, but how it was created.

I don't think you got the point. The level of driver aids is irrelevant to the stratification that occurs when a lot of money is spent in a series.

Ben

I understood entirely. But I think that the point is wrong, because the more you put the control of the car into the hands of the driver - ie the more important one makes the driver, the stratification becomes lessened - because the human element becomes a greater deciding factor.

If you want to increase and maximize the driver in the competitive equation, making the cars as identical as is possible is probably the best way. You can make the people in engineering matter by allowing more possible divergant design paths, but face it drivers are far more marketable. People can relate to drivers, they are drivers. Swashbuckling highly paid young men, often dashing- if only in 7/8 scale for F1- vs. gearhead boffins in short sleeve shirts with ties and pleated front trousers: Who would you rather pitch to the audience?