13 replies to this topic

[jk]

I hope yo can clear my about this.
After watcing the 1982 Review Video, i wonder why some cars had frontwing, and someone didn't. The Feraris at Imola for instance, Pironi has a frontwing, but Villeneuve hadn't. At the next GP at Zolder, where Villeneuve died, he had a frontwing on his car when he crashed.
Why did only some cars have them? And if a car these days loose its frontwing, it will get undrivable. In 1982 it didn't, because the cars without frontwings was not slower than the cars with. Why was that?

[desmo]

As contoured underbodies and aero skirts were allowed at the time, the cars weren't so dependant on the front wing or downforce as they are today. It was a feasible choice then to trade-off the downforce of the front wing for a cleaner aero package.

[Rainer Nyberg]

Yes, Desmo is right.
The downforce provided by the underbody venturis was in most cases sufficient to keep the car as running on rails.
Additional wings would only provide aerodynamic drag.

The wingless cars began to appear in 1979 again, like this Arrows A2. The A2 was designed to run without front wings.
And you can clearly see the airintakes on this picture to feed the underbody venturis.




Rainer

[Rainer Nyberg]

As can be seen in the following pictures, it was quite common to run without front wings in 1982.

Gilles Villeneuve at Long Beach in 1982.


Gilles Villeneuve at Imola in 1982.


Gilles Villeneuve at Kyalami in 1982.


Slim Borgudd at Kyalami in 1982.


Niki Lauda at Long Beach in 1982.


Roberto Moreno at Zandvoort in 1982.



Rainer

[MattFoster]

I thik we have a definitive answer

Cheers
Matt

[355 boy]

After looking at those pictures, I have the following question -

Wouldn't banning frontwings and re-introducing underbody aerodynamics close up racing? It would be easier to follow someone round a corner, thus improving overtaking. If aerodynamics are too advanced thesedays and the underbody aero would provide too much downforce, increasing corner speeds too much, then maybe the rear wing could also be reduced, thus also reducing the amount of dirty air. Conversely, this would reduce the 'hole' in the air left by a car and make slip-streaming less effective...

[MattFoster]

355 Boy,

You make some very valid points. I would love for F1 to go back to a ground effect set up. The racing certainly was more like racing ie. overtaking.

Unfortunately the cars back then ran with virtually no suspension travel and it was suppose to be hell on the drivers.

Cheers
Matt

[Spot]

The reason why there was no suspension was because in order for the venturi to work efficiently, no air could be allowed to seep in from the sides. In 1979/1980, this was done by the use of 'skirts', which moved up and down with the suspension. These were banned in 1981, leading to Brabham's hydraulic suspension, which lowered the cars sidepods onto the ground once out on the circuit. In order to keep the sidepod edges as close as possible to the ground, no suspension movement was allowed.

I seem to recall Interlagos in 1982 caused problems for a lot of drivers due to the bumpy nature of the circuit.

I think a large part of the dirty air problem originates from the diffuser, which is far more efficient now than the venturi ever were. Ban these, and you immediatly have closer racing. But then, nobody has listened to me for the last 10 years, why should they start now?

[Amadeus]

Mu understanding of the reason behind banning Ground Effect was the extreme on/off effect of it's downforce.

In otherwords as the angle of yaw increases the amount of air passing diectly over your aerodynamic surface on a modern F1 car reduces and you get a (fast, but) progresive reduction in downforce. With ground effect cars even a slight change in the angle of airflow led to a large reduction in the amount of air going under the car and a very sharp reduction in grip. Result - you're going backwards towards the scenery at 150mph.....For some strange reason neither the drivers or the FIA were very keen on that

[355 boy]

Surely with advances in electronic control, it wouldn't be particularily difficult to reduce the effect of yaw on a modern ground-effect equiped car?

As for discomfort.... c'mon, would you be uncomfortable for a few hours in exchange for their salaries - make them earn it!;)

[Jhope]

"I seem to recall Interlagos in 1982 caused problems for a lot of drivers due to the bumpy nature of the circuit."

They didn't run at Interlagos until 1990. prior to that, the race was run in Rio.

[carlos.maza]

Hi all:

I think another reason for being able to take off the front wings from these cars was that they had a different weight distribution from current ones. Due to the very large central fuel tank and the need to move the engine forward to "clean" the passage for post venturi air, the driver was sitting forward. (Remember spacers between engine and transmission?) This altered the weight distribution, sending more weight to the front of the car.

[Manson]

Not to be too picky but the F1 circus ran Interlagos for a number of years in the late 70's and early 80's. It was a much bigger track back then. The new layout is probably half the size of the original.

[david_martin]

The first GP was held there in 1973, and it was used until 1980. The race then moved to Rio. At that time it was a shade over 8km long in its original form - from Forix:



Compared that with the current 4.4km layout, you can see the lower part of the infield dissappered, again from Forix: