39 replies to this topic

[YamahaV10]

I think the answer is obvious. The concept is proven. The racing is better. Indycar has a good opportunity to replace the DW-12 with a low dirty air focused concept. With front wheel farings and everything. For ovals, it would probably lead to pack racing. So a different aero concept could be used to prevent that. 

 

Low dirty air is all about the road courses. I think F1 on road courses now is more entertaining for this reason. Even vs a nominal spec series. Todays Indycars just don't follow on road courses the way F1 cars do. 

 

With Indycar, the concept would pay even bigger dividends than it does in F1. Just imagine the kinds of racing we'd have. It would be epic.

[Risil]

Wasn't reducing dirty air what the universal aerokit concept was about?

 

I think I'd need to hear from a driver who's sampled both before making a judgement on which car works in traffic better.

[PayasYouRace]

You realise the current F1 regulations are based on the Indycar concept, right?

[Myrvold]

This is was was done with the DW12-IR18.

F1 went the opposite way. That didn't work. Then F1 have done like IndyCar with the newest regulations.

 

I must admit, you do have some interesting threads and posts

[paulb]

You realise the current F1 regulations are based on the Indycar concept, right?

I hate to cite Wiki as a source, but like Paya and Myrvold mentioned, the Indycar move to more ground-effects aero started with the 2018 car https://en.wikipedia...Kit_(2018–2023)

Edited by paulb, 30 May 2022 - 18:54.

[YamahaV10]

Wasn't reducing dirty air what the universal aerokit concept was about?
 
I think I'd need to hear from a driver who's sampled both before making a judgement on which car works in traffic better.

Partly yes. The Dw12 isn't terrible to follow. But it's just not as agressive with the design as the new F1 cars are and it shows

[YamahaV10]

You realise the current F1 regulations are based on the Indycar concept, right?

The new F1 cars are far more agressive with the design . Wheel covers , farings, ect and it shows on the track

Edited by YamahaV10, 30 May 2022 - 19:46.

[noriaki]

This is not to say things can't be improved in Indycar nor that F1 hasn't taken a massive leap forward. Because they have.

But Indycars are still significantly better at following one another than F1 cars are, even now. It's just that Indycar race on a lot of tracks that have overtaking difficulty somewhere between Monaco and Hungaroring. Only Road America and Indy RC compare to F1 tracks in straight length for example.

With DRS enabled, F1 can certainly put up a show - but only on tracks like Jeddah or Baku or Bahrain. It stilm struggles to facilitate overtaking at Barcelona, Indy still puts up a show at Barber and a decent race at Long Beach.

[MasterOfCoin]

I don't think i could watch another series with that awful porposing if Indycars had this issue.....

[juicy sushi]

The new F1 cars are far more agressive with the design . Wheel covers , farings, ect and it shows on the track

Not really.  They have some extra things bolted on, but they don't seem to actually work better than the IR18 changes made to the DW12.  Indycars don't need DRS to pass.  F1 cars still allegedly do.

[djparky]

The super speedway version of the revised DW12 is perhaps less racey than the one with all the aero crap, however on the road courses and street tracks its transformed the racing.

[YamahaV10]

?

 

This is not to say things can't be improved in Indycar nor that F1 hasn't taken a massive leap forward. Because they have.

But Indycars are still significantly better at following one another than F1 cars are, even now. It's just that Indycar race on a lot of tracks that have overtaking difficulty somewhere between Monaco and Hungaroring. Only Road America and Indy RC compare to F1 tracks in straight length for example.

With DRS enabled, F1 can certainly put up a show - but only on tracks like Jeddah or Baku or Bahrain. It stilm struggles to facilitate overtaking at Barcelona, Indy still puts up a show at Barber and a decent race at Long Beach.

 

Fair point about the tracks. It probably has something to do with that. 

 

There's a lot of ppl in Indycar circles who say the series is overdue for a new chassis. I am just saying, if you are going to design a new chassis anyway, why not go full bore clean air philosophy ? Like F1 did. 

[Radoye]

There's a lot of ppl in Indycar circles who say the series is overdue for a new chassis.

Well a new chassis is in plans already, was supposed to coincide with the new engine spec but Covid and the general situation with the economy has delayed it a bit. But it's coming. Nobody believes current chassis is supposed to be used indefinitely.

The main feature will be to have the aeroscreen fully integrated from the start of the design process (rather that being a bolt-on like now) which should improve the CoG and weight distribution issues that came about after the screen was added.
 

[MattPete]

I think they should open-up the tunnels.  Prior to the DW12, and starting roughly with the Reynard 96i, CART/Champcar had turning vane tunnel inlets, with the inner vane feeding the tunnel and the outer vanes acting as vortex generators, just like the 2022 F1 cars.  They've had some optional ones this past year or so, but they are pretty puny:

 

 

The main idea is to uncrease underbody downforce compared to the current car.  However, unlike the 2022 F1rules, there will be no side fences (like old CART and Champcar rules), which should reduce, or even negate porpoising.  In other words, it keeps the stepped floor they've used since the 1990s (the 2022 F1 cars have a lip that runs around the outside of the floor).

 

More like this:

 

 

...and not like this:

 

 

Leave the large radius curves to F1.

 

P.S. while searching for an image of the optional vortex generators, I came across this reddit post from a few years ago, that is pretty similar to the idea I had in my head:

[loki]

?

 

 

Fair point about the tracks. It probably has something to do with that. 

 

There's a lot of ppl in Indycar circles who say the series is overdue for a new chassis. I am just saying, if you are going to design a new chassis anyway, why not go full bore clean air philosophy ? Like F1 did. 

 

I would suggest learning a bit more about Indycar.

[YamahaV10]

I think they should open-up the tunnels. Prior to the DW12, and starting roughly with the Reynard 96i, CART/Champcar had turning vane tunnel inlets, with the inner vane feeding the tunnel and the outer vanes acting as vortex generators, just like the 2022 F1 cars. They've had some optional ones this past year or so, but they are pretty puny:



The main idea is to uncrease underbody downforce compared to the current car. However, unlike the 2022 F1rules, there will be no side fences (like old CART and Champcar rules), which should reduce, or even negate porpoising. In other words, it keeps the stepped floor they've used since the 1990s (the 2022 F1 cars have a lip that runs around the outside of the floor).

More like this:



...and not like this:



Leave the large radius curves to F1.

P.S. while searching for an image of the optional vortex generators, I came across this reddit post from a few years ago, that is pretty similar to the idea I in my head:

Good post.

Yeah they need to open up the tunnels for the next chassis. The ones now are barely there. Then wing downforce can be reduced

[Papaya]

Perhaps designing a windscreen that follows the lines of the car, instead of looking like someone dropped a greenhouse on top.

[boomn]

Perhaps designing a windscreen that follows the lines of the car, instead of looking like someone dropped a greenhouse on top.

 

They have already been working on that for a while, by way of redesigning the bodywork not the aeroscreen though.  Like Radoye said, Indycar's plans got delayed due to Covid but the next-gen chassis and bodywork is designed around the aeroscreen

[YamahaV10]

I hate to cite Wiki as a source, but like Paya and Myrvold mentioned, the Indycar move to more ground-effects aero started with the 2018 car https://en.wikipedia...Kit_(2018–2023)

 

They shoehorned some ground effects into an existing chassis. 

 

The current 2018 Indycar has nothing close to the same size tunnels that a 2022 F1 car has. Part of the reason for that is because 2018 was not a full chassis redesign. It was an aero change on an existing chassis. But now they have the chance to take full advantage and make tunnels as big as they want. 

 

Edited by YamahaV10, 01 June 2022 - 00:34.

[Clrnc]

Who cares how big their tunnels is? Indycar had always produced very close racing and overtaking is very possible even in right tracks. F1 has followed indycar direction and now you ask indycar to follow it back?

[juicy sushi]

They shoehorned some ground effects into an existing chassis. 

 

The current 2018 Indycar has nothing close to the same size tunnels that a 2022 F1 car has. Part of the reason for that is because 2018 was not a full chassis redesign. It was an aero change on an existing chassis. But now they have the chance to take full advantage and make tunnels as big as they want. 

 

 

But they already know how big they want the tunnels.  They did not "shoehorn some ground effects" into anything.  Those who followed the development of the IR18 know that it was an extensive test of the prior DW12 version with top-side downforce generating devices being taken off while the tunnels were either left alone, or enhanced in certain circumstances via vortex generators.  You've got the entire process backwards.  

 

And why would they want to increase the size of the tunnels to F1 levels?  They already know the rough pace they want on their circuits, they know how much they want the aerodynamics to be a part of that vs power and mechanical grip, and they have a large body of real-world data confirming their approach.  F1 has none of those things, and took a large stab in the dark copying the approach of Indycar.  It worked pretty well, but not as well as Indycar's own set-up does.  Copying F1 would be a step backwards, not forwards.

[Dmitriy_Guller]

Who cares how big their tunnels is? Indycar had always produced very close racing and overtaking is very possible even in right tracks. F1 has followed indycar direction and now you ask indycar to follow it back?

Indycar hasn't always produced very close racing, especially not on ovals.  Depending on the spec, sometimes the leaders couldn't even lap the backmarkers, the dirty air was that bad.  You would literally have a ridiculous situation where a leader jumps out to a 5 second lead, and then gets caught by 2nd place car as soon as he hits the first lapped car.

 

As far as road courses, I know Indycar fans are not going to like hearing this, but a big factor is that Indycar drivers are not nearly as precise and consistent as F1 drivers.  On road courses, the ease of passing has a lot to do with how much opening the car in front gives you to initiate a pass.  It's not all down to driver skill, though, there are a lot of systems in F1 that manage the driver's pace.

[Clrnc]

As far as I remember, mostly that is because of the track layout and narrow corners leading to instances like that. More avid indycar fans can correct me if I'm wrong.

[Risil]

On road courses the ease of passing normally depends on whether the tyre and fuel strategy lends itself to a clash of two- three- or four-stop runners, and on top of that how many restarts there are.

An Indycar race at Mid-Ohio or Road America where everyone one-stops it F1 style would probably be dull.

[Radoye]

Already most of the aero grip is generating through the floor, the ratio between ground effects and topside downforce isn't much different in Indy and latest iteration of F1. Increasing the size of floor tunnels will just add more downforce in general.

There's no need to increase downforce levels on IndyCars, the racing is as close as it is in part of due to generally low downforce levels with cars moving and sliding much more compared to F1. Add more downforce and the cars became more planted and easier to keep on the ideal line / harder to pass.

On road and street courses the racing is as good as it's ever been. Where modern IndyCars suffer is on superspeedways and here the problems aren't so much aero related (you can't have any less topside aero, the wings are already pretty much nonexistent and mostly used to trim the handling rather than for adding downforce) but with weight distribution after the aeroscreen was added. This causes the cars in superspeedway trim to naturally understeer which makes them sensitive to even the slightest aero disturbances. Here improvements can be made for sure but messing with aero won't help.

 

Hopefully the upcoming new chassis will sort that out.

 

[boomn]

As far as road courses, I know Indycar fans are not going to like hearing this, but a big factor is that Indycar drivers are not nearly as precise and consistent as F1 drivers.  On road courses, the ease of passing has a lot to do with how much opening the car in front gives you to initiate a pass.  

 

Here is an Indycar onboard of a driver widely recognized as an upcoming talent worthy of F1 (Pato O'Ward), but watch how often he is sawing at the wheel trying to correct the car.  

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=_zDMFd_irZI

 

Current Indycars just drive much looser than modern F1 cars

Edited by boomn, 01 June 2022 - 16:19.

[PayasYouRace]

 

As far as road courses, I know Indycar fans are not going to like hearing this, but a big factor is that Indycar drivers are not nearly as precise and consistent as F1 drivers.  On road courses, the ease of passing has a lot to do with how much opening the car in front gives you to initiate a pass.  It's not all down to driver skill, though, there are a lot of systems in F1 that manage the driver's pace.

 

This is just nonsense. Just shows that you spend more time complaining about your imagined faults with Indycar rather than watching it.

[ezequiel]

Yeah, we know F1 drivers like Rossi, Grosjean, Sato and Ericsson lost their F1 precision and consistency the moment they joined IndyCar

[juicy sushi]

Yeah, we know F1 drivers like Rossi, Grosjean, Sato and Ericsson lost their F1 precision and consistency the moment they joined IndyCar

And did Latifi, Stroll, Schumacher, and Tsunoda ever find it?

[aportinga]

It's very shallow of me but the chassis and lack of manufactures + standardization has precluded me from jumping back on the IC bandwagon. I'd very much like to have them dump the aero screen and adopt the halo design. Remove the wheel ferrings in the back and allow teams to make adjustments and utilize other manufactures (including in house) to make changes to aero and more.

 

Not sure what can be done about the engines. It just seems stale too me on that front.

Edited by aportinga, 01 June 2022 - 18:18.

[LolaB0860]

It's very shallow of me but the chassis and lack of manufactures + standardization has precluded me from jumping back on the IC bandwagon. I'd very much like to have them dump the aero screen and adopt the halo design. Remove the wheel ferrings in the back and allow teams to make adjustments and utilize other manufactures (including in house) to make changes to aero and more.

 

Not sure what can be done about the engines. It just seems stale too me on that front.

 

TBH while I would love to see them go beyond standardization, it would probably lead to this nonsense again (since everyone must win) which is far worse

https://www.autospor...997883/4997883/

https://racer.com/20...-aero-kit-rule/

 

And then you have people like Andretti who cries of everyone having to have same performance (since everyone must win). Hopefully, if he's coming to F1, he's not bringing that philosophy with him...

https://www.autoweek...oney-everybody/

Edited by LolaB0860, 01 June 2022 - 18:32.

[aportinga]

TBH while I would love to see them go beyond standardization, it would probably lead to this nonsense again (since everyone must win) which is far worse

https://www.autospor...997883/4997883/

https://racer.com/20...-aero-kit-rule/

 

And then you have people like Andretti who cries of everyone having to have same performance (since everyone must win). Hopefully, if he's coming to F1, he's not bringing that philosophy with him...

https://www.autoweek...oney-everybody/

 

Sadly this is the reality. 

[boomn]

TBH while I would love to see them go beyond standardization, it would probably lead to this nonsense again (since everyone must win) which is far worse

https://www.autospor...997883/4997883/

https://racer.com/20...-aero-kit-rule/

 

And then you have people like Andretti who cries of everyone having to have same performance (since everyone must win)

https://www.autoweek...oney-everybody/

Andretti had a fine point that many others in Indycar and many of us fans agreed with.  The Honda and Chevy aerokits became like a worst-case version of BoP where teams sometimes had little chance of success because of things outside their control, and then  applied to half of the field at a time.  

 

Indycar does allow development freedom on some internal pieces, so that teams can differentiate their performance through own efforts.  Dampers are the big example of this, and the big teams like Penske develop their own very high-end dampers while the small teams usually have to buy lesser versions from other teams or suppliers.  This is one part of the big and lasting performance gulf between the teams like Penske or Ganassi and the teams like RLL or Foyt .  Yet I've never heard any of those teams struggling on inferior dampers complain about this rule or ask for it to be changed so that "everyone can win". 

 

Andretti seemed to be one of the "big 3" successful teams but started struggling massively when the aeroscreen was added and the weight balance changed, but I don't remember complaints from Andretti asking to make things easier for them again.  

Edited by boomn, 01 June 2022 - 18:46.

[ezequiel]

It's very shallow of me but the chassis and lack of manufactures + standardization has precluded me from jumping back on the IC bandwagon. I'd very much like to have them dump the aero screen and adopt the halo design. Remove the wheel ferrings in the back and allow teams to make adjustments and utilize other manufactures (including in house) to make changes to aero and more.

 

Not sure what can be done about the engines. It just seems stale too me on that front.

The aeroscreen provides enhanced safety compared to the halo, no way they are ditching it. And if by "wheel ferrings in the back" you're referring to the sort-of-rear bumpers they used to have when the DW12 was introduced, then they haven't been there for some years now. And they already tried the different manufacturer's aerokits and it didn't work for several reasons (one of them being that they ended up looking almost exactly the same on plain sight hence not fulfilling the different visual identity they were hoping for)

 

I thinks someone pointed to an interview with Trevor Carlin (was it him?) where he told how surprised they were with the work they had to do as a team to build an Indy car when they first entered. It's as if they were expecting something more like F2 (that is, something more spec and ready to race) but got a much less "spec" machine that people tend to assume and Indy car is.

Edited by ezequiel, 01 June 2022 - 19:28.

[PayasYouRace]

One thing I'm noticing is that a lot of Indycar criticism on this forum is often about a decade out of date.

[Dmitriy_Guller]

This is just nonsense. Just shows that you spend more time complaining about your imagined faults with Indycar rather than watching it.

It's neither nonsense nor complaining.  I don't put any value judgment on the consistency of drivers in different series, the fact that Indycar drivers make more minor mistakes and allow for more passing does not distress me.  I'm just making an argument why passing on road courses is more frequent in Indycar.

[boomn]

It's neither nonsense nor complaining.  I don't put any value judgment on the consistency of drivers in different series, the fact that Indycar drivers make more minor mistakes and allow for more passing does not distress me.  I'm just making an argument why passing on road courses is more frequent in Indycar.

Sure, it's an idea and I am responded to at as such with evidence to help you see that its that cars themselves that aren't as precise.  Watch more Indycar, or at least Indycar onboards on youtube, and you will see how all drivers have to make a lot of corrections at the wheel.  Its the same whether those drivers came from F1 or other series.  If you watched some recent Indycar you would probably have picked up on that, hence why people will get frustrated that your argument doesn't feel like an educated one but a biased guess

[Dmitriy_Guller]

Sure, it's an idea and I am responded to at as such with evidence to help you see that its that cars themselves that aren't as precise.  Watch more Indycar, or at least Indycar onboards on youtube, and you will see how all drivers have to make a lot of corrections at the wheel.  Its the same whether those drivers came from F1 or other series.  If you watched some recent Indycar you would probably have picked up on that, hence why people will get frustrated that your argument doesn't feel like an educated one but a biased guess

I watched every Indycar race since the beginning of 1997, except for maybe a few IRL races in the early days of CART/IRL split.

[loki]

The hi-larious portion of the thread is armchair Neweys looking at pics to determine aero suitability without an corresponding tunnel or CFD data.

[boomn]

I watched every Indycar race since the beginning of 1997, except for maybe a few IRL races in the early days of CART/IRL split.

Fair enough then. I don't know how to match your conclusion based on how the current cars look on track or how former F1 drivers and touted F1 prospects don’t drive them any differently , but I can agree to cordially disagree

Edited by boomn, 02 June 2022 - 01:30.