28 replies to this topic

[The Rock]

I was just thinking about this is it possible to put the modern F1 car out on the track without front or rear wings and would it even complete a lap?I know that anytime a car lost a rear wing and tried to continue on it just wouldn't go around the corner (e.g Irvine 2000 european GP when he got hit by RS).

I saw a CART race this year when a car lost a rear wing and was able to make it back to the pits.I know in the early 80's some cars didn't have any front wings but they had ground-effect chassis to compensate.If it is not possible how the cars in the 60's compete then without wings and just grip from the tires?

[Locai]

I'll put my 2-cents worth in (you may want a refund, though).

Any car can complete a lap without wings, they just may not be able to complete it very fast.

The reason a CART car was able to finish the lap was that CART allows ground-effects in the chassis design, whereas F1 has that wooden plank along the bottom. Also, the CART car is substantially heavier than an F1 car. Therefore, the F1 car relies much more on the wings for downforce. Take away the wings in F1, and you lose a lot of downforce; lose downforce and it's pretty difficult to make that much horsepower go around a corner, especialy with grooved tires! If you compare a CART car to an F1 car, the wings on a CART car are much simpler designs. I'm not sure how much of that is due to regulations and how much is due to design.

As to why the cars 30-40 years ago could race without wings, I am not sure. I would imagine that the cars then were heavier and had less horsepower. Plus, nobody had wings then so everybody knew how to drive without them.

Hope that helps. Hope that's right!

[Ali_G]

As Locai said an f1 car can of course drive without wings.

The only reason that irvine could not was that he though he still had his rear wing so he went into the corner too fast.

Back in the 60's no one had thought of wings. Even when they were thought of most of the drivers thought it was a big joke.

Niall

[The Rock]

Originally posted by Locai
I'll put my 2-cents worth in (you may want a refund, though).

Any car can complete a lap without wings, they just may not be able to complete it very fast.

The reason a CART car was able to finish the lap was that CART allows ground-effects in the chassis design, whereas F1 has that wooden plank along the bottom. Also, the CART car is substantially heavier than an F1 car. Therefore, the F1 car relies much more on the wings for downforce. Take away the wings in F1, and you lose a lot of downforce; lose downforce and it's pretty difficult to make that much horsepower go around a corner, especialy with grooved tires! If you compare a CART car to an F1 car, the wings on a CART car are much simpler designs. I'm not sure how much of that is due to regulations and how much is due to design.

As to why the cars 30-40 years ago could race without wings, I am not sure. I would imagine that the cars then were heavier and had less horsepower. Plus, nobody had wings then so everybody knew how to drive without them.

Hope that helps. Hope that's right!

yep thanks for the info.

[The Rock]

If the FIA were (how ever unlikely) to get rid of wings would the modern narrow-track groove tyre car be fairly undrivable?850bhp going around fast corners with no downfroce generated from the wings.The difference from the 60's of course is the massive step forward in the aero department.

i suppose nobody in the 50's and 60's had any clue on how aerodynamics work.I read in an article about banning the rear wing once but it was mainly about improving passing and thats another thread!.Passing in the 60's was easy mainly thanks to the lack of aero effects on the other cars and their consequnces.Would passing be easier without wings?

[Ali_G]

Without wings Passing would be practibally impossible.

The draft behidn the cars would be very small and passing would be hard. I know that there is this crap about removing wings to get closer racing. But with hairpins the cars would be seperated anyway. So if you were to remove wings you would also need to get rid of all slow corners.

or else make the cars heavier so they accelerate slower out of the corners. Hence both cars would be nearer to each other on the straights.

The cars wouldn't be undriveable. Probabley easier to drive. less pitch variance due to wings, no added turbulence. Suspensions travel would be less due to less Aero unloading.

Niall

[bobellsmore]

Wings came to F1 in the late 60's. I have a fantastic picture of Jackie Stewart in the 1969 Matra MS10 sporting incredibly high, incerdibly primitive wings font and rear. Think of the front wing on the Arrows at Monaco this year but higher and on MUCH more slender struts. The rear wing was probably twice as high and just as slender!

Ali_G, the draft was not small, it was hugh.

Lack of wings ENABLES closer racing, it doesn't RESULT in closer racing. Close racing mostly ceased once Jim Clark had got into the lead - at least until his Lotus broke!

Current F1 cars are adversely affected by turbulent or dirty air once they get to within a second or so of the car in front. Any closer and the loss of downforce means they can't get round the corners fast enough. Coming out of the corner a second later than the car in front makes it really difficult to overtake if you don't have a power advantage.

Pre-wings, one of the standard techniques was to draft up behind the car in front around the corner, pull out on the straight using the sling-shot effect to make the pass. You can see the same thing all the time in Champ car racing today because they have deliberately primitive aerodynamics.

Incidentally, suspension travel was much greater in the pre wing days. Ground effect is critically dependant on the maintenence of a small, constant, gap. Without any downforce, you need suspension travel to keep the wheels in contact with the ground.

[Ali_G]

bob: you see a lot of passing in CART because the cars give off more drag. Everyone agrees on that.

That's why there was so much passing in F1 int he early 90's.

The cars were not very aero efficeint and so gave off a better slipstream.

Back then the turbulence off the cars was worse than it is today.

For some reason Brundle has drilled this turbulence thing into everyone's heads.

BTW: The new aero rules for this year has not improve the amount of passing.

In fact here was less this year at the Nurburgring than the previous year.

Niall

[leegle]

Today there could be no progress without aerodynamic knowledge being used as they have become so familiar with wind tunnel testing and learned so much. So if you took the wings away, the cars would still have some fairly high level of downforce by some means of design of the body shape but the adjustability enabled by wings would disappear.
I understand that the draft is largely from the aerodynamic inefficiency of the wheels and that has never changed.;)

[The Rock]

Originally posted by Ali_G


The new aero rules for this year has not improve the amount of passing.

Correct, last years rule changes were a half arsed attempt at improving passing.What the FIA need to do is

1 Make the cars wide again as pre1998.

2 limit the rear wing to one element, big and not very effeicent for extra drag.

3 slicks

4 low noses,two single elements for the front wing at either side of the nose

5 ban barge boards

6 ban diffusers.


In the response to the question how wings and passing well, loads of drag and crappy un-effiecent cars which generates loads of slimstream would help passing.I remember hearing once an engineer talking about the final corner at the Italian GP(Monza) amd how 60's cars could stay together around the final corner and on to the straight and have the chance to pass.He said its impossible now cos of the disturbed air from the car in front and the car nowadays can't stay that close together.So its a double-edged sword when its comes to wings and passing.

[Ali_G]

hmm.

THis is what I now have to say.

1. Ban only front wings.

2. le the front tyres be a lot wider than the rears. hence make up for loss of front grip.

3. Leave Rear Wings intact. WOuld give off drag.

Niall

[The Rock]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ali_G


3. Leave Rear Wings intact. WOuld give off drag.



Do you mean the rear wings the cars have now or a wing like CART has?. large rear wings like the ones f1 cars had in the early 90's would be better suited to better slipstreaming.

[Ali_G]

Rock. Funny enough you brought this up. i was thinking about this earlier.

Most people agree that the lack of passing started with the 1995 Season.

A number of changes were made to the car that year most importantly was that the rear wing was lowered substantially.

This meant that the rear wing ran in more tubulent air and hence reduced downforce. Bu this also meant that the rear wing ran with less drag coming off of it.

This is the main reasn why there is not much passing.

Niall

[Ben]

Getting rid of just front wings and expecting bigger front tyres to make up the difference ain't going to happen. For balance across the speed range it would be a nightmare.

You need mechanical grip which is augmented by downforce at higher speeds, if you just have a rear wing low speed balance would equal terminal understeer at high speeds.

If you had big enough front tyres to balance this case at high speeds you would have an excess of front tyre force at low speed and you would get massive low speed oversteer.

Ben

[bobellsmore]

This thread started as "Is it possible to run the cars without wings?" but has moved onto the more interesting topic of how to get more overtaking.

You won't get any overtaking at all unless one car/driver combination is in front of a better car/driver combination. It is therefore obvious that any tinkering with wings/underbody/tyres etc. is only going to have minor effect.

I propose that we scrap the qualifying session completely and start each race in reverse order of the current standings in the drivers championship (last season's final order for the first race of the season). With Michael Schumacher starting dead last in every race, we would guarantee some pretty serious overtaking

[diosh]

Ali G: If the cars had no wings, what would stop them from following closely around a corner, and getting the power on a bit quicker, maybe making use of a more powerful engine to get past down a straight? Or more likely outbraking your oponent? Nothing, if you took of wings, there would be more passing.

But as you say, if they reduced the effectiveness of the diffuser, decreasing the turbulence, then the cars would be able to follow closer around corners, utilizing the lead cars 'draft' to get past. IMHO, both solutions would be better than the current cars.

[The Rock]

Originally posted by diosh
Ali G: If the cars had no wings, what would stop them from following closely around a corner, and getting the power on a bit quicker, maybe making use of a more powerful engine to get past down a straight? Or more likely outbraking your oponent? Nothing, if you took of wings, there would be more passing.

But as you say, if they reduced the effectiveness of the diffuser, decreasing the turbulence, then the cars would be able to follow closer around corners, utilizing the lead cars 'draft' to get past. IMHO, both solutions would be better than the current cars.

diosh, I have to agree with you on this post.Its a double edged when it comes to wings and passing.On the one hand you drag created from the rear wings that generates slipstream and hence makes the car behind you increase in speed.On the other hand the dirty air off the rear wing mends the car behind you loses downforce and therefore can't stay that close through a corner.

[Lephturn]

I think Rock has the right idea.

Force them to single element wings. Remove all other aero bits like extra wings on the body, diffuser, and barge boards.

If you do all this, you need to increase mechanical grip. SImply going to slicks would accomplish this. These changes as a package would increase the % of grip the cars generate mechanically, and that is the key to better racing and more passing. You don't want to just change the aero to make drafting work better, you want to increase the % of mechanical grip so that aerodynamic grip is much less important overall. IMHO.

Oh, and go to lower-profile tires. I'd rather see the teams build great suspension systems than see cars with almost 0 travel where most of the suspension is the tires themselves.

[Ali_G]

diosh: For a start you have to take this into account.

Back in the 60's all circuits had fast corners. There were not very many slow corners. An example was the parabolica leding onto the front straight at monza. Very nice.

ut today we have laods of hairpins going onto straights.

The problem is that in hairpins the cars are going very slowly. On the exit the cars must accelerate a lot. The car in front will start to accelerate way before the one behind. 30 Meters onto the straight and the car behind is way back anyway. A change in aero regs will not mean that he can keep closer coming out of a hairpin. It opnly menas they can stay closer in a fast coerner.

But today most straights have hairpins leading onto them. Hence the only way to increase passing is more drag.

or else remove wings and place very fast corners onto the straights.

Niall

[Dolph]

Originally posted by The Rock



Correct, last years rule changes were a half arsed attempt at improving passing.What the FIA need to do is

1 Make the cars wide again as pre1998.

2 limit the rear wing to one element, big and not very effeicent for extra drag.

3 slicks

4 low noses,two single elements for the front wing at either side of the nose

5 ban barge boards

6 ban diffusers.


In the response to the question how wings and passing well, loads of drag and crappy un-effiecent cars which generates loads of slimstream would help passing.I remember hearing once an engineer talking about the final corner at the Italian GP(Monza) amd how 60's cars could stay together around the final corner and on to the straight and have the chance to pass.He said its impossible now cos of the disturbed air from the car in front and the car nowadays can't stay that close together.So its a double-edged sword when its comes to wings and passing.

I'm very confused. How the hell can you make comments on such tehcnical aspects (diffusers, barge boards etc.) when you don't understand how a car can drive without a rear wing? I don't mean to offend you but REALLY. Seems to me you just copied these 6 points from somebody elses post.

I say this again: I don't mean to offend

[diosh]

Originally posted by Ali_G
diosh: For a start you have to take this into account.

Back in the 60's all circuits had fast corners. There were not very many slow corners. An example was the parabolica leding onto the front straight at monza. Very nice.

ut today we have laods of hairpins going onto straights.

The problem is that in hairpins the cars are going very slowly. On the exit the cars must accelerate a lot. The car in front will start to accelerate way before the one behind. 30 Meters onto the straight and the car behind is way back anyway. A change in aero regs will not mean that he can keep closer coming out of a hairpin. It opnly menas they can stay closer in a fast coerner.

But today most straights have hairpins leading onto them. Hence the only way to increase passing is more drag.

or else remove wings and place very fast corners onto the straights.

Niall

I agree with you there, but for the yo-yo effect to work on cars without wings, the cars would have to be exactly the same in terms of corner speed. If the trailing car is a little bit faster, then he would get a better line out of the hairpin, on the power a bit earlier, and then possibily outbrake the opposition, using superior grip to hold onto the position through the resulting corner. A little bit of slipstream from some wings would definately help though.

[Ali_G]

Diosh: THis is where teh FIA is running themselves into the ground. Lessening slipstream while makein more hairpins.

if there were no wings I am sure that there would be loads of passing at places like, Magny Cours, Barcelone, Estoril, Spa, Hernan Gonzalez etc.

Not much at malaysia.

BTW: There was not the expected passing at Malaysia for my very reason I'd expect.

Niall

[MattPete]

Originally posted by bobellsmore
You can see the same thing all the time in Champ car racing today because they have deliberately primitive aerodynamics.

Primitive! Pshaw! You're letting your F1 bias show.

I would imagine that most aerodynamisists would consider the CART regulations more aerodynamically advanced. Flat bottoms with a piece of plywood is more advanced than ground effects tunnels? I guess that means that the Lotus 78(?) was less advanced than it's flat-bottomed competitors? Right.

[MattPete]

Originally posted by Ben
Getting rid of just front wings and expecting bigger front tyres to make up the difference ain't going to happen. For balance across the speed range it would be a nightmare.

Unless, of course, you want they cars to suffer from wild oversteer in the slow corners and plow like a sled in the fast corners...

[bobellsmore]

Originally posted by MattPete


Primitive! Pshaw! You're letting your F1 bias show.

I would imagine that most aerodynamisists would consider the CART regulations more aerodynamically advanced. Flat bottoms with a piece of plywood is more advanced than ground effects tunnels? I guess that means that the Lotus 78(?) was less advanced than it's flat-bottomed competitors? Right.

Don't misunderstand me, it's not bias, it's admiration. The people who run CART/Champ cars understand the importance of the show and go flat out to maintain it.

Surely, nobody thinks flat bottoms are advanced, they are a poor attempt to reduce the efficiency of the aerodynamics.

With the knowledge that today's racing car designers have, the limit on cornering speed would be the capacity of the drivers to withstand the g-forces - IF they were allowed a free hand. I am very firmly of the opinion that the Champ car people have got the balance less wrong the F1 people.

[vettefan]

After the "Flying Mercedes" accident at LeMans a couple of years ago, I heard a wag say that "Mercedes builds wonderful cars but lousy airplanes".

Maybe we should all just admit that today's F1, CART, etc race cars are really just extremely low-flying airplanes, and not automobiles

[Locai]

Originally posted by bobellsmore
I propose that we scrap the qualifying session completely and start each race in reverse order of the current standings in the drivers championship (last season's final order for the first race of the season). With Michael Schumacher starting dead last in every race, we would guarantee some pretty serious overtaking

Well, it would more likely result in massive pile-ups at the first corner of every race. For those lucky enough to survive the first corner, it probably wouldn't take but a few laps for the faster cars to overtake the slower cars. Then, you'd be right back to where you were before with no passing.

[random]

I think the FIA should mandate aerodynamically transparent wings.

Of course the FIA cannot remove wings entirely because of their use as advertising space. I suggest replacing the existing wing structures with a standardized wing that produces almost no downforce while still allowing advertising space. Perhaps it could be known as the "screen door wing".

I wouldn't really suggest making the wing out of screen aluminum, but a fine mesh of carbon fiber could work well. An advertisement could be sprayed onto the carbon mesh and would be almost as visible as the current ads. But the air would simply pass right through, creating little or no downforce.

[The Rock]

Originally posted by Flexy



I'm very confused. How the hell can you make comments on such tehcnical aspects (diffusers, barge boards etc.) when you don't understand how a car can drive without a rear wing? I don't mean to offend you but REALLY. Seems to me you just copied these 6 points from somebody elses post.

I say this again: I don't mean to offend

Hmmm, i started this thread because i wanted to find out about the effect of banning wings would have on the cars such as passing, driveabilty of the cars etc as i have said earlier in this thread.If you have care to take the time to see any other posts i had in the subject of passing you would see that the same things i have mentioned(slicks, baning barge boards etc) come up time and time again, so i didn't just steal them from someone alse.(No offence taken ,this time)