24 replies to this topic

[Mosquito]

Most people currently agree on the point that overtaking has become more and more difficult in F1.
This is mostly due to the fact that cars can not follow each other close through corners since downforce is hampered by the guy in front disrupting your airflow.

Then, why don't the FIA change the rules? Down force generated by ground effect is not affected close behind your opponent, so it's the ideal thing to improve wheel to wheel close battles on the circuit.

1. Remove the whole wooden plank and ground clearance regulation giving more opportunity for ground effect
2. Restrict the front and rear wing size to compensate for gained down force.

The great battles from the past were done in cars which had most downforce from ground effect. Now, I do not wish to have the old skirts back (they ARE dangerous, pick a kerb lifting the skirt and you're in for some air trip), but ANYTHING that allows for closer racing would do for me.
This passing in the pits / 1 or 2 stop strategy, etc... is cool for chess players but bad for addicts to racing sports.

Does this sound silly or what?

[madmac]

MMMMM ...... interesting. IMO if you could remove the dangers of downforce (I.E. prevent suction from being broken). Then the limit wings thus removing the whole dirty air thing.... I think your'e onto somthing here Mosquito. Anyone can think why it wouldn't work ?

[Mecon]

Only problem I can see, is that with reduced downforce, slingshots down the main straight into turn one will effectively disappear. How about the top speed of the car being governed, by the FIA, and the cars allowed to run whatever combination they want ???? That way all the illegal wings, and other little gizmos will be eliminated as if the car breaks the speed limit, that's it, visible to the whole world instantly.

[Mosquito]

Mecon,

I guess you're talking about the results of lesser wings --> less drag to use when overtaking on the main straight.
Well, I think if you exit the last corner scrubbing the gearbox of the guy in front of you, you don't need much of a drag to get in front. Late brakers should only gain from this effect.

I agree with the top speed issue: Less wing = less drag, but, the increase in speed is not that dramatic. Making ground effect a more important factor, the need for any small gizmos for feeding air to wings etc, would become less of an issue.
However, I don't like top speed limiters (As I basically don;t like ANY limiter, be it pop-up valve, revs or Kmh)

[Mecon]

What I am saying, whilst like Mosquito, i do not like the idea of restricting the top speed of a car, its become that complex and open to debate and appeal, that if the rules were simplified, to a point were the cars, conforming to weight, height, safety issues, etc. the teams be allowed to proceed down what ever route they want, active suspension, traction control power assisted braking etc. This way the developments will, as well as making much closer racing below the top speed, eventually be pushed through into production cars, the only thing I will ever drive, rather than been hidden away in some RAM which disappears as soon as the engine is switched off.

[Mosquito]

Problem is that the FIA is limping on multiple legs if you look at the different goals they are trying to achieve:
1. Improve safety
2. Reduce cost so more teams can keep up
3. Attractiveness for (TV) viewers. (This IS a commercial issue...)
4. Reduce the change to ~cheat~

Only truly safe measures would be something like 'Ban software, only old fashioned solid state electronics allowed), no drive by wire (also no powersteer???), etc...etc...
Ofcourse, this is as good as impossible. I think therefore that alternatives should be sought without upstirring to much dirt.

[Eric McLoughlin]

How about banning all sorts of downforce generating devices (wings, sidepods with or without skirts, under floor aerodynamics, diffusers, spoilers, winglets, suction fans) and just make the cars bullet shaped projectiles with cornering speed entirely governed by suspension, chassis and tyre technology. At one fell swoop slipstreaming, outbraking, power slides, four wheel drifts etc would reappear in F1 - and maybe even overtaking!

The cars would be the modern day equivalent of what F1 was up to 1967 (before downforce) but much safer. I suppose they would look like Formula Fords on steroids.

[Mosquito]

Hehehe Eric,

Yeah, or we could have them run around in straight boxes with 4 wheels. (And call them all 'Volvos' ;))

No serious. I don't think one should ban downforce. And second, I think one should not too desperately try to enforce things like rear wheel slides, etc. We have sports like the World Rally Championship who are already doing a great job on that.
Part of the F1 thing is just that lack of slide. It means you're leaning at the edge of grip and just not loosing it.

But, any measure simplifying the rules and how to ~cheat~ with'm combined with closer racing would be a true golden egg! Guess the answer is not going to be that simple.
Look at everything they promised us should bring back real wheel to wheel battles: Smaller tires, grooved tires, smaller cars (less wide that is), bans on qualifying tires. No TC and active suspension, etc. Did it help? Nope. As long as you are not able to drive anywhere near your front opponent, it's not gonna happen.
And that's the bottom line I intended in the previous messages.

[Indian Chief]

Allowing ground effects back wil be the best thing the FIA has done in years. But they should allow only Venturi tunnels and not those skirts which pose a huge risk to the driver.
Even if drivers cannot get a slingshot, they can get under their rivals rear wing on a corner. Something which is virtually impossible these days.
If the FIA has even an iota of sense, they will bring back ground effects, reduce the size of wings and go back to slicks.

[busternuck]

Then the whole thing will come to a complete loop. Allowing slicks and ground effect will mean the cars can negotiate bends at higher speeds et al and this would mean the top cars will run away with the championship again (ironically in spite of it all they are still doing it). Then FIA will reintroduce grooved tyres etc. to reduce the speed. Making a nice full circle.

Sometimes it is hard to fault FIA - they probably took an average car as the benchmark performance for the entire grid and tried to fit all the cars into that performance band by introducing various measures so that everyone is more or less even stevens. But so far it has failed to produce the close racing that all these regulations are supposed to do.

[Arnaldo]

Mossie,
I resent that remark about Volvos - I don't deny it, just resent it. On the subject of removal of rear wings, I posted this topic ages ago, nearly a year, I would say. You guys still forget one thing, that large rear wing/deflector makes for a fantastic advertising billboard, because that is the most visible part of the car on television. Those huge signs that says HSBC, you can't miss them. When a car is overtaken or even when a car pulls off the circuit, that billboard is clearly visible. It is the only thing that the tail enders have for show. I did put up the idea of reducing the rear wing from a deflector to a pure wing by restricting the projected frontal area, and that is, I suppose, where the cars can still get some downforce plus advertising billboard effect. Allowing ground effects will make up for the decrease in downforce of the deflector, and this can be balanced by the various teams so as not to end up with disastrous handling problems. The rear wing can be moved to a position directly above the engine by stipulating the minimum height of the rear wing, as well as restricting any protrusion of the wing beyond the rear bodywork. This would greatly enhance the effect of the frontal wing when a car approaches the rear of another car. So, what do you guys think?? NO!!! NOT about the VOLVO!!!

[Mosquito]

Arnaldo: The Volvo joke was just TOO easy: Couldn't let it pass ;) My excuses to all Volvo drivers, they make nice looking cars nowadays.

Wouldn't it help if rules would be changed to enforec the rear wing to be made up of 1 single plane instead of the multiple planes and helper wings they are now? I'm not that good on aerodynamics, but I think a single wing with maybe some changed position could be half the solution already...?

busternuck: Why do you think more downforce is only of benefit of the top teams? IMO, it would be more of a leveller since involved aerodynamics are less complex as those on top and behind the car with current wing and diffusor configurations. And about the FIA: They are partly to blame since a lot of team input / comments have been ignored for ages.

Cheers

[narhuit]

Ground effects seem nice, but they have a huge drawback: they are not stable. For instance, on Interlagos, the bumps would prevent the car from gaining any ground effect downforce for most of the track.
And when a bump or whatever upsets the downforce, the whole downforce vanishes in a snap without the slightest warning. Imagine this while a driver tries to outbrake an oponent...

[Mosquito]

narhuit:

And when a bump or whatever upsets the downforce, the whole downforce vanishes in a snap without the slightest warning.

Current F1 cars do have very little travel on the suspension. This would mean you would have to be airborne to have a serious effect regarding downforce and I think being airborne means you already have another (bigger ;)) problem.

Only with moving skirts on the side of the cars ('70-'80), you would get dangerous situations if one of the skirts failed (or was lifted by running the curbs).

[Cociani]

I am with the no downforce devices and unrestricted tire group on this one. Think about it the teams would have to focus almost entirely on mechanical grip and reducing drag, just like street car manufacturers. There would be more passing, slipstreaming and four wheel drifts. It would be exciting and think of how different the cars would look. Ground effects have been explored and so have wings why not push the engeneeers in the opposite direction for a while.

[mtl'78]

The problem is with G forces. In Gilles' time, at the heyday of ground effects, they were pulling 4.5 G's in some corners. Villeneuve often complained that a corner he used to take in 3rd, he could now take flat in 5th! If they were to allow for more undercar downforce, it would have to involve A LOT LESS overcar downforce. You would have to force a new chassis config. One that has a lot of drag for the straight lines. The majority of downforce at high speed is still produced by the ride height. The wings are localised downforce, such as the front wing for front-end responsiveness. At that point you could leave the grooves on and have closer racing.

[Mosquito]

Mtl:
>>they were pulling 4.5 G's in some corners<<
Granted, but that was with the skirts configuration. Reduce maximum size so they are more too balance the cars setup then supplying major downforce allow the rest of the downforce to be done by ground effects.

[EVL29]

Wow!...Venturi Tunnel Ground Effects?....Single Element Rear Wings?....Slicks?

Didn't realize there were so many CART fans on this Board.

[Mosquito]

Whoops EVL29, you just blew my cover ;)
Ssssssssshhhhh!!! Don't tell anybody about the disguise....

[Arnaldo]

THE EAR WINGS ARE EALLY NOT WINGS - THEY ARE DEFLECTORS. tHEY DO NOT OPERATE ON THE PRINCIPLE OF A WING AT ALL, BUT ON THE PRINCIPLE OF THE CHANGE IN (HECK!! sorry for the caps, I had the cap loc on) direction of the air, and this can be calculated using vectors. I did a thesis on this on my final year at Uni, using water instead of air, and you can actually calculate the force on the deflector. However, this deflector creates a helluva lot of turbulance behind the car, which you can actually see when there is a wet track. A pure wing, operating on the reverse uplift of a wing, would create a lot less turbulance. As a result, I suggested mounting a pure wing above the rear of the car, and not allow it to protrude rear of the car. This would minimise the turbulance at the front wing of the following car. This will result in a lot more slipstreaming and overtaking in F1. As for 4 wheel drifts, I think that the fat tyres and the traction developed by the tyres has made this a thing of the past.

[Mosquito]

Arnaldo,
Do you think car designers are exploiting this to the maximum? I mean, heck! If I were designing aerodynamics and had the choice of creating turbulent havoc in the airflow behind the car! Nobody get's near that gearbox.

[Williams]

I don't know why the FIA doesn't skirt (so to speak) the whole aerodynamic issue and just mandate a total downforce figure: thou shalt have no more than X kilograms of downforce at Y speed. Then take a portable windtunnel to every race to test the cars after the race. It wouldn't have to be big, or accurate, it would just have to roughly measure downforce and could be used to set a downforce standard that the teams could design against. Then the FIA could arbitrarily increase/decrease the allowed downforce, the teams could still have their wings, and the FIA could drop a lot of the silly rules ("no aerodynamic element shall be futher forward than xx mm ahead of the rear wheel axle or xx mm above the reference plane blah blah...").

[narhuit]

Mosquito:
Even tyre deformation would be enough to alter ground effects (well, this is just a little bit exagerated -or is it?-, but think of running over kerbs...). This is a matter of millimeters -one or two are enough-. There is no need to be airborne to completely loose ground effects.
And designers do not deliberately create "turbulent havoc in the airflow behind the car", because this would involve even more aerodynamical drag.

[awill4x4]

How about letting each car carry a bottle of Nitrous oxide that will allow 15 to 20 secs of extra power during a race. It's up to the driver when to use it so if he uses it too early bad luck!
I remember back in the 70s that some Nascar drivers used to fill part of their roll cages with Nitrous just for this reason.
I'm only joking everybody, but at least we would see SOME overtaking.
regards awill.

[Mosquito]

4x4,

It the turbo ages, you had exactly that: Drivers could manipulate the turbo boost themselves during the race.
It was up to them and the team to decide if the fuel and engine would last the race, but you could take your burning streaks on the straight when you needed it.