94 replies to this topic

[tifosi]

Duh Hello, 4 is the limit, you don't believe that? Go check the sporting regulations. Of ocurse I guess you could have 2 regular cars and 2 qualifying cars so you can practice with the regular cars. Of course if you wreck your real car you can't practice anymore so you even more screwed. Again, I haven't seen an explanation as to how you will ever get the set-ups right if the cars are substantially different. You cannot use the set-ups from the normal cars in practice, they will not translate. With computers and all you can make a good guess, but it would not be close enough on a consistent basis. In other words, the wrong set-up will cost you more than the extra speed from the special car.
Also next year the 1 engine rule kicks in. How many teams are going to tool up and spend 100s of millions of dollars designing and manufacturing these special 3 lap engines if in one year you have to go back to entire-weekend engines. Look to 1988 to see what hapopens, once the non-aspirated Formula was introduced, everyone except Honda quit. And finally Ithe FIA has already stated that if this happens they will screw up those plans, do you really believe they can't????

[Pioneer]

Trivial. Run the race cars on friday practice and the qual cars in saturday practice.

Read the reg again... I posted it... Here I'll post it again if you're too lazy to scroll back.

86) A competitor may use several cars for practice and the race provided that :
a) he has no more than four cars available for use at any one time:


Note the phrase "at any one time." There is no reason to put that in if it was an absolute 4 car limit. Its there to allow cars to be swapped in and out for a variety of reasons. (Mainly I think force majeur, but they didn't specify that.

I know for a fact that Ferrari sometimes brings and presents for scrutinizing 5 cars.
2 race cars, 2 T cars, and one partial chassis which can be finished and swapped in if one of the 4 main cars is damaged beyond repair.

[tifosi]

I'm not lazy I did read the regulations and I will tell you what will happen if they do that. First of all they do not and cannot present the incomplete chassis for scrutineering on Thursday. At any rate when they 'rebuild' that chassis, the FIA may at any time it wnats to decide to demand that rebuilt car be scrutinized. And they can very easily make sure that scrutineering takes a lot longer tha qualifying. The cars cannot just be swapped whenever you want. In pooint of fact, since there is no reason to have special cars right now, the FIA do not demand a 'swapped' car be presented for scrutineering. BUT THEY CAN and most certaintly will if anyone tries this. If Ferrari completes that partial 5th chassis the FIA may demand it be scrutinized. They may demand Ferrari completely dissasemble the car down to the last nut and bolt. How many hours do you think they can hold Ferrari. Well past qualifying. Bernie and Max have already made it clear that this is what they will do if anyone tries to introduce a special car on Saturday.

BTW the cars everyone is talking about will not last through Saturday Practice. So you'll never be able to get a set-up therefor there is simply no advantage oother than the fact you can brag about thropwing away $100M. Also your forgetting how stupid it is to focus on qualifying. How many race wins did JPM get by being on pole. It certaintly would be stupid for Ferrari to sit here spending all day Saturday tweaking this special car to get on pole if they never get the car set for Sunday.

Strictly technically by the regulation, you are correct in that there may be a way to have 'special' qualifying cars available for Saturday. But in reality:

1) As I've said set-ups are not transferable, the 3 lap cars would not make through a practice session, tyherefore the car would not have a set-up for qualifying.
2) The FIA has made it very clear that they will demand scrutineering for any funny business. It can be quote amazing what scrutineers can do. There is of course talk of making teams use the car used in qualifying in the race. I know the current regulations dont specify that but anyone that is surprised at what the FIA can do has not been watching F1 very long.
3) I doubt if anyone even Ferrari could justify the enourmous cost in what would be a 1 year effort.

[Tomecek]

I am with Tifosi here. He said completely what I think, but I am not able to explain with my poor English.
And what is true that Bernie already dismissed this way of building two different cars...

[tifosi]

Originally posted by Tomecek
I am with Tifosi here. He said completely what I think, but I am not able to explain with my poor English.
And what is true that Bernie already dismissed this way of building two different cars...

Evidently my English isn't good enough either . I understand what Pioneer is saying as per the regulations. But what is technically possible and what is reality is two very very different things. And as you and others have said Bernie and Max are already looking for this and will use the FIA to squash the attempt. Okay you can appeal say the decision they make in Melbourne. They'll probably schedule your appeal for July.

[random]

My personal opinion is that a darn good qualifying car could be built without the need for a separate chassis.

The real key would be full set of bodywork specifically for qualifying. It could be designed so that it didn't just block air cooling inlets, but slipstreamed them into the shape of the car.

Another grander possibility is that the actual sidepods could be multi-pieced so that a greater portion of them could be removed for qualifying. Thus allowing the sidepods to be slipstreamed and tiny, probably also necessitating the existing radiators be replaced with tiny qualifying versions.

This together with a specially designed 30 km qualifying motor and all the usual lightweight qualifying replacement parts could be a very effective package. And because it would utilize the exact same chassis as the race car, it would likely be beyond challenge.

[Mrv]

Originally posted by JForce
More rumours that Ferrari will respond to the new qualifying format with a qualifying special. Smaller, lighter. etc.

Question: Don't you have to nominate a chassis on Friday for qualifying and the race?

Wouldn't that mean you couldn't run two completely different chassis types...

This is not something new. F2002 qualifying car was quite different than the race spec car. Ferrari have done this in the past.

[fuzzybunny]

Originally posted by random
My personal opinion is that a darn good qualifying car could be built without the need for a separate chassis.

The real key would be full set of bodywork specifically for qualifying. It could be designed so that it didn't just block air cooling inlets, but slipstreamed them into the shape of the car.

Another grander possibility is that the actual sidepods could be multi-pieced so that a greater portion of them could be removed for qualifying. Thus allowing the sidepods to be slipstreamed and tiny, probably also necessitating the existing radiators be replaced with tiny qualifying versions.

This together with a specially designed 30 km qualifying motor and all the usual lightweight qualifying replacement parts could be a very effective package. And because it would utilize the exact same chassis as the race car, it would likely be beyond challenge.

I think this is more or less my opinion, but I wonder at the dry-ice sidepod being enough.

How many cars are allowed to be available for qualifying? Is it still the four?

[Ursus]

Originally posted by random


For a one lap run, I gather any cooling system packed with dry ice would probably do fine. And dry ice has been allowed these many past years.

Dry ice has been alowed before but that's only in rather small quantities for when the car is stationary befor formation laps etc. If you decide to rely on dry ice for an entire lap then you run into the regulation that says you can't untilise the latent heat of vaporisation as a means of cooling.

[fuzzybunny]

Originally posted by Ursus

...untilise the latent heat of vaporisation as a means of cooling.

Dry ice isn't cool because it evaporates, it is cool because it is bloody frozen...
Still might be illegal, though.

and I still don't think sealed sidepods will work.

[HSJ]

Originally posted by fuzzybunny

Dry ice isn't cool because it evaporates, it is cool because it is bloody frozen...
Still might be illegal, though.

and I still don't think sealed sidepods will work.

Well, unless I'm badly mistaken it works like this: the dry ice (and I'm not talking about Kimi this time ) vaporizes and THAT keeps the solid part that is still left in the car cold (frozen). The vaporized part takes the heat energy with it, the same heat that came from the car that the dry ice "sucked up." In fact this is a good method of cooling in general. Like when you get wet in rain and feel bloody cold, it is because of faster heat transfer from your skin to the rain water on your skin than there is normally from your skin to the air surrounding you. Or when you touch metal it feels cold (or hot depending on circumstances) because metals are typically good heat conductors, much better than air, so the heat (energy) transfer between your skin and the metal makes it feel cold (or hot).

[Tomecek]

Originally posted by tifosi


Evidently my English isn't good enough either . I understand what Pioneer is saying as per the regulations. But what is technically possible and what is reality is two very very different things. And as you and others have said Bernie and Max are already looking for this and will use the FIA to squash the attempt. Okay you can appeal say the decision they make in Melbourne. They'll probably schedule your appeal for July.

I guess so ;) But I still believe that interpretation of the rules means that you cannont bring more than 2 qual. cars and 2 race cars (it's quite risky), unless Michael will have 2 race cars and 1 qual. car and Barrichello only 1 race car Or motoscooter.

[fuzzybunny]

Originally posted by HSJ


Well, unless I'm badly mistaken it works like this: the dry ice (and I'm not talking about Kimi this time ) vaporizes and THAT keeps the solid part that is still left in the car cold (frozen). The vaporized part takes the heat energy with it, the same heat that came from the car that the dry ice "sucked up." In fact this is a good method of cooling in general. Like when you get wet in rain and feel bloody cold, it is because of faster heat transfer from your skin to the rain water on your skin than there is normally from your skin to the air surrounding you. Or when you touch metal it feels cold (or hot depending on circumstances) because metals are typically good heat conductors, much better than air, so the heat (energy) transfer between your skin and the metal makes it feel cold (or hot).

OK, OK, OK...
And I thought it cooled better cos it was cold....

Good, scratch sealed dry-ice filled sidepods.

[Clatter]

Originally posted by fuzzybunny

I think this is more or less my opinion, but I wonder at the dry-ice sidepod being enough.

How many cars are allowed to be available for qualifying? Is it still the four?

Effectivly one, as you only get one chance. But I believe they could have a choice of 4 to run from.

[Clatter]

Originally posted by Pioneer
.

86) A competitor may use several cars for practice and the race provided that :
a) he has no more than four cars available for use at any one time:

For this rule is the competitor deemed to be the team, or the individual driver?

[tifosi]

Originally posted by Clatter


For this rule is the competitor deemed to be the team, or the individual driver?

Team. A driver is just one of th emany components entered by a competitor.

[random]

Even without dry ice, I think an mostly airless cooling system could be designed to keep things reasonable for a single lap. They could freeze the radiator cores or something.

[graeme]

Sorry, I don't see the point in having a separate qualifying car.

If you have the fastest race car then there is no point in using the limited practice time setting up a qualifying car rather than making the race car quick enough to qualify at the front end of the grid.

[random]

Originally posted by graeme
If you have the fastest race car then there is no point in using the limited practice time setting up a qualifying car rather than making the race car quick enough to qualify at the front end of the grid.

The teams would disagree with you. Many have effectively had qualifying cars for over a decade. For qualifying they change out the engines, transmissions, bodywork, brakes, suspension pieces etc...

There is talk of a separate qualifying chassis but I don't think it will happen, mostly because even though the rules seem to allow it, Max and Bernie seem hell-bent on preventing it. I think most teams will probably continue use the same chassis, simply changing out a whole laundry list of parts. The big difference this time is that the cars could look very different in qualifying as the bodywork will be designed to slipstream the sidepods and provide for little or no cooling.

[Scoots]

If you have to race the "same" car that you qualify you have to define "same" This was the same complaint about the engine rule. If I change the intake is that a new engine? If I change the exhaust header is that a new engine? What about a piston? Rod bearing? Likewise if I change a sidepod, the chassis is the same I've just changed a modular component.

Think about this ... Ferrari could have RB put in a slower lap than he's capable of on Friday so he can go out several cars before MS on qualifying so that MS can have the benefit of RBs data IN THE SAME CAR. The teams can just set up one special Q car and make sure the drivers qualifying laps are far enough apart that the team can change the car for the second driver and incorporate all of the data from the first run.

Q cars are nothing new, and the FIA can't really do anything about it this year.

The one engine rule has been discussed for 2004, or 2005, but AFAIK it has not been implemented.

The qualifying engine/car doesn't have to last for 3 laps, just 1 warmup lap, 1 qual lap, then who cares what happens to it ... it's the next guys problem. Colin Chapman would say that the perfect qualifying car would disintigrate immediately upon crossing the last timing line on the qual lap (assuming he didn't care about the immediate safety of the driver ).

McLaren/Newey didn't come up with the idea of special Q-cars, he just complained about it to the press, probably because he knew Ferrari were already working on it, or because he didn't want to.

Like most things in F1, there is nothing new under the sun, and the rule changes almost always increase cost, and are done mostly for the "show".

[hhh]

The new rules were supposed to lower costs in F1; everybody knows that now costs are going to be even higher at a time when only 4 teams have enough money and the rest is only trying to stay alive.

If we want to have a future for F1 things must change drastically.
1 lap qualifying is crazy; better take an average of the qualifying times of Friday and Saturday; in each session a driver must do at least 6 laps (or start at the back) and race with the same car/engine that he used on Saturday.
If he crashed the car and needs a T-car, he will start from the back of the grid.
What about starting the race on the tyres used for qaulifying and lowering engine revs to 17.000 max?

Rule out qualifying cars, even though that's not easy to prove.

We must go back to the excitement of the '60's, with at least 6 potential race winning teams.

[Scoots]

The 60's are over, and will never return. Here are your 6 teams Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, Renault, Jaguar, Toyota. The only reason Ferrari was dominant was the lack of performance of the other major players. No rules changes are needed to fix that, the principals of the other teams agree that only the losing teams themselves are to blame for Ferrari's domination.

There are no new rules whose intent was to reduce cost. The tire rules increase cost, and the teams and FIA knew it would. The qualifying change increases cost and they knew it would when it was agreed upon. The points and team-orders rules likely have no effect either way.

[pRy]

I disagree, I think its every bit as much Ferrari being better than the rest on their own accord. How do the other teams effect their reliability? Ok so maybe if the other teams pushed Ferrari at each race more, the engine may give way, but if you look at their record, they have a very stable car.

[Scoots]

My point was that if you want a season where 6 teams can win you need 6 teams who are going all out to win and that can happen if all of the other teams bring up their game rather than bring Ferrari down.

[hhh]

We don't have 6 teams that can win, we have three Ferrari, Williams and McLaren. The 6 manufaturer supported teams share some 80% of the available money in F1 between them; th others have the rest.
Of course Ferrari just did a fantastic job and in racing it's normal that you use the rules as well as you can, so if Ferrari thinks having a qualifying car is allowed they will do so, and they are right. But we should have rules that give the smaller teams with less money a better chance of getting close.
For years the TV money only went to the big teams; teams without points were even penalized more by having to pay their own travel costs.
The big teams don't have a real race without the smaller teams being there also. Who wants a 12-car grid in F1?
So the TV and travel money should be split evenly among all the teams; they should abadon the enormous up-front guarantee money for new teams and really work at lowering the costs.
With today's economy F1 is going to run out of money.

[tifosi]

Agree that the TV money should be split up more evenly, but lets face facts, this is chump change. The replacement to the Concorde agreement is going to be very interesting indeed. I would hate to see F1 go the way of FIA GT and sportscars, but I'm not sure what some of these teams are going to do. As we have seen in the past, except for Ferrari, manufacturers come into Formula One with a very narrow agenda and once they meet whatever targets they have set, they dump it.

As far as the q-cars are concerned, what is all this about Ferrari anyway. All the big hitters have used q-cars for years and even the small ones don't exactly run their q-cars in race trim. Of course this is why qualifying had become perhaps a little less meaningless than it was. Witness JPM and Williams great qualifying record yet can't do poop on Sunday. Just because you tape up all the cooling ducts and end up first on the grid on Saturday wont mean diddley on Sunday if your 30 seconds down after the first set of pit stops.

[ffiloseta]

I really don't see what the fuss is all about. Everybody uses qualifying engines, rigth ? These are engines that given their short expected durability, have relaxed some reliability-related parameters, such as the RPM limit.

By analogy, a Qualifying Car is a special car improved in a way allowed by the short span of its life. Right ? And what would be this improvements ? Not weight, of course, because it is regulated.

Anyone ?


No?



So this is a non-issue and a flame bait. It's okay, just don't bite in !

[tifosi]

Originally posted by ffiloseta

By analogy, a Qualifying Car is a special car improved in a way allowed by the short span of its life. Right ? And what would be this improvements ? Not weight, of course, because it is regulated.

Anyone ?
No?
So this is a non-issue and a flame bait. It's okay, just don't bite in !

Not exactly. Weight is the must critical issue. Yes the final 'on the scales' weight must be the same, but by essentially building a lightweight chassis, that possibly could never hope to make a race, that weight can be made up by ballast, which can be placed far more strategically in the car, helping balance. Examples of this:

- An extremely lightweight transmission which would only last a few laps
- very thin brake discs, again only good for a few laps

Of course pulling weight off the car has its limits. As far as I know the chassis must still meet crash test standards, and I would assume that if the chassis were significantly different then the 'race' chassis, this is the means Max and Bernie would use to stop the car from being used, i.e. it wasn't crash tested yet.

The other area is obviously in bodywork. Without having any concern for cooling, the cars could maximize the aerodynamic flow around the bodywork, increasing speed. This of course is one of the biggest tradeoffs today in F1, balancing aerodynamic efficiency with cooling efficiency and is why you constantly see all these little wings and holes pop up all over the engine cover.

[ffiloseta]

Tifosi, I agree with you on the bodywork, but that would hardly qualify as a "Qualifier Special" would it?. On the weight arena, you pegged it when you mentioned the crashability. Not much leeway there. Also, lighter suspension bits ? How much lighter can you possibly go? A lighter transmission would make a little bit more sense, though, but being a stressed member, I think you can't go far in this direction (because of crash worthiness again)

So... I'm still thinking this is a non -issue. Fun , though, given our actual non-racing situation.

[random]

Originally posted by ffiloseta
I really don't see what the fuss is all about. Everybody uses qualifying engines, rigth ? These are engines that given their short expected durability, have relaxed some reliability-related parameters, such as the RPM limit.

So this is a non-issue and a flame bait. It's okay, just don't bite in ! :

I'd have to strongly disagree with you.

In previous years there have been qualifying motors. But these are typically the same as the race motor, just of a slightly newer revision or running at higher revs. These engines still needed to last over a dozen laps and so could be of the same basic design.

A real cost concern raised recently by BMW (see above in this thread) is that a qualifying engine designed for just a single lap will be so dissimilar from the standard engine as to require it's own development program. Unlike the qualifying motors used in previous years, it will be of a fundamentally different design than the standard race motor.

And don't forget all the aero work that will need be done if they slipstream the sidepods remove cooling.

And as tifosi pointed out, weight placement and ballast is very important. Currently many chassis weight something over 100kg less than they are required to, simply so more of the required weight can be put in ballast. The more ballast, the better one is able to balance the car. Qualifying versions of brakes, radiators, wheels, transmission, engine, removable sidepods, suspension pieces. Pretty soon you removed a lot of weight and added a lot of cost.

The costs for these "1 lap specials" will be huge. But if the teams really push the envelope, it should be fun to watch.

[Scoots]

It still won't be as fun as watching a driver drive at 10/10ths on their 4th qualifying run to find another 2 hundredths to get pole.

The whole thing is a massive expense, and the fact that Newey mentioned it publicly means that Williams, McLaren, and Ferrari WILL do it. The question is how far each goes and how successful they are.

[SeanValen]

Originally posted by Scoots
It still won't be as fun as watching a driver drive at 10/10ths on their 4th qualifying run to find another 2 hundredths to get pole.

The whole thing is a massive expense, and the fact that Newey mentioned it publicly means that Williams, McLaren, and Ferrari WILL do it. The question is how far each goes and how successful they are.

The need to have a car thats good on all tracks, and set up responsive on the go, more important then ever.

[Barroschello]

Chassis - it isn't necessary to change the chassis, only sidepods, as already mentioned, furthermore it would be necessary a new crash test for a different one.

Brakes - as unsprung weight is very important, rotors would change for sure as they just need one lap of full performance... but it will be dangerous.

Fluids - teams can use smaller reservoirs for oil and cooling (smaller radiator), to allow the engine to last one lap.

Anyway, aside from sidepods, do not believe the trade-off of costs and set-up (trainning) time would worth just for changing the place of weight (ballast).
Friday extra trainning session teams would not be able to run diferent cars bcs of set-up time.

[baddog]

I agree, that only the changes that led to aero advantage, or that were using a 'consumable part' (like brake discs for example) would be worth doing. losing a few ounces on brake fluid would be useless. smaller radiators (they already use no brake ducts and probably light discs anyway) would be the real obvious one.

Shaun

[tifosi]

A couple of other things I just thought of.

- To large of a weight differential between the race car and the qualifying car would greatly affect tyre performance. We saw an example of that thi syear with Ferrari. The took so much weight off the back end of the car that it had a rather severe advers affect on the tyres during short (i.e. qualifying) runs. In many instances the tyres simply could not get up to proper temperature top run at optimun performance. So how much further could teams shift weight with the tyre problems already being seen by Ferrari.

- As an add-on to that, at what point must teams select tyres now. Up until this year teams had 4 practice sessions to select a tyre, effectively using 3 of the sessions to select the best tyre for the race. Now, of course there are at most 2 sessions, and a chunk of those sessions must be used in getting the car set-up for qualifying, meaning teams will have much less time to chose tyres. Tyres are now such an importnat part of the equation and more thgan likely a car that is very different form the race car would require totally different tyre solutions.


I believe, despite AN's predictions, Barroschello is close to being correct. Perhaps vastly different bodywork, with no openings for cooling, no drag-inducing chimineys, etc etc. , unless the FIA find a way to stop it. (Don't be surprised.) All the teams already use qualifying brakes, so no big deal there.

As far as engines are concerned, I'm not sure what the answer is if the big three start coming out with some totally different engines to qualify (as opposed to simply running the current engines faster or a m,ore upgarded, but untested version). However you are talking very very high costs, and as we saw before in 1988, most teams will simply say we'll wait till next year if its only a 1 year deal.

[random]

Don't forget that Bernie suggested some months ago that it looked likely the teams would vote to throw out the 1 engine rule planned for 2004.

As for 1 lap engines and transmissions, if it's within the rules it will be done.

[ffiloseta]

No sidepods... sounds good.

Supposing a car with no sidepods can be submitted succesfully to the crashworthiness test, I think that could be done equally easily by all teams, hence erasing any advantage.

But I'd like to know what do you think about the setup schedule to be followed by teams. What car would they use on Friday ? The racer or the qualifier ?. Using the race car will give info on race setup but nothing for the qualifier, being so different, hence a not so good qualification. The other way around would be even worse, as Williams has shown this season.

No, no, there is no point on using substantially different cars for qualifying, only race-spec cars that can be made to run faster for a limited period of time.

[random]

Originally posted by ffiloseta
But I'd like to know what do you think about the setup schedule to be followed by teams. What car would they use on Friday ? The racer or the qualifier ?. Using the race car will give info on race setup but nothing for the qualifier, being so different, hence a not so good qualification. The other way around would be even worse, as Williams has shown this season.

No, no, there is no point on using substantially different cars for qualifying, only race-spec cars that can be made to run faster for a limited period of time.

You're missing the point and I really think your concerns are groundless. Mainly because the teams have been doing this for years. Yes, they've effectively been running different cars in qualifying for at least the last decade. A car with dozens (or hundreds) of lightened parts, different (higher downforce) bodywork, more ballast and a more powerful engine is effectively a "different car". Not to mention the fact that in all qualifying, the cars have had hundreds of pounds less fuel than a race starting vehicle. In some years super sticky qualifying tires were even allowed, you won't get a more massive change in cars than provided by q-tires.

Yet in all this time and with all those possible changes, the teams and drivers seem to have had little trouble adapting between the qualifying and race cars. But that's what they're paid for.

[ffiloseta]

random, surely the differences in setup between a car with sidepods and one without would be of another order of magnitude than the "differences" you mention. One thing is qualifying tweaks and another is a "Qualifying special".

I think the point presented in this thread is not about the measures taken to prepare a race car for better qualifying, but rather the possibility of Ferrari presenting a radically different car capable of outrageous performance on the one lap now required by the rules.

Being that qualifying engines and other bits have always been used, one has to understand that this "Qualifying special" is another car altogether, not a tweak of the same old racing car. No sidepods, some have proposed. Surely this would mean unsurmountable differences in the setup.

Besides, the old qualifying format lent itself to a lot of testing on the search for the perfect set up. You had Friday AND Saturday for up to 24 laps, not counting aborted ones, to obtain info. I'm sure that gave you time to ready setups for both Quali and race. With VERY similar cars. I'm not sure how the teams will use the new format to achieve this, but I'm sure they will. What I don't see is how they can setup four different cars (one race, one quali for each driver. Never mind the t-cars) in the short time available.

Anyway, I will not keep repeating myself. I think we'll just have to wait and see...

[Barroschello]

I just keep wondering if some team will install a 007 drop oil device to cheat the next qualifier. Ferrari might be in serious trouble!

[random]

Don't forget that both drivers can qualify in the same car.

Ffiloseta, your contention that mini-sidepods will massively alter the handling is (I think) a bit off, can you offer any evidence that this small aero change will cause the cars to handle so very differently?

I would almost guarantee you that qualifying tires (in past years) made more of a change to the handling of a car than "any" of the changes suggested for next year possibly could.

The differences in the 2003 qualifying cars will be incremental, much as they have been in the past. Just because the cars will probably look a lot different and have tiny sidepods doesn't mean the handling will be much more differentiated from the race car than it has been in the past. Don't forget, total replacement qualifying bodywork is nothing new to the sport, though in the past it just looked pretty much like the racing bodywork.

This will just be another set of incremental changes for which I'm sure the drivers will cope. Yes they'll have fewer laps to cope, fewer laps to set up the cars and only one lap to see if it works. But then the cream will rise right to the top...

[Barroschello]

No sidepods? We might see a radiator in the nose of the car alla Brabham BT-5something.
I don't hv a windtunnel at home, but in theory drag = f(frontal area).
Therefore tha car should be faster on straights, but of course, can't prove it.

[Scoots]

It's very unlikely that any of the changes will have much effect on handling at all, mostly a special Q car will have higher top speed, better accelleration, and be a bit more stable in corners. The first 2 have no real effect on handling, the last is easy to setup for.

This may not be the place for it, but I still say 1 lap qualifying sucks. It's another NASCARization of motorsport. The spectacle will be improved for the casual fan who is looking mostly for an accident, or failing that, a mistake by one of the highly paid and pompus F1 elite drivers. True beauty is achieved in motorsport only when the cars and drivers are working well and at the limit for multiple laps. One lap is sad, and it guarantees us a less that 100% performance out of the top of the field. The teams know they can't have the drivers go 10/10ths so they are trying to make up time by spending money. I have no problem with the Q cars, it's the qualifying format that is the problem.

[ffiloseta]

random, I'm actually experienced in fluid simulation, specifically fluids to be carried by poliducts (pipelines that carry natural gas and different grades of gasoline). In theory, I should be able to set up a simulation that would allow me to answer your question with authorithy. Unfortunately, I am unable to use my computational resources due to the situation here in Venezuela, a situation that I assume is known by many of you.

However, I think that I can state with an adequate degree of certainty that on ANY given car, the aerodynamic model obtained by the car with and without sidepods would be very, very, different.

For starters, the sidepods present an important source of friction and are an aerodynamic subsystem per-se: not only the drag presented by them but also the escaping flow has to be taken care of; rear wings performance depends on this escape flow. Without the sidepods, the model would be quite different, even simpler, maybe, but radically different, so much that it would certainly force a different rear wing design. And what about the engine exhaust ? Right now they try to merge it with some of the hot turbulent flow coming out of the radiators. Where would Ferrari place the exhaust on a sidepod-less car ?

I agree on the point that I can't give any proof, but intuitively I feel the difference would be quite consistent.

[Barroschello]

'I agree on the point that I can't give any proof, but intuitively I feel the difference would be quite consistent.'
(ffiloseta)

Don't worry ffilo, Benneton's Wind Tunnel can't do it too.