18 replies to this topic

[schuy]

Hello....

One of the new rules suggested by the FIA was a 50 kg. weight reduction in order to discard the need for so much ballast balancing etc.

Do you reckon this rule will go through?
A 50 kg. weight reduction would take the weight of the cars down to 550kg.

And what would the implications on performance be?
By how much will lap times actually improve?

I imagine we could now see several corners which in the past were taken on part-throttle now taken with full throttle.

Liran.

[Chevy II Nova]

Whoa. Don't get them wrong, this isn't to eliminate the 'need' for balast. Teams will still make a light chassis and put lead below the CoG.

Suddosedly the 50 kg will be comprised 'mostly' of the loads of electronic bits that occupy todays cars, as well as the weight saved by a more compact V8 engine.

[schuy]

Right, haven't thought about that.

An F1 engine weighs approximately 90-100 kgs. these days, so a V8 should save a fair bit of weight- Making it very justifiable to reduce minimal weight.

Thanks for the input.

[Monstrobolaxa]

Well the mass of the car isn't the only important factor.....(when we say weight we are mentioning the downward force that the car "feels" so the weight is the downforce + the force created by the car times gravity. People weigh less on the moon, but their mass is the same, so in this case you're talking about the mass)

Well reducing the mass of the car isn't so important....if you reagain an extra 500N from downfoce, you'll regain what the regs took from you. But the mass reduction isn't the most important thing...a car is a complex system of mechanisms so it's all down to integration of the whole package. One important thing is the traction of the tires (what usually is called by grip), this is proporcional to force that is applied on the tire. If you reduce the total weight of the car (aero downforce + mass x gravity), the tires will have less traction for the same cornering speed....so time will be lost in cornering....so the lost time is a complex thing and will only depend on how the teams react to the new regulations.

[J. Edlund]

Originally posted by Monstrobolaxa
Well the mass of the car isn't the only important factor.....(when we say weight we are mentioning the downward force that the car "feels" so the weight is the downforce + the force created by the car times gravity. People weigh less on the moon, but their mass is the same, so in this case you're talking about the mass)

Well reducing the mass of the car isn't so important....if you reagain an extra 500N from downfoce, you'll regain what the regs took from you. But the mass reduction isn't the most important thing...a car is a complex system of mechanisms so it's all down to integration of the whole package. One important thing is the traction of the tires (what usually is called by grip), this is proporcional to force that is applied on the tire. If you reduce the total weight of the car (aero downforce + mass x gravity), the tires will have less traction for the same cornering speed....so time will be lost in cornering....so the lost time is a complex thing and will only depend on how the teams react to the new regulations.

You have missed one very important thing. When the car is cornering there will be a centrifugal force acting on the car, which wants to pull the car off the track, so reducing the mass of the car will reduce that force and the car can go faster through the curve even if the force pushing the wheels down will be smaller. This is one of the reasons because aerodynamic downforce is used, otherwise they could do like some "speed record racers" do, adding more weight to keep the car on the ground.

[Engineguy]

Originally posted by schuy
By how much will lap times actually improve?
I imagine we could now see several corners which in the past were taken on part-throttle now taken with full throttle.

Lap times will not improve... the weight change is not being done by itself, but in conjunction with noticable power decrease, less sticky spec tires, and a new aero rules package that we can assume will be aimed at downforce reduction.

[Dmitriy_Guller]

With cars heavily relying on aero, there might be another important advantage: the mass-less aero weight would be a larger percentage of the total weight pushing down on the tires. That kind of weight increases roughly with the square of the speed, as opposed to the weight from the mass, which stays constant (within the realm of Newton's physics anyway). This would amplify the general effect of mass reduction increasing cornering speeds due to less-than-linear relationship between weight on the tires and grip of the tires.

[Monstrobolaxa]

you are right J. Edlund, I did forget it.;)

Dmitriy_Guller is also right....(didn't really think of this point of view)...but probably the aero-downforce with the new regs will also be cut drasticly so the grip(traction) on the tires will also be cut down.....and probably cornering speed might go down! But we're all in the "if" fase, while the regs aren't completly defined we can't really know what is going to happen.

[Lukin]

To see the effect yourself, download the Bosch program Lapsim and have a play with all the variables.

[Beamer]

i'm not a techy but wouldn't reduction of weight increase acceleration and deceleration? In other wordds, wouldn't the brake distance get even smaller than it is already thus making overtaking that much harder? I would say increasing weight was a more logical change to the rules. Increasing weight gives teams the opportunity to use less high-tech (weight saving) parts and it would increase braking distance...... or is this a stupid thought?

[PPatrik :: LKF]

Originally posted by Lukin
To see the effect yourself, download the Bosch program Lapsim and have a play with all the variables.

URL please!

[PPatrik :: LKF]

Originally posted by Beamer
i'm not a techy but wouldn't reduction of weight increase acceleration and deceleration? In other wordds, wouldn't the brake distance get even smaller than it is already thus making overtaking that much harder? I would say increasing weight was a more logical change to the rules. Increasing weight gives teams the opportunity to use less high-tech (weight saving) parts and it would increase braking distance...... or is this a stupid thought?

The cars nowadays much lighter than 600kg. They spent millions to make the car lighter, than add ballast to get the ruled weight.
If you raise the weight limit to 700 or 800 kg, it would be the same. They would spend millions to make the car lighter and would add ballast...

[Beamer]

Originally posted by PPatrik :: LKF


The cars nowadays much lighter than 600kg. They spent millions to make the car lighter, than add ballast to get the ruled weight.
If you raise the weight limit to 700 or 800 kg, it would be the same. They would spend millions to make the car lighter and would add ballast...

You've got a point there, but still the margin would be bigger, a few pounds would make less of a difference.

The increased braking distance argument would still go though... wouldn't it?

[PPatrik :: LKF]

Yes for same aero with hevier cars would increase the brake distance.

But chop off the wings from these cars and it would increase BD too, and with no downforce-killer slipstreams in fast corners it would be close racing again...

[Lukin]

http://www.bosch-mot...loads/index.htm

Its a good program. Can do some great things that help show how each parameter changes the dynamics of the car.

[PPatrik :: LKF]

Originally posted by Lukin
http://www.bosch-mot...loads/index.htm

Its a good program. Can do some great things that help show how each parameter changes the dynamics of the car.

Great program!!! Thank you!

[Schummy]

In a particular point of view, if new regs are used and we get cars with less weight, even if they cut dowforce we will get a dinamic more like a kart than a "car". I think current F1 are too capable in terms of cornering, they practically don't have suspension movements and their braking perfomance is "unreal" . In my eyes if is a glorified ultratech kart, not a car.

I know this is a question of particular taste, but, for me, the *implications* of weigth reductions are negative in terms of sunsequent implications in racing action and aesthetic sense of *car* racing.

[Lukin]

Been playing with the Lapsim program a bit more, never really got into it. Its awesome hey! Good to see how changing the setup effects the laptimes. Being part of the SAE I love the telemetry displays as it shows all the load transfered, accelerations, suspension motion in good detail.

One of the things Im not keen on (and I am using the V.2003.5 so it might be a little different to the latest version) is that most of the setups seem pretty well optimised. Almost all changes (I mean to race day variables like roll stiffness, bars, ride heights etc, not track, drag) increase the laptime, so far only altering the preload on the diff seems to drop the times.

Would of been good to have the setup 80% there and then let the user work the lap times down from there!

If I find myself in the brown stuff during exams in a few weeks I gonna write about lapsim and give examples of different setups and everything I have done in Lapsim INSTEAD of studying and doing my thesis.

[red300zx99]

Try optimisizing a car at a track other then the one it was setup for. I know that the F3000 car isn't optimized for Lagauna Seca for instance