20 replies to this topic

[Paolo]

Limit this, limit that, emasculate engines....
It beats me.

I've been long convinced that the solution to have more overtaking and less speed in bends is easy :

1) Force teams to have 200 kg of fixed ballast (no position switching from race to race) in ADDITION to the car's minimum prescribed weight.
Such ballast should be conveniently placed in an high position, to raise the current Cg.
These measures will considerably slow down cars in corners, and make them less sensitive to downforce loss.

2 ) Have thin tyres, such as those used in the 50's : these need to be harder and provide maximum grip at high slip angles, thus making more spectacular driving styles profitable.

3) Ban the damn pit stops.

4) Clean up the damn rule book, throw away some shape limitations, and allow for different cars.

I've never heard a technical reasoning against this.
If someone has one , please explain.

[eoin]

Thin tyres=less drag. Also they are also ugle as hell!!

Banning pits stops&Ballast: you will find more about this in the RC forum. If you ban pitstops AND add 200kg ballast you will be increasing the weight of the car by about 50% for alot of the race. Increasing the weight of the cars makes them more dangerous in the case of a crash. The cars would need to be strenghtened.

[Greg Locock]

If you ... add 200kg ballast you will be increasing the weight of the car by about 50% for alot of the race. Increasing the weight of the cars makes them more dangerous in the case of a crash. The cars would need to be strenghtened.

So make the crash structure stronger. It's not rocket science. The cars would have to be redesigned a bit just to accomodate the ballast anyway, its about 15 litres of lead.

I'll have a play with Lapsim, gut feeling is that 200 kg is not enough, if it is at the height of the drivers eyes. You really need to reduce the track as well.

Late edit - hmm, adding 240 kg to a 560 kg base, and raising the CG from 300 to 400 added about 0.8 seconds to the time round Zandvoort, using the supplied F3 car.

I think you'll need to restrict the aero as well, in the context of 4g aero another 0.4g of weight transfer (very crudely) is no big deal.

[Jodum5]

They had narrow tires back in the day, i thought they looked fine.

[Greg Locock]

I've just realised that result I got in Lapsim was bo**ox, if 10 litres of fuel slows you down by 0.3 seconds (typically(from memory)) then 200 kg of ballast up high would be good for 6+ seconds a lap.

SO I'm afraid there is something screwy with Lapsim.

Damn.

[McGuire]

Take away 95% of the downforce. That will reduce cornering speeds, increase straightline speeds, lengthen the braking and overtaking zones and turn this back into auto racing.

[desmo]

Originally posted by McGuire
Take away 95% of the downforce. That will reduce cornering speeds, increase straightline speeds, lengthen the braking and overtaking zones and turn this back into auto racing.

I think there is broad agreement that reducing downforce would be the single most effective way to increase safety and improve the spectator experience in F1. My question is what would be the best way to accomplish this? My thought is that extending the current stepped bottom rule aft of rear wheel centerline and limiting plan area outside the wheelbase might work. How would you write up regs to accomplish a significant reduction in DF without tying the chassis designers' hands behind their backs?

And is there really any reason other than the current wings' value as advertising signage that nothing really significant has been done to reduce F1 DF levels? I can't recall anyone using any other argument.

[Paolo]

Increasing weight equals to taking away downforce.

The lateral acceleration a car can sustain can be espressed (in g ) as
( Downforce + Weight ) x (Friction Coefficient) ) /Weight .

Let's imagine we have 600 Kg weight and 1000 Kg downforce , and a 1.5 friction coefficient :

Maximum lateral acceleration = ((1000+600)/600) *1.5 = 4 g

If we add 200 Kg ballast :

Maximum lateral acceleration = ((1000+800)/800) *1.5 = 3.375 g

If we consider friction coefficient reduction caused by increased weight and load transfer :

Maximum lateral acceleration = ((1000+800)/800) *1.4 = 3.15 g

And that's with current tyres. BTW, friction coefficients here are these you'd have under load, lower than the theoretical maximum , about 1.9 .

Add narrow tyres, and I think we can drop to 1.2 Friction coefficient

Maximum lateral acceleration = ((1000+800)/800) *1.2 = 2.7 g

So, we have , if not a direct downforce reduction, an equivalent effect.
The problem of cutting downforce is that it can only be achieved by imposing the shape of the car in certain areas , and the cars tend to look all the same because of this.

My proposal would slow down the cars and favour overtaking by braking, without the need for clone cars.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Paolo
The problem of cutting downforce is that it can only be achieved by imposing the shape of the car in certain areas , and the cars tend to look all the same because of this.

Have you looked at F1 cars lately?

Could you tell them apart from middle distance if they were all in primer? I don't think I could, and I like to think I have a pretty sharp eye for fluegels and end plates. There is nothing in your proosal that would direct a different result.

I simply propose stepped bottoms with no diffuser, and no wings. If it even looks like it looks like a wing, it's right out. Body surface development would be open within limits (essentially, within a given convexity or concavity in section radius, with no bits sticking out). At first the cars would remarkably different from each other, as aerodynamicists struggle with various solutions for recovering downforce. Then a period of technical convergence would slowly evolve as an ideal solution is realized and then validated and the cars would all look the same again ...just like what we have now, and just like your proposal.

[McGuire]

I am all in favor of skinny tires. Make them 225/60/15, fully treaded and DOT and EU approved for road use, drawn by lots from a pool each race meeting as supplied free of charge by the "Official tire supplier of F1" in return for promotional consideration.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by desmo


How would you write up regs to accomplish a significant reduction in DF without tying the chassis designers' hands behind their backs?

That is not really a concern of mine. If you have a contest involving pushing an object through a compressible fluid for large sums of money, there will be aerodynamicists on the payroll. No worries there.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Paolo
1) Force teams to have 200 kg of fixed ballast (no position switching from race to race) in ADDITION to the car's minimum prescribed weight.
Such ballast should be conveniently placed in an high position, to raise the current Cg.
These measures will considerably slow down cars in corners, and make them less sensitive to downforce loss.

This is a very intriguing idea. Such a 200 kg weight would quickly become known as the "cargo," and the F1 race an exercise in getting the cargo from A to B.

The downside as I see it...in looking this over whilst scratching around on paper, I can't figure out a place to mount it a significant distance above the CG without making it a weapon upon the driver in the event of a crash. Obviously, you sure don't want it ahead of the driver, so let's put it behind the driver....erm, what if we have a rear-first impact?

[Paolo]

Originally posted by McGuire

The downside as I see it...in looking this over whilst scratching around on paper, I can't figure out a place to mount it a significant distance above the CG without making it a weapon upon the driver in the event of a crash. Obviously, you sure don't want it ahead of the driver, so let's put it behind the driver....erm, what if we have a rear-first impact?

Suffices to have not a lead ballast, but a steel ballast which can be used as a stressed member.
Tipically, it could be a rectangular plate, whose dimensions would be stated by F.I.A. , mounted as a spacer between engine and chassis.
Some more ballast could be added as a spacer between engine and gearbox

[eoin]

Originally posted by Greg Locock


So make the crash structure stronger. It's not rocket science. The cars would have to be redesigned a bit just to accomodate the ballast anyway, its about 15 litres of lead.

I doubt it is as simple as that. Teams are having problems getting the cars to pass the current test. It would be much safer to lower the min weight and use other ways to slow the cars, while keeping the current crash tests.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Paolo


Suffices to have not a lead ballast, but a steel ballast which can be used as a stressed member.
Tipically, it could be a rectangular plate, whose dimensions would be stated by F.I.A. , mounted as a spacer between engine and chassis. Some more ballast could be added as a spacer between engine and gearbox

First, this location is not above the CG as you stated earlier, but right on the longitudinal CG axis. This ballast will actually lower the CG somewhat. Also, if you mount 200 kg of solid steel ballast (approximately one cubic foot) between the engine and gearbox, you have a vehicle that is incredibly dangerous in a rear impact. Splitting this mass in front of and behind the engine will help only somewhat.

It seems to me that if you want to use weight to slow down the cars while dealing with safety issues in the most responsible manner, you would want to raise the minimum weight requirement while mandating the use of more crush volume and deformable structure to account for the additional weight.

[Powersteer]

Strip out monoque tub and weight it. Put a weight limitation on the tub so added weight would go into crash safety, everything else is free In a heavy crash, a modern F1 car is design to split into two leaving the engine away from the driver while he/she is tossed about safely inside the tub so a supertub can do. The thing about ballast is, it helps throw the car into the barrier.

[crono33]

i second this.

if they really want ad space, perhaps zero AOA wings could do, and maybe clever engineers will be able to recover a little downforce with them

i wouldnt want more weight for safety reasons. i once saw an accident involving a microlight airplane and two guys who smacked at around 100kmh into the ground while doing a 90 degrees bank turn too close to the terrain (the wing caught in the bushes).
they got away with just stained underwear. same impact on a heavier craft would have been probably fatal


gm

Originally posted by McGuire
Take away 95% of the downforce. That will reduce cornering speeds, increase straightline speeds, lengthen the braking and overtaking zones and turn this back into auto racing.

[Yelnats]

And while we’re at it let’s make the FIA plank out of high friction rubber. No more low ride heights and curb hopping. But plenty of good usage out of the HANS devices though.

Seriously 200 kg of high mounted ballast would be deadly in a high-speed collision if it became detached. Something like a truck with a load of steel beams. The cars would be seriously destabilized and rollovers would be even more common. Hitting the gravel would produce some very entertaining gyrations though.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Yelnats
And while we’re at it let’s make the FIA plank out of high friction rubber. No more low ride heights and curb hopping. But plenty of good usage out of the HANS devices though.

That is an excellent idea. Also, require 100mm of ground clearance with a 250 kg sandbag laid over the roll hoop. If they can't race on roads, why do we call it road racing?

People say restrictive rules have removed too many challenges from racing. On the other hand, we can argue that in many ways the rules make things much too easy.

[imaginesix]

Originally posted by Paolo
Limit this, limit that, emasculate engines....
It beats me.

I've been long convinced that the solution to have more overtaking and less speed in bends is easy :

1) Force teams to have 200 kg of fixed ballast (no position switching from race to race) in ADDITION to the car's minimum prescribed weight.
Such ballast should be conveniently placed in an high position, to raise the current Cg.
These measures will considerably slow down cars in corners, and make them less sensitive to downforce loss.

Apart from the safety concerns mentionned, I favor reducing as much as possible the min weight of F1 cars. I believe their light weight (given their acceleration levels) contributes largely to their twitchiness and sensitivity, making them the most difficult race cars to pilot on earth. This is worthy of F1 alone.

2 ) Have thin tyres, such as those used in the 50's : these need to be harder and provide maximum grip at high slip angles, thus making more spectacular driving styles profitable.

I appreciate the concept, but skinny tires present a problem in that they help improve the aerodynamic efficiency of the car overall, making them more sensitive to turbulence when following other cars, while reducing the possibility for them to get a tow down the straights. I favor all-weather tires to provide all the benefits you mentionned, but with the added advantage that they would necessarily be significantly wider, which in turn would reduce areo efficiency.

3) Ban the damn pit stops.

Amen to that

4) Clean up the damn rule book, throw away some shape limitations, and allow for different cars.

Amen to that too. Just make sure the rule changes are sufficient to allow them to go unchanged for some 10 years after, as rules stability is critical to closing the performance gap.

[D-Type]

Would making the roll hoop out of solid steel 75cm (3in) in diameter add sufficient up-high weight?