2017 F1 Regulations - Who will get it right?

[Dr Z]

Saw this at AMuS which had some interesting details:

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/formel-1/geheim...

Apparently, Michael Schmidt has had a look at the list FIA sent out to teams in order to convince them to run at the Bahrain tyre test to help Pirelli with the tyre design. These are anonymised downforce, power and straight line speeds teams are expecting for their own cars next year from their simulations, compared to the numbers from the end of 2015.

A certain “Team 3” has apparently found 15% downforce improvement over what their 2015 car was producing at the year end. Two others, 30% improvements and another team 28% improvement...sounds promising. A further two teams have found only 5% over their 2015 challengers.

In terms of power, 3 teams each are expecting an increase of 10%, 15% and 17% over their 2015 outputs. One team, a 22% increase in output...Schmidt is speculating that this is McLaren. Love the translation: The Japanese are next year in the music.

It could also be Manor...as they ran 2014 Ferrari engines for their 2015 car.

The top speed of the cars are set to be significantly reduced next year due to increased drag from the wider tyres and generally the car being wider (!), some as low as 92% of the 2015 speeds. However, one team is expecting to go 13% faster than 2015 on the straights. I quote:

Pat Symonds said:

If that's true, we all missed something!

Again, it could be Manor or McLaren!

Five teams are said to be simulating lap times between 1:17.3 and 1:18.5 around Barcelona for their 2017 cars. It is revealed that this ‘Team 3’ is simulating a lap time of 1:16.4...Bloody Mercedes again, isn’t it?

The kind of lap times already being talked about is eye popping. I can hardly comprehend the kind of speeds being done this year. Maggots, Becketts and Chapel should be a supernatural sight in qualifying. Some good comments being said about the 2017 tyres too. Here’s hoping that Pirelli don't get over ambitious with building in their beloved cliff.


Who do you see doing well next year?

[Dr Z]

Muzzer79 said:

With a return to a more aero-dominant formula, and Newey still keeping his eye in, you have to imagine that Red Bull will be up there. They're not far off now.

I suspect the 'Team 3' is Red Bull. We could be in for a Dan vs Max showdown next year, with the Merc drivers in the mix too.

[Dr Z]

Megaflow said:

zeDuffMan said:

Flooble said:

I fear the wider cars are going to make it even harder to get a clean overtake :-(

And more aero will make it even more difficult to keep up when right behind someone. They're going backwards.

This. This regulation change reverses lots of what has happened over the last 19 years to improve overtaking.

It makes sense, in theory. Since we still have a few important unknowns I think it's best to wait till we see the cars racing before making judgements.

Tyre construction can have a huge impact on the racing...and we don't know yet how it will pan out.

The word is that Pirelli are not satisfied that the downforce produced by the mule cars are simulating close to what the actual 2017 cars are going to produce. Bit of a fools errand designing a product based on extrapolations so far off the scale, isn't it?

In any case, I'm looking forward to a healthy increase in race pace. Much needed, IMO

[Dr Z]

Vaud said:

Dr Z said:

The kind of lap times already being talked about is eye popping. I can hardly comprehend the kind of speeds being done this year. Maggots, Becketts and Chapel should be a supernatural sight in qualifying.

I'm not sure about this. As a bystander it's very hard to tell 5-10mph increase in corner speed. Each driver will have a style, and ironically a well planted car will look slower vs a faster car that is running a little "wild"?

Put it this way: if you saw a Manor go through a fast section on a track, followed by the Mercedes, I'm sure you'd see the latter being visibly faster. Next year's Manor will most definitely be faster than this year's Mercedes...that's the kind of improvement we're looking at.

I'm also thinking that more of the spectacle is going to come from the fact that the cars are pushing the drivers a little bit with the increased cornering speed in the race. A lot of this will come down to Pirelli getting the tyres right as we have increased minimum weight and huge increase in downforce...Pirelli will want to build some nice and strong tyres which can handle the kind of loads being expected with the downforce/weight increase. I'm hoping this means that we could see drivers pushing more. I'd be satisfied to see 2010 levels of race pace for a start.

[Dr Z]

fortysixandtwo said:

McLaren are probably one of the 130% teams, but they'll end up 101%.

Harsh!

---

Was intrigued by the reported lap times for Barcelona and the downforce improvements...we have some noisy data fed to us by the FIA in the form of the best qualifying speeds registered at finish line and at the speed trap from last year at Barcelona. Also the first sector timing. Plotting the average of the two drivers and ordering them from left to right, smallest to largest speed difference:



The works Merc car is one of the slowest accelerating along the straight powered by the Merc engine, but also the quickest in S1...it’s an interesting snapshot into the kind of downforce/drag that the teams were pushing in 2015 relative to the power they had.

The Toro Rosso appears to be the slowest accelerating car and McLaren the fastest, in terms of the difference in speeds at the finish line, and the speed trap which is around 600 metres further along the track. The Renault, Honda and Manor's old Ferrari engine were competing for the worst engine on the grid but interesting to see such extremes in acceleration. Obviously, a big factor in all of this, is the overall drag of the cars themselves, partly caused by the amount of downforce produced by the cars.

I find it curious that the Williams car, had a slightly higher finish line speed than the Merc but does not keep that speed gain at the speed trap, as one would expect a lower drag car to...

Plotting the best first sector times in qualifying against this speed delta, we could get an idea of which team was running compromised by lower downforce due to the lack of power...



Manor is off the scale, sorry! Too slow. Manor and McLaren are obvious due to extra context we have, but it is clear that the McLaren was the quickest accelerating car due to reduced drag and downforce because it was also the second slowest in terms of the sector times. Despite its top speed only being around 5 km/h slower than the fastest car around that sector…a lot has changed since then for McLaren. They brought the short nose afterwards and, Force India introduced their B-spec car afterwards too. This is how it looked in 2016:





That Mercedes is pushing some serious downforce. Force India car comes the close to matching the finish line speed (also influenced by the exit speed out of the final corner in S3) and trap speed but still 3 tenths off the works car in overall sector time.

McLaren and Toro Rosso at the complete opposite ends of the spectrum compared to 2015.

IMO, Manor, McLaren, Lotus/Renault all have a big chance of leaping ahead...the latter two by way of the bigger budgets they have. Red Bull/Toro Rosso will be interesting. At the start of the current regulations, RB were ahead but TR really came on strong last year and even earlier this year with a decent engine (now struggling due to lack of development on that front). I can see TR being the dark horse here, if they can show the kind of form they are showing now...although RB were quicker out of the blocks at the dawn of the current regs.

The mid field teams seem to take a bit more time to get going, but out of the Mercedes powered cars, Williams also have a chance of being one of the teams that are finding big downforce increases, as they have been working on the 2017 car a while longer than some others.

Edited by Dr Z on Tuesday 1st November 14:30

[Dr Z]

Pat Symonds talks for the first half an hour of this motorsport mag podcast on the 2017 cars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYLA7UQdzJ4

Sacrificing this year's development to focus on next year...could they put in a performance like 2014?

[Dr Z]

HustleRussell said:

Given how pissed off the old folk were when young Max won a race, could you imagine the conflict on here if Lance Stroll started winning?

There will be an outrage! I'd certainly have to re-evaluate my estimation of him...I'd rate Verstappen's junior record a bit better than Stroll.

thegreenhell said:

The heady days of podiums in fewer than half the races and no wins...

I'm afraid that's as much as they can hope for, given their budget and the customer deal...but they're a sharp team. Although I don't support them, I'd welcome them at the front.