The Official F1 2021 silly season *contains speculation*

The Official F1 2021 silly season *contains speculation*

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TwentyFive

336 posts

66 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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jsf said:
TwentyFive said:
The most simple thing to do to spice up the racing would be to ban the teams using their race simulation equipment.

They would be far less clued up on how the race will play out and we would see a wider range of approaches as a result.

It would make races far less predictable and all without adding any false gimmicks such as DRS.
If i can manage to do the strategy for a 6 hour race on a piece of paper then manage that as events on track unfold, i am sure the brains in the strategists on the prat perch could manage a simple GP.
And so can I, but I guarantee I would get it spot on far more often if i had $$$$ worth of computer systems to help me out.

You may well be the Ross Brawn of the pen and paper strategy world, but it doesn't mean the idea has no merit.

Of course I am not saying strategists would always get it wrong by removing computer programs, but it is far more likely to happen 'on a bit of paper' than on a simulation they have run 100 times through the weekend.

Ultimately the question needs to be asked, are the simulation systems needed in F1? Answer: no.

It would provide a cost saving to remove strategy simulation and on occasion lead to varying strategies and errors. We need more variables. If it improved the racing only 1% of the time then surely we want that do we not? It all helps.

anonymous-user

54 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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TwentyFive said:
And so can I, but I guarantee I would get it spot on far more often if i had $$$$ worth of computer systems to help me out.

You may well be the Ross Brawn of the pen and paper strategy world, but it doesn't mean the idea has no merit.

Of course I am not saying strategists would always get it wrong by removing computer programs, but it is far more likely to happen 'on a bit of paper' than on a simulation they have run 100 times through the weekend.

Ultimately the question needs to be asked, are the simulation systems needed in F1? Answer: no.

It would provide a cost saving to remove strategy simulation and on occasion lead to varying strategies and errors. We need more variables. If it improved the racing only 1% of the time then surely we want that do we not? It all helps.
They seem to make plenty of cockups because they are following the technology advice.

I don't think it would make much difference at all, it just makes life easier for the staff.

kiseca

9,339 posts

219 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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CanAm said:
kiseca said:
Seems to me every time refuelling is introduced it fails both on quality of racing and on safety. Personally I'm happy not to see it return again.

They've tried it, what, 3 times now since Brabham first used the option as a strategic advantage in 1983?
Brabham weren't the first in F1; they did it in the 1950s.
Refuelling had been an option from the start of F1 until 1984, as far as I know. However, noone purposefully built a car and a race strategy around the idea of purposefully refuelling and changing tyres to be faster overall, until Brabham did in 1982 (I was a year out) with the BT50 Turbo. Up until that point, teams were building cars with enough fuel capacity to make it to the end of the race. With the turbo, Brabham recognised that they would have a faster race time if they started with only half the race fuel needed at the start, and ran with softer tyres, with the intention of pitting during the race to refuel and change the tyres. The car would be fast enough while running to more than make up the time lost in the pitstop. To make it work, they also had to design the car to be faster in pitstops (they added hydraulic jacks) and the fuel delivery system had to be pressurised because if they relied on gravity feed it would take too long. So they designed the whole refuelling system and the tank itself to allow faster refuelling.

Until that moment with Brabham in 1982, pitstops weren't planned events for any teams. They only pitted if they had a problem, like a puncture or maybe they had burned more fuel than intended.

In 1983 the BT52 was designed specifically to be refuelled. The tank itself could could not hold enough fuel to finish a race. By 1984 all the teams were doing it, it was unregulated, deemed a potential fire hazard, and banned before anybody got themselves cooked in the pitlane. When it was reintroduced in the 1990s the FIA regulated the fuel equipment, but still didn't manage to contain the hazards.

kiseca

9,339 posts

219 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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TheDeuce said:
jsf said:
I'd be here all week if i explained everything in detail to debunk false understandings. That's not my "job".

I think in the case of basics like downforce generation, most could understand pressure differential between the top and bottom of a body and how producing that via different devices have trade offs in efficiency.
The guy just wanted to know why F1 doesn't limit the level of downforce permitted as he'd heard it created drag and dirty air! Knowing that the incoming specs allow the creation of more downforce in a different manner pretty much answers the question/concern.

I'd be here all week too if I had to explain why it's wrong that most people think an airplane wing is pushed upwards due to its angle and direction air hits it, they don't understand that the leading edge and sectional form accelerates airflow above the wing and creates lower pressure and that unaccelerated air beneath the wing expands to equalise the pressure and pushes the wing up - 'lift'.

Then to try and invert that principle and add in the venturi effect extracting air to create low pressure beneath the car...
Again, not sure who you're talking about, but if it's me, you've got the wrong end of the stick. Here's how it went:

I said "Put a max limit on downforce, say 1000lbs downforce at 180mph."
Someone replied "They'll just create more dirty air looking for ways to get more downforce."
I said they can't, because they'd be limited to 1000lbs.

How they create that downforce, I don't care. The focus would shift to efficiency, which I also said.

You seem to be talking about allowing cars to follow more closely by reducing the amount of turbulent air created by the car in front. What I'm suggesting is not to reduce the turbulent air specifically, but to make the car following less affected by turbulent air, by limiting its maximum downforce.

By limiting that downforce and focussing on getting that 1000lbs in the most efficient way, you'd probably also happen to reduce the amount of turbulent air the car in front creates, but as I say, I was looking for a way to make that matter less to the car behind anyway.

Now, if you want to discuss that point, then cool, but it does read to me like you've gone somewhat off track with your replies. Unless you were talking about someone else while you were trying to educate us with venturis vs wings.

I don't disagree that the aero changes and return to ground effects tunnels may well have the same end result, but whether it does or not, it has no relevance to what I was suggesting. They still aren't limiting max downforce so the door is still open for someone to find some new trick, the next double diffuser or whatever, that creates more downforce and either creates more turbulence, or struggles in someone else's turbulence.


HighwayToHull

7,725 posts

178 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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I'd simply ban ALL aerodynamic devices.

No wings, no diffusers, no bargeboards, no vortex generators. Clean bodywork with no downforce, minimum turbulence behind the car. I'd also mandate that the whole of the car should be flat-bottomed, not just within the wheelbase, and introduce a ground clearance rule.

And rake would be banned also. Ground clearance to be constant front to rear.

Mark-C

5,084 posts

205 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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HighwayToHull said:
I'd simply ban ALL aerodynamic devices.

No wings, no diffusers, no bargeboards, no vortex generators. Clean bodywork with no downforce, minimum turbulence behind the car. I'd also mandate that the whole of the car should be flat-bottomed, not just within the wheelbase, and introduce a ground clearance rule.

And rake would be banned also. Ground clearance to be constant front to rear.
That is going to make for a slow car (by any recent F1 standards) that is going to be a bugger to keep on track. When was the last grand prix car made that would meet those criteria? If ever given the flat-bottomed statement?

JonChalk

6,469 posts

110 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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Mark-C said:
HighwayToHull said:
I'd simply ban ALL aerodynamic devices.

No wings, no diffusers, no bargeboards, no vortex generators. Clean bodywork with no downforce, minimum turbulence behind the car. I'd also mandate that the whole of the car should be flat-bottomed, not just within the wheelbase, and introduce a ground clearance rule.

And rake would be banned also. Ground clearance to be constant front to rear.
That is going to make for a slow car (by any recent F1 standards) that is going to be a bugger to keep on track. When was the last grand prix car made that would meet those criteria? If ever given the flat-bottomed statement?
Fast in a straight line, slow (relatively) through the corners - overall slower lap time, but much closer to cars of the sixties. Reliance on mechanical grip, far fewer "aero spins" (last years Red Bull, anyone?). BUT - all control in the driver's feet and hands - want to four wheel drift all the way thru a corner? Certainly, sir, off you go.

The "argument", such as it is, used against this is that braking would be less effective (without aero) and so failures would result in higher speed crashes.

The real reason is that wing/aero reduction/elimination reduces the amount of advertising space visible to cameras, reducing advertising income for all, and no-one wants to shoot the golden goose wink


Edited by JonChalk on Wednesday 24th February 12:49

anonymous-user

54 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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F1 cars 20 seconds a lap slower than F2 ones wouldn't do much for the show.

JonChalk

6,469 posts

110 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:
F1 cars 20 seconds a lap slower than F2 ones wouldn't do much for the show.
So? Just reconfigure F2, F3........junior formulas to the same, after all that's all they do now, with gradual increase of tech aids from bottom of rung. Even easier if you don't have to try and juggle F3 so that it has "some" aero and something that looks like DRS.

Not going to happen, of course, but entirely, completely and technically possible.

Remember F1 is not about the hardcore motorsport/engineering fans - it's about advertising and TV rights and the "value" of those to shareholders.

thegreenhell

15,330 posts

219 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:
F1 cars 20 seconds a lap slower than F2 ones wouldn't do much for the show.
Well you'd have to do the same mods to F2 and F3 to slow them down as well. If you did that then the actual lap times wouldn't be an issue. Nobody says Moto GP looks slow, and they are 20 seconds a lap slower than F2.

anonymous-user

54 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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You'd have to slow every rung of the ladder. For the purposes of pretending downforce hadn't been invented. It's a silly idea.

vaud

50,477 posts

155 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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thegreenhell said:
RonaldMcDonaldAteMyCat said:
F1 cars 20 seconds a lap slower than F2 ones wouldn't do much for the show.
Well you'd have to do the same mods to F2 and F3 to slow them down as well. If you did that then the actual lap times wouldn't be an issue. Nobody says Moto GP looks slow, and they are 20 seconds a lap slower than F2.
You'd then potentially have some road cars also quicker than any racing formula?

BrettMRC

4,087 posts

160 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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You can't put the genie back in the box.

F1 is meant to be the pinnacle - let them go nuts.

vaud

50,477 posts

155 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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BrettMRC said:
You can't put the genie back in the box.

F1 is meant to be the pinnacle - let them go nuts.
I agree but also within reason, there comes a point where cornering speeds, g forces and energy levels get too high for drivers and accidents more severe.


thegreenhell

15,330 posts

219 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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It's obviously never going to happen. They'd lose too much advertising space for a start.

Leithen

10,885 posts

267 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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vaud said:
I agree but also within reason, there comes a point where cornering speeds, g forces and energy levels get too high for drivers and accidents more severe.
All of which could be controlled by the tyres.

If a fraction of the spend made by the teams was directed into tyre development, all sorts of design restrictions could be lifted. There's only four contact patches, and for some unknown reason F1 is happy to leave the specifics of it to a third party, with limited involvement.

And this isn't a dig at Pirelli - they are only responding to the contract offered to them.

Gary Anderson was recently talking about slip angles and how they are so greatly reduced since the days of Villeneuve etc. Tyres could be developed which didn't destroy themselves with too much power and lost grip in a progressive manner.

djgritt

618 posts

164 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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Aston Martin are retaining BWT as a sponsor, so seems they aren't title sponsoring another outfit then.

Muzzer79

9,953 posts

187 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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HighwayToHull said:
I'd simply ban ALL aerodynamic devices.

No wings, no diffusers, no bargeboards, no vortex generators. Clean bodywork with no downforce, minimum turbulence behind the car. I'd also mandate that the whole of the car should be flat-bottomed, not just within the wheelbase, and introduce a ground clearance rule.

And rake would be banned also. Ground clearance to be constant front to rear.
So......20 streamliners then? How boring......and slow.

Plus, every category in racing uses aerodynamics to some degree. This is the pinnacle of racing. You might's aswell tell them to use engines powered by steam.




thegreenhell

15,330 posts

219 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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djgritt said:
Aston Martin are retaining BWT as a sponsor, so seems they aren't title sponsoring another outfit then.
Green and pink cars, then. That won't look awful at all.

DanielSan

18,786 posts

167 months

Wednesday 24th February 2021
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thegreenhell said:
Green and pink cars, then. That won't look awful at all.
It's a much more cut down sponsorship seems like it'll just be the drivers drinks bottles and maybe a logo on the car.