2021 F1 cars thread
Discussion
El stovey said:
RichB said:
It's interesting because I was a glider pilot for 30 years and the top competition chaps would polish the wings of their gliders to the highest possible shine to ensure a smooth airflow over the wing. Indeed even dead flies on the leading edge caused a degradation in the performance of the wing because any imperfection causes the airflow to detach. That's counter to the concept that the slightly rough surface of matt paint causes the airflow to stay attached. Odd.
I think it depends on the speed and size of molecules the surface is operating in and what you’re trying to achieve.Some aquatic animals have rougher skins like the now banned patterns on Olympic swimming body suits etc.
Aircraft designers looked and tested rough surfaces on wings but it didn’t work out or the benefit wasn’t worth the cost.
RichB said:
It's interesting because I was a glider pilot for 30 years and the top competition chaps would polish the wings of their gliders to the highest possible shine to ensure a smooth airflow over the wing. Indeed even dead flies on the leading edge caused a degradation in the performance of the wing because any imperfection causes the airflow to detach. That's counter to the concept that the slightly rough surface of matt paint causes the airflow to stay attached. Odd.
I’ve been crew for one of those guys at national competitions, and you get to spend a *lot* of time with a bottle of polish in your hand! A few years back, some of them experimented with plastic devices that would run down the wing and remove the dead flies in flight - although they just as often got stuck and added to the drag.
I’m assuming the matt paint helps by deliberately not keeping the flow laminar in particular areas of the car.
There was a great picture of Lewis’s car after the Turkish race last year, with the car covered in dirt from a wet/dry race you could see the airflow quite clearly. Rival teams might have learned something from the images.
Edited by Sandpit Steve on Thursday 4th March 11:13
andburg said:
I wonder what the HAAS will actually look like, its to my eyes a 2020 car in 2021 livery. The rear diffuser strakes appear to be too long and the floor doesnt seem to have the '21 cutout at the rear.
I think they would have done the bare minimum to get it legal for this year, with either focusing fully on 2022 or offloading the team to the Russians.They're also having a hard time getting Ferrari personnel from Italy to start up their engines, so will only be fired up at the first test.
mw88 said:
I think they would have done the bare minimum to get it legal for this year, with either focusing fully on 2022 or offloading the team to the Russians.
They're also having a hard time getting Ferrari personnel from Italy to start up their engines, so will only be fired up at the first test.
They’ve been mighty unlucky with the assembly of the car, a consequence of having a multi-location team. Usually they assemble the car at Dallara in Italy, who they contract to make the chassis, but this year with the same chassis as 2020, elected to build the car in the U.K. facility instead - but didn’t bank on the Ferrari PU engineers being unable to schedule a trip to the U.K. because of the pandemic quarantine measures in both countries. They're also having a hard time getting Ferrari personnel from Italy to start up their engines, so will only be fired up at the first test.
So they’re all meeting in Bahrain, it could be as late as the first morning of the test that it gets fired up.
El stovey said:
RichB said:
It's interesting because I was a glider pilot for 30 years and the top competition chaps would polish the wings of their gliders to the highest possible shine to ensure a smooth airflow over the wing. Indeed even dead flies on the leading edge caused a degradation in the performance of the wing because any imperfection causes the airflow to detach. That's counter to the concept that the slightly rough surface of matt paint causes the airflow to stay attached. Odd.
I think it depends on the speed and size of molecules the surface is operating in and what you’re trying to achieve.Some aquatic animals have rougher skins like the now banned patterns on Olympic swimming body suits etc.
Aircraft designers looked and tested rough surfaces on wings but it didn’t work out or the benefit wasn’t worth the cost.
andburg said:
Could also be down to how long that extra performance is there for, the acclimation of dirt will probably degrade performance and I'd expect a glossy surface to stay clean longer. An F1 car needs to have absolute peak performance for maybe 1.5hrs, after that i will be stripped down and cleaned, a plane/glider needs to retain performance for month (google suggests washes are every 6 months for passenger jets)
Gliders get meticulously cleaned after every single flight and polished every few months (or when there's no thermals to pass the time on a Sunday afternoon) 
Haas photoshoppery with German colours for Mick Schumacher and BAR style split colours for Russian and German flags https://twitter.com/CharlieBass18/status/136743524...
RichB said:
liders get meticulously cleaned after every single flight and polished every few months (or when there's no thermals to pass the time on a Sunday afternoon)
my dad has thousands of hours in a glider, he used to bring it home and steal my portacable orbital to polish some of itmw88 said:
Does Russia's doping ban on World sports extend to not showing the flag?
Haas will probably claim it represents the American flag, or just the Uralkali colours
The Alpine looks less shiny on track than the images
https://www.racefans.net/2021/03/03/first-pictures...
American flag is still there on this https://www.instagram.com/reel/CL_bNuBjbAF/?igshid...Haas will probably claim it represents the American flag, or just the Uralkali colours
The Alpine looks less shiny on track than the images
https://www.racefans.net/2021/03/03/first-pictures...
Edited by mw88 on Thursday 4th March 08:43
In the photos of the whole car it's the 1&1 logo there.
Sandpit Steve said:
There was a great picture of Lewis’s car after the Turkish race last year, with the car covered in dirt from a wet/dry race you could see the airflow quite clearly. Rival teams might have learned something from the images.
I use a wet race for flow vis and take pictures of it before i clean the car. It's quite interesting what you can learn. On the older cars, most of the rear wing does nothing, sometimes removing the airbox makes the car faster. Those high airbox cars were particularly s
t, when they were banned everyone went quicker. 
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