Official 2021 Azerbaijan Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS***

[Hungrymc]

I don’t think it’s a question of making the wall safer by altering its angle.
It’s more fundamental isn’t it ? It’s a risky place to have pit entry (such a high speed straight)

[talksthetorque]

Hungrymc said:

I don’t think it’s a question of making the wall safer by altering its angle.
It’s more fundamental isn’t it ? It’s a risky place to have pit entry (such a high speed straight)

Agreed, vmax is a silly speed to be approaching a pit with a chicane entry, even before you start thinking about the cars that aren't pitting.

[Exige77]

talksthetorque said:

Re: the 45degree techpro barriers:
What's the alternative? a shallower angle gives a sharper pointy bit. Do you want to be driving towards a pointy bit at 300kph?

Re Mansell holding on to it:
I suspect the massive increase in aero between Mansell and Max's cars is the answer.

If you've got 6 tonnes of downforce at 300kph (2021 est) when your front right goes up in the air as your rear left starts dragging its arsediffuser on the floor, that's going to "blow" the car all over the place as well as the normal forces that change from the physical changes to any car having a blowout

Can you point me to someone (apart from you) saying F1 cars generate 6 tonnes of downforce ?

Thanks

[TheDeuce]

Sandpit Steve said:

honda_exige said:

TheDeuce said:

Is that really what Masi said..!?

If so that's incredibly weak, to the point he makes himself sound like a simplistic moron. Obviously the circuit is signed off by the FIA, that simply means they believe it to be safe at the time, not that further experiences can't reveal additional dangers that also need to be accounted for moving forwards.

Little in life annoys me more than an idiot pointing to worded policy rather than employ their own powers of common sense

He's basically said its safe because we said so.

I don't think he's suitable for the job that he basically fell into before he was ready.

Multiple fk ups in a short space of time, no safety car for 90 seconds after Max crashed, releasing cars onto a track with a crane last year, letting Leclerc drive around with no seatbelts for multiple laps with no action etc

Well that’s certainly not what Charlie would have said!

It looks from that shot like five layers of TecPro on the pit entrance, with a standard three-layer Armco behind it. One might argue that the angle could be shallower, but they would have run simulations on various departures of cars from the track at that point, and worked out the optimum angle from there. Remember that they are also very concerned with preventing an accident car from coming back across the track, they’d prefer it to be contained if possible.

And yes, as with anything related to safety, they should keep running models based on actual incidents, and look again at the angle of the pit entrance. Continuous improvement and accident investigation got us to where we are today.

Hard to disagree with safety concerns re: Masi, he possibly needs to get an additional safety officer sitting next to him.

For me it's the fact that Masi has spoken up in disagreement with Rosberg - without even explaining why he disagrees. Stating that the FIA have signed off on the circuit does nothing to address the specific issue Rosberg pointed out and that Max's incident proved 'could' be extremely nasty.

He seems to speak as if it's his job to defend the standard of safety in F1, but it isn't.. He's not a spokesperson for safety.. He's there to do his best to make sure things are actually safe on a session by session basis, including I would have thought dynamically reacting to and being thankful to learn from unexpected incidents and so on.

The sad thing is that Rosberg surely only saw the overlooked potential danger as he has a recent drivers POV and must have visualised what could have been from that perspective. That's the sort of perspective Masi should be very grateful for really - certainly not a pov to be disregarded.

[talksthetorque]

Exige77 said:

Can you point me to someone (apart from you) saying F1 cars generate 6 tonnes of downforce ?

Thanks

sort of


https://www.reddit.com/r/F1Technical/comments/itvm...

I think my point is still valid even if you quite correctly haul me up on my piss poor research and optimistic claim

Someone did mention 4 tonnes this weekend I'm sure - Think it might have been Anthony.

[kambites]

Four tonnes sounds unlikely. The soft tyres have a coefficient of friction on dry tarmac of something like 1.5 once up to temperature and the cars can pull around 5g. That would imply that the force between the tyres and the road is roughly 5/1.5 times their natural weight; and that includes the force from gravity which puts the downforce at 2.3 times their weight, or somewhat under two tonnes.

[Deesee]

g4ry13 said:

Would be interesting if they changed it to miles led.

Monaco being 78 laps somewhat skews it.

Not really..

GP is 308 km

Monaco is 260km

So that’s say 15% less

(Ignoring Baku as per the graphic in the previous post).

The laps at Monaco are shorter (3.3 km).

The laps in Baku (6km) are almost double Monaco..

[TheDeuce]

kambites said:

Four tonnes sounds unlikely. The soft tyres have a coefficient of friction on dry tarmac of something like 1.5 once up to temperature and the cars can pull around 5g. That would imply that the force between the tyres and the road is roughly 5/1.5 times their natural weight; and that includes the force from gravity which puts the downforce at 2.3 times their weight, or somewhat under two tonnes.

Hmm.. The cars would either experience peak g-force or peak aero load, not both at once. One pretty much rules the other out..

I think around 4 tonnes at 200mph is about right. During peak sustained accelerative, decelerative of lateral loads, the car obviously isn't still travelling at 200mph. Not unless something has gone very wrong

[tertius]

Deesee said:

g4ry13 said:

Would be interesting if they changed it to miles led.

Monaco being 78 laps somewhat skews it.

Not really..

GP is 308 km

Monaco is 260km

So that’s say 15% less

(Ignoring Baku as per the graphic in the previous post).

The laps at Monaco are shorter (3.3 km).

The laps in Baku (6km) are almost double Monaco..

Surely that illustrates his point - the graphic counts laps at the front not km or proportion of a race - so leading at Monaco (in the graphic) means clocking up “laps” twice as quickly as at Baku for example.

[Exige77]

TheDeuce said:

kambites said:

Four tonnes sounds unlikely. The soft tyres have a coefficient of friction on dry tarmac of something like 1.5 once up to temperature and the cars can pull around 5g. That would imply that the force between the tyres and the road is roughly 5/1.5 times their natural weight; and that includes the force from gravity which puts the downforce at 2.3 times their weight, or somewhat under two tonnes.

Hmm.. The cars would either experience peak g-force or peak aero load, not both at once. One pretty much rules the other out..

I think around 4 tonnes at 200mph is about right. During peak sustained accelerative, decelerative of lateral loads, the car obviously isn't still travelling at 200mph. Not unless something has gone very wrong

I think we all know what “downforce” is.

I don’t think the current F1 cars produce either 6 or 4 Tonnes or downforce.

Happy to be proven wrong.

[TheDeuce]

Exige77 said:

TheDeuce said:

kambites said:

Four tonnes sounds unlikely. The soft tyres have a coefficient of friction on dry tarmac of something like 1.5 once up to temperature and the cars can pull around 5g. That would imply that the force between the tyres and the road is roughly 5/1.5 times their natural weight; and that includes the force from gravity which puts the downforce at 2.3 times their weight, or somewhat under two tonnes.

Hmm.. The cars would either experience peak g-force or peak aero load, not both at once. One pretty much rules the other out..

I think around 4 tonnes at 200mph is about right. During peak sustained accelerative, decelerative of lateral loads, the car obviously isn't still travelling at 200mph. Not unless something has gone very wrong

I think we all know what “downforce” is.

I don’t think the current F1 cars produce either 6 or 4 Tonnes or downforce.

Happy to be proven wrong.

A rule of thumb toward the start of the hybrid era was 5 times the cars weight, so including the cars weight currently would be in the order of about 3750kg in total (weight plus peak aero downforce) on the tyres.

Or in terms of aero downforce alone, 3 tonnes.

That said the cars were probably producing a fair bit more up until this season as clearly they became faster as this era progressed - but now with the missing chunk of floor who knows?

I think the confusion between dynamic downforce and g-force isn't ideal - they're two very different things.

[Sandpit Steve]

Exige77 said:

I think we all know what “downforce” is.

I don’t think the current F1 cars produce either 6 or 4 Tonnes or downforce.

Happy to be proven wrong.

4 tonnes is going to be in the ballpark, at 320kph at sea level. If you challenged them to that number at that speed, they’d likely be able to do it.

[Deesee]

tertius said:

Deesee said:

g4ry13 said:

Would be interesting if they changed it to miles led.

Monaco being 78 laps somewhat skews it.

Not really..

GP is 308 km

Monaco is 260km

So that’s say 15% less

(Ignoring Baku as per the graphic in the previous post).

The laps at Monaco are shorter (3.3 km).

The laps in Baku (6km) are almost double Monaco..

Surely that illustrates his point - the graphic counts laps at the front not km or proportion of a race - so leading at Monaco (in the graphic) means clocking up “laps” twice as quickly as at Baku for example.

If I get a few mins tonight I’ll work out the KM, it won’t work in red Bull favour..

[kambites]

TheDeuce said:

Hmm.. The cars would either experience peak g-force or peak aero load, not both at once. One pretty much rules the other out..

Why? Surely the cars will be close to both when the driver hits the brakes at the end of a long straight? If the car was generating 4 tonnes at 200mph it would be able to pull close to 10g of initial deceleration. They're absolutely nowhere near that as far as I know?

Edited by kambites on Thursday 10th June 20:13

[TheDeuce]

kambites said:

TheDeuce said:

Hmm.. The cars would either experience peak g-force or peak aero load, not both at once. One pretty much rules the other out..

Why? Surely both will come when the driver his the brakes at the end of a long straight?

I said 'sustained' in the following paragraph - since we were talking initially about tyre stress, which comes down to sustained stress.

Yes fleetingly there is a crossover, less than a second by which point the car has lost half it's downforce easily.

[kambites]

TheDeuce said:

I said 'sustained' in the following paragraph - since we were talking initially about tyre stress, which comes down to sustained stress.

Yes but now we're talking about aero load, which can be estimated pretty accurately from instantaneous peak braking force which is, I'm pretty sure, of the order of 5g. That being the case I can't see how the cars can possibly be generating more than about 3 times their own weight in downforce.

Maybe I'm wrong about the peak G loadings and they are pulling close to 10G when they first hit the brakes?

Edited by kambites on Thursday 10th June 20:24

[TheDeuce]

kambites said:

TheDeuce said:

I said 'sustained' in the following paragraph - since we were talking initially about tyre stress, which comes down to sustained stress.

Yes but now we're talking about aero load, which can be estimated pretty accurately from instantaneous peak braking force which is, I'm pretty sure, of the order of 5g. That being the case I can't see how the cars can possibly be generating more than about 3 times their own weight in downforce.

Edited by kambites on Thursday 10th June 20:15

Confusing g-force and downforce again. An object that decelerates fast enough can generate 5g but have no downforce whatsoever. An F1 car travelling at a constant 200mph might generate 4000kg downforce but as it's speed is constant, the g-force is just 1 (basic gravity).

The cars are generating around 5 times their own weight in total downforce, which includes their own weight. It's a rule of thumb that's been around for some time and the designers seek to exceed it, the FIA via reg tweaks seek to pull it back to approx. that figure.

[talksthetorque]

kambites said:

Yes but now we're talking about aero load, which can be estimated pretty accurately from instantaneous peak braking force which is, I'm pretty sure, of the order of 5g. That being the case I can't see how the cars can possibly be generating more than about 3 times their own weight in downforce.

Edited by kambites on Thursday 10th June 20:15

Top speed this weekend was Carlos Sainz at 344.8kph or 95.8m's
Remember that Azerbaijan is below sea level, so factor the denser air in to your equation.

I would be interested to see some valid calculations, despite people trying to barter me down with "I think" s .
I looked up the 6x quote and on rereading ( properly) as I mentioned I hold my hand up to that being a dubious statement.
But I'm pretty sure I recalled Anthony Davidson mentioning 4 tonnes downward pressure on the Sky live shows this weekend.

Edited by talksthetorque on Thursday 10th June 20:36

[kambites]

TheDeuce said:

Confusing g-force and downforce again.

No I'm not, Go and read what I actually said.

You can calculate how much deceleration a frictional interaction can generate from a combination of the coefficient of friction and the perpendicular force being applied to the interface between the two objects. The former is reasonably fixed, at about 1.5 for an F1 tyre. The latter is a function of the downforce generated plus the basic weight of the object.

An F1 car with no downforce could decelerate at roughly 1.5g, ie slightly under 15m/s/s plus whatever it gets from aerodynamic drag. Doubling the force between the car and the road by aerodynamic means (ie adding the car's own weight in downforce) will double the frictional force and hence the peak possible deceleration due to friction to about 30m/s/s. If a car was generating 5 times its weight in downforce it should be able to brake at at least (5+1)x1.5x9.8m/s/s, which is 88m/s/s. A G-force of roughly 9g plus the significant deceleration it gets from drag.

My physics is a bit rusty, but I'm pretty sure that's right?

Edited by kambites on Thursday 10th June 20:37

[Cold]

There's only one way to work out which car has the most downforce and that involves driving along the roof of a tunnel.