How to get rid of dirty air

[jpf]

If dirty air makes passing difficult, how do you eliminate it for better passing?

[Hungrymc]

Reduce the amount you create by eliminating most of the downforce and instead just designing to be slippery?

Or reduce a cars sensitivity to following in it by eliminating most of the downforce and designing just to be slippery ..........

Is the only other option to go for downforce only via ground effects, which then brings a load of different issues and challenges?

[anonymous-user]

jpf said:

If dirty air makes passing difficult, how do you eliminate it for better passing?

Change your diet.

[George29]

Hungrymc said:

Reduce the amount you create by eliminating most of the downforce and instead just designing to be slippery?

Or reduce a cars sensitivity to following in it by eliminating most of the downforce and designing just to be slippery ..........

Then expect massive complaints when F1 cars are slower than F3 cars. It was bad enough that GP2 cars had faster corner speeds last year. F1 still needs to be the fastest form of motorsport.

There is no way to just design a wing to work as efficiently with turbulant, unpredicatable airflow, despite what a lot of the armchair experts on here seem to think. Ditto with the return to single element wings, they are more highly affected by turbulant air than multi element ones. The only way to address the problem is to reduce the turbulant air coming off the car in front - and that is going to be very difficult without reducing downforce and therefore laptimes.

Personally I'd like to see more reliance on the underfloor but maybe coupled with active suspension. Although maybe make the active suspension a kit you can buy from manufacturers like the engines to try and reduce the huge R&D cost for smaller teams. It would be nice if they reduced the weight drastically too but I can't see that happening whilst they are still lugging 100+kg of batteries around.

I'd also like to see refuelling returned so you can have more varience on strategy and laptimes of cars on circuit.

[kambites]

The only solution I can see is to ditch wings (or at least make them vastly less significant) and massively increase the downforce generated under-body.

[longshot]

For me, the simplest way to bunch the cars up and make for more racing and therefore more overtaking is to standardize the engine output.

[groomi]

George29 said:

Personally I'd like to see more reliance on the underfloor but maybe coupled with active suspension.

This seems like the only feasible way to go.

1) If the FIA want any sort of relevance to road cars, then trick suspension is just as valid (if not more so) than silly regulated hybrid engines.
2) With ground effect, designers want a certain amount of air under the car, so the risks of grounding out will be less, so no antiquated plank required and presumably better wet weather performance too.
3) Active suspension would solve the original problem with ground effect where if the car lost it's stability then a huge chunk of downforce was lost.
4) I believe active suspension was banned on cost grounds - that worked well didn't it. Don't see a reason not to re-introduce it.
5) Maybe change aero regs to enable high pressure vortices to be created instead of the need for skirts to create ground effect.


One final observation. Over time, F1 cars have got longer. Over the same time, overtaking has become harder. Is there a correlation and would a 'simple' reduction of length help matters?

[George29]

longshot said:

For me, the simplest way to bunch the cars up and make for more racing and therefore more overtaking is to standardize the engine output.

So you'd basically want Renault, Mercedes, Honda and Ferrari to stop making engines then and go to one unit? I'm sure that will please them and make them want to stay...

I can see the argument for a more simple engine formula to reduce costs and weight, but a huge part of F1 is the innovation and constant battling between the teams for technical supremacy. Look at Ferrari now, they've upped their game and have some pretty interesting stuff in that engine like 3D printed pistons - stuff that can genuinely filter down into road car technology. I can't see why you would want to stop all that development.

Oh and it wouldn't do anything to stop the cars struggling to overtake in turbulant air. Although the Austrailain GP is never the best for overtaking anyway so I'll wait and see if it is as bad on other tracks as people are making out.

[sandman77]

George29 said:

So you'd basically want Renault, Mercedes, Honda and Ferrari to stop making engines then and go to one unit? I'm sure that will please them and make them want to stay...

I think he meant just limit the power they produce? Although I'm not sure how having cars with identical power would provide more overtaking.

[George29]

sandman77 said:

I think he meant just limit the power they produce? Although I'm not sure how having cars with identical power would provide more overtaking.

How would you expect to enforce that though?

[R8Steve]

sandman77 said:

I think he meant just limit the power they produce? Although I'm not sure how having cars with identical power would provide more overtaking.

Works just fine in pretty much every other race series.

[KevinCamaroSS]

longshot said:

For me, the simplest way to bunch the cars up and make for more racing and therefore more overtaking is to standardize the engine output.

The majority of the difficulty in overtaking is down to aero, not power. Your suggestion would actually make over-taking more difficult because nobody would have a power advantage to assist in getting closer.

[Hungrymc]

George29 said:

Personally I'd like to see more reliance on the underfloor but maybe coupled with active suspension. Although maybe make the active suspension a kit you can buy from manufacturers like the engines to try and reduce the huge R&D cost for smaller teams. It would be nice if they reduced the weight drastically too but I can't see that happening whilst they are still lugging 100+kg of batteries around.

I agree, my post wasn't advocating these changes, purely answering the OP.

At some point there has to be a trade off between advancement and technicality in Aero and closeness of racing. I think this years rule changes are typical of engineers (Of which I am one) creating a very literal response to a question which is far more nuanced. I think the cars of the last few seasons have been magnificent in their own way. I love that we've been able to see them moving around so much and I've enjoyed seeing the drivers struggle with the torque. The tyres have been disappointing and the performance gap Merc had was a problem. But we have people complaining about the sound, and that 2004 were faster, and a whole load of issues which to me are secondary to having a fast and competitive series where artful overtaking is a key aspect.

If I recall correctly, Under-body / ground effects are looked at negatively by some of the authorities as its so sensitive to ride height. Compressions, crests etc. in faster corners have such a dramatic impact upon the down-force generated that it could be a safety issue... I could have imagined this of course?

[George29]

Hungrymc said:

I agree, my post wasn't advocating these changes, purely answering the OP.

At some point there has to be a trade off between advancement and technicality in Aero and closeness of racing. I think this years rule changes are typical of engineers (Of which I am one) creating a very literal response to a question which is far more nuanced. I think the cars of the last few seasons have been magnificent in their own way. I love that we've been able to see them moving around so much and I've enjoyed seeing the drivers struggle with the torque. The tyres have been disappointing and the performance gap Merc had was a problem. But we have people complaining about the sound, and that 2004 were faster, and a whole load of issues which to me are secondary to having a fast and competitive series where artful overtaking is a key aspect.

If I recall correctly, Under-body / ground effects are looked at negatively by some of the authorities as its so sensitive to ride height. Compressions, crests etc. in faster corners have such a dramatic impact upon the down-force generated that it could be a safety issue... I could have imagined this of course?

Yes keeping the ride height is an issue, hence why I'd introduce active suspension too.

I'm fairly sure the overtaking working group did say that going to just underfloor generated downforce would be a step backwards. I'd hope that combining it with active ride would help with those issues, and some complex regulations to try and find a good middle ground with the design of the diffuser with regards to downforce and wake.

I think you will never please everyone. People often reference "the good old days" when in reality half the grid would be several laps behind by the end of the race, it's never been hugely better really. And removing all downforce as some people suggest is not a solution - F1 needs to keeps its crown as fastest motorsport. The engines now do sound awful but they are seriously impressive pieces of engineering. Over 45% thermal efficiency is incredible, coupled with the fantastic reliability they have now is pretty amazing really if you compare to a few years back. However F1 needs to decide if it's going to be a technological R&D test bed for manufacturers wanting road car relevant technology, or a pure entertainment sport. Thanks to the huge amount of money invested by the manufacturers I think there will always be an element of road relevance to the rules, but FOM are going to want to do something to improve the show I'm sure. I hope it's not more fake overtaking stuff like DRS though. I'm sure Ross Brawn will come up with something good.

[geeks]

Conclusion to this always seems to be, more aero/downforce off the top and add more underneath. I like the active suspension idea too, it is very relevant to road cars these days.

That said, Ross Brawn is no idiot, I would expect to see a good set of changes for next year, hopefully in this kind of direction.

[Eric Mc]

George29 said:

Yes keeping the ride height is an issue, hence why I'd introduce active suspension too.

I'm fairly sure the overtaking working group did say that going to just underfloor generated downforce would be a step backwards. I'd hope that combining it with active ride would help with those issues, and some complex regulations to try and find a good middle ground with the design of the diffuser with regards to downforce and wake.

I think you will never please everyone. People often reference "the good old days" when in reality half the grid would be several laps behind by the end of the race, it's never been hugely better really. And removing all downforce as some people suggest is not a solution - F1 needs to keeps its crown as fastest motorsport. The engines now do sound awful but they are seriously impressive pieces of engineering. Over 45% thermal efficiency is incredible, coupled with the fantastic reliability they have now is pretty amazing really if you compare to a few years back. However F1 needs to decide if it's going to be a technological R&D test bed for manufacturers wanting road car relevant technology, or a pure entertainment sport. Thanks to the huge amount of money invested by the manufacturers I think there will always be an element of road relevance to the rules, but FOM are going to want to do something to improve the show I'm sure. I hope it's not more fake overtaking stuff like DRS though. I'm sure Ross Brawn will come up with something good.

Rallying, sprints, hillclimbs etc can all be exciting to watch - and there is no overtaking in any of these categories.

Maybe we are fixated with overtaking and cars running closely. I find for me that the excitement in motorsport actually comes from watching how dynamic the cars are - how they move about on track, how fast they are, how quickly they corner. I like to see cars squat under acceleration, dive under braking, slide about when cornering, demonstrate oversteer when the throttle is floored etc etc.

So much of this is lacking in many modern categories of motorsport - purely because the car designers know too much about how to eliminate all these attributes because, in reality, they are all aspects of a car that is not behaving properly.

Maybe asking for cars to look more exciting is just pie in the sky, because to a car designer, an exciting looking car is an inefficient one.

[anonymous-user]

[quote=Eric Mc]


Rallying, sprints, hillclimbs etc can all be exciting to watch - and there is no overtaking in any of these categories.

Maybe we are fixated with overtaking and cars running closely. I find for me that the excitement in motorsport actually comes from watching how dynamic the cars are - how they move about on track, how fast they are, how quickly they corner. I like to see cars squat under acceleration, dive under braking, slide about when cornering, demonstrate oversteer when the throttle is floored etc etc.

So much of this is lacking in many modern categories of motorsport - purely because the car designers know too much about how to eliminate all these attributes because, in reality, they are all aspects of a car that is not behaving properly.

Maybe asking for cars to look more exciting is just pie in the sky, because to a car designer, an exciting looking car is an inefficient one.



The WRC is exciting but listen to the following words by Chris Meeke regarding the way the cars drive now.

In basic terms a WRC car needs to be driven in a totally different way.

Yes it is faster but is it as exciting??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZdyeSC3dHU

This is the footage Chris Meeke was watching of Colin McRae. You can see how much more he has to work to make the car do what he wants it to do. Watch this and compare it to modern WRC and it is night and day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sAbQ5wRr0o

[Hungrymc]

I guess that's what the different categories should be catering for Eric? Time trial events where its all about the individual performance vs short circuit racing which is fundamentally about racing the other cars - which in turn will be better if they are able to interact and pass each other.

On your liking of seeing the dynamics, I agree and actually thought it an area where the cars of the last few years have been brilliant.

It's a shame to me that they have chosen aero based speed over close racing / overtaking. They had to shake things up help other teams close on Merc, but I think a few years of more robust tyres in the previous regs would have been potentially brilliant.

These cars will look amazing on some faster circuits and rapid direction changes though !

[Ahonen]

George29 said:

Then expect massive complaints when F1 cars are slower than F3 cars. It was bad enough that GP2 cars had faster corner speeds last year. F1 still needs to be the fastest form of motorsport.

It's interesting, this. MotoGP (and Superbike) lap times are far, far slower than F3, but no one cares. They have no downforce, huge braking distances and slow apex speeds. Does anyone give a toss? No. I can stand at Cadwell for a whole day (well, three days really) during a BSB race weekend and not be bored for a second. You can see the riders working and the bikes move around, which is one of the reasons historic car racing is also so popular.

The FIA wked themselves into a frenzy over faster lap times because that's what "The Fans" apparently wanted after people squawked that the cars were faster 10 years ago on Twitbookface after every race. We're going to see lap records tumble everywhere this year. It's awesome, isn't it? What do you mean the racing is processional? The lap times are amazing! It's what the fans wanted.

[Mr_Thyroid]

I read an interview with Paddy Lowe - they said that the Overtaking Working Group tested ground effect to increase overtaking but concluded that it didn't help.

I don't think this is the one that I read but it retreads the same ground:

http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/15182571/paddy...