F1 Insiders Speak Out on Proposed Changes
Discussion
For folks who won't have a chance to check out the new issue of Autosport, here are a few excerpts that provide insight into what's happening with the proposed changes. I've included a lot, as it contains a number of interesting points.
First, the FIA's Centreline Downwash Generating (CDG) design proposal was agreed by the Formula One Commission, which includes representatives from all ten teams. They also approved a return to slicks and to a single tyre supplier.
That sounds like it's a done deal, but the Commission comprises, in addition to the ten team principals, fourteen other voting members, including Bernie, Max, senior F1 figures and circuit promoters (that is to say, people whose very livelihood depends on the good graces of Bernie and Max).
Paul Stoddart is quoted as saying that the Commission was guaranteed to okay the proposals: "It was a fait accompli given the numbers - that would be a correct statement. Is it good for ths sport? Time will tell, but I don't personally think it is."
In order for the proposals to be enacted for 2007, they must be approved by eight of the ten members of the F1 Technical Working Group, which comprises the ten teams only and not the other vested interests.
The FIA can, however, jam the proposals down the teams' throats starting in '08. Thankfully, one cannot imagine that the benevolent President of the FIA would himself ever countenance such an undemocratic deed.
The CDG proposal was supposedly cooked up by the FIA's own technical people and by AMD, aka Advanced Micro Devices. As its name suggests, Advanced Micro Devices has no experience whatsoever - nada, nil, zip - in designing race cars. It makes computer chips. They provide equipment for other people to use, for astronomy, DNA analysis, actuarial tables, whatever.
That leaves the technical department of the FIA to have done the work. I have no direct knowledge about these folks. They could be the best in the world. If you asked me, however, to speculate on whether the best technical minds in motorsport were more likely to work at Ferrari, McLaren and Williams or at a Paris bureaucracy where the pay is probably a quarter as much and the environment a tenth as interesting and inspiring, I would probably favour the first group.
It is not clear that the Technical Working Group will agree to the FIA proposals.
Mosley is quoted in Autosport as saying, "This new research is important for the future of F1. By introducing the CDG wing we can give fans exactly what they have been asking for: wheel-to-wheel racing with much more overtaking.
"It is our hope that the teams will collaborate with us in the optimisation of this radical idea, so that the aerodynamic benefits can be introduced to F1 in 2007 rather than having to wait until '08."
In other words, since Mosley by his own recent admission has just twigged on to the fact that the fans want more overtaking, the teams should do the donkey work to devise a formula that will achieve that. It's not up to the organisation that specifies the formula or to the organisation that operates the formula to figure that out, although they reserve the right to change the formula and how it's run at the drop of a hat.
Mosley goes on to remark about the proposal "...everyone who has seen the (CDG) car is enthusiastic about it, so unless there is an unforeseen difficulty it will be okay"
I am sure that Max would never stoop to trying to put some spin on things in order to strengthen the FIA's (his own) position, but here, again from Autosport, is what Gary Anderson (former Technical Director for Jordan and Jaguar) has to say about the proposed design:
There are several points in the FIA proposal that I'd have to take issue with. For example, its contention, that the better the performance of a car, the worse its effect on a car behind, doesn't really stack up. A car with the best aero will almost always have the best efficiency, and cars with good efficiency have lower drag, so leave a less messy wake. The more efficient a car is aerodynamically, the tider its wake.
I'd then question why the FIA has done all its research with CFD and not any modelling. For example, there's no modelling of the effects of the tyres on the aerodynamics. The rear tyres are responsible for 35 percent of the wake, which is one of the main difficulties for the car behind.
A car doesn't follow the centreline of the car ahead, it's affected by the whole wing. It's apparent that some of the most difficult computer modelling work hasn't been done in this proposal. To model a complete car is a huge project and to computer model a rotating wheel is an enormous task. That hasn't been done.
As for the wings behind the wheels, well, they'll certainly give a downforce reduction, because the wing will be working in hugely turbulent air all the time. The wake of this car would be very different. The tyres contribute to a huge percentage of the problem for the car following and to present a CFD image of the car without having done much of the essential modelling is a primitive way of going about things. You have to model the wheels and tyres. What they've done is present a slice of a car and not the whole.
Antoher problem is that the wakes from the two wings will join up when they trail behind the car, so a following car still has to get through that very turbulent air right behind the car in front. It's not as simple as one following another. The GP2 model is better: cars with simple venturis and a lower front wing that is not so affected by turbulent air from the car in front. Venturis don't need fantastically clean airflow to work well - that's why we have seen GP2 cars run so closely this year.
Also, if you have a front wing that's designed to work well close to the ground it will always be in dirty air, so by its nature it is not something that's going to mind a bit of turbulence.
There's another aspect that doesn't seem to have been considered. The area of lower pressure air higher up behind the car created by the new rear wing will be right in the airbox zone of a car approaching from behind. If the air only has 75 percent of its usual energy, as the CFD model suggests, a car behind could lose as much as 25 bhp. That's not going to help a great deal with overtaking, is it?
I don't see that the presentation here is a result of thinking as a whole. It's really rather naive. It's as if they have a new toy and want to show that they can play with it before they know how to make it work properly. It's almost like a first-year student has looked at the overtaking problem and come up with this as the answer.
Max strikes again.
>> Edited by flemke on Thursday 27th October 22:49
First, the FIA's Centreline Downwash Generating (CDG) design proposal was agreed by the Formula One Commission, which includes representatives from all ten teams. They also approved a return to slicks and to a single tyre supplier.
That sounds like it's a done deal, but the Commission comprises, in addition to the ten team principals, fourteen other voting members, including Bernie, Max, senior F1 figures and circuit promoters (that is to say, people whose very livelihood depends on the good graces of Bernie and Max).
Paul Stoddart is quoted as saying that the Commission was guaranteed to okay the proposals: "It was a fait accompli given the numbers - that would be a correct statement. Is it good for ths sport? Time will tell, but I don't personally think it is."
In order for the proposals to be enacted for 2007, they must be approved by eight of the ten members of the F1 Technical Working Group, which comprises the ten teams only and not the other vested interests.
The FIA can, however, jam the proposals down the teams' throats starting in '08. Thankfully, one cannot imagine that the benevolent President of the FIA would himself ever countenance such an undemocratic deed.
The CDG proposal was supposedly cooked up by the FIA's own technical people and by AMD, aka Advanced Micro Devices. As its name suggests, Advanced Micro Devices has no experience whatsoever - nada, nil, zip - in designing race cars. It makes computer chips. They provide equipment for other people to use, for astronomy, DNA analysis, actuarial tables, whatever.
That leaves the technical department of the FIA to have done the work. I have no direct knowledge about these folks. They could be the best in the world. If you asked me, however, to speculate on whether the best technical minds in motorsport were more likely to work at Ferrari, McLaren and Williams or at a Paris bureaucracy where the pay is probably a quarter as much and the environment a tenth as interesting and inspiring, I would probably favour the first group.
It is not clear that the Technical Working Group will agree to the FIA proposals.
Mosley is quoted in Autosport as saying, "This new research is important for the future of F1. By introducing the CDG wing we can give fans exactly what they have been asking for: wheel-to-wheel racing with much more overtaking.
"It is our hope that the teams will collaborate with us in the optimisation of this radical idea, so that the aerodynamic benefits can be introduced to F1 in 2007 rather than having to wait until '08."
In other words, since Mosley by his own recent admission has just twigged on to the fact that the fans want more overtaking, the teams should do the donkey work to devise a formula that will achieve that. It's not up to the organisation that specifies the formula or to the organisation that operates the formula to figure that out, although they reserve the right to change the formula and how it's run at the drop of a hat.
Mosley goes on to remark about the proposal "...everyone who has seen the (CDG) car is enthusiastic about it, so unless there is an unforeseen difficulty it will be okay"
I am sure that Max would never stoop to trying to put some spin on things in order to strengthen the FIA's (his own) position, but here, again from Autosport, is what Gary Anderson (former Technical Director for Jordan and Jaguar) has to say about the proposed design:
There are several points in the FIA proposal that I'd have to take issue with. For example, its contention, that the better the performance of a car, the worse its effect on a car behind, doesn't really stack up. A car with the best aero will almost always have the best efficiency, and cars with good efficiency have lower drag, so leave a less messy wake. The more efficient a car is aerodynamically, the tider its wake.
I'd then question why the FIA has done all its research with CFD and not any modelling. For example, there's no modelling of the effects of the tyres on the aerodynamics. The rear tyres are responsible for 35 percent of the wake, which is one of the main difficulties for the car behind.
A car doesn't follow the centreline of the car ahead, it's affected by the whole wing. It's apparent that some of the most difficult computer modelling work hasn't been done in this proposal. To model a complete car is a huge project and to computer model a rotating wheel is an enormous task. That hasn't been done.
As for the wings behind the wheels, well, they'll certainly give a downforce reduction, because the wing will be working in hugely turbulent air all the time. The wake of this car would be very different. The tyres contribute to a huge percentage of the problem for the car following and to present a CFD image of the car without having done much of the essential modelling is a primitive way of going about things. You have to model the wheels and tyres. What they've done is present a slice of a car and not the whole.
Antoher problem is that the wakes from the two wings will join up when they trail behind the car, so a following car still has to get through that very turbulent air right behind the car in front. It's not as simple as one following another. The GP2 model is better: cars with simple venturis and a lower front wing that is not so affected by turbulent air from the car in front. Venturis don't need fantastically clean airflow to work well - that's why we have seen GP2 cars run so closely this year.
Also, if you have a front wing that's designed to work well close to the ground it will always be in dirty air, so by its nature it is not something that's going to mind a bit of turbulence.
There's another aspect that doesn't seem to have been considered. The area of lower pressure air higher up behind the car created by the new rear wing will be right in the airbox zone of a car approaching from behind. If the air only has 75 percent of its usual energy, as the CFD model suggests, a car behind could lose as much as 25 bhp. That's not going to help a great deal with overtaking, is it?
I don't see that the presentation here is a result of thinking as a whole. It's really rather naive. It's as if they have a new toy and want to show that they can play with it before they know how to make it work properly. It's almost like a first-year student has looked at the overtaking problem and come up with this as the answer.
Max strikes again.
>> Edited by flemke on Thursday 27th October 22:49
I happen to have come across some historic photo web sites this week with lots of really neat and pretty little F1 cars without wings at all.
I have some shots of my own somewhere and will scan and post them when I find them.
It would be terrific to see how modern materials and technologies could be applied to wingless design concepts.
I have some shots of my own somewhere and will scan and post them when I find them.
It would be terrific to see how modern materials and technologies could be applied to wingless design concepts.
Eric Mc said:I think the concern is that without a lot of downforce an F1 car would not be as fast as, say, as Champ or IRL car, LMP1 or 2, etc. If as a result the formula could no longer be presented as the world's fastest and most technically sophisticated, it would not attract the sponsors or TV money that makes it go, That in turn would deflect the top drivers to other series, and so on.
Agree entirely. A 400bhp carbon fibre/levlar chassis wingless F1 car running on fat rear slicks would be a thing to behold.
Basically a Formula Ford on steroids. You could bet your bottom dollar that they would be exciting to watch.
Perhaps that would be better than what we have now, but the prospect of its happening is quite unlikely.
flemke said:
I think the concern is that without a lot of downforce an F1 car would not be as fast as, say, as Champ or IRL car, LMP1 or 2, etc. If as a result the formula could no longer be presented as the world's fastest and most technically sophisticated, it would not attract the sponsors or TV money that makes it go, That in turn would deflect the top drivers to other series, and so on.
That's understandable, since the FIA need F1 as their premier series, and to have any series that was consistently quicker would be damaging, revenue-wise. But if their sole concern is with regard to having competition from faster cars WHY REDUCE THE POWER OF F1 CARS!!!!!!!!!!
They can still have slicks and wings, but be less reliant on aerodynamics, and with less powerful brakes they would have to brake earlier (thus enducing longer braking distances, thus enducing more overtaking in th braking zone) whilst still being very fast on the straights, due to their 3.5 litre engines of V8, V10 and V12 construction...
(Hmm, wasn't *that* long ago was it...)
Seems to me that this format would still ensure F1 cars were the fastest around a 'real' race track (not those poxy Ovals in the USA) whilst giving more entertainment in the form of more overtaking, especially in the braking zones. Oh, and they might sound a bit better too...
flemke said:
I think the concern is that without a lot of downforce an F1 car would not be as fast as, say, as Champ or IRL car, LMP1 or 2, etc. If as a result the formula could no longer be presented as the world's fastest and most technically sophisticated, it would not attract the sponsors or TV money that makes it go, That in turn would deflect the top drivers to other series, and so on.
Perhaps that would be better than what we have now, but the prospect of its happening is quite unlikely.
The whole point of F1 is that it is the fastest and most difficult series.
There are far more intelligent ways though to achieve this on a sensible budget for a vehicle manufacturer who has to decide where their PR money goes.
Right now the US open wheel series have made guest appearances in Europe and Australia, and for a public that can't really tell the difference between a Formula 2 (Junior F1) race and a Formula One race proper, is CART or IRL a good substitute for racing on a budget? Possibly in the eyes of many PR types. Fragmented backing doesn't make for full grids for any series.
Basically my conclusion is that the public don't care what the cars are, so long as they are fast; they want to see a RACE, not a procession; they want to see a full grid, so that means involving a lot of manufacturers and that means doing it on a sensible budget.
Why not just have the current monocoque and brakes, CART / IRL style wings, ban all driver aids - no traction control, ABS, power steering, rev limit the engines to 15000, use a control engine module that can't be fiddled, just tuned to suit the engine, define the materials to be used in the engine don't include Unobtainium and make the gear selection H pattern based? Have proper slicks and wets, and a single tyre supplier.
Achieve this and add commonsense into the FIA and the fan base might expand.
Perhaps I'm being contrary to the populist view, but I care very much what a racecar looks like, any racecar. I refuse to even read about GrandAm for this reason - those cars deeply offend me. For the same reason, A1GP disinterests me - that and the fact that it's not that much faster than F3 and has some pretty average drivers pedalling some of the cars.
So for that reason, I disagree with a formula that does away with the "traditional" rear wing or modifies it in a radical way. The changes made to the airbox/engine cover and rear wing for 2005 F1 cars offended me too - in profile the lines of the cars are sullied.
Champ car has proven that with strictly regulated, but aesthetically attractive rear wings (I hate the vertical "fences" on the front wings)...close racing can be achieved. So let's see F1 with slicks, big bhp engines, less efficient brakes and the removal of all the aerodynamic addenda on the sidepods and engine cover.
F2 can learn a lot from GP2!
So for that reason, I disagree with a formula that does away with the "traditional" rear wing or modifies it in a radical way. The changes made to the airbox/engine cover and rear wing for 2005 F1 cars offended me too - in profile the lines of the cars are sullied.
Champ car has proven that with strictly regulated, but aesthetically attractive rear wings (I hate the vertical "fences" on the front wings)...close racing can be achieved. So let's see F1 with slicks, big bhp engines, less efficient brakes and the removal of all the aerodynamic addenda on the sidepods and engine cover.
F2 can learn a lot from GP2!
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