New aero rules for 2009

[bar555]

I personally prefer recent F1 cars which have more elegant nose cone , more curved sidepods and a more sophisticated shape compared to the ones from 90's .
Progress is constant but that does not mean necessary ugly 00's F1 cars

[Conceptual]

As long as it makes the car more efficient, I love it!

Winglets, bargeboards, diffusers... If it makes it faster, I'm all for it!

[megz]

Sorry for the thread necromancy, but where do you draw the line between cooling device and aerodynamic device?

EVERYTHING has an aerodynamic effect, so a COOLING chimney will they be allowed? What about the upper elements on front wings that direct airflow to the sidepods, can you keep those? Barge boards that direct air into the sidepods are they allowed?

[Ogami musashi]

The basic principles of the OWG works have been adopted I.E less vortex generators.

The banning of barge board is on the list but still has to be discussed.

More info to come between january 11 and march just before the start of the season.

[checkered]

Some interesting

quotes from Ross Brawn, coinciding with the launch of RA108. Q & A with Ross Brawn, Autosport.

Most of the development for this year will be lost for 2009. And also 2009, being such a different set of aero regulations, teams have got to get more resource to it earlier than they would have done if it was a regular season.

We need to see where we are at the start of the season and then decide on the merits of what sort of programme we have with this car and what we put into 2009. It's difficult to say how that balance will work out – there may be things we do want to do with this car to learn for 2009.

Suspension characteristics will still be relevant even if the tyres are different; braking systems; so there will be work we can do that will be relevant for 2009. But the aero package is unique.

We do have planning in place to do several upgrades to the car throughout the year. The first one is loosely targeted around Barcelona. Then every three or four races well have a reasonable update. We have to take a very strong view for the future and make sure 2009 is a strong barometer for the future. I'll be looking at balancing resources for the future.

Doesn't say much of the content of the new aero regs even if Brawn seems to be pretty well aware of that, but any changes will likely be significant. The original automoto365 article "New Aero Rules Explained" from last October ('According to our spies in Brazil ...') remains unchanged. The site is potentially well sourced, as it's run by NTNZ (see who they have deals with within F1, it's quite a list), a web firm started by Nicolas Todt (see "Fisichella signed for Force India?", Grandprix.com, towards the end of the article).

I have to confess I haven't bothered with checking FIA's 2009 tech regulations PDF for a while, thinking that some news sources would pick up on any changes before me anyway.

[rjsa]

The bodywork has to be clean. That means no barge boards, no winglets, no chimneys, no flipups.

This is music to my ears...

[Ogami musashi]

Actually as i've said above, the bodywork regulations are still not decided and teams need to discuss it.

Tomorrow or one day later teams will meet FIA to decide on the budget CAP.
This reunion is important because if no agreement is reached, the bodywork regulation will change with some heavy restriction on it including standard parts.

If the budget cap are accepted, then the next step is toward the end of February when the WMSC will meet again, then at last in march just before the start of the season another WMSC meeting will be held and the bodywork regulations will be finalized.


However the front/rear wings and diffuser regulations are already adopted and some of the vortex generators bans are also adopted but we don't know which ones.

The downforce reduction is still dicussed together with the slicks return.

So during then next month and early march we should know better.

The fia regulation are still from 2006 are pretty outdated.

[Ogami musashi]

thanks to AFCA on the autosport forums, a translation of rory bryne interview gives us much more details about the regs:

http://forums.autosport.com/showthread. ... ost3021776

To sum up: the downforce levels will be reduced to 50% of the downforce levels in 2006(so i presume about 60 or 70% of today downforce), the slicks will be back and they will be softer.

Also many vortex generators being too sensitive will be banned.

According to rory bryne, the now required speed difference to overtake will be 0,5 sec compared to today's 2 seconds.

Also realistically , both bryne and max mosley are aware that in 2009 the downforce levels won't really drop by as much since teams will develop their aeros.

2 more testing sessions with slicks are planned, one in april, the other in july.

The real question stays thought: for the balance of tyre grip vs downforce to be increased, it is imperative the total grip doesn't increases.
If it does, then the car can go faster and downforce vs grip ratio balances again in the favour of downforce.

Also since in 2009 the driver will be able to change the AOA of front wing it is possible that he'll have more grip at slow speed.

Another possibility is that F1 cars will be slower, in which case i think this is a very wrong direction.


Notice the remark about GP2 cars being faster if a F1 downforce is reduced to 10%!

[jaho101]

I find the prospect of the 2009 season very exciting, hopefully the cars will look good. Slicks, wider and easier passing is everything F1 needs, along with a good shaking up of the order as Toyota, Honda and even Red Bull have a good chance of shooting up the order. Personally I think the cars will look a lot like the F1 cars from 2000, but with the sleek shapes that have been developed lately.

[checkered]

Thanks for Ogami

for ponting out that translation. I'm not going to rant at length about drivers adjusting flaps at this time, but my opposition to the very idea remains, much on the same grounds as I object to regenerative power being applied by means other than the accelerator pedal. These things have nothing to do with a regular driving experience, and in fact they've little to do with any other forms of (serious) racing. It also makes the logic of the races much harder to decipher, even with people who are quite knowledgeable about the technologies as such. Here's a curious quote from the translation:

The next question was how to reduce the aerodynamical performance to an acceptable level. Formula 1 cars would be slower than GP2 cars when you for instance reduce the current downforce levels to 10%. So we carried out simulations that made us decide to go by the reduction of 50% of the downforce levels experienced in 2006. We also had to think of a way which prevents the teams from getting back to the same level after only a few years.

Say what?! I'd say something has gone wrong if teams need to be explicitly prevented from making technological progress. In fact, nothing has better describes/-d the job prescription of a F1 engineering team than making technological progress, so that should be accepted as a given. This sounds like F1, in fact, is being denied a future. This is an important distinction for me - for there to be a future, it must accommodate freedom of choice and change. I fail to understand how the OWG can think that their design limitations could and should outlast progress in the very science of aerodynamics itself. For me, the self-evident conclusion would've been to reconvene a new OWG at such a time that the results of the previous OWG's results have become obsolete in their purpose - and not to try and achieve a solution for all time.

[modbaraban]

You can't make a racing series be efficient in terms of road car relevant developments and at the same time cut costs. These are opposite directions, at least for now, as the only way of cost cutting they managed to come up with is standardization, homologation, and total freez

PS: Rename this topic to "New aero sucks for 2009"

[checkered]

PS: Rename this topic to "New aero sucks for 2009"

Perhaps I wouldn't

go that far, meh, I'm being more ambiguous and reserved about this than easily impressed. The upside is that the comparative speed difference over the lap in order to let a driver to have a realistic chance to overtake has been reduced 75%. A half a second is well within the frame just by being better at conserving tyres etc. The next logical step in investigating aero (the Fondmetal tunnel was said to accommodate two cars) is to come up with shapes that make some forms of drafting advantageous. This might keep the competition even closer and help end the ambiguous "team orders denied" situation for good.

But I do shudder at the thought of seeing drivers grasping buttons or levers to operate flailing flaps. I'm afraid it's going to be a spectacle, and not in a good sense either.

[modbaraban]

I'm not against the increase of competitiveness, more overtaking etc. but we have all that in... say A1GP*. What's the point in making F1 like that and sarificing all that F1 as actually about?
_____________
*All except the big names (teams, drivers and the brand name of the series of course).

[blaze6]

I'm not against the increase of competitiveness, more overtaking etc. but we have all that in... say A1GP*. What's the point in making F1 like that and sarificing all that F1 as actually about?
_____________
*All except the big names (teams, drivers and the brand name of the series of course).

Don't you think it's frustrating and mainly dull that the best drivers in the world cannot overtake eachother because of years of bad technical regulations? 2009 rules help correct this.