Slipstream effect on 2022 cars

[dialtone]

As I was discussing and proving that IMHO Perez had nowhere near 20kW penalty on his ICE, I ended up being criticized for missing wake effects and more. So I decided to lookup some telemetry to figure out the effect on following behind another car:

LEC v VER telemetry at the start of the race, top speed is the primary indicator for slipstream of course, you can check it at either straight into T11 (longest) or into T17 (shorter), each lap has a given gap between VER in front and LEC behind, no lapped cars or other slipstream/DRS was around for any of these laps:

<1s: https://i.imgur.com/DHbg2gj.png
<2s: https://i.imgur.com/DhK5jiB.png
<3s: https://i.imgur.com/yjd92Tt.png
<4.5s: https://i.imgur.com/V2Zedxt.png
<7.5s: https://i.imgur.com/s9XJNOa.png

In practice at 3rd graph there's no more slipstream and that's around 2.7s behind. The 2nd graph has less than half the slipstream effect of the 1st, and that's 1.5s behind roughly. So I believe there's basically no significant slipstream effect beyond 2s and even at beyond 1s it's relatively minor.

One can try to look into the fast corners in S1 too, and there the only graph with disruption is the first one and that's 0.5s behind at end of lap, Verstappen had just passed Leclerc, and even there I'd argue that on T6-7-8 Leclerc is already able to take more speed in the corner.

It does seem to me like these cars can indeed follow pretty closely even through fast corners without losing too much, and the slipstream effect has shrunk significantly to almost disappearing after 2s behind.

[Stu]

Which is great! It means that the new regulations are working as intended.

It has been clear to see that cars can race and set-up passing through high load areas of the track; leading to mistakes/misjudgment in braking zones.

Barcelona will be the big test, as this has been impossible previously.

[AR3-GP]

As I was discussing and proving that IMHO Perez had nowhere near 20kW penalty on his ICE, I ended up being criticized for missing wake effects and more. So I decided to lookup some telemetry to figure out the effect on following behind another car:

I'm not one to let sleeping dogs lie

Perez looked incredibly limp on the straights in that race after the safety car. As a reminder, Verstappen breezed pass Leclerc. Perhaps it was not "20 Kw" but it was certainly enough of a power loss to not be able to overtake any a clearly slower car while on softer, fresher tires.

[dialtone]

As I was discussing and proving that IMHO Perez had nowhere near 20kW penalty on his ICE, I ended up being criticized for missing wake effects and more. So I decided to lookup some telemetry to figure out the effect on following behind another car:

I'm not one to let sleeping dogs lie

Perez looked incredibly limp on the straights in that race after the safety car. As a reminder, Verstappen breezed pass Leclerc. Perhaps it was not "20 Kw" but it was certainly enough of a power loss to not be able to overtake any a clearly slower car.

Nah, I did plenty of analysis on this back then. Verstappen didn't overtake Leclerc on the long straight, he setup the pass and passed thanks to better traction out of T17 and passed into T1. Perez never tried that move.

Losing 20kw Perez would have seen some penalty in speed on the straights, but he didn't, he was plenty faster than Sainz, by equal amount to Max and Charles, but didn't pass. He had a problem with his engine for a few laps but then recovered.

In any case I'm not going to enter this conversation again, 2022 season is over and that event doesn't matter any more.

[Stu]

Why drag this up again?