wesley123 wrote: ↑12 Jun 2022, 16:15
Andi76 wrote: ↑11 Jun 2022, 21:03
Its race-nr. 8 now. So its almost 8 different tracks i draw my conclusions from. But anyway - lets take a lot at Barcelona and the arguements :
And exactly one race with a fixed floor, and the car performed much better all of a sudden at THE aero track of the season. So yes, you are sourcing your conclusions on exactly one occasion.
There is no conclusion needed to say that Zeropod design has a drag problem. Toto Wolf said it in public. In every single race at the beginning of the season he said they have too much drag...and sorry, i will not even comment the sentence "drag problems not really being a thing in F1 due to the power these cars have". This is good news for aerodynamicists as L/D numbers have no importance any more and maximum downforce is all they have to focus on from now. Come on....you know this is...but you obviously do not know that the 1000 bhp is the overall power of the system. But they do not have this power all the time. In 2003, when BMW and Ferrari had 920-940 bhp, cars were probably had power as they had this power all the time. And drag was very important back then....
You are talking about open wheelers with a barn door rear wing. These cars are extremely draggy to begin with. Drag isn't a concern because of the nature of an open wheeled car, and the extra drag that you might have due to your aero philosophy can easily be tuned out by wing angles.
So no, drag isn't as much of a concern in F1. You have seriously, seriously messed up if you have built a car that is so draggy that it can't be overcome with setup changes.
Also all the other teams knowing Barcelona very well, too, does not cancel it out that a team with better engineers and driver performs better than another team with less talented drivers and engineers.
That extends to everything ever and is just a cop-out for your flawed argument.
And this cop-out has a incredible flaw; there are 3 "best" teams. Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes are all above the rest of the field by a decent margin. So knowing this, the gap between the 3 would have stayed the same. And this wasn't the case.
You basically say that there is no difference between teams and drivers in F1, what is just horribly wrong. What you also know exactly if you just think a millisecond about it.
I did not say that, nor even imply such a thing.
Anyway, its obvious Mercedes has more than one fundamental issue with the car.
And to be honest - who has not realised that zero-pods have more than a few problems - is far from reality. Its just two obvious. With 8 races almost, and only one with an acceptable performance - a car like that definetely has not a "good concept".
It's always great to read this. A car is performing worse so the issue with the car
has to be its differentiating feature.
but the zero-pods are second with aerodyamics just wrong for the ground effect cars.
And yet, the car fared much better relatively on THE aero track on the calendar.
Zero pods are reducing floor-edge vortices as their intakes go all the way down to the floor.
This presumes that this can't be overcome by, let's say, vortex generators in front of the inlet.
Then we also have the SIS fairing and aerodynamic elements. It is fair to assume that the team uses this to overcome some of the issue surrounding the lack of undercut.
Pressurisation zone under the sidepod inlets, protruding forwards, "feeding" the floor are missing, too, because of the same reason.
I'm certain the SIS fairing and (lack of) topside of the sidepod will overcome this.
The massive floor area will always make more trouble with bouncing and overall performance
I think this significantly simplifies the aerodynamics. Other than rigidity there is little reason to assume that having floor area available won't bring performance gains.
So i conclude with - 8 races almost and the car is far from being good on most tracks. Teams with similar concepts also went down the pecking order. Teams with "different comcepts" improved. There can be no discussion about this.
It's so incredibly simplified and completely ignores the complexity of the cars themselves.
Also all teams had "micropods" and zeropods are just an evolution of this very concept. And there is a reason why almost every team went away from that. And this alone says everything about zeropod-concept. Its wrong and Mercedes just got the new regulary totally wrong. That is something that can happen. Its easy to go down a wrong path. The leading team often does not want to take big risks. Thats also the reason why big regulation changes often end a teams era of sucess. This happened to Ferrari in 2005. It was not only the tyres. They went for maximum downforce when aerodynamic efficiency was the way to go. As Ferrari corrected their mistake in 2006, Mercedes will in 2023 and we will not see zeropods next year.
Let's put it the other way around; If this direction is bad and so clearly worse, then how come they introduced their zeropods? It would obviously show it isn't the way to go in CFD and the windtunnel. It seems really weird to introduce something when you know it wont work, especially with the issues you faced at the first test.
What makes it even more weird is that this team that has limited resources is then spending these resources on actually reprofiling this flawed design to match the updated floor. To add to it, it's weird that they add updates to the sidepod and surrounding aerodynamic devices knowing it is a flawed concept.
The fact that this team, that won 15 of the 16 titles the past 8 seasons, spends the limited resources they have on updates surrounding the sidepods shows how flawed the argumentation against the sidepods really is. There are some very smart people on this forum, but I can't help but think that a team that dominated F1 the past 8 seasons has a better idea on what they are doing than we do.
We are talking about Zeropods, not about a floor. So i am NOT drawing my conclusions from one race, also the season did not stop in Barcelona. We have had two more races afterwards. So - i am drawing my conclusions from 8 races.
So drag does not matter. Why then did Toto Wolf say they have to loose drag? Does not make a lot of sense if drag does not matter. When drag does not matter, why are F1 engineers talk about drag coefficients? And why do F1 teams spendmillions and millions of dollars for windtunnel and cfd, where they by they(next to other things) try to improve the drag coefficient? Why are F1 Engineers spend thousands of hours every year trying to improve their aerodynamic efficiency, if drag does not matter? Sorry. Drag matters. It even matters a lot and is one of the most important things in aerodynamics.
You say you have messed up if you come up with a car that is so draggy that it cannot be overcome with set-up changes. What you literally are saying is that in F1 history, a lot of teams have messed up. And you are literally saying that Mercedes has messed up this year. Their Topspeed tells they havr too much drag. Drag that cannot be overcome with set-up changes. As Toto Wolf said - we need to loose drag. So they clearly were not able to overcome it with set-up changes. And by the way - this clearly proves, even if there is no need to prove such a basic fact, that drag matters. And its relatively easy to not built a car with too much drag. Its a sensitiv area in F1 design, and it happens quite often that one team is not able or did design a car with too much drag.
But back to Barcelona - F1 history shows, that on a well known track, where teams did a lot of testing, the gaps get smaller. And thats as easy to research as it is logical. And this can be easily seen by the fact that the gap between Haas and Alfa and Ferrari and Red Bull also got smaller So sorry, but its pretty obvious what happened in Barcelona.
You say you did not say and not even imply that there is no difference between teams and drivers. But you said, after i said that on a well known track like Barcelona one of the three best teams on the grid knows exactly what to do there, that this is the case for every team so it cancels that out. If this cancels it out, you do say exactly that, because it means that that no team or driver is able to perform better than the other and maximise their performance.
If a car performs worse the differentiating nature is not always the issue. But when ALL cars with this differentiating nature perform worse, while all other cars improved their performance - its obvious. And not a coincident. And thats not a simplification of aerodynamics. Also that the two teams with similar concepts and who are able to change this concept(Mercedes cannot), McLaren and AM, went in the opposite direction and improved, clearly shows this.
Floor flexing is one of the major contributors for porpoising. Together with the missing bargeboards, the sidepods have become an essential aerodynamic component to manage the front wheel wake, which causes drag and aerodynamic disturbances when it hits the rear of the car. So the additional floor area avaiable can easily bring no gains, but loses. Thats one of the reasons why most teams went away ftom micro/zeropods.
If Mercedes can overcome the reduction in vortices because their inlet goes all the way down to the floor with vortices creators in front of the inlet is highly unlikely. They already do this to some degree, but these elements also increase drag. As they have too loose drag its a problem they cannot overcome this way.
By saying:"if the direction is so clearly worse, so how come to introduce their sidepods?" you literally say a team like Mercedes can make no mistakes, but indeed this is quite easy. When a F1 gets designed, you start with what you have and work from that. Its a historic fact, that when there are big regulation changes, the Topteam often hesistates to take a risk. When you also have less windtunnel and cfd runs, its even easier to not take a risk as researching different concepts needs a lot of cfd and windtunnel resources. I already told the example of Ferrari in 2005. They concentrated on maximum downforce when aero-efficiency was the way to go because of the regulation changes. Anyway- its pretty easy to go down a wrong way.
With a new regulary, completely new cars - how should the windtunnel and cfd show you that you are wrong? You have no reference numbers. Its all new. So no windtunnel and no cfd show you if you are right or wrong.
So none of the things i said is weird. Its actually logical and resonable. Its weird to say CFD and Windtunnel tell you you are wrong with a completely new technical regulary without any reference. Or that no team can maximise its performance or make mistakes and drag does not matter. But anyway - when a driver gets out of his car, probably is even hurt because of the cars behaviour on track - this car HAS fundamental problems. If its more than 1 second slower on 7 of 8 tracks - its concept definetely is not the way to go. One can still deny this. But that has nothing to do with realism any more.
