Ferrari F1-75

[Andi76]

Great pic that also highlights how Ferrari were trying to reduce lift on the upper surface of the sidepods with the lateral “fences” and kick-up at the rear. Probably good for some local DF or lift reduction but likely not good for drag.

Alpine went the same way—scalloped upper surface—with their revised sidepods, but smashed the trailing edge of the sidepods down to the floor, most likely to better energize the diffuser and reduce drag for overall better efficiency.

Could you please explain why it should be not good for drag? I mean we have CFD simulation that says pretty much the opposite. Also the Ferrari was not a car that had any problems with drag. If you suggest this because of Red Bulls topspeed advantage, i do not think this would support your arguement, as without DRS, both cars were pretty close in terms of topspeed. What makes it highly likely that Red Bulls Topspeed advantage had more to do with DRS than with drag itself.

Agree that the overall design concept of the F1-75 is very good. It’s just my eyeball CFD having an issue with the inward-tapering “fences” on the top of the pylon and the little kick-up/radiator exit just ahead of the upper wishbone front leg.

I believe Ferrari were trying to reduce the lift normally induced by the downward tapering of the sidepod tops by creating the lick-up at the back, so basically defining an (inverted) wing profile.

So, while the lift may have been reduced, I would expect that the price for this is induced drag from any DF generated—especially since the flow coming off the trailing edge is probably not aligned with the downwash ahead of the RW—as well as what must be a vortex sheet rolling off the top of the rounded, raised sidepod edges trying to work like fences.

Also, from an overall aero efficiency point-of-view, I would expect that not driving more flow down to the floor to power the diffuser must be sacrificing some efficiency gains.

The kick-up you talk about was widely used on F1 cars 20 years ago to reduce drag, because this air did not hit the rear-tire. Of course it reduced lift and also induced some drag , but the benefits in the area in front of the rear wheels were higher and i assume its not much different at the F1-75.

[AR3-GP]

These are just rumors for now, nothing confirmed. And even if confirmed, its just what Ferrari engineers came up with as an explanation. Still, flexi wings were RBs strong point in Vettel era, so I don't expect Newey to give up on any advantage without doing everything to use it.

There is not a single piece of evidence to support your theory or any theory about flexing wings, floors or planks on the RB18. Why do you keep pushing this narrative on several car threads when there isn't any evidence to support your assertions.

I think its pretty much common knowledge that Red Bull is using flexi wings and no need to give any evidence. But as you obviously doubt it, here is some evidence, which by the way can easily be found by s simple search on youtube(Red Bull Flexi Wing):

Which of you video links is the 2022 car? You say a car is flexing wings, then you post videos of a different '22 car wing flex, in addition to a completely different era of car wing flex.

The question was asked. What source or evidence suggest that wing flex was a concern in 2022?

What we do have evidence of, is that when teams were viewed to be flexing components to what a rival felt was a competitive advantage, the rival teams protested or got the regulations changed. This happened with rear wings in 2021 and it happened with planks in 2022.

[Vanja #66]

No one mentioned cheating or any problem with it. All wings are designed to flex, RB does it best. I only mentioned there are some rumors in Italian press that Ferrari engineers analized RB wings again and concluded drag reduction benefit with more speed/load is greater than expected. This can't be much greater, but even 1% further drag reduction is significant.

[AR3-GP]

No one mentioned cheating or any problem with it. All wings are designed to flex, RB does it best. I only mentioned there are some rumors in Italian press that Ferrari engineers analized RB wings again and concluded drag reduction benefit with more speed/load is greater than expected. This can't be much greater, but even 1% further drag reduction is significant.

Naturally you have to take some things with a grain of salt from Ferrari. Their leadership ingrained a culture of looking for external excuses and never blaming themselves and thus the magical wing flexing allegations are back with prodigal drag gains , despite no one talking about it all year long.

This front wing flexing was already surveyed in the beginning of the season. Most teams have a considerable amount of it. The rear wings have effectively been locked down by high load test in addition to the sighting markings and video camera technology which was mandated for this season. I doubt anyone is deriving a considerable benefit beyond what others are achieving. All of the wings are reducing their AoA at speed.


The danger for Ferrari in clutching at these fantasies is they don't focus on improving their own weaknesses and are led down the wrong path. One can only presume Ferrari intend to pursue wing flexing program now if they cite it as responsible for some of RB's superiority.

[LM10]

No one mentioned cheating or any problem with it. All wings are designed to flex, RB does it best. I only mentioned there are some rumors in Italian press that Ferrari engineers analized RB wings again and concluded drag reduction benefit with more speed/load is greater than expected. This can't be much greater, but even 1% further drag reduction is significant.

Naturally you have to take some things with a grain of salt from Ferrari. Their leadership ingrained a culture of looking for external excuses and never blaming themselves and thus the magical wing flexing allegations are back with prodigal drag gains , despite no one talking about it all year long.

This front wing flexing was already surveyed in the beginning of the season. Most teams have a considerable amount of it. The rear wings have effectively been locked down by high load test in addition to the sighting markings and video camera technology which was mandated for this season. I doubt anyone is deriving a considerable benefit beyond what others are achieving. All of the wings are reducing their AoA at speed.


The danger for Ferrari in clutching at these fantasies is they don't focus on improving their own weaknesses and are led down the wrong path. One can only presume Ferrari intend to pursue wing flexing program now if they cite it as responsible for some of RB's superiority.

I cannot remember Ferrari looking for external excuses in the last few years. Maybe you can help me to remember? Better let's not further dig into the black hole of excuses as RedBull surely won't look good.

Whether Ferrari can improve on "own" weaknesses or not is only going to be debatable next season and beyond. For now we can be sure of them having built the best ground-effect car last season which only had obvious weaknesses as soon as TD39 came into effect and with it the penalty of having done the best job of all in terms of ground-effect.

[Andi76]

There is not a single piece of evidence to support your theory or any theory about flexing wings, floors or planks on the RB18. Why do you keep pushing this narrative on several car threads when there isn't any evidence to support your assertions.

I think its pretty much common knowledge that Red Bull is using flexi wings and no need to give any evidence. But as you obviously doubt it, here is some evidence, which by the way can easily be found by s simple search on youtube(Red Bull Flexi Wing):

Which of you video links is the 2022 car? You say a car is flexing wings, then you post videos of a different '22 car wing flex, in addition to a completely different era of car wing flex.

The question was asked. What source or evidence suggest that wing flex was a concern in 2022?

What we do have evidence of, is that when teams were viewed to be flexing components to what a rival felt was a competitive advantage, the rival teams protested or got the regulations changed. This happened with rear wings in 2021 and it happened with planks in 2022.

Which of my videos is the 2022 car? This one, and its about the car that was talked about here, the RB18 :



If you have read my post, and the one i replied to, you should know why i also posted videos of a completely different eras of car wing flex...

But anyway - even if flexi wings were not subject of any controvery in 2022, does not necessarily mean nothing happened behind the scenes. There was the talk about Red Bulls front wing flexing more than others very early in the season around Spain, and Sky Germany mentioned it with Ralf Schumacher talking about it. But anyway - i totally agree with your opinion that is that whenever teams were viewed to be flexing components to what a rival felt was a competitive advantage, the rival teams protested or got the regulations changed. Whats pretty annoying to be honest, because at the end of the day everyone does use flexing components. For decades. The problem is that F1 media spread the opinion that its something unusual, close to cheating. So it is used politically to stop a competitor from using a better designed and manufactured component. I just tried to make this clear with my post and the videos.

[AR3-GP]

No one mentioned cheating or any problem with it. All wings are designed to flex, RB does it best. I only mentioned there are some rumors in Italian press that Ferrari engineers analized RB wings again and concluded drag reduction benefit with more speed/load is greater than expected. This can't be much greater, but even 1% further drag reduction is significant.

Naturally you have to take some things with a grain of salt from Ferrari. Their leadership ingrained a culture of looking for external excuses and never blaming themselves and thus the magical wing flexing allegations are back with prodigal drag gains , despite no one talking about it all year long.

This front wing flexing was already surveyed in the beginning of the season. Most teams have a considerable amount of it. The rear wings have effectively been locked down by high load test in addition to the sighting markings and video camera technology which was mandated for this season. I doubt anyone is deriving a considerable benefit beyond what others are achieving. All of the wings are reducing their AoA at speed.


The danger for Ferrari in clutching at these fantasies is they don't focus on improving their own weaknesses and are led down the wrong path. One can only presume Ferrari intend to pursue wing flexing program now if they cite it as responsible for some of RB's superiority.

I cannot remember Ferrari looking for external excuses in the last few years. Maybe you can help me to remember?

Monaco '22, Silverstone '22, Hungary '22, Brazil '22.

These cases are not necessary "technical" in nature, but the culture was there with Mattia. It was never Ferrari's fault. There was nothing they could do better. The weather, or the others had some extra magic that Ferrari "could not attain".

It's why I look at the theory from Ferrari engineers about the wings with some skepticism. We've seen in seasons past that certain teams vastly overestimate the consequences of a regulation's changes. It was rear wing last year. It was floor stiffness this year. Neither regulation impacted the performance materially of the team in question, yet the rivals pointed to the regulation change as the "gotch'a", that would finally bring their car's performance in line.

[ing.]

Could you please explain why it should be not good for drag? I mean we have CFD simulation that says pretty much the opposite. Also the Ferrari was not a car that had any problems with drag. If you suggest this because of Red Bulls topspeed advantage, i do not think this would support your arguement, as without DRS, both cars were pretty close in terms of topspeed. What makes it highly likely that Red Bulls Topspeed advantage had more to do with DRS than with drag itself.

Agree that the overall design concept of the F1-75 is very good. It’s just my eyeball CFD having an issue with the inward-tapering “fences” on the top of the pylon and the little kick-up/radiator exit just ahead of the upper wishbone front leg.

I believe Ferrari were trying to reduce the lift normally induced by the downward tapering of the sidepod tops by creating the lick-up at the back, so basically defining an (inverted) wing profile.

So, while the lift may have been reduced, I would expect that the price for this is induced drag from any DF generated—especially since the flow coming off the trailing edge is probably not aligned with the downwash ahead of the RW—as well as what must be a vortex sheet rolling off the top of the rounded, raised sidepod edges trying to work like fences.

Also, from an overall aero efficiency point-of-view, I would expect that not driving more flow down to the floor to power the diffuser must be sacrificing some efficiency gains.

The kick-up you talk about was widely used on F1 cars 20 years ago to reduce drag, because this air did not hit the rear-tire. Of course it reduced lift and also induced some drag , but the benefits in the area in front of the rear wheels were higher and i assume its not much different at the F1-75.

The kick-up/radiator exits are not exactly in front of the rear wheels—not even close. Nothing to do with what they were doing 20 years ago.

[Vanja #66]

So, while the lift may have been reduced, I would expect that the price for this is induced drag from any DF generated—especially since the flow coming off the trailing edge is probably not aligned with the downwash ahead of the RW—as well as what must be a vortex sheet rolling off the top of the rounded, raised sidepod edges trying to work like fences.

Also, from an overall aero efficiency point-of-view, I would expect that not driving more flow down to the floor to power the diffuser must be sacrificing some efficiency gains.

Lift was reduced and drag on its own has not increased. Sidepods have a significant rear projection of that particular ambient-pressure region. Rounded edges cannot shed any vortices.



This region also isn't flicking up the airflow at all, since it's an ambient pressure region and there is no aerofoil bottom to influence the upwash. I fact, altogether the zone is straightening the flow towards the rear wing and inward tapering is feeding the beam wing to drive the diffuser. It's a really nice solution and with additional repackaging of elements to avoid big stagnation zone under the intakes (that's mentioned for 675 car) it definitely is the best of both worlds.

For more details of F1-75 sidepods check here

viewtopic.php?t=30249

[ing.]

So, while the lift may have been reduced, I would expect that the price for this is induced drag from any DF generated—especially since the flow coming off the trailing edge is probably not aligned with the downwash ahead of the RW—as well as what must be a vortex sheet rolling off the top of the rounded, raised sidepod edges trying to work like fences.

Also, from an overall aero efficiency point-of-view, I would expect that not driving more flow down to the floor to power the diffuser must be sacrificing some efficiency gains.

Lift was reduced and drag on its own has not increased. Sidepods have a significant rear projection of that particular ambient-pressure region. Rounded edges cannot shed any vortices.

https://i.ibb.co/qd9mn28/comp-top.jpg

This region also isn't flicking up the airflow at all, since it's an ambient pressure region and there is no aerofoil bottom to influence the upwash. I fact, altogether the zone is straightening the flow towards the rear wing and inward tapering is feeding the beam wing to drive the diffuser. It's a really nice solution and with additional repackaging of elements to avoid big stagnation zone under the intakes (that's mentioned for 675 car) it definitely is the best of both worlds.

For more details of F1-75 sidepods check here

viewtopic.php?t=30249

I appreciate your appreciation for the aero on this car but there are still a few issues I see with it and which are evidenced in your CFD analysis.

Firstly, I agree you can’t get a “useful” vortex off a rounded surface but for sure the air coming off the top of the tapered end of the sidepods—with slight outboard flow direction as shown in your streamlines/flow-viz images—will either create a trailing vortex cone (like on a passenger car A-pillar) or the flow will just separate off the rounded trailing edge.

So, not sure how this disturbed flow will help the beam wing, especially because of the aforementioned outboard flow direction.

Agree that the new car should be cleaned up below the intakes and interested to see what they do at the back: RB-like, Alpine-like, same as last year or some new solution?

[Andi76]

Agree that the overall design concept of the F1-75 is very good. It’s just my eyeball CFD having an issue with the inward-tapering “fences” on the top of the pylon and the little kick-up/radiator exit just ahead of the upper wishbone front leg.

I believe Ferrari were trying to reduce the lift normally induced by the downward tapering of the sidepod tops by creating the lick-up at the back, so basically defining an (inverted) wing profile.

So, while the lift may have been reduced, I would expect that the price for this is induced drag from any DF generated—especially since the flow coming off the trailing edge is probably not aligned with the downwash ahead of the RW—as well as what must be a vortex sheet rolling off the top of the rounded, raised sidepod edges trying to work like fences.

Also, from an overall aero efficiency point-of-view, I would expect that not driving more flow down to the floor to power the diffuser must be sacrificing some efficiency gains.

The kick-up you talk about was widely used on F1 cars 20 years ago to reduce drag, because this air did not hit the rear-tire. Of course it reduced lift and also induced some drag , but the benefits in the area in front of the rear wheels were higher and i assume its not much different at the F1-75.

The kick-up/radiator exits are not exactly in front of the rear wheels—not even close. Nothing to do with what they were doing 20 years ago.

https://cdn.racingnews365.com/2022/Lecl ... 1650813150
https://www.autosportfoto.sk/images/altohigh.jpg

In the sideview it actually looks pretty close, both in position and cause :


picture hosting

But i have never seen the F1-75 in reality so i cannot say for sure where this kick-up is positioned exactly. But it looks like you are right and it is in front of the forward top wishbone and you made me aware that it is position is actually much different. But anyway - there is some similarity to the 1999 solution, but obviously in a different location and a different cause. My bad.

[Vanja #66]

Agree that the new car should be cleaned up below the intakes and interested to see what they do at the back: RB-like, Alpine-like, same as last year or some new solution?

Rumors say the sidepods will keep their form, but slightly shorter and vents around the rear wishbones will extend to the rear to form a cannon-vent like RB18

[AR3-GP]

Agree that the new car should be cleaned up below the intakes and interested to see what they do at the back: RB-like, Alpine-like, same as last year or some new solution?

Rumors say the sidepods will keep their form, but slightly shorter and vents around the rear wishbones will extend to the rear to form a cannon-vent like RB18

Have you had a change to mess about with something like this on your old CFD model or will you wait for the launch? What is the effect? Drag reduction?

[Blackout]

So will the cannon vent replace the shark gills?

[AR3-GP]

So will the cannon vent replace the shark gills?

I think that would be an implication, yes. The Red Bull has very few gills on the sidepod.