F1Technical Overtaking Working Group

[ESPImperium]

I have been thinking about how we can get cars closer to more and more overtaking every race. I have a few opinions and Im sure there is a good few other people here with opinions on how we can get the cars closer. The 2009 regs helped allot, probably brought the amount of turbulent air down from -2.0 to -2.5 to the car in front to around the -.5 to -1.2 marker, but Im sure we can get allot closer than that.

What would you alter on the cars to get them to be able to follow the car in front closer and create overtaking????

My opinions:

1) Front Wing: I much preferred the 2008 spec front wing, so id like to see them brought back, but closer to the ground, almost 2009 low, but not as low as that.
Moveable aero allowed as many times a lap as a driver likes on the wing wheel on the steering wheel, but can be linked to a multi map setting on the steering wheel as well, but only for a maximum 90 seconds every 3 laps. Moveable aero would be up to +/- 10 degrees.

2) Rear wing: Id probably get the 2009 spec wing, but 200mm, standard wing setting for all is 30 degrees, although id allow the movable aero elements to be +/- 5 degrees. Same as the front wing, unlimited adjustments via the wing wheel, but adjustable via the Multi Map wheel.

3) Diffuser: Allow DDD, but these should be less steep than a conventional Single Diffuser creating less downforce. Which would be allow SDD cars to have a steeper angle to try and get teams to use them.

4) KERS: Banned.

5) Engine Overdrive: Allow the cars to run at 19,000RPM or "Unlimited" for 10 seconds each lap, this would replace KERS and Im sure that the teams would be much more responsive to this could get more high speed overtaking.

6) Appendages: All turning vanes on the sidepods are banned, same goes for wheel dustbin covers. All under nose and flow directors to be banned under where the drivers legs are. However, engine cover details to be allowed, thus giving the centre line a increase of 250mm in this area, but only one flow director is allowed here.

7) Tyres: Rear tyres to be increased in size by 50mm, front tyres to be decreased in width by 50mm, think 80s rears with early 90s fronts.

What would be your proposals???

[wesley123]

I think the CDG wing should be more developped, the center(with the width of the rear wing) has to be completely clean, so no exhaust exiting there.

I think a 10 second rev limit removal is a good idea, it is really cheap and more effective then the KERS system.
The dustbins are allowed to stay or even make it mandatory, these help to generate a cleaner brake cooling exit, so helps reduce wake(?)

Allow much bigger floor turning vanes and also bigger sidepod vanes are allowed.

The nose has to be in 1990 spec, so it is attached to the front wing, the center like defined in the first section has to be clean, so no downforce is allowed to be generated there. The height of the front wing is unrestricted(so it can be raised and the nose can be raised with it too). The front wing is of the same width as it is now.
DDD's are allowed or one single center element between the two rear wings.

Front and rear wings can be moved by 6degrees at any time.

[kilcoo316]

1. Widen the rear track to 1997 levels. That should increase the drag pocket, but with (2) leave *relatively* low turbulence air in the centre-wake.

2. Ban the DDD, and further reduce the size of the single deck diffuser.

3. Potentially look at bringing the front wing width back down, but that is more for aesthetic preference really. If the wind tunnel says stick with width, stick with the wider wing.

4. Allow the teams to lengthen 7th gear between qual and race (we've seen cars on the limiter quite a few times when slipstreaming).

5. Ban carbon fibre brake discs and reduce the disc diameter (lengthened brake areas should help).

6. Allow the front wing to be totally tuneable with software, otherwise, make it fixed. (I don't think the drivers can re-tune the aero balance through places like becketts and chapel quick enough to keep close enough for hangar straight for example)

[lkocev]

I think that overtaking has been great this year. I'm not sure it would be truly desireable to make overtaking so much easier that a car which is .5 seconds a lap faster to overtake. I kind of like the interest it creates when a faster car gets caught behind a slower one and seeing how the team and drivers deal with this in terms of race strategy. So I think so that the target should be somewhere between 1.2-0.8 seconds.

I think KERS should still be allowed. I think that particularly after the amount of money a few teams have invested in it, it would be pretty silly to give it the axe. Perhaps increasing is output rate and its energy storage could give it a bigger performance impact, particulary considering the ballast constraints it puts on the teams that run it. I mean, consider that an engine weighs 95kg, and makes near enough 580kW, and is generaly used at its maximum for about 70% of a 1:20-1:30 laptime, then 60kW for 6.67 seconds a lap from a unit that weighs (McLaren) 25kg seems pretty crap at best. I'm not sure how the weight of such a system would increase per power increase or per energy storage increase, but surely it wouldn't be linear.

I wouldn't change the tyre dimensions. Much is said about how the cars tyres are 'wrong' and that the front has effectiveley gained proportionaly more grip than the rear without the grooves, but I think that is a good challenge for the teams to work around. It wont take long for teams to find the rear downforce they need to make the car 'neutral' again, but in my opinion its interesting that for the time being the limiting factor is generally rear grip.

In a sentence I wouldn't change the bodywork regulations, I think Formula 1 is interesting enough as it is.

[Ogami musashi]

Some more work to be done to lower the basic time gap to 0,2.

My solution:

1) Low nose (like in 1992)

2) same dimensions for front wings than this year/ wheel fairings

3)side venturis instead of diffuser

4)rear wing same height and dimensions than this year

5) wheel fairings

6) automatic load cell induced moveable aerodynamics.

7) No rev limit

[jddh1]

Guys, none of you mentions anything about longevity of engines. I think that if you drop the rev limiter, but tell teams that the engines should still last 3 races, or 8 engines per year, or whatever, they would have to work to optimize rev amounts with the longevity. That could be a good challenge. If you have 2 engines left at the end of the year with two races to go, well, you can push them to 20k if they don't break.
What do you think?

[ESPImperium]

Some pretty decend ideas there.

However, id like to see the way air flows over a following car in CFD to make a conclusive judgement tho.

If we are to do the DDD banning route, id like to see the cars go back to a rear wing the size/width of the 2008 spec wing, but with a diffuser as a single decker, and the rear wing the height of the 2009 wing.

However, the front wing i feel is the key to the overtaking thing, as the current wing is just not working. Too many breakages as well, and not aesthetically pleasing too. Id recon something like the 2008 wings would be best, but bringing the nose-cone down, almost like FW14 style is really appealing. Posibly something like the early 1990s nosecone with a 2008 wing may look odd, but is probably more aesthecically pleasing than the current front nose/wing config.

Engines, i feel that they can be eeked out to the "overdrive" function, but on relfection, id also think about limiting it to only a single time per lap to try and give the engines a bit of a chance. But with this id open the engines up regs wise for a 6 month period before homologinisation, just to get the relyability and to beable to get the teams to have a good enough overdrive limit, but id say that the limit should be no more than 20,000rpm.

Brakes, thats one i never thought of. Maybes reduce the front brake size, but keep the rear brakes the same might be another one to look at. Maybes limit the ammount of materials that are allowed to be used????

As long as the cars can get to a 0.3 to 0.7 second gap, and be able to confedently pass, id recon that it would be safe.

[qw56q]

everyone will hate this but the person behind you gets 100 more revs out of their engine

and once you overtake your engine automatically backs down

[scarbs]

Before every sets off on the “what looks best” solutions, lets remind ourselves what the real OWG did and what we’ve been told since.

Aims
* Reduce Aero efficiency target 50%: i.e. Less downforce for the same drag, less downforce slows the cars in medium-high speed corners, similar drag limits straight-line speed.
* Improve the cars sensitivity to wake, I.e. minimal and equal loss of downforce (front to rear)
* Reduce the disruptive wake created by the car
* Improve mechanical grip.
* Make cars less cluttered and reduce scope for cheeky interpretations of the rules.

Facts (from OWG or Tech Director quotes)
* A wider front wing with more load on its outer tip is less sensitive to wake
* A narrower taller rear wing create a less disruptive wake, create less downforce and still create plenty of drag to reduce straight-line speed.
* Diffusers are less sensitive to running in wake, they create downforce centred between the axles and if set at a low expansion ratio are not contributing to wake.
* The diffuser was set back in the 2009 rules to balance the rear downforce lost when running in wake

* Double diffusers do not contribute significantly to wake, but do add considerable downforce.
* Front wheel fairings DO contribute to wake.
* Teams have found space within the rules to create a lot of smaller aero add-ons, similar devices in the OWG study immediately found these were sensitive devices and performance in wake was improved.
* Wishbone, steering and pull rod profiles still add considerably (~5%) to downforce create as flow conditioning devices. The freedom of +/-5 degrees & 3.5-1 ratio across the entire length of each suspension member allows in creativity in designing each section to have an ideal profile.

* Downforce has crept back up (for the most successful team at least) to 2008 levels!

* KERS provides a useful tactical boost for overtaking,
* But the KERS energy limit and the wider front tyre limit its effectiveness and hence has been dropped (or never adopted) by most teams.

* Slicks has proven to provide more mechanical grip in slow corners.
* The weak rear tyre and wide front tyre, enforce an unnecessary forwards weight bais (forcing dangerous compromises for weight distribution - i.e. Nose cones so heavy two men need to carry them!)
* Wider track will add to low speed cornering, but will reduce drag improving aerodynamic downforce and straight-line speed.

Solutions
* Keep Narrower top rear wing, but reduce the permissible depth (hence angle of attack), enforce minimum section thickness to add drag, wing profiles should be 2D, no twisting or different profiles in side elevation. Ban any openings in the endplate such as the slits at the top to maintain high drag levels. Lower Beam wing is subject to the same profile limitations
* Keep narrow front wing, Reduce the permissible plan area for the frotn wing and reduce the depth (hence angle of attack), Limit to two elements in a longitudinal vertical plane. Enforce similar 2d profile for outer spans, limit endplates to one closed section to reduce Brawn-Ferrari vanes. Under wing fences will also be banned under this ruling.
* Keep low diffuser, clarify the rules to ban double diffusers or any flow crossing from under the floor to above the 175mm section, ban extended (Red Bull) rear wing endplates
* Clarify the rules to ban any overlapping bodywork through out the car (the original aim of the ‘bargeboard-ban’ 2009 rules). Hence the pod wings mini bargeboards etc will be gone.
* Clarify the rules to ban extended brake ducts or fairings, a single inlet scoop will be all that’s allowed aside from the structural uprights
* Clarify the rules to ensure all suspension elements (wishbones push rods etc) are of a continuous 2d profile, to prevent the over complicated shaped currently used.

* Mandatory pocket and ballast to be designed to fit up to 40Kg in the seat\fuel tank bulkhead for performance equalisation purposes.
* Allow KERS, but non KERS cars must have 25KG ballast placed in the seat\fuel tank bulkhead to offset its absence.
* All drivers to meet minimum weight (the heaviest driver). Lighter drivers much have ballast to equalise the difference in weight fitted to seat\fuel tank bulkhead to offset the advantage.

* Maximum weight limit on nose cone\front wing assembly to prevent ballasting of the assembly.
* Reduce front tyre width or improve rear tyre construction in agreement with Bridgestone

Scarbs

[FGD]

I suggest the new FOTA F1 re-introduce venturi beneath the sidepods. My 2 cents.

[bhall]

It would seem to me that the best way to increase overtaking is to loosen up the technical regulations to allow for real innovation to take place.

F1 is an aerodynamically-driven sport that runs on circuits not especially suited for aero-dependent cars to overtake one another. Because of this, any car attempting to overtake another needs to be significantly faster in order to be successful. Ironically, you can't get around that fact.

I think it's debatable whether or not the new, highly restrictive aero regulations this year have done anything other than produce hideously ugly cars. I'm struggling to recall any great overtaking maneuver this season that wasn't the result of driver error or due to the greater discrepancy between tire compounds.

What's clear, though, is that because the new regulations are so tight, cars are as evenly matched as ever. Looking at the qualifying times this year, the gap between P1 and P20 is rarely over a second and a half. This kind of parity makes it extremely difficult for cars that depend on aerodynamics to overtake.

So short of somehow negating the influence of aerodynamics on the cars (and in the process stripping away F1's blistering performance) or redesigning the tracks, I don't see how making the rules more restrictive, as is being proposed, will help make overtaking easier.

We have to realize that on-track overtaking in the modern, aero-driven F1 world is always going to be difficult. If you want to improve the spectacle, open up the rules so that teams can find solutions on a race-by-race basis to overtake their rivals.

[mep]

It is a really hard thing to improve overtaking.
There are a lot of ideas here but I am afraid some of them will not change much.
Or at least I just don't see the theories behind them.

I watched some old videos now and you can clearly see there that the difference to now is that the following car got a huge increase in speed due to slipstream.
The advantage was so big the leading car had hardly a chance to defend his position.
All this happens just on the straight and the next corner so there is no disadvantage by reduced downforce of the front wing.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeemlgJk ... re=related[/youtube]

That’s why I say the key is to increase drag and by this slipstream effect.
The cars aero must be like moving wall closets.
Cars top speed must be limited by drag and not by downforce with to short straights to accelerate.
You always try to reduce downforce and cornering speed.
But with high downforce and therefore high cornering speed you reach top speed limited by drag and engine power on the straight faster.
When the following car now has a bit less drag because it is driving in the suction wake of the leading one then it will catch up a lot and is able to drive side by side into the following corner.
See this video the cars have equal speed otherwise they wouldn't be possible to overtake over and over again:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl2tIFxS ... re=related[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGSHRWXV ... re=related[/youtube]

[Scotracer]

Before every sets off on the “what looks best” solutions, lets remind ourselves what the real OWG did and what we’ve been told since.

Aims
* Reduce Aero efficiency target 50%: i.e. Less downforce for the same drag, less downforce slows the cars in medium-high speed corners, similar drag limits straight-line speed.
* Improve the cars sensitivity to wake, I.e. minimal and equal loss of downforce (front to rear)
* Reduce the disruptive wake created by the car
* Improve mechanical grip.
* Make cars less cluttered and reduce scope for cheeky interpretations of the rules.

Facts (from OWG or Tech Director quotes)
* A wider front wing with more load on its outer tip is less sensitive to wake
* A narrower taller rear wing create a less disruptive wake, create less downforce and still create plenty of drag to reduce straight-line speed.
* Diffusers are less sensitive to running in wake, they create downforce centred between the axles and if set at a low expansion ratio are not contributing to wake.
* The diffuser was set back in the 2009 rules to balance the rear downforce lost when running in wake

* Double diffusers do not contribute significantly to wake, but do add considerable downforce.
* Front wheel fairings DO contribute to wake.
* Teams have found space within the rules to create a lot of smaller aero add-ons, similar devices in the OWG study immediately found these were sensitive devices and performance in wake was improved.
* Wishbone, steering and pull rod profiles still add considerably (~5%) to downforce create as flow conditioning devices. The freedom of +/-5 degrees & 3.5-1 ratio across the entire length of each suspension member allows in creativity in designing each section to have an ideal profile.

* Downforce has crept back up (for the most successful team at least) to 2008 levels!

* KERS provides a useful tactical boost for overtaking,
* But the KERS energy limit and the wider front tyre limit its effectiveness and hence has been dropped (or never adopted) by most teams.

* Slicks has proven to provide more mechanical grip in slow corners.
* The weak rear tyre and wide front tyre, enforce an unnecessary forwards weight bais (forcing dangerous compromises for weight distribution - i.e. Nose cones so heavy two men need to carry them!)
* Wider track will add to low speed cornering, but will reduce drag improving aerodynamic downforce and straight-line speed.

Solutions
* Keep Narrower top rear wing, but reduce the permissible depth (hence angle of attack), enforce minimum section thickness to add drag, wing profiles should be 2D, no twisting or different profiles in side elevation. Ban any openings in the endplate such as the slits at the top to maintain high drag levels. Lower Beam wing is subject to the same profile limitations
* Keep narrow front wing, Reduce the permissible plan area for the frotn wing and reduce the depth (hence angle of attack), Limit to two elements in a longitudinal vertical plane. Enforce similar 2d profile for outer spans, limit endplates to one closed section to reduce Brawn-Ferrari vanes. Under wing fences will also be banned under this ruling.
* Keep low diffuser, clarify the rules to ban double diffusers or any flow crossing from under the floor to above the 175mm section, ban extended (Red Bull) rear wing endplates
* Clarify the rules to ban any overlapping bodywork through out the car (the original aim of the ‘bargeboard-ban’ 2009 rules). Hence the pod wings mini bargeboards etc will be gone.
* Clarify the rules to ban extended brake ducts or fairings, a single inlet scoop will be all that’s allowed aside from the structural uprights
* Clarify the rules to ensure all suspension elements (wishbones push rods etc) are of a continuous 2d profile, to prevent the over complicated shaped currently used.

* Mandatory pocket and ballast to be designed to fit up to 40Kg in the seat\fuel tank bulkhead for performance equalisation purposes.
* Allow KERS, but non KERS cars must have 25KG ballast placed in the seat\fuel tank bulkhead to offset its absence.
* All drivers to meet minimum weight (the heaviest driver). Lighter drivers much have ballast to equalise the difference in weight fitted to seat\fuel tank bulkhead to offset the advantage.

* Maximum weight limit on nose cone\front wing assembly to prevent ballasting of the assembly.
* Reduce front tyre width or improve rear tyre construction in agreement with Bridgestone

Scarbs

Scarbs, do you have any values for 2009 downforce levels for Red Bull or Brawn? If it's similar to 2008 they must be 2700kg+

And I agree in general with your proposals. I'd like to see a change in engine regulations - more torque and a bit more horsepower.

[flynfrog]

double the HP half the tires

[machin]

Anyone watched Caterham or Ginetta racing? The lead changes practically every lap... sometimes three or four times...

so the Solution:-

Big rear tyres to create loads of aero drag (to aid slipstreaming) and get rid of the wings altogether!!!! Bobs your uncle... loads of overtaking....

If you want to maintain cornering speeds allow fans back in (to suck the car's onto the road).