Is F1 getting boring?

[mike]

give the teams a few races guys......
i think in bahrain some should pit again for the soft to go in the end and they should just work the tyres harder

if lets say the last 15 you get a set of soft on, not only are you in better rubber its also newer and clearly you will be about to be 3 seconds faster for 15 laps and if u take out the 24s you spend in doing for the extra pitstop you can easily be 21 seconds ahead + working the hard tyres harder means that you can even be faster in mid stint so the gain could be as much as 25-28s

[kilcoo316]

I guess it comes down to whether you want F1 with front wings or F1 without front wings. Perhaps if you want front wings you also need to lift them from the floor a good deal. As they currently strongly work in ground effect they are even more sensitive (at least any loss of downforce has a feedback effect resulting in even less downforce and so understeer increases markedly).

No, no!

That is the exact opposite of what you want to do. Raising the wing height takes it away from the damping effect of the ground, which does help reduce the upwash of the wake ahead as well as reducing the average size of the turbulent eddies.

Infact, we need the front wings to get closer to the ground.

Personally I'd like to see more underbody ground effect and less wings i.e. I suppose an open wheeled version of prototypes. They certainly have less problem following each other.

What you'd like is to move the floor forward to the nose of the car, perhaps adding a splitter to the front as well.

It is a viewpoint I would not disagree with. Maybe something that should be looked into is a total revamp of the current underfloor rules... perhaps an idea might be to have two floors to the car, 1 ahead of the front axle-line and the other immediately below the driver and backward from that point... rather than having the splitter at the back of the front wheels as is currently the case.

[kilcoo316]

if lets say the last 15 you get a set of soft on, not only are you in better rubber its also newer and clearly you will be about to be 3 seconds faster for 15 laps and if u take out the 24s you spend in doing for the extra pitstop you can easily be 21 seconds ahead + working the hard tyres harder means that you can even be faster in mid stint so the gain could be as much as 25-28s

Hmm... heres a thought... there was no pitlane speed limit "back in the day".


Perhaps time to raise the limit quite a bit... like double it.

[kalinka]

Here's a simple fix to make F1 more interesting, without changing the current cars at all (ok, maybe a little bit of extra code in the standard ECU):-

VIRTUAL SLIPSTREAMING

It was the KERS, virtually,what was intended to do this

[kilcoo316]

Here's a simple fix to make F1 more interesting, without changing the current cars at all (ok, maybe a little bit of extra code in the standard ECU):-

VIRTUAL SLIPSTREAMING

It was the KERS, virtually,what was intended to do this

Nah, cos the car ahead could counter with kers of its own.


Machin's idea does have promise... infact, I think it has a lot of promise.

[Sebp]

I like the idea too. Virtual slipstream it is!!
Let's start a petition. Does anyone have Jean Todt's e-mail adress?

[Ogami musashi]

The diffuser/wing coupling greatly increases downforce, so to say downforce is irrelevant is somewhat erroneous.

Sorry, I think it is a logical fallacy there.

The increase in downforce is the result of the coupling, and the wake structure is also a result of the coupling, thus two results of the same thing can't be the cause of each other.
(If B and C come from A on the first order, B and C are of the same order)

I said the coupling creates a preservation region for the wake. and THAT is what causes the problem, in addition to the diffuser wake angle.

Level of downforce have nothing to do with wake patterns. They may affect some patterns locally but even there, the geometry is the first major point.

You can have 3000 tons of downforce and a normale wake, and have a 1kg downforce and a terrible wake.
The wake pattern will make vary the local loss of downforce on the following car.

And that's why F1 is far harder than spec series.

[roost89]

Here's a simple fix to make F1 more interesting, without changing the current cars at all (ok, maybe a little bit of extra code in the standard ECU):-

VIRTUAL SLIPSTREAMING

It was the KERS, virtually,what was intended to do this

Nah, cos the car ahead could counter with kers of its own.


Machin's idea does have promise... infact, I think it has a lot of promise.

I think the idea is that the computer itself provides more power when it senses, somehow, that the car is directly behind the car being chased. This is used without the press of a button. So cannot be countered by applying more power, except through the use of engine-maps.

Coded so that only the trailing gains said power boost. Any tampering from either party can be found out.

[Jersey Tom]

Some, or most of the ideas I'm seeing kicked around here... don't make a shred of sense. You have to truly understand a problem before you can try to solve it.

Is F1 racing generally close and exciting now? No. Was it ever? Not sure. I've only followed it for the past 4-5 years or so.

For one... the spread in raw speed among the teams is staggering. From first to last was a 10 second split in qualifying times. That's outrageous. More than 9% off the pole time! The success of trying to get new teams is kinda questionable if it's going to take years to even have a shot at winning. The spread from first through midfield is a good bit better (1.3%). Incidentally the spread from 1st to midfield at the last NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Atlanta was also 1.3%.

Once the grid order is set though.. and definitely after the first lap.. you have a pretty good idea who's gonna win the race. Might as well turn the race off then. The race results are being decided more by mechanical failure than by actual racing. Might as well call the race after 5 laps and save everyone the time and money. Say what you want about NASCAR, but the racing is interesting and worth following because it's anyone's race. The cars that finished 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5, started 11 - 14 - 3 - 6 - 23.

You can point the finger at aerodynamics preventing overtaking.. but that's not nearly the full story. Likewise with Sprint Cup.. as poorly as the cars drive in general, they are much worse when they lose whatever amount of front downforce they have, when they're in traffic. Despite this, there's a lot of passing.

Personally I think the tires need a lot of work. Bridgestone may have developed a tire over the years that could be on par with Michelin, but that doesn't mean it's any good for single-make racing. I believe one of the drivers even made the comment that if you make one mistake, you're hosed on grip for at least the next lap.

Perhaps tires that can withstand a lot of abuse and have a broad performance window are what's needed. The pursuing driver should have the confidence to really get after the guy in front of him, even locking tires, without having to worry about completely ruining his tire set for the next lap.

[WhiteBlue]

Level of downforce have nothing to do with wake patterns. They may affect some patterns locally but even there, the geometry is the first major point.

You can have 3000 tons of downforce and a normale wake, and have a 1kg downforce and a terrible wake.
The wake pattern will make vary the local loss of downforce on the following car.

I have read this kind of academic opinion by you several times. Unfortunately we have yet to see a high downforce design that facilitates overtaking in F1. My view is that it probably isn't existing. This is based on the experience of watching the game for 20 years and applying some common sense.

You remember the proposal to limit downforce to 1,25 tons? The teams have claimed they know clever solutions which would deliver overtaking without downforce limit. It was the biggest failure of applied aerodynamics in the history of the sport. It took two years more to develop the rules and although slick tyres were introduced to increase mechanical grip the ability to overtake has deteriorated while downforce has gone up all the time. Stop fooling yourself all the time and accept that only a physical limit of downforce will solve this problem. If the teams cannot increase downforce they will focus all aero research on reducing drag and that will see the dirt air behind the cars cleaned up.

I believe you know how much downforce the team have this year. I bet it is about twice what they were supposed to have. I invite you to prove me wrong. All this talk of diffusor angle and coupling of diffusor and wing wake is just theory without addressing the core problem.

[Pup]

It was the biggest failure of applied aerodynamics in the history of the sport.

What I think, is that if you could be just a wee bit more melodramatic, people will take you even more seriously than they do now.

[DaveKillens]

There's been a lot of topics discussed, and with great thought and intelligence. I would like to discuss one factor not yet mentioned, but one that is very relevant.

Marbles ....

These days, after the first practice, the track becomes fast in just one line. Stray off that line into the marbles, and the tires aren't working as well as they should. One reason we see processions is that there is just one line. Any driver wishing to be adventurous has to drive onto the marbles if he wants to attempt a pass. And of course, get into the marbles, and you are the one being passed.

So there's a lot of factors that influence the driver's actions, be it marbles, or the need to conserve the engine and gearbox, to loss of downforce as a result of influence of the car in front. So the inevitable result is that the driver really has no option but to stay in line and hope and pray that the car in front has trouble.

And mankind is correct, this requirement for engines and gearboxes to survive for a few races sucks. We will never see a driver or team take risks, run the car as hard as possible, because if an engine or gearbox dies, the penalty is much too harsh.

[WhiteBlue]

It was the biggest failure of applied aerodynamics in the history of the sport.

What I think, is that if you could be just a wee bit more melodramatic, people will take you even more seriously than they do now.

Please prove me wrong! Do you have an idea what the OWG trials have cost at that time with 60% scale models of two cars in a rolling road wind tunnel? All that work went straight out of the window when the fools went to write the rules for the damned diffusors.

It is basically the same problem we have had for the last few years, with cars not being able to get close to the one in front to create more overtaking. The teams know this but they won’t do anything about it because each team look after their own interests, trying to win.

I had a meeting with the teams and tried to explain to them what our business is about — racing and entertaining the public, not about playing with computers and going fast over one lap.

You cannot really have teams having a part in the sporting or technical regulations. Really, we need an outside set of engineers to draw up the regulations and then they would give the teams two years’ notice.

For once Ecclestone is right on this. The FiA should write the rules aided by capable consultants with experience in the sport. There are enough of those rolling around. The problem is the demonization of the FiA presidency by interested parties. In the political world it is easier to destroy leading figures by blaming them for all bad things than doing something right yourself, but that is what the FiA basher do all the time and the horse whisperer is the worst of them.

[MattyT]

[quote="DaveKillens"]
Marbles ....

These days, after the first practice, the track becomes fast in just one line. Stray off that line into the marbles, and the tires aren't working as well as they should. One reason we see processions is that there is just one line. Any driver wishing to be adventurous has to drive onto the marbles if he wants to attempt a pass. And of course, get into the marbles, and you are the one being passed.
quote]

+1

Drivers hate hard tyres, but if there was less mechanical grip it gives more opportunity to drive offline, as well as more chance of little mistakes for the driver behind to catch up.

I don't think the aero is the problem... it's the mechanical grip (or too much of).

[WhiteBlue]

I don't think the aero is the problem... it's the mechanical grip (or too much of).