Bahrain GP 2010 - BIC

[WhiteBlue]

I get your point, and I am not trying to haggle you, but check this out:


Here is a good picture of the situation. Virtually similar times as you say, but most of the time Rosberg has a faster lap. You can go as far as to say he has a better race pace. Shumacher may have squeezed out a lap a couple hundredths quicker, but a couple hundredths could be the difference between a twitch of the steering wheel or a bump in the track.

Shumachers average race lap time is also slower by +0.081s

However I do agree Shumacher will beat Rosberg within a month. He is still the best driver in terms of technique.

Considering that he was stuck behind Rosberg Schumacher had no means to employ his potentially greater race pace. But the issue is speculative and I think enough has been posted about it to allow all to come to their own conclusions.

[Shaddock]

I don't get why you guys want to reduce the front wing size. You want to go from cars that understeer some of the time to cars that understeer all of the time? If you reduce df on the front wing, you have to proportionally reduce it from the rear wing as well - you'll recall that these things are cantilevered off the bodies. In other words: if you want less df, just say so.

The answer - the only answer outside of eliminating the wings completely - is to get the wings closer to the center of the car - this both reduces their susceptibility to wakes, and also reduces the overall wake the car produces.

Overall DF levels aren't the issue, it's where the downforce is produced that’s the issue.

F1 cars are balanced in 'normal' conditions (clean air), but when they run behind a car and they then loose 25%-30% of the DF from the front wing.

This induces massive under steer in the corners, as the nose scrubs wide and the driver looses time. The car drops back from the car in front and puts them several car lengths behind going into the straight which leads to No overtaking.

Changing the size of the wings like 2 years ago, when these oversize wings were introduced makes no difference, the F1 cars loose still loose front end grip as the cars balance is affected by running in dirty air.

The only answer I can see is removing the front end aero from the car. If it’s not there in the first place it can’t be lost when following another car. Team would have to reduce DF levels at the rear to restore balance, so overall DF levels would come down. Making wings smaller/bigger isn’t working, the cars highly developed aero is on a knife edge, and they are too sensitive to the wakes of the cars in front.

I’m not advocating removing the front wing, just extend the flat section under the nose, and make it the entire width of the wing and remove the main plain and cascades. It will still look like an F1 car we know.

The cars will be ‘understeery’ but they will be able to follow each other through corners and braking distances zone would be larger for increased overtaking.

It may be possible to introduce venturi tunnels either side of the plank right up to the front wheels (extended floor section) to bring downforce levels back to what we have now.

[djos]

I'd like to see a return to simple 2 element front wings (180cm wide) and shallower 2 element rear wings (same heights as currently) with the rear wing back to 100cm wide (like 80's and 90's) and have maximum angles of attack allowed and no blown wings.

Then put twin ground-effect under-body tunnels back on the cars to generate most of the down force as these are not generally sensitive to being behind another car (proof: champ car & Indy car - following has never been a big issue).

I would keep the current tire sizes as they look good but I would also widen the cars track back to 200cm to improve mechanical grip.

I would also un-shackle the engines but provide a couple of restrictions, 1 engine per entire weekend and if you change it you go to back back of grid. Each engine manufacturer is only allowed to introduce 4 physical evolutions per year and is restricted to spending 10 million per year on development (engine dept must be setup as a separate company and audited). Current 5 million dollar per year engine cost must be maintained for customer teams and same spec engine must be provided to all customers inc factory team.

For 2013 I would change to 1.8ltr twin turbo v6's with a maximum tank size (smallish tank) for the cars, run 100% biofuel (non-crop sourced, must be made from waste material and a petrol equiv eg ethanol @ 100RON) and give drivers control over the total engine power.


imo, this would give us the excitement of the turbo era in a sensible controlled manner with great racing!

[autogyro]

1.8 twin turbo unlimited?
You are talking 1500 bhp!

[djos]

1.8 twin turbo unlimited?
You are talking 1500 bhp!

we would never see hand-grenade engines back as a/they would have to last for the whole weekend and b/they would have to go a whole GP on a smallish fuel tank.

I am sure we'd see big HP overall tho but I doubt it would be in the 1000bhp range.

EDIT: the turbo era was by far the best F1 era imo.

[volarchico]

Yes. In the late 80's there were typically 40 passes per race, also 54% of the drivers failed to finish.

Also, we used to have teams who failed to even qualify. In 1989, 23% of teams failed to get to the grid. So that's a total of 67% of entrants failing to get to the finish.

Nowadays, we see 12 moves per race and only 20% attrition.

See this other thread for details. Also better to have this discussion over there too ... viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7493

Thanks for the info! Good read.

[WhiteBlue]

Here is the only sensible solution which was first proposed Dec 21st 2005 for the 2008 technical regulations by the FiA!!

http://www.jomenvisst.de/fia/2008Techni ... 08_fnl.pdf

ARTICLE 3 : BODYWORK AND DIMENSIONS
Notwithstanding the requirements of the text contained within Article 3 below, no car may generate
downforce in excess of 12500N at any time.
One of the purposes of these rules is to ensure that bodywork creates a wake when the car is moving
which assists the following car. Any arrangement the purpose or effect of which is to reduce or defeat this
will not be permitted.

No team has ever tried to build a car to those regulations and I'm prepared to bet that the problem would have been solved for two years already if they ever had accepted it.

[Pup]

Give it up, WB - that rule can't be enforced today any better than it could five years ago.

[Raptor22]

fans generate downforce at the centre of pressure.

I do agree with extending the floor forwards to push that CoP forward in conjunction with fans.

smaller front wing, yes agreed


another way to go is to ban underbody splitters

Agreed, but the CoP will be rearward of the driver, fans will just increase overall DF from the floor. Reducing the front wing might not help, as it will still be sensitive to the wash from the car in front. The FIA have tried small front wings, the last two seasons we have had oversize front wings, making them DF neutral is the way to go. If it doesn't produce DF then it can't be sensitive to the car in front.

whether the CoP is rearward of the driver or located in his vacinity is design issue for the engineers tunng the vehicle. As long as the underbody falls within prescribed dimensions i don't see an issue.
The rear wing should be incidence limited anyways to keep the DF down.

everywhere else I think we are on the same tack.
extending the floor forward will help position the CoP as well and certainly an incidence limited (not DF neutral) front wing would have benefit too.

Only advantage I can see to a DF neutral front wing would be to re position the air flow from the leading to be advantageous to the underbody of the following car. Could work....

What I like about fans is that it effectively fills in the wake behind the car while still providing Df to its own car. Sure that wake is a turbulent whirl but at lest there is density and pressure in that air. The engineers could then route all cooling outlets via the duct to improve air flow velocity through it.

ok heading off point and into detail design.... sorry.


Someone mentioned harder tyres to create a "wet" race scenario. That was the intention of the grooved tyres and it did not work because the cars were still sensitive to being in the wake of the leading car.
Its the sensitiveity to wake that need to be reduced.

you can achieve that through having a smaller wake. (fan car)
or a lower wake (incidence limited wing)

I also advocate manual sequential shift gearboxes because a driver making an error is part of the show and provides opportunities to overtake, which leads to the drama.

as for engines I'd also like to see 1.2L Turbo, 4 cyclinder petrol units with direct injection allowed and or a 2.0L turbo diesel with direct injection option. I just too a stab at an equivalence ratio, will have to work out what it actually should be.

[myurr]

Surely slashing downforce is difficult to regulate and manage with todays teams skills and budgets - it's been tried many times and the teams always claw back most of the disadvantage.

The FIA is 100% in control of the tyres, effectively, and can mandate a harder compound that lasts around 1/3rd to 1/2 the race distance. Reduce mechanical grip and it would be more like racing in the wet, it would also allow for sticky wet weather tyres that still benefit from the aero of the current cars.

Seriously why is everyone so focused on downforce? Aren't wet races exciting at the moment, and yet the cars still have the same levels of downforce its just they have LESS mechanical grip.

Grooved tyres didn't go nearly far enough, and the change from grooved to non-grooved tyres - representing a large increase in overall grip - hasn't improved the racing at all. Why is more of the same thing going to have a different outcome?

[WhiteBlue]

Give it up, WB - that rule can't be enforced today any better than it could five years ago.

Enforcing that rule is child's play. A first year engineering student can tell you how. All you need is a sensor to each wheel and a bit of programming to the ECU.

You monitor the downforce and you have a public penalty table for transgressions. Race control or live timing can even tell the viewers automatically with the timing which penalty is applicable to each car at any time during the race should the team mess up. You can have adjustable wings as FiA proposed to fine tune downforce in order to stay away from the limit.

It isn't an issue of not being able, it's an issue of not wanting, as Bernie already pointed out. The whole thing is by far simpler than the wing stalling trick McLaren have come up with this year.


But lets discuss this in the other thread. I just want to point out that a technical solution can be found if the political will is there to do the right thing.

[Richard]

Have you all momentarily taken leave of your senses - do you really need a reminder that this is the Bahrain thread???

There is another thread for future tech regs...

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5669

[raceman]

Have you all momentarily taken leave of your senses - do you really need a reminder that this is the Bahrain thread???

There is another thread for future tech regs...

+1

thnx! someone has to point it 'n you did it bang right

[WhiteBlue]

I agree, we should switch this issue to the other thread.

[avatar]

my favourite bit from last weekend; a fleeting glimpse of that Merc SLS Gulwing safety car.

The car's not to everyone's taste I know... ..but I definitely would.