well, it isnt a real danger, unless you have to come out real unlucky, being hit with debris for example, but that is rather rare. There is from going airborne itself completely no danger, unless you go like Greg Moore, but that will never happen as f1 cars never reach those speeds and do not have such sections.
Giblet wrote:Wings or no wings, wheel to wheel contact is what makes a car airborne. This is one of the design mandates for the IRL tender, fairings or fences to stop wheel to wheel contact, tread on tread.
So something like this, of course looking less like it's made of Lego than I can manage.
There are significant safety concerns about having wings mounted to the suspension.
I'm not an aerodynamicist, but what I'd consider is
Front wing - "neutral zone" in the middle third, no more than two downforce generating elements in the outer thirds including the movable flap. All elements must have a constant cross-section in the outer thirds. Movable flaps still allowed, but can only be changed when on the start/finish straight.
Rear wing - Two elements with constant cross-section within a fixed box, with the exception of certain designated races (Monza and Spa) where only one element is allowed. Only three wings may be homologated per year, one for the first race, one seven days before Monaco, one seven days before Monza.
Undertray/diffuser - A standard template, with venturi tunnels producing some downforce, but not crazy amounts.
Other bodywork - With the exception of the front wing, rear wing and undertray, no other downforce generating devices. No shark fins. Inboard mirrors mandatory (mirrors must be within fixed angles of the driver's head position).
Intended result - Reduction in current levels of downforce with a smaller wake. Lap times to only be slightly reduced, bearing in mind an increase in mechanical grip.
Mechanical grip : 1900mm overall width, fifteen inch rear rims, wider rear wheels.
Was safety the concern in original limitation of downforce generating aero?
I probably have an completely twisted view of regulation, but it often seems the unintended consequences of regulation cause more harm than good.
1. Two element front and rear wings with a side view chord and height similar to LMP regs - this should outlaw these irritating additional wing sections sprouting from the top of end plates back across the wing
2. Floor should be a continuous surface - I'd force the teams to submit a CAD model and define a geometric test in a regulated CAD package to confirm legality
3. The floor in point two should be completely free over the length of the car, but the maximum difference between the highest and lowest point should be small - 50mm or something of that order to keep the downforce lower (sort of like Group C but much more draconian - can you tell I'm a sportscar nut )
4. Tighten the regs to prevent as many barge-board style appendages
5. Maximum distance between mirror and car centreline to prevent mirrors being used as aero appendages on the outer edge of the sidepods
6. Allow flexible aero and anything like the F-duct in, because it's cool and engineering innovation was high when F1 was at its best.
Ciro Pabón wrote:
Freedom of regulations = Championship for the richest
Incorrect.
Budgets are not related to regs. If a team can spend $300million they will regardless of what you do to the regs.
Freedom of the regs allows innovation that can often bring performance without a lot of expense.
What is expensive is trying to find 1/10 second within a regs framework that's immensely restrictive. I would argue that narrowing the regs to make F1 a quasi-spec series has hardly made the Ferrari's and McLaren's of this world less successful has it?
Ciro Pabón wrote:There are no open wheel series without wings that I know. Of course, if you like stock cars... suit yourself. I find bizarre the concept of emasculating wings or requiring zero downforce cars. It would be like a Tour de France on tricycles.
It seems to me many people wants a series we could call "NASCAR/Europe", instead of "Formula 1".
Freedom of regulations = Championship for the richest
Hear hear!
Formula Ford is wingless and I don't want to watch multi-million pound Formula Ford (which wingless F1 would be).
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.
Ciro Pabón wrote:Freedom of regulations = Championship for the richest
Ferrari - biggest budget, no title from 1979 to 1999.
Renault - approx. 1/3rd of Toyota, Mclaren, Ferrari budgets, 2005 & 2006 double titles.
Toyota - the highest budget for more than half decade, no title ever.
An FIA Mandated ground-effect floor,
A single element, short chord, non-adjustable (on-track) rear wing
Small Front winglets (single element) that automatically adjust to balance downforce with floor/rear wing (i.e. for when folowing a car).
Similar side pod rules to now (2010)...
I know its not aero.. but...it would have a small capacity Turbo-charged engine producing about 400BHP, with boosting from KERS/HERS of +300BHP (i.e. similar overall power to now). Power would be limited by limiting the total amount of fuel allowed for the race...
Looking something like this (possibly with the top of the screen missing so the driver's helmet pokes out the top):-
Theres many good ideas in this thread. But may repeting themselvs.
The one idea that is that downforce needs to be futher limited, but more engineering solutions need to be freed up.
The idea of the LMP1 style short chord rear wing is the one that i personally like, as it reduces drag and wake alot, making cars follow closer, needs CFD and wind tunnel testing however. If this were set up, id like to see the rear wing go back to the width it was in 2008, with a set of slightly larger rear wing end plates as well, as the commercial departments wouldnt like that idea of such a small area for advertising.
Id like to see a pretty much standardised, and heavily regulated centre section, as long as there was no appendages on the sidepod rears, as this way i think there is a way of reducing downforce more. Standardised centre section for front wing, rear wing, diffuser, mirrors and air box cross section (reduced by 20% from current). Also make exausts come within this sentre section as well to reduce turbulence in the extremities. Im thinking 600 or 700mm for this centre section. In this area the floor must be completly flat to arround 750mm forward of the line from the front of the air box.
Engine cooling should also be more standardised, making the sidepods a regulated size making the cars able to run closer, for longer behind another car meaning that cars engines dont overheat.
Id make it that front wings have to have no more than 3 elements, with multi element shaping, meaning that you can have one element at 12 degreese and the higher one at 9 degreese for example, making it that the car can be faster in a straight line. Also allow unlimited FFA adjustments, and have them linked to the multi map as well.
The consensus is to also increase mechanichal grip, bigger tyres would help lots, and the re-introduction of wide track would also help, but personally, id leave the track alone, but make tyres bigger would be a given. A single tyre company would be appointed, where they would have 3 spec dry tyre compounds, of whitch there would be 3 sets of each given to each driver for a race weekend, the set used at the start of each quali session needs to be used througout that session and carried into the race. Also ban tyre warmers as well.
Power steering would also be limited, but car weights brought back down to 605KG, meaning that smaller guys would be great for weight purposes, but bigger guys may have the stamina to last the longer races better. Of whitch id have five 500Km races a year, but also have five 250Km races a year, the rest would be 350Km races.
One other thing id do is limit engines to 800bhp, open development on the current engines for a year, id also bring in turbo boosts as well, limit them to a useabe of one single 7 second burst per lap, but turbo boosts are limited to 10% of the race distance laps also allow the RPM limit to be raised to 19,000RPM for a maximum of 20% of the P1 lap time for the race. So if there is a 80 second lap, then 16 seconds of the lap can be used for the RPM boost, but if there is a 57 lap race, there can only be 6 turbo boosts. The laps boosts are used, RPM limits cannot be used and vice versa.
Id also limit fuel to a maximum of 130KG for the race with a single 20KG top up avalable in a fuel only pit stop from a NASCAR style fuel filler, if the driver needed it. Teams could use this in their strategy as well. Id also allow Diesel powered cars, but their fuel is limited to 95KG with a 12KG top up avalable. They would be limited to 720HP engines and 5 speed transmissions.
In thinking in my own little world here, but personally, i think that it could work. Meaning that cars have less wake, more mechanichal grip ideal for overtaking, but the green credencials. Creating performance differencials and more competition, not only between teams, engines, designers and drivers.
personally i think freedom is the key, it attracts alot more people then it would do now.
Limit the cars maximum downforce, maximum power and torque. By this, cars are pretty much similair on chances, though their technology can be completely different, for example one can drive with an huge diesel engine while the other does the same thing with an bi-turbo L4 engine for example, that would be much more interesting
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