Technical Regulations for 2009-2015

[autogyro]

+1 Machin

F1 cannot afford to loose its sponsors and it will if it does not clean up its act.
The tyre support situation shows the start of this inevitable decline, which will continue unless major changes are made.

[Just_a_fan]

That is comparing apples with bananas. F1 is a show that is selling advertising. In order to produce the show world wide and attract advertising sponsors it must expend a transport energy budget which can be discussed in comparison with other forms of entertainment with similar global advertising function (Olympics, Soccer World Cup). I don't think that F1 will look any worse considering that hundreds of millions of people watch it on TV who do not spend significant energy to do so.

All your points cannot excuse the fact that F1 cars as a showpiece and pinnacle of engineering do not make an effort to save carbon emissions as pretty much every other means of transportation does. Aircraft are even more high tech and they continue to provide better and safer service at lower fuel consumption with every generation.

That is comparing apples and bananas. F1 is not comparable to global flying. One is very much a necessity the other is entertainment.

Global warming is every bodies problem and if you are in the spot light and give a rats ass it looks bad. F1 should make the effort at fuel saving that the FiA has set out to achieve in 2008. At that time a target was set to reduce F1 car's fuel consumption by 50% in eight years. Two years are gone and nothing has changed. It is now time to do something.

Global warming will happen irrespective of what F1 does. However, if you must be 'green' set a proper challenge. Say, each car must compete in the race with no more than 50 litres of fuel. That's 50 litres for 300km. Everything else is free. Go ahead and engineer. But don't try to pretend that 20-odd F1 car doing 27mpg instead of 4mpg for 19 weekends is 'green'.

Personally, if I'm going to be made to pay silly taxes to run my car at home, I want to have the thrill of 'full fat' performance cars on the TV during the summer. I do not pretend that F1 has any link to the reality of my life. Anyone who does is dillusional.

Hey, let's go the next step. The world is wracked with hunger and deprivation. Poorly paid people vastly outnumber the well paid. 100's of millions live on little more than starvation rations. In order to bring this into the focus of the world, let's make F1 have a salary cap. Say, £20k pa. And hospitality should be no more than 2 sandwiches per person.

Silly eh? Well it's no sillier than trying to say that F1 can be 'green' in any meaningful sense of the concept.

[Just_a_fan]

+1 Machin

F1 cannot afford to loose its sponsors and it will if it does not clean up its act.
The tyre support situation shows the start of this inevitable decline, which will continue unless major changes are made.

People hereabouts have been suggesting lots of ways to reduce costs etc. in F1. Here's one. How about banning advertising on the cars? Bang! You've just cut the budgets quite consideably.

Seriously, do you really think that Vodafone or Santander give a flying fig whether the cars do 4mpg or 8mpg? Of course not! F1 is about glamour and excess not frugality. They are in F1 because of the reflected glory of the fastest racing cars in the world being driven by some of the best drivers in the world appeals to the minds of 'the great unwashed' i.e. you and me. They know that we watch and thus they pay to advertise. Will you stop watching because the cars only do 4mpg instead of 8mpg?

[WhiteBlue]

F1 is not comparable to global flying. One is very much a necessity the other is entertainment.

I havn't compared it to global flying. I have compared the transport budget of F1 to that of the soccer world cup or the olympics. Those would be comparable events in terms of global sporting shows televised for advertising. Those events require a lot more air lift and ground transport with the respective carbon footprint.

You cannot understand why fuel consumption in F1 cars matter enough to make an effort to reduce it while maintaining the show. Fine there will always be folks who disagree with any proposal even those sensible as hell. Keep your opinion. I will not try to convince someone who doesn't listen.

[Just_a_fan]

F1 is not comparable to global flying. One is very much a necessity the other is entertainment.

I havn't compared it to global flying.

You mentioned improving aircraft designs over the generations. I assumed you meant all aircraft and not just the few used by F1. Sorry if that wasn't the case.

I have compared the transport budget of F1 to that of the soccer world cup or the olympics. Those would be comparable events in terms of global sporting shows televised for advertising. Those events require a lot more air lift and ground transport with the respective carbon footprint.

You cannot understand why fuel consumption in F1 cars matter enough to make an effort to reduce it while maintaining the show.

Wrong. I can understand that reducing fuel consumption can be used to change the show e.g. by giving designers scope to be clever. I don't understand why it needs to be done in a way that pretends that F1 is green.

In view of your soccer world cup reference, reducing F1 fuel useage is a bit like reducing football matches to 45 minutes to save on the energy costs of the stadium lights. The rest of the circus uses so much more energy than the actual sport bit of the event does that trying to sell it as 'green' is frankly laughable.

Fine there will always be folks who disagree with any proposal even those sensible as hell. Keep your opinion. I will not try to convince someone who doesn't listen.

I'm not against reduced fuel useage as part of the engineering challenge. What I'm against is trying to make out the F1 is somehow green because of it.

And as for not listening, it's no different to your continued call for limited downforce even when others have suggested the course is flawed

[WhiteBlue]

And as for not listening, it's no different to your continued call for limited downforce even when others have suggested the course is flawed

My analysis of the situation is echoed by Paddy Lowe in an interview today on Autosport:

Q. Have the rear-wing changes introduced for 2009 really worked in terms of increasing overtaking?

PL: I think things are getting worse in terms how the overtaking working group, which set out the rules for 2009, intended. Principally this is because the cars are generating much more downforce out of the floors than was ever envisaged. A lot is driven by the opportunity we get from the double diffusers. One of the intentions of the OWG package was that the downforce generated by the floor would be much lower, and this would help overtaking. Firstly, if you have less downforce to begin with, then you lose less in the wake.

Secondly, generating downforce the floor creates a very bad wake for the following car. Downforce now is approaching where it was in 2008 in terms of levels, and at the same time we have slick tyres now against grooved tyres, so it has escalated. What we've agreed for 2011 is to ban double diffusers and reduce the height of the diffuser exit, which will reduce the amount of floor-generated downforce, which will be better for following cars. We are looking at whether even that is sufficient. I think what we've agreed is that we're going in the right direction with OWG.

Here we have a very competent man who was actually a leading force in the OWG saying exactly what I have said.

1. We have too much downforce and even the proposed measures of banning DDDs and cutting the diffusor to 125 mm may not be enough in terms of counter measures.

2. Against the assertions of our forum aero experts the real experts see the diffusor wake as "very bad"

Lowe does not talk about physically limiting downforce for the obvious reasons. McLaren are a highly experienced team with great resources and they are good at playing the game of changing aero configs. If competitive advantages would mainly be derived from the suspension and the efficiency of the power train they would have to fear for their supremacy.

[Just_a_fan]

@WB
Interesting. I'll have a look at that interview when I get the chance.

As for floor downforce being all bad for overtaking, history shows otherwise but that was a different type of floor design to what we have now.

As for McLaren being good at changing aero games, last year rather puts that suggestion into perspective. They messed up big time!

McLaren have actually done quite well with suspension designs historically. They were certainly much better at riding the kerbs a few years ago than anyone else.

[autogyro]

+1 Machin
Seriously, do you really think that Vodafone or Santander give a flying fig whether the cars do 4mpg or 8mpg? Of course not! F1 is about glamour and excess not frugality. They are in F1 because of the reflected glory of the fastest racing cars in the world being driven by some of the best drivers in the world appeals to the minds of 'the great unwashed' i.e. you and me. They know that we watch and thus they pay to advertise. Will you stop watching because the cars only do 4mpg instead of 8mpg?

Sorry just a fan but if you want to bath in the reflected glory of the fastest F1 cars in the world you will have to retrace your steps away from the backward step of the high DF current cars and go back in time, probably to the turbo era when the sport was worth watching.
This was before it was high jacked by aero nurds with vested interest.
The 'men' who used to be involved got to bored to bother ol son.

[Richard]

@ Just_a_fan

You've made many comments about "not green" to a lot of posts, giving me a horrid feeling of deja-vu!

The point is that F1 is a progressive motorsport, so it is constantly seeking new challenges for tomorrow to fill in the space when the challenges of today have reached their conclusion. It needs to tap into the prevailing zeitgeist to find ideas that capture the imagination.

For various reasons, industrialised societies are caught up in a desperate need to be more frugal with resources. Added to that, F1 has its own particular need to deal with a collapse of funding. Hence the reason why most F1 initiatives focus on being frugal.

SO, the emphasis on frugal is the engineering challenge for F1 for the next few years. It may be arbitrary and irrational, but aren't all sports arbitrary and irrational?

I don't really care if it is called being green, or a belief in peak oil theory, or a response to the banking collapse. However, if you are in a cash burning sport then its best to go where the money is. So I do care that some of the initiatives bring in funding through spin off R&D (Williams flybrid & Bridgstone tyres), and possibly sponsorship (although that is often tenuous). At the moment, there's money to be found in energy recovery and efficiency, so that's where F1 evolve until the next big thing comes along.

[Just_a_fan]

+1 Machin
Seriously, do you really think that Vodafone or Santander give a flying fig whether the cars do 4mpg or 8mpg? Of course not! F1 is about glamour and excess not frugality. They are in F1 because of the reflected glory of the fastest racing cars in the world being driven by some of the best drivers in the world appeals to the minds of 'the great unwashed' i.e. you and me. They know that we watch and thus they pay to advertise. Will you stop watching because the cars only do 4mpg instead of 8mpg?

Sorry just a fan but if you want to bath in the reflected glory of the fastest F1 cars in the world you will have to retrace your steps away from the backward step of the high DF current cars and go back in time, probably to the turbo era when the sport was worth watching.
This was before it was high jacked by aero nurds with vested interest.
The 'men' who used to be involved got to bored to bother ol son.

Nostalgia isn't what it once was.

I love it when people use the term 'nerd' to decry someone else. Just crys "I don't understand you so I'll insult you".

As it happens, I find the current version of F1 quite watchable thanks.

Ol son.

[autogyro]

Make the most of it, the time is limited.

[Just_a_fan]

@ richard_leeds

I'm all for the challenge of F1 going fast with less fuel. I don't like the idea of trying to 'greenwash' (I believe that is the current terminology) the sport. The green agenda is a political one and I have sat and watched 'my' Government use that agenda to beat the populace around the head for several years now. It is used as an excuse to do the wrong thing by hiding it in a 'good vibe'.

If F1 insists on trying to demonstrate 'green credentials' all it will do is highlight to the world how totally unsustainable motorsport really is. And that path leads to governments distancing themselves from it and, ultimately, legislating against it. Now, I can live without F1 in my life but there is a huge number of people out there who form the grass roots of motorsport who would be wiped out by this.

I'm all for F1 using its position to demonstrate technology - indeed I wish the rules would allow more to be done. But let's not try to kid anyone that motorsport is in anyway 'green' or is, in any meaningful way, capable of being 'green'.

[Scotracer]

What we need is for the OWG to get back in the wind tunnel and try out some different programmes (i.e. more underfloor aero; less total aero; removal of wings etc etc). Enough bloody speculation.

And this is the basic misconception. If downforce is limited there is no need to make any restrictions to aero configurations. Teams will automatically find the one which is best for the performance. The rules do noit have to be changed in the future to adjust to performance increases. The development will automatically reduce drag and turbulence for any config that is more efficient.

And this is a basic misunderstanding. I am not supporting a downforce limit, I find the idea ridiculous.

[Just_a_fan]

@ White Blue

Thinking further on Paddy Lowe's comments, part of the problem with the current cars is their use of big front wings. These need good airflow to work properly. The diffuser doesn't give them that air so they don't work well. That is the fault of the wing, not the diffuser.

Why do we have big front wings? To balance the big rear wing. And why do we have big wings at all? Because of the advertising space they provide. Underfloor downforce does not bring advertising dollars.

I know someone who used to attend the technical working group meetings for a team. He tells me that the reason the rules include a minimum dimension for the triangle behind the airbox inlet (the bit that has morphed in to the anvil) is because the trend at the time was for reducing dimensions in this area and the teams were worried they'd lose advertising space. Yes, that simple.

There are people in here decrying the aero rules but lots of those rules are there to keep the incomes high. Think about that when you consider the views of a big team's technical director.

[WhiteBlue]

What we need is for the OWG to get back in the wind tunnel and try out some different programmes (i.e. more underfloor aero; less total aero; removal of wings etc etc). Enough bloody speculation.

And this is the basic misconception. If downforce is limited there is no need to make any restrictions to aero configurations. Teams will automatically find the one which is best for the performance. The rules do noit have to be changed in the future to adjust to performance increases. The development will automatically reduce drag and turbulence for any config that is more efficient.

And this is a basic misunderstanding. I am not supporting a downforce limit, I find the idea ridiculous.

You are not telling anything new. The last thing we need is another round of OWG delays. Last time they have only been used as an excuse to shoot down the downforce limit. Even P. Lowe from the OWG says that DDDs were the wrong thing to do and that too much downforce is the problem. He doesn't think that diffusor downforce is any more beneficial on wake turbulences than wing downforce. We now have as much downforce as in 2008. So should we give the tricky Dickies of F1 yet another opportunity to define aero rules which supposedly cut downforce but in reality will never do this? The aero guys have played everyone for sucker much too long!