Virgin MVR-02 Cosworth

[wesley123]

Sure they need to tunnel check the results, but i dont think there is a problem.

The 'problem' is the lack of experience by the guys, like i said Wirth Research barely has single seater experience and although they have been involved with the 2009 rule change they never built a car for competitive purposes. The only real experience they have is with doing Le Mans prototypes, and these where quite straight forward too and are only now beginning to showq some more complex shapes and such. That took them 4 years to do so, add to that that the competition in the LMP2 where they ran was much lower. Give them time and I am sure the results will show.

[marcush.]

symonds and Wirth are former Benetton collegues ...and wirths last employment in F1 before he quit motorsports entirely for some time.
So I guess Pat knows all about Wirths weak points but also his strengths.
Symonds is more a chief/leader of engineeringh not a designer or technical director...but he should be well placed to give a honest evaluation of the state of things..obviously theres something going wrong there and to me it´s the amount of recources available to do the job-even though booth is quick to deny this.

[donskar]

Sure they need to tunnel check the results, but i dont think there is a problem.

The 'problem' is the lack of experience by the guys, like i said Wirth Research barely has single seater experience and although they have been involved with the 2009 rule change they never built a car for competitive purposes. The only real experience they have is with doing Le Mans prototypes, and these where quite straight forward too and are only now beginning to showq some more complex shapes and such. That took them 4 years to do so, add to that that the competition in the LMP2 where they ran was much lower. Give them time and I am sure the results will show.

Actually, Wirth himself has significant F1 experience (though, granted, not the most recent). But if he can't identify and hire F1 talent, then the team is doomed. (or he is.)

[siwillems]

looks like things might not be going well for virgin http://www.f1sa.com/index.php?option=co ... Itemid=157

I have a feeling virgin are going to finish behind Hrt and Lotus this year as both teams out develop virgin.

[RAF]

Sure they need to tunnel check the results, but i dont think there is a problem.

The 'problem' is the lack of experience by the guys, like i said Wirth Research barely has single seater experience and although they have been involved with the 2009 rule change they never built a car for competitive purposes. The only real experience they have is with doing Le Mans prototypes, and these where quite straight forward too and are only now beginning to showq some more complex shapes and such. That took them 4 years to do so, add to that that the competition in the LMP2 where they ran was much lower. Give them time and I am sure the results will show.

Actually, Wirth himself has significant F1 experience (though, granted, not the most recent). But if he can't identify and hire F1 talent, then the team is doomed. (or he is.)

He doesn't have a great track record. Simtek were never great. Benneton went from 3rd to 6th in the constructors championship during his time there. His origional car for BMW became the Andrea Moda. His Simtek Team scored 0 points in F1 in two years.

[marcush.]

tbh Simteks second season with Verstappen was nothing short of spectacular considering the team had only 2 or 3 gearboxes and no money no spares..
Verstappen was fighting for points (those where the times when only top 6 gave you something countable!)on meritz in Aida and he usually qualified in front of the last third of the field.
The car was good as was the team ..they lacked finance.
The team seemed to always have terrible luck though.

Wirth came back into lmp racing and hís cars are top notch material there .To say this category is not as sophisticated as F1 is certainly true for the aero side but just due to the finance available.

[marcush.]

speaking of CFD only development..
does anyone know if CFD can already be used to measure transient behaviour?Race cars are hardly ever in quasi static conditions so maybe that´s where the CFD approach quickly reaches its limits?
In atunnel you can readily throw the model through a pitch yaw rideheight changing motion corresponding to what you see on track ...but is this not asking too much from a computer only sim?

[beelsebob]

speaking of CFD only development..
does anyone know if CFD can already be used to measure transient behaviour?Race cars are hardly ever in quasi static conditions so maybe that´s where the CFD approach quickly reaches its limits?
In atunnel you can readily throw the model through a pitch yaw rideheight changing motion corresponding to what you see on track ...but is this not asking too much from a computer only sim?

On the contrary – this is where computer only sim comes into its own – it becomes extremely difficult to simulate complex air flows (e.g. from a car in front, or simply from a complex corner combined with wind) using a wind tunnel. CFD lets you set all the "air" moving in any direction you like at any velocity you like.

[marcush.]

speaking of CFD only development..
does anyone know if CFD can already be used to measure transient behaviour?Race cars are hardly ever in quasi static conditions so maybe that´s where the CFD approach quickly reaches its limits?
In atunnel you can readily throw the model through a pitch yaw rideheight changing motion corresponding to what you see on track ...but is this not asking too much from a computer only sim?

On the contrary – this is where computer only sim comes into its own – it becomes extremely difficult to simulate complex air flows (e.g. from a car in front, or simply from a complex corner combined with wind) using a wind tunnel. CFD lets you set all the "air" moving in any direction you like at any velocity you like.

but dynamic conditions? so the car goes into roll after steering input (turning the front wheels) and then into a certain slip angle ...and as the corner ends all parameters go back into normal...

[beelsebob]

speaking of CFD only development..
does anyone know if CFD can already be used to measure transient behaviour?Race cars are hardly ever in quasi static conditions so maybe that´s where the CFD approach quickly reaches its limits?
In atunnel you can readily throw the model through a pitch yaw rideheight changing motion corresponding to what you see on track ...but is this not asking too much from a computer only sim?

On the contrary – this is where computer only sim comes into its own – it becomes extremely difficult to simulate complex air flows (e.g. from a car in front, or simply from a complex corner combined with wind) using a wind tunnel. CFD lets you set all the "air" moving in any direction you like at any velocity you like.

but dynamic conditions? so the car goes into roll after steering input (turning the front wheels) and then into a certain slip angle ...and as the corner ends all parameters go back into normal...

In what wind tunnel do you think you can simulate bumps on the track, air flow being able to get under the car momentarily, the wind gusting momentarily from completely side on, etc. Wind tunnels are *great* for simulating a constant flow over the car, but they're terrible if you want to move the wheels significant amount, move the car, move the direction of the wind, provide complex airflows, get other objects in the way of the air flow etc.

In short – static conditions – wind tunnel wins hands down.
dynamic conditions – this is where CFD matters.

[bot6]

The more powerful integrated codes now allow for coupling between fluid calculations and structures, both in static and transient mode.

For the fluid simulation, it is actually the wind tunnel that is limited to static. Only CFD can simulate transient flow. The accuracy of the model only depends on the power of the hardware available and the time you have for the calculation.

[TzeiTzei]

So far Virgin have been one of the biggest disappointments this season. They were supposed to be challenging for Q2, not being 3 secs off the midfield's pace. Clearly Wirth has concentrated a lot on reliability, and thought that an upgraded vr-01 would do the job. And it hasn't.

I think these three "new" teams can be quite easily divided into three different categories. We have Lotus, which seems to be only one to really be taken seriously at the moment. They have the money, and they have right people to do the job. They gave up last year pretty early to develop the T128, and now we see the results. Yes, they are still a bit behind midfield, and have a lot of problems with tyre temperatures, but they are getting closer all the time.

This was the kind of progress I was expecting from Virgin aswell. Unfortunately that hasn't been the case, and I believe that the mvr-02 is just too slow to ever mix it with the established teams. No matter how much they develop it. The gap is just too big. On the other hand they are still very much learning, and so it would be important to develop this car as much as possible to see what actually works on the car, and how accurately their CFD translates into real world performance. We are only three races into the season, but I honestly believe that Wirth should very much start to think about next year's car aswell (as he probably is). And that one needs to be a clean sheet design.

[Giblet]

In such an aero related sport, huge gains can be made, and 3 seconds is withing aero upgrades to bring.

I don't think they will be able to do it though. An established team would rarely if ever screw up their aero to be 3 seconds off the pace.

At first I was keen on the idea of CFD only, even if they were not quick at first, it is very good way to drive that technology forward, but it needs to be a whole series.

A CFD only series. Then we'll see some real advancements in what works on screen to the car.

[godlameroso]

The only regulation change for next year is a longer kers boost

[Giblet]

Yeah but they don't have KERS now which is my point. They will have to get KERS working, when it is more powerful and will be required.

If you don't have KERS next year, I don't think you will get in the 107%. If you don't have KERS this year, you have from now until next year to learn it. This includes weight distribution, which is currently mandated. Now they have to figure out why they are going backwards compared to last year as well. So they have a system of design and engineering that isn't working for them, and now they have to figure out what is wrong with the system while designing a whole new kind of car.

Then it ALL changes again in 2013.

I wish them good luck, they are literally going to need it.