New 2013 F1 aerodynamic formula

[agip]

Formula 1 teams backtrack on car revolution for 2013

Formula 1 teams have revised plans to make radical changes to cars for the 2013 season but still aim to make them more efficient.

A move to bring back 'ground-effect' aerodynamics has been abandoned - but cars will still have reduced drag to ensure a cut in fuel consumption.

Cars will use 35% less fuel and be more challenging to drive but will be no more than five seconds slower per lap.

This will be achieved by reducing the size of the wings and other changes.

The changes still need to be approved at a meeting of F1's technical working group on Wednesday but, although there are a few fine details to be agreed, that is expected to be a rubber-stamping exercise.

The rules are to be introduced in tandem with new engine regulations, which will see the introduction of 1.6-litre four-cylinder turbos with hybrid energy recovery technology, rather than today's 2.4-litre normally aspirated V8s.

Initially, as exclusively revealed by BBC Sport in December, the idea had been to reintroduce shaped underfloors as a more efficient way of reducing drag while retaining high levels of aerodynamic downforce.

But the teams, through their umbrella organisation Fota, felt this would require a lot of work and expense and that the aims of governing body the FIA could be achieved in a way that, as one insider put it, required "less pain".

Instead, a number of detailed aerodynamic restrictions will be introduced to reduce drag, but the current design of the underside of the car, with a stepped but flat floor, would be retained.

These changes, it is felt, will achieve the same targets as those set by the FIA, but the cars will not be as aerodynamically efficient as had initially been hoped.

The cars' drag co-efficient will reduce from existing levels of 0.9Cd to about 0.7Cd, while the FIA's initial hope had been to cut it to 0.5Cd.

The changes will include:

* a front wing of reduced width

* a much shallower rear wing, similar to those used at the high-speed Monza track

* significantly lower noses on the cars

* the retention of the moveable rear wing - or drag-reduction system (DRS) - that was introduced this season to make overtaking a little easier

* a restriction on all the extra pieces of bodywork that have sprouted in front of the sidepods of the cars

* a restriction on the design of front wing endplates, to limit the intricate designs seen today.

The initial 'ground effect' rules were arrived at after veteran F1 engineers Patrick Head of Williams and Rory Byrne, formerly of Ferrari, were asked by the FIA to come up with a set of rules that could make the cars more efficient and more challenging to drive yet no more than five seconds slower per lap.

These rules were submitted for analysis to F1's technical working group, a panel of leading engineers from the teams.

This led to the teams deciding to come up with an alternative proposal, which Byrne produced for their umbrella group Fota.

After a meeting on Sunday at the Turkish Grand Prix, this is the one that will be adopted on Wednesday.

Williams technical director Sam Michael said the teams had been reluctant to go down the route of a shaped floor because it involved a lot of work and expense and there were uncertainties over the outcome.

"The only point of contention between Fota and the FIA has been on the tunnelled floor, having a shaped undertray," Michael said.

"Everything else is pretty much the FIA proposal, or pretty close to it with just some tweaks.

"The biggest concern was that it's a massive amount of investment for the teams. It's quite a big departure.

"If you were going to go down that route and have a very different set of drag and lift coefficients that you couldn't achieve with the current rules, fine, that's different.

"But the teams saw it as a massive amount of investment and work for something we don't really understand.

"We're not scared of that but if you do spend all that money, why do that and not something you can get to very quickly and cheaply with the current floor. The FIA understood that in the end.

"There's the budget effect of doing the tunnelled floor, a shaped undertray, but there's also the fact that it's unknown.

"So you could predict the downforce you'll get from it, but you could easily achieve double. Whereas if we stay with the current floor you can be controlled where the downforce and drag are going to be."

The inclusion of the DRS in the 2013 rules reflects a feeling that the device has been successful since its introduction this season.

Michael said: "We think it's been effective. And if we decide not to continue, it's easy to go back on it.

"If all the teams decided later it wasn't useful, we could easily get rid of it. It's not a fundamental design, whereas something like the curved floor is."

[wesley123]

so in 2013 we make the cars even more dull and take away the thing that makes 'formula 1' formula 1?

Seriously i am not looking forward at all to the 2013 rules, I am bored at races this year too, the DRS screws the complete racing aspect and unless weird things happen it is Vettel on pole and winning the race. I'd rather see a car struggling to get past someone and being stuck behind for most of the race then seeing someone go past his oponent in light speed due to the DRS which is barely defendable. This is just getting ridiculous, rather switch to ALMS or so, where racing actually is real, there is some technology allowed and these fuel saving bullcrap is actually used useful.

[Robbobnob]

i beg to differ, i thought that turkey has moments of true brilliance, Hamilton vs Button was exciting, but the major limiting factor is the tires, often the passing driver just has the better tires, so its not soo much they are driving the car better, they just have the younger tires.

Also for the whole Fuel saving argument, E=1/2 mv^2. therefore the more mass the more energy required to reach a speed, so if they are trying to save fuel, wouldn't they still have in race refueling??

and possibly, the focus of formula 1 cars will move from aerodynamics and towards efficiency in the powertrain, so instead of the team with Adrain Newey wins, it becomes the team that uses the least energy the most efficiently gets home first??

[ESPImperium]

At the moment we see the cars being 65% aero 35% power train. I think they are trying to make the cars closer to 50/50 or 60/40 towards power train.

From what i thought, there was a fuel flow restrictor coming in for 2013 anyways that limites the fuel flow to a maximum of 1.75kg a lap in effect.

However, i think the keeping of the current floor is a great idea, also the lowering of the nose for saftey reasons is also good, and the reducing of he front wing in width to what is in effect the 2009 McLaren launch wing is also a great idea. Also ditching all those bloody apendages on the top of the fronmt wing will also be great as this will make the cars not want to turn in as well. Not sure about what they can do to the rear wing, that will probably resemble something like a Spa wing.

This should bring them back to early 2009 levels of downforce again, but there is about 20 months untill the 2013 cars are launched and tested, so id recon that the engineers will more or less have that to late 2009/early 2010 levels by that time.

As ive always said, to get the engineers thinking, what they should do is make the centre profile of the rear wing and diffuser the exact same width of the front wing, im sure that would reduce downforce by at least another 10%.

However, from what the commentary has been saying, the adjustable front wing will make a come back as the drivers want it as they want to be able to activly tune their car as the tire grip reduces as they did in 2009/2010,

Glad they are keeping DRS, but id like to see them change the sporting rules on DRS to allow drivers either 10 seconds activation a lap (Excluding the first lap of the race, and the first lap after a saftey car restart) simmilar to the KERS rules where they can use the KERS where ever they want on that lap, or limit them to 50 unlimited time activations a race, so the drivers could open them on the back straight at China the whole way down it. Id also like to allow drivers to use DRS for defending as well.

[godlameroso]

Why do the cars need to be slower by 5 seconds? I thought it was their speed that made them hard to drive, I guess they want people to lift through eau rouge.

[astracrazy]

Why do the cars need to be slower by 5 seconds? I thought it was their speed that made them hard to drive, I guess they want people to lift through eau rouge.

i agree, why can't they aim for the current times but make them slightly harder to drive.

[N12ck]

I am not looking forward to the 2013 rules, back when ground effect was banned was for safety reasons, removing all this downforce is for what reasons?

F1 is meant to be fast, innovative and very detailed

they are taking away the fast bit by making them almost 5 seconds slower (on par with gp2 cars) and taking away almost any innovation possible, they are taking away all the detailing off the front wings,

i hope they go back against the 1.6litre turbos, f1 is meant to be powerful and fast, not have less litres than a volkswagen golf, its ridiculous, why dont they just keep the rules as they are and let them use the 2009 rules for a few more years yet, instead of changing the whole designs of the cars every few years,

[Rob01]

This is just the first of the 2013 rules to be dropped, Wait and see what will happen to the whole range of changes. FOTA (the teams) haven’t as far as I know ever reduced aerodynamics, aero has always been arbitrary reduced by the FIA with today’s cars that cannot follow each other is a direct result of such arbitrary rules. The FIA should not and cannot be involved in making the rules

[astracrazy]

why don't they reduce the wings slightly as planned but then drop the ban on double diffusers?

loose drag and some downforce from the wings
gain the lost downforce but minimal drag from the ddd

seems like a simple solution to the problem to me?

[HampusA]

The problem with todays cars is the disturbance of wake behind the car making it impossible for another car to follow closely.

That´s why we have things like DRS.

[Rob01]

Eliminating the DD improved the air flow over the next car. The cars now all can ride directly behind another as we have seen all year long now. The DRS is only to aid in passing another car. If F1 didn't have the DRS then the KERS could be used to defend instead of attack. The DRS was designed so that a car that catches another could pass instead of being held at bay by a slower car. If someone catches you on the track it's already clear they are faster than you and deserve to go around instead of riding behind while the guy in front just drivers defensive. Ask Alonso he was faster than Petrov last year and could do nothing about it.

[FW17]

Right now F1 looks just like CART with no consensus on technical regulations.

FIA should be the one finalizing the regulations, right now FOTA just makes the F1 look lame.

Ground effect is being deployed in F2, GP2, WSR and endless list of series, yet F1 teams say the un-certainty on performance is too much.

Was really looking forward to the fundamental change in cars, but now looks like it is not going to happen. Worse off, I wonder who let Sam Michal the looser give his opinion.

[Jeffsvilleusa]

Q: (Paolo Ianieri - La Gazzetta dello Sport) Question to all three of you: do you think that the tyres are having too great an influence? Today almost everybody had four pit stops. Is it not just too much, too confusing, also making it too easy to overtake?
FA: I think it’s what people asked for last year. I think we saw two stops in Canada, people enjoyed that race. People, fans, journalists: everyone was asking for more of a show, for more pit stops, more fun and now we have all of that, so now if people are still not happy, we need to see what they want.

Racing shouldn't be entertainment driven. Otherwise it's like watching pro-wrestling. Phony. Racing is racing. When the Formula is contrived to provide entertainment 1st, safety 2nd, and racing 3rd, we are way off base. And you can lump corporate agenda in there with entertainment because the KERS, long-life engine and green engine are all getting priority also.

The overtaking working group has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at the problem, but I think they are only addressing symptoms, and not the problem- which is an aero-based formula does not lend itself to overtaking because the cars are designed for clean airflow, and they can't run in another cars wake. The solution is to allow downforce to be generated independent of clean airflow- would ground effects provide that? If so, we can get back to racing- because as it stands we just have a circus.

[PNSD]

How do you differentiate between entertainment and racing though.

Racing is entertainment. Unfortunately, what matters is the millions of people watching on TV.

[Just_a_fan]

Racing shouldn't be entertainment driven. Otherwise it's like watching pro-wrestling. Phony. Racing is racing.

Well, in it's purest form racing is entertainment for those who are competing in the race. People started racing because they enjoyed it - they were entertained on some level by the act of racing someone else.

If, however, F1 (or any series) wants to make money it needs to entertain people other than those directly involved in the race. Thus it needs to be entertaining to a wider audience. The bigger the audience the more money that can be made. And F1 is really about the "business of racing" as much as the "act of racing" itself.

So, if the key to a bigger audience is things like KERS and DRS then that's how F1 will go. No one is making us watch it - we can choose to watch some other series or even some other sport entirely.