A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
Indeed. These rumours I keep hearing just sound way too complex if they're true. You'd have to spend an inordinate amount of time on one key feature at the expense of the rest of the car, and it all sounds way too far fetched.
The only team that there doesn't seem to be rumours around is Red Bull.......
Regarding all this talk of Peltier effect, one potential way that Peltier effect could be used and has not been discussed is a method of transporting heat from one place to another using only wire between point A and B.
We used a peltier cooling device for an airtight enclosure designed to house a computer. There was a heatsink on the inside of the box, and another on the outside to shed the heat.
I have no doubt, that a conventional radiator and associated pipework would be more efficient and probably more reliable, but let's just assume that McLaren (or anyone else for that matter) wanted to cool, say their KERS unit(s), but for some reason running pipes to a radiator was not convenient, one could instead use cable to carry the heat away, and shed it at 'tother end of cable with a finned heatsink attached to a peltier device?
I don't know if there are suitably gutsy peltier devices to do this job, but it occurred to me that they might use a pair of peltier devices simply to allow them to route the energy via an electric cable (or other conductor, perhaps carbon fibre!) instead of using pipework, plus a heatsink would likely be lighter than a rad filled with water, so perhaps less of a CofG issue?
The answer to the ultimate question, of life, the Universe and ... Everything?
Because the EBD still adds downforce. What people are saying here is that the normal course of winter development is already enough to counter the downforce lost.
raymondu999 wrote:Because the EBD still adds downforce. What people are saying here is that the normal course of winter development is already enough to counter the downforce lost.
Ok lets get this straight...
2009 cars were slower than 2008.
2010 cars were a little faster than 2009.
2011 cars were arguably slower than 2010 - the EBD KERS and DRS massively helped lap time.
Now 2012 - subtract the EBD...
I will be pleasantly surprised if teams manage to get as much DF as last year. Then again in basic form the HRT's were 2 seconds off the pace... Could it be that the 2011 cars are developmentally like HRT when compared to the cars of 2012...???
MIKEY_! wrote:I'd expect DRS to go backwards this year as teams use larger flaps to regain DF.
I'm not so sure – when McLaren finally got their rear wing right they seemed to both gain DF *and* DRS effect, so it may be that there's a sweet spot in the short-chord wing.
n smikle wrote:2009 cars were slower than 2008.
2010 cars were a little faster than 2009.
2011 cars were arguably slower than 2010 - the EBD KERS and DRS massively helped lap time.
Now 2012 - subtract the EBD...
Don't forget that wings changed, then tyres changed and minimal weight was increased from 625 to 640kg...
KERS should have compensated weight gain. How about downforce vs tyre?
You can't compare downforce level just with laptimes.
All we can say is that since 2008, the only 2 consecutive years regulation doesn't change, lap times improved.
MIKEY_! wrote:I'd expect DRS to go backwards this year as teams use larger flaps to regain DF.
I'm not so sure – when McLaren finally got their rear wing right they seemed to both gain DF *and* DRS effect, so it may be that there's a sweet spot in the short-chord wing.
Without DRS teams also began to run shorter chord rear wings so there definetely is a 'sweet spot' with these wings.
