Front wings on cars of 1982

[NathanOlder]

For a long time, i have wondered about the cars i see from 1982.

It would appear that some run with front wings, and others dont. I even have some photo's of Patrese at the monaco weekend. In the race i think he was running without a wing, but I have seen him earlier the same weekend running WITH a front wing.

Can anyone shed some light on this, it has me and a friend very confused

[xpensive]

The 1982 season was a strange one downforce-wise, when the flat-bottom rule did not come in effect until 1983, venturis were still allowed but not the sliding skirts. Some teams were better at keeping the necessary low ground-clearance than others, most notably Brabham and Williams, sometimes you needed wings and sometimes not, depending on the track of course.

As I can recall, the FIA had regulated a minimum 60 mm ground-clearance, measured in the pits obviously, why Nelson had a hydraulic device lowering his BT49 to a rock-hard suspension on track. I remember him once telling the scrutineers that the actuating lever was a hand-brake or something, must have been a beast to drive anyway.

[rjsa]

During the ground effect years there was so much downforce being generated in the floor venturies that teams started removing fron wings. You must be mentioning the Brabham BT 50 from 1982, driven by Piquet and Patrese. The 1:20 Tamyia kit for it came with the slots for the front wing blocked, you had to cut those with knifes if you wanted the wings installed:



@xpensive, there still was enough DF, many teams skipped wings:

[Robbobnob]

some photos would be nice to illustrate your point

[elFranZ]

This should explain better:



So much downforce they could even go without front wings.

[xpensive]

rjsa; You sure know how to bring tears to an old fart's eyes, forgot about the BT50-BMW debuting later in the season though.

There's a myth about Nelson running front wings with positive lift in SA 1981, to properly balance the car without an RW.

[rjsa]

Link broken, remove the '/sr=1' from the end and it should work.

[rjsa]

rjsa; You sure know how to bring tears to an old fart's eyes, forgot about the BT50-BMW debuting later in the season though.

I must have screwed 6 of those 1:20 kits, I never had the patience needed to do it right. But I just loved them. The BT50 and the BT 52 are my favourite F1 cars ever.

You can tell I'm a Piquet fan... and all the tales about the things he alledgly did, like qaulifying without the 1st gear installed at Detroit and all the cheats and shortcuts.

[xpensive]

Nelson, with his flamboyant style in and out of the car, was my hero of the 80s, I once saw him driving that 1400 Hp BT54 in qualifying at Österreichring 1985, unforgettable, an F1 car on roids.

[jon-mullen]

The 1982 season was for some reason really easy to find online so I ended up watching it. My favorite moment:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SXbGDcMeo8[/youtube]

[bhall]

(That video doesn't allow for embedding.)

I understand why was Piquet so pissed, but he had just as much to do with the incident as Salazar, despite the latter's position in the race.

[strad]

They rode like bricks and beat the drivers to death because the active suspension was rock hard to maintain the proper ground clerance. The biggest problem was that much like the Exhaust Blown Diffusers they were very unstable on the limit when off throttle.

[rjsa]

Active suspensions where quite far in the future then. Suspensions where just plain siff.

[strad]

No they were in the first stages..Ground Effects from which would grow Active and they both required rides so stiff that even dedicated racers hated it.

[xpensive]

No they were in the first stages..Ground Effects from which would grow Active and they both required rides so stiff that even dedicated racers hated it.

There were no active suspensions in them days, those came ten years later on.