raymondu999 wrote:Yes, I posted that video a while back...
Yes that's the one, thanks.
It's most interesting in that it gives you a good insight into just how much of a black art aerodynamics is. A wind tunnel is the closest thing to reality versus track testing, but there are some things it will simply never be able to tell you. CFD is getting better all the time, but again, that has to be correlated to reality over time so much more software development is needed. Nick Wirth found out pretty quickly that it isn't good enough yet.
CFD is also dangerously seductive in that it seems to allow you to iteratively put random changes into it that seems to increase the raw downforce numbers, but that is never going to move you forwards. I'm looking at you before this season Williams. What CFD will not do is come up with a philosophy behind a car, where to improve it nor will it come up with all the major ideas, tunnels, exhaust positioning etc. that you see on a car like the Red Bull. It also won't tell you what usable downforce you have on the car. It's entirely possible to blindly increase downforce and slow the car down because it doesn't have the turn-in responsiveness.
If the McLaren guys who have jumped ship to Ferrari think that raw numbers are going to be their salvation I have a feeling they might be a little disappointed.
