2014 Design

[trinidefender]

I'm banking on a solution something between the mp4-25 and the force India car shown a few pages ago. Fairly flat on the top tapering off to a point at the rear of the car with something of an undercut like the Force India car

[astracrazy]

I guess if we are looking at a flat top, and to get the most air around the bottom of the sidepod then why wouldn't torro rosso's sidepods be the best solution?

[Huntresa]

I guess if we are looking at a flat top, and to get the most air around the bottom of the sidepod then why wouldn't torro rosso's sidepods be the best solution?

Cause i think Force India managed the same amount of undercut as Toro Rosso but less bulky sidepod, atleast last years car pre coanda.

[matt21]

Would some sidepod extensions be useful like on the DAMS GD-01 in order to send air to diffusor below them (with more pronounced coke bottleof course) and to the rear wing and over the tires above them?

[astracrazy]

i don't think they would be legal. Otherwise i'd guess we would have things similar to pre 2009

maybe the minimum radius rule would stop such extension? i dunno

[ringo]

I am quite sure we would not see a RB8 style sidepod.

The coke bottle lower to the floor would be more important to improve floor performance. The higher part of the sidepod is less important as there is nothing to send the air to.

Not exactly. The air on f1 cars is not meant to be "sent" to the rear. It's to serve it's purpose at it's location.
The redbull would still have the same shape.
This whole idea of sending air to the rear is a very big misconception; it's as if the rest of the car doesn't matter.

It is very much easy to have optimum shape on top and the side of the diffuser. The cars wont look much different.
And this is why sauber is not doing so well with their current car, they had a misconception about the side pods.

Ideally you want the top and the sides to taper at a similar rate. The aim is not not have the air losing too much energy as it expands around the sidepod towards the gearbox area. If you ignore the side and have too much taper on the top, you risk stalling, likewise if you ignore the top. Both the top and side much have a fair share in the expansion of the air over the diffuser. Redbull has done this perfectly, and that's the reasoning behind their tear drop bullet shape.

[ringo]

I´m guessing we will see sidepods similar to the RB8 (before the tunnel arrived)
No real undercut just decrease width the higher up you go on the sidepod.

(and just to be clear, i know the exhaust won´t exit there in 2014, just talking about the shape of the sidepod)

http://www.motorsport-total.com/bilder/ ... 631132.jpg

I figure we'd see something like this, just with some cooling holes round the back.

[henra]

I am quite sure we would not see a RB8 style sidepod.

The coke bottle lower to the floor would be more important to improve floor performance. The higher part of the sidepod is less important as there is nothing to send the air to.

I'm not so sure.
What you want is basically absolutely maximum volume flow (read: Air Speed) over the upper side of the diffuser.
One way could be to try and combine both airflows around the sides and over the top of the sidepods.
The RB7/Initial RB8 design should be quite good at that.
I wouldn't be too surprised to see the old RBR design coming back though in improved and more extreme shape.
If you use just coke bottle/taper for channeling air over the diffuser you will get strong vortices above the flow over diffuser due to shear forces and coanda effects at the ridge of the sidepods where they taper.
Vortices above the airflow over the diffuser will be detrimental as the low pressure will lead to Expansion and thus decelleration of the critical airflow.

[wesley123]

That's what I'm saying, maximum flow over the diffuser. The problem of the RB8 sidepod is that it has a tighter sidepod higher up than towards the floor. Where you want it as tight as possible over the floor. Therfore a Ferrari style coke bottle would be better

[SectorOne]

Unless a Ferrari style sidepod comes with higher CoG etc.

[horse]

I figure we'd see something like this, just with some cooling holes round the back.

I was wondering about cooling with the new exhaust positioning. Is there some opportunity to amalgamate the cooling tunnels around the exhaust route?

I'm not sure it's clear what the footprint of the new engines and their cooling requirements will be anyway. Obviously, a lot of what Red Bull have been able to do is because of the neat packaging of the Renault. A bulkier engine (package) footprint and higher cooling requirements might not allow the tight bodywork we are used to.

[EDIT]It's tough to figure out the cooling. I guess the turbo and the electric components will be more thermally efficient, but then there is a big issue with battery cooling.[/EDIT]

[Huntresa]

http://www.f1zone.net/news/renault-chie ... ter/19989/

Im not sure he is talking from an engine perspective in terms of speed and power or the overall package, cause i cant see the cars next year being quicker then this years cars.

Even if everything stayed the same for aerodynamics but still went ahead with the exhaust change which will be the biggest time killer i still dont think next years cars would match this year.

[WhiteBlue]

It is the second time that I read such a thing. There is speculation that the cars will be slower in fast corners but faster on the straits. Traffin seems to think that they will claw back 1 s worth of downforce during the season which sounds possible from a new aero config. There is the potential that the increase of power will almost compensate for the loss of downforce. In that situation a 1 s loss of performance is not so big initially that they cannot claw it back. But all those simulations can be overthrown if the tyres come out different to their expectations. Realistically next year we can expect fewer tyre stops and harder rubber. So that may increase lap time but it could be neutralized in terms of race time by less time in the pits.

[roblomas52]

Personally, I think the cars should have ground effect in a similar manner to the panoz DP01 champ car with the front wing similar to that cars predicessor

[Huntresa]

Personally, I think the cars should have ground effect in a similar manner to the panoz DP01 champ car with the front wing similar to that cars predicessor

Teams voted against that tho cause they thought it would be to expensive and they wanted to be able to use the same chassis and tubes etc for 2014.