Technical Regulations for 2009-2015

[turbof1]

And teams are doing that now anyway. They just built back up to the minimum weight with placing low centre ballast, or designing the lower placed pieces with much heavier materials.

[wesley123]

What I still dont understand is why they still have such a weight limit. I can imagine there being a weight limit to not favor lighter drivers, but why not lower the limit to like 500kg? It would make the cars faster, the research in materials to make the car lighter could prove useful in road cars. Also there is less mass involved in a crash(safer). Also it would be more fuel efficient. I have no doubt cars are close to 500kg(without ballast) anyways, so why not lower this limit, instead of making it even higher?

Simple – without a weight limit, people will try to design for the lightest possible car, and we'll get a Lotus (60s, not current) philosophy of making the cars lighter until they're dangerous.

1. I have no doubt that current cars are close to 500kg without ballast. Now they are 500KG + 180kg of ballast. Which one is safer, I think the first one.
2. The cars have to be crashtested.

Like turbof1 says, teams are trying to lower the weight anyways, the cars are close to 500kg anyways without ballast, so why not lower the limit?

Not only is a 500kg car safer as in a crash less mass will be involved, it will also be faster, and it will be more fuel efficient, and wasnt that what they wanted to achieve in the first place?

Raising the weight is completely contradicting to everything they tried to achieve.

[turbof1]

As one of the reasons for a minimum carweight was to keep the drivers healthy, I again suggest a variable minimum weight for the drivers instead, based on objective criteria, plus some extra ballast to add up to level the field (say the heaviest driver in the field weights 80kg, then every other team has to add up ballast until their driver plus the ballast weights 80kg). Crashtests have to ensure safety, not minimum weight of the car which could end up shooting a ballast piece of heavy wolfram out of the front wing during a crash.

[SectorOne]

An interesting article,

Renault chief Remi Taffin does not think the cars will lose much of their speed as F1 moves from V8 to V6 power next year.

“I don’t think we’ll lose so much,” the French marque’s head of track operations told Russia’s Championat.

“Formula 1 is Formula 1, and we want the cars to still be the quickest. And they will be fast,” he said.

“I think that at the beginning of the season they will be slower than the current cars by a second, but after mid-season they could even be faster.

I heard talk about losing 5 seconds a lap and now Remi say they might be faster?
That´s great news if it´s true.

http://www.gptoday.com/full_story/view/ ... be_faster/

[Holm86]

I can't see how they will be faster. Peak horsepower could be marginally higher than today. But the minimum weight is increased and alot of downforce is shed. If they are going to be faster there has to be some sort of loophole in the regulations as there were back in 09 with the DDD's.

[Blanchimont]

I would say there are diferent speeds/times to look at: qualifying lap time, race lap time during the first race laps, race lap time during the last race laps, total race time, apex speed and top speed on the straights.

I expect the apex speed to go down a little bit, top speed about the same as today or slightly higher. The race lap times depend on total weigth of the car and durability of the tyres. Weight at the start will be about the same as today, at the race end about 45kg higher.

So, for tracks like Monza or Montreal, which are low downforce, i could imagine that the cars are actually quite close to this year, but for Monaco or Hungary i would predict slower lap times.

[Holm86]

Well it's not a little bit of downforce that will be lost next year. Its quite a lot.

Rear wings will be almost as shallow as monza wings is today. There will be no exhaust blowing of diffusers. Beam wings will be gone. That decreases the efficiancy of the diffusers even more. Noses will be lower which means less air under the floor. This again decreases the potential of the diffuser. So much downforce is removed from the rear. This means you need to run less downforce on the front to balance it out.

The new engines has alot more torque. And perhaps even at bit more peak horsepowers. But the gear ratios will be fixed. This means that gear ratios will be a compromise. Not tailored for every track as of today.

[Holm86]

There os also the possibility of bulkier sidepods. And then there is the higher CoG of the new engines.

[Ogami musashi]

Wings won't be that shallower; The original draft of technical regulations was amended. Turning vanes are still allowed.

We'll see what happens but that's the second time i hear on F1 tech saying the downforce loss will be very minimal next year...and probably clawed back very fast.

[Blanchimont]

Well it's not a little bit of downforce that will be lost next year. Its quite a lot.

Rear wings will be almost as shallow as monza wings is today.

But the gear ratios will be fixed. This means that gear ratios will be a compromise.

The upper rear wing profiles will almost look like in 2013, the height reduction is only 20 or 30 mm! Monza like rear wings will only be used at low downforce tracks, not during the whole season.

And for the number of gear ratios, there will be an additional 8th gear in contrast to only seven today. This won't be a big compromise.

[Holm86]

Okay. But there is still the other stuff. Im thinking someone may have found a loophole since they are so convinced that the cars will be faster by the end of next year.

[WhiteBlue]

What I still dont understand is why they still have such a weight limit. I can imagine there being a weight limit to not favor lighter drivers, but why not lower the limit to like 500kg? It would make the cars faster, the research in materials to make the car lighter could prove useful in road cars. Also there is less mass involved in a crash(safer). Also it would be more fuel efficient. I have no doubt cars are close to 500kg(without ballast) anyways, so why not lower this limit, instead of making it even higher?

You have to understand that teams will always try to make components lighter and add ballast deep in the chassis to meet the regulations. So it really depends of how much ballast the mid fielders have at any given time. That has been pretty much constant although minimum weight is being added for energy recovery technology in steps. If you throw out the recovery you can run cars at well under 600 kg. But that is not the ojective of the rule makers. They want hybrid.

[lio007]

Well it's not a little bit of downforce that will be lost next year. Its quite a lot.

Rear wings will be almost as shallow as monza wings is today.

But the gear ratios will be fixed. This means that gear ratios will be a compromise.

The upper rear wing profiles will almost look like in 2013, the height reduction is only 20 or 30 mm! Monza like rear wings will only be used at low downforce tracks, not during the whole season.

And for the number of gear ratios, there will be an additional 8th gear in contrast to only seven today. This won't be a big compromise.

what about the fixed gear ratios? as i understood the teams have to chose a gear ratio at the beginning and have to use this ratio the whole season?!
I think this doesn't make sense if you compare tracks like monacco and monza. So what does the FIA expect to achieve by that?

[piast9]

There will be 8 gears instead of 7 and as far as I know the fuel flow limited turbo engines will be much less peaky than current V8s.

[beelsebob]

There will be 8 gears instead of 7 and as far as I know the fuel flow limited turbo engines will be much less peaky than current V8s.

Correct, all teams will use 8 speed gearboxes, as per rule 9.6.1. They must chose their gear ratios before the season starts, and they may change their choice once during the season.