I took the liberty of double checking: Lotus area: 7400, McLaren 6500beelsebob wrote:Okay, so I compared the two with the photos above. The angles are not the same, so it's not great, but the above-the-car angle of the lotus shot should give it an advantage, so I think we can get something useful from it...
http://cl.ly/image/2C3l0a2T1d15/Image%2 ... 4%20pm.png
I scaled the two to get the front wings the same length, so that we're looking at the areas at the front reasonably accurately.
The results – the area under the nose on the lotus – around 7000 pixels. The area under the nose on the McLaren - around 7000 pixels.
Given that the angle of the photo on the lotus is not exactly head on, it will make the height of the hole appear greater than it is, so I get from this that the gap in the nose on the McLaren is larger (but not hugely) than on the lotus.
Hmm, we must have done our estimations in subtly different ways, the exact output of the sums that I did were 7030 to Lotus, and 6979 for McLaren.Jef Patat wrote:I took the liberty of double checking: Lotus area: 7400, McLaren 6500beelsebob wrote:Okay, so I compared the two with the photos above. The angles are not the same, so it's not great, but the above-the-car angle of the lotus shot should give it an advantage, so I think we can get something useful from it...
http://cl.ly/image/2C3l0a2T1d15/Image%2 ... 4%20pm.png
I scaled the two to get the front wings the same length, so that we're looking at the areas at the front reasonably accurately.
The results – the area under the nose on the lotus – around 7000 pixels. The area under the nose on the McLaren - around 7000 pixels.
Given that the angle of the photo on the lotus is not exactly head on, it will make the height of the hole appear greater than it is, so I get from this that the gap in the nose on the McLaren is larger (but not hugely) than on the lotus.
Right, which is a good thing, that's a deliberate design to speed up the air flow. If you look at every 2013 car, you'll see that the channel under the nose tightens.I must admit that it 'felt' like a bigger difference. I still think though that the path of the airflow is less obstructed, clearer, in the case of the Lotus. With the McLaren, the channel tightens
I have a feeling that that too is actually a good thing, it will draw more air in from the sides to fill that low pressure zone.the anteater nose, will have some wake.
This is where we really disagree – the McLaren seems closer to the 2013 designs, where they were able to optimally manage things, so I think most likely it's better managed under there.I think the airflow is better manageable in case of the Lotus.
I used paint.net magic wand and set tolerance to 15%, can't seem to get anywhere near the numbers you are getting.beelsebob wrote:Hmm, we must have done our estimations in subtly different ways, the exact output of the sums that I did were 7030 to Lotus, and 6979 for McLaren.I took the liberty of double checking: Lotus area: 7400, McLaren 6500
This is where we really disagree – the McLaren seems closer to the 2013 designs, where they were able to optimally manage things, so I think most likely it's better managed under there.I think the airflow is better manageable in case of the Lotus.
Hah, that's actually a much better way of estimating than I used, +1.Jef Patat wrote:I used paint.net magic wand and set tolerance to 15%, can't seem to get anywhere near the numbers you are getting.beelsebob wrote:Hmm, we must have done our estimations in subtly different ways, the exact output of the sums that I did were 7030 to Lotus, and 6979 for McLaren.I took the liberty of double checking: Lotus area: 7400, McLaren 6500
This is where we really disagree – the McLaren seems closer to the 2013 designs, where they were able to optimally manage things, so I think most likely it's better managed under there.I think the airflow is better manageable in case of the Lotus.
Meh, arguments to authority suck anyway, if you think you're right, say why, and someone else can tell you why you're not if you aren't. In this case, I'm pretty sure you're more right than me. Plus... I'm a CS major, not anything to do with aero anyway, so it's not like I'm an authority eitherWe don't have to disagree on anything, I'm by no means anywhere near as educated in this field as most of you are. My education was electronics master. So I have no techincal background whatsoever in the aerodynamics field, only a deep interest in the technical side of this sport.
Thank you for this explanation. IIRC the top teams, over the last couple of decades, always brought a short wheelbase car to street/high downforce tracks with lots of cornering. (except for the last couple of years)Owen.C93 wrote:Wheelbase makes only a minor difference to cornering characteristics. It won't be any better on street circuits I'm afraid. They most likely did it to help with keeping the weight down, but it comes at the expense of less floor area and thus downforce.
