More downforce or less for more overtaking?

[mzso]

What is this delta wing?

Wow. Didnt expect that. See below.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... Wing_4.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeltaWing

What? Unfamiliarity with Indycar sftuff on an F1 website?
Actually the shape is familiar from the Nissan Zeod.

[bhall]

I guess the OWG is as corrupted as any other authority in F1...

I disagree. Competent drivers can fight huge battles with each other. Especially if the cars are similar and one can't pull away. Provided that the cars are capable of getting close together. (See the Pironi-Villeneuve battle with identical cars)

That link's not valid. In the first corner is taken slowly with all the field being cramped up. See how sad the situation looked in the past years after a lap or two...

Mr. Straw Man, is that you? Who said anything about corruption?

Misguided, maybe. But, not corrupted.

The three-member panel consisted of representatives from Ferrari (Byrne), McLaren (Lowe), and Renault (Symonds), and it just so happens that each of those teams designed poor cars in 2009. For me, that speaks volumes to how little they knew about the ramifications of the new aero formula they themselves created.

In any case, maybe you'll like this video better.



The cars reach top-speed before they hit Copse, and they're still able to follow each other pretty closely all the way through. If, for any reason, they are slower and lose downforce as a result, I doubt it's much more than would be the case for two drivers fighting for position, as both attacking and defending are very slow.

[mzso]

Mr. Straw Man, is that you? Who said anything about corruption?

Misguided, maybe. But, not corrupted.

The three-member panel consisted of representatives from Ferrari (Byrne), McLaren (Lowe), and Renault (Symonds), and it just so happens that each of those teams designed poor cars in 2009. For me, that speaks volumes to how little they knew about the ramifications of the new aero formula they themselves created.

In any case, maybe you'll like this video better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1YqzxpCQ54

The cars reach top-speed before they hit Copse, and they're still able to follow each other pretty closely all the way through. If, for any reason, they are slower and lose downforce as a result, I doubt it's much more than would be the case for two drivers fighting for position, as both attacking and defending are very slow.

And I'm quite shure that they didn't want to change the norms much, sot the respective teams can maintain their position at the top end. The teams also abandoned the proposal that would fix the issues with near certainty. (one of the authors was also Byrne, who was retired at that point, so wasn't (as much) affected by interests)

2009 was about Brawn's Double diffuser idea which carried them to the championship.

I don't know why you keep linking race start videos. They signify nothing. They're close together because they start closely. As soon as race pace is achieved, they can't follow the other closely. Can't even get close for a decent overtaking move.

[mrluke]

What is this delta wing?

Wow. Didnt expect that. See below.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... Wing_4.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeltaWing

What? Unfamiliarity with Indycar sftuff on an F1 website?
Actually the shape is familiar from the Nissan Zeod.

The Nissan Zeod is the 2nd year development of the delta wing, the delta wing was initially "sponsored" by nissan and ran at Lemans. It was probably one of the most controversial race cars of the last year / 18 months. Subsequently Nissan and the main people behind the delta wing fell out and have each developed their own year 2 car.

Theres any interesting video on youtube from the early days of delta wing talking about how it is designed to follow other cars, shows a cfd model with 2 delta wings in a line.

Afraid I cant link to it from work.

[Pierce89]

What is this delta wing?

Wow. Didnt expect that. See below.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... Wing_4.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeltaWing

What? Unfamiliarity with Indycar sftuff on an F1 website?
Actually the shape is familiar from the Nissan Zeod.

The Nissan Zeod is a continuation of their Deltawing involvement a couple of years ago.

[mzso]

The Nissan Zeod is the 2nd year development of the delta wing, the delta wing was initially "sponsored" by nissan and ran at Lemans. It was probably one of the most controversial race cars of the last year / 18 months. Subsequently Nissan and the main people behind the delta wing fell out and have each developed their own year 2 car.

Theres any interesting video on youtube from the early days of delta wing talking about how it is designed to follow other cars, shows a cfd model with 2 delta wings in a line.

Afraid I cant link to it from work.

I realized that it's based on the DW after I took a look at it.
The video sounds interesting. Maybe I'll find it on my own.

[bhall]

And I'm quite shure that they didn't want to change the norms much, sot the respective teams can maintain their position at the top end. The teams also abandoned the proposal that would fix the issues with near certainty. (one of the authors was also Byrne, who was retired at that point, so wasn't (as much) affected by interests)

2009 was about Brawn's Double diffuser idea which carried them to the championship.

I don't know why you keep linking race start videos. They signify nothing. They're close together because they start closely. As soon as race pace is achieved, they can't follow the other closely. Can't even get close for a decent overtaking move.

I''ll try this one more time, and then I have to let it go.

When you say, "As soon as race pace is achieved, they can't follow the other closely," I think you're perhaps forgetting that the leader(s) are at race pace by the time they hit the first corner, at least that's the case for the videos I've shared today. And because qualifying has a peculiar tendency to place cars in descending order by speed, it's only natural that cars farther down the grid should be unable to keep up with the faster, better cars ahead.

Even if some mystical spell was cast upon all cars, which inoculated them from the effects of "dirty air," the faster cars would still pull away and spread out the field, because that's what fast cars tend to do.

I'm not just defending the OWG's rules here. Frankly, I don't like too many of the new rules at all. But, remember my initial thoughts were just that DRS and syrupy-tires have done far more d̶a̶m̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶p̶o̶r̶t̶ for overtaking than the 2009 rules did alone. I think the stats I posted earlier seem to bear that out.

You can actually see it, too. The cars went from this...



...to this, and that allowed them to run more closely together.



But, I guess it wasn't close enough. So, now we're stuck with this, because the highly restricted regulations have made it damn-near impossible to eek out the performance advantage required for overtaking by traditional means.



It's like a series of competitive Band-Aids, if you ask me.

[prokopi]

There was a time in CART series back in late 90's and early 2000's when they used a so called Handford device on super-oval track races which was very simple "device" - just a flat vertical panel behind the rear wing which created quite of drag. This drag from the other hand created a lot of turbulence behind the leading car which was quite helpful for the following car and made overtaking easy.
Generally speaking, the following car will have more chances for overtaking (using turbulence behind the leading car, or in other words "tunneling" ) as the speeds are rising. But this must affect most of all the drag force, not so much of downforce. So the the following logical sequence may be observed:
1. drastically rise the speeds on the straights and cut the aerodynamics creating downforce (which two by the way are obviously compatible one to other). Increasing drastically speeds on the straights (i suggest to around 350 km/h and even more) needs a lot of power, so it goes well over 1000 bhp .....
2. increased speeds at the end of straights, combined with lower downforce (and drag) leads to geater braking distances and generally to more uncertain driving ....
3. greatly decreased downforce leads to slowler cornering and combined with increased speeds leads to more acceleration-deceleration driving....
4. a lot of power means a lot of fuel consumption and more frequent pit-stop refueling (of course we suppose it is allowed) and more weight change issues during the race.