Dirty air sensitivity and regulations

[PlatinumZealot]

This year a lot of drivers are whinging over the dirty air they get when following other cars. I can't remember this much winging since I started watching. To me it gives the impression that the cars aero performance drops so much from following that the tyres are severely compromised, the brakes run hot, the ERS runs hot and the list goes on... Still, last year there were not that many driver complaints about dirty air... Even in Canada when the two Mercedes were fighting for the win there was not a grumble nor murmur from the two drivers, the only complaints came from the ERS, and posthumously at that! It makes me wonder if the 2015 low nose exacerbates the effects of dirty air.

[Just_a_fan]

You've obviously only been watching F1 for a short period of time - back in the apparently halcyon days of the early 2000s drivers were always moaning about "being in the dirty air" and thus not being able to overtake. That's why we have cars shaped the way they are now - to try to reduce "the dirty air problem".

[PlatinumZealot]

Been watching F1 from year 2000.

But i just dont remeber the whinging...

[giantfan10]

Been watching F1 from year 2000.

But i just dont remeber the whinging...

i think the lower noses created a bigger problem....BUT i believe that the tires do hold a large part of the blame in this bleeped up equation... .oh how i would love to see position 2 on down pushing the car ahead and trying to pass continuously instead of this "oh i will pass on the last stint" stuff going on right now.

[sgth0mas]

I believe with the emphasis on rapidly degrading tires and recently reduced aero, the problem has gotten worse. I've heard drivers complain about tire deg and maintaining a 2s gap for at least the past 3 years, maybe 4. Mark Webber was quite vocal about it in his last year or 2. I think it's just come up more with reduced aero and closer midfield.

Now that the Indy guys have more aero, you can hear them complain about the wash, but they at least have tires to try and fight it out.

[Moose]

Reduced aero didn't make the problem worse - it made it better. The problem is that aero hasn't been reduced much.

The amount of trouble you have following another car is directly proportional to the amount of aero dependance those cars have. The amount of force the cars can corner with is proportional to the mass of the car plus the downforce of the car - M + D. When you follow another car, you get some proportion of the downforce stripped away, and end up with an ability to corner proportional to M + pD (where 0 < p < 1). You can see, that as D tends to zero, the difference between M + D and M + pD tends to zero too. That is, the less downforce the cars have, the less grip they lose when following another car closely.

This is why go karts, and touring cars can trivially follow each other closely (they have near 0 downforce), while F1 cars struggle (they have a lot of downforce). Interestingly, this means that if you had a race with aeroplanes, but told all the pilots that they had to stay on the ground, following another plane would actually be a distinct advantage, and provide you with more grip through turns.

[sgth0mas]

There's a difference between reduced and no down force. In karting I can almost ride a rear bumper NASCAR style because I'm not down force reliant to keep my tires planted, but when you add the relatively large amount of down force F1 cars have, gaps have to open up to save tires. Thats because tire deg is worse when they break loose.

Its a no brainer that no down force would save tires if drivers slowed down enough to not slide, but the fact is F1 cars still have a lot of down force. And starting last year, that was pulled back with a torquey hybrid thats prone to break loose out of turns thrown in the mix. Adding that drivers get extremely limited test time, and they have less time to adapt.

Of this was a stock car race, you'd be right. But this is a series where tires are designed to die quickly, and keeping tires planted slows that process. Now that they break free more due to reduced aero and disturbed air, were seeing the issues compound.

Your math is overly simple as it is strictly looking at the total available normal force that would apply to frictional loads. But Go drive any zero downforce car sideways through a bunch of turns and you will see my point...keeping a car planted saves tires

[Moose]

There's a difference between reduced and no down force. In karting I can almost ride a rear bumper NASCAR style because I'm not down force reliant to keep my tires planted, but when you add the relatively large amount of down force F1 cars have, gaps have to open up to save tires. Thats because tire deg is worse when they break loose.

Its a no brainer that no down force would save tires if drivers slowed down enough to not slide, but the fact is F1 cars still have a lot of down force. And starting last year, that was pulled back with a torquey hybrid thats prone to break loose out of turns thrown in the mix. Adding that drivers get extremely limited test time, and they have less time to adapt.

Of this was a stock car race, you'd be right. But this is a series where tires are designed to die quickly, and keeping tires planted slows that process. Now that they break free more due to reduced aero and disturbed air, were seeing the issues compound.

Your math is overly simple as it is strictly looking at the total available normal force that would apply to frictional loads. But Go drive any zero downforce car sideways through a bunch of turns and you will see my point...keeping a car planted saves tires

Yes, keeping the cars planted saves tires, and the more downforce the cars have, the more they will lose by following, and the more a driver following, and trying to keep up will have their tires break lose. The reason that the tires don't wear faster when following in a go-kart is because you are not breaking lose because of the relative lack of downforce. So again - less downforce in the spec of the cars means fewer issues following.

[sgth0mas]

There's a difference between reduced and no down force. In karting I can almost ride a rear bumper NASCAR style because I'm not down force reliant to keep my tires planted, but when you add the relatively large amount of down force F1 cars have, gaps have to open up to save tires. Thats because tire deg is worse when they break loose.

Its a no brainer that no down force would save tires if drivers slowed down enough to not slide, but the fact is F1 cars still have a lot of down force. And starting last year, that was pulled back with a torquey hybrid thats prone to break loose out of turns thrown in the mix. Adding that drivers get extremely limited test time, and they have less time to adapt.

Of this was a stock car race, you'd be right. But this is a series where tires are designed to die quickly, and keeping tires planted slows that process. Now that they break free more due to reduced aero and disturbed air, were seeing the issues compound.

Your math is overly simple as it is strictly looking at the total available normal force that would apply to frictional loads. But Go drive any zero downforce car sideways through a bunch of turns and you will see my point...keeping a car planted saves tires

Yes, keeping the cars planted saves tires, and the more downforce the cars have, the more they will lose by following, and the more a driver following, and trying to keep up will have their tires break lose. The reason that the tires don't wear faster when following in a go-kart is because you are not breaking lose because of the relative lack of downforce. So again - less downforce in the spec of the cars means fewer issues following.

you're still assuming the drivers are adapting to the changed cars and that drivability is the same as 2013. That's not the case...and more downforce was taken from the rear iirc, which isn't affected as much as the front wing in following. You're over simplifying the problem and only looking at total downforce with a fully planted car As well.

Go change your kart to one that snap oversteers, burn through a tight track and you will see what I mean. That's the closest I can think of to a front wash followed by less rear downforce. This of course depends on the driver, as vettel seems to be affected a fair amount more than kimi.

I will say the tires have more of an impact on the recent increase in complaining, but now that cars are less planted, it's worse.

[Andres125sx]

I believe with the emphasis on rapidly degrading tires and recently reduced aero, the problem has gotten worse. I've heard drivers complain about tire deg and maintaining a 2s gap for at least the past 3 years, maybe 4.

I´ve heard that for a way longer period. Even on Bridgestone era, when tire degradation was not an issue, they complained about dirty air. The only difference is now with tire degradation drivers cannot chase a car close enough because of the dirty air AND if they try for too long they´ll ruin their tires. With hard bridgestone tires they could try it for the whole race, but they also had many problems to keep close to the car in front

So it´s a problem of both dirty air and tire degradation. Ironically tire degradation was introduced to compensate the dirty air problem, so there was strategic differences to allow some overtakes and compensate the lack of because of the dirty air problem.

The amount of trouble you have following another car is directly proportional to the amount of aero dependance those cars have.

True, but not completely accurate. There are some ways to generate downforce wich do not affect the car behind that much. Ground effect, fan cars, studied airfoiled wings (instead of flat ones) wich would generate less downforce but also will reduce turbulence...

This is a problem I´ve been complaining about for many many seasons. Problem is big teams do not want to limit downforce because that´s the department they can make biggest differences with midfielders. With limited aero they´d struggle a lot more to beat midfielders. With standarized aero studied to avoid turbulence as much as posible I´m sure the show will be light years better than currently, but I wouldn´t bet a cent this will happen, because big teams will never support a rule like this, they want free aero to make a difference with midfielders

That´s the reason for stupid rules (IMO) trying to compensate this problem, crappy tires, DRS, kers for a limited time.... all of them are trying to increase overtaking numbers. This is what I´ve called some times patching F1, instead of solving the root of the problem (aero) they´re putting some patches trying to compensate or cover up the real problem. Now there´re a lot more overtakes, but most of them are so artificial (in the sense there´s no battle) that they´ve managed to ruin the most exciting part of racing. Now not even overtaking is exciting (generally speaking obviously)

[Speng]

I've heard it said (most recent by Martin Brundle in the Bahrain GP broadcast) that if the cars got a larger proportion of their down force from ground effect rather than the wings that the cars could run as close as you'd like. The cars have been very wing dependent for awhile (probably from way back when they banned active suspension) so the whinging is not new.

[BanMeToo]

Brundle seems convinced that the new noses this year are creating extra dirty air when compared to 2014. But I'm not sure that I buy it...

[toraabe]

Shorten the rear difusors and re introduce ground effect using the sidepods. Like this http://www.superhachi.com/theory/downforce/indydiff.JPG

More mecanical grip and less wing means more close racing...

[PlatinumZealot]

I've heard it said (most recent by Martin Brundle in the Bahrain GP broadcast) that if the cars got a larger proportion of their down force from ground effect rather than the wings that the cars could run as close as you'd like. The cars have been very wing dependent for awhile (probably from way back when they banned active suspension) so the whinging is not new.

The wings are a part of the show in a some twisted way. I like looking at the wings myself. Maybe if the rules could be made to reduce the down-force from the wings while adding ground effect to compensate.

As someone touched on above the designed to degrade tyres only help overtaking when one guys tyres are shot, but it's a tyre suicide chasing some one around on the same age of tyres.

Then there is the DRS... I like DRS you can chase on the straights only though, not through the corners for obvious reasons.

[wesley123]

I´ve heard that for a way longer period. Even on Bridgestone era, when tire degradation was not an issue, they complained about dirty air. The only difference is now with tire degradation drivers cannot chase a car close enough because of the dirty air AND if they try for too long they´ll ruin their tires. With hard bridgestone tires they could try it for the whole race, but they also had many problems to keep close to the car in front

So it´s a problem of both dirty air and tire degradation. Ironically tire degradation was introduced to compensate the dirty air problem, so there was strategic differences to allow some overtakes and compensate the lack of because of the dirty air problem.

This dirty air is a by-product of a high-downforce open wheel formula.

The amount of trouble you have following another car is directly proportional to the amount of aero dependance those cars have.

True, but not completely accurate. There are some ways to generate downforce wich do not affect the car behind that much. Ground effect, fan cars, studied airfoiled wings (instead of flat ones) wich would generate less downforce but also will reduce turbulence...[/quote]

The bold part pretty much confirms Moose's post. dirty air is for a large amount proportional to the dependency they have on aero.

Also, ground effect aero has been fased out for obvious reasons. It's terribly unstable and just not reliable enough to be deemed safe.

This is a problem I´ve been complaining about for many many seasons. Problem is big teams do not want to limit downforce because that´s the department they can make biggest differences with midfielders. With limited aero they´d struggle a lot more to beat midfielders.

Then they'll just spend their resources on something else with the same effect.

With standarized aero studied to avoid turbulence as much as posible I´m sure the show will be light years better than currently, but I wouldn´t bet a cent this will happen, because big teams will never support a rule like this, they want free aero to make a difference with midfielders

Indycar.

instead of solving the root of the problem (aero) they´re putting some patches trying to compensate or cover up the real problem.[/quote]
They can't magically make it easy to follow a high downforce car. Those abilities have it's limits. Dirty air(which simply is turbulence) is a by product of downforce.