2017-2020 Aerodynamic Regulations Thread

[trinidefender]

You have basically designed a spec series and something that I will stop watching.

I knew this was going to come up. It's not a spec series if some parts are standardized to save costs. Otherwise it would add tons of extra costs if teams had to develop their own closed cockpits, own floors with ground effects and design own active suspensions computer system and then crash test the lot.

How does it even make it more of a spec series if the floor (which is already almost fully locked down and standardised) was just changed to fit to different but as ridid rule set?

How does making the cockpit safer and also cheaper for teams make f1 spec series? The cockpit already has lots of rules about it. How is it bad for f1 to create cockpit which doesn't penalize drivers who are taller than 160cm idea f1 driver?

When a lot more of the downforce is made with the floor it should also allow teams more freedom to design the cars to look different.

As for spec series how does allowing active suspensions make f1 more spec series?

"Move as much of the downforce to the bottom of the car by using ground effects" and "car bottom shape is standardized. No point to allow teams to spend lots of money on something nobody will ever see."

Those two lines basically make it a spec series. You said put as much downforce as possible under the car and then also standardise the bottom. So what you are saying is all the cars will have very little aerodynamic development freedom. Personally I am a fan of aerodynamics in general and I actually think one of the problems with modern F1 cars is that every generation of rule changes have made the aerodynamic development more and more restrictive. I miss the days of when each car on the grid looked vastly different.

Modern F1 cars are actually very safe and have some of best safety cells and seat designs possible. It isn't just like you can standardise those things and suddenly they become safer.

[OO7]

I miss the days of when each car on the grid looked vastly different.

I was thinking about this a few days ago, because it's an opinion shared by others. However when I recall the look of Formula 1 cars, certain since the mid 80's, apart from a few exceptions the cars have generally always looked the same at any given period of time.

[zztopless]

Although too late for 2017 here are my suggestions for next major tech revamp:

1. introduce standardized driver safety cell
- focus on major improvement to the seat to avoid drivers' back being hurt. In return this would allow tracks to have higher kerbs while also preventing drivers hurting their backs when the car bottoms out
- standardize the weight, center of gravity location and shape of the cell so drivers from 60kg to 80kg are all similarly positioned inside the cell and balanced with weights to prevent any kind of performance advantage of shorter and skinnier drivers. The cell should be able to accommodate 1.50m-1.90m tall drivers.
- closed cockpits. Driver head injuries need to stop.

2. Move as much of the downforce to the bottom of the car by using ground effects
- No increase in overall downforce but hopefully less turbulence sensitive cars which should make close racing possible
- car bottom shape is standardized. No point to allow teams to spend lots of money on something nobody will ever see.
- rear wing stays narrow and tall

3. Wider tires to increase drag and mechanical grip

4. active suspension
- uses fia standard control unit but the actual actuators or their type is free

5. change the battery discharge so that the electric motor can only be used above 200kph speed. The goal is to eliminate the way the teams are using the electric motors to fill the dips in the engine torque curve. Doing this would make the cars little bit harder to drive out of slow speed corners.

6. Allow exhaust blowing and make it more free to position the exhaust
- no real performance benefit here, focus is to improve the sounds of the car

7. Replace mirrors with cameras and lcd screens

8. mark unused tires so that spectators can see when team has switched to completely unused tire set.

9. hopefully get rid of drs.

Agree with all of this except point 5. For a couple of reasons:

1) We want the drivers to have more torque to deal with at lower speeds, regardless of whether it comes from the ICE or ERS.
2) Development in this area is one of the areas that really is road relevant.
3) The amazing acceleration that we see in WEC comes form the impressive hybrid systems - would like to see the 120kw limit increased or removed entirely.

[second]

How does it really save costs? The teams have a limited amount of monetary resources, if you expand your avenues of development you simultaneous limit the amount of development on each avenue. If you lock down some areas like you suggest, the teams will just deploy their resources to areas they can develop.

I think what is also worth mentioning is that different teams have different budgets. But all have budgets they want to use. It is money they need to spend somewhere basically.

With my suggestion I'll happily admit that I have not done much research into how much different parts of the car cost to develop. Most of that info is not available anyways. What we do know however is that the front wing is more expensive to design than a rear wing. And the floor as it is is relatively well locked down =can't spend much money there. So if we change the floor rules to something different but as rigid that would also make the front and rear wing less important we could in theory end up in place where teams can still have unlimited budgets to spend but the returns would be extremely small.

In the end it is all about setting sensible limits to what and how certain things can be developed. The current engine is great bad example of how expensive it is to make an engine package despite it being very restricted by the rules. A good example is the new nose regulations. There is still room for individualism and development but it is not huge money sink.

1) We want the drivers to have more torque to deal with at lower speeds, regardless of whether it comes from the ICE or ERS.

The way the teams seem to be using the electric motors is to fill the bumps in the torque curve. (I think the teams are not allowed to use the electric motor as traction control though?) This makes the engines more linear in power delivery and easier to control and drive out of corners. If only the turbo engine was allowed to be used under 200kph speeds the engine torque curve would be rougher and even if there was less horsepower available it would be harder to use. At least that is my theory.

3) The amazing acceleration that we see in WEC comes form the impressive hybrid systems - would like to see the 120kw limit increased or removed entirely.

How much more can f1 harvest continously?

Also I'm personally kinda worried that removing that limitation would create different kinds of issues. One is with scalability. I'm not sure if all the solutions the different teams use can be scaled up without lots of expensive research and redesign. Another worry is purely the competitiveness side of things. Mercedes is already so far ahead that if we gave them even more power their pace advantage would most likely increase. The current formula is too much about the engines imho.

[zztopless]

The way the teams seem to be using the electric motors is to fill the bumps in the torque curve. (I think the teams are not allowed to use the electric motor as traction control though?) This makes the engines more linear in power delivery and easier to control and drive out of corners. If only the turbo engine was allowed to be used under 200kph speeds the engine torque curve would be rougher and even if there was less horsepower available it would be harder to use. At least that is my theory.

I disagree, firstly the torque curve on these new engines would be a lot smoother than the old V8s and secondly not being able to use the ERS below 200kph would just render these engines underpowered for acceleration and much easier to control (the rules do prevent anything but a linear relationship between the application of the throttle peddle and the torque response from the engine).

[second]

I disagree, firstly the torque curve on these new engines would be a lot smoother than the old V8s

Really? Even if that is true the turbos have more low rpm torque which should make them more difficult to drive out of slow corners compared to the v8s.

(the rules do prevent anything but a linear relationship between the application of the throttle peddle and the torque response from the engine).

From 2016 f1 tech rules:
5.5.4 At any given engine speed the driver torque demand map must be monotonically increasing
for an increase in accelerator pedal position.
5.5.5 At any given accelerator pedal position and above 4,000rpm, the driver torque demand map
must not have a gradient of less than – (minus) 0.045Nm/rpm.
(at quick glance that is all I could find about throttle positions)

The first one just means the torque must increase as the pedal goes down. The 2nd seems a bit odd as it talks about negative gradient minimum (to reduce the size of bumps in the engine torque curve?)? Anyways there is no mention of rule requirement of linear throttle pedal / engine torque response in the rules...

[seezung]

See:

http://www.fia.com/news/fia-statement-f ... a-one-cars

and for proposed bodywork changes:

http://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/ ... ompare.pdf

[turbof1]

Since we know now it is going to happen: stickied.

[LookBackTime]

[Gridlock]

A 15cm lower rear wing isn't as far as I'd like but I'll take it, especially as they're wider. And the diffusor will make it visually more compact too, never mind the 40cm wheels.

Huge changes. Like it.

[GoranF1]

Can the fact that it was Mclaren proposal that was accepted be any kind of advantage or a head start for the Woking team?

[turbof1]

front wing and track changes are interesting. As it looks now, the front wing will cover 50mm less of the tyre. That might not seem much, but it is one the most crucial areas of the car. Hopefully the 150mm increase in front wing span can compensate this by more agressive outwash.

[Thunder]

@GoranF1: McLaren only proposed the Bodywork width to be met in the middle at 1600mm. RedBull wanted 1800, Pirelli and Merc wanted 1400. So i don't think there are any advantages.

[Gridlock]

Hopefully the 150mm increase in front wing span can compensate this by more agressive outwash.

I guess it depends on just how regulated the FWEPs become?

[turbof1]

Hopefully the 150mm increase in front wing span can compensate this by more agressive outwash.

I guess it depends on just how regulated the FWEPs become?

In all honesty, I don't really know what they mean with "simplified endplate legality". Could mean they'll allow more or the opposite allow less. They are 'simplifying the legality'. Could either mean an exclusion/standarized zone, or simply regulations being scrapped in that area.