Technical Regulations for 2009-2015

[Ogami musashi]

No.

Wings create drag of course. Drag is the sum of three different drags, induced, profile and shear drag.
(For what matters here, race cars).

The only one that will increase with bigger wings is the shear drag, which far from being the main component of drag at speeds of race cars.

The induced will depend on the Cl/finess ratio of the wing, while the profile will depend on...the profile.

Thus, and like for every physical system out there in the universe, the efficiency of a system will always depend on number*speed*Geometry that is size of the wing*speed*design of the wing.

IF F1 was using ultra optimized wings, that is with high design efficiency, then yes increasing the downforce would increase drag (not linearly though) but F1 is far from being an efficient aeros formula.

The same applies to engines and tyres. If you seriously think that current tyres are at the top of the technology you're missing something.

F1 is heavily regulated and thus has created technical solutions that are only viable inside themselves.

Again, if you tell any engine designer of the automotive industry and say him "in 3 years i'll have 50% the fuel consumption with the same power" he will laugh out because in automotive industry, for the usage done, the cars are quite optimized (yes okay..a low cost sedan is not..) so technological progresses are hard to materialize, but in F1..this is not too hard because the technologies are there already.

[xxChrisxx]

Now now gents lets not have fight about this.

Unfortunately sweeping statements are being used on both sides, so it's a minefield of a discussion to get involved in.

Bigger wings, don't necessarily mean bigger drag, but alot of the time they do. The same wing but bigger will naturally make more drag, but a bigger wing optimised differently may have a more suitable L/D ratio at a different angle of attack.

Also how do you define bigger? Chord, thickness, width, plan area etc?

At the moment noone seems to be accounting for enough variables to make a balenced statement, both sides are cherry picking to support their argument. Ogamis responce was probably most the most balanced.

[Scotracer]

It is a very simple question and two have answered it incorrectly so far.

The answer is: Not necessarily.

Compare a wing with a lower camber, lower AoA but larger span and chord...it would produce the same downforce for lower drag than current wings.

QED

[Just_a_fan]

There is no reason why F1 cars can't have the same downforce with less drag if the rules allowed for it. That would mean we could have the current spectacle of high downforce cars but we'd be able to reduce fuel consumption accordingly.

Of course, we could do much more for F1's carbon footprint by mandating that each team can only run one car and have no more than 12 people plus the driver travel to each race...

[autogyro]

Nothing to do with any of the above.
It is about the coming regulations that 'will' reduce downforce by a major amount.
You will all have to work within a decreasing year by year fuel amount and a controlled downforce level.

[strad]

You will all have to work within a decreasing year by year fuel amount and a controlled downforce level.

Great,,you figure to have Mobilgas Economy Run spec car racing...Whopee,, NOT!

[strad]

I'd rather have no racing than go back to non racing fuel econnomy runs where they turn down the level of competition to save fuel..that's just plain fuelish..hahahaha
We've been thru this before and it sucked big time.

[Ogami musashi]

Now now gents lets not have fight about this.

Unfortunately sweeping statements are being used on both sides, so it's a minefield of a discussion to get involved in.

Bigger wings, don't necessarily mean bigger drag, but alot of the time they do. The same wing but bigger will naturally make more drag, but a bigger wing optimised differently may have a more suitable L/D ratio at a different angle of attack.

Also how do you define bigger? Chord, thickness, width, plan area etc?

At the moment noone seems to be accounting for enough variables to make a balenced statement, both sides are cherry picking to support their argument. Ogamis responce was probably most the most balanced.

There's no need to go deeper right now. Some people here are blind to the fact they negate some fundamental variables (like design) to express their opposition to one thing...yet to make their point in their favorite department they do invoke the very same fundamental variable.


My post was simply there to put a simple answer: Bigger wings/More downforce= more drag is false, Period.

And there's no nuance in that, the people i'm answering to clearly say the when you have more downforce/bigger wings you have NECESSARILY more drag.

And that is false.

And if you want to go deeper, i've already quoted a simple example: Ground effects.
At the end of 1980, the williams F1 produced 2250kg of downforce at 288km/h (said in "gentlemen lift your skirts documentary, right from 1981, available on youtube), which is very close to now.
Top speeds were about the same as now, yet the powertrains were had 60% of today's engines.

Without entering aerodynamics details you can do the maths quick and realise the potential reduction of drag for the same downforce we could have.

[wesley123]

I still keep my point, the recent rule change didnt change a thing due to overtaking, why not? that is really simple, you ave drivers who block each other and block passing entries into turns, then you can have much less downforce, but i do not see how that changes the situation?

Also, stating it is the DDD's fault is simply rubbish, an diffuser comes with nearly no drag penalty and its air is pretty much clean, do you think tha will change when these increase in size? It would yes, but it is a small difference, it wouldnt change a thing.

You will see next year, with the ban of all those genius parts that there will not be any increase in overtaking, at least not the way you are suggesting. Also, the F-Duct even helps in increasing overtaking and slipstream, afterall the F-Duct stalls the rear wing giving it less wake(same as the wings in monza do)

[Ogami musashi]

I don't know who you are answering to since i'm getting the impression if it's me you got my post completely wrong anyway some points i wanted to stress:

I still keep my point, the recent rule change didnt change a thing due to overtaking, why not? that is really simple, you ave drivers who block each other and block passing entries into turns, then you can have much less downforce, but i do not see how that changes the situation?

I fail to see the logic...The goal of the OWG was to clean the wake and lessen it so that cars can follow each other, and that's the very result of this year;
And please look at stats...there's far more overtaking by race this year than all previous years.

Also, stating it is the DDD's fault is simply rubbish, an diffuser comes with nearly no drag penalty and its air is pretty much clean, do you think tha will change when these increase in size? It would yes, but it is a small difference, it wouldnt change a thing.

You mess up aerodynamics concepts sorry. Drag coming from a diffuser has nothing to do with wake. Please before making such assumptions review aerodynamics fundamentals.

I don't know which paragraph you are referring to when you talk about increase in size..

[machin]

They were aimed at me!

[machin]

Several F1 engineer's last year blamed the lack of overtaking on the DDD; the reason they gave being the increased up-wash meant that a following car's front wing was being met by air with a significant vertical component -effectively reducing the front wing's angle of attack and making a following car lose front end grip...

The F-duct HAS improved overtaking... but only because some cars currently have it and some haven't... so there's a big straight line speed differential.

[machin]

What the DDD saga did indicate is that unless you use spec wings/floor or VERY strict rules the teams will never spend a single second of their time trying to improve the flow to a following car (and why would they??!!!). Hence why my concept would feature a spec underfloor, and heavily restricted wings...

[strad]

an diffuser comes with nearly no drag penalty and its air is pretty much clean

You're flat wrong there...the designers have admitted that they design the diffuser to do it's job AND cause as much disruption to the air over the following cars front wing as possible. It's both a device to help the car it's on..basically ground effects...and hurt the following car. I have long maintained that they should ban rear diffusers

[wesley123]

I don't know who you are answering to since i'm getting the impression if it's me you got my post completely wrong anyway some points i wanted to stress:

I still keep my point, the recent rule change didnt change a thing due to overtaking, why not? that is really simple, you ave drivers who block each other and block passing entries into turns, then you can have much less downforce, but i do not see how that changes the situation?

I fail to see the logic...The goal of the OWG was to clean the wake and lessen it so that cars can follow each other, and that's the very result of this year;
And please look at stats...there's far more overtaking by race this year than all previous years.

Also, stating it is the DDD's fault is simply rubbish, an diffuser comes with nearly no drag penalty and its air is pretty much clean, do you think tha will change when these increase in size? It would yes, but it is a small difference, it wouldnt change a thing.

You mess up aerodynamics concepts sorry. Drag coming from a diffuser has nothing to do with wake. Please before making such assumptions review aerodynamics fundamentals.

I don't know which paragraph you are referring to when you talk about increase in size..

I nevr stated the DDD has to do with the wake, I understood others whre saying this, that is what i tried to say it wasnt.

With the incrase in size i was talking about the diffuser exit and how it is bigger. But as the diffuser has clean air(cleanr then rear wing for xampleatleast) i do not see how this can be blamed for the lack of overtaking by now. The problem with following was wake, wich wasmostly because of the rear wingswidth and proximity to the diffuser, by raising this was reduced.

And if i understood correctly before i remembered to hav read that it was provn that the DDD had no effect to the wake at all.