Red Bull RB19

[Bill]

The Youtube and reddit threads based on this are going to be nauseating though as if what he said is ground breaking stuff, when these designs largely are just a refinement of 25 year old ideas that any FSAE student can find with some good search discipline.

Why are engineering teams of 800-900 baffled by something an FSAE student can find?

Mike Elliot

As summarised by Mercedes’ chief technical officer Mike Elliott: “It’s incredible how much lap time Red Bull gains as soon as the rear wing is open. When we put the speed curves on top of each other, we can hardly believe it ourselves.”

Fred Vasseur

Although the Frenchman reckons Red Bull’s DRS effect was even more potent last season, this year its impact continues to be greater than anyone else’s.

“A mega big DRS effect,” he said of Red Bull’s straight-line speed with the DRS open.

“Bigger than everyone else and we have to understand how they are able to do something like this.

“I think it was probably even more huge last year, but we have room for improvement in this area.

All cars are having an interaction with the rear wing and the floor, but only some of them are shedding drag so effectively with the wing open.

redbull competitors are closer to them on quali lap than on race day so its not true that they gain a lot with drs its depend on setup.the likes of william and sauber are just as equal quick on the straight.last year max was able to defend against a ferrari with drs which shows Rbr is a slippery car.

[SiLo]

The Youtube and reddit threads based on this are going to be nauseating though as if what he said is ground breaking stuff, when these designs largely are just a refinement of 25 year old ideas that any FSAE student can find with some good search discipline.

Why are engineering teams of 800-900 baffled by something an FSAE student can find?

Mike Elliot

As summarised by Mercedes’ chief technical officer Mike Elliott: “It’s incredible how much lap time Red Bull gains as soon as the rear wing is open. When we put the speed curves on top of each other, we can hardly believe it ourselves.”

Fred Vasseur

Although the Frenchman reckons Red Bull’s DRS effect was even more potent last season, this year its impact continues to be greater than anyone else’s.

“A mega big DRS effect,” he said of Red Bull’s straight-line speed with the DRS open.

“Bigger than everyone else and we have to understand how they are able to do something like this.

“I think it was probably even more huge last year, but we have room for improvement in this area.

All cars are having an interaction with the rear wing and the floor, but only some of them are shedding drag so effectively with the wing open.

redbull competitors are closer to them on quali lap than on race day so its not true that they gain a lot with drs its depend on setup.the likes of william and sauber are just as equal quick on the straight.last year max was able to defend against a ferrari with drs which shows Rbr is a slippery car.

I think it's more the acceleration to top speed once they open DRS, rather than the max speed at the end of the straight. Red Bull appear to very quickly hit top speed once DRS is open vs other teams than creep up in a more linear fashion.

[Just_a_fan]

Why are engineering teams of 800-900 baffled by something an FSAE student can find?

Mike Elliot


Fred Vasseur


All cars are having an interaction with the rear wing and the floor, but only some of them are shedding drag so effectively with the wing open.

redbull competitors are closer to them on quali lap than on race day so its not true that they gain a lot with drs its depend on setup.the likes of william and sauber are just as equal quick on the straight.last year max was able to defend against a ferrari with drs which shows Rbr is a slippery car.

I think it's more the acceleration to top speed once they open DRS, rather than the max speed at the end of the straight. Red Bull appear to very quickly hit top speed once DRS is open vs other teams than creep up in a more linear fashion.

That would suggest they dump more drag when they open the flap compared to others. Drag absorbs power so if you can get rid of more of it you can accelerate quicker.

[Hoffman900]

redbull competitors are closer to them on quali lap than on race day so its not true that they gain a lot with drs its depend on setup.the likes of william and sauber are just as equal quick on the straight.last year max was able to defend against a ferrari with drs which shows Rbr is a slippery car.

I think it's more the acceleration to top speed once they open DRS, rather than the max speed at the end of the straight. Red Bull appear to very quickly hit top speed once DRS is open vs other teams than creep up in a more linear fashion.

That would suggest they dump more drag when they open the flap compared to others. Drag absorbs power so if you can get rid of more of it you can accelerate quicker.

This.

I used numbers published from around 2013 for frontal area and Cd for a F1 car, and my back of the hand calculation was around 750bhp consumed in drag at 195mph. I have no doubt these cars are even draggier. These cars are consuming most of their power at terminal velocity to just keep that velocity, let alone continue to accelerate.

This is a common calculation in land speed racing. You take a look at the class record, you have data on a body / chassis, and you back into how much horsepower you need to make to break it.

Also why you can’t read into PU performance between the teams without knowing this stuff. It doesn’t take much drag to kill 20-30hp at 190mph +.

[theengineerformula]

Engineering teams of 800-900 are often lead by 1-2 people.

If they can't make sense of it.. it will not trickle down - AKA politics

The Youtube and reddit threads based on this are going to be nauseating though as if what he said is ground breaking stuff, when these designs largely are just a refinement of 25 year old ideas that any FSAE student can find with some good search discipline.

Why are engineering teams of 800-900 baffled by something an FSAE student can find?

Mike Elliot

As summarised by Mercedes’ chief technical officer Mike Elliott: “It’s incredible how much lap time Red Bull gains as soon as the rear wing is open. When we put the speed curves on top of each other, we can hardly believe it ourselves.”

Fred Vasseur

Although the Frenchman reckons Red Bull’s DRS effect was even more potent last season, this year its impact continues to be greater than anyone else’s.

“A mega big DRS effect,” he said of Red Bull’s straight-line speed with the DRS open.

“Bigger than everyone else and we have to understand how they are able to do something like this.

“I think it was probably even more huge last year, but we have room for improvement in this area.

All cars are having an interaction with the rear wing and the floor, but only some of them are shedding drag so effectively with the wing open.

[AR3-GP]

redbull competitors are closer to them on quali lap than on race day so its not true that they gain a lot with drs its depend on setup.the likes of william and sauber are just as equal quick on the straight.last year max was able to defend against a ferrari with drs which shows Rbr is a slippery car.

I think it's more the acceleration to top speed once they open DRS, rather than the max speed at the end of the straight. Red Bull appear to very quickly hit top speed once DRS is open vs other teams than creep up in a more linear fashion.

That would suggest they dump more drag when they open the flap compared to others. Drag absorbs power so if you can get rid of more of it you can accelerate quicker.

Both ideas go hand in hand. Accelerating more quickly to top speed (acceleration measured after 250km/h or so), is coincident with having a higher top speed (assuming no differences between the PUs) because the drag coefficient determines both the acceleration and the terminal velocity (ignoring PU).

This is apparent in the data as well. They go to 338-340km/h in their medium and low downforce packages if the straight is long enough. Others might gain in the low end (Ferrari) but then get beat as drag becomes more important.

From this same understand, Williams probably has the highest acceleration after 250km/h. They seem to have even less drag than RB. The Williams at Spa was otherworldly on the straights.

[Just_a_fan]

I think it's more the acceleration to top speed once they open DRS, rather than the max speed at the end of the straight. Red Bull appear to very quickly hit top speed once DRS is open vs other teams than creep up in a more linear fashion.

That would suggest they dump more drag when they open the flap compared to others. Drag absorbs power so if you can get rid of more of it you can accelerate quicker.

Both ideas go hand in hand. Accelerating more quickly to top speed (acceleration measured after 250km/h or so), is coincident with having a higher top speed (assuming no differences between the PUs) because the drag coefficient determines both the acceleration and the terminal velocity (ignoring PU).

This is apparent in the data as well. They go to 338-340km/h in their medium and low downforce packages if the straight is long enough. Others might gain in the low end (Ferrari) but then get beat as drag becomes more important.

From this same understand, Williams probably has the highest acceleration after 250km/h. They seem to have even less drag than RB. The Williams at Spa was otherworldly on the straights.

Yes, but Williams are lacking in downforce. One of the side effects of poor downforce is generally lower drag and hence high Vmax. It's the same reason why Minardi used to top the speed charts - low downforce and so lower drag than the rest.

[AR3-GP]

That would suggest they dump more drag when they open the flap compared to others. Drag absorbs power so if you can get rid of more of it you can accelerate quicker.

Both ideas go hand in hand. Accelerating more quickly to top speed (acceleration measured after 250km/h or so), is coincident with having a higher top speed (assuming no differences between the PUs) because the drag coefficient determines both the acceleration and the terminal velocity (ignoring PU).

This is apparent in the data as well. They go to 338-340km/h in their medium and low downforce packages if the straight is long enough. Others might gain in the low end (Ferrari) but then get beat as drag becomes more important.

From this same understand, Williams probably has the highest acceleration after 250km/h. They seem to have even less drag than RB. The Williams at Spa was otherworldly on the straights.

Yes, but Williams are lacking in downforce. One of the side effects of poor downforce is generally lower drag and hence high Vmax. It's the same reason why Minardi used to top the speed charts - low downforce and so lower drag than the rest.

The Williams speed is not entirely unrelated to the RB though. If anything it demonstrates what happens when the RB opens DRS. They are dropping a massive amount of downforce, apparently not just all from the wing, but also the floor according to Wache. To the point that they are like a Williams.

It would be interesting to see what would happen with unlimited DRS since the RB in theory has no downforce when it's wing is open so they'd be far more sensitive in corners with an open wing.

[Stu]

None of this is about the RB19 directly (which is the purpose of this thread).

Car comparison, general aero, race pace, etc, all have specific threads and chat around that should not clutter the technical thread (we consider it to be spamming the thread).

It is noted that some of this is being perpetrated by some that have received requests to stop & warnings for similar behaviour in the recent past.

This was a nightmare to clean up (and has only been partially effective).
No warnings have been issued and very few posts deleted. Most off topic points have been moved to either the team thread (those relating to pace, car operations, etc or the 2023 car comparison thread.

[atanatizante]

Could this be what they are doing on RB19?

From the early 2022 test session onwards RB did something important: they eliminated the porpoising effect on their car! And that it's for good! How come? We know these phenomena appear only when the floor generates too much downforce hence lower pressure. So in order to counteract that they have designed/engineered some relief valve/switching fluid acting in a passive way which works above the floor where is higher pressure airflow. Then they need to fine-tunning it track depending... Could this be done? If the answer is yes then could this be allowed by the technical rules?

[hollus]

Mentioned multiple times in this thread, it is just a theory.

Minimum speculation in the car threads, please.

[Tzk]

The Williams speed is not entirely unrelated to the RB though. If anything it demonstrates what happens when the RB opens DRS. They are dropping a massive amount of downforce, apparently not just all from the wing, but also the floor according to Wache. To the point that they are like a Williams.

I believe that RB is balancing the generation of downforce between the floor, beamwing and rearwing quite well. They somehow manage to have a bit more drag on the rearwing and a bit less on beamwing+floor, which is why they gain so much speed when DRS is open. In contrast on high-DF tracks like hungary they got more drag on the beamwing and thus won't gain as much on the straights. So in these cases the advantage over the other teams vanishes somewhat.

Usually teams design floor, beamwing and rearwing to make these interact with each other. beam+rearwing will help guide the air behind the car and thus will increase efficiency of the diffuser and airflow under the car. It puzzles me that the other teams took almost two years to either notice this or to understand and adapt this concept.

[organic]

Front wing gurney flap

[Cs98]

https://i.imgur.com/S01d7LJ.jpeg

Front wing gurney flap

Looks like Monaco levels of downforce.

[AR3-GP]

They were unable to use the high downforce configuration here last year due to handling problems of last year's high downforce package.