2017-2020 Aerodynamic Regulations Thread

[roon]

Ah well, in that case, we may as well just let them make the cars as wide as they like, see who is fastest in qualifying, give them the trophy, and all go home and watch the cricket on Sunday.

If that's what takes home the purse. You didn't think they were racing for your benefit, did you?

[PhillipM]

They're racing for advertisement, so if it doesn't benefit me to watch it, then the whole shebang goes down the drain.

[roon]

Advertising revenue streams are a sham. Sponsorship benefits are dubious. F1 is wealthy people in competition with each other, chasing fame, notoriety, connections, prizes. A side benefit is that this sometimes produces spectacle of the sort that satisfies thousands of people at once. And if you really know how to appreciate F1, it's nearly always producing something interesting. Such as, how it funds some very interesting engineering & design, every year.

It's not about the spectator, never has been, nor should it be. Even if it did, you would only be one out of thousands or millions of spectators who purport a need to be satisfied by what they're watching. That creates a difficulty when trying to establish consensus.

As long as wealthy people want to compete with one another there will be venues for that competition, such as F1.

[PhillipM]

And why do they want to compete? Advertising. Whether it's themselves or a product.

Either way it's no good without an audience. How many of these big, wealthy backers do you see competing in lawn-mower racing?
They would just go elsewhere.

[roon]

Not sure if we're in disagreement there. Might depend on the meaning of the word advertising. Lots of racing is privateer, like any sport or hobby. F1 had in its history relatively ad-free eras.

I think what happened was that: as F1 gained notoriety & cache, more people wanted to observe it, or become associated with it. Of course the organizers & participants of F1 were more than willing to collect money from this desire to rub elbows. Call it a cache-tax.

In that regard, I think advertising in motorsport is a sham. A way of duping people, companies, out of their money because of some hand-waving about "Oh people will buy your product more." Both parties can fully believe this, by the way.

But that only paints part of the picture. Not all the money flowing into F1 is this cache-tax. It's also, as I said before, wealthy people in competition. A way to participate in the competition is to divert some of your company's money into an F1 sponsorship. But this sort of sponsorship is more about notoriety than increasing company profits.

Notice how often the companies with spare cash to blow on F1 expenditures, are companies with high profit margins. They've figured out a way to sell a relatively cheap products at a markup. Fuels, candy, drugs, alcohol. Energy drinks supplanted tobacco. Hence, Red Bull. Think of these as taxes upon vice, addiction & pretense.

But does seeing logos intermittently plastered in your TV/computer screen really make person decide to buy more Shell gas, or Haribo gummy bears? Maybe yes, maybe no, but I think it pales in comparison to the alternative explanation. Companies with money to blow, staffed by motorsport enthusiasts, blow their profits in the competition & gamble of motorsport. And if there's any resistance within the company to do this, they can resort to the myth-of-advertising to justify it.

In short, two explanations for money flowing into F1 beyond private efforts: the cache-tax, and the gambling front.

[McMrocks]

To make the front of the sidepods swept backwards they should have made a swept backwards side impact structure. as teams are keeping their leading edge as close to structure as possible it wont work otherwise

[Just_a_fan]

Looks like the new rules will, as many of us suspected, make overtaking harder because following close is harder:

Hamilton, though, said he certainly noticed the difference in the car. The extra downforce stood out, he said, adding that the tyres did not degrade anywhere near like Pirellis have tended to in the past.

The only down side was that he said, after following another car, he felt the predictions of less overtaking would be accurate.

“The cars look fantastic - the wider wheels and body. it is harder to follow so it is going to be harder to overtake. the tyres don’t degrade so it is going to be interesting,” he said.

[theWPTformula]

Bodywork boxes at the rear end

https://twitter.com/6usgus/status/834836367171604480

[theWPTformula]

https://twitter.com/6usgus/status/834836367171604480

[gdogg371]

New regs is like the real F1 coming back for me. Just wish the same rear wing and rear tyre specs as 1992 could be used this season. The rear wing was permitted a maximum height of 1000mm and the rear tyres were maximum 18 inches. The rear diffuser was also bigger still and the teams were allowed to run trailing skirts from the front wings behind the front tyres to manage airflow better. The current cars running that spec would look unbelievable.

[godlameroso]

These cars are far faster than the 90's cars ever hoped they could be. These cars would win the race starting 3 laps down against a field of 90's cars.

[Huntresa]

These cars are far faster than the 90's cars ever hoped they could be. These cars would win the race starting 3 laps down against a field of 90's cars.

Jaq Vill did the spanish gp in 1997 in 1h30min35sec and Verstappen did it in 1h41min40sec last year.

And if the cars this year are on average 4 seconds faster per lap that would mean they would shave of 4,4 minutes
of the total racetime if the GP is 66 laps again.

So they would end up with 1hr37min not beating the 90s car. They wouldnt beat it even with adding 2 laps to the 97 time since they only did 64 laps.

Only years during the 90s a 1.37 would be faster is in 1994 and 1991.

[Godius]

These cars are far faster than the 90's cars ever hoped they could be. These cars would win the race starting 3 laps down against a field of 90's cars.

Jaq Vill did the spanish gp in 1997 in 1h30min35sec and Verstappen did it in 1h41min40sec last year.

And if the cars this year are on average 4 seconds faster per lap that would mean they would shave of 4,4 minutes
of the total racetime if the GP is 66 laps again.

So they would end up with 1hr37min not beating the 90s car. They wouldnt beat it even with adding 2 laps to the 97 time since they only did 64 laps.

Only years during the 90s a 1.37 would be faster is in 1994 and 1991.

The Spanish GP had a different (faster) lay-out until 2008.

[Huntresa]

These cars are far faster than the 90's cars ever hoped they could be. These cars would win the race starting 3 laps down against a field of 90's cars.

Jaq Vill did the spanish gp in 1997 in 1h30min35sec and Verstappen did it in 1h41min40sec last year.

And if the cars this year are on average 4 seconds faster per lap that would mean they would shave of 4,4 minutes
of the total racetime if the GP is 66 laps again.

So they would end up with 1hr37min not beating the 90s car. They wouldnt beat it even with adding 2 laps to the 97 time since they only did 64 laps.

Only years during the 90s a 1.37 would be faster is in 1994 and 1991.

The Spanish GP had a different (faster) lay-out until 2008.

True i forgot about that... Was it only the last chicane that was added ? Seems to have added 5 minutes in total time between 2006 and 2007 GPs.

Assuming 5 minutes that would get us to 1.32 so close to even or a bit better if we added two laps to the 97s.

[godlameroso]

Turn 10 was faster, and instead of the chicane it was 2 fast right hand turns. If today's cars used that layout, you could knock an extra 5 seconds off the lap time.