2010 cars

[axle]

Notice how much further back the VR-01's airbox is. No wonder it's a longer car the nose is much longer.

[ringo]

Just going out on a branch here.
The VR-01 looks like it will be faster than the Renault. If not now then with a diffuser upgrade later.

[korzeniow]

Just going out on a branch here.
The VR-01 looks like it will be faster than the Renault. If not now then with a diffuser upgrade later.

I also like look of Virgin's car. It looks shapely and deft. Good work from beginers. Especially in comparison with new Lotus car.

And I just realized that you are serius.

Come on, how we could judging speed of a car by its look?! VR-01 has udeveloped front wing, primitive diffusor, unknown engine and so on...

[rjsa]

The VR01, like the F10, has the exhaust exit further ahead, close to the cockpit.

[Giblet]

Nobody can look at a car and judge it's comparative speed, not even a Beatle

But we can say that the the FIF1 was usually top of the speed traps last year, and very good on low downforce tracks. If the same traits are kept, then we can expect the FIF1 to be 'faster' in a straight line at least than the Renault, assuming the overall slowness of the Reanult (in straight and curved lines) is also retained.

[ringo]

Well you can't know the exact difference in performance , but sometimes there are tell tale signs that can indicate the performance. Aside from the DDD, i think the VR01 is a better designed body. The renault may have better suspension anyway, so it may be faster. But just going off the body i like what I am seeing with the VR.

[Blackout]

Nobody can look at a car and judge it's comparative speed, not even a Beatle

But we can say that the the FIF1 was usually top of the speed traps last year, and very good on low downforce tracks. If the same traits are kept, then we can expect the FIF1 to be 'faster' in a straight line at least than the Renault, assuming the overall slowness of the Reanult (in straight and curved lines) is also retained.

In straight ? the Renault have very good top speed...
in Valencia, the R30 had the highest one... and the RS27 is one of the best engines.

[Giblet]

Yes.

Last year the Force Indias usually topped or were near the top of the speed traps, which are placed at the highest speed point of the circuit AFAIK.

The RS27 is one of 4 engines from last year, and it was not the best. It was underpowered compared to the Mercedes in the Force India, which is widely known to be the most powerful engine out of the Renault, Ferrari, Mercedes, and BMW lumps. The BMW was considered to be the overall worst engine, but most considered the Ferrari a bit of a dog as well, being not as powerful as the Merc, but not as miserly as the Renault.

The Renault engine was the least thirsty, this is not speculation.

Now it's a new season, and we will have to wait and see, but I can't see Renault dialing out all of the fuel economy, while I can't see the Mercedes dialing out it's power.

They will likely all meet in the middle somewhere, but we will have to wait and see.

[tk421]

instead of posting in the virgin and lotus threads, i'll ask here:

why did these teams start the design and build of their cars so late? were they waiting to see if the fia accepted them into the championship before they did anything further? thanks

[ESPImperium]

instead of posting in the virgin and lotus threads, i'll ask here:

why did these teams start the design and build of their cars so late? were they waiting to see if the fia accepted them into the championship before they did anything further? thanks

Why spend a few million on something youre not gonna get in to??? Design the baseline and have it in the wind tunnel as the first 60% model yes, but lets stop there, and even then youve probably spent close to $150,000 on the process to there. Once accepted, press full scale onto a major R&D programme.

By my reconing, any new team in F1 that has came in in the last 20 years, their cars have been up to 4 seconds off the pace. Super Aguri with the SA05 were the last in 2006, and altho they cannibalised the Arrows A23 to fit the RA806E engine and get in the current regulations, they were still about 4 seconds off the pace. It was just flattering in a way that their next compeditor was Midland with the MF1 and it was 2.5 seconds off the pace of the Renault R26 and Ferarri F2006, whitch were the pace setters all year. The last team to be a fresh start up were Toyota and if the TF101 ran in 2001 it would have been 4 seconds behind the last team on the grid that year. By the "second" season of the team the first Toyota to compete the TF102 was 3.5 seconds off the pace setters at the front. So the performance gain there was massive.

So im thinking that Virgin and Lotus will find arround 2 seconds going thrugh the season of a performance gain. Campos will be closer to 3 or 4 seconds performance gain due to its poor base line due to no test time being used. Im expecting the new teams to be much closer in 2011. Probably about 1.2 to 1.5 seconds off the pace of the guys at the very front.

[marcush.]

are you sure you could design and build a fully functional windtunnelmodel for that sum ,if you have to pay every hour ,material,etc ?
I ´d say itis much more than this ,itis basically the full car in 60% with all the molds for those parts and of course you need to design all bits on CAD...have the machines and equipment or outsource everything.. it stacks up rapidly ...if it were just 150.000 wirth would not have bothered building a model as well.

[ESPImperium]

are you sure you could design and build a fully functional windtunnelmodel for that sum ,if you have to pay every hour ,material,etc ?
I ´d say itis much more than this ,itis basically the full car in 60% with all the molds for those parts and of course you need to design all bits on CAD...have the machines and equipment or outsource everything.. it stacks up rapidly ...if it were just 150.000 wirth would not have bothered building a model as well.

Im going on what Lola reputedly paid out for their start up. But they had much of the materials and amn hours already pre paid. Youre right, it would be miles more, probably 6 times that for a starting figure for a team like Virgin who are operating on £40million this year, excluding driver wages.

[raymondu999]

Good effort, but the idea was a top view using the front and rear cockpit template to scale the pictures. All teams have to use the same cockpit opening length. If the cars are aligned that way you can see where the wheelbase goes.

The tyres are standardised too, no?

[marcush.]

with Williams ,Virgin,Lotus and HRT we got a direct chassis comparison for the first time in several years between more than two cars and to me a clear hint towards the
importance of the engine in the whole package.

Williams clearly is not the top overall ,but at least they seem able to compete so we have to assume that engine power and delivery are not really an issue for them.

But how to you explain the lack of speed at Virgin ? their car looks the part definitely and it shows not much deviation in layout compared to the others features
all the new tricks ,but we have not seen the final difusser and a proper front wing
But all these bits will not account for the missing galaxy in time over one lap.

Same goes for lotus ,but additionally we see a almost outdated ,conservative bulky hull design but quite elaborate and up to date front wing....in effect with the same performance as the Virgin car currently.

third we have seen the Dallara ,sporting a even wider spread in terms of trendy
monocoque but unsophisticated appendages PLUS steel suspension wishbones(leading to admitted 20 kilos less ballast ,so considerably higher CG).This leads me to the conclusion Dallaras car should be a bit slower than both lotus and Virgin with the
ballast issue .

But then we will see who is really performing at wich level and i have the gut feeling we might be a bit surprised about the outcome of this special comparison at the end of the year.

If it was only a setup thing I´d say Glock ,Kova and Trulli are experienced enough to give the team direction to find the max of their potential.
But possibly driver input is not enoough to find the real peaks ? so Lotus with Gascoyne may be the bet ?Or Dallara with Willis?

Or will it be Midland /Spyker /Minardi ways -you got a car with fundamental flaws
just unable to be developped into a performer and you will have to buils up a data base first to even think about moving towards williams.

One thing is clear by now :You need an engine to compete ,but it will not decide if you are running first or last....

[Miguel]

marcush,

I'd say that all the new teams are missing at least 1s per lap in terms of set up. Talking from my comfortable armchair (it's actually a rather uncomfortable chair, though), with at least Virgin having a brand new car, probably employing relatively inexperienced engineers plus issues during testing indicate that set up work and understanding of the car is not as advanced as desired. Talking about the Dallara chassis, the steel suspension (thanks for the news, I hadn't hear this) is indeed a handicap, but I feel it is a relatively "minor" one. Furthermore, I'd be surprised if it can't be fixed during the season.