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[Huntresa]

Wasnt that the goal of FIA? Reduce DF to increase over takes and while reducing DF they want to make it so the air coming of the car at the back isnt so turbulent so its easier to slipstream for overtakes.

[Artur Craft]

How can you confidently so much without having investigated it?
High noses are better aerodynamically, not because of regulations.

It's not only about side flow either and flow to the back. What about the middle of the car?
It's something that has to be seen to be fully understood.

The middle of the car is almost sealed by the splitter, which is run extremely low. The air under the nose is almost entirely going in the upper part of the splitter. As I said, for some reason, the idea of high noses being an aerodynamical evolution spread on the internet.

Just look back to previous regulation(untill 2008). It allowed bigger diffuser, rear wings with more span and lot's of winglets in front of the rear tires and etc..... The front wing, converserly, had a low central section but it's sides(most part of the span of the wing) were mandated by rules to be run very high. Running the front wing high will majorly reduce it's downforce. In summary, previous regulations naturally favoured more rear downforce balance and teams focused on increasing fw downforce.

Look at cars(from 2006-2008) and you will see that most of them run a lower nose, kind of enclosing with fw central section, the exact opposite of high noses of today which intends to free space throw there so that it will be redirected in a proper way to the rear, to increase it's downforce.

Back on topic, Mclaren seems the fastest on dry but remains to struggle on wet. The updates, at least, seemed to work perfectly!

How can you confidently so much without having investigated it?
High noses are better aerodynamically, not because of regulations.

It's not only about side flow either and flow to the back. What about the middle of the car?
It's something that has to be seen to be fully understood.

SHHH! You might offend one of our armchair aerodynamicists. I'm working on a double major in Mech. Engineering and Aeronautics,yet, I still get "educated" regularly in aerodynamics by them.

Well, I don't know you and this, obviously, isn't directed to you, but I have already read and listean to many engineers saying a lot of absolutely wrong concepts.

[turbof1]

Wasnt that the goal of FIA? Reduce DF to increase over takes and while reducing DF they want to make it so the air coming of the car at the back isnt so turbulent so its easier to slipstream for overtakes.

Which massively failed. It forced teams to scrab downforce in every little detail; such details are very sensitive to air turbulence. The problem wasn't minimized, it got worse, and we actually got less overtaking untill DRS came by.

Remember, in 2008 and earlier, there were the large diffusers and big rear wings. 2009 brought the double diffuser. 2010-2011 brought the exhaust blown diffuser (with increasing amounts of of throttle blowing). There really does seem to have been a progressive reduction in rear downforce that hasn't been matched by front downforce reductions.

Yeah I suspected it was that. I don't think potentional frontal downforce actually has been reduced at all; they of course have that neutral area in the main plane at the FW, but the wings really are massive. Teams probably could increase downforce at the front wing at any given time without much development, though have to balance it out with the back of course.

[morefirejules08]

Has anyone actually seen evidence such as flow diagrams etc to prove or disprove the high nose theory?
surely there must be a maximum volume of air that the underfloor can accept and once this limit has been reached there would be little or no point in trying to introduce more air into that area

[marcush.]

let´s assume the crossection of mclarens chassis sits 50 mm lower than anyone elses .How much is this in percentage of area between the front wheels? 5 %,10?
I think it´s not much more than having a set of brakeducts poking into the airstream between tyre and tub -an area much more crowded than the underside of the tub ?
I´d think the high nose does benefit the flow in terms of less convergeance :you don´t want to create blockage behind the front wings wake ,so it makes sense to lift the tub out of the way (as you cannot get rid of the wheels).

[Artur Craft]

high noses themselves of course don't create downforce, but they are a method of getting more air to the diffuser. If there were no regulations, high noses would be useless b/c everybody would be driving ground effect and thus no air at all would be traveling beneath the car.

Yes, you nailed it but I have already read people saying that high noses were a natural evolution of aerodynamics and that it's better, no matter what. I have even read people(a guy on a forum who claimed to be an engineer working on a ground-effect car project) that he was using high nose on his ground-effect car because it's the "right solution" even on an unregulated car.

Newey is the ultimate aero-expert, at least regarding race cars, and he used very low nose on Mclarens of 2004,2005,2006, for a reason.

Not just the diffuser. The diffuser is not the be all and end all of all things aero.
What about the front splitter?
The bargeboards?
The undercuts?

High nose is better, because you're real ground effect start at the splitter. What modern F1 cars do is have the center of pressure in the middle near the driver. So that is why the floor is cut back so much to where it is now in modern F1. For aerodynamic intents and purposes nose is only there to hold the front wheels and the front wing to the car and guide the air around. You don't want it to disturb before it reaches the splitter the air and high noses disturb less air than low noses. To illustrate Ferrari and redBull have huge fences under the nose to keep the air nice and clean before it reaches the splitter/bargeboard area.

Yes, I also agree with some of your points. The splitter is really a great place to generate downforce because of it's position as it provides almost even balanced pressure to the front and rear axles, and it obviously generates some downforce as well as guide air to sidepods undercuts, together with bargeboards.

The bottom line is that it will mostly depends on your needs.

And Mp4-27 was a great project considering it managed to be very competitive, early this year, despite having lower nose than others in a regulations era where they must seek for rear downforce improvement.

PS(quite off-topic, though, sorry): Man, is there anything sexier than this:
http://www.carautoportal.com/car-images ... mp4-19.jpg

[McMrocks]

another question. i don't know if it was allraedy mentioned:
Why has Force India smaller sidepods than McLaren?

[turbof1]

high noses themselves of course don't create downforce, but they are a method of getting more air to the diffuser. If there were no regulations, high noses would be useless b/c everybody would be driving ground effect and thus no air at all would be traveling beneath the car.

Yes, you nailed it but I have already read people saying that high noses were a natural evolution of aerodynamics and that it's better, no matter what. I have even read people(a guy on a forum who claimed to be an engineer working on a ground-effect car project) that he was using high nose on his ground-effect car because it's the "right solution" even on an unregulated car.

Newey is the ultimate aero-expert, at least regarding race cars, and he used very low nose on Mclarens of 2004,2005,2006, for a reason.

That was because the back end simply from those cars in those years had more then enough downforce. There was no need raise the nose; there were enough other options to raise back end downforce when front downforce allowed it, while still reaping the benefits of a lower nose (such a lower CoG and better mechanical grip).
Now that I have put some tought into it, you actually do might want to have a raised nose even when rules aren't in place. I mean the centre of the floor clearly is sealed off to have the ground effect, but you can create side channels in which the raised nose can still pump air along the car to the diffuser. So yeah they could actually be right.

[Owen.C93]

another question. i don't know if it was allraedy mentioned:
Why has Force India smaller sidepods than McLaren?

McLaren has horizontal radiators which offer poor airflow but allow more undercut.

[allstaruk08]

another question. i don't know if it was allraedy mentioned:
Why has Force India smaller sidepods than McLaren?

McLaren has horizontal radiators which offer poor airflow but allow more undercut.

But Fi radiators look like they're at a similar angle to the McLaren radiators so that doesn't really add up

[Owen.C93]

another question. i don't know if it was allraedy mentioned:
Why has Force India smaller sidepods than McLaren?

McLaren has horizontal radiators which offer poor airflow but allow more undercut.

But Fi radiators look like they're at a similar angle to the McLaren radiators so that doesn't really add up

Not really.

[McMrocks]

thanks owen. really good to see on the pics. but i aren't the the FI radiators better for the center of gravity? But i believe that the guys from McLaren did their best to find the best solution. And it doesn't seems that McLaren has a problem with too much drag and the mac is a lot better than the FI.

[Nando]

Second time now that the Mclaren just loses all downforce when the full wets come on..

It´s like the full wets pick the car up just outside the "Goldie-lock" zone for their ride height.

[beelsebob]

Second time now that the Mclaren just loses all downforce when the full wets come on..

It´s like the full wets pick the car up just outside the "Goldie-lock" zone for their ride height.

When was the other time? At Silverstone the McLaren loved full wets, it hated inters.

[elf341]

Are you sure? I remember it the other way round. That is, Hamilton was P1 on the inters, but in Q3 when wets were required they were nowhere.

edit: oops just checked wiki, you're right Q2 was wets, Q3 was inters.