The F-duct voted out by the teams

[wesley123]

really, if the teams agree to not use it it is per rules still allowed, due to the gains be made by this i expect an team to show fota their ass and simply run it, the gains made by it can be huge, and the concept is simply at its baby steps, it has some drawbacks but it is a great thing of development.

[kilcoo316]

Technical content is correct Wesley, but I strongly disagree over whether it should be banned or not.

(IMO it should never have been allowed, never mind banned!)


How can the FIA ban the mass damper on the grounds of "moveable aerodynamic device", yet not ban this?

[wesley123]

cant give a reason for it, but it just works by pressure, so there isnt any movable aerodynamics in it, if you call this movable aerodynamics why not ban engines? Air goes into the engine afterall and the engine has moving parts...

[vall]

cant give a reason for it, but it just works by pressure, so there isnt any movable aerodynamics in it, if you call this movable aerodynamics why not ban engines? Air goes into the engine afterall and the engine has moving parts...

read my post on the previous page. It is not important if is is movable or not. The important thing is that is activelys change the car aero characteristics (while the car is in motion). The rule is there to prevent this (not just anything that moves), so on these grounds the F-duct should have never been allowed.

[ESPImperium]

Im glad it was banned, effectivly on dual cost and saftey grounds from the sounds of things. Cost due to the fact it seemingly costs arround $7 million to develop the system, and saftey ad drivers have hands or a hand off the wheel.

The thing is that i feel that so much had been taken away from teams to develop, the DDD, The F-Duct and many others. Personally id like to see teams allowed to develop a "performance" differenciator for each of their cars. Id like to allow this, but for this to happen the teams must declare the item they have.

Examples could include; Renault being allowed their mass damper again, Mercedes being allowed to run their Torque Transfer bar on the front wheels from the teams BAR days, Red Bull being allowed to have their "leaky damper" in-between quali and the race.

Id like to see some areas of development to be given back to the teams, but safe areas of development that dont cost the earth to develop.

[hollus]

By the looks of it, Red Bull's exhaust is also an active variable aerodynamic device.

[donskar]

mx_tifosi wrote:

What could teams possibly develop that is relevant for use outside of F1? Particularly for road cars?

TC? No.
ABS? No.
Stability Control? No.
Direct Injection? No.
VVT? No.
(significant) Moveable aero? No.
Treaded tyres? No.

F1 has practically nothing to do with road cars, much less daily drivers that will last 300,000+ miles. F1 is behind road cars in so many ways that it should be allowed by society to stray away from the beaten path.

This subject really bums me out. This series is being limited by those who want to be socially correct and don't care if the character and soul of the series is walked on.

The sad thing is that I have no other series to look forward to as much as F1. Nothing comes close. The next best thing is high performance driving events, and for the mean time I'm relegated to being a spectator.

Thank you for saving me all the typing. You and I are in complete agreement. I have Tundra pickup trucks on my showroom floor with TC, ABS, Stability Control, VVT, and dual track intake and dual path exhaust -- all STANDARD on a TOYOTA TRUCK!

I love F1, too, but sometimes it is downright embarrassing.

[Ian P.]

The Gini is out of the bottle.
Ban the driver-interactive "blown wing" if you like. I expect to see similar (but legal) systems show up that work passivly.
Tie the back side of the air-box to the leading (or lower) edge of the wing. Driver lifts his foot at high speed and the blown slats of the wing goes from low drag stall to high drag downforce. This has been proven on STOL aircraft.
Probably would only be useable at certain tracks, not Spa but Monza could be a candidate.

[Dukeage]

In that case, would ditching those pug-ugly shark fins help?

[autogyro]

Yep, F1 is getting a joke.
Soon it will just be children playing with model aeroplanes.
The grown up part of the sport is slowly fading.

[WhiteBlue]

What could teams possibly develop that is relevant for use outside of F1? Particularly for road cars?

TC? No.
ABS? No.
Stability Control? No.
Direct Injection? No.
VVT? No.
(significant) Moveable aero? No.
Treaded tyres? No.

I have to disagree there. Of course there are major differences between road cars and F1 and some are so substantial to the ethos of racing that hopefully they will never be leveled. In my view from your list that includes:

TC
ABS
Stability control
and additionally launch control

Treaded tyres are being used in road cars and F1 equally so it really isn't a discriminator. Road cars have no tyre crews of 20 people in stand by to change the tyres when it gets dry so they have to keep the treads all the times that F1 cars only use when it actually rains. But that makes no fundamental difference.

Direct petrol injection is at the heart of fuel efficiency in this decade and will definitely come to F1 with the 2013 formula. Anything learned by then will be available for transfer to road cars. I would personally love to see dual fuel technologies come into the fold. Natural gas, liquide petrol gas, methanol or other environmentally beneficial fuels can be used in combination with petrol or diesel to increase the octane numbers of combined fuels and lift the efficiency of the engine. If combinations of fuels are allowed and limits are set on energy content of the fuels there could be some spectacular efficiency gains that are transferable to road cars.

Variable valve timing was banned to keep engine power and cost down, but if it increases fuel efficiency it should be allowed back.

Movable aero is a very similar case it was initially banned on safety grounds but todays redundant digital real time control systems are so reliable that the fuel saving effect is overwhelming. Mosley with his visionary concepts wanted movable aero back for 2010 and I'm sure it will come latest in 2013.

[xpensive]

...
Movable aero is a very similar case it was initially banned on safety grounds but todays redundant digital real time control systems are so reliable that the fuel saving effect is overwhelming. Mosley with his visionary concepts wanted movable aero back for 2010 and I'm sure it will come latest in 2013.

I would like to see fully movable aero introduced with the new rule package, but importantly enough it should be driver operated,
as to give driving another dimension now that clutch and stick is long gone.

[mx_tifoso]

Oddly enough when I think about active aero in F1 and roads cars the main area that springs to my mind is for the cooling system. In that flaps in the sidepods could be closed at high speeds in order to reduce drag, and the same thing could be done on road cars during highway use.

As for the list that I mentioned, I didn't mean to say that all of those things should be in F1, but that all of that is on roads cars because they need it. F1 doesn't need all of that, especially the four that WB mentioned in his latest post.

I suppose that my point of view stems from my belief that F1 shouldn't be relegated to technology that is relevant to road cars, and that said position should be reserved for actual series which cater to production based models, even prototypes albeit at a more distant level.

I would go into the subject of VVT but it would continue the off topic trend.

But the point is that if an F-duct isn't relevant to road cars, so what? F1 isn't in the least bit relevant to road cars.

[vall]

...
Movable aero is a very similar case it was initially banned on safety grounds but todays redundant digital real time control systems are so reliable that the fuel saving effect is overwhelming. Mosley with his visionary concepts wanted movable aero back for 2010 and I'm sure it will come latest in 2013.

I would like to see fully movable aero introduced with the new rule package, but importantly enough it should be driver operated,
as to give driving another dimension now that clutch and stick is long gone.

I disagree with that. The driver's primary goal is to drive the car not push countless buttons. Now they have to deal with: gears, brake balance, engine mapping, movable from wing and F-duct. Did I forget something? I think that's more than enough Give them more simple cars that promote close battles and driver skills and enjoy the show.

[vall]

I suppose that my point of view stems from my belief that F1 shouldn't be relegated to technology that is relevant to road cars, and that said position should be reserved for actual series which cater to production based models, even prototypes albeit at a more distant level.

+100

There are enough other series that could be test bed for road car technology. I was always puzzled by the notion that F1 need to be road cars relevant. This may be the politically correct thing to say, but I think F1 should be kept as the most technologically advanced sport.