Technical Regulations for 2009-2015

[rjsa]

Ogama I think that the main point is that 95% of the road cars, 95% of the time won't need a disfuser.

Someone driving to the point of the difuser making any difference is either on a race track or breaking the law.

We are talking ford focus, fiat punto and chrysler 300, not GTR, ferrari and alikes.

fixed

[WhiteBlue]

=D> =D> =D>

exactly

[Ogami musashi]

Ogama I think that the main point is that 95% of the road cars, 95% of the time won't need a disfuser.

Someone driving to the point of the difuser making any difference is either on a race track or breaking the law.

We are talking ford focus, fiat punto and chrysler 300, not GTR, ferrari and alikes.

fixed

I quoted the diffuser example to show that F1/LMS/CART technologies can be transfered into road cars.

And here in france, some versions of the renault Clio, topping at 200km/h are equiped with diffusers.

The goal is simply to offer less lift at high speed, which may start from as low as 130km/h (the highest legal speed in france).

Now, not to go away from my main point, i shall rewrite it:

-While the goals are different in F1 aerodynamics, there's fundamental research that is going on and thus a common knowledge base can be used.
This is the case for aerodynamics efficiency, turbulence prediction and flow management.
Those research are used by road car companies, not exclusively of course, but definitely benefit from that.

If you're not convinced, i quote PS who talked about many technologies that were developped in F1 during the last 50 Years while the cars had nothing in common with the road cars.

A 19,000RPM V8 may be not revelant to road car engines, yet the cooling and combustion efficiency reached is something road cars benefit from.

[ISLAMATRON]

Are the over/into nose bridge wings gone for 2009? The front wings are restricted to 3 planes? and the rear wing restricted to 2?

[Scotracer]

Are the over/into nose bridge wings gone for 2009? The front wings are restricted to 3 planes? and the rear wing restricted to 2?

After the homologated section there is no limit to the number of elements on the front-wing. I believe they can have cascade-style wings that they had in 2005 but not like we have today.

Rear-wing is still 2 elements max.

[CMSMJ1]

I agree with Ogami - There is a relevance to aero work in F1 to the road.

Road cars need to be aerodynamically efficient for nothing else other than fuel economy.

Would you think that a car manufacturer might decide to use the windtunnel it owns, but cannot use in F1, for the road car division?

It is all moot anyways - Max does not have the ability to tell anyone how to spend their money. He can massage the rules to suit his strange vision and to make his legacy.

Roll on the first '09 cars rolling out for testing....

[mx_tifoso]

Are Williams in favour of standardised engines?

Williams F1 CEO Adam Parr: We are not commenting on that, but Williams' view is that we have to cut costs as a sport. That view is shared by almost everybody else. The single biggest cost for an independent team of manufacturer is the engine, so we have to do something about it. When we froze the engine for five years it was a massive mistake, a massive mistake. We froze a very expensive engine, and the thinking at the time was that it was not a performance differentiator and therefore you could freeze it. Subsequently it turned out that maybe it was a performance differentiator, or it has become a performance differentiator, and therefore you cannot have a frozen engine.

All but one of the manufacturers has said that opening up an engine for a development war is not feasible, because they have not got the money or appetite to do it. So what are you going to do? If you cannot race for competition for the engine then you have to have an engine that is not a performance differentiator. What is the point in having an engine that is not a performance differentiator that costs an unfeasibly large amount of money? What is the point? It will be like spending 100 million Euros a year on tyres when we all have the same tyres. What is the point? Williams' view is we don't know what the right solution is, but clearly you have got to start with the engine."

-Autosport.com

[WhiteBlue]

http://www.autoindustry.co.uk/docs/eems_study.pdf

this is the fundamental study that Ciro has posted some time in the past. I believe it is still true. It makes a big point against excessive downforce as we see it today. this is primarily aimed at Ogami Musashi who thinks that current downforce levels are no problem. have a look at what they say about wake generation in relation to downforce. those are very serious and experienced people who did this work.

[Scotracer]

The reason the 2008 regulation cars have such horrendous wake signitures is because the FIA tried to do two things at once: Reduce downforce/aero efficiency but maintain drag levels. This was just asking for trouble. If you look at a late 90's car, they achieved higher top speeds than cars of today, with very similar power outputs. The current cars are horrid drag-wise. The level of downforce they have could be developed at a significant reduction in drag. Lower drag, reduced wake, less problems following another car.

If the FIA was really all about efficiency they would allow F1 cars to have covers over the wheels (similar to LMPs) but they don't. They say they are all for making the sport more efficient but at the same time demand that drag levels be maintained? Yeah, that makes sense.

This was another stipulation for the 2009 regulations, which were supposed to fix the problems; much reduced downforce but same drag. It was never going to happen in reality so we will see a rough 10% reduction in drag for the beginning of next season. Top speeds will increase by around 5-8km/h - nothing dangerous.

Simple analogy: The undercarriage of a typical passenger aircraft produces the same amount of drag (i.e. wake) as the entire fuselage and all wings combined. So why are components such as suspension struts and wheels exposed? I don't really care if they make them closed-bodied cars if it's a better idea. Also, it'd be a damn sight more relevant to road cars.

Why not allow CVTs? CVTs are a largely untapped resource, certainly when compared to the amount of budget and resources an F1 team has at their disposal so why are they still banned 14 years after the ban was enforced? They could do with this money. KERS is a load of pish (Scottish word) and does not require the amount of money going into it as has been - it's basically just seperate pre-existing components being made smaller/lighter. Any industry could do that.

And doesn't the fact that the governing bodies are specifying how fast they want the cars to go and what they should contain very insulting to the automotive industry? "Yes, 320km/h is nice - we should need 550kW to do that". I find that sort of outlook rather disgusting. I want development, finding the operational limits via track testing and racing, not in a boardroom meeting chaired by someone who has next to no engineering background.

I think they should offer two shows for F1: the current and the technological years on TV at the same time. If you want to see your favourite new driver watch the current but if you want to see real F1, watch the older stuff.

[WhiteBlue]

The essence of F1 for me is being the highest performance global single seater, open wheel race car formula on road like tracks.

All these elements should be carefully preserved in order to maintain the tradition and identity of F1. If open wheels one day are absolutly impossible due to some other objectives they may go. but I havn't seen it so far. Even the 1994 crisis was resolved maintaining open wheels and despite much doomsaying F1 hasn't had a driver fatality since then. Plenty of closed wheel formulae had fatalities and this is the ultimate reason why open wheels can still continue.

[Ogami musashi]

http://www.autoindustry.co.uk/docs/eems_study.pdf

this is the fundamental study that Ciro has posted some time in the past. I believe it is still true. It makes a big point against excessive downforce as we see it today. this is primarily aimed at Ogami Musashi who thinks that current downforce levels are no problem. have a look at what they say about wake generation in relation to downforce. those are very serious and experienced people who did this work.

Thanks for the link.

Now, that study is surely a good one on engines, but surely not a study in aerodynamics.

There's nothing. Nothing except two sentences with no argumentation, only ONE person saying "less drag means better overtaking". Nothing on the link to downforce and if you allow this, his view on aerodynamics are pretty wrong, or at least the way the sentences are formed makes for a wrong assessment.

The first mistake is to think stirling moss was able to overtake by the virtue of less drag then, in the words of the author, less turbulence.
Those 60's cars produced a lot of turbulence, and the reason of stirling moss overtakings, aside his talent, was that the cars produced lift.
By being in the wake the total forces decreases, hence in contrary to now, the cars had less lift thus better grip.

This is the common mistake, comparing today's situation with the non aero cars. Non downforce cars had MORE grip by following someone, they also had less drag as it is now.
Is this desirable? that is a question, but the common spirit in F1 is that the guy behind should be faster by the virtue of his driving so that he HAS to lose a bit of downforce.

The second wrong point is the less drag= more overtaking. Less drag means that you have less slipstream; in the event you have a car with less downforce where the design would garantee less loss, what stays for the car to overtake if he do not have enough slipstream????

The final wrong point is the link done, without any fact to back it that more downforce means more drag AND according to the author more turbulence.
That is totally wrong. Is the concept of aerodynamic efficiency familiar with him?

And i reckon the fact that in the actual wake structures the more downforce on the rear wing the cleaner is the wake.
The reason is that the rear wing pumps and cleans the turbulence in an inwash flow field re-giving the potential energy to the following car.

So, imho the actual levels of downforce are too high for the sole reason of safety.
It would be good to lower them a big to back up with the tyres but that's not for wake and loss reasons.

The OWG never cut the downforce to the sake of cutting it; they did it on safety reasons, knowing the teams would claw back the downforce lost.

Re-balancing tyre grip and aero grip is good thing. The actual solution is not good, because the car lose so much of their total grip, especially in medium speeds, but as for wake and sensitivity the level of downforce have no direct link.


I'm sorry but you'll have to bring more scientif and sound approach on this subject.

[donskar]

I'm astonished (or have I missed an entire thread?) that no one seems to have bothered to note that both Toyota AND Ferrari have come out so defiantly against the "standard" engine." And Ferrari have hinted strongly they would consider withdrawing from F1.

Is there something I missed (Houston, TX is definitely NOT a hotbed of interest in F1!)?

It's naive, I know, but I still harbor the hope that SOMETHING can be done to prevent F1 becoming nothing but a glorified spec series with no other goal than to line Bernie's and Max's pockets.

[Scotracer]

Ferrari wont quit. Let us be reasonable here - Ferrari exists to race and nothing else. The road cars are built to fund the race team. Whilst Ferrari may have a large entry in the FIA GT/ALMS/LMS series F1 is at their core. They will not leave.

I would like them to as the others would follow and we'd get a real F1 back

[donskar]

Scotracer, I agree with you 100% from the emotional perspective. But Ferrai has come a LONG way from Enzo's time. They are now experts in business - especially marketing and branding.* And the suits in charge might focus more today on profit/loss and return on investment.

If the decision is made by the stereotype "Board of Directors," they might look at the cost of F1 versus its value, versus the return on investment of a lower cost racing effort.

No, I don't think they'll leave racing, but there's lots of racing series that would offer good exposure at far lower cost. And if you (like me) think back to Ferrari's past, they often raced in several series, often to the detriment of the F1 effort - F2, over- and under-2 liter Group 6 (LeMans "prototyptes"), Group 7 (Can-Am), European Hillclimb Championship (which was far more important in the past than currently), Tasman Championship -- sometime several series in one season!

And BTW, I look forward to some Ferrari hater/conspiracy theorists explaining how Ferrai's statement fits with their obsession with FIA and Ferrai being in some sort of secret cabal . . .

*RE: branding - just a few years ago the two most recognized logos in the world were Marlboro and Ferrari.

[WhiteBlue]

I'm surprised that the rather transparent moves by the players are not seen at their substance.

The automotive players including Ferrari want to use their financial capabilities to secure a competitive advantage from the money they can spend.

The FiA wants to create a more level playing field for the poorer teams. That is the basic position which is not easy to reconsile.

Clearly the standard engine threat is the stick to beat the auto firms into supplying the smaller teams with competitive engines at a moderate price of 5 m €/a.

The rest is nothing but a moke screen.