2018 Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal June 8-10

[siskue2005]

It seems like we're all forgetting that two years ago Overtaking was not rarity, rather it was a Norm. But yeah, hey how do we stop Mercedes? Let's f...ing change the entire rules! Yes that would do it. --->NOW WE HAVE THIS. Enjoy it.

spot on

[marvin78]

Drive by's are not overtakes. And a high number of overtakes does not make good racing.

[turbof1]

Drive by's are not overtakes. And a high number of overtakes does not make good racing.

Correct. What makes good racing is drivers being able to race so close to one another, that breaking 0.1s too late means plowing your nose in the rear crash structure of your opponent.

And we haven't seen that at all really in Canada (but in all honesty, if we take my statement very literally, almost nowhere else as well )

[marvin78]

We did not have that 2 years ago either. There often was no fight because you could not prevent the drive by. That's even worse than no overtakes.

[Andres125sx]

I´ve said this several times, and purists take it as an offense, but I think some day we should assume high DF cars (ie fast cars) and numerous wheel to wheel battles are not compatible.... unless we make something to equal cars perfomances while battling

At first I thougt about increasing DF on chasing cars, but experts have always pointed turbulent air is low energy air so there´s no way to get same DF from it than the leading car from clean air.


Then, if we can´t solve that, there´s only three options:

a) We get rid of most DF to allow wheel to wheel battles and assume F1 can´t be as fast as it is currently,
b) We forget past eras where DF was lower so wheel to wheel battles were common, and assume if we want fast cars, we must sacrifize wheel to wheel battles
c) We allow active aero, but not to increase DF at the chasing car wich is impossible because dirty air will always prevent the chasing car from getting same DF, but lowering the leading car DF to more or less equal the chasing car perfomance.. It should be automatic, and progressive, for example (percentages invented, just for clarification purposes), if there´s a car 2 seconds behind wings will flatten 1%, when he´s withing 1.5seconds wings will decrease AoA 5%, below 1 second 10%, below .5 seconds, 20%. Or whatever is necessary to reduce perfomance differences to a point they can fight.


Most people will be thinking right now option c) would be a gimmick. And I agree, but not any more than DRS, or mandated tires, or top 10 not allowed to choose the tire to start the race. There are a million gimmick rules to more or less equal cars perfomances and allow wheel to wheel racing. Difference is this will work and will allow fast cars with huge amounts of DF wich still can offer wheel to wheel racing, and in the end I think this is what most F1 fans are eager to see

[turbof1]

a) We get rid of most DF to allow wheel to wheel battles and assume F1 can´t be as fast as it is currently,
b) We forget past eras where DF was lower so wheel to wheel battles were common, and assume if we want fast cars, we must sacrifize wheel to wheel battles
c) We allow active aero, but not to increase DF at the chasing car wich is impossible because dirty air will always prevent the chasing car from getting same DF, but lowering the leading car DF to more or less equal the chasing car perfomance.

It has nothing to do with purists. You can have high downforce as long as you control the turbulent wake. And yes, there is that option. But it has to be done right. There are people around here who have done research on this and have posted their findings on these boards.

[Andres125sx]

Around here, and around FIA, but in the end all those researches have solved nothing.

You can have high DF as long as you control the turbulent wake, but never as high as the leading car in clean air. That´s the real problem I think we should accept

[Fulcrum]

Is there any meaningful way to reduce the width of car wake, and/or its depth and/or intensity, without compromising downforce?

All else being equal, would narrower cars produce narrower fields of wake?

[i70q7m7ghw]

F1 doesn't have to be slower to bring back overtaking, it just requires a radical rethink. There's too much emphasis on DF generated from wings and not enough generated from the floor & diffuser. The hybrid element of the PU should be a lot more open, rather than having DRS drivers could have more to play with in terms of battery power.

[turbof1]

Around here, and around FIA, but in the end all those researches have solved nothing.

You can have high DF as long as you control the turbulent wake, but never as high as the leading car in clean air. That´s the real problem I think we should accept

"all those researches" is making it sound like this topic has been around for decades . It has been somewhat researched properly in 2007/2008. It has been MUCH better researched the last months. The issue with turbulent flow, and I am spoiling an upcoming article a tiny bit here, is that it is VERY hard to accurately simulate virtually. To put it in the most simple terms: to do Direct Numerical Simulation realistically, which would yield the most accurate results, you'll need a quantum computer.

However, approximations under RANS and especially under LES can give good accurate results. Computional power keeps growing, and therefore will keep giving better and better results. Almost 10 years after the first serious attempt of reducing turbulent wake in F1, the changes next year and especially in 2021 will hit much closer to home due better, more accurate data.

Nobody is going to claim you can nullify it. Neither do you need to. Nowadays you need around a 2s pace advantage to overcome the turbulent wake penalty.

EDIT: I don't want to sound like turbulent flow itself has not been researched for decades. It is because it so value for teams to improve their aerodynamic platforms. The case of overtaking & turbulent flow however is something of the last decade, and even then only at a couple of periods.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

a) We get rid of most DF to allow wheel to wheel battles and assume F1 can´t be as fast as it is currently,
b) We forget past eras where DF was lower so wheel to wheel battles were common, and assume if we want fast cars, we must sacrifize wheel to wheel battles

There a number of things that can be allowed/improved on mechanical side that can make up for faster cars. Bring in active suspension, ground effect and add cambers to the corners, which are currently too off camber and require a lot of down force to make the car stick and you will have faster cars, without having to depend upon too much on funky carbon fiber appendages to make the car faster. That would allow the teams with lesser budgets to also compete, without having to shed millions to get those small gains on down force.

I am sure today's cars can rip this section (old Monza) apart and can provide a great spectacle, with very little down force. I don't understand the insanity of flat, off camber turns on a circuit. I miss the spectacle of Indianapolis on those V8s.





One of the challenges is that, despite having a huge motorway type of circuits, cars have to stick to "RACING LINES", because that is where the rubber is and to avoid the marbles. Identify a good solution to get rid of having rubber on the track AND enforce the tyre manufacturers to bring in tyres that doesn't get shredded and leave out marbles. There can be intelligent ways to make the full width of circuit to be used for racing. I am a layman, but I don't think it requires rocket scientists to find out ways get some of these things done.

There are definite ways possible to make the cars faster and need not have to depend upon down force for everything.

[Sieper]

that would require every turn to be banked, skirts to seal the floor would do the trick also. Or simply go back to the 2016 model, less wide cars, less wide aero, less wide tires. They would skid like on rollerskates again but it does show more the capabilities of the driver and allows for more overtaking.

[Big Mangalhit]

I disagree. Do you think that they use anything other than Monte-Carlo simulations? Maybe a least-squares algorithm somewhere.. but they're not doing CFD or anything that requires a big set of nodes.

They used the simulators for strategy; they use the simulators for set up. All of that (simulators) runs on a lot of processing power (okay maybe not like CFD but still some) and with very complicated pieces of code (do you doubt they invest millions just on this?), and above that with a lot of real life data.
I think they use it a lot so when they get to a track they already have pretty much an idea of the best setup and the best time per lap that extend the stints enough for ultimate race pace, then they have some practise to check if they were right. Then we get races that the pilots are just driving to that delta to optimise race pace for fast possible race (like if they were alone almost). If they also run an optimised qualification it means that the order of their pace is pretty close to the order of the start hence no overtakes.

If you clamp down on these factors (data especially as it is easier to enforce) then they would be more guess work and some teams getting it right and others wrong. This would bring more differences in strategy (an probably grid order) which lead to teams having more/less pace in different parts of the race and thus more overtaking and also more randomness/unpredictability.

[BrunoH]

Cars need to be shorter, like a lot shorter, maybe restrict the maximum car length by 100cm to start- they are longer than an S-Class long wheel base. This is insane. its like a bus.

less winglets and --- that contributes nothing to the spectacle. ofr example, front wing must not have more than 3 clean pieces.
the front wing need to be narrower to avoid the constant wing damages on others cars and puncturing left and right. also so there is less of an aero dependant effect. if its generating less aero to start with, there is less loss of aero also to loose. its more mechanical grip dependant.

Tires can remain big, that a good thing, just 3 of the softest compounds for the entire season. Some tracks will have 1 pitstop, some others might have 3. hey its part of the challenge.

allow for a bigger diffuser end-plates maybe? to seal the back part of the diffuser so cars can run less rake this makes the floor seal better and not need these vortex --- to seal whatever floor etc. ( also by making them shorter they will have to stop or minimize this side-pode undercut with stuff going down and around as they will have less space so maybe its a good thing i guess?
makes the following cars with better air to follow.

make the Drs enable for all except front runner. no limit 1 second thing. we want close racing let them have it by having all an advantage to catch the leader, once they catch the car in front they all lose time to the cars behind as they are fighting for position. for sure we will have a lot more close racing.

bring back the v8 but with this hybrid formula. We had kers, but now just use the current system but with the v8. No turbo, no fuel limit, and hey we get better sound. yes make them 20k rpm max and thats it. its a cheaper formula anyway and one that will have less of a difference between engine manufactures. Plus its still road relevant as they have a hybrid system. if that is in any shape or from relevant to f1 to be honest. f1 is f1, road cars are road cars. for that we have formula e to have electric racing.

[turbof1]

Let's get out of the design department and back into the Canadian fresh air