Technical Regulations for 2009-2015

[Just_a_fan]

Formula One has always been about improveing efficiency, not going faster or increasing DF.

Tosh! F1, like every series, is about going faster than everyone else (where faster is measured by lap time). Efficiency only matters where it improves speed.

If it was, the cars would be going at more than 500mph and generating many tons of DF.

They would be now were it not for succesive regulations designed to prevent just that very thing happening. The FIA uses "safety regs" to limit top speeds and cornering speeds because when the inevitable crash happens, speed is the biggest factor in determining severity.

It also does not matter how the power and speed compares to other formula. Many formula over the years have produced more power and higher speed.

It does matter because F1 is held up as being the top open wheeled, single seater series in the world. Power and speed are important metrics in that comparison.

Formula One has always existed to shown off the peak of human egineering excelence as applied to ground vehicles. (not aeroplanes)

Really? I thought it existed because some people like to go racing and others like to watch.

The FIA has got to draft new regulations that make sense of this and do away with regulations that are there simply to satisfy the current monopoly held by aero and the dictates of the oil and big car manufacturing industries. If these negative forces are not dealt with F1 will have no way to justify its existance in future world economics. Things are changing fast in the real world.
The old boys networks in motor sport have got to wake up and catch up.
There is no other choice.

Here, let me help you down off that soap-box you seem to have got stranded on...

[strad]

[Richard]

I'm with autogyro on this one.

Efficiency is about extracting the last possible drop of performance from a limited input (aero, fuel tyres etc). As technologies (mechanical, aero, and computational) have improved, the rules have restricted the inputs in order to maintain sensible performance levels (safety and cost).

If extracting ever greater performance from every smaller inputs isn't all about efficiency then what is?

[autogyro]

autogyro wrote:
Formula One has always been about improveing efficiency, not going faster or increasing DF.

"Tosh! F1, like every series, is about going faster than everyone else (where faster is measured by lap time). Efficiency only matters where it improves speed".

So it is efficiency that engineering improves then!

autogyro wrote:
If it was, the cars would be going at more than 500mph and generating many tons of DF.

"They would be now were it not for succesive regulations designed to prevent just that very thing happening. The FIA uses "safety regs" to limit top speeds and cornering speeds because when the inevitable crash happens, speed is the biggest factor in determining severity".

So you agree that 'speed' is not the factor in need of improvement!

autogyro wrote:
It also does not matter how the power and speed compares to other formula. Many formula over the years have produced more power and higher speed.

"It does matter because F1 is held up as being the top open wheeled, single seater series in the world. Power and speed are important metrics in that comparison".

Power and speed are subordinate to efficiency as you have already agreed.

autogyro wrote:

Formula One has always existed to shown off the peak of human egineering excelence as applied to ground vehicles. (not aeroplanes)

"Really? I thought it existed because some people like to go racing and others like to watch".

I expect this is your same attitude to most things including sex, voyeurism is all this is.

autogyro wrote:

The FIA has got to draft new regulations that make sense of this and do away with regulations that are there simply to satisfy the current monopoly held by aero and the dictates of the oil and big car manufacturing industries. If these negative forces are not dealt with F1 will have no way to justify its existance in future world economics. Things are changing fast in the real world.
The old boys networks in motor sport have got to wake up and catch up.
There is no other choice.

"Here, let me help you down off that soap-box you seem to have got stranded on..."

It is the aero nerds who are on a soap box, along with FOTA and the ancients.

[Just_a_fan]

Efficiency is merely a side effect of the rules that limit certain elements of performance. It is not the primary goal of F1. If F1 were a totally unlimited series, efficiency would not be an issue.

The primary goal of F1 is racing/designing racing cars. Basically, a group of people want to play with racing cars and they want to do so whilst making a decent living from it (as opposed to those amateur individuals who race at weekends for their own enjoyment). Nothing else. The fans only matter in so far as they allow sponsorship dollars to be harvested and thus pay for the fun.

As an aside, a friend of mine (who us has held reasonably senior race engineer positions in a number of teams) told me that he was never interested in the race per se. His interest was only in how he could get his cars to go faster. The engineering challenge was what he enjoyed.

Let's not have any grandiose ideas about high-minded ideals in F1. There aren't any.

[Just_a_fan]

I expect this is your same attitude to most things including sex, voyeurism is all this is.

My attitude to sex is to take part rather than to watch. But thanks for asking.

It is the aero nerds who are on a soap box, along with FOTA and the ancients.

Yawn. If you don't like an aero dominated open wheel series there are plenty of low / zero downforce series about that you can go and enjoy. Just because you don't like d/f cars doesn't mean everyone else should stop enjoying them.

As an aside, any chance you could use the quote features of the forum? It makes the whole process so much easier to follow. Or is that too 'nerdy' for you?

[autogyro]

Efficiency is merely a side effect of the rules that limit certain elements of performance. It is not the primary goal of F1. If F1 were a totally unlimited series, efficiency would not be an issue.

The primary goal of F1 is racing/designing racing cars. Basically, a group of people want to play with racing cars and they want to do so whilst making a decent living from it (as opposed to those amateur individuals who race at weekends for their own enjoyment). Nothing else. The fans only matter in so far as they allow sponsorship dollars to be harvested and thus pay for the fun.

As an aside, a friend of mine (who us has held reasonably senior race engineer positions in a number of teams) told me that he was never interested in the race per se. His interest was only in how he could get his cars to go faster. The engineering challenge was what he enjoyed.

Let's not have any grandiose ideas about high-minded ideals in F1. There aren't any.

All this shows exactly why US-F1 was never going to work.
There is and always has been a core of dedication in F1 far more important than your basic ideals. Of course it is an engineering challenge but it is far more than that.
I am not surprised you fail to appreciate this.

Unfortunately this dedication is slowly being destroyed by the arrogance and self serving greed system which is symptom of the human degeneration process that was unleashed at the end of WW2.

[autogyro]

I expect this is your same attitude to most things including sex, voyeurism is all this is.

My attitude to sex is to take part rather than to watch. But thanks for asking.

It is the aero nerds who are on a soap box, along with FOTA and the ancients.

Yawn. If you don't like an aero dominated open wheel series there are plenty of low / zero downforce series about that you can go and enjoy. Just because you don't like d/f cars doesn't mean everyone else should stop enjoying them.

As an aside, any chance you could use the quote features of the forum? It makes the whole process so much easier to follow. Or is that too 'nerdy' for you?

Careful your arrogance is showing.

[Richard]

Efficiency is merely a side effect of the rules that limit certain elements of performance. It is not the primary goal of F1. If F1 were a totally unlimited series, efficiency would not be an issue.

The primary goal of F1 is racing/designing racing cars. Basically, a group of people want to play with racing cars and they want to do so whilst making a decent living from it (as opposed to those amateur individuals who race at weekends for their own enjoyment). Nothing else. The fans only matter in so far as they allow sponsorship dollars to be harvested and thus pay for the fun.

As an aside, a friend of mine (who us has held reasonably senior race engineer positions in a number of teams) told me that he was never interested in the race per se. His interest was only in how he could get his cars to go faster. The engineering challenge was what he enjoyed.

Let's not have any grandiose ideas about high-minded ideals in F1. There aren't any.

You seem to agree with my point, even though you start your post in the negative.

The cars that win are the ones that go faster within the parameters of the competition. Your friend relished the challenge of getting a winning car within those parameters. Those points all show that the secret of F1 success (and its appeal for me) is the effective and efficient use of what is allowed by the rules.

[Just_a_fan]

Careful your arrogance is showing.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

[Just_a_fan]

There is and always has been a core of dedication in F1 far more important than your basic ideals. Of course it is an engineering challenge but it is far more than that.

Really? What are these higher motives?

I am not surprised you fail to appreciate this.

So, based on a few effectively anoymous posts on a public forum, you think you know enough about me to know what I might appreciate? Impressive.

Unfortunately this dedication is slowly being destroyed by the arrogance and self serving greed system which is symptom of the human degeneration process that was unleashed at the end of WW2.

[machin]

Nope. Heavily optimised wings will mean that they won't work in dirty air. That's part of the problem today!!

Whilst watching a "classic" GP recently I had the same thought -these old cars ran quite well together.. was it because the wings were nowhere near optimised? They used to have a single profile/Angle of attack across their entire span....

They design the diffuser to not only provide downforce, but to create turbulence to screw with the following car. The airflow leaving the car could be a lot smoother but they don't want it to be.

These two comments (from people who I think are generally in favour of a high downforce F1?) show that if F1 wants to keep the diffuser/wings, and improve the ability of the cars to run close together, what they need to do is make all the teams run "Spec" wings and underbody, and let the teams define the rest of the car shape, in accordance with the 2009/10 rules... the teams won't design the wings/underbody to promote close-running on their own... as they will ALWAYS attempt to optimise which won't be in the interest of a following car..... so it needs to be forced upon them.

I say do this and free up the engine rules but limit the total fuel each car car use during a race.

[Just_a_fan]

F1 cars are designed, as far as I can tell, with clean air impinging on the front wing. I doubt any team will check how their car behaves following another.

If you design something in isolation it should be no surprise when it behaves differently when in the proximity of others. Indeed, it is not a surprise - the teams know the cars will struggle behind another and I would suggest that the reason they don't design the car accordingly is because to do so would compromise its "clean air pace".

Perhaps a simple rule should be invoked. Something along the lines of: the car must not lose more than X% of it clean air downforce when in a zone extending from 0 to 100m behind another car. Define X accordingly having carried out an analysis of how much downforce is currently lost by a following car. Make X a much smaller figure than the current loss and you would force the cars to be designed to run closer together.

Probably not practical but it's no less so than other suggestions of total downforce production limits. At least it would simple to enforce - no driver is going to sit behind another one who is slower than him just for the hell of it. If the following driver can't get to within a few metres of the lead car having previously caught it up in clean air, then it must be contravening the above rule. Simple. Or not

[Giblet]

Teams do test on the track following each other closely to see how they perform in the wake.

But all the following and wake discussion is still basically lost on the designers. Why bother worrying about following when the best plan is to make the fastest car, that qualifies first, and takes off never needing to follow a soul?

If your car is not fast enough to dominate, why would you think it would be capable of passing faster cars for the most part?

I find interesting the talk in IRL right now about a system that charges a KERS or HERS unit (the article was vague) a car that is following another car closely. The system only chargers when following another car in close proximity, but after 4 or 5 laps, it has enough power for a push to pass action. This is being looked at as IRL cars on an oval don't do any braking for the most part, and can't regenerate.

Maybe catching exhaust heat form the car in front? I really have no clue how it would work.

[Just_a_fan]

@Giblet

Interesting idea. Would certainly help in the case of several cars following e.g. Trulli. Some of his traffic jams after a goodish qualifying session were legendary...