Red Bull Racing's technical chief Adrian Newey has admitted to concern that the new lower nose regulations introduced in Formula One may have uninentionally made driver safety worse.
richard_leeds wrote:Is this serious?
Who'd want a gimmick "push to pass" to give the car behind has an unfair advantage? We want cars out on the track racing against each other, not some get out of jail power play nonsense
All it requires is re-balancing the formula to have less dependence on aero and less wake. Hopefully the OWG proposals will be in place in 2011, although I think that'll only be a partial respite.
Exactly... that's why if F1 is to keep high downforce then the bullet has to be bitten:- make the wings and udnerbody "spec" parts that aren't affected so much by following in the wake. The team's won't do it on their own because they don't want to compromise their clear air/qualifying performance.Just_a_fan wrote:they don't design the car accordingly is because to do so would compromise its "clean air pace".
Sounds like my "virtual slipstreaming" idea proposed elsewhere in this forum. I'm all for that idea:- either a power boost, or Antony Davidson's idea was to temporarily lower the angle of attack of the rear wing of the following car only on the straights (when the driver demanded it!).Giblet wrote:Something to negate the effects of the lack of downforce from following closely.
I think that is as dumb as Bernie's short cuts. In effect you give the leading car a temporary handicap like more weight. It would lead to a complete devaluation of the sport. FiA and FOM must be in a position to shape the series in such a way that we have good sport and overtaking. If necessary they need to publish team votes that go against the interest of F1 to create public pressure. Teams will never make rules for the common good but in the first place rules that help their own competitiveness. It should not be tolerated.machin wrote:Antony Davidson's idea was to temporarily lower the angle of attack of the rear wing of the following car only on the straights (when the driver demanded it!).
Remember the slingshot from a slipstream? ..... halcyon daysmachin wrote:Slipstream
Will not work, because the car in front would also have the same 'boost' button which makes this type of application pointless.machin wrote:I thought the same at first too... "push to pass is a bit too gimmicky, a bit false" I thought... but then I thought about it; cars that can go round corners really fast (they keep the downforce) AND they can fight for places.
I wouldn't advocate giving the following car a MASSIVE boost.. just enough to let him try and OUTBRAKE the other car at the next corner.
The teams still have incentive to build a fast car; if they can stay 1 second ahead of the car behind then the following car won't be in the "Virtual Slipstream Zone", and therefore won't get the boost.
My suggestion (on another forum topic I think), was that only a following car could use the push to pass, and only if he were within 1 second of the car infront, i.e in "the virtual slipstream zone"... so it would work... it'd be easy to impliment with the SECU too... They could do it today... simply allow a temporary increase in the RPM limit... we know the engines can withstand it.Will not work, because the car in front would also have the same 'boost' button which makes this type of application pointless
Hmm I see what you mean but I can see enormous problems getting it to work fairly and enforcing it. I think I know what the drivers will think though as soon as they try defending a position from some other car using it.machin wrote:My suggestion (on another forum topic I think), was that only a following car could use the push to pass, and only if he were within 1 second of the car infront, i.e in "the virtual slipstream zone"... so it would work... it'd be easy to impliment with the SECU too... They could do it today... simply allow a temporary increase in the RPM limit... we know the engines can withstand it.Will not work, because the car in front would also have the same 'boost' button which makes this type of application pointless
I still only see it as a sop to high DF though, sorry.machin wrote:...But that leading car who gets overtaken can use the boost on the next straight to try and get back passed! Brilliant!
I TOTALLY agree with you.... if I had my way F1 would be for extremely powerful "formula fords" with the latest propulsion technology....I still only see it as a sop to high DF though, sorry.
There is no problem overtaking in lower or zero DF formula.
I have explained it often enough that measuring downforce is quite easy. Compared to the two hundred sensors in an F1 car four force sensors at the wheel carriers more are not a big deal. There are only three types of forces in the direction of the cars vertical axis: Downforce, weight and inertial forces from elevation changes and banking. All except DF can be easily measured. The start weight is known and the SECU can calculate the race weight at any time by integrating the fuel utilization. Inertial force are easily computed from the vertical acceleration and the mass which again comes from the known weight. So the SECU will substract them from the vertical wheel forces and you have the downforce. It is so simple, a lot less complicated than an inertial navigation system for aircraft or a precision GPS.machin wrote:I get the theory... but isn't trying to measure the downforce a bit like trying to measure the coefficient of friction of a tyre.. it is possible, but quite difficult to monitor all the time (too much "noise" in the measurement)... its simply a lot easier to specify maximum sizes of wings etc, but the problem then is that no team would ever optimise for the "following another car" situation (they'd be at too much a disadvantage during qualifying and "free air" running)... so that leads us back to having "Spec" wings and underbody... which actually I quite like the sound of..... instead free up the engine rules and put most of the developement money into propulsion systems....
