Technical Regulations for 2009-2015

[autogyro]

Nope downforce is an increase in force, not an increase in performance.
If you disagree, please define performance.

Performance is the ability to circulate around the track in the shortest possible time. Thus where downforce allows the lap time to reduce then it is also increasing performance.

On some circuits, such as Monza, excessive downforce will increase lap time and thus is detrimental to performance. At circuits such as Hungary, or Monaco, downforce reduces lap times and thus improves performance.

As with any complex system, the key is balancing the improvements that can be gained in one area against the losses in another.

I absolutely agree, which proves beyond any shadow of doubt that downforce is a force and is not increased performance.

[WhiteBlue]

Effectively what you are proposing has little in the way of differences than with a fully mandated power drop. If you have a power drop you will still get, as I demonstrated with my 2005/2008 comparison, the engineers trying to improve the L/D ratio...but the problem we've seen with this is that it actually makes the overtaking harder. Back when the cars were relatively inefficient (loads of drag but still a ----tonne of downforce) in say 2004/2005 you had overtaking due to the wake profiles but you also made drafting easier...and this gradually got worse and worse up until the end of 2008 where it was a mess. These are the same changes that you'd have with a fuel limit (and frozen engine regs, of course) as the engineers can quite conceivably calculate the ultimate power they have to play with to complete a race.

F1 is and has been for the last 30 years at least a fight between corner speeds and straight line speeds...and the engineers try to keep the balance the same for a given circuit. If you start killing power, they need to keep both the cornering speeds the same but regain the lost straight-line speed.

My main complaint with 2010 F1 is that the cars are on full throttle for a lot of the lap. I never thought I'd say a 750BHP race car was lacking power but it is the case with these cars; they're getting close to 2004 levels of downforce and a lot less power...they may as well lay a railway line on the circuit.

My problem with your comparisons is a lack of commonality in applied physics. A lower energy budget is completely different in physics to a mandated power drop. An energy budget cut forces the average applied power down. Drivers would still be able to use 100% of the power of the engine but hey would not be able to use it as long as they would use it now. Say if you drop the fuel budget by 10% on a given circuit all other things being equal the average full throttle percentage would go down from say 53% to 47%. If you do a mandatory power cut you cut the top power by 10%. Huge difference!

The physics difference is the reason why your 2005/2008 comparison is not applicable. Designers would be forced to give cars less downforce to cope with lower average power. Because the cars would have less drag but the same top power they would accelerate faster and would be faster on the straights. They would be slower in the fast corners. As an additional measure we could go to wider wheel tracks as we had pre 1998. This would increase the slow cornering speed. With less energy to dissipate to the air we would not only see less aero forces but the DF/drag ratio would improve. When you have less downforce you do not design for max downforce but for min drag.

The last advantage of my approach is the improved power/downforce ratio of the cars. By cutting the downforce drivers will be back to having excess power in fast corners. The cars will not run on rails anymore. It will ultimately feel faster although the cornering speed in fast corners would go down. This would have the added bonus that track safety on old circuits like Suzuka (which were never build for such cornering speeds) would significantly improve without bigger, more expensive and less spectator friendly crash zones.

[Ogami musashi]

The physics difference is the reason why your 2005/2008 comparison is not applicable. Designers would be forced to give cars less downforce to cope with lower average power. Because the cars would have less drag but the same top power they would accelerate faster and would be faster on the straights.

That's not that simple. It would be true for very long straigths, for many of the straights sections you see now DF is the key to acceleration and thus speed.
It is only a limitation as the speed goes high. Don't compare older cars on older tracks (with far less chicanes) and today.

They would be slower in the fast corners. As an additional measure we could go to wider wheel tracks as we had pre 1998. This would increase the slow cornering speed. With less energy to dissipate to the air we would not only see less aero forces but the DF/drag ratio would improve. When you have less downforce you do not design for max downforce but for min drag.

No; The DF/drag ratio would decrease; The maximum DF/drag ratio is achieved with the highest downforce settings.

That you accept it or not, there's no linear relation between drag and downforce.

By cutting the downforce drivers will be back to having excess power in fast corners. The cars will not run on rails anymore. It will ultimately feel faster although the cornering speed in fast corners would go down.

That's BS. The cars are not on rail at all; You're speaking of one corner out of thousands in the whole season; It they were on rail as you say, everybody would take the inner curve of each turn and not the racing line.

[WhiteBlue]

The physics difference is the reason why your 2005/2008 comparison is not applicable. Designers would be forced to give cars less downforce to cope with lower average power. Because the cars would have less drag but the same top power they would accelerate faster and would be faster on the straights.

That's not that simple. It would be true for very long straigths, for many of the straights sections you see now DF is the key to acceleration and thus speed. It is only a limitation as the speed goes high. Don't compare older cars on older tracks (with far less chicanes) and today.

I'm not asking for zero downforce OM. We are talking about five times the weight of the car today at top speed in total of weight and DF. If you reduce that to two times or three times you would still have plenty enough to accelerate at max rate. Just consider that the first 150 km/h are done almost without DF because it is an exponential increasing function. Traction for linear acceleration would still be plenty enough. Have you seen electric cars almost without DF out accelerate a Ferrari. It shows that the traction problem zone is not where DF is making the big difference. Once you are into the upper half of the speed range the DF is still building so fast that you never run out of traction for straight line acceleration. Just compare the Force Indias and the Red Bulls this season. The FI is faster on the straights and slower in the fast corners due to less DF. You would have to cut an awful lot of DF until an F1 car gets into a range where it accelerates with less performance. I'm calling fantasy on this one.

They would be slower in the fast corners. As an additional measure we could go to wider wheel tracks as we had pre 1998. This would increase the slow cornering speed. With less energy to dissipate to the air we would not only see less aero forces but the DF/drag ratio would improve. When you have less downforce you do not design for max downforce but for min drag.

No; The DF/drag ratio would decrease; The maximum DF/drag ratio is achieved with the highest downforce settings. That you accept it or not, there's no linear relation between drag and downforce.

I'm not postulating a linear relation between drag and downforce. And I'm pretty sure that wider tracks will increase cornering speeds and improve the over all performance. Ultimately we are also not interested in the DF/drag ratio but in an absolute reduction of drag. So you may be right that the ratio is best at very high levels of DF but in terms of absolute drag in a practical application it does not help us. Let us simply compare a high DF package like Monaco to a low DF package like Monza. The Monza package goes up to 360 km/h until all the power is absorbed by drag. The Monaco package tops out at 290 km/h. It means the HDF package has massively more drag. It is designed for max DF and not for min drag. It proves my point that there is plenty of scope in the present configuration to emphasize low drag over max downforce.

By cutting the downforce drivers will be back to having excess power in fast corners. The cars will not run on rails anymore. It will ultimately feel faster although the cornering speed in fast corners would go down.

That's BS. The cars are not on rail at all; You're speaking of one corner out of thousands in the whole season; It they were on rail as you say, everybody would take the inner curve of each turn and not the racing line.

I think I will return your compliment here. Pure bullshit! Let us take any another famous corner and look at it the other way round. ATM F1 runs turn eight in Turkey less than flat out at 270 km/h with a downforce package that tops out at 320 km/h. Drivers go off there when they make a mistake in judgement of how much power they want to carry. Now let us assume that we take the Monaco DF package to Turkey. We would still go through turn eight with close to 270 km/h but flat out with massively more DF because our package is designed to top out at 290 km/h and we would probably still be accelerating. The example shows that you can make any fast corner become a challenge or a bore fest depending of the DF and power you carry. Reducing DF will make most fast corners a bigger challenge than they are today where excessive DF has killed the need to skillfully balance a car on the throttle through most of the fast corners.

[Ogami musashi]

I'm not asking for zero downforce OM. We are talking about five times the weight of the car today at top speed in total of weight and DF. If you reduce that to two times or three times you would still have plenty enough to accelerate at max rate. Just consider that the first 150 km/h are done almost without DF because it is an exponential increasing function. Traction for linear acceleration would still be plenty enough. Have you seen electric cars almost without DF out accelerate a Ferrari. It shows that the traction problem zone is not where DF is making the big difference. Once you are into the upper half of the speed range the DF is still building so fast that you never run out of traction for straight line acceleration. Just compare the Force Indias and the Red Bulls this season. The FI is faster on the straights and slower in the fast corners due to less DF. You would have to cut an awful lot of DF until an F1 car gets into a range where it accelerates with less performance. I'm calling fantasy on this one.

The problem is that you don't have 0kg at 0 speed; The sole hydrostatic pressure differential makes some kg and the as soon as the speed increases the curve is lifted.

So it is not true to say up until 150km/h you have no DF..150km/h is already a speed at which the F1 car has 1g of DF on it.
As for running out of straigth line acceleration, you have to see that an F1 car can still spin a 200km/h to understand that traction is always limited.

The only case where DF should be limited is in the top speed range; There, where the acceleration rate drops below 1G, DF is hampering the top speed.

And there's one very simple solution to that: Adaptive aeros...

. The Monza package goes up to 360 km/h until all the power is absorbed by drag. The Monaco package tops out at 290 km/h. It means the HDF package has massively more drag. It is designed for max DF and not for min drag. It proves my point that there is plenty of scope in the present configuration to emphasize low drag over max downforce.

First, you are making the numbers; Since 2007 the cars top speed at monza are 345km/h. Second you're comparing apple and oranges; 290km/h at monaco is for a tunnel which is shorter than the straight line at monza and more importantly in which you enter from a low speed corner compared to the parabolica in monza.
If you want to compare, then compare with what are called the efficiency tracks (where you try to have the best L/D ratio) and you'll see top speeds of 315km/h average so only 30km/h short of the monza set up.

As i told you the increase in DF is not followed by a linear increase in drag not at all..there's an average factor of 2 or 3 in favor of DF.

That's the very reason the highest DF/D ratio is achieved with the highest DF trims.

And that is under the actual regs, that is regs that do not favorize efficient aeros. With GE tunnels and active aeros you could achieve the same level of downforce for half the drag.
See the indy car delta wing concept.

I think I will return your compliment here. Pure bullshit! Let us take any another famous corner and look at it the other way round. ATM F1 runs turn eight in Turkey less than flat out at 270 km/h with a downforce package that tops out at 320 km/h. Drivers go off there when they make a mistake in judgement of how much power they want to carry. Now let us assume that we take the Monaco DF package to Turkey. We would still go through turn eight with close to 270 km/h but flat out with massively more DF because our package is designed to top out at 290 km/h and we would probably still be accelerating. The example shows that you can make any fast corner become a challenge or a bore fest depending of the DF and power you carry. Reducing DF will make most fast corners a bigger challenge than they are today where excessive DF has killed the need to skillfully balance a car on the throttle through most of the fast corners.

You're making numbers again; This is to easy to draw an argument on made up facts.
Of course NOT, if you had more DF you would take the corner faster!
The only example where you are right is precisely those corners taken at the full top speed where indeed, power is missing (or too much drag..).


Again...If DF made fast corners on rails as you said with no grip problem the driver would have one choice: Taking the shortest line possible until grip misses; in that case you wouldn't be on rails anymore..and if the DF was so high that you any short line into the corner did have enough grip then the driver would simply follow the inner curve.

You can see that on some large and wide corners in F1.

And one exciting thing of F1 (and all DF cars) is that because the grip increases with speed it is crucial to exit the previous corner fast to take the corner the fastest possible (at the limit of grip);

[WhiteBlue]

OM, I will not bother to go into your numerous inaccuracies like imputing me to argue zero downforce under 150 km/h speed. You are turning my words in my mouth. I have said almost which means essentially or to the effect of. Or you argue slightly different speed figures between the Monaco and the Monza package and take that as a pretense to discredit my basic example. On the last point you make the ridiculous proposal that drivers should minimize the radius of the racing line through high speed corner. What a load of bull! Naturally the lateral acceleration would dramatically increase and the corner would not have the physical attributes is has under sensible racing conditions. Al this basically manipulative arguing shows me that we will not solve this discussion good willed. I'm giving up! Please keep your opinion that unlimited downforce is the best idea for going fast since the invention of the wheel. I agree to disagree on the issue and keep my opinion (shared with most F1 decision makers) that the 2010 DF level is way excessive.

[Ogami musashi]

I could say okay, but it is so funny that..

OM, I will not bother to go into your numerous inaccuracies like imputing me to argue zero downforce under 150 km/h speed. You are turning my words in my mouth. I have said almost which means essentially or to the effect of.

And if you read correctly my post and/or bother thinking twice, you'll read that at 150km/h you already have 1g of DF...this is barely something you can label as ALMOST NOTHING, which is what you said...

Or you argue slightly different speed figures between the Monaco and the Monza package and take that as a pretense to discredit my basic example.

it is YOU who compare a high DF and low DF package based on two top speed that have nothing in common!

It is you who, like with the previous decelerration joke, deliberatly set a number that comes out of nowhere and is not the real number.

On the last point you make the ridiculous proposal that drivers should minimize the radius of the racing line through high speed corner. What a load of bull! Naturally the lateral acceleration would dramatically increase and the corner would not have the physical attributes is has under sensible racing conditions.

It is again YOU who said that corners are taken with too much downforce and that cars are on rails!

Al this basically manipulative arguing shows me that we will not solve this discussion good willed. I'm giving up! Please keep your opinion that unlimited downforce is the best idea for going fast since the invention of the wheel. I agree to disagree on the issue and keep my opinion (shared with most F1 decision makers) that the 2010 DF level is way excessive.

And you finally show up again with your self confidence that people share your opinion and that you're on the right side;

Stop living in your dream, many engineers are not opposed to downforce like you and this is not because one guy agrees with you that the problem is solved.


Let me tell you: I don't care about DF...F1 could be running on monocycle cars with 2BHP on ice that i wouldn't care. I'll continue to interevene in your thread as long as you'll make it sound you're right and everybody else is wrong and doing that while your scientific reasonnings are not correct (and i'm not the first one to tell you that).

[WhiteBlue]

OM, that was an impressive list of unconvincing statements which are mainly OT IMO. But I let the moderators worry about that. Let me just make two remarks here because honestly said I'm a bit overwhelmed by how much you misunderstand or misrepresent this argument.

Stop living in your dream, many engineers are not opposed to downforce like you and this is not because one guy agrees with you that the problem is solved.

I'm not dreaming and I'm not opposed to downforce. I have often enough written on his board that downforce and downforce generating devices are essential to F1. Neither diffusors nor wings should be banned as some people argue. I simply oppose too much aerodynamic forces as many other sensible people do. You will no be able to paint me into a loony corner for that.

Let me tell you: I don't care about DF...F1 could be running on monocycle cars with 2BHP on ice that i wouldn't care. I'll continue to interevene in your thread as long as you'll make it sound you're right and everybody else is wrong and doing that while your scientific reasonnings are not correct (and i'm not the first one to tell you that).

I suggest we leave the judgement whose scientific reasoning is right to the members of this board. If you don't care about the issue and argue for devils advocate I would say your motives are questionable. I'm sorry if you get the impression that I'm only interested in being right and everybody else being wrong. That is something you are making up. The impression may be created by the difficulty of discussing complex physical issues without an agreed physical simulation model. It is further complicated by having to make judgements that are necessarily based on different personal values.

[Ogami musashi]

As i said: All is fine; i'll continue intervene when i feel like just like you.

Next time pal.

[ESPImperium]

What we need is some good, subjective figures for certain key corners that there are on the callander, and good subjective figures for Monaco/Hungary downforce levels at 320kmph and Monza/Spa/canada levels of downforce at 320kmph.

Also what we need is the fuel figures ber 5km for those tracks, most of whitch i have taken a note from 2009 for, Canada is the only one out standing.

Then we can work out how much downforce and fuel would ideally need to be cut to be able to reach the same power levels for drag ratio.

This thread is very much objective now and not subjective.

I for one are for cutting fuel tanks to a maximum of 100kg, whitch would mean that downforce would need to be cut by 30% to reach the same power levels asuming that drag is constant, but if drag was lessened by 10% you would have the choice of either 10% more downforce or 10% more power. Asuming that all are a constant. All arnt, so thats why i feel we need some good subjective figures to get a set of decent, workable rules that would benifit designers, drivers, fans and all who are associated to the sport.

[CMSMJ1]

Without wings and diffusers, Formula 1-cars will stay being open-wheel single seaters. People will recognize them as race cars and as something different to prototypes, touring cars and rally cars.

Here you go


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_Ford

Now that you have a series that fits your requirement for no-downforce open wheelers, can the rest of us get back to 'big boys' racing?

Great post =D> - I'm with you. Next time you need a beer...it can be on me

Stop the bollocks people - F1 is F1.

WTC is road relevant.
Lemans is almost road relevant.

F1 is not, doesn't need to be and should not be road relevant...in fact, it is irrelevant and long may it continue

[Scotracer]

What we need is some good, subjective figures for certain key corners that there are on the callander, and good subjective figures for Monaco/Hungary downforce levels at 320kmph and Monza/Spa/canada levels of downforce at 320kmph.

Also what we need is the fuel figures ber 5km for those tracks, most of whitch i have taken a note from 2009 for, Canada is the only one out standing.

Then we can work out how much downforce and fuel would ideally need to be cut to be able to reach the same power levels for drag ratio.

This thread is very much objective now and not subjective.

I for one are for cutting fuel tanks to a maximum of 100kg, whitch would mean that downforce would need to be cut by 30% to reach the same power levels asuming that drag is constant, but if drag was lessened by 10% you would have the choice of either 10% more downforce or 10% more power. Asuming that all are a constant. All arnt, so thats why i feel we need some good subjective figures to get a set of decent, workable rules that would benifit designers, drivers, fans and all who are associated to the sport.

I think you have those two words confused.

Oh and you'll never get a team to give L/D figures (basically what you're wanting).

[ESPImperium]

What we need is some good, subjective figures for certain key corners that there are on the callander, and good subjective figures for Monaco/Hungary downforce levels at 320kmph and Monza/Spa/canada levels of downforce at 320kmph.

Also what we need is the fuel figures ber 5km for those tracks, most of whitch i have taken a note from 2009 for, Canada is the only one out standing.

Then we can work out how much downforce and fuel would ideally need to be cut to be able to reach the same power levels for drag ratio.

This thread is very much objective now and not subjective.

I for one are for cutting fuel tanks to a maximum of 100kg, whitch would mean that downforce would need to be cut by 30% to reach the same power levels asuming that drag is constant, but if drag was lessened by 10% you would have the choice of either 10% more downforce or 10% more power. Asuming that all are a constant. All arnt, so thats why i feel we need some good subjective figures to get a set of decent, workable rules that would benifit designers, drivers, fans and all who are associated to the sport.

I think you have those two words confused.

Oh and you'll never get a team to give L/D figures (basically what you're wanting).

Im a little tired at present, so probably did screw up those words.

And those are the figures, on whitch ill never get. Thats the only way things can be resolved in this thread.

[WhiteBlue]

So for 2010 we expect the 2010 rules with the following changes if they are ratified by the FiA:

• minimum weight will increase from 620 to 640 kg
• FOTA moratorium on KERS will fall, KERS parameters not changing, KERS will not be mandatory; development cost and sales price cap on KERS
• DDD will be banned
• diffusor height reduced from 175 to 125 mm
• ban of front wing adjustibility
• rear win flap adjustable by 50 mm for following car within 1 s distance
• new tyre supplier with brief to design tyres to FOTA agreed carcass model
• reduction of numbers of supplied tyres
• reduced list of compounds from 4 to 3 or 2

Some questions remain:

What will the downforce reduction be?
Will the engine formula for 2013 be decided this year?

[ESPImperium]

Id say the downforce reduction will be somewhere between 30% and 55% in real terms as the ideal.
As for engine, i can see that giung one of two ways; a Atmospheric 1.7 litre V6 or a Turbo 1.4 litre V4.

I think that the engine will be decided most likley next year.

As for tyre compounds, i can see those being reduced to 3 compounds, where each driver gets 4 soft, 3 medium and 2 hard compounds per race. I can also see the mandated stop for those outside the top 10 in quali being done away with and the top 10 guys have to start on the softs. I can also see wets and inters being increased by a single set for each driver for saftey purposes, each car will have that single set put aside for the race tho.
I can see the minimum weight increased to 650kg at the end of the race and at all times thru the weekend.
I can see KERS rules being optional to each team, but i can see energy recovery schemes being used more liberaly, posibly the same ammount of charge as 2009, but with unlimited time, not 6.67 seconds a lap.
Diffusers will have the same as front wings at current, a mandated and specified centre section and diffuser steepness.
Rear wings will have a simmilar centre section rule as well.

As for sporting rules, i can see those being radically overhauled as well.