Designing a F1 car around a tiny driver

[hollus]

Originally I posted this in the female drivers thread, in the off topic subforum. Seeing how many people seem to not read the off topic part, and in particular that Ringo and Tozza Mazza, some of the most direct targets of the post hadn't read it, I'll re-post it now in its own thread in a most relevant subforum:

A different take on female drivers looking at the technical implications for the car.
Everyone can see the benefits of an (in average) lighter female driver. More weight allowance for ballast resulting in a lower COG.
But there is another related aspect to this. It is full of relatively tiny women out there, so:

What could one do with a driver (might even be male!) weighing in at 45Kg... and 150cm tall?
Said driver would still have its (her?) eyes roughly at the same height as everyone else for visibility reasons, so it would adopt a rather vertical sitting position. While this might reduce the advantages of a lower COG, it has another side effect: the driver's feet would be significantly backwards compared to everyone elses' feet. I am guessing that said driver would effectively be 20 cm shorter than most in the horizontal plane, partly due to to the height difference, partly due to the more vertical sitting position.

So what benefits could one reap from those 20 cm while designing a car?
A question to all the car designers here who know the dimensional rules inside and out. Could one reduce the fuel tank to front axle distance by 20 cm? Is there any benefit to it? Would one want to move axle backwards, or maybe move the fuel tank, engine, etc. forwards and keep the car's length, maybe to the benefit of the coke bottle shape? Would it be feasible/legal/beneficial to reduce the height of the top of the cockpit?

This way maybe some women could bring their own 6 tenths to the cars

[Kma4444]

I've often thought of the same scenario but substituted someone who was a dwarf as the driver. Imagine the possibilities with a steering wheel actuator that was that much smaller.

The most obvious immediate gains in my mind are packaging, simply being able to place so many more things in places that are now filled by or set aside for, the most fallible machine in the operation..... Would be a fun exercise.

[hollus]

But do the rules allow for that much in terms of packaging? If one leaves the seat where it is, what could one place in those 20cm in front of the driver's feet?

[bhall]

Unless a team employed two small women or two little people - the preferred nomenclature - as drivers, I don't think it would change much of anything, save for ballast placement. Otherwise, a team would effectively have to design two different cars for two different sized drivers.

[Giblet]

Zanardi with a hand operated throttle?

[bhall]

...is a lot different than trying to get cute with alternative packaging to fully exploit a driver's diminutive size.

[Giblet]

He has no legs. That is something you can exploit in design I would think.

[bhall]

Agreed. But are you going to employ two legless drivers or are you going to engineer two different cars?

[Tozza Mazza]

Apart from a short wheelbase, which failed on W02 this year, there is little scope for beneficial aerodynamics to the car based on the driver.

Reducing the fuel tank to front axle distance would reduce splitter area, and if current trends are assumed to be beneficial, a large splitter benefits aerodynamics.

The main benefits of a small driver would be the ability to use ballast to a greater effect, I think, but these are just assumptions based on current trends and the regulations!

[MIKEY_!]

Part of the reason the SWB turned out to be a bad thing was that the CoG was higher. With a shorty in the drivers seat the SWB would be usable but with a lower fuel tank/longer gearbox. The front of the tub could be shorter too, shortening the wheelbase with out changing CoG. Makes for less drag as we saw this year.

Also I think the EBD was causing the shorter floor to behave in a way not intended. That's now gone so the short floor is more relevant.

[gold333]

Well the problem is that an F1 team usually runs 2 cars. The last time I remember that a teams 2 drivers were so far apart in build was in 1993. Prost and Hill at Williams. Prost was 164cm and Hill 182cm. Williams had to build 2 separate tubs. But (I presume) the rest of the cars were identical so I don't think there was a performance difference.

[machin]

This touches on a subject I've thought about previously; As others have mentioned -someone without legs has a potential paackaging advantage (at the very least its a few extra kg's that could be moved more optimally for weight distribution)... taking that one step further, would someone without arms and legs be allowed to to compete (assuming some actuators could be used for driving imputs), and if not would this be considered descrimination against the physically less-abled people in the world?

If "no legged/limbed" drivers are allowed does this mean that drivers with legs would by necessity have to have their legs removed to stay competitive?

As an absolute extreme, at what point does the rule stop? When you have just a brain for a driver?!

The only solution I can see if the FIA mandates cockpit size and shapes -which they do to some degree at the moment (cockpit openign for example). The positioning of ballast issue is one that needs to be resolved -I think its unfair that a small lightweight driver has more scope for moving ballast..

[gridwalker]

Someone with all 4 limbs missing would probably not be able to get out of the car in the time specified in the safety regs, barring some kind of ejection mechanism that would negate the packaging advantages.

[gold333]

Sorry but this discussion concerns such an exceptional situation it probably is not worth discussing. F1 regulations say a car must be driven using a steering wheel and pedals, noting else. So limbless drivers are excluded based on that fact alone.

[gridwalker]

Gold333 : I see from the joining date under your username that you have been here for less than a year, so I just have to say that this is the off season and you'd better get used to crazy concepts being discussed around here whilst we wait for the new machines to be rolled out

Sometimes, the crazy ideas turn out to be less crazy than we first imagine : the ex-member called Goony and his stories of "the dead zone" have become a legend around here, after he unwittingly revealed details of what would later become known as the F-Duct ...

Just bear with us for a few weeks and we can all then return to earth when the new cars roll out