The cars of the pre-2009 era were designed with low noses and although I understand the wings and various other aero restrictions that effect the whole design of the car were completely different, I am curious as to why teams designed the noses as high as possible around the 2010-2013 era as apposed to the low noses of pre-2009?
If the teams had to design under the 2008 regulations now would the cars have high noses or low?
Well, that's an easy question. It's so easy that even I know the answer:
High.
Up! Up!
Actually what you call low noses are, for the standards of old days, really high noses.
You, young men, have not seen a low nose in your life... and get out of my lawn, punks!
You have to go to 1990 to realize that high noses had to be invented, along with hipsters, iPhones and The Walking Dead.
Actually, the Walking Dead is a copycat (and the iPhone and hipsters) but I digress.
Harvey Postlethwaite and Jean Claude Migeot were the guys behind the high nose, in a Tyrrell, the 019, to be exact.
... and so it began
The idea? Simple.
To channel air under the body for larger ground effect, using the nose, while you keep the front wing as close to the ground as possible, for larger wing down force.
You use your nose (or better yet, the car's nose) to push air under the body, period. The body of the car, of course.
The last car to win a race with a really low nose was the '94 Williams FW16
You can see in the previous picture that cars used to have a wedge shape, for better aerodynamic effect. Like a VW Beetle, to be exact, or a Speed Racer car design.
Ground effect? What ground effect? C'mon, this car is half of the time flying in the air! It has a button to JUMP, for the love of Pete!
Our own Steven gives you the same idea: with a high nose you push more air towards the diffuser and toward radiators.
Steven de Groote has written about this... read here
What really intrigues me is why some noses look like penises and that's something I'm going to answer right now. Let's grab this question firmly! Of course I'm talking about car noses.
No, it's not penis envy, although it cannot be discarded entirely.
I don't want this car following me, it gives me the creeps.
I don't want this car ahead of me either: I envy it.
The "race" towards lower tips (a.k.a. "anteater nose" or better yet, "dickhead nose") while keeping high the rear part of the nose for ground effect, started in 2010, as you correctly point out (ha, ha!) when Mark Webber introduced his high and perfectly aerodynamic nose under Kovalainen's car.
Because of that incident, a group was formed to avoid cars flying in the air (I wrote about that back then, something like Flying Car Technical Group, if I'm not mistaken).
Webber, the Flying Auzzieman
You can see perfectly (if you hit pause at the right moment, that is) that Webber's car nose is what touches Kovalainen rear wheel just on top of it.
It's the high nose what launches Webber into his big and wide Australian head.
OMG, he was disfigured! No? He wasn't? Is that his natural face?
Sorry, my mistake!
That move by Webber, not being the epitome of healthy overtaking, changed the noses forever.
If you add the fact that noses have to resist a fairly hard hit by regulations and the more subtle fact that some teams, after the prohibition of flexiwings, developed flexinoses then you arrive to the "modern" configuration.
Flexinoses at Abu Dhabi. Newey is a devil. Bad Adrian, bad. Stay, stay!
OMG, everything moves, except the wing. The wing is rock bottom solid. Yeah, F1 is known by its sporting spirit... not
There you go, I think.
However, it has been, literally, a long and winding road.
From the Tea Tray and the Snowplough (Tyrrell 1971)...
... to the Lobster Claw (Brabham BT34)...
... passing by the Spitfire Wing (March 711)...
... including the infamous Walrus Nose of Williams 2004...
... and arriving finally to the glorious end result of decades of work and billions invested in wind tunnels: a penis
Ciro Pabón wrote:Well, that's an easy question. It's so easy that even I know the answer:
High.
[...]
I'm not sure I agree with that, my equatorial friend. (By the way, how do you make due with "seasons" that range from merely hot to infernal?)
From 2001, the FIA required front wing tips to be lifted higher off the reference plane in a bid to reduce downforce. The result is that front wing design migrated from this...
F1-2000
...to this...
F2001
...and teams progressively abandoned the low AoA center-section that allowed for high-nose benefits - relatively unperturbed air flow under the nose, directed around the sidepods and under the flanks of the floor.
When given a higher AoA, the center-section reclaimed that lost downforce, and noses with droopy, or flaccid, tips came about as a way to remove the downstream blockage from the increasingly high AoA. In other words, teams actively tried to prevent that air flow from passing under the car.
As "spoon" wings with a very high AoA became a popular choice, nose design became an exercise in increasing front wing efficiency.
F2008
You can see here how the underside of the nose was given a rounded shape to allow upwash from the center-section to more cleanly pass around the nose.
Even better were the vents that allowed upwash to pass through the nose.
So, I think if the 2008 regulations were brought back, teams would revert to lower, flaccid noses. That was, after all, the optimal solution for those regulations.
Firstly, if you say so, flaccid it is... that's a shame. You are the expert in that issue, I guess.
Thanks for the explanation. It's kind of subtle. I'm referring to "old noses", you to wings, as I see.
Anyway, I take your word: low but not that low.
In second place (sorry for going OOT), thanks also for you worrying about the weather of Cali.
I know envy it's a bad advisor, so let's put the issue to rest.
You're confusing the Caribbean with the Sahara, apparently. However, we have several tricks to cope with balmy weather.
First, ladies spend less in clothes because clothes down here are smaller. Bikinis are mandatory.
No burkas down here... I swear on the ashes of my ancestors, this is a regular attire all year round in Cali. Official nickname of this city: Heaven's Branch and I'm not making this up
Secondly, we discovered beer.
We did not invent beer, we discovered it. This is Hillary Clinton (!), the mother of all the straight jackets of this world, in Cali, discovering beer and salsa
Thirdly, I'm the proud owner of a 12.000 btu (that's around 850 Hp when you express it in the cubic miles scale in use in the ole' US) Samsung Maldives, 220 Volts, direct drive air conditioner that you could enjoy anytime you come to Colombia, free of charge.
Finally, for an expert in air dynamic, you have a very mistaken concept of air temperature.
- What you call "hot" we call 18 degrees, low average temperature, (that's 66 Fahrenheits if you express them in pounds).
- What you call "infernal" is 31 degrees, high average temperature (or 88 Fahrenheits when you transform them into bushels).
- Average temperature in Cali is 25 degrees (around 77 Fahrenheit in the Rankine degrees scale you probably use because of, you know, reasons). That's what the scientists call "perfect".
When I wake up in the morning, in my underwear, I go out to my balcony and the breeze blows on my "bhalls", I smile, specially in December.
What you have in US is what we call down here "of winter, a nine months spell... and three months in hell". My sincere condolences, bhall.
Thanks for keeping the lens up on that pic Ciro - I got scared since your pictures usually fit your words quite well (and I don't need any nightmares)!
“Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!” Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Thankyou for you're answers, very insightful, really amazing stuff I'm eternally grateful, I'm ashamed for messing up the thread title and must sacrifice myself.
Thanks for the explanation. It's kind of subtle. I'm referring to "old noses", you to wings, as I see.
[...]
If "subtle" means "fundamental difference of intent," then I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Put a traditional low nose, as typified by the FW16, on the F1.08 seen below, and the aggressive "spoon" section central to the wing's efficacy would be about as potent as a cheese grater. (But, who knows? That may work like gangbusters and make a ----tonne of downforce. I'm no aerodynamacist; I just play one on TV.)
Instead, the nose was arched, but not especially raised, to get out of the way of the the wing.
Subtle is the difference in height between that and this...
I think that's a far cry from the purpose and height of the high noses we've seen recently, where the intention is to increase mass flow around the sidepods and under the flanks of the floor.
If the 019 and F1.08 had high noses, the F138's nose was stratospheric, bordering on orbital.
Oh, and I sincerely appreciate the explanation of your home's climate. From what you've said, I must admit that I am indeed a bit envious, especially of the scenery afforded by the conditions.
Things aren't all bad up here in the cold North, though. Every autumn we're treated to a spectacle worthy of the highest praise: yoga pants.
Plus, who can argue with a view like this?
(Sadly, my admiration of such vistas tends to be short-lived. If you stand outside for too long in the bitter cold, you inevitably end up with three Adam's apples and no bhalls in your sack. )
motorloon1993 wrote:
If the teams had to design under the 2008 regulations now would the cars have high noses or low?
With the knowledge the Teams have aquired since then regarding Front Wings and their detailing I would tend to assume they would go for highish noses even in the heavily front DF limited Regulation world of pre 2008.
Back then they could achieve the required front DF only by kindly asking the nose to assist. Thus lowering them.
High noses on the other hand will help overall l/d since underbody DF is 'cheaper' aerodynamically than overbody DF. That is as long as you achieve the required DF Level on both axles.
motorloon1993 wrote:The cars of the pre-2009 era were designed with low noses and although I understand the wings and various other aero restrictions that effect the whole design of the car were completely different, I am curious as to why teams designed the noses as high as possible around the 2010-2013 era as apposed to the low noses of pre-2009?
If the teams had to design under the 2008 regulations now would the cars have high noses or low?
The reason for having higher noses has evolved since the first little raised center section.
That was done to stabilize the pitching moment at the loss of some downforce. A small variation in the ride height at the very front of the car would drastically change the downforce on the whole floor.
As the higher nose evolved, it was used to get better air to the front of the tea tray and, most importantly, all along the sides of the car to the back end, including to the barge board floor-sealing vortex generators. This better flow is the reason the most of the Teams have tried to preserve, as much as possible, the airflow principles of the high noses even though the very front of this year's nose is lower.
With a non-venturi bottom, you are never trying to get "more air under the car."
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