Hurry Up and Weight

[Vyssion]

"Hurry Up and Weight" is an article which jjn9128 and I (Vyssion) have written for the F1Technical Website. Both he and I were approached and given the opportunity given our experience and expertise within Aerodynamics and CFD industry with the hope that, come the time when more are made available, we would be able to bring knowledge and understanding in a slightly more technical and / or in-depth manner to those of us on this website who crave to know the "how and why" of things pertaining to these areas. Although this first one isn't strictly relating to aerodynamics or CFD, weight is an important aspect of vehicle performance nonetheless.

Our first article looks at how 'weight' has changed over the years of F1 and it's subsequent effects on the speed and design of the various teams' F1 cars. We both hope that you enjoy the read, and we would like to encourage any comments, questions and / or feedback that you all may have on this topic.

Thanks and happy reading!!

https://www.f1technical.net/news/21637

[Tommy Cookers]

the lightest car in an F1 Monaco GP was the 1100 cc V-twin Cooper J.A.P at c.250 kg

[CMSMJ1]

Enjoyed the read - thanks for sharing it and kudos to Stephen for posting it on the front page.

[hollus]

How much of the extra downforce is due to the extra ar lenght and how much of the extra car lenght is due to the extra minimum car weight?
Awesome read, by the way.

[jjn9128]

Enjoyed the read - thanks for sharing it and kudos to Stephen for posting it on the front page.

Thanks and also thanks to Steven. In the future these will be based more on our expertise (aerodynamics). This analysis was really inspired by some interesting conversations on a couple of threads, it' nice to see that other people think it's interesting too

How much of the extra downforce is due to the extra ar lenght and how much of the extra car lenght is due to the extra minimum car weight?
Awesome read, by the way.

Thank you. When Andy first drew the 2018/2000's comparison it was a real shock to see just how ridiculous the proportions of a modern Grand Prix car are.

RE: downforce , so increasing the planform area of the floor is definitely a benefit - assuming you can maintain the relative vacuum under the car. It's difficult to ascribe an exact value to this - best guess the planform of the floor now is ~4.5m^2 vs ~3m^2 (narrower body x shorter wheelbase) in the 2000's, so the underbody will be producing 50% more downforce - assuming the mean pressure under the car is the same. Obviously the longer floor experiences more suction loss from flow ingress which raises pressure towards the centre, but the longer diffuser and bigger leading edge radius will help reduce pressure at the extremes. So maybe this isn't a bad guestimate.

Weight and length again is hard to give a value for - depends where the weight is added - something structural like the gearbox bellhousing (elongating the rear end of the car) will probably add quite a bit, a thin bit of carbon fibre and core for the floor/engine cover not so much - multiplied over a large surface area it will add up though.