Wind Tunnels

[ketanpaul]

Nowadays a second wind tunnel seems to be the fashion with even Spyker now having another wind tunnel. Shouldnt FIA put a limit to the no. of wind tunnels and other resources employed in a team rather than putting stupid restrictions on engines, gearboxes etc to cut costs?

[johny]

they should limit aero, that way money will be invested in usefull things not in road planes

[benjabulle]

You get it right, limitations should be : same amount of money for all the teams, same numbers of people in all the teams. And then you will know the best.

[dumrick]

You get it right, limitations should be : same amount of money for all the teams, same numbers of people in all the teams. And then you will know the best.

...outsourcer!

Really guys, there is no way such things could be enforced. If a car maker plus all its sponsors think they could win "x", the only issue is how much "x-y" they will invest. Money generates money and, believe me, no one loses money in modern F1...

[m3_lover]

Thats True...all F1 Team Owners are worth Millions I.E Ron Dennis and Frank Williams..no way they lose money in this sport

[Phoenix]

Is it fesible to put a limitation on number of hours in the tunnel (before and during the season)? Thinking of that, doesn't the FIA limit the number of hours on track that a team can complete?

[AeroGT3]

they should limit aero, that way money will be invested in usefull things not in road planes

Yeah, because not only is Aero a useless system to develop, but it also keeps top speeds down and braking distances up. Why would we want that, right?

[ketanpaul]

I think limiting things like aero, engines etc is not useful as it just limits creativity and there is nothing interesting achieved. On the other hand if we standardise and limit the resources of all teams, it makes for a much better playing ground, money is limited and efficiency is of utmost importance as teams will have to learn how to get the maximun out of their limited resources.
It is very hard to set a limit on the money spent, but you can limit it by doing things like limited hours in the wind tunnel, limited laps of testing, limited driver salaries, etc

[dumrick]

It is very hard to set a limit on the money spent, but you can limit it by doing things like limited hours in the wind tunnel, limited laps of testing, limited driver salaries, etc

That would make the Le Mans series, Nascar, IRL, rallying, very happy with a bunch of new drivers and engineers looking for a pay raise and more challenges...

[AeroGT3]

Guys, you're not going to limit budgets in F1. Ever. If you close the rules down to allow only a certain type of rear wing with even a downforce limit, then Ferrari will spend millions optimizing the airfoil. If you ban wind tunnels they'll buy a huge cluster for CFD and run automated optimization all day long.

When you introduce rules, you just change the way money is spent, not how much is spent. It goes form money spent exploring a wide range of options creatively, to refining a very narrow concept for that 0.01% performance gain. At least with wide open rules, a team with little money can come up with a great idea and the subsequent advantage. With restrictive rules, creative ideas are essentially all banned and the only way to win is to spend tons of money refining the same concept as everyone else, but to a more exacting degree.

[dcdabest]

I agree that money-spending can be fundamentally limitless in any technological arena.

But,

Small teams can not gain a long-term advantage by inventing new ideas. These days, other teams can copy so quickly and implement them better.

The more technology that is set by the FIA, the closer F1 becomes (at-least in terms of lap time. Small teams will not reach the same performance level as the bigger ones again)

The closer F1 becomes, the more effect drivers will have, leading to lower category-style racing such as GP2.

Perhaps we should just watch video-tapes of the old races 20 years ago.

[dumrick]

Guys, you're not going to limit budgets in F1. Ever. If you close the rules down to allow only a certain type of rear wing with even a downforce limit, then Ferrari will spend millions optimizing the airfoil. If you ban wind tunnels they'll buy a huge cluster for CFD and run automated optimization all day long.

When you introduce rules, you just change the way money is spent, not how much is spent. It goes form money spent exploring a wide range of options creatively, to refining a very narrow concept for that 0.01% performance gain. At least with wide open rules, a team with little money can come up with a great idea and the subsequent advantage. With restrictive rules, creative ideas are essentially all banned and the only way to win is to spend tons of money refining the same concept as everyone else, but to a more exacting degree.

Great post. I agree 100%.
Colin Chapman would be a very frustrated guy in F1 nowadays... he would probably racing endurance or any other series that gave new ideas a chance.

[Ray]

As my Daddy always said:

The only substitute for cubic inches is rectangular money!

[Steven]

As my Daddy always said:
The only substitute for cubic inches is rectangular money

Americans... common rail direct injection and turbocharging would be better for the environment.

Anyway, the FIA have already hinted at limiting the wind tunnel resources in the next few years. I believe that is also the main reason why BMW are not actually choosing to have a second one, but instead invest (well they get sponsored by Intel) in their computers.

[Ciro Pabón]

Probably (sigh) wind tunnels will be restricted once they become irrelevant. You know, with future computers, we will get better results than looking at reality itself!