F1: 2011 regulations, death of F1?

[mito]

F1 died May 1st 1994.

We miss you Senna.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

and then the car behind will be even more disadvantaged in the corners

Oke than explain me why every F1 team for the past 30 years have been so focussed on generating as much downforce as they can? Explain me why drivers complain about the lack of downforce to overtake someone? You cant do withouth downforce, if that was the case, why do team just dont use very small wings? why did mclaren come up with their trippledeck frontwing?

The disturbed air is not so much because of the downforce of the car in front, but because teams on purpose try to disrupt the air that comes off the car to have the car behind generate as little downforce as possible. Thats what drivers are complaining about, they cant get close to another car because they cant generate enough downforce. Thats why the FIA is working on this rule that splits the rear wing in half so the air cant be disrupted as much and the car behind is able to generate more downforce and come closer.

 

[Davros]

because more downforce = higher cornering speed
except if your following another car

they are complaining about the lack of downforce while overtaking because the dirty air comming of the car infront is destroying their downforce if the cars have more downforce it will still be destroyed in dirty air
i see how your thinking they are loosing downforce in dirty air so give them more + true if they had more downforce to begin with they could corner in dirty air at a higher speed but the car in clean air could also corner at a higher speed so you arnt solving the problem
+ ps: teams dont deliberatly design cars to disrubt the air behind them its just the way it is

 

[V3]

I know that too, but its more of a mental thing. Whats next? 4 cilinder engines? that just isnt cool. More is better F1 should be about tech, and that makes a V12 better.

That's not true, V12 engine would be longer which make the car wheelbase longer. During the V10 era, they were actually allowed to use V12, but no one end up using them.

Anyway, I agree with you that the one engine thing suck. They need to bring back one engine per session rules.

Make easier for cars to sleepstream each other probably will lead to better overtaking, and revise tracks to allow for safer overtaking.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

because more downforce = higher cornering speed
except if your following another car

they are complaining about the lack of downforce while overtaking because the dirty air comming of the car infront is destroying their downforce if the cars have more downforce it will still be destroyed in dirty air
i see how your thinking they are loosing downforce in dirty air so give them more + true if they had more downforce to begin with they could corner in dirty air at a higher speed but the car in clean air could also corner at a higher speed so you arnt solving the problem
+ ps: teams dont deliberatly design cars to disrubt the air behind them its just the way it is

Im going to give up. You should contact mclaren and tell them to run without wings so they'll finally be able to overtake the Ferrari's.

+ ps: teams dont deliberatly design cars to disrubt the air behind them its just the way it is

Not really. Its a fact that teams design their cars to disrubt the airflow as much as they can because obviously making it harder for your oppenents to overtake you is something wich gives you a advantage. Sure the air gets disrubted somewhat anyway but teams try to increase that as much as they can.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I think the problem is that over the years when the FIA has tried to slow the cars down, they've concentrated on reducing power and mechancial grip. This has left the teams having to concentrate on the aerodynamics and put us into the position of making overtaking very difficult when those aerodynamics get disrupted by the car in front.

The only way I can see out of this is to reduce the reliance on aerodynamics and increase engine power and mechanical grip.

I'm also questioning regs that include traction control, while next year they are removing that and other driver aids. If it's good to remove TC next year, why do they want to bring it back a few years later?

It seems to me that the FIA love to mess around with the F1 rules, but they never seem to be very well thought out. They are always changing their minds, and even contradicting themselves from year to year. The FIA and the teams need to get together and decide what they want the series to be, instead of messing about every five minutes to try and figure out what will make things a bit cheaper, or get them more TV coverage.

It's worth noting that the complaints of "boring", and "lack of overtaking" have been going around for year and years now, and all the (sometimes quite dramatic) changes that the FIA have made have done nothing to change that. It seems to me from that alone, that the FIA don't really know what they are trying to achieve.

 

[DJ12]

They are removing traction control as they cannot police it at the minute, when it comes back, they are going to be standard units in all the cars, so the FIA will know if something is going on that shouldn't be.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

The problem is that all 3 go hand in hand. If you have a big engine, you'll need a way to get all that power down on the track. So you need tires for that. But tires need to be pressed against the track too. Its impossible to generate enough mechanical grip to have these cars corner at over 200kpmh. You cant have a modern F1 car without advanced aerodynamics.

I agree with you on the FIA. They try all sorts of things to make cars slower but actually how much did it help? next to non if you ask me. I happend to see a movie on youtube a couple of days ago with a onboard cam of senna doing a lap around interlags and in the top of the screen you had Schumi in I think the 2003 Ferrari and they were about the same in speed.

The problem is that Bernie and max are 2 dinosaurs. Bernie only cares about how he can make another bilion and doesnt give a shit about the sport anymore and max just lost it and has absolutely no idea what the fuck he is doing.

He talks about how F1 needs to be cheaper (actually why needs F1 to be cheaper? especially for the big teams its probably a very cheap way of advertising) but he constantly comes up with rules that forces the teams to spend millions a developing a car that has the same speed as before but now has to do that with stupid rules like less powerfull engines or engines that lasts 2 races.

And his new rules just make things more boring. Engines need to last 1/3 of a season? well that wont help racing at all because everyone will be concerving their engine as much as possible. Or what about the multimillion that need to be spend to make a engine that best the teams can do with the rules and have it last for 5 races? Im pretty damn sure it costs alot more to build a F1 engine wich needs to last for 5 races even if its not uber powerfull that a uberengine wich only needs to last for 1 race.

I think we need to go back to the cars of the early 90's. Not only did those cars look alot better than the modern ones (I hate those millions of small wings and bends all over the cars) they were also fast, and capable of overtaking. All they'd need to do is imply modern safety standers to it.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I've just spent the last few hours watching some motorcycle racing. MotoGP from LeMan's, NW 200 road racing from Northern Ireland, and the British Superbikes. The overtaking and excitement was intense, racing literally wheel-to-wheel. Whatever it is the motorcycles do, the FIA better figure it out and apply it to F1, because that's exactly what racing should be like.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

It it just me, or was the most exciting period in F1 racing when they had big engines, turbos, ground effects skirts, traction control, slick tyres, pitstops, and active suspension?

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Im going to give up. You should contact mclaren and tell them to run without wings so they'll finally be able to overtake the Ferrari's.

You obviously didn't understand what he said.

If the car infront of you has serious downforce, he distrupts the airflow behind him, thus car behind him looses grip in corners, but on straights he gets an advantage that is called "drafting".

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

You obviously didn't understand what he said.

If the car infront of you has serious downforce, he distrupts the airflow behind him, thus car behind him looses grip in corners, but on straights he gets an advantage that is called "drafting".

Can F1 cars even draft any more? They lose so much aerodynamic downforce (and thus mechanical grip) as well as getting hot air off the car in front directly into their cooling systems, that it seems to more than offset any advantage they might gain by drafting. I can't remember the last time I saw an F1 car really drafting, compared to what I saw this afternoon with the motorbikes.

In fact, you often see the F1 cars getting out of the slipstream because of overheating issues, and most of them seem to hit a brick wall as soon as they get into the disrupted airstream of the car in front, long before they get a chance to draft.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

You obviously didn't understand what he said.

If the car infront of you has serious downforce, he distrupts the airflow behind him, thus car behind him looses grip in corners, but on straights he gets an advantage that is called "drafting".

Dont you guys read? its not so much cars generating downforce what is disturbing airflow but all those extra winglets the teams put on the cars to disturb the airflow on purpose behind the car. As I said, you wont get the advantage on straights because you cant get close enough because you cant generate enough downforce. Im not sucking this out of my big toe, this is what multiple drivers said. Lowering downforce aint gonna help a thing because teams will still disrupt the air thus giving the car behind even less downforce. All less downforce on the cars will do is slower cars and even less overtaking.

It it just me, or was the most exciting period in F1 racing when they had big engines, turbos, ground effects skirts, traction control, slick tyres, pitstops, and active suspension?

Yes. But keep on mind that this was also somewhat due to cars not being as reliable as now. Lots of action came from cars braking down or spinning. Also things like ground effect and active suspension arnt needed for exitement. Just lowering the cars would be enough. Like the 90's when cars were just a few mm above the ground. Traction controll is one of the things that is screwing up the sport and not making for a better race because all a driver has to do is put his foot down and the electronics will figure everything out for him instead of the driver knowing how much throttle to apply. Also slicks arnt needed that much, I remember Bridgstone saying that if they wanted to could make tires with the 4 groves that performed better than the slick tires we had back then.

IMHO there are 3 things that need to be done to improve the sport. First of all trow out driver aids. Luckily TC will be gone next year so the boys will be seperated from the real man next year.

Second is to loosen up aerodynamic rules but make rules against teams trying to disrupt the airflow as much as possible. Also ban all the extra wings, I want clear cars.

Third is loosen up engine rules. Just engines that have to last 1 race. Maybe even let teams decide for themselves if they want to go for V8, V10 or V12 engines. Turbo's would be cool but not a must.

Also just in general not having half a billion rules and changing them every season would be nice.

 

[RobertR1]

Dont you guys read? its not so much cars generating downforce what is disturbing airflow but all those extra winglets the teams put on the cars to disturb the airflow on purpose behind the car. As I said, you wont get the advantage on straights because you cant get close enough because you cant generate enough downforce. Im not sucking this out of my big toe, this is what multiple drivers said. Lowering downforce aint gonna help a thing because teams will still disrupt the air thus giving the car behind even less downforce. All less downforce on the cars will do is slower cars and even less overtaking.

You can't have more downforce without dirtying up the air behind. Lowering downforce and ADDING mechanical grip means that the car behind can stay behind without generating a lot of understeer and then draft down the straights. Right now, the cars rely too much downforce which relys on clean air. The winglets are to redirect the airflow for maximum downforce. Trying to rely on high downforce will always hinder the car behind. You have to rely more on mechanical grip. F1 is getting further away from competitive racing with small grooved tires.

Spec wings with smooth bodied cars (no winglets) would dramatically reduce downforce and allow a faster car to keep in close with the car in front. At this point give them back big slicks and you're looking at high mechanical grip which doesn't suffer from current high downforce setup setbacks. It'd also keep the speeds down, the main concern of the FIA.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I've said this 5 times already, but im going to say it one more time. There is only so much you can do with mechanical grip. You can have slicks all you want but that wont get you around a corner at 200+kpmh. You need downforce, the more the better. Also for overtaking. For the past 20+ years F1 cars have relied on downforce, downforce isnt what's causing the lack of overtaking. The current F1 cars are, like I said, designed to disrupt as much as possible, this isnt only because of the downforce the generate, but something wich is done on purpose. Take a look at the '94 season cars, they are known for their extreme easy driving because of the insane amounts of downforce they could generate, but you dont see ugly winglets on them and there was alot more overtaking in those times.

 

[Frank]

Shark skin.

Some time ago, people in areodynamics realised that for minimum drag, you don't want a very smooth surface. Because the air sticks to such a surface. What you want is a thin layer of turbulent airflow close to the surface, that keeps the main airflow away from it.

To do that, we've seen strange strips, bumps, small wings and other stuff on planes, sportsuits, boats and... cars.

Something else you want to do, is fill up the "hole" in the air behind you. Because, if you don't, that creates the most drag. That's why drops have the pointy end at the back. For cars, you want to retain part of the drag: the downward force. But the backward force isn't welcome.


All that results in a very turbulent air directly behind a car, that's moving mostly downwards, and a bit further from the car that air moves mostly upwards. But it's filled with small, horizontal vortexes.

An easy way to see that is a windtunnel.

 

[Davros]

I've said this 5 times already, but im going to say it one more time. There is only so much you can do with mechanical grip. You can have slicks all you want but that wont get you around a corner at 200+kpmh. .

why have you said it 5 times - everyone agrees with you........
nobody is suggesting cars that dont rely on downforce cars would corner as fast as high downforce producing cars
we are suggesting low downforce cars would be able to follow each other through the corners closer than they can now

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

And I say that wont be the case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWQFnBb9iWo

I havnt seen racing like that for years in f1 and im pretty sure the '92 cars wernt exactly low on downforce.

 

[suryad]

I've just spent the last few hours watching some motorcycle racing. MotoGP from LeMan's, NW 200 road racing from Northern Ireland, and the British Superbikes. The overtaking and excitement was intense, racing literally wheel-to-wheel. Whatever it is the motorcycles do, the FIA better figure it out and apply it to F1, because that's exactly what racing should be like.

And I agree with you. F1 is a joke. Hence my first post in this thread. Just because it is the 3rd most watched event in the world does not make it good. Just shows people have bad taste.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Well for your information its not like F1 has always been a joke. Yes its hasnt been exactly great the last few years (still kicks ass to see the cars though) but F1 goes back 40+ years.