'09 aero may not improve show

[Brown, Jon Brow]

I've long time believed a reverse grid is the way forward.

People complain about lack of racing and overtaking. But at end of the day, having in place a system where the fastest car starts first, and slowest last. Its common sense that we're not going to get much overtaking.

If I had my way, I'd scrap qualifying all together, and the grid would be in reverse to current championship standings.

I don't think race-fuel qualifying helps. With current qualifying you have the lighter cars at the front, so they pull away at the start. This results in more overtaking in the pitlane.

Wouldn't we see more on track overtaking if all the cars could choose their fuel strategy after qualifying? You could end up with a car starting 4th choosing a short first stint which would mean it would be faster than the cars infront at the start, and more likely to be able to pass.

[AndyL]

Turbulence is the last unsolved problem in classical physics and there is a good reason why F1, Aerospace, Industrial and Petroleum companies invest so much in R&D (both commercial and academic) to find solutions to the problems turbulence causes.

Indeed, there was a quote in the New Scientist a couple of weeks ago from some boffin along the lines of "maybe in 10 years we'll be able to model a cup of coffee"

[Bagwan]

The teams have a bit of a love/hate relationship with turbulence .
The complain if they are behind another car , trying to get by , but they spend a lot of money on making sure nobody gets a sniff of downforce behind their own .

Just another irony in F1 .

I hope it works .
Purnell does state they will have less , just not as much less as is being stated .
At least he agrees there will be some effect .

While it can be argued that the downforce generated by the diffuser is less affected by the low pressure behind a car , less diffuser also means less dirty air exitting from such a low point in the scenario .
Coupled with less rear wing , and you have cleaner air behind .

Enter into the cleaner air with a larger front wing and , presto , happier drivers and fans .
Hell , add slicks and you might be getting onto something .

And , fix the stewarding issues , with permanent stewards who photo-justify actions against drivers



And , if it's a wish list , scrap the medals idea , force the drivers into more interviews , and drop the race fuel qualifying .

That almost does it .
That, I'd watch .

[Sleeper]

Really?!

I'm sure I've read before they've wanted to free up the undertray somewhat to compensate bodywork aero so they could get closer whilst following the wake of a car infront.

I think the diffuser itself may be a bit longer than before, but under the current rules the teams have used suspension wishbones and the lower beam wing of the rear wing assembaly to lengthin it, without actually being part of the diffuser. No that it has to start at the rear wheel centre line thats no longer possible and the over all effect is of a smaller diffuser. And thats assuming that the new diffuser will be longer than the old one, which I'm not certain about. Either way it moves the center of pressure towards the rear wheels which probably wasnt a good idea given that they are allready undersized, and have been for sometime now.

[Sleeper]

Well this is where the Technical Working Group came in and did some studies using both CFD and wind tunnel testing. A fairly full run-down can be found here - http://grandprix.com/ft/ft20831.html.

The upshot is that recent problems with overtaking and aerodynamics have shown up the deficiencies in the testing that is done by the teams (both in the wind tunnel and on computers). Wind tunnels all have lovely uniform onset flow that optimises the car's aerodynamics for when the car is in undisturbed air, hence why they all work wonderfully when on their own. Stick the car behind another car and everything changes - we all know the air is turbulent behind the car and this causes a loss in downforce for the following vehicle, leading to the inability of the car behind to follow closely.

Now that teams have been able to afford big computers they are all turning their attention to CFD. In all honesty the methods they use to simulate the flow around the car are primitive at best and a lot of the detail about the turbulence coming off of the back of the car is lost using the modelling techniques. The CDG is a very good example of this as the computer model predicted almost exactly the opposite of what would happen in reality - a direct consequence of the lack of accuracy in the computer modelling.

I think my point is that what may appear to be a bad idea - a low front wing and a high rear wing - may actually be the best solution to the problem. Turbulence is the last unsolved problem in classical physics and there is a good reason why F1, Aerospace, Industrial and Petroleum companies invest so much in R&D (both commercial and academic) to find solutions to the problems turbulence causes.

I guess we'll find out how good the TWG's research is next year....!

I dont like that article, it assumes too much of the reader. I know what upwash is, but I have never heard of inwash before and as this seams to be an integral part of how they changed the rules, it needed explaining.

My problem is that a stated goal was a huge reduction in downforce (in the region of 50% I think was mentioned) yet when Autosports tech expert Gary Anderson looked at the new rules he thought that the result will be a slight increase in downforce. Granted, he hasnt got access to the CFD and wind tunnel data that the OWG had, but thats wildely contrasting views. I also find there stated aim of a 5 second per lap reduction in speed to be ludicrous. I have no problems with the change of wings themselves, after all both times that the front wing was increased in the last 7/8 years the immediete result was for overtaking to become harder. The diffuser rules is where I have problems. Champ Car has shown us, both with the last Lola and the Panoz DP01, that when the cars relly far more on underbody downforce than upper body downforce, the wheel to wheel racing can be fantastic on tracks that are generally much tighter than any F1 uses (not including Monaco). Apparantly the OWG are claiming the opposite, unles I've missed something. For the record the Panoz produced more downforce than the Lola but the racing was better, at least at the front, IMO.

[Allyc85]

Wouldn't we see more on track overtaking if all the cars could choose their fuel strategy after qualifying? You could end up with a car starting 4th choosing a short first stint which would mean it would be faster than the cars infront at the start, and more likely to be able to pass.

It didnt work before we had qualifying on race fuel did it...

[Brown, Jon Brow]

It didnt work before we had qualifying on race fuel did it...

Didn't it?

[Andrewmcm]

Sleeper, type the phrase "inwash wake" into google scholar and read some of the articles that it comes up with - that should help you out somewhat.

[wedge]

I don't think race-fuel qualifying helps. With current qualifying you have the lighter cars at the front, so they pull away at the start. This results in more overtaking in the pitlane.

You can run a more variable strategy with race-fuel qualy. Being lighter doesn't necessarily mean you'll run off into the distance. Running light means you'll pit early and have to pass traffic on your second stint to make up the difference.

The problem with the old system was that the best pit strategy is to make the least amount of stops ie. one stop strategy. What that meant was that the fastest cars qualified at the front and more likely to run off into the distance because in most instances one-stop is better than two-stopper.

IMO we should have top 10 qualy which should be single-lap, low-fuel so that we spice up the grid and appease the purists somewhat.

[Allyc85]

Didn't it?

No, we still barely had any overtaking. The occasionally battle but nothing great.