Would you change rear wing size? Front wing size? Allow little flick ups again?
Over to you.

Balibari wrote:If the FIA want to save money teams should have to present two or three pairs of wings at the start of the season and not be allowed to make any further changes during. Not what I want but sometimes I wonder why this doesn't happen.
j man wrote:Balibari wrote:If the FIA want to save money teams should have to present two or three pairs of wings at the start of the season and not be allowed to make any further changes during. Not what I want but sometimes I wonder why this doesn't happen.
Gary Anderson suggested something similar in his BBC column. He proposed that teams can only bring updates to specified races each season (he suggested 3 races in which teams could bring updates), and the cars must not change at any other time. Teams could then play a 'wildcard' once in the season if they were behind and desperately needed some development. So for example, if this had been in force for this year then Ferrari most likely would have played their wildcard early on as they were so far off the pace at the start of the year, and McLaren would be looking to play theirs now. It would lower development costs dramatically.
sultanofhyd wrote:j man wrote:Balibari wrote:If the FIA want to save money teams should have to present two or three pairs of wings at the start of the season and not be allowed to make any further changes during. Not what I want but sometimes I wonder why this doesn't happen.
Gary Anderson suggested something similar in his BBC column. He proposed that teams can only bring updates to specified races each season (he suggested 3 races in which teams could bring updates), and the cars must not change at any other time. Teams could then play a 'wildcard' once in the season if they were behind and desperately needed some development. So for example, if this had been in force for this year then Ferrari most likely would have played their wildcard early on as they were so far off the pace at the start of the year, and McLaren would be looking to play theirs now. It would lower development costs dramatically.
Probably for the midfield teams, but the top teams will start spending even more to try to fast track the upgrades to these designated races. For example Ferrari this season more or less raced the same car for the initial 4 flyaway races, then started bringing significant upgrades from Barcelona onwards at each race. If any such rule was introduced Ferrari would have increased their spending significantly to slot all of their upgrades for Barcelona. It also has some potential conflicts with the RRA.
AngusWolfe wrote:On the DRS front, do you remember Bernie had that ridiculous idea about shortcuts on every track a few years ago? maybe have the DRS like that, each Driver gets maybe 3-5 uses per race. we see reduced use, but still more overtakes than before. best of both worlds?
I agree with the 2007/8 wing specs, they looked much better.
RunningMan wrote:AngusWolfe wrote:On the DRS front, do you remember Bernie had that ridiculous idea about shortcuts on every track a few years ago? maybe have the DRS like that, each Driver gets maybe 3-5 uses per race. we see reduced use, but still more overtakes than before. best of both worlds?
I agree with the 2007/8 wing specs, they looked much better.
I personally don't like the idea of shortcuts. It seems to defeat the point of racing, if one driver is just going to use a completely different area of track which the defending driver cannot.
Plus, I can see hundreds of potential hurdles to overcome to actually get it to work.
AngusWolfe wrote:On the DRS front, do you remember Bernie had that ridiculous idea about shortcuts on every track a few years ago? maybe have the DRS like that, each Driver gets maybe 3-5 uses per race. we see reduced use, but still more overtakes than before. best of both worlds?
I agree with the 2007/8 wing specs, they looked much better.
painless wrote:Almost total aero freedom except for "defensive" aero; that which creates a dirtier wake than needs be (difficult to police though)
Size shape configuration ground clearance to fit within defined "box"
Allow active to be controlled by driver (driver only - no remote)
Forget DRS zone, whole circuit is zone ,amount of drag you take off is proportional to the size of your veg.
Enjoyable as racing was in the pre-aero days I don't think getting rid of all aero is the answer. If that's what you want go to Historic F1 and if Historic turns out to get more popular allow manufacturers to offer "continuation" cars a la Lola T70 - would work with McLaren and Ferrari dunno who's gonna build a Tyrell or a BRM (Hall and Hall - are you listening?)
futureshock999 wrote:I think a lot of the comments on this thread have lost sight as to how and why we ended up with the regs we have now. In particular:
futureshock999 wrote:1) underbody aero is inherently unsafe compared to "wing" driven aero. It relies upon a precise gap between the car and the track, and the more this varies, the less the effect. That means that if a car gets unsettled at high speeds, say by hitting a curb, another car, etc., then it loses it's downforce suddenly - and it has nothing but gravity to bring it down. If it is travelling in an upwards arc, or bouncing around as it flies off the track, downward aero will not be regained. Contrast this with winged aero, which is exerting downforce as a function of it's forward speed - it works pretty well even if airborne - it's only limitation is that it loses effectiveness with the cosine value of the car's floor to the track. So as long as it is fairly upright, it will have some downforce, even if oscillating. This difference in failure modes is an important feature as to why underbody aero was banned.
futureshock999 wrote:2) DRS is supposed to give a _temporary_ burst of speed to allow an overtake that would have probably happened if not for the aero disturbance of the leading car. The idea of making it operate over the whole track runs right into the situation that got V8 turbos banned - many tracks simply are not safe for that amount of speed. The current DRS zones operate only where the track is known to be safe while carrying a higher speed, hence their appearance on relatively straight sections only. Remember, the whole mantra of the past 8 years or so has been to try and reduce speeds, while still providing good, competitive racing. Track-wide DRS does not do that. If we cannot limit the speeds and still have good racing, then frankly F1 would have to scrap a whole heap of tracks - starting with Monaco.
futureshock999 wrote:3) This discussion of totally unlimited aero just scares the teams. Truth be told, there are only a few really, really good aero men on the planet (you know that when FERRARI start decrying "too much aero"!), and giving them blank canvases will _radically_ reduce the competitiveness of the lower half of the field. The differences in lap times are likely to be huge - perhaps as much as 5 or more seconds per lap on many tracks. This obviously flies in the face of the percentage rules, and also destroys the aspirations of the lower teams - which means that sponsors will probably leave if they can't even be remotely competitive.
futureshock999 wrote:I would like to add that the one thing I would like to see changed is the width of the front wing. When they increased it's width a few years ago, they disallowed significant aero on the middle of the front wing for reasons I do not understand. What that has done is to make the front wing too sensitive to damage, especially on the first few laps. Unless someone can provide a good explanation as to why that is a positive thing, I would like to see a return to a slightly narrower front wing with significant aero effects carried in the middle, where they are less sensitive to damage.
M.Nader -DODZ- wrote:I need to ask, what is the goal?
better racing or being on the edge of technology? there is always a compromise, but which would the people here be more inclined to?
futureshock999 wrote:Ummm...I don't get it. From a definitional point of view, the SIDEPODS are aerodynamic devices, entire FLOOR is an aero device, etc. These are things that cannot possibly fit an R=5cm rule. Basically the entire CAR profile counts as an aero device these days.
I can also approximate a curve via a series of very, very, very fine straight lines (I took calculus, doh). How small can these be before you rule them a curve?
So I am just not sure how this can be fit into a rule...
readonly wrote:M.Nader -DODZ- wrote:I need to ask, what is the goal?
better racing or being on the edge of technology? there is always a compromise, but which would the people here be more inclined to?
How about both?
M.Nader -DODZ- wrote:readonly wrote:M.Nader -DODZ- wrote:I need to ask, what is the goal?
better racing or being on the edge of technology? there is always a compromise, but which would the people here be more inclined to?
How about both?
I'll tell you why i asked.
Aero is severely damaging driver skill (in terms of the advantage needed for overtaking) today and we ended up having to add DRS for cars to be able to pass each other which many people believe is fake (i am not one of them) but this thread is all about that. and i agree, without DRs you would have to rely on outbraking the other driver to overtake and with the current braking distances cars would have to be VERY short to gain an advantage under braking.
So let's say we Ban the usage of wings all together, and allow diffusers, underbodies and ground effects.
Pros (among others):
- overtaking more of a driver skill
- teams will develop new suspension innovations
- Ground effects will be thoroughly developed
- If active suspension is allowed it would be a ground braking innovation and is something in which development in would be an overall advantage to the automotive industry
Negatives (among others):
- Cars will develop less G-forces (less than indycar i would guess!)
- Aerodynamic wing related advances will be frozen
- technology improvements in terms of manufacturability of the complex wings made today will be frozen
So what you will have now is a very close racing series, with excellent drivers and good development.
What you will lose is being at the front of technology in terms of aerodynamics and manufacturability, but will gain that in Simulation and control, and the cars will be slower.
There are plenty of tweaks to be made and each has its own merits and its own negative so you do need to have a goal. Aerodynamics is improving the cars but damaging the racing, you can't get everything you want.
Bloggins wrote:Why not simplify them and get rid of all the micro-meddling. Essentially, all the myriad rules are written to indirectly limit down force in order to control cornering speeds, so why not throw them all out and limit down force directly? Couldn't a rule be written stating that under a specific wind tunnel test (or series of tests) the maximum combined down force on all four wheels is X kgs. The aero-boffins could then beaver away reducing drag and improving balance within that parameter; a type of research that has the advantage of being more directly applicable to production motorcars than ultimate down force at 200 mph and might be attractive to major manufacturers. If the cars become too quick it would be simple to lower the allowable down force without restricting specific areas of development. A similar approach, with similar benefits, could be taken with engine regulation by limiting maximum fuel flow at the injectors to X ml/sec and dispensing with all the other regulations on rpm, engine configuration, and even displacement. Simplified regulation would encourage and reward real innovation and that can't be a bad thing - can it?
Not that I ever expect to see it happen; micro-management has become the FIA's raison d'etre.
readonly wrote:...
d) Contact would produce less harm. The whole body surface of cars would be smoother so there would probably be no front wings at all but, if there are, they would be more robust and less probable to puncture another car's tyres.
Maybe more...
Thumpah wrote:I would like to see the use of exhaust gases banned from use in aero. The exhaust gases should be released out a horizontal pipe/s behind the rear wings. The only aero effect available should be what is generated by the vehicle's passage through the air. If one wanted to play a little game, I think you could argue that blown diffusers are a movable aero device since the wind is produced with an eight cylinder compressor which is maybe not all that dissimilar to the 78? Brabham fan car that produced downforce with a fan. And the engine mapping and off throttle blowing show that the intent is to harness the wind from that compressor. This maybe getting a little cute but I would have it at the top of my list to remove from the aero equation.
Beyond this it gets complicated. As a previous poster asked, "Do we want close racing or state of the art technology?"
The top speed of cars reached 300+ km/h back in the early fifties and the cars were pulling as many or more G's as the human body could stand back in the eighties so in some ways we have already found the limits and with the current technology once a formula is set it is explored to the nth degree with massive cost for minimal advances. (A $20 000 guitar sounds better than a $200 one but not that much better.)
As a personal preference I would rather simplify the wings with only a few elements allowed and maybe take the sculpting off the body with flat tops and slab sides but in effect I have just taken the cars back to the eighties and that defeats the intent of Formula 1 being the pinnacle of motorsport, so back to my first point of no exhaust gases to be used for aero. Beyond that I've got nothing!
The fundamental problem as I see it is the same problem that afflicts all forms of motor racing. As we have developed over the years the cars have got closer together, there is only one line a car can run on and no matter how big a drivers balls may be he cannot 'over drive' a car (for want of a better term) to get something out of it. Keke rosberg and Alan Jones were both good at getting into a car that may not be quite right and they would wring the neck of it and extract some extra performance. These days the driver is still absolutely crucial but he cannot make that sort of difference anymore.
Just one example of this is the Bathurst 1000 in Australia. It is a tin top race but the illustration still holds. Back in the seventies, Peter Brock won the race by six laps! The last two years total combined margin from first to second is less than half a second. When Brock won by six laps he had the best car and a team that was almost military in it's approach but you just don't get margins like that now.
Right or wrong, when the sport is as close to the limit as it is now the only way to prevent processional races is with artificial inputs such as KERS, DRS, Push to Pass and scheduled yellow flag periods as well as greater emphasis on rules about blocking, weaving and staying inside the lines.
As I have already said, I would prefer to reduce the aero and return to more mechanical grip but I suspect that whatever happens it is going to become more of a defacto "Spec" series as time goes on and performance gets even closer. Even now if one team develops something it is either copied by the other teams or banned taking us back to a parity situation (Amongst the top teams). We can't unlearn stuff or put the genie back into the bottle so it is up to the rule makers to come up with a sensible formula that allows development and promotes good racing. I wish the governing bodies well in their pursuits.
readonly wrote:I have a sensible formula that allows development and promotes good racing...
1) cars must carry a predefined weight (water in a suitable tank), enough to reduce speeds to the desired safety level.
2) eliminate all limits except: car overall maximal dimensions and safety-related limits such as safety cock pits, dangerous substances, parts that could possibly hamper other cars' performance.
3) include more challenges in the track design: bumpy sections (either tarmac or dirt), jump sections, very stiff elevation changes, etc. Even sprinklers could be good. These would incentive a less aerodinamic car design that emphasizes more on mechanical grip.
4) give WDC points for saturday's results too and run a parallel "saturdays" championship.
5) Start races in reverse order of current WDC points standings. Drivers would have to actually work they way through to a win.
6) let costs be on teams. If they can't afford the cost of winning, so be it. They should work to be successful and efficient. If the public (us) can't afford the tickets, then the series would be in danger of extinction so prices would not be increased too much. But I am sure we would be willing to pay more for it.