An idea that I have been toying with in the back of my mind
is that turbulence - not downforce - should be outlawed, or at least regulated. If teams
were allowed to maximise downforce all they want provided that they leave behind a
disturbance that will not affect the aerodynamics of a following car we will be most of
the way there.
My only concern is: How can this be policed?
The only way I can see is that a model (probably 1/3rd)
will have to be made and subjected to a wind tunnel test to ensure that turbulence is
below the maximum allowed. Teams will then not be allowed to change any turbulence
influencing aspect of the car without subjecting it to the same test.
This may sound like an expensive exercise, but if you
consider that virtually all teams are already using models of that size in their current
wind tunnel development, the only additional cost would be that of passing muster.
Please submit any comments you have on this
suggestion below
(comments
are sorted latest first)
Siegfried R from Belgium adds,
I don't think turbulent air isn't really the problem, because it's only
generated when the car is driving at a higher speed, in slower sections of
the track the car generates a smaller turbulent area behind the car but that
doesn't matter for the following car because here only mechanical grip
counts, driver skills and brake power. (see monaco)
And at at high speed sections when somebody tries to slipstream the suction
effect will be greater with turbulent air, than an in a laminar
airflow.
My suggestion is to allow a moving ground plate so the stream over the car
can be greater and drag is reduced. That explains the success of the F2002.
The FIA allowed traction control when they thought teams were using it.
The Heretic replies,
Thank you for your comments.
What you are suggesting is that they allow some ground effect, which was
outlawed back in Allan Jones’ days. It is a valid point but it will give
more grip at higher speed with less drag – I suspect that speed will go too
high to be regarded by the FIA as safe.
Ian B from Australia adds,
It seems to me that we
might be missing the point. In the 'Good Old Days' when memory tells us
overtaking was more common (though never really as much as we think) part of
the reason was the variation between the cars and drivers. Some cars were
fast in a straight line, some had really good brakes, others cornered
better, some were quicker out of corners. All of these combined with drivers
of different styles, abilities, courage and even background to make the grid
much more varied than it is now after seeming endless testing to obtain the
smallest gain. Here is the idea- allow variations in the rules to bring back
the difference. What do I mean? Things like allow bigger brakes with a power
(rev) limited engine or smaller slick tyres with a fully flat floor (no diffuser) or ground effects without front and rear external wings! I know
that the teams would eventually find the ideal combination but at least
different car/drivers would perform better at some tracks than others so
there would be more variety and interest. What do you think and what
combinations would you think might work
The Heretic replies,
I have often wondered what would happen if
wings were limited to inboard of the wheels within current car height
limitations. With the exception of under body or ground effect downforce, it
would be a lot harder to get the same extreme downforce in the turbulent
area over the body of the car.
Bill from USA continues:
Lets look at the subject this way. Which racers seem to have no or minimal
problems passing. Well for starters, motorbike & pedal bike racers.
Clearly they rely 100% (for argument sake) on mechanical grip and minimal
aerodynamic force to enhance grip when cornering. And passing is unrestricted.
They do however "bore a hole" in the air that a following racer can
ride into & get a "tow" from & slingshot past if he is
carrying a high enough gear & has enough horsepower. Even though the
following racer who is trying to pass is in a turbulent low pressure
"bubble" (which is now helping him as he has less drag to contend
with, hence the term "getting a tow") his ability to pass is
unrestricted as he has no inherent loss of aerodynamic downforce to contend
with when following in the "bubble" of turbulent air. I believe long
term fans will remember that passing was not generally a problem in F-1 or
sports car racing till ground effects cars came into wide use. In previous
days "catching a tow" was a common way to pass. Yes, there was
severe turbulence behind a car you were trying to pass, but it didn't make any
difference, in fact it helped you get around the car ahead of you as you could
catch a "tow". Clearly if the passing car, or motorbike wasn't
generating any aerodynamic downforce he wouldn't have any downforce to lose by
lack of laminar flow over his vehicle as he drives into the turbulent
"bubble". He would get the pass via mechanical grip essentially.
Today the situation has gone to the other extreme. Cars still have
mechanical grip, but their real grip is aerodynamic grip. The down side of A/G
is that presently it generates huge amounts of "wash" or turbulence
behind the offending vehicle & car trying to pass loses downforce due to
lack of laminar flow in the "wash". Good for the car ahead & not
good for car trying to pass.
Band-Aid fixes (wider tires, slicks, bigger front wings, re-designed
circuits etc, etc. cannot solve the problem (If you accept my hypothesis) as
they do not address the problem of minimizing the bubble or, wake of turbulent
flow off of the car ahead and keeping laminar flow attached for max
aerodynamic downforce on the following car.
Solutions:
1. The FIA could mandate a progression of reduced % of "wake bubble"
over a benchmark, over a certain period of time (years).
2. A better solution in my estimate would be for FIA to stay out of picture as
much as possible thus avoiding such insane solutions a narrower & grooved
tyres, course design changes etc... which don't address the real problem,
which is minimizing the "wash zone"
FIA should provide an incentive (carrot) big enough to encourage teams to
solve problem themselves. Reward could be a guaranteed place on grid if the
team could reduce bubble by X %, or whatever is enough to provide an
incentive.
HOW TO POLICE:
As you point out, this is possibly the biggest stumbling block, but not
necessarily impossible. The teams are probably best qualified to address this
question as there would be much incentive to insure some other team didn't
cheat on achieving the % of "wash bubble" reduction mandated.
Possibly size of bubble could be quantified with smoke photos in wind
tunnel at max downforce (easily verified with telemetry). If car was found to
have exceeded max allowed downforce in post race data exam impose a suitable
penalty.
If it was thought necessary to confirm max downforce, or bubble size onsite
at a race (a protest e.g.) perhaps offending car, or all cars would be
required to demonstrate bubble size via a test, such as quantifying size of
"bubble wash" with smoke, or thermal imaging camera as cars pass a
background with a grid on it.
I know you seemed sceptical, but there are some very smart people in &
about F-1 that could work out the kinks & make it happen. Provided the
incentive was sufficient, of course. Chapman's old Lotus type 86/88 concept?
ground effects car may have been an idea before its time if it achieved
adequate aerodynamic downforce without much of a turbulence backwash. Maybe
the Brabham fan car was a step in the right direction if it provided more
downforce with less trailing turbulence.
p.s. American Stockcar racing is bumper to bumper with much passing. Having
minimal downforce they just bore holes in the air & following car gets a
nice tow & slingshots past for a nice safe pass as lead car breaks wind
for them.
Heretic's reply:
Bill,
I
fondly remember the days when slipstreaming was an aid rather than a deterrent
to overtaking (in fact many years ago when I raced production cars it was
often the only way to overtake). This was possible because mechanical grip was
indeed the major way of staying on the island and aerodynamics were ignored or
on the most sophisticated vehicles, spoilers to counter the negative aspects
of airflow over the body of the vehicle.
Coefficient
of drag was the buzz phrase in those times because power was always in short
supply (getting 300hp at the back wheels out of 3.5 litres was already an
achievement) so reducing the effort of punching a hole through the air was the
total focus of aerodynamics. Now far more power is produced leaving a surplus
not needed to propel the car. That surplus is used to gain aerodynamic grip,
increasing turbulence as a consequence of a huge increase in CD and creating a
car that does not function well in a slipstream (even though it implies a huge
improvement in aerodynamic “towing”).
We
do not know for sure but I suspect that more than 50% of total power is now
used to gain aerodynamic grip.
A
long way of saying that if aerodynamics are changed to reduce turbulence it
will also reduce drag correspondingly and top speeds must increase
dramatically. In turn this would make the vehicles too dangerous and the FIA
will have to make big changes again – probably in engine capacity.
What
about allowing ground effects back? At least ground effect downforce is not
affected that much by turbulence and, as it increases drag at probably the
same rate as wings, will have to be traded for wing size, therefore reducing
turbulence accordingly. This will give a double benefit – less turbulence
and less dependence on clean air.
I
take your point on the calibre of FIA officials and stand corrected – they
are good enough to determine an easier way of measuring the wake, but the side
effects of higher natural speeds will create havoc.
What
do you think? Your thinking out of the box is helping me a lot with my out of
the box thinking – so please keep it coming.
Bill from USA adds:
I think it from your aerodynamics discussion
that the culprit inhibiting passing is clearly turbulent airflow or
"wash" behind the offending car. If I were a F-1 designer one of my
priorities would be to maximize this "wash" so that any following
car would enter a zone of maximum turbulence & therefore be severely
impeded in his passing attempt as he would clearly be losing downforce as he
entered the "wash" zone.
So what to do? Rather than have the the FIA "wizzos" come up with
"iffy" bandaid fixes, why not leave it up to the team experts to
solve the problem with appropriate motivation?
What if the aerodynamicists were encouraged via a suitable
"carrot" to work at reducing the zone of turbulence behind the car
to virtually nil. Clearly those having the most success at minimizing the wash
should get the biggest carrot. Success in this area of design should increase
passing opportunities by allowing cars to close up entering braking zones
especially for very fast corners as they would not be entering areas of turbulent
air
flow resulting in lost downforce.
What kind of "carrot" might the teams need? Say if a team was
able to show in a wind tunnel that the bubble of unstable turbulence was
reduced by 25% (or whatever %)compared to the previous year they would be
given an entry grid spot for the next season of racing. Or perhaps a team
achieving a certain % of bubble reduction should be given bonus points or # of
seconds reduced from their qualifying time.
This scheme would take the onus of solving the passing problem off of the
FIA (who are probably unqualified to solve the problem & put it back to
the designers who now have a reason to minimize the zone of turbulence rather
than maximizing it.
With a suitable incentive perhaps the dreaded zone of turbulence could be
reduced to a problem of the past
Heretic's reply:
I have been thinking along these lines as well.
You are perfectly right that not one of the teams will be motivated to reduce
the wash or turbulence behind their cars. In fact the opposite applies: they
will want to increase it to ensure that they prevent overtaking (of their cars
anyway).
But that is where my thinking stopped.
One option is to restrict the drag coefficient, as I believe that there is a
strong correlation between CD and turbulence.
Another is to measure the turbulence itself, as you suggest.
The problem is that this will have to be done during scrutiny, which is at the
race track where there is no access to a wind tunnel. A further problem
is that a full sized wind tunnel will be required if you want to test/measure
on the actual cars - not very practical as, to my knowledge, there are no full
sized wind tunnels being used in the design of these cars, so one is not even
available.
Practically speaking, it would be almost impossible to police as each car will
have to be tested just before or after a race. Ignoring the logistics of
providing such a large wind tunnel, I believe that set up in a wind tunnel is
quite a lengthy process so there just will not be any time to do this.
In theory your suggestion has merit, but until technology catches up I do
not think it could be applied.
Marc D. from Canada
adds:
No, testing a 1/3 model could not work because the wings
are adjustable in many ways and although certain settings may prove to be turbulence free,
different settings of the same car could produce major turbulence. There are to many
possible combinations to check them all unless several benchmark settings could be
established.
However, I do find the idea of regulating turbulence to be
potentially the best suggestion so far. Lets not forget that F1 racing is also a test of
engineering between teams, there must be room for innovations. It is good from time to
time to challenge the teams with changes in the rules. It forces them to go back to the
drawing table, gives a fighting chance to all teams and the resulting efforts are part of
the race.
I therefore believe that it is a better suggestion to
impose regulations that prevents affecting other cars then regulations that limit to much
the possibilities of development. The FIA did a good thing by changing the rule with
regards to the height of the front wing, because it forces the teams back to the drawing
table so that they can try to figure out what to do to restore downforce to its original
efficiency. It makes F1 racing this much more interesting.
What we must find are ways to prevent a car from affecting
negatively another car on the circuit. Regulating turbulence is I believe the way to go.
How to police this regulation... not an easy one to answer but worth pursuing.
I do not know if the 1/3 model testing could work with
several benchmark settings. It might be impossible to set test settings because the values
of the settings may mean different things between designs.
If there is any Aerodynamics expert out there, would it be
possible to have some kind of FIA sealed device attached to the end of the car, close to
the ground, that could measure turbulence ???
My comment also applies to the other suggestions. We should
be careful not to limit the variations that can exist between cars. After all, F1 racing
is also a competition between constructors.
Heretic's reply:
Yes, the more I thought about it the more I realised that
using a particular setting on a model (or even the actual car) will only give you data for
that particular set up.
You are also right that whatever is dreamt up must not
constrain innovation as this is what is keeping F1 at the forefront (although where Prost
is at the moment can hardly be described as the forefront). Change that and we may end up
with a formula that does not distinguish it from F2 or F3.
Difficult issue. No wonder the FIA seems powerless.
If it is at all possible it would be great if there was
some mechanism that would eliminate or at least diminish the impact on following cars (for
example, I suspect that diffusers are designed to maximise the effect of turbulence).
This is where it becomes hard. It seems that the turbulence
is felt most around two or three car lengths back. Measuring (even if it was possible)
that far behind a car seems impractical.
I am also starting to wonder if comparing F1 to any of the
other formulas is valid. Several readers (and I) have commented that this does not seem to
be a problem with CART races, but I am now starting to wonder how long it will be before
the top CART teams get wind tunnels. If that happens we may see the same problems develop
there too.
As there is a direct correlation between Drag Coefficient
and turbulence the way to go may be to limit the C.D. of cars with wings set at maximum
downforce. That at least can be measured from a model or even an actual car. I am adding
this to our list of suggestions.
I would also like to explore the concept of regulating (or
even outlawing) the negative impact on another car on the circuit. Rubber dust (or
marbles) and turbulence comes to mind immediately.
This is not a new idea. All formulas that I know about have
to vent sump breather outlets into a secure container to minimise oil on the track when a
motor blows.
Thank you for your considered response, we need many more
like that
