Quote:
Originally Posted by Purist
It wasn't all that different in 2005. With cars of similar speed, it's tough. If they cut down on you, you usually have to back out of it, and lose a fair bit of ground and momentum. Apart from the start and restarts, if you try to go high, you might be able to sit out there, but probably can't go anywhere.
In 2005, you were also dealing with the old track configuration, and the previous car. That car may have had less drag overall, though it was still pretty draggy, but you only had ~600-hp back then. The current cars have ~750-hp. The new cars have more surfaces, and likely drag because of that. Then again, I suspect with some of those spaces filled in, the newer cars may make less separation drag than the old cars.
Like I thought, most of the passing at Phoenix in 2005 came about in one of two ways. Either they pulled a Ryan Hunter-Reay around the outside on the start or restarts, like Tony Kanaan did off the initial start in '05, or substantially slower, lapped traffic stirred things up. And I mean like multiple seconds a lap slower, not just a few to a handful of tenths of a second slower.
The old cars were both draggy and relatively anemic on power. The current cars have good power, but produce more drag than might be desirable. And I'm quite certain that they could produce the downforce they make now significantly more efficiently, if they were allowed to. Your L/D can vary substantially when you have the design freedom to work on it.
I get the sense that the default drag may just be too high, regardless of downforce level, on some of these "in between" tracks. I'd like to see Texas run with a bit more downforce than they have had the last few years, to see how it works there. These ovals that drive like a somewhat larger track, but don't actually have the length in the straights for the slipstream to do much, are really tricky to get right.
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Thanks very much for that. So not much difference then between 2016 and 2005. I wonder how much of a difference there was in 1995/6, which was the last time ground effect cars raced there?
The current DW12 is very draggy. Once a car relies on wings to generate downforce the drag coefficient goes up. I don't think a lack of design freedom is the problem, rather it was a balancing act with safety at the centre. No one wanted to have the DW12’s stock suspension buckle under the downforce generated by the new 2015 aero-kits and many team owners objected to spending money on aero-kits, which would then require them to purchase stronger chassis components to better cope with the added downforce.
Both manufacturers had already undertaken very different approaches to their aero-kit development and had already begun production on certain aero-kit components. However, just prior to initial aero-kit testing, IndyCar made a pre-emptive move on safety grounds and introduced holes on both sides of the floor next to the sidepod radiator inlets, in anticipation of increased downforce numbers. Once the figures came back from early aero-kit testing, IndyCar thought a second round of reductions would be required and Chevy and Honda were instructed to remove the diffuser strakes from the new Dallara floor and to pull both diffuser sidewalls, bringing the total reduction in downforce from the undertray to something like 700 pounds. This then required a significant re-working of their aero-kits to function with less underbody downforce and increased drag.
It's a shame IndyCar 'interfered' and didn't let Chevy and Honda continue with their respective designs. As the DW12 was essentially a ground effect car, we would have seen something different to what we have now.