[Rules] Future Rule Changes

[S griffin]

For some reason Indycar always seems to come up with the right solutions when it comes to close racing. Why can’t F1 be like that?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by S griffin

For some reason Indycar always seems to come up with the right solutions when it comes to close racing. Why can’t F1 be like that?

It was never used in IndyCar because Dallara got the contract but Swift did use it in Formula Nippon. I've never followed that series, so I have no idea how effective a solution it was.

[S griffin]

Well Indycar seems to provide close racing wherever it goes. And it doesn’t need DRS to make it close

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Keep researching how to make cars that produce close racing. You can’t just settle on one solution, you have to explore all avenues

Ahh. I understand.

My take is that F1 has competing goals. On one hand, it's about all out competition. Which can allow for dominance and... a poor spectators sport. On the other hand it is a business that is trying to sell a product. Which points more toward spec cars (such as Indy) in which car characteristics and performance can be fixed and racing will be close.

F1 tries to have it both ways. So they apply their thumb to the scale to even things out as infrequent as possible.

It probably would make sense to keep a working group busy all the time. However someone has to pay for it and I expect the budget exists only as long as a problem exists, or is perceived to exists. The problem now is "What should the technical regulations be for 2021?" No doubt once the regulations are set (months away) this work is likely to stop and only be started if/when a problem happens in the future. That problem could become evident during the first event of 2021 or even years later. But who knows when.

Originally Posted by S griffin

For some reason Indycar always seems to come up with the right solutions when it comes to close racing. Why can’t F1 be like that?

I don't think Indycar always gets it right. They struggle at times, but as I mention above. With a spec car, they can continue to tweak the solution until it works. Also Indycar doesn't have the political baggage and image of "what it should be" that prevents it from changing direction when that needs to happen. F1 has to much "legacy" and means so many different things to different people that as we all know here in this forum, nobody can even agree was to what they think F1 should look like if given a clean sheet of paper. Ask 10 different fan for specific solutions (not goals like "better racing") and you will get 10 different answers. Put the same question to those who run and participate in the sport and I expect they will have the same problem as the fans.

Richard

[Casper]

I am a bit sceptical on the results of the aero studies being done because Pat Symonds is involved and his previous history of looking at the problem led us to where we are today when he was involved in the same task all those years ago.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Casper

I am a bit sceptical on the results of the aero studies being done because Pat Symonds is involved and his previous history of looking at the problem led us to where we are today when he was involved in the same task all those years ago.

Then you add the massive front wing which is going to limit the effectiveness of the ground effect, add trim tabs over the wheels to stop the turbulence they are generating to the aerobits at the back of the car and expect the wing and enhanced front end aerodynamics to perform well in the turbulent air when following another car, the design flaw is obvious to the blind - good luck.

The last time they took the front wings from no wider than the distance between the inner rims of the front wheels to the full width of the cars and made them moveable to boot, and guess what they failed miserably to improve the cars' ability to follow one another. The front wing is the most critically effected part of the aerodynamic package when a car follows another.

I agree with you Casper this just looks like more of the same foolishness.

What steps are they putting in place to change things when these rules fail to improve the racing?
Are they just going to sit on their hands for another ten years if the changes don't work; which they won't?

[S griffin]

I think Pat is a good choice, he's one who knows a lot about how aero works, no wonder why Manor Marussia hired him

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by wnut

the design flaw is obvious to the blind - good luck.

I am not an aerodynamicist, so my comments are speculation. Given you say the flaws are obvious, are you an aerodynamicist? Is your comments also speculation or fact? Do you have access to their CFD and tunnel data so you can point out their errors?

From my perspective, I dont see the issues you mention. The front wing is large, and yes... the front wing has a huge impact on what happens behind it...but its also a simple design with flat endplates and does not have vortex devices we see extensively used today. I broadly assume the front wing size is used to balance front vs rear downforce as the tunnel seems far back and with a large diffuser. So the wing is as big as it probably needs to be. Also, the body is minus a large number of devices (barge boards, capes behind the front wing, complex floor edge details, etc) to shape airflow towards the rear, which also likely contributes to the large amount of turbulence.

Without knowing more details as to what is in the 2021 regulations it's hard to really discuss this. If they enforce simple front wing and strongly restrict aero appendages (barge boards, etc), and force teams to have something similar to that research model, then it might have hope of achieving their goals. It clearly works elsewhere (Indycar).

If they dont restrict those items and the 2021 cars significantly diverge from their research design, then all bets are off.

Originally Posted by wnut

Are they just going to sit on their hands for another ten years if the changes don't work; which they won't?

That is a fair question. There are no guarantees that this will all work as desired.

Richard

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by S griffin

I think Pat is a good choice, he's one who knows a lot about how aero works, no wonder why Manor Marussia hired him

And where are they now?

[S griffin]

Well it was hardly his fault the team ran out of dosh

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by wnut

Then you add the massive front wing which is going to limit the effectiveness of the ground effect, add trim tabs over the wheels to stop the turbulence they are generating to the aerobits at the back of the car and expect the wing and enhanced front end aerodynamics to perform well in the turbulent air when following another car, the design flaw is obvious to the blind - good luck.

I must strongly disagree.

• Wheel covers -- they are to reduce the width of the turbulent wake of the car, by requiring the brake cooling air to be vented to the inside of the wheels.
• Large venturi tunnels & rear wing -- they are designed to kick the wake HIGH up in the air and out of the way of the following car.

Originally Posted by wnut

Then you add the massive front wing which is going to limit the effectiveness of the ground effect

That makes no sense!

I assume you are referring to historic ground effect F1 cars that made do without a front wing. Recall, those cars had a much more rearward weight bias and therefore did not require a front wing.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

I must strongly disagree.

• Wheel covers -- they are to reduce the width of the turbulent wake of the car, by requiring the brake cooling air to be vented to the inside of the wheels.
• Large venturi tunnels & rear wing -- they are designed to kick the wake HIGH up in the air and out of the way of the following car.

That makes no sense!

I assume you are referring to historic ground effect F1 cars that made do without a front wing. Recall, those cars had a much more rearward weight bias and therefore did not require a front wing.

As usual with anything there are subtleties, which I will ignore and just hit the headlines.
Wheel covers - meh, will help but not absolutely vital.
Tunnels - kick up air flow - yes.

Now.

The wake of a large front wing generating large amounts of downforce (negative lift for the pedants) generates an upward wake that starves the entrances to the tunnels of air. reducing their efficiency and the downforce they will generate.
Setting up a car to run a big front wing will make it reliant on the wing and sensitive to the wake turbulence generated by the lead car when it is close behind.
Reducing the front wing and increasing the cars reliance on the ground effect tunnels which are less sensitive to turbulence would vastly improve the car's ability to follow another.

As above the moveable larger front wings did not work, and the "improvements" for 2019 that were designed and introduced to improve the closeness of the racing do not seem to have worked.

I am not a professional aerodynamicist Richard; have experience with ground effect F3s; however we will see what the changes bring in 2021, hopefully a lot more than the "professional" changes introduced into F1 in 2009 and 2019 to improve following ability and make the racing closer! The devil I guess will be in the details of what is and is not permitted in the regulations - subtleties!

Not so sure myself.

It will be interesting to see if any of the teams dramatically reduce the size of the front wings to improve the air flow to the ground effect tunnels.

[Casper]

The front wing can be made less sensitive and still provide the same DF or near enough by altering the chord of the wing in large part. By making it wide they have made more chord variance possible and reduced (we hope) the sensitivity of the FW. Leaving the car overall the same length but reducing the wheel spacing front to rear has changed the loadings at the front and rear axle and perhaps given the teams the chance to use this to balance the car. The further the FW is in front of the front axle means the axle loads can remain the same with less DF on the wing itself.

These cars are going to have to have a lot more working suspension travel because the tyres will not have the compliance that the old ones had and it will be interesting to see how that affects the aero because if they can't control the height of the car as closely as they did then the aero becomes less effective. During the previous under floor duct/side skirt era the cars were effectively locked at a height with no suspension travel and the drivers suffered injuries with Alan Jones declaring it a major reason for him leaving F1.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Casper

These cars are going to have to have a lot more working suspension travel because the tyres will not have the compliance that the old ones had and it will be interesting to see how that affects the aero because if they can't control the height of the car as closely as they did then the aero becomes less effective. During the previous under floor duct/side skirt era the cars were effectively locked at a height with no suspension travel and the drivers suffered injuries with Alan Jones declaring it a major reason for him leaving F1.

Thinking out loud here and to a degree stating the obvious on some things...

When looking at cars ride curbs, etc. today, it seems that the tire sidewall flex makes up a large amount of the 'suspension' movement (me counting sidewall flex as part of the overall suspension.) So with the assumption (of which I agree) that a shorter sidewall will result in less flex in the tire and that should result in more movement of the hub relative to the tub than before. This is extra movement in an area the teams fully control (suspension design, springs, dampers, etc.)

So... I think that they "should" be able to control ride height just as well (or even better) with the new tires. It just means the springs and dampers will be doing more of that work than the tires have in the past. I expect the teams have a VERY good understanding as to the properties of the current tires with respect to spring and damping effects. There will be an initial learning curve, but I assume/hope they will quickly understand the spring/damping effects of the new tires.

The level of spring and damping in the current tires is something that is out of control of the teams. So for example... if they wanted to run the cars even stiffer than now, they can't as they can't control the sidewall flex. Or if they do via pressure, they may have other issues. It seems the main priority is to keep the rubber within it's narrow operating range and then probably other stuff is secondary. I digress.

With moving to tires that have less flex, they could run the cars to an overall higher level of stiffness than they do today! That could be done in an effort to even control ride height more than they can today. But as you say at the expense of driver comfort. And as always, at some point the car is too stiff. And of course it will be circuit and conditions dependent.

All of this for me is a way to say... I full expect them to have "more" control over the car with the shorter sidewall tires than they do now.

Thoughts? I may have this wrong.

Richard

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Casper

These cars are going to have to have a lot more working suspension travel because the tyres will not have the compliance that the old ones had and it will be interesting to see how that affects the aero because if they can't control the height of the car as closely as they did then the aero becomes less effective. During the previous under floor duct/side skirt era the cars were effectively locked at a height with no suspension travel and the drivers suffered injuries with Alan Jones declaring it a major reason for him leaving F1.

With the Lotus 79 sliding side skirts were incorporated into the sidepods, which moved with the cars suspension, sealing the car to the track. These were banned at the end of 198O for safety reasons, as cornering speeds became too high and also, if the skirt was damaged by going over the rumble strip whilst cornering, for example, a sudden loss of ground effect would cause the car to suddenly spin off.

To get round the ban, fixed skirts and a hydraulic system were used to lower the car's ride height, than was legally allowed. The skirts could then operate at this lower height, once the car had left the pits and was out on the track. The cars were also very stiffly sprung. These were eventually banned in at the end of 1982 and a flat undertray was introduced.

[S griffin]

Well they actually went back on the ban on skirts for 1982, which is why we saw so many big accidents, including the death of Villeneuve and the career ending injuries of Pironi. It was banned for good for 1983

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by wnut

The last time they took the front wings from no wider than the distance between the inner rims of the front wheels to the full width of the cars and made them moveable to boot, and guess what they failed miserably to improve the cars' ability to follow one another. The front wing is the most critically effected part of the aerodynamic package when a car follows another.

2 questions...

i know there has always been a issue with how much 'flex' a wing shows but what extent and when did they make the front wings movable?

and 2 (from a laypersons point of view), wouldnt more movable wings solve the wake problem? i assume that is why DRS allows for closer following and why airplane wings can be adjusted according to need.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

2 questions...

i know there has always been a issue with how much 'flex' a wing shows but what extent and when did they make the front wings movable?

and 2 (from a laypersons point of view), wouldnt more movable wings solve the wake problem? i assume that is why DRS allows for closer following and why airplane wings can be adjusted according to need.

If I remember correctly there was a very brief experiment in the recent past with a cockpit adjustable front wing. Which didn't do much of anything in practice if I remember correctly.

Will see if I can search and find the particulars.

Edit: It was 2009-2010. I think drivers could make adjustments twice a lap. It supported a six degree angle change (not much). It was supposed to aid in overtaking. Apparently drivers used it to fine tune handling vs. overtaking attempts. Or... in other words... probably just didn't work to help with respect to overtaking. It was dropped when DRS showed up in 2011.

Richard

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

If I remember correctly there was a very brief experiment in the recent past with a cockpit adjustable front wing. Which didn't do much of anything in practice if I remember correctly.

Will see if I can search and find the particulars.

Edit: It was 2009-2010. I think drivers could make adjustments twice a lap. It was supposed to aid in overtaking. Apparently drivers used it to fine tune handling vs. overtaking attempts. It was dropped when DRS showed up in 2011.

Richard

I found this article, on adjustable front wings.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...le-front-wings

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

and 2 (from a laypersons point of view), wouldnt more movable wings solve the wake problem? i assume that is why DRS allows for closer following and why airplane wings can be adjusted according to need.

I didn't give my opinion on the second question...

In the end, "solve" may be a difficult task. If your are to drive in turbulent air there is probably only things that can be done to mitigate the issue, but nothing will make it go away short of trying to reduce it at the source (which is what the current efforts are about).

But... if you had some type of active aero, then I guess you could have it switch to a higher downforce configuration when following a car. Sort of the opposite of DRS. I expect then the issue is the impact of extra drag? Maybe in the end the ability to follow close will outweigh the extra drag.

Richard

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

I found this article, on adjustable front wings.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...le-front-wings

I think I was in the middle of editing my post when you quoted it. But yeah, that's it. Maybe a good idea (or not). As implemented it didn't do much of anything. Some of that might be down to the conservative approach of the sport.

If you look at that test car they are using to get wake data from the underbody wing/ground effects. That car is not radically different than today. It still has a decent front and rear wing. They could use a much larger underbody wing and then reduce the size of the front and rear wings. Use the front and rear for balance trim only. But... I suspect part of why they are keeping large front and rear wings is that they want to keep the look of the current cars. Meaning a conservative approach to change. Change... but not too much change.

I could be wrong however. They might want to balance the ratio of downforce between the classic front/rear wing with the underbody. Might that make the car more predictable at variable ride heights vs. potentially really unpredictable if the car relies upon the underbody to provide nearly all of the downforce?

Richard

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

If you look at that test car they are using to get wake data from the underbody wing/ground effects. That car is not radically different than today. It still has a decent front and rear wing. They could use a much larger underbody wing and then reduce the size of the front and rear wings. Use the front and rear for balance trim only. But... I suspect part of why they are keeping large front and rear wings is that they want to keep the look of the current cars. Meaning a conservative approach to change. Change... but not too much change.

I could be wrong however. They might want to balance the ratio of downforce between the classic front/rear wing with the underbody. Might that make the car more predictable at variable ride heights vs. potentially really unpredictable if the car relies upon the underbody to provide nearly all of the downforce?

Richard

You have nailed it in bold above Richard, they have essentially failed to use the underbody to the extent they should and are just producing a rehash of the same car with the same problems. Change with no change at all, looks like an aerodynamicist picnic again where they are simply creating extra areas to mess around with whilst not solving the current problems.

Underbody aero is way less affected by turbulence than the wings, and good approach is seen on the Indycars on the ovals where the wings are nearly flat plates, and these cars are operating predictably and racing in massive turbulence generated by one another.

I have no idea why F1 desperately clings to a look.
Every time a new breakthrough is made like rear engines, wings or ground effect, the look is chucked out immediately and the cars look different, no problem if it is faster, so then why the necessity to maintain a look now?

I am still hoping that someone finds that they can rely on the ground effect and reduce the size of the wings they need to be competitive, probably not going to happen with the obscenely heavy cars we have now, the complete lack of traditional straights, and the huge horsepower available to carry negative lift drag.

P.S. Modern ground effect cars have very little in common with the previous skirted cars, they are far more predictable and less prone to suddenly losing all their downforce as they are not reliant on a skirt sealing against the track.

[Richard C]

I wonder how they will spec out the underbody and diffuser. At a minimum, I expect it to be constrained within a specific box (or areas). Could they go further and define a fully spec underbody and diffuser?

I expect front and rear wings will also be tightly controlled somehow. Both in size and complexity.

Richard

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by wnut

You have nailed it in bold above Richard, they have essentially failed to use the underbody to the extent they should and are just producing a rehash of the same car with the same problems.

The working group are claiming downforce loss in dirty air of only 10% compared to 45% currently. So why not wait for the cars to race before making claims they have failed and missed the chance, wnut!

Knowledge about allowing closer following has come a long way in recent times. The current thinking is about:
[1] Making the wake as narrow as possible.
[2] Kicking the wake as high up in the air as possible, and therefore out of the way of the following car, which operates at ground level.

https://www.f1technical.net/features/21995 < These were the simulations of the 2019 package, showing the narrower turbulent wake and higher turbulent wake -- simulations which HAVE proven to be correct, with much closer following possible this season.

2018 car wake simulation (lateral slices of turbulence levels along the car, front to back):


2019 car wake simulation (lateral slices of turbulence levels along the car, front to back) --- note how the wake is NARROWER & HIGHER off the ground than that of the 2018 car:


The 2019 rules are only a first step, due to the political limitations on change (teams need to agree to rule changes) -- the 2021 rules don't have those political limitations and are a much bigger step in the right direction IMO.

So I hope you appreciate now that the front and rear wings in themselves are not the issue, and having front and rear wings is not the issue.

The issues before, rather, were:

• a heavily raked flat floor with huge gaps at the sides that relied on the following elements to stop the front tyre wake disturbing it
• the outwash cascades on the front wing (eliminated in 2019)
• the snowplough and turning vanes on the nose (eliminated in 2021)
• the complex bargeboards (eliminated in 2021)
• Y250 vortex generated at junction of neutral section and outboard part of front wing (eliminated in 2021)
• and the aforementioned use of a raked flat floor with a huge gap at the side to generate down force (fixed in 2019, by a venturi tunnel floor that doesn't have huge gaps at the side, and is therefore no where near as sensitive to the front tyre wake disturbing it when the upstream flow structures for managing the tyre wake (the snowplough, bargeboards etc) get disturbed by turbulent wake of a preceding car)

In fact the rear wing is necessary to help kick the wake from the underbody up higher in the air than would otherwise be possible. The size of the underbody tunnels are obviously constrained to what will fit around the suspension/gearbox/engine, and the need to not exceed a diffuser angle where stall occurs --- you can't just fit an increasingly enormous venturi tunnel under the car, it has limitations. So you can help that venturi tunnel out, by using the rear wing and beam wing to help "suck" air out from underneath the car; and this will help kick the wake from the floor as high up in the air as possible, and thus out of the way of the following car.

Furthermore, the weight distribution while going more rearwards thanks to narrower front tyres in 2021, is still more forwards than the early 80's cars, and therefore a front wing is required to balance the car out. The front wing is a simple design which I am fully confident won't be overly sensitive to turbulence.

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

They could use a much larger underbody wing and then reduce the size of the front and rear wings.

Will it fit? I would be interested to see your sketch showing how this would fit...



IMO, they have already fitted the largest "underbody wing" / venturi tunnels possible.

Remember, in modern times we are talking about:

[1] three-dimensional venturi tunnels, rather than the simple crude two-dimensional tunnels of early 80's when an F1 team would be lucky to have one aerodynamicist. By incorporating three-dimensional contraction and three-dimensional expansion, the suction under the car can be enhanced further compared to a simple two-dimensional tunnel.

[2] When you can add a slot to a wing, like the slot found between the diffuser and beam wing (above picture), this injects high energy air into the gap, and greatly enhances the maximum angle of attack and effectiveness of the wing.

[3] using in-flow vortex generators (below) popular in Indycar/CART racing, that enhance the suction under the car, as the vortex cores (that trail off these vortex generators and go under the floor) have very low pressure.


Vortex generators and venturi tunnels on 2021 F1 INDIA concept


Champcar Lola underbody with vortex generators


Underbody vortex generators from Katz Race Car Aerodynamics text book


Effectiveness of Indycar underbody with and without vortex generators from Katz textbook