[Rules] Future Rule Changes

[dcp2685]

To me the solution is simple; Have Merc (or the other teams) raise the right height of the car until they figure out the problem. Red Bull and Ferrari don't seem to have an issue and you can see that Ferrari bouncing almost as much as the Merc.

Doesn't seem right to me that other teams should be penalized (maybe that isn't the right word here) because they engineered a solution to the problem.

[RED55]

FIA have to do something so as to protect themselves from a law suit in the future . I just cant understand how with all the resource and money these teams have that they have this bouncing issue. From the outside the cars look cumbersome and lethargic but yet shake and rattle down the straights like a flintstones wagon. Ground effect aero has always caused this phenomenon the cure is active suspension and I'd gladly see that back . Cut costs in other areas like tyre warming and generator usage in the paddocks ,increase the cost cap to allow active but have a system of components all teams have to use like actuators and pumps and ecu but allow the teams their own way of using the components that's a better way of boxing clever than over engineering it

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

You know, history is full of multiple people independently coming up with the same idea at the same time. But it does seem weird that we were talking publicly over a month ago about the idea the FIA ended up picking. It makes me wonder who reads this forum.

The decision is NOT what Mercedes wants. I think the part in which a committee or such is formed to discuss technical regulations changes is mostly the FIA throwing Mercedes a bone. I don't see anything coming out of that given most teams have solved the problem and there is a work around for those teams who have not. I made the point earlier. Mercedes is not owed a quick car.

Richard

Yep, Mercedes have alteady today, as could be predicted, started to moan about it.

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

Yep, Mercedes have alteady today, as could be predicted, started to moan about it.

Any links/references?

They got what they wanted, so you'd think be pleased about it.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

Any links/references?

They got what they wanted, so you'd think be pleased about it.

Not a moan as such, but when you listen to what is said you can tell mercedes feel the 'solution' needs further work: https://youtu.be/_VHV7f8dNYI

[Casper]

It is easy to see the fans of each team in this thread!

I am of the view that the FIA wrote a specification that caused the problem, the teams (all of them) took advantage as they always do and now the FIA have a duty of care issue which they have to address. I would like to see all the drivers put the cars on the start grid then turn them off and get out and walk away as protest against the whole thing. It won't happen of course because the drivers have self interest as well as the teams. I think the drivers are a bit two faced when it all boils down to actually taking a preemptive stance over the whole matter. If a driver does suffer health issues watch everyone run for cover including the GPDA.

I think Russel did the drivers a disservice because as soon as he first mentioned the problem every man and his dog piled on accusing him of trying to manipulate the regulations to Mercedes advantage and you only have to look at this thread to see it still continues where I thought he was speaking for the GPDA from the get go but he never made that clear. Please continue to bash your least favorite team and I will leave you all to it. F1 has morphed into some sort of tribal fight I want no part of but carry on.

[S griffin]

Yes I agree. The priority here is the driver's health and wellbeing. Nothing should compromise their safety. The last thing we need is a return to the discomfort F1 drivers felt in the early 80s with the last generation of ground effect. Should we ignore all the drivers concerns for fear of upsetting a few teams?

Merc have shown that these rule changes aren't going to be the magic bullet they need, so that's all there is to it

[Taxi645]

To be fair also Horner seems a bit weary: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/h...down/10323880/


I suppose top teams get a bit nervous if the FIA actually pulls rank and decides something they don't have control over. Furthermore for a team like RB they felt they were in a position of relative control. They were successfully competing in a predictable situation. Now with this rule, it means that any mid-level team that finds a porpoising magic bullet might overnight become a serious threat. I can imagine that's a bit more uncomfortable scenario than the current situation where there fight is mainly with Ferrari.

Phrases like this: “I doubt you would do that. So all teams have to stick their head together with the FIA and say 'what can we do' in order to get this under control." indicate to me that the top teams want to regain some of that control.

[Richard C]

As much as I support the FIA solution for some type of metric around excessive motion or impacts to the driver's body, I tend to think they are making it more complicated than it should be. Extra stays to help prevent floor flex (ok), oscillation metric (ok, if done correctly), extra plank examination (to what ends?), committee to look at future technical regulation changes (pointless given it is already a solvable problem?)

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f...-how/10324027/

In this article they talk about an AOM (Aerodynamic Oscillation Metric) value, which I think is poorly named but that is a different topic, and I am confused. It's not clear to me if they are setting a single value that everyone has to meet or if teams are setting their own values? If teams are setting their own values that makes no sense. It's also not clear if Canada is an "experiment" or if it will be enforced.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/h...down/10323880/

In this article you have both Horner and Wolff being concerned about how this will be managed. Article is not particularly well written as I can't tell who some of the quotes are attributed to...

Measuring frequency can lead to very controversial situations, or assessments. Would you disqualify a car that you deem to be bouncing too much and get a win out of him?

I am not sure if the above is from Horner or Wolff. Their answer is "no", my answer is a resounding "yes". However what the FIA is doing by having both a metric AND also looking to examine planks in some new way (I assume post race as that is the only time to do it) that there may be "post race penalties". Why apply post race penalties when they can be done live?

This is about driver health/safety. If a driver was driving around without a helmet, would you let him finish the race, win the race, and then say "you should be doing that!" and take away the win? No, you black flag the car immediately. This system should be able to be applied during each session.

My thoughts are broadly based upon an a few assumptions

1. Car and driver (ear) acceleration data is available live to race control during each session. That it is not recorded in the car and downloaded later.
2. Data from the car and driver is saved and not deleted. And that we have data from all cars/drivers this season.

Assuming #1 is correct, they can implement a live model that indicates when thresholds are exceeded during the race (or any other session). Given I assume the metric is to be an aggregate one (a single high g-force event does not trigger it, but an accumulation of pervasive ones), teams and the FIA can see if they are approaching the threshold in advance. There could be a "soft limit" that uses either a lower magnitude or shorter duration (or combination of the two) when calculating an aggregate value. For example if a team sees they are porpoising badly at the end of a long straight, they can tell the driver to avoid a penalty to lift on the straight, or don't use DRS or to try something. It gives the teams some control. If nothing works and the get a penalty so be it. There is lots of options to play with on how this could be done.

Regarding #2, let say we can agree that Hamilton getting out of the car in pain at Baku is too much. They can start there for understanding the threshold. Then using ALL of the teams data over the season so far, replay the race data for each driver through the algorithm to see when it says "this is too much". They can look at the results to see if they got it right or not. Maybe too many false positives or false negatives. They adjust the algorithm to get something that seems to work right. I also said they should base the limits based upon some science. That can be part of the decision. They also can say they reserve the right to adjust this over the course of the season. Again with the idea of reducing false positive and false negatives as there is more data to examine. But I do think looing back at past events, there should be clear triggers of "this was too much". If that didn't happen, then what is the point of this exercise?

Richard

[Casper]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

extra plank examination (to what ends?),

It is being reported that RB are setting the ride height so the car runs on the plank for most of the time to prevent the vertical oscillation that is being called porpoising. For some reason the powers that be don't like that and while it should be measured in post race scrutineering there are reports that this was not being done in a diligent manner. Apparently the allowable wear is 1mm and some are questioning if this is the reason Marko tossed his dummy out of the pram along with his favourite doll after the decision was announced.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by Casper

It is being reported that RB are setting the ride height so the car runs on the plank for most of the time to prevent the vertical oscillation that is being called porpoising. For some reason the powers that be don't like that and while it should be measured in post race scrutineering there are reports that this was not being done in a diligent manner. Apparently the allowable wear is 1mm and some are questioning if this is the reason Marko tossed his dummy out of the pram along with his favourite doll after the decision was announced.

Interesting and thank-you but I would have thought that there would be a number of drawback to 'running on the plank for most of the time'.
Surely, over a race distance this would wear significantly more than the accepted 1mm? Secondly this would be extremely uncomfortable for the drivers (literally) bottoming on the track. I would also add to the drag of the car reducing top speed and would (effectively) lift the tyres away from the track causing a lack of traction, not only for acceleration, but braking and cornering too?

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Casper

Apparently the allowable wear is 1mm and some are questioning if this is the reason Marko tossed his dummy out of the pram along with his favourite doll after the decision was announced.

Originally Posted by Casper

F1 has morphed into some sort of tribal fight I want no part of but carry on.

Does not compute!

Originally Posted by RED55

Ground effect aero has always caused this phenomenon the cure is active suspension and I'd gladly see that back .

CART did not have active suspension. Those Champcars did have a step between the inner and outer floor though (like the one introduced to F1's flat bottom in '95 IIRC). The rulemakers for F1's 2022 rules wanted the extra downforce, so they omitted the step from the F1 venturi tunnel rules for whatever reason.

[Casper]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

Interesting and thank-you but I would have thought that there would be a number of drawback to 'running on the plank for most of the time'.

If they are doing it then the upside outweighs the the downside and the driver be damned apparently. It would be a good guess that Hamilton's problems after the last race has caused the FIA to do something and in doing so admitting the specifications they wrote has caused the issue. If Russel had been more transparent when he first came out with his comments maybe the huge controversy and specific team bashing would not have occurred.

I follow the sport such as it is these days but most others follow a team so they automatically jump to conclusions and pile in with unfounded comments but that is the modern F1 for good or bad. Unfortunately politics within the team structure has become more important than the sport and encourages this type of fan behaviour when stuff like this happens and I am sure the teams encourage it to get their way.

[Greem]

Taking the long view (decades), I'm quite enjoying seeing a team that have a reputation for absolute excellence and both macro- and microscopic perfection get a design so badly wrong.

And I'm a Mercedes fan, before anyone jumps!

The comment above about the regulations is correct though - the specification for underbody aero has clearly led teams down a very narrow channel design wise, and some have gone more extreme than others.

Twas ever thus. Empires fall.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Greem

Taking the long view (decades), I'm quite enjoying seeing a team that have a reputation for absolute excellence and both macro- and microscopic perfection get a design so badly wrong.

they seem to like taking their chances with design choices though (from DAS system to size zero side pods...a bit like Mclaren before their drop to midfield) and doing so while trying to reduce staff and budget...was it a genuine competitive desire to push the boundaries or some sort of hubris that led them astray?

would love to know more/understand better about why they made the choices they did. from an organization point of view, would be a fascinating read.

[petecossie]

An interesting explanation of the Red Bull floor design in case people haven't seen it already.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/a...BebMJPZqF.html

Whether this is why RB cars don't have the same problem, we'll have to see in the races to come. I imagine MB will be working frantically to do something to fix their problem.

[bjohnsonsmith]

A very interesting article.

The last paragraph says: ''The Red Bull floor is visibly a more complex and sophisticated design than those on other cars. It is probably not a coincidence that it is relatively immune to porpoising yet still creates good downforce.''

Looking at the images for both the Ferrari and Red Bull floor, the Red Bull floor seems to be less complicated. There aren't so many vortex generators at the front floor.


Ferrari floor



Red Bull floor

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

A very interesting article.

The last paragraph says: ''The Red Bull floor is visibly a more complex and sophisticated design than those on other cars. It is probably not a coincidence that it is relatively immune to porpoising yet still creates good downforce.''

Looking at the images for both the Ferrari and Red Bull floor, the Red Bull floor seems to be less complicated. There aren't so many vortex generators at the front floor.

My understanding from reading articles like the one mentioned is that RBR "complexity" is in the small details. Things that to might look the same or lesser than other solutions. More "stuff" may not always make it more complex.

Richard

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

My understanding from reading articles like the one mentioned is that RBR "complexity" is in the small details. Things that to might look the same or lesser than other solutions. More "stuff" may not always make it more complex.

Richard

That last paragraph says the Red Bull floor is visibly more complex, but the Ferrari floor looks more complex, especially with those vortex generators.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

That last paragraph says the Red Bull floor is visibly more complex, but the Ferrari floor looks more complex, especially with those vortex generators.

I think they are referring specifically to the keel section of the floor when they describe it as visibly more complex.

'Ferrari's flat central keel is uniformly pear-shaped and less intricate than the Red Bull’s.'

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

I think they are referring specifically to the keel section of the floor when they describe it as visibly more complex.

'Ferrari's flat central keel is uniformly pear-shaped and less intricate than the Red Bull’s.'

Quite possibly, but as it was the last paragraph I thought in summing up, they were talking about the floor in general.

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Looking at the images for both the Ferrari and Red Bull floor, the Red Bull floor seems to be less complicated.

Do you see below how the Ferrari floor is more basic?

The Ferrari is a more "rudimentary" interpretation of the floor rules as such (more like the FIA show car), whereas the Red Bull is a more sophisticated interpretation.





This is a fan-generated car from back in 2020 for a fan-made CFD, see how the Ferrari is more similar to this rudimentary early interpretation of the rules than the Red Bull:

https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28657

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

That last paragraph says the Red Bull floor is visibly more complex, but the Ferrari floor looks more complex, especially with those vortex generators.

To the contrary, the Red Bull floor has a lot more features to manage pressure distribution.

All the cars have four vortex generators (or strakes), that's what the rules specify. Look, however, at HOW the Red Bull has compound curvature in their strakes (vs the Ferrari strakes being a simple curve), HOW the Red Bull have positioned two of those permitted strakes as a double outer bargeboard to generate a vortex along the edge of the floor. Then the tunnel shape has all it's extra expansions and contractions to manage pressure distribution precisely, whereas the Ferrari is a simple curve. It goes on and on.

The Red Bull is definitely more sophisticated, as Kyle Engineer explains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUv_1eUbpBc The Red Bull floor has a LOT of features on it, above and beyond the Ferrari.

The Red Bull floor is working a lot of the radius rules, and other geometry definitions in the rules, to carefully manage airflow under the car.

The last paragraph is indeed correct, to us folks who know about aerodynamics, the Red Bull floor looks like the more sophisticated one. That's a correct statement.

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

There aren't so many vortex generators at the front floor.

There's four, the same number. That's the maximum allowed in the rules. Red Bull have cleverly decided to position the two outer ones right next to each other to create a much stronger vortex (which will run along the edge of the floor). That is therefore a more sophisticated interpretation of the rules than Ferrari.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

Do you see below how the Ferrari floor is more basic?

The Ferrari is a more "rudimentary" interpretation of the floor rules as such (more like the FIA show car), whereas the Red Bull is a more sophisticated interpretation.





This is a fan-generated car from back in 2020 for a fan-made CFD, see how the Ferrari is more similar to this rudimentary early interpretation of the rules than the Red Bull:

https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28657



To the contrary, the Red Bull floor has a lot more features to manage pressure distribution.

All the cars have four vortex generators (or strakes), that's what the rules specify. Look, however, at HOW the Red Bull has compound curvature in their strakes (vs the Ferrari strakes being a simple curve), HOW the Red Bull have positioned two of those permitted strakes as a double outer bargeboard to generate a vortex along the edge of the floor. Then the tunnel shape has all it's extra expansions and contractions to manage pressure distribution precisely, whereas the Ferrari is a simple curve. It goes on and on.

The Red Bull is definitely more sophisticated, as Kyle Engineer explains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUv_1eUbpBc The Red Bull floor has a LOT of features on it, above and beyond the Ferrari.

The Red Bull floor is working a lot of the radius rules, and other geometry definitions in the rules, to carefully manage airflow under the car.

The last paragraph is indeed correct, to us folks who know about aerodynamics, the Red Bull floor looks like the more sophisticated one. That's a correct statement.




There's four, the same number. That's the maximum allowed in the rules. Red Bull have cleverly decided to position the two outer ones right next to each other to create a much stronger vortex (which will run along the edge of the floor). That is therefore a more sophisticated interpretation of the rules than Ferrari.

Thanks for that. Glad we've got folks here at Ten Tenths who know about aerodynamics.

This is the underfloor from a Lola from the CART era and it looks very similar to the floors on the current F1 cars. I followed the CART series avidly and I don't remember the cars having an issue with porpoising.

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Thanks for that. Glad we've got folks here at Ten Tenths who know about aerodynamics.

No worries! When folks had been looking at things like the FIA show car or the fan-made car for over 2 years, the Red Bull approach was a revelation (lots of sophistication despite the fairly restrictive rules), whereas the Ferrari was more in-line with expectations and is fairly straight-forward.

The Ferrari sidepods were a revelation mind you! A fan on F1technical quickly made up a similar CFD and found that the Ferrari design reduces drag, potentially by up to 10%, by essentially sending the wake from the front tyres directly onto the rear tyres (so the rear tyres are kind of shielded from the freestream airflow somewhat).

So what Mercedes are doing with narrow sidepods, when most of the teams have wide sidepods to some extent (if not quite as wide as Ferrari) is most curious...

Without those wide sidepods to push the air out and keep it straight, the dirty air from the front tyres is instead going to get sucked into the rear wing area (and no drag benefit on the rear tyres either).

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

This is the underfloor from a Lola from the CART era and it looks very similar to the floors on the current F1 cars. I followed the CART series avidly and I don't remember the cars having an issue with porpoising.

Yes. There's a step between the inside and outside of the floor on the Champcars. So there's no advantage to running the car slammed to the ground, as the outside part is at a higher level than the middle of the car anyway.

I think the FIA rulemakers avoided that step as they wanted a higher performance level for F1. But that created the incentive to run super low.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Ignore.