Quote:
Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks
No, those cars had a very shallow diffuser.
No, that's not how it works. [Recall: air is neutrally buoyant unless it is cooled to make it sink  .] |
Thanks for your interesting posts V8.
Essentially Chilli is right though, the hole punched through the air by the car has gone from a VW combi sized hole to a pantechnicon sized hole.
The dirty air boiling off the rear wheels will converge into the lower pressure caused by lifting the air from the diffuser and wing. This will result in a lot of highly energetic turbulent air converging behind the car, air which is not "neutrally buoyant" but very turbulent and moving to fill a partial vacuum that is now bigger than before.
The wake of the current cars is significantly affecting a chasing car when it is 5 seconds behind. (400 meters at 300 kmh)
To my mind the aero group has failed to take proper advantage of ground effect aero which essentially uses the boundary effect against the track to more efficiently generate downforce, generates less turbulence and is more tolerant of turbulent air itself.
Instead the proposal sees the emphasis still placed on the front and rear wings of the cars, and the ground effect low pressure area being reduced by the reducing the area of the underfloor by reducing the wheel base of the cars.
I think Richard's original observation that politics and the "look" of the cars has hampered the effectiveness of the changes that have been made.
I guess there is no use arguing this out, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating! Roll on 2021.
The question remains though:
How will the cars be adjusted if the changes fail to improve the racing?
Will we have to wait another 10 years before anything is done?