BHF poll ...... the fin debate .

[Purist]

DPs are only around 100lb heavier than the LMPs (2100lb or so). You'd make up that difference in aero forces at just above 240km/h. GT cars, with equivalent aero forces, would reach that take-off point at 255-265km/h. The GT cars were doing 290+km/h at Le Mans this year, and the DPs were pushing 195-mph (314km/h) at Daytona this year.

Group C cars didn't have this propensity for lift-off, and they only weighed 750kg. With aero that allows recent LMPs to go at 230km/h, the Group C cars would have launched at only 210km/h.

Here's a BIG one to consider. How come those Nissan GTPs didn't launch after catastrophic tire failures occurred at ultra-high speed? As if that wasn't enough, Chip Robinson's crash at Road Atlanta in 1992 happened at the crest of a hill on the back stretch.

Chip Robinson crash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qxtBvcP9go
Geoff Brabham crash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKYMueGWnGQ

BTW, at the end of the back stretch there, the GTPs would be doing 205-210-mph, and both those crashes happend BEFORE the braking zone.

[RacingSportsCars]

Originally Posted by Articus

GT cars are heavier. So are DP's.

The LMPs are now 900kg and slated to get even lighter. Bricks dont fly glide through air but napkins do. All of these cars have the flat floors but the LMP's are significantly lighter.

That is really not an argument. Moreover 2014 LMP1 are supposed to have 830 kg with hybrid power, 850 kg without it. Are they going to make them more capable of flying? To me it is a real non-sense. The true problem is that 2004 and later prototypes are bad by design and seeing those GTP crashes I am even more and more convinced that going back to those old good rules would do much more for safety than trying to fix current prototypes flaws.

If the weight was a major factor here, LMP2 cars, and former C2 or even Group 6 cars of 1976-81 period would have flawn every second race while having weighted considerably under 700 kg.

The biggest issue I see in our discussion is however a fact that none of us here is able to solve this problem unless the rule makers change their minds. And for the moment, I cannot see it on a horizon. There is absolutely no point of trying to convince those who disagree with us (me, Purist and those against strange fins) unless it has some affect on reality, i.e. how the cars since 2014 would look like.

My personal conviction is that we should return to the Group C/GTP rules while using modern technologies. Nothing written here really changed my original opinion at all. I am not able to accept those "anti-armchair boys" arguments until some tests prove that Group C-like cars in real racing conditions would not behave way better than modern restricted prototypes, which would really prove I am wrong.

[Maelochs]

If it were a matter of weight, NASCAR stock cars wouldn't fly. And they do, but not so much any more ... or maybe there just hasn't been another crash at really high speed and a really bad angle.

I think it is obvious from all the film shown here that cars can crash, turn sideways, go nose up-tail down, and do all sorts of other things and Not fly, but lately cars (even F1 cars; ask Mark Webber) seem to fly when they tilt a little in any direction.

Not saying fins don't help in some cases, but obviously they don't prevent what they were designed to prevent. Equally obviously, non-finned cars in the past, in very similar accidents, didn't fly.

I might not be as good an engineer as most of the folks here, but I can see a car and tell how close to the ground it is.

Are flat bottoms the big issue? Should ACO mandate some kind of pressure relief system from the bottom of the car like NASCAR uses? (Just perforating the fenders doesn't seem to be enough--and Webber's F1 car didn't have fenders.)

I don't care about the aesthetics. I just don't want to watch someone get crippled or killed if it can be avoided.

[Gingers4Justice]

This is a good debate, I like it. Personally, I voted "I don't really mind", but on some cars the fins look horrible. The OAK-Pescarolos look particlarly disgusting with them, for example, but it actually improves the look of the Orecas and I think it suits the Pesca 03.

I find the principle behind the fins the annoying thing though. LMPs have been fine for years without these air-borne accidents, why not go in to more detail to find out what was different ten years ago? The big honking fin can't be the only, nor the best, solution.

The fact of the matter is, however, that when you see these cars in the flesh - BHHs and BHFs included - these cars are still utterly spectacular, beautiful racing machines. I still get excited when I see these cars race.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

The fact of the matter is, however, that when you see these cars in the flesh - BHHs and BHFs included - these cars are still utterly spectacular, beautiful racing machines. I still get excited when I see these cars race.

Exactly.

[The Badger]

Spectacular ..... they certainly are . But they have looked better in the past , and thats my point , and most people seem to think so too , if the above poll is correct .

[Aysedasi]

Yep, that's about it. The next word is 'and?'.......

[The Badger]

And ?

[RacingSportsCars]

Originally Posted by The Badger

Spectacular ..... they certainly are . But they have looked better in the past , and thats my point , and most people seem to think so too , if the above poll is correct .

Absolutely agree :-)

[miatanut]

Originally Posted by Purist

DPs are only around 100lb heavier than the LMPs (2100lb or so). You'd make up that difference in aero forces at just above 240km/h. GT cars, with equivalent aero forces, would reach that take-off point at 255-265km/h. The GT cars were doing 290+km/h at Le Mans this year, and the DPs were pushing 195-mph (314km/h) at Daytona this year.

Group C cars didn't have this propensity for lift-off, and they only weighed 750kg. With aero that allows recent LMPs to go at 230km/h, the Group C cars would have launched at only 210km/h.

Here's a BIG one to consider. How come those Nissan GTPs didn't launch after catastrophic tire failures occurred at ultra-high speed? As if that wasn't enough, Chip Robinson's crash at Road Atlanta in 1992 happened at the crest of a hill on the back stretch.

Chip Robinson crash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qxtBvcP9go
Geoff Brabham crash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKYMueGWnGQ

BTW, at the end of the back stretch there, the GTPs would be doing 205-210-mph, and both those crashes happend BEFORE the braking zone.

The GTP's had tunnels under them and serious ground effect. So far as I know, they had the most downforce of any racing cars ever.

I used to watch them at Portland International Raceway, and one year the Indycars came through in mid-June (the race was usually Le Mans weekend) and set the track record. In mid-August, IMSA came through and Gurney's Toyota Eagles re-set the track record. That was a great time in racing!

Bring back the tunnels!

The 2014 engine and fuel consumption rules are out, but the chassis rules haven't been released yet?

[Purist]

In 1992, CART and the GTPs went to four tracks in common: Portland, Mid Ohio, Road America, and Laguna Seca. At all four, the GTPs took the overall lap record in qualifying.

[miatanut]

Originally Posted by Purist

In 1992, CART and the GTPs went to four tracks in common: Portland, Mid Ohio, Road America, and Laguna Seca. At all four, the GTPs took the overall lap record in qualifying.

I remembered that happened at more than just Portland. I didn't remember it was 4/4.

That was at a high point for CART and the GTP's still beat them! The Eagles had a 2 liter turbo, and the CART cars had 2.66 L.

[Austinspace75]

Not sure whether this has been raised somewhere else, but the removal of the rear-left corner of the Toyota in the inital impact with the Ferrari looks to be a major factor in why the car launched. That corner of the car drops as it turns to the left, thereby presenting the underside of the front right corner at the oncoming airflow.

[RacingSportsCars]

Originally Posted by Austinspace75

Not sure whether this has been raised somewhere else, but the removal of the rear-left corner of the Toyota in the inital impact with the Ferrari looks to be a major factor in why the car launched. That corner of the car drops as it turns to the left, thereby presenting the underside of the front right corner at the oncoming airflow.

Everybody can have various explanations, according to what he wants to believe. And yes, for the Toyota it might have been the final reason in a chain of reasons that caused this airborne accident. But I am 99% sure that a Group C car in the same accident would not fly. According to their behaviour during similar crashes it is very, very unlikely.

[chernaudi]

I have to agree with Gingers and Ayse on the fin--the closed cars do make it look better, especially the R18 and TS030 in that the fin is very well integrated on the cars, and you do get used to them after a while.

As to the fin and holes, those are basically band-aids in so far as they are very much so improvised fixes. Yes, they look like after thoughts and aren't cure-alls, but are better than nothing at all. The HANS device isn't a cure-all, either. Drivers still have had basillar skull fractures and broken necks in accidents--including the very rare fatality--in spite of using it. Tom Kristensen nearly broke his neck in that DTM accident in '07 in spite of wearing a HANS, for example. But no professional racing driver wouldn't think of racing without one in most series, even if it's optional to wear one. Even the HANS, as good as it is, isn't a cure all for head or neck injuries in accidents, but it's a hell of a lot better than not having one.

The fin and holes may be jury rigged fixes and might not be the optimal solution, but even the old Group C tunnel cars had the ability to fly under the right conditions, and Ant's accident was a worst case scenario--190+mph probably, and having the car's LR corner break off which shifted the weight and pitched the nose up as it spun. Like with the drivers making mistakes, 99+% of the time, they get it right, and 99+% of the time, the fin and holes have worked as intended. There are no absolutes in racing, as Le Mans always has shown us.

[Purist]

It has been mentioned. Then again, a number of the flying incidents we've seen have been under non-ideal conditions, so you'd really hope that a "solution" that is worked out would be tested for those cases before it went on the cars.

With the two incidents at Monza in 2008, the Audi had already blown a tire or been bumped off the road and hit the wall before it tried to turn over. Ortelli had either a rear tire or suspension failure which snapped the car around. Marc Gene was bumping along partly in the grass when he flipped at Le Mans later that year, and while it sounds like they did some modeling to try and cover that eventuality, it's highly probable that it was too idealized a computer model, and not representative enough of the specific patch of ground Gene passed over. I don't know for absolute certain, but I would expect that at least one of the Lola rolls at Le Mans 2008 was precipitated by a mechanical issue pitching the car into a spin, as was the case with Ortelli at Monza.

There are just so many things that would have to be modeled to be representative of what would happen in a real-world incident. It's the curbs, the grass, the gravel traps, the transitions from the road to the verge or run-off area, the effect of the crown of the road (even permanent racetracks must be crowned for drainage purposes), and I could go on and on.

Computer models are mathematical models put into a computer, and a great many of the equations that those models are built upon are idealized equations. Wind tunnel testing is very sensitive. Obstructions and flow issues can completely throw out the results you were trying to get, just to have an idealized picture of the situation. Put an object like a book or your hand 18-24 inches in front of a model aircraft flight speed probe, and the sensor may not just give a bad reading, it can give a reading of zero velocity. When you wind tunnel test an airplane model, you mount it. Well, the mount has to be tested by itself before you put the plane on it, so you have a reasonable idea of how that extra object in the tunnel is going to effect the air flow.

You just about need to do live runs at a proving ground or test track to sort out more accurately what happens in different scenarios. Have a camera in the car(s) and use wireless external control, so no drivers have to actually risk themselves in the process. I should think that the FIA would be able to foot the bill for the several customer LMP chasses and engines that would be needed for such a test.

[Purist]

Chernaudi, I'm sorry, but, we don't have a good idea on the real-world effectiveness of the add-ons. Most crashes DIDN'T result in flights before either. And it's just one of those things as to whether the car gets to that critical yaw range at a high enough speed in an accident. We don't have a large enough pool of the right kind of accidents to judge from as far as determining its effectiveness. We do have at least a few accidents that do show, however, that the fin has not "fixed" the situation. And some of the behavior of the cars with the fins has me VERY concerned at present.

The HANS Device is a pretty straightforward system, and its real-world effectiveness could be directly measured in large part in testing BEFORE it was implemented. It's also a very intuitive piece of equipment, and the concept behind it is easily understandable. Therein lie the key differences.

[aneesh99]

I agree with the sentiments of some posts on here, the BHF and BHH are trying to fix a problem that doesn't work in absolutes. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head (it is 4am here) but I'm sure they have worked in non-contact spins. Want really needs to be done is to find a method to keep cars grounded when they are damaged. The missing rear left probably didn't help...

Edit: Looked back, I knew someone mentioned it before

Originally Posted by Austinspace75

That corner of the car drops as it turns to the left, thereby presenting the underside of the front right corner at the oncoming airflow.

Btw, where in Cardiff are you from mate?