[Rules] Future Rule Changes

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

Everyone knows that the cleanest air behind a car is the air closest to the ground, the higher you go, the more disturbed this is.

I am not sure this can be made as a absolute statement. I think it is very dependent upon how the air comes off the car in front. Now in general yes, with upturned rear wings and even rear diffusers, the air is generally pushed "up". You can search around and find explanations on how 2022 regulations area designed to do this in a specific way to create less turbulent flow down low. So that a trailing car can get much closer to a leading car without experiencing so much turbulence that the aero concept on the following car is destroyed (can't follow in corners)

But as I called out in an earlier post, there are many factors in front wing height selection. Reduce impact on the flow into the underbody tunnels (higher is better), and reducing risk of front wing damage from curbs and off track excursions (higher is better) vs. improved aero efficiency for the front wing (lower is probably better is most cases). And can we say how much better/worse it would be if the front wing was moved up/down a bit? I don't think anyone here is qualified to say without having done the analysis (beyond thought experiments)

Originally Posted by Sodemo

This goes for regular wind too. When I used to do some trackside videowork, it was a widely regarded norm that all the cameramen put the microphones as close to the ground as possible as this meant reduced wind.

Yes, regular wind has a speed gradient based upon height. It is effectively zero on the surface.


This is why wind turbines are as tall as they can get away with. The higher up they are, the faster the wind. But in the end, the argument doesn't work for F1. You are trying to compare relatively static wind (in which surface friction slows the air close to the ground) against the highly dynamic flow from a moving body. As I have argued above, I would say that how "clean", "non-turbulent" or "laminar" the air is behind an F1 car is predominantly driven by the aerodynamics of the leading car than any consideration of static wind gradients. If those even factor in at all. For sure there is surface friction for air which is why rolling roads are used in tunnels.

Richard

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Sorry, I wish the forum directly supported multi-level quotes. Maybe it does and I am doing something wrong.

So Greem said this...


You replied (quoting the text above) with this...

Anyhow, back to my point. Your answer (at least to me) is totally disjointed from his question. I can make no logical connection between the two. Now, a a statement of fact, I can agree with your comment. I might make a slight tweak and say

Because F1 rulemakers often make dumb, illogical decisions and usually don't learn from past mistakes.

To Greem's comment (which I agree with), if I were to restate it and provide an example, it would be...

When fans try to 'fix' F1, they typically ask to revert back to older regulations that were in place during a magical era. Those regulations may have worked at that time and place, but given the increase in knowledge and technical capabilities we have now, we can't expect to get the same results when using those older regulations. As an example, use the 1988 regulations today and McLaren would not produce the MP4/4. It would be something that would look radically different.

Richard

What I meant by that was when Greem said "We cannot go back. We cannot uninvent. Why keep looking to the past?", I was suggesting that we should look back to the past because the rulemakers make often illogical decisions to fix problems that were already solved in years gone by.

[Taxi645]

I'll summarize:


To not learn from the past is foolish.


To dwell on the past is (mostly) useless nostalgia.


To present nostalgia as learning from the past is silly.



To present a reasonable argument to learn from the past as nostalgia is disingenuous.

[Greem]

I agree with the point about learning, but over the years we've had:

* should just run DFV
* take the wings off altogether
* have tyres like the 1960s
* get rid of [insert newish thing here] because it's new and therefore artificial

etc, etc, etc. Rose-tinted nostalgia and harking back to it is _not_ learning from the past, it's misty-eyed leanings back to the days where F1 was at its' most attractive to people.

I've said it many times in this forum that we all have an era (or two, but rarely more) where we think that F1 was absolutely perfect and many then hark back to those days as an example of how things should be now. The thing is that at the time, the people who'd been F1 enthusiasts for a number of years were looking at the new cars and hankering back 15+ years to the days of BRM or whichever era they held up as "the best".

It's incredibly hard to look at today's F1 without the legacy of history - hell, I've been watching it for 40 years now and I've seen that cycle happen over and over and over again. In ten years, a reasonable number of people will be harking back to the hybrid PU days.

Learn by all means. Many of the comments here do not demonstrate that, they're simply nostalgic.

[crmalcolm]

When I looked back at what was being proposed by the forum 20+ years ago, I was interested to see if either:
F1 had adopted the solutions proposed, but we are still looking for more.
F1 had chosen a different approach.

The conclusion I reached was that F1 has adopted a lot of what was being asked for 20+ years ago, and many still think things are not right.

Can we learn from our own mistakes in the past?

The solution (if it even exists) is not something that is easily identifiable and implemented.
The solution(s) may be something that has never been seen in F1 (or other motorsport) before.

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

I must say that the stated ambition to reduce drag makes me slightly more hopeful because it would promote the return to smaller tires, smaller cars, less fuel/battery weight and less require power so lighter drivetrains. A reduction in drag often goes hand in hand with a reduction in weight.

Interview with FIA engineer Jason Somerville: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQI3-F70Bmk

It sounds like they are considering active aero with continuously variable wing angles (my thought: probably with partially faired or enclosed wheels too).

It sounds like you will get what you want regarding narrower cars too! Hopefully they only drop to 1900mm width like GP2 and not all the way back down to 1800mm.

We can all agree that shorter cars are a good idea though.

Your idea of 16" wheels has merit for weight reduction. Hopefully they only reduce front tyre width (back to the traditional/GP2 size of 245mm) and not rear tyre width, I think narrow rear tyres look silly. BUT if they do go to a 1.0L V4 engine to save weight and reduce power then a GP2/1998-2016 size 325mm rear tyre perhaps would be sufficient and the (IMO lovely) 405mm wide rear tyres would perhaps be rendered unnecessary anyway.

[Sodemo]

I don't think narrower cars is a good thing. Narrower cars = less drag, more weight transfer, again did they learn nothing from the universally unpopular 1998 regs?

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

Interview with FIA engineer Jason Somerville: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQI3-F70Bmk

It sounds like they are considering active aero with continuously variable wing angles (my thought: probably with partially faired or enclosed wheels too).

It sounds like you will get what you want regarding narrower cars too! Hopefully they only drop to 1900mm width like GP2 and not all the way back down to 1800mm.

We can all agree that shorter cars are a good idea though.

Your idea of 16" wheels has merit for weight reduction. Hopefully they only reduce front tyre width (back to the traditional/GP2 size of 245mm) and not rear tyre width, I think narrow rear tyres look silly. BUT if they do go to a 1.0L V4 engine to save weight and reduce power then a GP2/1998-2016 size 325mm rear tyre perhaps would be sufficient and the (IMO lovely) 405mm wide rear tyres would perhaps be rendered unnecessary anyway.

According to this April 27th article on the 2026 proposals, Gary Anderson states that wheels and tires account for roughly 45% of the drag. Even this is perhaps a bit on the high side it does help to explain quite well one reason why these prototype sized tires are less suitable for open wheels type cars:
https://the-race.com/formula-1/gary-...ation-changes/



I think Super Formula's size and proportions of both tires and cars is pretty well chosen.


- Quite a bit shorter wheelbase than F1 (3.115mm vs. 3.600mm)

- 1900mm wide vs. 2000mm F1 (F1: 1800mm earlier)
- Tires: F: 270/620R13 / R: 360/620R13 vs F: 305/720R18 / R: 405/720R18 (either a 645mm diameter tire on 15'' wheels or 660mm on 16'' would be fine).





I reckon for F1 this would be a suitable size to help reduce weight, drag and turbulence for the following car: F: 270/645/R15 / R: 370/645/R15 or 270/670/R16 / R: 370/670/R16




To come back to the wording to reduce or contain the weight. I think F1 is mindful of leaving their options open on the drivetrain side long term and provide a "soft landing" towards battery power cars in the further future. If they define too strong ambitions on the weight reduction front, they are limiting their manoeuvrability in regards to the transition to battery power.

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

I don't think narrower cars is a good thing. Narrower cars = less drag, more weight transfer, again did they learn nothing from the universally unpopular 1998 regs?

I don't think they are a good idea either, but the narrow era cars seem to be extremely popular with a lot of younger F1 fans for whatever reason (nostalgia bump perhaps?).

1900mm would indeed hopefully keep everyone happy. That F3000/GP2/Super Formula car width is a nice middle ground without looking as squashed as 1800mm.

Originally Posted by Taxi645

I reckon for F1 this would be a suitable size to help reduce weight, drag and turbulence for the following car: F: 270/645/R15 / R: 370/645/R15 o

I can get onboard with that!

I'm a little worried that a lot of fans love the era of 1800mm wide cars with 245mm front tyres and 325mm rear tyres (i.e., 1998-2016) and would prefer that to 1900mm cars with wider 270/370mm tyres.

If reducing drag is really the overriding goal then going back to really narrow cars and really narrow tyres would certainly be more effective than taking a compromise of Super Formula size cars and tyres, unfortunately. But hopefully the engineers win the debate and can keep a little bit wider cars with a little bit wider tyres in Grand Prix racing than the alternative.

[Casper]

Maybe in your world shorter cars are the fix that F1 needs but clever engineers don't think so or they would design them. The fans always know best....maybe.

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

We can all agree that shorter cars are a good idea though.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Casper

Maybe in your world shorter cars are the fix that F1 needs but clever engineers don't think so or they would design them. The fans always know best....maybe.

I do believe that a good part of the "extra" length (as well as width) is to create the safety cell for the driver with deformable structures around that cell for added protection for the driver. The shorter cars of the past required the drivers' feet to go beyond the front axle leading to many broken bones that no longer happens in similar crash circumstances.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

I do believe that a good part of the "extra" length (as well as width) is to create the safety cell for the driver with deformable structures around that cell for added protection for the driver. The shorter cars of the past required the drivers' feet to go beyond the front axle leading to many broken bones that no longer happens in similar crash circumstances.

The regs changed in 1988 regarding the driver's feet. Looking at this overhead comparison of McLaren's cars, the length of the car has increased behind the driver, in order to accommodate the fuel tank, the PU and the drive train, as well as having a longer nose.




This photo shows how big the Mercedes PU and drive train is.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Double post.

[Taxi645]

Also most teams stays above the minimum wheelbase length because generally the aero benefits of going longer outweight the weight penalty.

Thank you for sharing that top view shot from the cars. Quite shocking when you see it like that.

[Sodemo]

I think engineers prefer longer cars as Taxi has suggested because of the enormous aero benefits. It also makes packaging the rear so much easier. If they restricted this I personally think it would be a good thing. The rear of the cars now are basically just a floor with a tube in the middle housing the gearbox. If they restricted the wheelbase it might make teams have to package the rear more conventionally and actually have bodywork at the rear.

[Casper]

The further the front wing is in front of the front axle line the greater the load on the front wheels is going to be. To balance this out the rear wing needs to back as far as it can go to keep the balance between the two. This means the cars look like they are on rails and don't move about as older cars did and also makes them look as boring as hell to watch.

[Taxi645]

I used a image manipulation program to illustrate what a Super Formula car (1.900mm wide) would like with the following tires specs: F: 270/645/R15 / R: 370/645/R15





To me the look like properly sized tires (diameter and width) for this size of car. Yet, the front area of these tyres is about 20% less than what we have now and only 9.5% larger than the narrow tires we had before 2017.


Weight wise they would be quite close to the 2016 tire/wheel combo and a whole lot lighter than what we have now, (again all rotational unsprung weight, the worst you can have).


So to me, with a smaller car you could have a lot smaller wheels that make a lot more technical sense and still look pretty bad ass. Saving a lot of weight and drag which will aid the nimble handling of the cars, the fuel use and aid sustainability goals and allow smaller (electric drivetrains and batteries in the future).

[Anyopenroad]

We’re at 265 pages of discussion yet in all that time no-one mentioned jewellery.

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by Anyopenroad

We’re at 265 pages of discussion yet in all that time no-one mentioned jewellery.

jewellery

[chillibowl]

Don’t worry. Pretty soon we will have robot drivers or better still…no drivers at all.

Then people can fret over how safe the esport kid’s mom’s basement is.

[Taxi645]

Should F1 use accelerometers to limit porpoising?


Minimal height is nice, but will have different effectiveness on different cars and will punish teams that did a better job on controlling the issue.


What if they would use accelerometers to control the issue?



So the determine the average amount of oscillating G-force of the current porpoising of the worst effected cars. Then for now (until medically is determined what is the maximum a driver can safely endure for longterm health) half that current porpoising G-force. So set up the following a car may not over the coarse of a lap:


1 Show oscillations in the currently determined porpoising frequency bandwidth for more than say 3 second straight with a predetermined maximum G-force (as said for now for instance half of the current average).


Would that not go straight to the health and safety concern off the drivers without penalising teams who did a better job at controlling it. Sounds like something would not take ages to implement.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

Should F1 use accelerometers to limit porpoising?


Minimal height is nice, but will have different effectiveness on different cars and will punish teams that did a better job on controlling the issue.


What if they would use accelerometers to control the issue?



So the determine the average amount of oscillating G-force of the current porpoising of the worst effected cars. Then for now (until medically is determined what is the maximum a driver can safely endure for longterm health) half that current porpoising G-force. So set up the following a car may not over the coarse of a lap:


1 Show oscillations in the currently determined porpoising frequency bandwidth for more than say 3 second straight with a predetermined maximum G-force (as said for now for instance half of the current average).


Would that not go straight to the health and safety concern off the drivers without penalising teams who did a better job at controlling it. Sounds like something would not take ages to implement.

I think that this is a very sensible solution as the bouncing appears to be a serious problem, not only towards the long-term health of the drivers, but it also has (road) safety implications too.
I think it is in the nature of racing drivers to endure discomfort in the pursuit of a good lap time and disregard the potential problems, so some sort of legislation would prevent teams from 'forcing' their drivers into such uncomfortable/dangerous situations.
The only potential drawback I can see in this is the possibility of teams not wanting their sensitive data to be common knowledge throughout the grid. (I know that up and down oscillation data won't give away too many secrets, but teams like to keep all of their data to themselves).

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

Should F1 use accelerometers to limit porpoising?
[...]
Would that not go straight to the health and safety concern off the drivers without penalising teams who did a better job at controlling it. Sounds like something would not take ages to implement.

It would be very quick to implement. They just need to use the existing accelerometers and cameras in place for impacts, and define the parameters.

[AnnoyedMoose]

Why bring in fancy rules to counteract the porpoising? It's 100% within the teams control to stop it. Yes the car would be slower but that's the penalty you pay for not designing a car as well as others. Teams and drivers are all acting like it's something that is impossible to control so the FIA must slow everyone down. I wonder why.....

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

Should F1 use accelerometers to limit porpoising?


Minimal height is nice, but will have different effectiveness on different cars and will punish teams that did a better job on controlling the issue.


What if they would use accelerometers to control the issue?



So the determine the average amount of oscillating G-force of the current porpoising of the worst effected cars. Then for now (until medically is determined what is the maximum a driver can safely endure for longterm health) half that current porpoising G-force. So set up the following a car may not over the coarse of a lap:


1 Show oscillations in the currently determined porpoising frequency bandwidth for more than say 3 second straight with a predetermined maximum G-force (as said for now for instance half of the current average).


Would that not go straight to the health and safety concern off the drivers without penalising teams who did a better job at controlling it. Sounds like something would not take ages to implement.

I agree with what you are saying here, but I think how you are saying it is confusing people. Chilibowl and I talked about this same thing in the Mercedes thread a few months ago...

https://tentenths.com/forum/showthre...153954&page=38

You are not talking about some type of active control system, but rather a feedback loop that focuses on drivers health. In the discussion linked above, the idea was to use existing accelerometers that area already in place in the drivers earbuds. The FIA would probably set both a maximum threshold and also some type of measure of sustained impacts (accumulative over time) in which if a driver experiences this, there will be a penalty.

The point here is that drivers should not be in the position of telling their employers "raise the ride height to preserve my health". If given the option, the drivers will do as they are doing today. Trade health for speed. Given this will be car, track and setup dependent, teams should see via the data from free practice if they are going to run afoul of this regulation and adjust ride height. Will they be slower? Yes, but the alternative should be more painful (grid and/or finishing position reductions and if a team is a pervasive repeat offender, then potential point removal, etc.)

The current regulations have examples of doing this already. For example the crash tests for the survival cells have specific deceleration targets that can't be exceeded. The challenge is to create regulations to protect drivers against aggregate acceleration (or more likely "jerk" which is the rate of change of acceleration) is that they would need to base the limits upon sound science and not be arbitrary values. For example they probably should not look at the measurements of what Hamilton or Russell is experiencing (when at it's worst) and saying "that is too much". That may very well be correct, but it needs to be backed up by some literature somewhere. But that data probably does exist somewhere. Someone has probably already researched this. Public military research would be a good place to look for this. Even if the data is incomplete, FIA could use it for guidance.

I frankly think the comments from some drivers (including recent ones by Russell) is actually asking for this type of regulation in a round about way. They are basically saying what I am saying above. Which is... If you leave it up to me, I am not going to say "no" to my team. But at the same time they say "it is a problem". So it is left up to everyone to put two and two together. That "someone" needs to address this. And I don't think this is about asking for more money to break the caps.

If this might not be fully enacted this year, it could be done this year as a voluntary experiment. Setup some prototype thresholds and review the data to see when it would have raised red flags. Provide this data to the teams during the year (after each time the car has a session, such as practice, qualifying, race). Then let the teams decide what to do. And... publish a public report at the end of the year. Maybe some teams may choose to dial it back if an end of the year report shows they are putting their drivers health at risk.

The other alternative is an active control system. Which is what I think some might think this proposal is. Which is effectively some version of active suspension. Which I have posted about before and there is no need to go into it here.

Richard