F1 spins???

[angst]

Maybe this question has been answered before but what is it that causes modern F1 cars to completely lose grip, rather than progressively lose it. In the past when a driver pushed the car beyond it's limits then a slide would usually be the result , which a talented driver could catch (the best example being Gilles Villeneuve and that horrible Ferrari in '81). Now the car is just completely 'lost' and out of the driver's control. Is it down to the narrow track, or the dependancy on aerodynamic grip, or what?

[Marshal]

From what I've read I believe its a combination of all the things you've mentioned. The current tyre rules don't help, and of course if a car goes sideways, its wings aren't being presented to the airflow in the optimum way.

[marcus]

dont know alot about it but i would agree with Marshall about the wing thing..The point is that most F1 spins these days happen under braking and not acceleration..the driver may make a mistake and lock the rear brakes..probably because of a brake bias problem..when the rears lock it tends to start a pendulum effect and bring the rear around..sure a driver could control this if and only if he is quick enough..but then the air flow becomes all screwed up for some reason resulting in too much downforce on the front wings when the car is sideways and basically lifting the rear wheels and therefore the driver has no chance of controling the spin..thats the way it seems to my untrained eye anyway..maybe teams need to do wind tunnel testing on the side of their cars to help for this incident.

sounds good to me.

[desmo]

Current F1 cars are designed to work aerodynamically within only a small range of yaw angles. Tire slip angles are around ~6% at most, and yaw angles can be expected to be less than that. As the car begins to yaw beyond this, the downforce from the aero kit suddenly diminishes drastically resulting in a loss of ability to correct the spin. Also remember that the aero downforce being a square of velocity, the car is losing downforce and hence directional stability at a rate disproportionate to the loss of forward velocity during braking. Combine these factors and the car is very unstable especially under braking.

[THR]

well im sure i read somewhere its all down to the tires we have at the moment.
when slicks were about in f1 the manufacturers knew all about them and could work with them properly.

with the new regs they are learning how to devolp the tire so its more progressive break away.

notice last year the tires didnt squeak like they did the year b4? devolpment.

of course its down to a driver how fast he goes into the corner and if he goes too fast he spins! that is the main reason!!