Aerodynamics and over taking

[SetikX]

We have all heard team principles and head mechanics commenting that they desperetly want to organise regulations that encourage overtaking, but are they infact working against their own intentions for short term gain?

Millions and millions of dollars pour into a formula 1 car surely it makes logical sense that teams would have been researching ways of decreasing the benefits of slipstream?

My questions are two fold, a) do you think f1 teams research better ways of preventing overtaking, even if this means creating a blanket of dirty air which prevents over taking and b) if you were a team owner, would you sanction such an idea.

[Adam43]

I'd consider this before, so I am sure the teams have!

Overall though the primary goal in aero is to make a quicker car. Then no one is close to you to overtake anyway! However if you have two solutions and one produces more of a problem for the guy behind why not! I think that there is a certain natural correlation between efficient aero and problems for following cars anyway.

So to specifically answer your questions (although vaguely):
a) they certainly know what effects it and have probably taken time investigating it. Even from the point of trying to make their cars better in dirty air.
b) if there is a clear gain and no loss of overall performance, then I suspect they would. Afterall they all develop better engines to stop people overtaking them.

Interesting thought.

[Glen]

Common misconception alert! If there were less dirty air there woud be less slipstream. That is what the "dirty" air does - it provides less density and hence you get slipstreaming. The problem is not the "dirtiness" of the air, but rather the sensitivity of the following car's aero.

[Adam43]

Yes, generally there is a correlation between how 'dirty' the air is and how much slipstream there is, but it isn't totally direct and of course the slipstream effect is far less than the dirty air effect.

It is possible to design a car that effects those behind more. Although, as I said, this is secondary to making it quick.

[Marbot]

Ross Brawn has made some comments on the subject www.itv-f1.com

[ElScOrChO]

What causes a car to lose traction when cornering while following another car?

Is it the lack of density in the air so the wings are not pushed as hard towards the ground?

[Glen]

Originally Posted by ElScOrChO

What causes a car to lose traction when cornering while following another car?

Is it the lack of density in the air so the wings are not pushed as hard towards the ground?

Yes. But it is the SAME lack of air density that makes slipstreaming down the straights possible. What we need are cars that don't react so much when the air they are running in becomes less dense - if you just clean up the air they will follow more closely, but they won't get as much of a "tow".

[Snrub]

There seems to be a difference between dirty/turbulant air and just creating a hole in the air.
1. A few years back in Champ Car they had something called the Hanford Device for the superspeedways. What this did was create a huge hole in the air so that the cars would constantly draft each other and pass back and forth. The difference was that the cars were still able to run close in the corners.
2. Around '99 F1 cars had their ability to pass utterly crippled by turbulant air. They certainly didn't get sucked up to their competitor's gear boxes on the straights.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Snrub

2. Around '99 F1 cars had their ability to pass utterly crippled by turbulant air. They certainly didn't get sucked up to their competitor's gear boxes on the straights.

It has been an issue in F1 for much longer than that. However the topic of debate isn't really the effect, rather in theory and if they could would a team design a car that made the effect worse?

Originally Posted by martyn bott

Ross Brawn has made some comments on the subject www.itv-f1.com

Ross Brawn's comments concern cuting downforce, bot whether they make a car that is particularly hard to follow on purpose. Although it is an interesting article and perhaps deserves a thread of its own.

The issue of not being able to follow another car is almost a given. What plans are afoot to do something about it is interesting as is this different slant about teams perhaps using the effect for gain.

The location of the thread is a matter we've considered, please express any opinions by PM rather than disrupting the thread. It may well spend time in more than one forum. The topic of the discussion is more whether a team would do something not how it would be done so F1 is fine at the moment. It could well develop into a more technical feedback and then our excellent technical forum would provide more answers.

Back to topic. As the effect on the following car due to the dirty air or hole in the air is more of a determent than a gain (loss in the corner is more important than slipstream on the straight) it is conceivable that you could design a car to hinder those behind.

[Marbot]

Aerodynamics should be banned,and the wind tunnels put to good use in making a permanent high pressure area over England.

Seriously though,what would Mclaren et al do with their wind tunnels if downforce were cut to just 10% of current levels?

[Adam43]

One for another thread there really

http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...74#post1365374
Do you think teams design their cars with consideration to making them harder to follow?

[Boro]

Originally Posted by Snrub

2. Around '99 F1 cars had their ability to pass utterly crippled by turbulant air. They certainly didn't get sucked up to their competitor's gear boxes on the straights.

They dn't have a problem slip streaming on the straights

But the current aero regs don't allow the cars to suck up to the guy in front of him in the corners; so when u'r 5 lengths back at the corner exit, you need a pretty long straight (not to mention superior corner exit grip and accel) to even catch up with the guy in front to begin with

[Marbot]

One of the fundamentals of aerodynamics is it's not how you enter the air it's how you leave it behind.So you need as much of the dirty air as far behind the car as possible.If you just create a hole,then your car is not aerodynamically efficient as you'll have quite a lot of dirty air in front of the hole.

So i guess the more aerodynamically efficient a car is then the harder it is to pass.Whether or not it's actually designed to do just that i really don't know.

BAR had problems following cars closely earlier in the season,more so than other teams.But they seem to have partially solved that by designing a different front wing.

We just need someone to fully solve the problem.

[Dutton]

Originally Posted by martyn bott

Aerodynamics should be banned,and the wind tunnels put to good use in making a permanent high pressure area over England.

Seriously though,what would Mclaren et al do with their wind tunnels if downforce were cut to just 10% of current levels?

I would suggest they would use them in the same way, and for the same purprose as they do now.

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by Dutton

I would suggest they would use them in the same way, and for the same purprose as they do now.

Would take a while to get that 90% back though wouldn't it.

Hopefully they would never be allowed to get it all back.And i'm sure that if the racing is better that the FIA would see to it that they don't.

Whether or not that will then get the aerodynamacists to work on ways to make their car more difficult to overtake,i don't know,but i'm sure they will try.

[Kicking-back]

If you slashed downforce, the work of aerodynamicists would be even more important - because a tiny gain would be reklatively much more important.

[Snrub]

My point of noting the '99 season was to dispell the myth that you must have lots of turbulance if you want drafting. We know that they weren't sucked up to other car's gear boxes like never seen before on the straights, but yes they could get close on the straight. Dirty air is a fact of life with wings, but they CAN be improved to promote passing.