2014 low downforce opinions?

[beelsebob]

Why have low downforce when you can slide around because of high power.

Because the amount of power needed to slide you around goes up exponentially with the amount of downforce, and that becomes a ridiculous pissing contest.

Aside - we actually did get more power, at the same time as less downforce.

[loweyz]

Unfortunately they are gonna keep restricting power due to emissions, I guess the lack of fuel is the biggest crippling thing atm

Editing slightly after seeing beezle's post they do seem to be finding the power atm should of thought about it more XP

Wow theyre really tearing up vettel in the australian media atm calling dan ric the #1 at red bull I think theyre getting a little carried away

[beelsebob]

Unfortunately they are gonna keep restricting power due to emissions, I guess the lack of fuel is the biggest crippling thing atm

I don't think it's fair to say they're going to keep restricting power – as I said, power increased this year despite the reduced emissions. I think it's likely that they will keep reducing fuel consumption, but expecting the teams more and more to make up the difference by having a more and more efficient PU.

[bhall]

Can someone please explain to me how current PUs have more power than the older V8s? I generally only see that claim discussed amongst fans, but it happens quite often. Otherwise, the consensus seems to be that peak power levels are essentially unchanged if not practically lower because of ERS discharge limitations.

And when did slower cars somehow become more difficult to drive? That's another claim that frequently rears its misguided head with little in the way of evidence to support it. Just because we see cars break traction a bit more often doesn't necessarily mean they're difficult to drive; it means they're different to drive. Beyond that, F1 cars have always been susceptible to snap oversteer if the driver makes a mistake, even when they had mountains of downforce on their side.



Whatever the case may be, the drivers don't seem to like it, nor does Adrian Newey. I can't really fault them for it...

"When I grow up, I want to race in Formula One and drive to a delta, just like my heroes," said no aspiring racecar driver ever.

I think there's a reason why fans are abandoning the sport in droves: F1 has completely abdicated its niche within the world of racing. For those who enjoy it, that's fine; something something "eye of the beholder." Yet, I can't help but wonder how the hell those folks got into F1 in the first place, because the sport has never looked like this before.

Sooner or later, these chickens will come home to roost, and it won't be pretty. You can count on it. Advertisers and sponsors aren't exactly keen to sink money into a campaign whose target audience is shrinking.

[WaikeCU]

I feel that the ERS will play a bigger role in the future to an extent that a car can basically run on electric power for a period of time, for example I could expect them to run E-mode only when in the pitlane due activation of the pit limiter. So that is a reduction on fuel consumption already.

[MOWOG]

Excerpt from the article you hot linked to, bhall:

F1 chief executive Ecclestone has also been highly critical of F1's new era, and particularly the quieter V6 engines. But he is not overly worried about the TV numbers.

"I was talking to the people from RTL television in Germany," Ecclestone told Forbes last month. "They said it is surprising that across everything they do, television ratings are down," he is quoted by F1 business journalist Christian Sylt. "Why? Because people have only got so much time. They are using Facebook, Twitter ... there are so many things people can watch. You see the ratings have gone down but in the end they will go back to watching television," Ecclestone added.

Jezus, this senile old fool doesn't have a CLUE! Note to Bernie: The Third Reich will come back before the TV numbers do. The world is changing, man, and you are too f.....ing stupid to see the train wreck that is coming your way.

@WalkeCU: The Nissan ZEOD RC has a goal of being able to complete an entire racing lap at LeMans solely on electric power. In testing ahead of this weekend's race, they failed to meet their target, but they came close.

@bhall: The current engine package has more torque than the V-8's did. The fact that an electric motor generates its maximum torque at zero rpm means it can be laying down gobs of power to move a car forward while an IC engine is waiting for revs to build high enough to get to its torque peak.

This is counterintuitive to all of us who grew up in a time when IC engines dominated the automotive world, but racers in every series are keen to harness the low end grunt that electric power provides. Plus F1 uses the ERS to keep the turbo spooled up, adding even further to higher low end torque then the V-8 engines could provide.

But it is true that total power available is very nearly the same at higher engine speeds.

[bhall]

Without speed, torque is meaningless. With speed, it's horsepower, and that hasn't changed. So, unless a car's gear ratios are drawn from a hat, there should be no difference in terms of power to the wheels, which has been at levels sufficient to break traction for decades now. This is nothing new.

[turbof1]

Unfortunately they are gonna keep restricting power due to emissions, I guess the lack of fuel is the biggest crippling thing atm

I don't think it's fair to say they're going to keep restricting power – as I said, power increased this year despite the reduced emissions. I think it's likely that they will keep reducing fuel consumption, but expecting the teams more and more to make up the difference by having a more and more efficient PU.

They might be expecting this, but truth is that we had frozen V8's since 2007. There's a technology gap of 6 years in between that made sure we have equal/a bit more power nowadays despite the restrictions on consumption. Next time round the technology cow will be more dry and we aren't going to get the same compensation.

And i agree with Bhall: we have lower downforce, but these cars aren't exactly that much more difficult to drive. A car that's easier to drive means you'll get further to the limit. The closer to the limit you are, the more difficult it'll get to improve. It's vicious circle. We've seen this in a spec series like indy cars, where cars qualify within a few hundreds of a second. It's hugely difficult to find a few extra hundreds to get ahead. The same is happening in F1.

[bhall]

Paddy Lowe thinks fuel limits should be systematically reduced from year to year. If that happens, I doubt the PUs will ever see significant power gains, because the formula incentivizes efficiency before power. In other words, teams have to make sure they can finish a race before they even attempt to extract more performance from the PU. Further reductions will tend to reset that progress every year.

It's just as well, I suppose. Aerodynamic development has already become somewhat stagnant due to the new rules. So, I guess it's only natural for the PUs to travel the same road, as F1 never does anything half-assed, even if what it's doing is stupid. No, siree. One of the sport's great talents is the ability to leave car-shaped holes in the walls of sensibility as it hastily bounds from one ill-conceived notion to another.

[Powerslide]

Unfortunately they are gonna keep restricting power due to emissions, I guess the lack of fuel is the biggest crippling thing atm

Low downforce will naturally restrict power use anyway, race drivers are lap time sensitive then the art of managing that power comes into play rather than mere tokyo drift. Less drag also means better fuel use, less grip with less throttle input. Say Monaco GP, which usually ask for maximum downforce settings, 3.5 liter V10 era but with very little downforce, time on full throttle will be very limited. I remember when Mick Doohan was at his prime in 500cc MotoGP racing, commentator stating that engineers were saying the bike was so powerful, it only used less than 7% full throttle in some tracks, some less and some a little more. It is certainly something to look at towards the future even from an entertainment point of view.

[loweyz]

I dont necessarily disagree but with speed downforce will increase, as an example I drive an evo 6 on the track it has a monstrous rear wing, if I dont drive the ass off it the rear is unsteady resulting in some hectic cornering greater power/speed results in a better entry to a point, what I was aiming for the topic was if I removed my rear wing and left my car still at 412awkw I dont think im good enough to tame it, but an amazing driver would. I believe itd be highly entertaining

This is an extreme version of the point by removing downforce completely I dont believe in drifting on tarmac as loss of traction to me = loss of time but I believe itll seperate the men from the boys with lower downforce, amazing throttle control will be neccesary