simplified upcoming regulations

[Tommo_mx5]

Hi All, I've been lurking for a while but I figured I should at least try to contribute something so here goes...

I'm relaxing after work with some homebrew tonight, watching the 1990 french grand prix when I noticed the difference in tyre width of the cars and it got me thinking about the recent discussions about increasing the diameter the rims to 18 inchs. And then fuel use, and on it goes...
So I came up with some ideas...

18 inch rims seems to be the way a number of people within F1 want to go so why not? for example;

rears 350-45-R18 (slightly larger than LMP1)
fronts 225-45-R16 (close to a real road car size)

I'm suggesting different sizes due to Martin Brundles' comments 2 minutes into this clip about the height of the fronts ()
and because the offset in width looks good (as per the cars I'm watching now). These tyres could be made to last a comfortable 180-200km but go off after 240-250km so Bernie gets his pit stop, although aiming for 2 stops just makes things overly difficult and potentially leads to teams trying to stretch things too far by the dreaded "tyre saving." This would require a single compound to be available per race though, as opposed to the increase to 3 this year.

And why not apply this attitude of giving the teams slightly more than they need to fuel as well? Make rules that demand each car start the race with 105kg so the drivers are pretty much guaranteed to be able to race hard without hitting their 100kg limit and still have spare for the sample to give to the stewards post-race. This is because I've never heard anyone say anything positive about the concept of fuel saving in relation to improving the racing.

Another (less well defined) thought I had was about simplifying aero; why not open up the regulations on the underside of the cars and the diffuser? I know this idea has been floated from a quite a few directions but the negative side of this is often said to be the turbulence that affects the following cars aero performance, but this could be countered by restricting the (a dirty word on this forum, i think) designers scope to focus on such specialised front wings and so on (check out this years in comparison to the 2009 wings). For example they could have free reign on the shapes and curves, but be limited by the number of horizontal and vertical surfaces of the wings (maximum of 3 vertical and 2 horizontal flaps/chords, plus the main plane?).

While I'm talking about aero, why was the regulation kept that the cars still needed to have the air intake above the driver? When the turbo rules were first confirmed I was looking forward to seeing the potentially different shapes allowed by not needing the ram air intake.

Forgive me if I'm rambling (I'm drinking and watching racing, remember) but what are your thoughts on my somewhat random ideas?

Cheers,

[thisisatest]

Regarding the fuel load, only a few tracks are gruly fuel limited as it is. Most(?) tracks, it's faster to fill up less, to be lighter and therefore quicker, while having a small level of fuel conservation. They also take safety car periods into account on tracks that are notorious for them.
For the intake, someone previously mentioned it was kept for sponsorship space, although I don't think it's very well used for that, and could easily be replaced with a vertical spine. I have a feeling rollover protection is part of it.
With regard to the front wing planes, defining what is "vertical" and what is "horizontal", and in curved surfaces where one ends and the other begins, will be the tricky part of the regulations.

[matt21]

While I'm talking about aero, why was the regulation kept that the cars still needed to have the air intake above the driver? When the turbo rules were first confirmed I was looking forward to seeing the potentially different shapes allowed by not needing the ram air intake.

The rules still allow the intake to be placed somewhere else.
For me it is still above the driver´s head because of the following:
- packaging of the needed piping
- aero reasons
- slight ram air effect
- one, central turbo

[Facts Only]

Dont forget that you have to have a roll hoop there whether anyway so you might as well put the air intake there as well. If you moved the air intake you would still have the roll hoop there causing disturbance and drag and would then need to put the air intake somewhere else causing more drag.

By putting the air intake inside the roll hoop you are getting two functions for only a single drag penalty.