Please discuss here all your remarks and pose your questions about all racing series, except Formula One. Both technical and other questions about GP2, Touring cars, IRL, LMS, ...
So I've been looking at the two road course aero kits and I've noticed a few things that imo explain why the Chevy kit is better than the Honda kit.
1/ no slots in the rear wing end plates of the Honda - that's just extra drag you don't need right there!
2/ no coke bottle rear section at all - this is just nuts! Why would you ignore all the benefits of having the air flow around the side pods and over the top of the diffuser?
There are other differences but those two are the big ones imo - did the Honda guys learn nothing from all those years in F1?
Vergne says he's still trying to put a deal together to join Andretti.
Bit of a crazy situation whereby Andretti have a guy desperate to race for them who would instantly be the best driver in the series having to scrap around to find some money, whilst the team funds Marco's regular drives to 17th place.
Jonnycraig wrote:Vergne says he's still trying to put a deal together to join Andretti.
Bit of a crazy situation whereby Andretti have a guy desperate to race for them who would instantly be the best driver in the series having to scrap around to find some money, whilst the team funds Marco's regular drives to 17th place.
Instantly be the best driver in the series? Seriously? Surely if multiple grand prix winner Montoya can't dominate in the best team, Vergne wouldn't light the world on fire. I just don't see Vergne doing anything special in Indycar. He'd probably be competitive, but instantly the best driver in Indycar, please.
“To be able to actually make something is awfully nice”
Bruce McLaren on building his first McLaren racecars, 1970
“I've got to be careful what I say, but possibly to probably Juan would have had a bigger go”
Sir Frank Williams after the 2003 Canadian GP, where Ralf hesitated to pass brother M. Schumacher
djos wrote:
1/ no slots in the rear wing end plates of the Honda - that's just extra drag you don't need right there!
Except there are winglets on the outside of the end plate, these slots will surely influence those winglets, so it isn't as simple. Plus, lot of the road courses are max downforce, making drag of lesser concern.
2/ no coke bottle rear section at all - this is just nuts! Why would you ignore all the benefits of having the air flow around the side pods and over the top of the diffuser?
Because the car is wider than a regular open wheeler. As the bodywork extends the full width of the rear tire, a coke-bottle wouldn't have a similar impact.
Jonnycraig wrote:Vergne says he's still trying to put a deal together to join Andretti.
Bit of a crazy situation whereby Andretti have a guy desperate to race for them who would instantly be the best driver in the series having to scrap around to find some money, whilst the team funds Marco's regular drives to 17th place.
Instantly be the best driver in the series? Seriously? Surely if multiple grand prix winner Montoya can't dominate in the best team, Vergne wouldn't light the world on fire. I just don't see Vergne doing anything special in Indycar. He'd probably be competitive, but instantly the best driver in Indycar, please.
40 year old former GP winner Montoya....
JPM believes in himself as much as anyone but even ge wouldn't claim he was a patch on the driver he was.
Jonnycraig wrote:Vergne says he's still trying to put a deal together to join Andretti.
Bit of a crazy situation whereby Andretti have a guy desperate to race for them who would instantly be the best driver in the series having to scrap around to find some money, whilst the team funds Marco's regular drives to 17th place.
Instantly be the best driver in the series? Seriously? Surely if multiple grand prix winner Montoya can't dominate in the best team, Vergne wouldn't light the world on fire. I just don't see Vergne doing anything special in Indycar. He'd probably be competitive, but instantly the best driver in Indycar, please.
40 year old former GP winner Montoya....
JPM believes in himself as much as anyone but even ge wouldn't claim he was a patch on the driver he was.
Vs: Verne who has precisely no worthwhile performances to speak in top tier motorsport!
Irvine:"If you don't have a good car you can't win it, unless you are Michael or Senna. Lots of guys won in Adrian Newey's cars, big deal. Adrian is the real genius out there, there is Senna, there is Michael and there is Newey.They were the three great talents."
djos wrote:
1/ no slots in the rear wing end plates of the Honda - that's just extra drag you don't need right there!
Except there are winglets on the outside of the end plate, these slots will surely influence those winglets, so it isn't as simple. Plus, lot of the road courses are max downforce, making drag of lesser concern.
2/ no coke bottle rear section at all - this is just nuts! Why would you ignore all the benefits of having the air flow around the side pods and over the top of the diffuser?
Because the car is wider than a regular open wheeler. As the bodywork extends the full width of the rear tire, a coke-bottle wouldn't have a similar impact.
I'll happily admit that Im no Aero expert (where's Turbo when you need him), but the stuff above has been Open wheel racing basics for many many years. Sure the Indycar is wide and low, but as I understand it there are still benefits to routing the high energy air from around the side-pods over the top of the diffuser to increase its efficiency.
Both the Chevy and Honda Aero-kits have extra wings mounted to the main rear-wing end-plates so imho there is no good reason for Hinda to ignore using slotted end-plates and the drag reducing benefit they provide.
So I've been asked to check the current aero discussion. It's a very interesting one, to say the least.
As pointed out, Honda does not run louvres in the RWEP. The notion was that the absence of these louvres increases vortex drag. That is correct, but there is at the same time there is more to it.
Let's first look at the current case in F1. Small wingspan and only 2 elements. These limitations forced F1 teams to work the rear wing extremely hard, with very high Angle of Attack (AoA). The louvres reduce the pressure gradient between the high pressure and low pressure sides. As one knows, you need to this pressure gradient to create downforce.
However, at higher speeds these wings will stall once the pressure gradient becomes too high, dramatically dropping downforce. This is because the airflow detaches at that point from the wing. Louvres in that regard rob the wing of peak downforce. This is because the louvres give appropiate means for the high pressure flow on top of the wing, move to the lower pressure airflow outside of the wing. This results in sucking effects, which speeds up that airflow. Higher velocity means lower pressure. Downforce levels will drop quite a bit closer to the endplate, and less in the middle of the wing. However, the stalling point will be delayed at the same time, essential since these wings are brought very close to the stalling point to begin with. At Monza, we see a lot of teams outright removing the louvres, because it's the only circuit nowadays incenting teams to run very low AoA. The lower AoA will both reduce the strength of the vortex and will also delay the stalling point, making the louvres redundant since they'd only rob downforce in exchange of reducing very little drag.
However, this is looking from the case of current F1. Indycar both has a bigger rear wing span, and has 3 elements instead of 2, which changes the dynamics quite a bit. I don't really know what is better, to run louvres or not, but rear wing stalling is definitely less of a problem in indycar, because of the extra element keeping airflow more attached, and also because the wingspan to chord ratio is bigger. As Wesley also pointed out, there are winglets on the outsides of RWEPs. These will also normalise the pressure gradient a bit.
Leaves the vortex creation and the associated drag. This depends on how much AoA Honda and Chevrolet want to run really. I very much suspect Chevrolet running quite a bit more AoA and then using the louvres to reduce drag, which will also unfortunaly steal some peak downforce away, compared to Honda who would run a lower AoA, which means less drag and downforce by its own, but rather don't want to use the louvres, meaning they'll not reduce the downforce for their given AoA level.
Again, I can't comment on what's better. In F1, using louvres is pretty much a bargain deal since teams can vary so very little with rear wings. It's a different case in Indycar, where you'll see the aero packages play around with much more variables.
djos wrote:
I'll happily admit that Im no Aero expert (where's Turbo when you need him), but the stuff above has been Open wheel racing basics for many many years. Sure the Indycar is wide and low, but as I understand it there are still benefits to routing the high energy air from around the side-pods over the top of the diffuser to increase its efficiency.
However, those benefits aren't as "obvious" in let's say an F1 car. The Honda directs all it's air cleanly outboard the rear wheel, there is no collision with the rear wheel itself, where with other open wheelers there would be. This already removes a motivation for the coke bottle.
Another thing is that the car's internals are the same, and have to be built around. This could make packaging difficult(as seen on the Chevy, the coke bottle isn't very large).
I guess there would be a benefit with airflow over the floor.
Both the Chevy and Honda Aero-kits have extra wings mounted to the main rear-wing end-plates so imho there is no good reason for Hinda to ignore using slotted end-plates and the drag reducing benefit they provide.
Wouldn't there? These slots would create vortices that would flow in the area of these wings, on the Honda these seem to be larger as well.
The explanation turbo has given is valid as well. No barn door wings. The three plane wing would create less strong vortices by itself. Plus, the trailing edge isn't inline with the end plate so lower and higher pressure would mix before they mix with airflow on the outside of the end plate.
