MadMatt wrote:I find a bit a shame that the efficiency is not taken in account (especially for the high downforce case). Unless there is something I've missed? Only "aim for highest downforce has been said", nothing about efficiency, and as I haven't participated to KVRC2014 I'm not up to date with all this.
As you know, track charts won't be provided this year. However, considering last year's charts, it is wise not to generate "inefficient downforce" even on high-DF tracks.
I explain: as the total downforce increases, the laptime gains will gradually decrease (in fact, if you achieve infinite downforce you won't achieve a 0s laptime). Last year's charts confirmed the gradual decreases i'm talking about; a projection of that decrease shows that, at the high downforce levels that we'll reach with our new cars, drag has to be taken into account.
In other words: an X DF gain obtained at globally low DF levels will give Y laptime gain. The same X DF gain obtained at globally high DF levels will give you Z (Z<Y) gain. This happens while the drag doesn't change its impact as much as downforce, therefore efficiency becomes more and more important.
For our situation: if you have a car with a Cl.A of around 6, and then you find some X Newtons of downforce that cost you the same X Newtons of drag (efficiency = 1), at Monaco there is the chance that the you won't gain (nor loose) any second, while on the Nurburgring you will actually loose on your laptime despite the DF increase.
On the other hand, if your car has a Cl.A much smaller than 5 or 6 (so let's say 3...), you won't need to worry about efficiency, and you'll be able to focus exclusively on brute downforce production.
So, while at Monaco it is almost impossible to loose laptime performance even when DF production gets very inefficient, on the Nurburgring it becomes possible.
Anyway, these are just estimations/projections/approximations!!
