2010 Car Design.

[SoliRossi]

A pretty hypothetical question, and a tough one to answer, however it would be getting close to the time when the teams will be designing their '10 cars.

Making design choices and so forth.

My question is, what direction do you tink the teams will take? Its clear that the Brawn is the best car, however its a similar philosiphy to most of the other cars (on the outside anyway) where as the RB5 (clearly the second best car) is the most radical, and not too far off the brawn, even though it was developed with far fewer resources and not fundamentally based around a DDD.

So do you think the teams will go for a Brawn option, or is there merit for an RB5 type of design but one that allows for a DDD from the get go?

I think next year we will be seing a lot more Pull rods.

[se7725]

Excellent question and one I've been thinking about too. I think it will be split right down the middle with half the teams staying with the more "ordinary" design and half going with the RBR solution of the extremely low sidepods although they may not choose the pull rod suspension. My overall feeling, which could very well be wrong, is the same as yours in that brawn has heavily developed cars, more so than the RB5. Brawn had the resources of Honda working through 08 and I think RBR started their car much later although I can't find any info as to when. So the RB5 could be a better platform form which to start.

[CMSMJ1]

The design is going to be ruled by the fuel tank - Have we got refuelling or not?

I think that a good orthodox design is going to prevail rather than people branching out for pull rods and low CoG cars.

If they have to carry 180l of fuel then all bets are off...

[gibells]

FOTA want to ban refueling. I can't see the sense in banning it. A 180L fuel tank. That's close to a 44 gallon drum. On an economical front, it seems crazy to me to be messing with the core of the design, which will require much more post design testing- and then redesigning if the teams have got it wrong or if one team have come up with a pearler and everyone is forced to change their design again (can't think of where that's happened before!). Wouldn't those design/build costs eat heavily into the 40-100 million euro budget?

I back keeping the rules exactly the same as now, minus KERS, and let everyone get through the recession relatively unscathed. It has to be the best way forward.

[u401768]

I think, as the FOTA have said they will not develop KERS, or use it, that the RB type design will come to the better option – but with a multi deck diffuser. We may even see the Ferrari 248 F1 style rear diffuser, where it is integrated in to the lower bridge wing (more extreme version of the current Toyota one). I would not be surprised if we see McLaren produce one towards the end of the year and get a drop on it as there existing car looks to have a real fundamental areo floor, and they could gain more on the early start. Well they can’t be any worse of anyway.

[hulmerist]

FOTA want to ban refueling. I can't see the sense in banning it. A 180L fuel tank. That's close to a 44 gallon drum. On an economical front, it seems crazy to me to be messing with the core of the design, which will require much more post design testing- and then redesigning if the teams have got it wrong or if one team have come up with a pearler and everyone is forced to change their design again (can't think of where that's happened before!). Wouldn't those design/build costs eat heavily into the 40-100 million euro budget?

I back keeping the rules exactly the same as now, minus KERS, and let everyone get through the recession relatively unscathed. It has to be the best way forward.

i think it costs quite a fair bit to transport those 20 (i presume they all have backups) fuel rigs around the world

[gibells]

wouldn't you still need to transport 10?

or design and build a new dispenser. $$$

[tommylommykins]

wouldn't you still need to transport 10?

or design and build a new dispenser. $$$

Isn't the idea of the fuelling rigs that they're specially designed to get fuel into the cars as fast as possible? Without the time constrictions of a running race, a fat man with a funnel could do the job perfectly well

[ESPImperium]

What id do design wise, is design gthe front end like the RB5 and the rear end like the BGP001 with small influences from the TF109 would be my way.

But the thing is that the car will be 15-20mm longer next year for the fuel tank, but with that comes its problems Martin Whitmarsh has said, it provides opertunities as well from what im also led to belive.

However, if KERS is going to have to be on each car next year it leads to the problems mainly as the fuel tank is going to be placed as low as posible on most designs, with the KERS batteries being placed onn one side and the KERS Control unit on the other side, with the main engine cooling units as well.

The middle and rear of the car is the real battleground for designers, thats where id put most of the development budget, probably as much as 65-70% of the budget on R&D for the 2010 cars.

[gibells]

That's exactly my point. If we are legitimately trying to save money, on the balance sheet keeping the status quo far outweighs ANY savings that come from changes to the regs.

[gcdugas]

Sneak peek at 2010 FOM-F1 budget capped racer Clicky

[gibells]

i like. but maybe with a bit more camber. and maybe go for the options.

[PlatinumZealot]

LOl..


Hey, I hope DD diffusers are banned next year.. I want to see more passing.

[vall]

LOl..


Hey, I hope DD diffusers are banned next year.. I want to see more passing.

I hoped so too, but unfortunately that part of the regulation was not changed. I expect next year to see even mode complex diffusers.

[outer_bongolia]

Sneak peek at 2010 FOM-F1 budget capped racer Clicky

LOL. I thought engines were banned in 2010.