Ferrari SF-26

[PlatinumZealot]

Hope they try the redbull solution to the barge board.

[Brahmal]

How do you think this management of the front wheel wake takes place: either by creating a low-pressure zone that will pull the front wheel wake inboard (or rather outboard), or with the help of the strakes under the endplates, which seem to indicate an inboard trajectory of the airflow?

Impossible to say for sure, but I do know that a huge proportion of overall drag in open-wheel cars is generated by the front tires, so even small changes in this area can have a relatively big impact. The conclusion about reduced drag came from several sources interpretation of the data from the weekend, not my own research. So mostly extrapolation from those two things.

I can guess what's going on though. The volume of air between the footplate and the dive-plane will be pressurized, and in conjunction with those vertical turning-vanes will push following air outboard of the front wheels. This will create a volume of lower pressure above and behind that dive-plane which will exert less force on the tire face, thus reduced drag. The sculpted end-plate will interact with this system as well as affecting the front wing flaps. As for the features underneath the footplate, that's probably interacting with the wheel spat to wall off the tire squirt from flowing inboard and into the floor.

[venkyhere]

How do you think this management of the front wheel wake takes place: either by creating a low-pressure zone that will pull the front wheel wake inboard (or rather outboard), or with the help of the strakes under the endplates, which seem to indicate an inboard trajectory of the airflow?

Impossible to say for sure, but I do know that a huge proportion of overall drag in open-wheel cars is generated by the front tires, so even small changes in this area can have a relatively big impact. The conclusion about reduced drag came from several sources interpretation of the data from the weekend, not my own research. So mostly extrapolation from those two things.

I can guess what's going on though. The volume of air between the footplate and the dive-plane will be pressurized, and in conjunction with those vertical turning-vanes will push following air outboard of the front wheels. This will create a volume of lower pressure above and behind that dive-plane which will exert less force on the tire face, thus reduced drag. The sculpted end-plate will interact with this system as well as affecting the front wing flaps. As for the features underneath the footplate, that's probably interacting with the wheel spat to wall off the tire squirt from flowing inboard and into the floor.

Well explained. My 2 cents :
- whilst the previous regulation had defined the 'front floor lateral edge vanes' (a.k.a bargeboards) to be outwashing (thereby making front wheel wake management easier for the designers) , this current regulation intentionally poses a design challenge by defining the bargeboards to be inwashing, thus spoiling the air flowing to the rear of the car.
- so all efforts (the upwashing slats in the bargeboard, the positioning of the keel/tea-tray, the vortices generated by the front wing, the vortices from the front wheel inner cover etc) are 'tuned' to either create a local high pressure zone just inner to the bargeboard or create a low pressure zone outer to the bargeboard, so that the turbulent front wheel wake trying to 'get in' is pushed away by the blast of air 'going out' through the bargeboard slats.

[sucof]

What do you guys think about cars suddenly turning on /switching on, for q3 what drivers often talk about?
I have this theory of that in the simulator where they create engine mapping among other car settings for the weekend, they create these settings by simulating the very last lap in q3.
Meaning, the state of the track, the highest engine settings, etc. So until q3, the cars entire setup and software will result often a badly driveable car, hence drivers feel the car just switched on for the last push laps....
I do not really believe that this is accidental or surprising, rather than the result of todays highly advanced simulator setup work, that must be optimised for q3 and later the race (which most probably is using an other setup software wise).

[venkyhere]

Re : cooling architecture
(apologies for the picture quality, screengrabbed from a paywalled article)



The Redbull has an air-to-air IC and still has much tighter cooling exits compared to the Ferrari. So many openings on the SF26 because of the hot'ter' engine, hot'ter' intake air concept ? The engine cover doesn't seem any smaller either, and the Redbull has a waterslide sidepod whilst the Ferrari has a much bigger one, so what was the advantage of 'sacrificing cooling for packaging benefits' ?
Moreover, Hamilton was asked to lower his engine mode in the race. What's happening guys ?

[sucof]

Re : cooling architecture
(apologies for the picture quality, screengrabbed from a paywalled article)

https://ibb.co/qLYWcHfL

The Redbull has an air-to-air IC and still has much tighter cooling exits compared to the Ferrari. So many openings on the SF26 because of the hot'ter' engine, hot'ter' intake air concept ? The engine cover doesn't seem any smaller either, and the Redbull has a waterslide sidepod whilst the Ferrari has a much bigger one, so what was the advantage of 'sacrificing cooling for packaging benefits' ?
Moreover, Hamilton was asked to lower his engine mode in the race. What's happening guys ?

I think it is difficult to compare such small differences by eye, especially volumes, aeras.
Also the intake size matters too, and not only its size its exact location as well. There are faster stronger air speeds and slower ones around, and where you put your intake matters in regards to received air volume and the cars overall drag.
So I do not think we can truly draw conclusions.
The RB has larger air intake for sure, over the drivers helmet.
And we do not know how much Ferrari had to push its engine compared to RB. Think about that the Ferrari engine supposedly is weaker, so the RB engine can run at a lower power mode for similar results, hence lower cooling.
To top this up, it matters big time if you run in dirty air or free air, temperature wise.
So I see waaay too many variables to draw conclusions.
Now I remember, there can be differences in drag within the cooling system, and air speeds as well

Edit: some people suggested that their heating problem was not even the engine but the batteries.

[venkyhere]

Re : cooling architecture
(apologies for the picture quality, screengrabbed from a paywalled article)

https://ibb.co/qLYWcHfL

The Redbull has an air-to-air IC and still has much tighter cooling exits compared to the Ferrari. So many openings on the SF26 because of the hot'ter' engine, hot'ter' intake air concept ? The engine cover doesn't seem any smaller either, and the Redbull has a waterslide sidepod whilst the Ferrari has a much bigger one, so what was the advantage of 'sacrificing cooling for packaging benefits' ?
Moreover, Hamilton was asked to lower his engine mode in the race. What's happening guys ?

I think it is difficult to compare such small differences by eye, especially volumes, aeras.
Also the intake size matters too, and not only its size its exact location as well. There are faster stronger air speeds and slower ones around, and where you put your intake matters in regards to received air volume and the cars overall drag.
So I do not think we can truly draw conclusions.
The RB has larger air intake for sure, over the drivers helmet.
And we do not know how much Ferrari had to push its engine compared to RB. Think about that the Ferrari engine supposedly is weaker, so the RB engine can run at a lower power mode for similar results, hence lower cooling.
To top this up, it matters big time if you run in dirty air or free air, temperature wise.
So I see waaay too many variables to draw conclusions.
Now I remember, there can be differences in drag within the cooling system, and air speeds as well

Edit: some people suggested that their heating problem was not even the engine but the batteries.

Yes, way too many variables to draw 'conclusions'. But I was not drawing conclusions, just asking Qs based on two simple 'novice engineer' level heuristics :

1) the more 'spent/dirty radiator extracted air' thrown to mix with the (freestream + aero surfaces' channeled) air before hitting the rear downforce structures & the diffuser exiting stream, the more 'inefficient' the rear downforce becomes. Yes, the extent of the disturbance, not only depends on the 'area' but also on the 'speed' of the heat exchanger exits. But the 'speed' - is it going be super-different as the main factor influencing it is going to be the 'pulling rate' from the freestream air around (and not much dependent on the intake side cross sectional area, as it's going to be high pressure zone anyway due to ram-effect) ? Since the cars are all nearly travelling at the same speed, the 'pulling effect' can be considered approximately same, can't it ?

2) isn't the whole point of having the ability to run a 'hotter than others' engine, to have smaller intakes and exits for the cooling architecture ? ie, less 'freestream/boundary layer' air stolen on the intake side and less 'dirty air' exiting towards the rear downforce structures ? (less/more = mass flow rate)