Paul wrote:Probably the toughest aspect to match an F1 car in on a budget would be safety, everything else is fairly easy. Just an implementation of "more is better" philosophy: bigger engine, bigger brakes, bigger wheels, bigger diffuser, bigger wings, some active aero... It is only hard to build a fast F1 car while abiding F1 rules.
Not really, because you must match the F1 cars on weight as well, and with the current level of aerodynamic sophistication in F1 it will be hard to get near the aerodynamic efficiency.
The engine doesn't need only to be more powerful, but while getting some reliability, fuel efficiency and not weigh that much more.
Brake technology is not limiting, they are made by intend just as strong as the tires can handle them.
Making the tires much larger creates their drag and that is rather counterproductive, making the tire side wall lower would need suspension with substantially more travel and more tire deformation losses per surface area.
Aerodynamic limitations are the approach to gain some cheap advantages on F1: vehicle wide, multi element wings (front and rear), venturi tunnels along the floor. This must be balanced, so that it still looks similar to a formula race car.
bigpat wrote:
The cars are sprung within a certain and quite small range, and the dampers are the same. The bump rebound curves aren't hugely different with springs within a 100 lbs-200lbs range, and are within the adjustment system of most dampers ( if adjustable) especially with the little movement they have. The rest is by ride height, toe, camber, roll bars and perhaps slight geometry changes. Once you find a sweet spot or window for a car, you try to operate within that. Nearly every circuit car, regardless of category is the same...
Ok, the changes in suspension are more in order to improve general performance and not to adapt a car to a certain track.
I still think that a lot of care goes in the setup of a F1 car (simulations oh behaviour at different fuel loads, ...), but that is manageable by a rather small team (Sauber gets along with about 30 people at the track).
