2014 Design

[Coefficient]

http://wtf1.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/20 ... eative.jpg
McLaren M14A in Vodafone livery....

This is the nicest thing I've seen in a long time!! Thanks!!

[henra]

Omnicorse.it is reporting the 2014 cars will be at least 6 seconds slower per lap than 2013 cars. According to Omnicorse, there will be a 30% reduction of downforce with next years cars due to the regulation changes.

Hmmm, 6s slower?
30% loss of DF?
Sounds too much to me!
Had they said 2-3s slower (if at all) and 15-20% DF loss I would have agreed but those values seem over the top.
The wider max torque range of the Turbo engine and the Torque characteristic of the Electric motor should help with the acceleration epecially between 150 and 300km/h. That will also compensate for some lap time.
We'll see anyway.

[Lycoming]

The question is how they arrived at those numbers. Not knowing that, it should be taken with a generous helping of salt.

[Crucial_Xtreme]

The question is how they arrived at those numbers. Not knowing that, it should be taken with a generous helping of salt.

The figures & basis of the article come from ex Ferrari, Williams & Lotus Engineer Enrique Scalabroni. I'm sure he is still in touch with the paddock and he's obviously quite a knowledgeable man. Is he correct? I don't know. All I'm saying is I give this article a bit more credit than if it came from an regular journo considering his CV.

[Lycoming]

I'm sure he's a smart guy who could come up with a method of generating a realistic estimate. But not knowing how he derived his estimate, it doesn't mean much from an engineering perspective. Maybe it's just gut feeling, maybe it comes from some simple hand calcs, maybe a spreadsheet calculation. But not knowing how the numbers arise, it doesn't really matter who they come from, you can't tell how good of a guess it is.

Maybe he has discussed how he got the numbers somewhere and I just haven't seen it.

[Owen.C93]

Attended a lecture by Mercedes head of Aero Mike Elliot and he was asked the question of whether next years cars would be slower. He was frustratingly secretive about his answers but he gave the impression that it wouldn't be close to that much.


For example he said the blown diffuser was worth 1s a lap, but from 2012 to 2013 they improved their car via small detail changes and found 1s in sector 1 of Suzuka alone. Engines will probably be the biggest factor and it's really unknown how much power these things will be producing over the entire lap.

[Ogami musashi]

very interesting thanks.

[FoxHound]

This depends on any team finding a silver bullet in the regulation change.
Engines are more strictly defined than aero these days.
There is only so much you can extract from 1.6 litres of turbocharged combustion.

Aero will be a bigger differentiator because that is how F1 is set up.
This does not mean powerplants cannot make a difference.

But scope for development remains more in favour of the guys working in the wind tunnel than those on the test bench.

[FoxHound]

In addition,

Energy recovery sytems are limited by time and maximum output.
So the only way this will become advantageous is by using a lighter and more well placed system ie with regard to mass distribution.

[Holm86]

In addition,

Energy recovery sytems are limited by time and maximum output.
So the only way this will become advantageous is by using a lighter and more well placed system ie with regard to mass distribution.

Energy recovery system is not limited by time. Its limited by maximum output of the MGU-K which is 120kw and maximum amount of energy released a lap which is 4MJ. 4000000 J / 120 J/s = 33.33 s. You could also run 100kw to the MGU-K then you would have that for 40 seconds.

This is what I think is exciting. You could choose to have a lower output on the electric motor for longer time a lap if you feel you would get an advantage from that. There could be some interesting tactics in this.

And when it comes to lap times then of course it is just a guess. But my logic says that the new cars can only be slower. Unless of course some teams have discovered a hole in the regulations on par with the double diffuser case back in 09. But I hardly believe this.

[theWPTformula]

How about the floor ? if the 2014 car have long sidepods and very long gearboxes, their floor should be slightly bigger and their 'coke bottle shape' should be particulary thin... So maybe they can make up much DF in that area.

A long floor could potentially be an issue, particularly with the lower nose height. The height and cross section of the nose will limit the volume of oncoming airflow travelling beneath the nose and therefore into the splitter region. If this area of the car does not receive enough airflow to suit the floor length, the low pressure could potentially break down. I think that's correct. I read something that suggested this but it was a while ago...

[FoxHound]

@ holm

Nicely put. I'm bowing to your judgement on that.
I assumed it would be time limited.

[atanatizante]

Could this space between the side-pod and floor be beneficiary to the 2014 car?
Could it speed up and enhance the airflow towards the diffuser?
Which are the drawbacks for going to that route?

[markn93]

As there are many very clever people here, I'd like to ask if you could have a guess at pre-empting this year's/era's 'silver bullet'.

Also, while following this thread I've seen a number of 2014 car mockups that all look rather similar, and am therefore wondering (on the aero side) where the differences in performance will be? Or is it going to be a totally engine-based formula?

[PhillipM]

No, as per the norm, it'll be a completely aero-based formula.