Interesting
. The first thing to address
on the 2017 baseline model was the
size of the front tyre wake. The results
and visualisations showed that the
baseline front wing and its endplate
did not do a good enough job of
diverting the airflow outboard of the
wider front tyres
Even more interesting
Secondly, the ‘y-250’
area [where the neutral section of
the front wing terminates, 250mm
from the centreline] of the 2013 front
wing worked well with a raised nose
where the resulting y-250 vortex
interacted well with the vane-vortex
coming from the under-nose turning
vane. The lowered nose on the 2017
car changed the flow in that area
considerably. We were not getting the
flow conditions needed for producing
efficient downforce. There is also the
presence of the bigger bargeboard,
which would need careful placing
in the context of all the other flow
structures around the area. Also, the
baseline front wing produced more
downforce than required.
TL;DR version is that the floor is responsible for much more of the downforce, which by itself makes following another car easier, and that beyond 4 car lengths both balance and downforce loss is minimal.
Their model predicts that aero balance will shift forward significantly when following less than 1 car length creating aero oversteer and gradually starting at separations lower than 2 car lengths but they're not sure if every car will have this or if it's a result of their aero tweaks for their own 2017 optimized model. Whereas the last 6 years the downforce loss has strictly been in the front leading to understeer.
They also don't take into account the loss of drag a chasing car will get as a result of the larger foot print the new wider cars will create as they punch through the air. Or the delay in separation from clever cooling ducts, or the effect of the engine cover sail on helping to re-attach air flow to the rear wing.
In fact they say the disturbance to the now(for 2017) lower rear wing affects downforce at the floor which is why downforce balance moves to the front, because the front wing is much less affected by the wake of the leading car.
It could prove interesting, some drivers may deal with the oversteer better when following another car, but at least it gives me hope that cars will be able to do proper racing.
