F1technical.net

Just curious to get an opinion on this since I'm not an aero engineer by any stretch of the imagination.

If F1 were to change the direction on aero design and switch to using ground effect sidepods ala 70's instead of the current winglets, floors and diffuser what effect would that have on overtaking? or the races in general?

Do Ground effects cause less upwash and dirty air? or more? or about the same?
Are skirts required for this to work? or does it merely make the whole thing more efficient?

Is it really that the only reason we see less overtaking in F1 because of sensitive aero? I mean sure that has something to do with it, but what about the type of track that's raced on, what about the quality of the drivers in F1? These are supposed to be the best of the best, surely passing good racers isn't easy. Furthermore the speeds possible in F1 means there's far less margin for error than in lesser categories, the fact we see overtaking in closely matched cars with this kind of speed at all is surprising enough. Not to mention Nascar style passes are boring, it's different in F1 a pass requires more strategy it's more chess like. It's like scoring a point in Futbol vs scoring a point in Basketball.

If only they could use "something"(maybe some active aero) to compensate for following another car closely (something that follows the same rules as DRS. (After all this would be exactly the same as DRS except it does the opposite to the car...)

The problem is that something like this would have to be standardized like DRS is...

(ps: pls don't flame me, i know this is heresy )

The tyres this year seem to be an improvement over last year, in China Vettel could actually PUSH to try and make up time instead of driving to some preset delta... (Or am i seeing things? )

I'm happy about the tires this year so far, the overtakes we saw in China were actually pretty good.
DRS passes are pretty boring but I think they are a necessary evil.

I think peoples complaints are less about passing as an act and more about the cars being so different that they can't catch up with the leaders. When was the last time we saw a non Mercedes, Ferrari, or Redbull win a race? (edit: Lotus 4 years ago)

But that's F1 for you, you can't have things really even unless everyone's cars are the same but it would be nice if the racing was closer. The best seasons I've watched were the ones with 4 different drivers leading the championship at different points in the year. Hopefully Brawn will be better at dealing with huge advantages over other teams and making things a little more even.

F1 drivers used to have epitaphs like
"Le Professeur"
"Master of Changing conditions"

Now it's more like
"Hamilton was great at managing tire wear"

I like the new tires, they still have degradation like I mentioned in another thread, it's just that you can push the tires and not worry about them falling away after a few laps, but they still wear. It just means that judging when an undercut can work becomes more difficult. The only gripe I have is that the hardest compound is essentially redundant.

Question relating to overtaking and the current ground-effects / downforce configurations.
It seems that in race conditions, you can watch cars on the main straight braking and entering the first corner with a minimum of sparks flying. Understood that the sparks are from the rub-blocks on the underside and that they effectively become the ride height control. Must feel nasty inside the car.
What doesn't make sense is that when a driver is defending against an overtake and the attacking driver is pushing things to the limit .... there are sparks everywhere, from both cars. This is both cars braking at the limit and DRS disabled. Without some form of ride-height control, this shouldn't happen, or does it.?
The only explanation, assuming that there is no ride height input from the driver, seems to relate to brake induced squat at the rear, the front or both and that in the heat of the battle, the braking forces (and effort) are higher than when not in a passing situation. Any suggestions.?
Inquiring minds need to know.

http://www.indycar.com/News/2017/03/03- ... ign-update

More groundeffect and less wing.

Why not in F1 ?

Reasons there is a dearth of passing in f1:
1: the gap between the performance of different cars.
2: track nature.


That is all IMO.

One race where you will see lots of overtaking is LeMans.

Also, did anyone happen to see the impressive qualifying effort by Alonso at Indy?

You wil get it if the straights are long enough. Paul richard without chicane on the mistral. Baku has also enough straight, and so on.

godlameroso wrote: ↑

13 Apr 2017, 20:48

Is it really that the only reason we see less overtaking in F1 because of sensitive aero? I mean sure that has something to do with it, but what about the type of track that's raced on, what about the quality of the drivers in F1? These are supposed to be the best of the best, surely passing good transfers reims racers isn't easy. Furthermore the speeds possible in F1 means there's far less margin for error than in lesser categories, the fact we see overtaking in closely matched cars with this kind of speed at all is surprising enough. Not to mention Nascar style passes are boring, it's different in F1 a pass requires more strategy it's more chess like. It's like scoring a point in Futbol vs scoring a point in Basketball.

Me too, Im curious about this