F1technical.net

the article on helmet aerodynamics has got me thinking. the inner wheels of an f1 car are all designed to look like nice road car rims. does the design of the rims of a tyre at all affect the vehicles overall aerodynamics?

Most likely the wheels are forged to dissipate heat the best, according to the way the brake ducts and uprights are designed.

Wheel aerodynamics is very important, first the air the goes through the brakes has to have the least obsticles possible so it can exit the brake "compartment". Secondly when the wheels rotate a lopwer pressure system is created inside the wheel producing a sucking efect on the brake air intakes, so the lower the pressure is and the higher the sucking efect is the smaller the brake intakes can be, for the same amout of heat disipation.

Interesting topic. Does anyone know if FIA rules limit rim depth? About a decade or so ago, CART cars ran very deep rims on Superspeedways, prior to that, wheels were almost disk-like, completely solid-faced, with three or four simple cutouts. These wheels were tauted as increasing top speed and reducing drag caused by the spokes of the wheels. Unfortunately, the wheels were banned in an effort to reduce speeds. I would think the same application would benefit F1 cars.

Does rims were used in F1 in the late 1980 (Lotus) the thing for those rims is that they do reduce drag....but also reduce the brake cooling capability! In a super speedway they don't need to use the brakes that often....but in F1 where you're using the brakes in every corner you need to keep your colling capability to the max! If those rims were used the drag would be reduced....but they would have to use bigger brake ducts to keep the brake temps down....this would increase the drag.

Right! Didn't think of that.

You also have to be concerned with your scrub and other suspension geometries when designing wheels