Richards: F1 aero excessive and irrelevant

[WhiteBlue]

http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/stor ... MP=OTC-RSS

The last few weeks have brought that into sharp perspective with the withdrawal of BMW and Toyota from F1 and with question marks still remaining over Renault.....
I think it's very appropriate that Jean Todt has taken over the reins of F1 just at this turning point, because I don't think we can carry on the way we have in the past with the excesses we have seen in various fields. Probably one of the best examples is in aerodynamics, where we talk about relevance of motorsport technology and yet, today, I can't think of anything less relevant than aerodynamics to the general automotive industry. Sure, it has a minor part to play, but when one compares it to efficiencies in other areas such as the drive toward the electric vehicle and generative braking systems, I think motorsport has to take a very serious look at itself.

=D> =D> =D>

I cannot say it any better. For the last fifteen years aerodynamics have dominated F1 and have again done so this season. It is a completely sterile field of engineering. Nobody anywhere on earth will need a loophole technology like a double deck diffusors on his vehicle. Nevertheless teams have probably spend north of 800 million $ on the 2009 cars to optimize their aerodynamic for DDDs. It serves no purpose but the waste of resources.

Competitive advantages should be related to technologies that create real benefits to the motoring public. All technolgies that improve fuel efficiency are relevant and should serve as competitive discriminators.

F1 will not find the right way towards fuel efficient aerodynamics until the downforce is simply limited to a physical level of say 1.25 tons. If they do this they can trash 95% of all aero rules. Particularly prohibitions of flexibility and mobility of aero devices are backward thinking and should be done away with. In my view teams should not spend more than 5% of the annual budget on aero related issues. That includes cost of personnel resources, wind tunnels, CFD and on car testing. In the past we have been far away from such figures.

A big parts of budgets should be spend on improving the thermodynamic efficiency of the ICE by charged fill, by multi staged heat to power transformations, by kinetic energy storage and recovery and by hybrid technologies. Units must be continuously down sized to reflect the efficiency increases. This could be done by regulating the power curve over RPMs. Track performance should be kept at a fixed level and efficiency increases should translate into cuts in the power curve.

Progress should be made by improving transmission efficiency and by power saving suspension technologies like automatic ride height. Those are the fields where F1 technology can translate to road car tech and help us cope with the global problems. Ban on new materials should be lifted if they serve a purpose in those fields where we seek break throughs. One example are the Williams kinetic energy reservoirs which are essentially motor/generator units from modified carbon fibers. Creating electric servo motors without heavy rare earth magnets and copper coils would be a tremendous advantage.

[Saribro]

F1 will not find the right way towards fuel efficient aerodynamics until the downforce is simply limited to a physical level of say 1.25 tons. If they do this they can trash 95% of all aero rules.

Perhaps, but that will not cut the amount of work spent on aero, it will just move main focus from max downforce to minimal drag.

Units must be continuously down sized to reflect the efficiency increases. This could be done by regulating the power curve over RPMs. Track performance should be kept at a fixed level and efficiency increases should translate into cuts in the power curve.

I fail to see how that method would work. Isn't it easier and more obvious to just limit the amount of fuel/flow used?

Those are the fields where F1 technology can translate to road car tech and help us cope with the global problems. Ban on new materials should be lifted if they serve a purpose in those fields where we seek break throughs.

Well no, because then you would just end up with F1 using materials that no road car would ever use due to cost/manufacturability reasons. Just the possible alloys/MMCs for the engine block will shoot of in the distance of F1, never to be seen on any road car.

The grand issue is balance: How do you find the right regulatory limitations? Allowing entirely free development (be it globally or in a specific area) has the risk of F1-implementations shooting of into obscurity and irrelevance. Limiting development too heavily risks preventing breakthroughs/innovations simply because you can't try.
Then you have to consider the added complexity of rules-stability. The ideal way to deal with constant innovation is to adjust the ruleset on a year-by-year basis, based on the developments seen during the season. However, you need to keep F1 viable as a sport, which means costs have to be managable for smaller teams, so you prefer your ruleset to be stable for an amount of years to allow technology-transfers between seasons.
It's much trickier than most of us are willing to admit. (and I've not even mentioned the politics and technical skills of the rulemakers)

[tok-tokkie]

I am a retired mechanical engineer. The aspect of F1 that interests me the most is the engineering. With the rules as they are almost all the engineering effort is expended on an entirely irrelevant aspect of the car (from a real world perspective). I too would like to see the aerodynamic downforce limited. I don't believe there is much that can be done about drag anymore so that can remain free competition.

What I would REALLY like to see is a limit to the kJ for the entire meeting & a limit for the actual race as well. Any engine you want, any energy recuperation you want. Not sure about any fuel. Same brakes for all weather conditions.

[noname]

Those are the fields where F1 technology can translate to road car tech and help us cope with the global problems.

what problems do you mean ?

[WhiteBlue]

Those are the fields where F1 technology can translate to road car tech and help us cope with the global problems.

what problems do you mean ?

Passing peak oil. Global warming due to excessive CO2 generation.
Affordable transportation for developing countries.

[noname]

The ideal way to deal with constant innovation is to adjust the ruleset on a year-by-year basis, based on the developments seen during the season.

I would add some vacatio legis. As far as I know teams are starting serious work on their next car somewhere around May and, I think, at this time rules driving design of the cars should be frozen. Or, at least, there should be main areas of development (topic for separate discussion) frozen at this point.

That means findings from 2009 season, defined in form of ruleset, should be mandatory in 2011 season.

This way teams would have enough time to plan their budgets, resources, investments, etc. as to avoid costly last-minute tweaks.

[noname]

Those are the fields where F1 technology can translate to road car tech and help us cope with the global problems.

what problems do you mean ?

Passing peak oil. Global warming due to excessive CO2 generation.
Affordable transportation for developing countries.

I can agree, to some extent, with 1st, I do not fully understand connection between F1 and 3rd. First and foremost F1 is a sport, entertainment.
2nd, for me, is just a bu...it, but I would not like to move discussion in this direction.

[Jersey Tom]

Not sure I agree with this assessment.

Aerodynamics are gonna be there so long as we race on Earth in an atmosphere. Aero has been a player in all motor racing for decades.. it's just been recognized more recently. Doesn't matter if you limit downforce or not. Aero levels are "limited" in NASCAR yet it's still a huge area of development.

On one hand, who gives a --- if it's relevant to passenger car development? There has never been any requirement that racing technology be relevant to road cars. Never. IMO, people try to wave their hands and make some BS arguments for it, but it's just not the case. I'd be willing to bet that more often than not, technology flows from consumer development to F1 rather than the other way around. I personally know this has been the case in some really critical areas.

On the other hand, aero does actually have a good bit of relevance to passenger cars. With regard to fuel efficiency, drag at highway speed plays a HUGE part in improved mileage. Even my own Nissan 350 (a 300hp car) will get 27+ MPG highway by itself, and when in the draft of a semi will go up to 50+. Improving airflow and reducing drag can certainly help your average buyer.

[WhiteBlue]

F1 will not find the right way towards fuel efficient aerodynamics until the downforce is simply limited to a physical level of say 1.25 tons. If they do this they can trash 95% of all aero rules.

Perhaps, but that will not cut the amount of work spent on aero, it will just move main focus from max downforce to minimal drag.

It will because the driver to change configurations is finding max downforce from a new rules config. If the rules config remains static (1.25 tons DF) reducing returns will lead the development to other fields.

Units must be continuously down sized to reflect the efficiency increases. This could be done by regulating the power curve over RPMs. Track performance should be kept at a fixed level and efficiency increases should translate into cuts in the power curve.

I fail to see how that method would work. Isn't it easier and more obvious to just limit the amount of fuel/flow used?

The main problem is the search for more power. If that is blocked by all ICE units developing the same power over RPM curve the development will automatically focus on fuel efficiency. You also have the added bonus that you don't need to prohibit technologies to curb performance. If performance increases you simply drop the power curve until you are back in the desired window. Alternatively energy flow limits to the ICE would have to be set flexible to curb performance. I'm just not sure that they would not find loop holes to get more power by using fuels that exceed the desired energy flow. It would be more difficult if a wider range of fuels is allowed. I would like the freedom of using diesels, petrol or gas or whatever they want.

Those are the fields where F1 technology can translate to road car tech and help us cope with the global problems. Ban on new materials should be lifted if they serve a purpose in those fields where we seek break throughs.

Well no, because then you would just end up with F1 using materials that no road car would ever use due to cost/manufacturability reasons. Just the possible alloys/MMCs for the engine block will shoot of in the distance of F1, never to be seen on any road car.

One would have to be carefull with the allowed materials.

[WhiteBlue]

On one hand, who gives a --- if it's relevant to passenger car development? There has never been any requirement that racing technology be relevant to road cars. Never. IMO, people try to wave their hands and make some BS arguments for it, but it's just not the case. I'd be willing to bet that more often than not, technology flows from consumer development to F1 rather than the other way around. I personally know this has been the case in some really critical areas.

F1 has to have technology areas where constructors gain competitive advantages. This will always lead to increasing performance which has to be curbed in regular intervals to keep performance in reasonable tolerances. F1 is relatively free to set those areas in order to achieve objectives beyond its main purpose of entertaining.

The fact that performance curbs in the past have been applied without strategic thinking and in an arbitrary and tactical way does not prevent the rule makers from applying a bit of brain in the future. If we can steer F1 into a direction were automotive manufacturers see their main business objectives it would bring back manufacturer involvement and public interest.

[xpensive]

This is to my mind nothing but sour grapes from Richards, as he keeps failing to get back to the pit-babes himself.

As for the "CO2-threat", it's just the biggest hoax since the "Ozon layer-threat", or perhaps the "Acid rain-threat"?

[Jersey Tom]

On one hand, who gives a --- if it's relevant to passenger car development? There has never been any requirement that racing technology be relevant to road cars. Never. IMO, people try to wave their hands and make some BS arguments for it, but it's just not the case. I'd be willing to bet that more often than not, technology flows from consumer development to F1 rather than the other way around. I personally know this has been the case in some really critical areas.

F1 has to have technology areas where constructors gain competitive advantages. This will always lead to increasing performance which has to be curbed in regular intervals to keep performance in reasonable tolerances. F1 is relatively free to set those areas in order to achieve objectives beyond its main purpose of entertaining.

The fact that performance curbs in the past have been applied without strategic thinking and in an arbitrary and tactical way does not prevent the rule makers from applying a bit of brain in the future. If we can steer F1 into a direction were automotive manufacturers see their main business objectives it would bring back manufacturer involvement and public interest.

If we want manufacturer involvement, F1 needs to be less expensive. Simple concept. Not everyone can drop hundreds of millions a year on car development.

Technical restrictions are NOT the way to limit cost. Just aren't. Could make a stock car series out of F1 and they'd still pour heaps of money into development (as is the case in NASCAR).

Budget caps are the logical solution IMO. If you want to restrict expenditure, do it directly.

[Pandamasque]

Well it's not hard to imagine that with the current regs most of the aero developments is just fiddling and has barely any relevance even to other racing series not to mention road cars.

The only way to make F1 cars green, without resorting to go further towards spec. cars, is to change the regs so that you'd have to be green to be fast.

[WhiteBlue]

If we want manufacturer involvement, F1 needs to be less expensive. Simple concept. Not everyone can drop hundreds of millions a year on car development.

Technical restrictions are NOT the way to limit cost. Just aren't. Could make a stock car series out of F1 and they'd still pour heaps of money into development (as is the case in NASCAR).

Budget caps are the logical solution IMO. If you want to restrict expenditure, do it directly.

Yep, mostly right. Just do not forget that road relevance is essential for manufacturers as well. This is why the chairman of Aston Martin made the criticism in the first place. Cost is relative. If the money is spend in accordance with objectives of the manufacturer he will like F1.

[WhiteBlue]

Well it's not hard to imagine that with the current regs most of the aero developments is just fiddling and has barely any relevance even to other racing series not to mention road cars.

The only way to make F1 cars green, without resorting to go further towards spec. cars, is to change the regs so that you'd have to be green to be fast.

+1

A short way of saying what I have tried to say above.