RacingManiac wrote:
Its been done, just not in F1.....
Despite being relatively less competitive than the Audi or the Peugeot, the Acura LMP is still in the same ballpark....
This is slightly off topic, but bear with me; I think I can pull it through.
The Acura car wasn't designed for the same things as the Audis or the Peugeots. Audi and Peugeot had as their primary goal to race and win at Le Mans, and the car was designed for that. Acura, as far as I remember, wasn't designing their P1 car to run at Le Mans. They designed their car for the American tracks where the car would primarily be racing. As a result of this decision they decided to go with a lightweight, naturally aspirated, gasoline powered engine. While they were designing the car they were counting on competition from Audi at least, but reckoned that the few tracks where the diesel cars had an advantage would be more than made up for by the tighter tracks that would give their cars the advantage, since those tracks make up the majority of the American Le Mans Series calendar. The car was designed like a formula one car, then, with the focus being not on top speed-- the car wouldn't be going to Le Mans, and the only other REALLY high speed tracks on the calendar were Road Atlanta, Sebring, and Miller Motorsports Park-- but instead on making the car have unbelievable downforce and grip. They succeeded in that, as evidenced by the car's total dominance all season long, but once it became clear that Audi wouldn't be participating in the series Acura lost all incentive to develop the car through the season, so they didn't. The Acura not being as fast in a straight line isn't a symptom of the fact that the car was designed with CFD, it was a conscious design choice. I think CFD can be successful, and I think the Acura demonstrated how. I look forward to Wirth's design for this car.