Comparison of all 2011 cars

[HampusA]

Could someone guide me to the pictures used in the first post?

They are perfect and i´ll put down some time to line up the back wheel and the front wheel if possible.

If someone wants to make some adjustments, the original psd that I created is here: http://www.pureinnovation.com/images/f1.psd

Not sure if you can use psd files, but those should have everything you need.

You cannot remove the lines from the PSD it seems :S

[volarchico]

then why not make the cars even longer than longest car this year?
if teams don't make them longer is a clear indication that longer doesn't only imply the positive impact on aero but certainly also some negative impact on somthingelse ..

This is only a guess, but it might be with regards to weight. Stretching the car will cause a weight penalty and at some point, the weight of the tub itself will be too much to even have ballast. I don't have a good feel for how many kg's of ballast the teams use, so this might be utter hogwash. Maybe someone has a better reason?

[Richard]

I've taken myurr's image and sliced it into individual cars.

I then calibrated all of them (ie stretched/shrunk) to the same distance for front wheel centre to leading edge of the near front wing endplate. That is the only fixed point with sharp edges that avoids parallax issues. It gives you a 1000mm yardstick. The tyres are rounded and only 660m. I've left the calibration yardstick in place.

I have then aligned the cars on the leading edge of the airbox. This means you can see the cockpit & nose variations separately from the packaging of the fuel, engine & gearbox.

HampusA - A PSD file normally has layers, hopefully the images and lines have been placed separate layers so they can be adjusted separately. My image was done in Powerpoint, it's great for quick and easy manipulation.

[horse]

Look how quickly those Red Bull sidepods terminate and how long that Williams splitter is...

[HampusA]

HampusA - A PSD file normally has layers, hopefully the images and lines have been placed separate layers so they can be adjusted separately. My image was done in Powerpoint, it's great for quick and easy manipulation.

Yea i know there wasn´t a layer for the lines.

Here´s my update. All cars scaled properly and leveled out so all cars are horizontal. I didn´t think about making the base layer bigger so that´s why some cars like the Mclaren is not fully visible.

But, it should give you a great idea and a more exact idea on how big the cars are, and how they differ from another.

[HampusA]

This is a great way to see the difference in wheelbase.

Wheelnut to wheelnut:

[Richard]

how long that Williams splitter is...

Is it?

The front of the splitter is the same fixed distance behind the front wheel for all cars.

The Williams barge boards seem to be in a similar position to most other cars. Although it is hard to see with all that dark paint

So the splitter length doesn't seem that different

[Pedro]

Based on those pics I was trying to compute approx. car wheelbases (in mm):

[HampusA]

Wow nice work. How did you do that?

20cm difference from Mclaren,1st to Williams,2nd in wheelbase is just insane.

The question is though, will it help them or not?

Mclaren went the long route, Ferrari the short one and Red Bull stays in the middle. Should be interesting to see who´s got it right.

[Pedro]

Wow nice work. How did you do that?

Couple of teams published their wheelbase. I chose Force India VJM04: 3500 mm. Then I measured distances in Photoshop and simply re-counted for every car.

[HampusA]

I see, great stuff.

Have you taken another cars real wheelbase and double checked your solution? I´m sure it wont differ much at all.

[marcush.]

hard to find roadgoing cars with wheelbase over 2900mm (Dacia Logan MCV for example...)
Mercedes Sprinter short 3250mm /medium wheelbase is 3660mm 7long wb is 4325mm

[HampusA]

Williams claims their wheelbase is 3300mm

vs 3716 in your calculation. I´m starting to think that the pictures really don´t give a good view on the cars even though they are properly scaled etc.

But 50cm is a lot of difference, either Williams is pulling our legs or the pictures are wack.

[Pedro]

Williams claims their wheelbase is 3300mm

vs 3716 in your calculation. I´m starting to think that the pictures really don´t give a good view on the cars even though they are properly scaled etc.

But 50cm is a lot of difference, either Williams is pulling our legs or the pictures are wack.

Well, it is probably not very precise as those pictures are taken from different angles but 3300 mm for Williams seems to be weird - where did you get that?

Virgin is claiming 3300 mm (source: http://www.virginracing.com/car/265/inside-the-mvr-02) but they both do not look like having the very same wheelbase.

[horse]

Is it?

The front of the splitter is the same fixed distance behind the front wheel for all cars.

The Williams barge boards seem to be in a similar position to most other cars. Although it is hard to see with all that dark paint

So the splitter length doesn't seem that different

In fact, I'm not sure about the term "splitter", any more. Sorry for the confusion there.

Anyway, the tea trays are all the same length for sure, but the part that splits the air to the left/right of the cockpit is much longer on the Williams than, say, the Ferrari. Just look at where it meets the underside of the nose cone. The Renaults looks very similar to the Williams.

Someone want to tell me what that bit is called? Splitter plough?

Here is a comparison of the "plough" for the FW33 and 32