Cam wrote:Here's a list (that I cannot take credit for, nor is it complete) of F1 engineering innovations conceived to make the car better. Over the last couple of years, nothing really has been groundbreaking - a pipe for wind and hot air flow - wow!
2012 F-duct - no wait we had that… brake fins, c'mon we can do better than that……. Pull Rod Front Sus… wait, had that too…… Any others?
2011 Exhaust Blown Diffuser
2010 Double Diffuser
2010 F-Duct
....
Hmmm, now go back to your list and look at what was actually invented by F1. Aero? Nope. Moveable wings? Nope. Carbon brakes? Nope. Electronic brake force distribution? Nope. Semi-auto boxes? Nope. Turbo? Nope. 4 wheel drive? Nope. Disc brakes? Nope. Streamlined bodies? Nope. Etc. Etc. Ad nauseum. One might suggest that ground effect was an F1 first but even that was an accidental find because the wind tunnel model was floppy. And even then F1 wasn't first; Chapparal's fan car predated anything in F1.
Tony Southgate's clever use of the lateral horizontal gurney along the side of the Grp C Jaguars was much more impressive. He looked at the rules and sacrificed floor area in order to fit the gurney. The result was improved downforce (more than was lost by making the car narrower), reduced drag (because the car was narrower in frontal projection/area and the downforce was more efficient) and, crucially, it was not possible to copy it because the rules set the width limit of the cars and the other teams literally couldn't fit it to their cars because they were all designed to maximum width. Very clever and very effective.
The point is that F1 is not innovative. Never has been. It takes ideas from elsewhere and fits them in to cars governed by rules in order to gain performance in a way not foreseen by those rules. F1 is a game of loopholes.
There are two myths in F1:
1. That it is the pinnacle of engineering
2. That it is relevant to anything other than itself (i.e. the myth that it must be road car relevant)
One could add that there is a third myth about the drivers being the best in the world. I'd say that WRC drivers are probably "better" in that they are fast on a multitude of surfaces/conditions. But that is a sideline and not too important here.
The best engineers are those who can look at a set of restrictions and still make the fastest car. That is real skill. Any fool can make a fast car if they're allowed a free hand to do what they want. No skill there. Look at the recent RedBulls. With the same set of rules they managed to make a car that was demonstrably quicker than any other car. That's impressive even if, as a McLaren fan, I was annoyed by it. The f-duct of the year before was another example of being very clever. It met every rule requirement and delivered a very real performance boost. So much so that others had to develop their own. That's the mark of a decent "new" development.
I'm always deeply impressed by the way that F1's teams keep finding performance even as the rules seek to limit that performance. That is the real wonder of F1.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.
