Gary Anderson predicts F1's pecking order

[Sevach]

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merce ... 0hp-lauda/

How weak are the others then?

[antiuser]

Pat Symonds on Williams' test pace:

"We have run a very genuine winter test programme - what you see is what you get and I suspect that is true for most people.

"Over the last few years, there has been a lot of sandbagging but this year people really needed to see what they are doing.

"And it's not as if anyone has a fuel tank that can run significantly more than proper fuel for a race distance.

"I think people stretched things a bit in qualifying as well, so there might be a few kilograms difference in weights, but not too much."

Source: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112780

[aero_engineer]

i think FERRARI tend this year for less drag set up(more max speed) to save fuel .

I don't think it's always a good strategy: higher down force means higher speed in turn so less energy to (re)accelerate the car.

I recently made this mistake, too.

Because drag squares with speed, and the power required to overcome that drag cubes at the same time, drag is far more detrimental to fuel efficiency. For instance, a car using 10 bhp to travel at 50 MPH will encounter 4x more drag at 100 MPH, and it will require 8x more power to get there. Scale the figures up to F1 levels, where drag coefficients can be as much as 4-5x higher than road cars and speeds can reach 200+ MPH, then it becomes easy to see how even a small drag reduction can have a significant impact on performance. The limitations on fuel this year mean such aerodynamic gains have never been more critical.

I couldn't agree more, it makes more sense to dump the drag than adding more HP at least at this stage of the season. I would still expect Ferrari to operate at a slightly higher rake than in testing. Curious to see if RB continue with that.

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

[f300v10]

GA yet again showing he is clueless. He always says Ferrari have got it wrong. The only major difference between the Ferrari nose, and the Mercedes nose is the Ferrari is about 2 inches (5 cm) lower. So that according to him, drops the Ferrari from an above average 7 to a below average 4. Thats simply ridiculous, why anyone pays him to write this junk is beyond me.

[timbo]

Is it Gary Anderson's article?

[FrukostScones]

Is it Gary Anderson's article?

Looking at the rating of the noses surely it's his.

[Per]

Did the author of that article just say that the low pressure zone under the nose will "potentially reduce downforce"? If you have an object where the pressure on top is higher than the pressure below, well... that's basically the definition of downforce.

[Richard]

Are you referring to the Ferrari text? If so the article says reduced pressure on top of the nose will reduce downforce. This is correct.

[garygph]

Seems like a lot of posters think GA is way off and goes to show how much I know as his comments of the cars have made sense to me, oh dear. The Ferrari confuses me too unless the two cameras mounted on the nose somehow have a beneficial interaction with the flow Gary speaks of.

[Jef Patat]

Mercedes:

Simple approach looks a winner

With this concept, it has perhaps the most efficient nose in terms of weight and aerodynamics

points:7/10

[Per]

Are you referring to the Ferrari text? If so the article says reduced pressure on top of the nose will reduce downforce. This is correct.

No it is not, the explanations defy the basic laws of physics. For example, it says "lift is generated on the top surface".That's interesting, you always need at least TWO surfaces to generate any aerodynamic force. Lift is what you get if the pressure on top of the object is lower than the pressure below it.

As the article correctly explains, the air on top of the nose will be accelerated... why? Because air flows from high pressure to low pressure. Which means the pressure below the nose must be lower than the pressure above the nose. Which means downforce.

Maybe the pressure on the top surface will be somewhat reduced. But only because the pressure below the nose is EVEN lower. Don't forget... air accelerates because of pressure difference. Not the other way around.

[Artur Craft]

No it is not, the explanations defy the basic laws of physics. For example, it says "lift is generated on the top surface".That's interesting, you always need at least TWO surfaces to generate any aerodynamic force. Lift is what you get if the pressure on top of the object is lower than the pressure below it.

As the article correctly explains, the air on top of the nose will be accelerated... why? Because air flows from high pressure to low pressure. Which means the pressure below the nose must be lower than the pressure above the nose. Which means downforce.

Maybe the pressure on the top surface will be somewhat reduced. But only because the pressure below the nose is EVEN lower. Don't forget... air accelerates because of pressure difference. Not the other way around.

Yes, you're correct in all you said. Anderson is not an aero expert, don't take anything he says on this matter too seriously.

It's common to see engineers like him keep with this mantra of "let's speed up the air underneath the car because that will cause low pressure due to Bernouli's law"

As you said, it's always the other way around. The diffuser creates a low pressure zone and that will "suck" air into it, thus will speed air, nearby, to fill that low pressure zone.

I'll never stop facepalming when people(not here but complete layman elsewhere who think themselves to be aero experts) say the reason for high noses being used in F1 is to "send to more air underneath the car(under the floor) because that will speed airflow(due to Venturi) and thus will create downforce"

And the alarming thing is that there is still a bunch of people who thinks this is what it is intended to to.

Sending more air under the car will only "break" the low pressure underneath it more and more and thus reduce downforce. And it's not that difficult to see the the teatray/splitter is there to "collect the air" and send it around the sidepods, to prevent the air coming from the high nose to enter down the floor.

[beelsebob]

GA yet again showing he is clueless. He always says Ferrari have got it wrong. The only major difference between the Ferrari nose, and the Mercedes nose is the Ferrari is about 2 inches (5 cm) lower. So that according to him, drops the Ferrari from an above average 7 to a below average 4. Thats simply ridiculous, why anyone pays him to write this junk is beyond me.

Also, I really don't get his comment about generating lift... The air flows under the chassis because of the low pressure there. If there's low pressure there, it's generating DF, not lift.

[bhall]

There's a reason why Gary Anderson is a former technical director.