And you think the FW26's nose is ugly!!!!

[Monstrobolaxa]

So you think the FW26's nose is ugly....so take a look at this one...tested in 1990 by Senna at Monza....

[bernard]

And the frontwing is positioned as close to the gound as possible to create optimal downforce...

[Monstrobolaxa]

The front wing?....don't you mean the bottom of the end plates? the front wing is relativly high!...in those days the main plane of the front wing had to be 5 cm from the reference plane....it that case it way up...I'd say 15 to 20 cm higher then the referance plane

Rethinking....are you being sarcastic?

[Monstrobolaxa]

Once thing I noticed...in 1990 skirts were ilegal....but if you look at the endplates of the front wing...they seem to have a kind os skirt!

[Asphodel]

I think the wing might be positioned that high so that it doesn't interfere with that would go underneath the vehicle. You can create large amount of downforce efficently by using the a diffuser instead of wings.

[Monstrobolaxa]

Yup...and in does days the difuser didn't have the skid underneth....and the diffuser didn't have some many regs upon it. In does days the difuser started further forword! I read somewhere the in those days downforce created by the difueser could go as high as 60% of the total downforce....nowadays were stuck with around 30% - 35%

[bernard]

The front wing?....don't you mean the bottom of the end plates? the front wing is relativly high!

I was being sarcastic.

[bernard]

Notice how ridicilously high the driver is sitting in the car, as comapared to today. Looks stupid and dangerous, dangerous especially for the CofG

[bernard]

as an afterthought... isn't his helmet interfering with the engine's air intake?

[Monstrobolaxa]

Well 14 years ago cars were unsafe....and they didn't worry too much about the air box!

[Monstrobolaxa]

I was just thinking....if you look back over time...designers only started looking at a low driving position after 1995! When the high cockpit sides came into the F1 sceen! If you look at 1995 the Benetton B195 and the Ferrari 412T2 had a fairly high driving positions! In 1996 teams started looking for lower drving positions due to the interferance the hich cockpit sides had on the airbox!...so since the cockpit sides were fixed and couldn't be changed too much the decided to change the other interference....the helmet...so designers started to pull down the drivers....actually also thinking of F1 from 1995 onwards....only in 1996 we started to hear more and more about lowering the CofG...before that the teams just tried to make the car as fast as posible without looking too much at the CofG!...they just tried aerodynamics! and when the regs came in and their "knees were cut" they had to look in other directions and try to find improvments in small things...such as CofG.

[bernard]

Yeah, it is unbelievable how the engineers have overlooked some aspects of design in the past Certainly the benefits of low CofG have been known for decades, so why didn't they employ them? Another thing I'm wondering about is the cockpit opening, if you wish. It is so wide it has to interfere with the aerodynamics. Was this due to regulations or was it just ignorance? I haven't really looked into the old-time regulations.

[Monstrobolaxa]

Well to tell you the truth I don't think it's we can call it ignorance!...at the time big teams had around 200 people working for them....of these about 10 - 25 were specialized in Aerodynamics/aeronautics! So probably if someone didn't think of it...someone else would have!

My guess would be that teams were so interested in developing traction control, semi-auto trans, active suspension and other electronic "parts" that aerodynamics was more or less pushed to the back....nowadays the oposite is happening...with the reduction of electronics teams pay more attention to aerodynamics. If you look back...the actual aerodynamic changes were done after 1994, when electronic aids were banned!

But in any case you are right does cockpits did influence the aero....but....to tell you the truth cockits nowadays are longer then they were pre-1995!....they are longer nowadays...and the opening is slightly bigger but with the high cockpit sides it doesn't seem like it.

Pre-1995 cockpits didn't have a size limit! Mauricio Gugelmin had problems in his March (1991) because when he turned the wheel his fingers sometimes got stuck between the top of the cockpit and the steering whell! Another interesting thing I read was that Martin Brundle in 1992 at Benetton also had problems....but this time with the manual gear box...the lever in the lower gears was too close to his legs! So at the time cockpit sizes weren't in the regs....only after Ayrton's fatal crash they were put into the regulations.

[bernard]

I'm not talking about the actual cockpit, but I'm talking about the cockpit opening. Judging from some pictures they were pretty big, especially in length.

[Monstrobolaxa]

If you read my post...you'll see I also talk about the size of the opening!

to tell you the truth cockits nowadays are longer then they were pre-1995!....they are longer nowadays...and the opening is slightly bigger but with the high cockpit sides it doesn't seem like it.

In the past they made them as small as they could....nowadays they have a bigger opening! just to point out one thing....nowadays at the Ex-Loews hotel corner....you see the hands and part of the steering wheel when total lock is applied...before 1995 in same cars you couldn't see anything!

This doesn't mean that all teams made it that way!...but most of them made them as small as possible!....one famous example the FW16 (with which Senna had the fatal crash)....the hands of the driver were completly inside the cockpit!...and the opening was very small.