What about imposing a drag limit in aero rules?

[rgava]

I was thinking about this possibility for a future rule to limit aero without beig so much restrictive like todays rules.
I've heard that to improve overtaking cars should rely more on mechanical grip and reduce turbulent wake.
Both things can be achieved if rules impose a drag limit like engine rules impose a fuel flow limit.
This could drive aero development towards more road car relavance and make a paralell trend to aero efficiency like it is today on engine efficiency.
If this is carefully studied, drag limit can be reduced on an yearly base to push development.
What do you think about?

[wesley123]

How are you going to enforce that? Downforce can sort of be enforced as it will generate load through the tires and suspension, and even that would be a difficult thing to enforce.

Drag merely limits the top speed(and acceleration to some extent), and can be overcome by more horsepower and also gearing will aid in top speed. I'm not really familiar to the subject, but to me it sounds to be difficult to enforce. And if it can reliably be enforced it would be something that the teams would like, as you then can make solid assumptions about their drag(and thus, to an extent, downforce) and horsepower. Teams don't really like giving away all that information.

[rgava]

As today use of Wind tunnel and CFD is limited, there should be there a policy to check that.

If a drag limit is enforced, then teams will have to homologate aero packages before racing them.

As simple as a FIA delegate being present at the wind tunnel to homologate that aero package has lower or equal drag to the enforced value.

At the same time, it could totally change the way teams works aero. Perhaps it will not make sense anymore to develop circuit specific aero packages. Just to develop througout the year one package to deliver more and more downforce with the same drag limit.

[Shooty81]

At the same time, it could totally change the way teams works aero.

Especially it will put the focus on making a development, that creates the downforce without showing the drag in the windtunnel

[wesley123]

As today use of Wind tunnel and CFD is limited, there should be there a policy to check that.

If a drag limit is enforced, then teams will have to homologate aero packages before racing them.

In F1, developments are so incredibly quickly, most teams bring new aero parts almost every race. To homologate each and every one of those packages will be hugely impractical. It also makes the series close to a spec series, where everything is closely regulated. Things as simple as a gurney would need to be homologated before they can actually be applied, because such things will affect drag.

And a thing to note about drag is that it needs to be overcome with power. Seeing how power is limited this itself imposes a virtual drag limit.

[PlatinumZealot]

I was thinking about this possibility for a future rule to limit aero without beig so much restrictive like todays rules.
I've heard that to improve overtaking cars should rely more on mechanical grip and reduce turbulent wake.
Both things can be achieved if rules impose a drag limit like engine rules impose a fuel flow limit.
This could drive aero development towards more road car relavance and make a paralell trend to aero efficiency like it is today on engine efficiency.
If this is carefully studied, drag limit can be reduced on an yearly base to push development.
What do you think about?

So like a maximum drag? It is an Interesting Idea...

How would you measure this though? Tyres are not the most consistent things so how would you ensure accurate measurement? Would you bring along a miniature wind tunnel at every race? What is the speed that you will measure the drag at? If it is not at the highest speed it will be pointless to regulate the teams.

[Shooty81]

Why not just use more high speed tracks like Monza or the old Hockenheim?

[piast9]

If there was smaller discrepancy in the PU horsepower between manufacturers then the rule might be enforced as a requirement of reaching certain speed at the speed trap in qualifying. Failing to do so might result in time penalty added to the qualifying lap time.

[bhall II]

Since drag squares with speed, and the power required to overcome it is cubed concurrently, I think it's probably safe to assume designers already put forth considerable effort toward improving L/D ratio.

For instance, Lotus tried for years to implement a so-called "passive DRS" in order to shed induced drag at speeds beyond those for which downforce is necessary.



And I remain convinced that Red Bull's flexible front wings were designed to shed induced drag through a progressive reduction in wing tip ride height that ultimately caused the force-enhancing tip vortices to burst.



Also note MP4-26's radically reduced sidepod frontal area and RB7's reduced rear wing frontal area. Both designs are entirely devoted to drag reduction.

So, I'm not really sure this is an area of performance that needs to be incentivized through regulation. For sure, downforce tends to come first. But, that doesn't mean drag is ignored.

[RicME85]

The 26 was an odd looking car but at the same time I loved the design

[Just_a_fan]

And I remain convinced that Red Bull's flexible front wings were designed to shed induced drag through a progressive reduction in wing tip ride height that ultimately caused the force-enhancing tip vortices to burst.

Yes, the media were going on about downforce increasing but it was obviously about drag reduction. The best way to reduce drag is to reduce the downforce creating, and hence drag creating, structures around the car. The front wing has a massive effect on overall performance, including drag and it's the only bit that you could get away with using this trick for.

There was an interesting piece in one of the mags a few months ago where they looked at F1 aero. One of the things they played with was the effect that front wing angle ad on the performance of the rear of the car. Reducing the angle reduced the overall downforce. This trick by RB would have had the same effect as reducing the angle of the front wing.

[bill shoe]

There are lots of reasons it would be very difficult to implement. However, when I take a step back from the close-up problems the big picture philosophy actually looks pretty good. It requires efficiency without setting a hard limit on downforce. Make as much downforce as you want, just make it efficiently.

You will never implement this via CFD or wind tunnel figures, etc. for all the reasons that have been described already in this thread. However, you could set a limit on the average drag as a function of speed, and verify it with an FIA approved torque sensor on the drive hubs.

This would include all aspects of drag, so in addition to aero-drag you have tire-drag. Tire drag becomes huge in corners. But you would set an overall limit on drag as a function of speed over the course of a lap. The limit would probably be more complicated than a simple linear thing, it might have a squared term plus a linear term, or something like that. But just set the limit and see who could go the quickest.

This would test efficiency of chassis, as opposed to the current F1 which only tests efficiency of powertrain. The efficiency of chassis would challenge trendy slogans like BMW's "Efficient Dynamics" or Porsche's "Intelligent Performance". And with this one elegant but massive change, you could ditch all the minutia of bodywork dimensional limitations and open up the Engineering/Design freedom again. Adrian Newey could look forward to his day!!!

Notice this also challenges tire companies to come up with performance tires that are efficient (large lateral force relative to longitudinal drag). If Michelin thinks they're so damn great with efficiency then let them prove it with more than slogans.

Anyway, I think there is much good in the concept once you get past the assumptions about how it would be measured and enforced.

[rgava]

@Bill: You fully got the philosofy behind my idea.

It's in aero design the same as the fuel flow limit on engine design.
Road cars are not developed to reach max downforce but to reduced drag.
So, why not to encourage a similar path for F1 aero development?
Of course, as some of you are stating, it's tricky to be implemented in terms of the in-race measurement.
But, if we take the broader picture and think in changing overall working methods could be an interesting thing.
IMO, less drag =>less turbulent wake => more easy to run closer to the car in front => increased overtating opportunities.
I know each team is working hard to optimize L/D ratio, but today this is done in the search of the quckest lap time whitin a very restrictive set of dimensional rules.
My proposal is to relax those dimensional rules to encourage innovation, but with a clear target to improve efficiency.
Let's say that today's cars have an average CD of 0.56 (variable from track to track) if rules enforce a maximum CD of 0.45, then it will become unusefull to create circuit specific aero packages (possible cost reduction) rather to develop a unique always improving aero package.

[Cold Fussion]

Formula 1 has almost zero road relevance but if we had to pick one area of F1 which had least relevance to road cars it would be aerodynamics. If you really wanted F1 aerodynamics to yield something useful to the rest of the world, forcing through regulation that something like 10% of their budget must be donated to fundamental aerodynamics research at a university somewhere would probably be more useful.

[rgava]

Formula 1 has almost zero road relevance but if we had to pick one area of F1 which had least relevance to road cars it would be aerodynamics. If you really wanted F1 aerodynamics to yield something useful to the rest of the world, forcing through regulation that something like 10% of their budget must be donated to fundamental aerodynamics research at a university somewhere would probably be more useful.

You only got my point about road relevance, but there is more there.
Improving overtaking opportunities.
Working towards efficiency.
Synergy with engine rules: less drag will help with fuel limit.
Possible cost reduction. But this later is a lot tricky because F1 always find tha way to increase expenditure with wathever rulesbook you gave them.