Technical Regulations for 2009-2015

[ben_watkins]

Well if the FIA press on with the single engine, then I can see that the manufacturers will have no problem in setting up a break away formula. In fact I think they should. I'm just sick of the FIAsco!

[oj1983]

While I think that F1 should be the pinicle of motor sport I under stand the FIA trying to introduce mesures to restrain spending. From what I gather one of the options the FIA are thinking about is customer engines for 5M a year. This seems excessively prohibitive to me. I think they are bidding low for a mid point solution. The FOTA suggested 10M which sounds like a better sum. Not too expensive but enough to allow developement.

Also why is CVT banned? Did one team have a head start enough to be far ahead of other teams?

Personally I like 2.4 V8s as they still sound amazing (I think Honda went for noise rather than power though!), but flexi wings, CVT & KERS technology can all be applied to road cars given time. OK flexi wings may need more development but all the best solutions take time. I say massively reduce wing size or angle of attack but allow flexibility and watch the engineers really earn thier money. Surely inovation is the way forward.

Maybe I just like change?!

Look forward to hearing your thought.

Owen

[ISLAMATRON]

Flexi wings are way too dangerous, they were right to be banned, I dont want to see any more dead drivers.

They are talking Euros not dollers... FIA wants 5M Euros(about 10 million dollars) and FOTA came back with 10M Euros (close to 20M dollars). This is for 25 engines over the course of a season, plus tech support... I wonder why they dont include a price for gearboxes & KERS. Anyone know How Much Williams, RBR, STR & FIF1 pay currently? I think they all produce their own gearboxes.... I allways wondered why RBR didnt buy Renault gearbozxes last couple years when theirs was blowing up constantly, maybe against the rules.

CVT & KERS would go great ogether, they are almost perfectly matched... but CVT's are banned, but that might change come 2013. I know there is video up on youtube of Williams testing a CVT, they said it was good for a couple seconds a lap improvement, but couldnt last the length of a GP, but that was back mid nineties.

[Conceptual]

I don't know what the answers are, but I am sure of one thing.

No matter what happens, F1 will still be F1, and people will still watch. If another race series emerges with a "better" formula, then F1 will find itself in competition again.

The largest problem to me is that F1 has no competition, thus has become complacent in its approach to motor racing.

Maybe if the IndyCar series rolls up a better formula, then F1 will find that the BS needs to go away, and the focus be on regaining the pinnacle formula.

It is the formula that determines the summit. Now how you measure them is open for some objective criteria, but people need to remember one thing...

F1 is the current pinnacle of motorsport, but the pinnacle of motorsport is not F1.

There needs to be a set of objective measurments that can be applied to the formula to determine the "best".

I am all for some discussion on how to set up an objective measurment system... Then it can be used to classify all world motorsport.

Sounds like a website of the future...

[Ogami musashi]

Flexi wings are way too dangerous, they were right to be banned, I dont want to see any more dead drivers.

On this basis, we should not allow anything starting from combustion engines.
I don't recall any driver killed by a flexi wing in F1.
Even if it was the case, technology matures, and if flexible wing are to be used for combat airplanes i think it is fairly possible to have them for F1 too.

[ISLAMATRON]

Flexi wings are way too dangerous, they were right to be banned, I dont want to see any more dead drivers.

On this basis, we should not allow anything starting from combustion engines.
I don't recall any driver killed by a flexi wing in F1.
Even if it was the case, technology matures, and if flexible wing are to be used for combat airplanes i think it is fairly possible to have them for F1 too.

A blown engine has not killed any drivers as far as I remeember, but I remember a number of accidents in the not so distant past from broken rear wings, JV in Eau rouge, KIMI at McLaren a couple times and a spyker or two to name a couple. All broken rear wings and all led to pretty major accidents. All of them can be sourced backed to the engineers "testing the limits" with flexi wings.

Reading your posts I see you probably are an engieneer of some type such as myself, and you will agree F1 engineers push every limit to the maximum and Flexi wings breaking at high speeds are a very dangerous propasition. So without proper regulations and safety tests(that the FIA does not seem interested in) I think that flexi wings are far too dangerous to be implemented.

Moveable aero is a technology I would like to see implemented... especially variable cooling intakes, that would be really cool, and possibly very road relevant.

[Ogami musashi]

A blown engine has not killed any drivers as far as I remeember

A blow engine has killed a lot of people in a lot of opportunities, just as fuel killed people, just as many other technologies killed people.
Development is not done in 2 years but technologies mature.

You'are using electricity on a daily basis and lord that's a dangerous thing when it goes wrong.

but I remember a number of accidents in the not so distant past from broken rear wings, JV in Eau rouge, KIMI at McLaren a couple times and a spyker or two to name a couple. All broken rear wings and all led to pretty major accidents. All of them can be sourced backed to the engineers "testing the limits" with flexi wings.

That's an assumption i think, nobody proved it and by the way a rigid wing may take off as well and i would even say more in many cases.
Exposed to high loads a rigid wing can break while a flexi wing will...flex.

The danger of flexi wing is, you're right, when the flexibility is pushed to the limits but that's because a load of parameters are/were not understood (starting with aero loads variations).
That doesn't mean the flexi wings can't be run safely. As i said, they are designed at the moment in highly developped manner (with actuators) in aeronautics.

Moveable aero is a technology I would like to see implemented... especially variable cooling intakes, that would be really cool, and possibly very road relevant.

Moveable aero is just a part of the variable aerodynamics which includes passive and active aero-elasticity. Moveable aerodynamics is not done properly in phase with the aeroloads can have disastrous effects like wing divergence or flutter.

But the same goes with a lot of technologies used and to be used in F1. Do you think a flywheel running at 100,000 RPM (that's about mach 1.5) is not dangerous by nature?

[Metar]

May I also point out another potential flaw with standard engines as opposed to the current situation?

Many here (or so it seemed) compared the idea of a standard engine to the Cosworth DFV era and it's many teams - but such a state won't return, I suspect. We forget that while the engine will be cheap and equal, the few manufacturers that would choose to stay will still spend their fortunes on the other development-areas allowed (few as they will be) to gain an advantage. The importance of whatever the FIA leaves open for development will be enormous, and instead of pouring 100m$ at the engines (like they used to) or at the aero-departments (like now), they'll throw that money at that.
At the same time, I believe, the amazing amount of money required to keep the cars up to speed is just part of the problem with bringing in more teams: I suspect that the costs of simply raising a team in the first place are enormous enough to prevent that, never mind actually building a competitive car, which, for example, Toyota, with all their money, still didn't get quite right. Super Aguri did well, but they had a (by-luck)race-winning car to start with..


It appears to me that the current status with the V8s is pretty solid. Forcing teams to notify others of their "reliability-updates" would probably allow all of them to reach the same level of power rather quickly (doesn't something like that already exist? How else could Renault make up ground in the engine-department that quickly?). Such a rule could be combined with a low, regulated price for the whole power-package supplies, enough for a season. That would be easier, would keep manufacturers interested, and would cost the privateers as little as that standard engine. And, just as a side-effect, nobody would now have to start developing a new engine, make sure it lasts the distance, has the power, and then fail to win the tender.

[pgj]

@Metar, you eloquently make several good points. However, you miss what I believe is the underlying reason for the FIA proposing such swingeing changes - the desire to see manufacturers removed from F1 as team owners.

Eighteen months ago or so, Max made the statement that the Williams business model was obsolete. Max has done a 180 since then. If Max removes manufacturers as owners he also removes a lot of the R&D funding that they bring with them. Max wants to remove the funding at source IMO.

[WhiteBlue]

@Metar, you eloquently make several good points. However, you miss what I believe is the underlying reason for the FIA proposing such swingeing changes - the desire to see manufacturers removed from F1 as team owners.

Eighteen months ago or so, Max made the statement that the Williams business model was obsolete. Max has done a 180 since then. If Max removes manufacturers as owners he also removes a lot of the R&D funding that they bring with them. Max wants to remove the funding at source IMO.

There is no factual basis for that opinion. The policies of the FiA with regards to manufacturers have not changed for several years. The objective is to focus the money spend on technologies that benefit energy efficiency and road relevance.

The FiA has held the view for a long time that having obscene amounts of money should not be a competitive advantage per se. So they keep extending the longevity of expensive components and establish certain standard technologies (ECU, tyres).

For more than ten years they have tried to agree decent prices for engine supplies to independant teams based on actual cost (the manufacturig cost). All negotiation about this point have lead to dead ends over the years. This triggered the engine freeze in the first place.

Now it is clear that the current engines have a relatively high manufacturing price, high energy consumption and too much power in combination with high regenerative systems as we expect them in 2011 or 2012.

Consequently people think the engine formula should be changed to unlock the potential improvements to cost and efficiency in the coming years.

The manufacturer teams can see that they are not the experts in the technologies that are going to produce the power in the years to come. Those systems will require expertise in electrical engineering, energy storage, high power solid state electronics and other arcane disciplines they typically buy from suppliers. Independant teams can do the same.

So a real threat to the top teams is taking away the means to drive engine development for competitive advantage. This is the stick the FiA used to finally get the FOTA to agree to the 5 mil € target price. They will get there in stages but in the end the FiA will have their 5 mil € engine and the manufacturer teams will have the opportunity to do a superior integration job with the engine and the regenerative systems. The whole standard engine issue was just the stick to force the manufacturers to accept the supply price.

FiA and FOM would be very foolish to chase away the manufacturers and FOTA would never be able to break away against FiA and FOM. All sides know this. Nevertheless the smoke and mirror ritual has to be performed to keep the face.

[pgj]

Will someone post the regulations regarding the moving front wing section please. I want to find out if there is anything that determines where the section is hinged. And also whether there is a restriction on whether the section has to move upwards or downwards.

When I first heard about the moving section, it seemed to be quite straightforward. After giving it some thought though, it seems that there could be scope for more variation.

[D'Leh]

3.18 Driver adjustable bodywork :
A single closed section situated each side of car centre line in the volume bounded by :
- lines 450mm and 800mm in front of the front wheel centre line ;
- a vertical plane which intersects these lines at a distance 250mm from the car centre line ;
- and the inboard face of the bodywork described in Article 3.7.5 ;
is allowed to change incidence while the vehicle is in motion within a maximum range of 6 degrees,
provided any such change maintains compliance with all of the bodywork dimensional regulations.
Alteration of the incidence of these sections must be made simultaneously and may only be commanded
by direct driver input and controlled using the control electronics specified in Article 8.2. Except when the
car is in the pit lane, a maximum of two adjustments may be made within any single lap of a circuit.

The official ressource of the FIA is down every now and then. So i uploaded the pdf at a filehosting service. It's dated to June 11:
http://www.file-upload.net/download-126 ... 8.pdf.html

[pgj]

My understanding of the movable front wing section has always been that it was the FIA's intention that it should be used to provide extra down force. Would there be any merit in a team using it to remove downforce? The surprising recommendation of the OWG was to introduce a lifting section of front wing to offset the aero-inversion that takes place when following a car. Accepting this principle, using the movable front wing section to remove downforce would increase available downforce when following a car. Could it also be used in conjunction with a KERS boost on a straight?

[D'Leh]

Sure, that's quite a reasonable thought. Just imagine Indianapolis for example. You could setup the adjustable front wing to give the perfect balance in the infield when it's in the steep position and lower the part as soon as you enter the very long straight. It would still help you overtaking because frankly, you would have less drag after you moving out of the slipstream of your opponent.

The rule only restricts the thing to one change of AoA plus the reverse change obviously. How you're gonna use it is up to you.

[djos]

My understanding of the movable front wing section has always been that it was the FIA's intention that it should be used to provide extra down force. Would there be any merit in a team using it to remove downforce? The surprising recommendation of the OWG was to introduce a lifting section of front wing to offset the aero-inversion that takes place when following a car. Accepting this principle, using the movable front wing section to remove downforce would increase available downforce when following a car. Could it also be used in conjunction with a KERS boost on a straight?

It is only allowed to be adjusted once per lap I think and the rules seem to indicate to a higher setting, not a lower setting.