Max's plan for 'no wing' F1

[akbar21881]

From http://www.F1racing.net:
Max's plan for 'no wing' F1
If Max Mosley had a free hand, he'd take a grand prix car's front and rear wing off, and slap-on a chunky set of slick rubber. Then, the FIA president added, we'd be in for some racing. "It would produce a lot more overtaking," Mosley claimed.
If he got his own way on a technical code for 2008 and beyond, it might just happen. And it could even be imposed earlier -- pending a (near impossible) unanimous teams' vote.

"Well, we're looking at it," he vowed. "We're getting some outside advice on it, but there does seem to be a case for doing something."

Max's ideal F1 car would also likely feature standard braking, a standardised centre of gravity, and a fixed ECU (electronic) unit.



Isnt the first part of Max Mosley's suggestion is interesting? No wing plus slicks!! But the second part of suggestion, comprises standardised braking,ecu and cg are rubbish as it prevent the technology from being implemented.[/b]

[joseff]

I agree... my favorite GP car of all time is also one of the first ones: Ferrari 125.

I think wingless F1 cars today would look something like the lotus 340R or Ariel Atom, both of which look AWESOME imho.

[pompelmo]

KILL MAX MOSLEY

[Scuderia_Russ]

The billions spent on aerodynamics over the years, although arguably worth it at the time will effectively be flushed down the toilet.

[Guest]

Brilliant idea by Max.

[ralphusion]

Although Max' idea seems good, i'll have to say that F1 cannot afford to substitute technology with spectating value. There needs to be a balance between the two which essentially is brought in by the drivers.
As of this moment, I'm pretty sure everybody's gonna disagree with the fact that the drivers are making it count. Thats primarily coz we have a rocket in schumi. But looking at performances by the rest of the pack, and improvements in aero packages in a lot of teams, it doesn't seem too far when we'll get the very essence of spectacular wheel-to-wheel shows by these flyers.

[Steven]

Although Max' idea seems good, i'll have to say that F1 cannot afford to substitute technology with spectating value. There needs to be a balance between the two which essentially is brought in by the drivers.
As of this moment, ....

exactly! I think it's just a good idea to think about but not to implement as is. I may help in adding some racing by working into that direction, but that is basically what they are doing right now too

For those who didn't know yet, I don't like mosely and that isn't bettering with these suggestions though .

[sharkie17]

i think its a great idea.

sure research into aerodynamics will drastically be reduced but the research into other areas will significantly increase.

implementations of other technology will still make wingless F1 "state of the art".

(disagree with fixed ECU and standard braking tho... this isnt NASCAR)

[red300zx99x]

Sure wing removal would drastically reduse downforce, but it could lead to some very good racing. Without wings aero research would still continue. Personally I think the aero on the LMP type cars are much more attractive then any open wheel design. Remember most of the downforce is from the diffuser, I would hate to see that go. But standard ecus, rubbish. Same with the brakes. But slicks.......I kiss the ground you walk on

[Reca]

Without wings the importance of aero research would be doubled at least. It’s lot easier to design a wing to produce downforce and then the car to make wings to work in the best way (then optimise the coupling and adding some parts for more downforce), than to design the whole car to generate downforce without wings. Furthermore it would be probably even more dependant by boundary conditions (ie, another car wake) than a winged car is now.
As long as we live in air and F1 car are faster than 100 km/h, there’s no way to reduce the importance of aero research, you could just make it a bit easier. Unfortunately any time you introduce a direct limitation, being it in wing size or number of elements or diffuser, whatever, you don’t make impossible to generate downforce, you just make it more difficult, and even more difficult to generate it in an efficient way. But that certainly doesn’t mean that the engineers will give up on it, on the contrary they will work harder, they will find downforce again but it will be more critical => more dependant by the boundary condition => perfect on clean air, a disaster in the wake. The fact that on the qualifying lap you have a single car on the track and that in recent years the winning strategy was to reduce the stint length and to put fast laps right before the stop when you have no one in front of you, certainly didn’t increase the necessity for engineers to design a car that works well in another car’s wake. It’s better to optimise it for clean air, it’s in that condition that the ultimate performance is required, when a driver is behind someone else to change strategy is better on the current system. If engineers had to face the problem of downforce reduction in another car’s wake, they would surely work to solve it, currently they just ignore it because there are different ways to avoid the situation, these ways are called single lap qualifying, refuelling, pit stop strategy. New rule on the single set of tyre for the whole race could make things a bit better but probably isn’t enough.

[Monstrobolaxa]

Reca is right, removing wings will just make the teams spend more money in windtunnel testing in order to find small gains from other parts....

[Guest]

Reca is right, removing wings will just make the teams spend more money in windtunnel testing in order to find small gains from other parts....

Small and insignificant gains.

[sharkie17]

lot of the research into critical boundary condition AND tunnel work was done (surprise) by NASCAR.

you can do a lots of aero research to produce downforce, but honestly, i dont see how you can produce significant amount of downforce without a diffuser (i said significant). and diffusers probably will get banned.

[DaveKillens]

x

[kevinp]

That would be a great idea... to set a limit to the effects of downforce (i.e. put the car in a tunnel and measure its mass at a particular speed to determine how much downforce it makes).

I'm pretty sure if the limits were set too low (like 5% of mass of the vehicle at rest), designers would even be scrambling to REDUCE downforce. hahaha...

I'd love to see f1 cars get back to relying on mechanical grip with little or no reliance on aerodynamic grip.