From the top of my head (bad idea, but I'm in a hurry).
RabMcH wrote:If you take a look at the past few Indy car races, many drivers are involved in collisions involving a cars front wing being picked up by the rear wheel, of the car in front, cause full course yellows and thus making the race more boring, these covers should reduce that chance and allow for a more competitive race.
Sure. I completely agree.
I think that's their primary function. Ugly or not, they are
beautiful from the point of view of safety.
I don't know if those fenders can also double as mini-diffusers, the same way that the curved bottom part of the rear crash structure is used by some F1 teams. They seem, to my untrained eye (only trained here, so you can imagine the results...) that they are in the same general plane of the "main" diffuser.
I also love the Deltawing model. It seems to me that the concept is solid.
Can I say that it is insensitive to wing height? Or am I mistaken? The more I think about it, the more I like it, to be sincere. If you control stability through differential action of rear wheels and most of the weight is there, then the yaw inertia is very low.
Is it like those toys that have a low CG and can balance in the most strange positions, but
horizontally instead of vertically?
If you generate downforce on the same "sweet spot", with a stable rear wing instead of a frontal wing that tumbles around at every curve, well, it seems a winner.
That's the reason (I think) that makes the car look like a "ground fighter". The constraints about wing position in relationship to CG could be very similar. Is that true?
Coupled with an active rear differential (if that's what I think it is) it means you have a Segway-like vehicle, but not vertical: longitudinal.
Final question: don't you reduce the scrub angle necessary for yaw if you apply differential forces to the rear wheels? Actually, you could have an (what I think is) essentially the zero scrub angle of vehicles like tanks, that work entirely by differential braking.
On top of that, you use the braking force (or the accelerating force) to steer, instead of using part to steer and part to brake. Am I mistaken?
About aesthetics, besides the form vs function argument, I sincerely believe that the point of a racing car
can be
also its coolness.
I think both vehicles are cool, because they go way beyond (forgive me, gods of racing!) the "usual" constrained-by-the-rules-to-the-inch survivalist and minimalist design you can see in... erm, elsewhere.
I, as a proud third-world inhabitant, dare to think that the cooler part of these vehicles is their price.
I believe that's what distinguishes good from bad engineering, in the end (and since the beginning).
I guess they're your bread and butter though and no longer a source of entertainment. *kidding* I think it will be fun to see it develop & race, and fun to watch it fail or succeed.
