Uhh no, it means it's limited, there is an upper limit to the amount of downforce it is possible to produce given the areas allowed to be used, and the profiles alowed to be used. Are F1 teams at it? Absolutely not. Are F1 teams near it? Certainly, they're probably within 3 9s of it for the top teams. The bottom line is, given free reign, you can produce more downforce, no questions asked.Ogami musashi wrote:No. The fact that aero regs are indeed far more strict than before doesn't mean the production of downforce is limited.beelsebob wrote: Okay, and? The downforce generation on an F1 car is extremely limited.
It means the easiest ways are forbidden.
First, if the size of a diffuser was equal to production of downforce then WSR 3.5, GP2's, indy car, FN cars would produce more downforce than F1...which is not the case. Downforce generation by the diffuser is largely dependent on the feed flow which is conditionned by bodywork and front and rear wing couplages...which is precisely where an F1 car is above the rest.[/quote]The P1's diffuser is bigger than the entire diffuser and rear wing structure of an F1 car alone. The rear wing on a P1 is 4 times the size of the rear wing on an F1 car. I would bet heavily that it too would produce more than its own weight in downforce at 150km/h (probably significantly earlier).
No, the reason that these cars don't produce that level of downforce is because they're inherently compromised, just like an F1 car. Is an Indy car allowed to move it's rear wing? No... So it's downforce generation is traded off with its top speed, and the teams choose to go for top speed given the oval nature of the tracks involved.
Do you have a link for this claim? The claim I can find McLaren making is "The new McLaren P1 has much higher levels of downforce than any current road car – 600kg is achieved well below maximum speed. That is approximately five times as much downforce as a McLaren 12C." That's an F1 car's total weight at "well below top speed" – it's entirely reasonable to suppose that means it's generating more downforce than an F1 car, as we're talking "well below top speed" (reasonably, we're talking about 150km/h ranges then), and the entire weight of an F1 car generated.Next you seem to forget a bit that downforce alone is not relevant, downforce to weight is....Which brings me an answer to your wonderings: No the P1 won't produce its weight in downforce at 150km/h for its mclaren themself that said the car would have similar downforce level as the MP4-12C GT3 racer...which is far from producing so much downforce.
The point being that an F1 car doesn't corner at 200km/h average at monaco – note, my assertion was that this car might beat an F1 car round a twisty turny circuit, not that it would beat it round a high downforce circuit like Spain.When you corner at 200km/h average, traction is not the limiting factor in accelerating but power/drag is.Which is great, but not that useful in early acceleration, what you need there is even application of power so that the wheels are applying maximum force to the road surface, and not slipping. Traction control will make the P1, along with many other road cars beat an F1 car off the line, or out of corners easily.
I think you are a bit dreaming at thinking a car with half the power/weight ratios, on grooved tyres can beat an F1 car off the line.
But at the same time, the fact that the wheels are enclosed means you don't have enormous rotating masses kicking up huge amounts of turbulance, and moving in the air flow, causing the air flow behind them to change massively when you steer.Because aero stability is inherently harder with full bodywork cars for you can't direct airflows as well as with open wheelers and because the suspension geometry of Gt cars make load transferts have greater effect on car attitude than open wheelers.What makes you think aero stability is an issue on a car designed by a top F1 team?
And yet, in 1992, we were still a year or two away from Williams developing even the most rudimentary of active suspension systems.You again seem to forget that bigger brakes are there because the car is bigger and heavier; Plus braking force is due to tyre's grip not disks size.[/quot]The P1 gets to have significantly bigger brakes than an F1 car is allowed, meaning more contact area, meaning more force at lower pressures. Add to that that the movable rear wing will almost certainly be positionable to act as an aero brake, and you're looking at some pretty huge braking forces. Open wheelers don't have any inherent advantages these days, in fact, they have significant aero disadvantages.
No, I don't forget that at all – F1's high braking forces are down to two things 1) super sticky tyres 2) super fancy breaks. The aero break compensates for 1 (as it doesn't require friction with the road, only with the air), the large disks compensate for 2 as the higher surface area allows more braking force to be generated despite lower brake pressures.
Which is why when Newey was asked to design a concept car for how F1 might be if the rules weren't so strict, he designed a closed wheeler... wait.Next the airflow conditioning on the rear wing of GT/closed cockpit lmp style car is much worse than an open wheeler. And conversly the drag on the open wheeler rear wing is much greater and is the major reason why drag on open wheeler is so high.
Hum..Group C existed all the way to 1992 where you had the F3.5 cars (peugeot 905, Toyota TS10) which produced massive amount of downforce (up to 6 tons at 320km/h); they also had more top speed than F1 cars, yet couldn't beat them and i'm talking about F1 cars that were far from the speed of the current ones.Group C existed in 1982, way before any significant understanding of movable aerodynamic devices, skirts, under-body aero, diffusers, electronically controlled suspension, traction control, etc existed. The P1 will be trivially faster than Group C.
