methods to increase passing

[Becker4]

in many other threads on this forum, people have been bringing up the need to create more passing in F1, and ways in which to do it. the main two methods by which to do this seem to be a decrease in the downforce acting on the cars, and a decrease in the braking power the cars have. so, i started this thread thinking we could all get our ideas together in one spot and discuss way by which this could be acheived. there are many issues related to this, such as the risk of F1 becoming so regulated and stiffled as to turn it into a "nascar" like series, taking away the technological competition that is so vital to the sport; and also the risk of downgrading technology too much, so that the notion of F1 as the pinnacle of automotive technology becomes untrue.

i have heard quite a few ideas by which we could accomplish this, like a pop off valve that limits the pressure applied to the braking calipers, or a reduction in the size of the disk, etc. one idea i have been thinking about on the aerodynamic side is to limit to a far greater aspect the amount of "tuning" the teams can do to there cars at each track - what if they had to design the car with just one aerodynamic setup, a compromise that they would have to use at all the tracks? anyway, im looking forward to hearing all your ideas on these, and other ways to spice up bernies spectacle with more passing.

[Irvingthien]

I say ban traction control so each drivers different driving style may result in different spped coming out of corners,so it may increase passing.

[marcush.]

I honestly think it is not the task of anyone to create passing opportunities but the driver who sits at the controls of the car behind.
There are Drivers creating overtaking opportunities ,like Montoya and Michael and others seem to follow up as close as possible waiting for something that will never happen.
Overtaking is an art some guys happen to have and developing it to perfection and others seem to always try things impossible and end up trapped in the graveltraps.
Take a countryside road and a car without much grunt and try to overtake
a slower car .As long as you stick at his bumper you will never ever find a
slot to overtake as you cannot build up speed fast enough to make the maneouvre stick without hitting the traffic coming up in front of you.But leave a gap and build up momentum before you reach the slower car eh voila ,passing is easy....
Of course Formula 1 is not quite like that ,but overtaking does happen so find better drivers and we will see more action.

[marcush.]

I honestly think it is not the task of anyone to create passing opportunities but the driver who sits at the controls of the car behind.
There are Drivers creating overtaking opportunities ,like Montoya and Michael and others seem to follow up as close as possible waiting for something that will never happen.
Overtaking is an art some guys happen to have and developing it to perfection and others seem to always try things impossible and end up trapped in the graveltraps.
Take a countryside road and a car without much grunt and try to overtake
a slower car .As long as you stick at his bumper you will never ever find a
slot to overtake as you cannot build up speed fast enough to make the maneouvre stick without hitting the traffic coming up in front of you.But leave a gap and build up momentum before you reach the slower car eh voila ,passing is easy....
Of course Formula 1 is not quite like that ,but overtaking does happen so find better drivers and we will see more action.

Would anyone believe if we elongated braking distance there would be more overtaking?Why should this be,Ithink the opposite is true:The shorter the braking distance ,the more difficult it is to judge the point where to apply the brakes .the slightest mistake will carry you way beyond your perfect apex so late breaking is in fact a big risk.Early breaking will open the door for competitors as well as murder your brakes,as the time to cool down is drastically reduced. think about it.
Traction control is a heap of --- nobody needs.give the drivers a gearstick back and you will see againmissed shifts and drivers applying their ability to preserve their cars in competition.

[350plus]

My suggestions would be:
- Change body regulations to increase the cars drag coeficient
- Limit the braking power, by regulating the piston and discs maximum dimensions.
- Keep traction control (There is nothing we can do against it... It can be hidden in almost every electronic component)

All these can be easily done, but we must remember that the main reason why passing does not happen frequently is because the drivers are afraid to make contact and damage the cars as they are relatively fragile... Maybe if the cars could withstand a bit more of contact without loosing a wheel or two that could lead to a bit more of emotion. But this really seems impossible to achieve technically.

[marcush.]

are Formula 1 cars very slippery ? no they are effectively a barndoor ,creating downforce.
braking power reduction will allow the average driver to stop as well as michael schuhmacher.
any Driver new to Formula 1 is specifically impressed by the braking powers.And I bet these drivers are impressed because it takes quite a while to master these stopping devices.
Traction control? You can effectively control it so easily if you allow only one single map for the engine per weekend and the parameters are limited to engine revs,Water temp ,Airtemp ,throttleangle.
But again this all has nothing to do with overtaking as the rules are the rules.
Renault doing abetter job in Sarting strategy do actually gain positions by using clever technologies every weekend .Or does the start not count to overtaking anymore?

[eweturn]

I believe that that the aero side contributes the most to the lack of overtaking. That is, it is much harder to stay close in a corner due to the dirty air from the car infront.

How effective do you think it would be limiting the total exposed surface area of the car?? Then the designer would have to have work with a copmpromise on the design. That is, the surface area used for the percentage gain from the bardge borads maybe more effectively used elsewhere.

I would also love to go back to the old format of qualify on min fuel and race with no fuel stops (pit only for tyres). It would reward fuel efficent engine (0.3sec a lap per 10kg??) and good chasis (less tyre ware = less pity stop). If would also influenece the design again simply by having to accomidate race fuel.

As far as brake are concerded, Alain Prost said a few years ago that he would like to see steel disc brake used. I think this was because wear quicker and are less heat tolerent. With regards to braking reference points, it would be dependant on the equipment I would have thought (though I can see Marcush's argument). There is an optimum braking point and anything other than that is an over or undershoot of that point, with the best guy coming to the top.

[Steven]

well I am convinced that inventing new regulations is not a good idea, as I am firmly backing a simple regulation book, with still some room left for the designers.

My suggestions would be these:
- remove the maximum brake disc diameter regulation, and change it to a maximum brake disc surface of 2000cm² (the current max diameter gives room for a 2410cm² brake disc) => this makes creating new brake pads easy, since the outside diameter may remain the same (a maximum brake pad surface may have the same effect though)
- remove the limits on brake duct sizes, smaller brakes will make it unnecesary to have large ducts for cooling
- increase the length of the wooden reference plate under the car 50mm at the rear, and limit the rear overhang to 500mm behind the wheel centre line (instead of the two limitations now being 500mm and 600mm) This to reduce the diffuser's efficiency.

[SKRAT]

Some random thoughts I'll introduce here too:

More passing comes from 'tighter' races. Can't have cars a minute clear and expect exciting racing action. There's a growing disparity betweens the haves and have-nots due to ability to fund technology.

Maybe the car makers have to back off from full sponsorship of the racing teams. Make it so that there are at least 3 competitive makers of a component (engine, chassis, tyres, etc.) but the teams get to pick and combine. That way car maker X can still spend hundreds of millions on development and engineering, but any given team has the ability to buy and use it.

I think if the point race for the driver's title is close, the drivers will risk their machines more. MS tried to shunt off JV back when.
-Paul C

[Steven]

again here we have my personnel limitation, which is likely to closen the battle a little, since privateers don't have such a large disadvantage then

[Rogue230]

Do you realy want to return to when the cars looked like kazoos on wheels?

Two things will accomplish your goals, being very basic to start: increase braking distances and close following distances.

A decrease, and a signifficant one, in aero would do both.

Less aero means less braking the car will tollerate before the wheels lock-up. This would make for more room to pass under braking.

Making your own passing opportunity with things the way they are is not so easy unless you're a magician.

As a car moves down the track it drags the air it passes through along with it. Don't believe me? Stand next to a highway with semi trucks racing by.

This gives all the advantages to the car in front because the 'air-speed' of the following car is less than that of the lead car. e.g. A car going 200kph into still air has an air-speed of 200kph, but if the air in its wake is now moving in the car's direction at 30kph the car behind, also travelling at 200kph, or trying to, has an air speed of only 170kph!

Consider Monza; you have a high-speed corner, you need down-force to keep from flying off the track. The closer you get to the car in front the less down-force you have so you must either drop back or go off.

Reduced down-force should allow cars to run closer together and make the braking zone larger giving more passing opportunities. But how to reduce aero? and by how much?

Present regs have increased C of F because, by allowing only two rear wing elements, cars need to run higher attack angles on the wings to get the same down-force thereby incurring more drag.

Reduction in aero would also put more emphasis on mechanical grip adding another variable to the equasion.

I personnally don't want to see kazoo races again but I don't want NASCAR-F1 either!

The regs over the past ten years or so seem to have caused a lot of the trouble the FIA are now trying to regulate away!

My favorite suggestion is to eliminate Ecclestone and Mosely!

[Steven]

what do you mean by kazoo races anyway?

I'm just saying some things are way too complicated in the current regulations, and my suggestions for simplicity will not only make it all more understandable, it decreases aero efficiency (diffuser) and brake force (max disc surface)

I wish to compare it with Belgium, since 4 years there is a special commission that does nothing but reading laws, study them, and eliminate all unnecesary/redundant crap.

[Becker4]

i agree that traction control should be done away with, for sure. yes it would be hard to police, but if a way could be found it would be good. i also think that drivers should go back to a regular gear box that they have to shift - not this paddle shifting crap, but something with a shift knob and three pedals. i doubt you could ever get this to happen though. on the aero side of things, i still think that forcing the teams to have one aero set up for every track for the whole year could be a good idea - it cuts down the aero efficiancy on most track, since no two are the same, so your set up would always be just a little bit off. also it would be a cost cutting measure, as the teams wouldn't have to spend so many recourses before each race finding the optimum set up, and testing cost would be reduced as there woulnd't be as many variables to try. it would place a huge priority on mechanical grip, chassis balance and low C of G also.

[marcush.]

Who said there was more passing in the past?
Iwell remember dull and boring processions on the Hockenheim Grandprix circuit in the 80s ,all those super turbo wonders with rather crude aero stuff ,ground effects starting to gain influence but no overtaking in the whole race the same was true in Cosworth quasi spec engine times.
So all your assumptions are not valid .
The teams have spend huge sums into their CFD and tunnel Projects
they would never agree to a ban of sophisticated aero stuff.
The only way to get rid of the ground effect is to raise the car substantially and to forbid to run the car in rake.
I´m sure CFD and really big tunnels have led teams to run two cars in interaction to gain knowledge as how to not loose too much front downforce when following another car just wait a little more...
But where are the places where you actually could slipstream another car?
The fast corners are long gone ,it is more of a dragrace from one slow corner to another.The new stuff is all about creating grip ,go offline and there is no grip at all .I never saw a driver go deliberately offline to remove the marbles in advance for a planned overtaking manoevre inthe next laps....you sure can see that in oval races.
In all times there were drivers who passed orthers and lesser ones who
got passed and ones that were impossible to pass.
One has to remember inspired Mansell ,Villeneuve and Senna drives and
see the parallels to JPM and Michael.
Racing is a difficult art and passing should be difficult,just look at those
Handford spoiled Oval races inthe usa ...everybody could overtake anyone ,hundrets of overtaking manoevres....but soon you get fed up
with that ,they devalued the sport and got rid of it.

[rb]

I have no idea whether it would work, but could it be that making the rear wing higher has the effect that a car can maintain its front aerodynamic grip level instead of losing it (like now), when it's right behind another car. The consequence is that cars can stay close together in high speed corners and that overtaking on the straights can increase.
Maybe the rear wing change is not the method to do this, but anyhow I would like to see that: close racing with inches between the cars and not a couple of yards.
For the record: I don't know that much about aerodynamics.