Happy that they took a swift decision and didnt get the bean counter out like at Spa a few years back
2 Likes
How many F1 drivers, or their teams, have access to a driving simulator with circuits programmed in?
Given the sad - but necessary - cancellation of the GP, could F1 arrange to get the drivers into simulators for a one-off simulated race? No championship points at stake, but ‘gentleman’ rules to ensure no deliberate crashing out.
They all do. My son in law works for the company that builds the software. It is amazing well documented/accurate.
My only question is, why would they bother ?
1 Like
Charity.
Replacement of a race with something for the fans.
Acknowledgement that without a viewing public there’d likely be no F1, and the drivers would be flipping burgers.
A chance to give something back to the people who watch.
C’mon. I’m sure you can think of good reasons to do this, too.
And the downside? A leading driver might not be as good in a simulated race? Egos might get hurt?
Actually many of the drivers are busy helping out with the clean up of towns in the area.
Besides the fact that there are already simulation (gaming) championships where drivers get involved. I don’t need to see it. It’s bollocks.
1 Like
Noted Karen.
Racing simulators in F1 has been discussed internally at teams for many many years in a derogatory way. They have been designed and developed as engineering tools to help develop vehicle performance in the wider sense and train drivers and as such not suitable for playing games.
If the FIA wanted teams to use their simulators for this purpose they would need to address the following:
- Driver in the Loop Simulators are not equal across F1. Creating a simulator driving contest would start another arms race to develop them.
- Each team typically has one high fidelity simulator and would need to purchase another one so that both drivers could drive.
- Different teams use different engineering software to manage the environment (70% use one software and the rest use their own developed software). All would have to use the same software and it would need to be optimised for gaming.
- The games are not realistic in terms of damage to the car when there are shunts and this would have to be improved massively with very strict use of penalties etc.
- The vehicle model is where the virtual car is managed and that would need to be externally controlled as it is trivial to make a vehicle model that is ridiculously easy and fast to drive around the circuit through parameter changes (e.g. increase grip) or to change the vehicle model to provide a faster car.
And the list just goes on an on.
All fixable of course, but very expensive and with little practical value when it is very rare that a race is cancelled.
7 Likes
Thanks Ian. That makes sense and explains just why it’s not a practical idea.
The need to win combined with inventive ways to alter a simulated performance would likely come to the fore, making management of any such idea a near-impossible task.
1 Like
They should use the Milton Keynes Daytona Go kart track as a stand-in for events like this. Most teams are based nearby anyway.
Thing is it would be far more enjoyable than normal F1.
1 Like
I’m not aware of any restrictions, but the (downforce generating) tunnels leading to the (really basic) diffuser seem really simple. Surely there is room here to generate more downforce, or at least control it.
All the attention seems be forward trying to disperse the air stream.
Surely, you need to capture the air, then you need to make it “work”.
1 Like
Presumably directing most of the air away from the main tunnels is a way to have a lower pressure underneath, also taking the more turbulent air from most of the splitter away?
But disturbed air over the car creates lift (it moves slower).
You get more downforce from under the car, surely ? Upside down wing and all that ?
Well, that was fun 
2 Likes
50% of aero effort since skirts were banned goes into preventing the wheel wakes killing the downforce. The next 40% is generating downforce and minimising the loss of low pressure due to leakage in from the sides.
To put it in perspective, in the old type venturi cars, where the flow was more or less 2D, raising the skirt 10mm lost over half the downforce and the main flow went to crossflow due to very strong inflow as ambient pressure air rushed into the low pressure air under the car.
No car without sealing skirts actually works the way frequently thought, yes I have seen Gordon Murray’s video about his new road going fan car, but aero isn’t Gordon’s strong point as evidenced by the surface cooled engine car (which was one of the things which gave me the confidence to think I could do F1 since it was so obviously a million miles from being aerodynamically feasible) and his first ground effect attempt where he thought the low pressure was at the back and didn’t fit a rear wing.
The first thing I tried in 1981 when skirts were banned was to get downforce from this powerful inrush and first concept tests were really promising, but the concept model lost 75% of its downforce when front wheels were fitted, and that has been the problem everybody has been fighting ever since, Getting outwash ahead of the front tyre reduces this loss and is what everybody sensible concentrates on.
As an aside the first 2009 spec car to test was the Toyota in December 2008. It tested in Bahrain so nobody saw the double diffuser which came famous and controversial on the Brawn (Williams had one at launch too incidentally) having been involved in the aero as a consultant at Toyota I started an outwash front wing end plate study which resulted in a bigger gain than the double diffuser. Amusingly (to me) people got their knickers in a twist so fundamentally at how expensive and hard it would be to copy the double diffuser they didn’t notice the outwash front wing end plates (Brawn and Toyota both had them) or how quick and easy they would be to copy. Even Red Bull failed to copy them for quite a while and it was Budapest before McLaren had them.
Anyway, what you can do is try to get a powerful vortex running down the side of the car which the ambient pressure air hasn’t got the energy to pass. The turning vanes at the front of the floor are like the ones used by CHAMP cars 20+ years ago, though they were more strictly limited in the rules (and available budget)
The most visible turning vane also partly fills the front wheel wake though the tyre jet is the most damaging and difficult to mitigate.
I can guess from the camber variation across the front wing which bits of the floor they are exploiting most (the front wing upwash takes flow from the floor).
Overall the flow is hideously complex and the 2D descriptions one sees in the press are sufficient oversimplifications to be just wrong IMO.
12 Likes
The more air you can get under the car and accelerate the greater the downforce.
Only get less downforce from underbody flow if you slow it down.
Typical Monaco contrast at Red Bull!
Shame Perez dropped it, I don’t think he has any chance of winning the Championship but keeping it close for a bit longer would have been good.
Rain usually makes races a bit of a lottery and nowhere more than Monaco, so lets hope.
2 Likes