FIA TO LIMIT WIND TUNNEL USE FROM 2008

FIA to limit wind tunnel use from 2008

By Jonathan Noble Friday, December 7th 2007, 13:26 GMT


The FIA has introduced a series of radical cost-cutting measures for Formula One next year - which includes a limit of teams' use of wind tunnels for the first time.

At a meeting of the World Motor Sport Council in Monaco on Friday, the FIA announced the dramatic new regulations that it hopes will bring down costs in the sport.

The measures will limit teams to the use of no more than one wind tunnel, and state that devices can only be used for 15 runs per eight-hour day - and only five days per week.

The wind tunnel tests must be with air at atmospheric pressure, the maximum wind speed is limited to 50 metres per second, and the maximum scale of the model will be just 60 percent. Only one car model can be used during each run.

Teams will also be banned from conducting straight-line aerodynamic testing, with the FIA making it clear that full-scale track running can only take place at FIA-approved test venues.

In a bid to prevent teams from simply migrating their workforce away from wind tunnels and into expensive CFD facilities, the FIA has announced that the number of people working in this area will be limited at a level that has yet to be set.

Further restrictions will be placed on rig tests, design and manufacturing, suspension and brakes, hydraulic systems, bodywork, weight distribution, circuit testing and the number of personnel at races.

Details of these restrictions will be given at a team principals' meeting on January 11, 2008, with detailed regulations due to be put to the WMSC in the spring.

The WMSC also confirmed that Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) will be left as 'entirely open technology' when they are introduced from the start of 2009.

The FIA also said that only those engines already homologated by the FIA and delivered by March 31, 2008 will be eligible to take part in F1 from 2008 to 2017.

END OD AUTOSPORT.COM ARTICLE

Looks like they are continually trying to limit the advantage of big teams like Ferrari IMVHO. When and where will it end?

 

No way this will ever be kept up. Even less with the dawning of hybrid engines and hydrogen powered cars. Anyway, how do they plan to control if teams with an own wind tunnel (...Ferrari...) don't use it more than they're allowed to? Place some FIA guy in every wind tunnel?

 

Sounds dramatic, but doesn't really matter much: CFD has replaced wind tunnel testing to a large degree.

BusinessF1 predicts that in a few years no wind tunnel will be used anymore.

 

Interesting. Thanks.

Though Ferrari had problems in the early part of 2007 because the wind tunnel was broken. I don't know what CFD is, but assume it's like a computer simulation.

 

Computational Fluid Dynamics, yes basically a computer simulation of the airflow over the car.

BusinessF1 was making fun of Toyota who just brought the 2nd wind tunnel online. Total waste of money. They predict, that F1 will make a huge "green" contribution by volunteering to shut down its energy devouring windtunnels. In reality they soon will be obsolete.

 

Does that mean that Ferrari will no longer be able to use their privately owned track at Fiorano?

 

That's what it sounds like to me. Andreas don't forget Ferrari also employs two wind tunnels so Toyota isn't the only one who should be a bit pissed off. From what I've read CFD won't replace the wind tunnel. You design in CFD build and test in the tunnel to confirm the data. Without the wind tunnel to confirm the data you're just throwing darts at a board. We would need every team to be using both CFD and a wind tunnel for at least 5 to 10 years before they could actually rely on just the CFD.

 

At least Ferrari can (and does) use the wind tunnels and Fiorano for their street cars. Toyota on the other hand doesn't have any use for two wind tunnels far away from where their road cars are developed.

 

FIA has become like SOVIET UNION. They limit everything . Why not gave them all one same car with a chip and let a computer run the races....

 

Which is why the little fascist wants to limit CFD use too.

And tough **** for BMW and Honda who just built 100% scale wind tunnels.

 

I would bet that Ferrari will influence the FIA to approve Fiorano as an officially approved track. The straight line testing was a loophole that teams used. Ferrari tests straight line at Vallelunga, Mclaren at an airfield near Woking (Elvington Airfield). In fact, the local residents were upset and took them to court. The loophole was that they could test up to 50KM, in the week leading up to the race. Under 50KM is un-restricted under testing rules.
Kevin S.
Orchard Park, NY

 

So at this rate in 10 years, F1 teams will be using the same car every year because they won't be able to do aerodynamic improvements or engine improvements. Kinda sounds like NASCAR.

 

This is incorrect. The two wind tunnels the F1 team utilize are exclusive to the F1 program and (at last I had read) operate 24-7 for that very purpose. The road car division has it's own aero program and tunnel.

 

http://www.gopetition.com/online/15656/sign.html

There's an online petition to the head of the RAC in the UK requesting him to instigate a vote of no confidence in the little fascist.

I've signed.

 

Part of the ruling is also to make sure resources are not shifted to CFD. It sets limits to the number of employees as well as what kind of hardware is allowed to be used to make sure teams don't go out and buy supercomputers to do CFD work.

 

Ouch! THAT is gonna hurt. They are turning this into a spec series. But let's see how they'll enforce that. Could be very difficult, particularly if the teams evade to say grid computing. I'm sure big companies like Toyota have thousands of PCs sitting around ready to be harvested overnight.

 

Signed, thank you very much. That felt good.

 

Of course, but with the new rules, there's free time on them for road car use...

 

I've been wondering that. I know all the teams have a limited number or testing miles, but who's going to be at Fiorano to tell them they can't test?

 

Thanks for that link, I urge everyone to sign this.

 

Haven't we been down that road before? IIRC there was a ban/limitation on testing and all teams agreed except Ferrari for obvious reasons. You can't really control what's going on in Fiorano, so I guess it would boil down to a gentlemen's agreement (yeah right).

 

why don't they just ban the cars all together? They could just have the drivers run around the track yelling car noises... "we hear a loud 'Vroom Vroom' from kimi as he exits the first turn"-Newscaster's

 

LOL! And they could all eat plenty of cabbage and beans before leavaing the pits...