I guess that would be a fitting title for the amazing story they mentioned on Speed this morning: After the season BAR will take a F1 car to the salt flatlands for an all out attempt at going the fastest possible. Driver is supposed to be Davidson and the car will be equipped with a chute to slow it down. Expected speed is over 250 mph. I have to say that is IMHO the most amazing thing in F1 since the trading paint event a couple of years ago. I just love it when they do these outside of the box thinkers stunts that give us a glimpse at what these marvels of technology really can do.
Lets hope noone gets injured or killed in the process. I wonder what world record they're going to try and beat. Anyone know what the land speed record is for an automobile powered by an internal combustion engine (i.e. not rocket cars)? It doesn't matter what you're driving or how well it is engineered and set up; once you go beyond 400kmph or so, the slightest thing can unsettle the car and send you flying through the air. I'm guessing with minimum downforce wings and bodywork, relying instead on the diffuser to suck the car to the ground, they should be able to top 450kmph. The biggest problem I can see is trying to control the ride high at those speeds. If the car bottoms out the downforce created by the diffuser will be removed and the car could flip into the air. On the other hand, if they fit lots of packers, and stiffen the 'springs' (torsion bars), the car will become very twitchy and unpredicable at 250+ mph. Adjusting the toe should help that to some degree. Any other ideas?
I second your concerns. I'm actually not even sure it is really an attempt at a world record (well it would be for a F1 car). Obviously it is a publicity stunt and it will hopefully answer one of our questions about what top speeds can a F1 achieve if set up for pure speeds. Because of the risk involved I'm glad they're not picking Button for this. I can imagine how some on here would love to strap Sato in the cockpit...
This should be interesting to see how they attack the traction issue. Unlike a typical corse, Bonneville is salt, and because of this, there is limited traction. The racers that I know that have run there, consider a heavy vehicle to be a good thing.
The FIA land speed record for piston engined cars is by Al Teague at 409.9. The record scnctioned by other groups is something like 413.
I am not sure which catagory they would fall under, probably Class F, unblown, something or other. Most of the records in F non-production are in the 215-225 mph range. Certainly possible they would break it with a few changes in aerodynamics. They better watch those Michelin tires though.... http://www.lubricationdynamics.com/records.html
According to this site, it's MPH. http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:XJ-Awa3CghsJ:www.funnycar.it/html/lsr.html+Al+Teague+at+409.9&hl=en
If it's during the World of Speed in September, it should be open. If not, it should be easy to get in on crew if you can find somebody going.
Miles per hour...and I wasn't speaking of any particular class (displaement) record...I was speaking about the all out records for piston engined cars. Class F is for up to 3 liters, and there is both supercharged and normally asperated, but I don't know what specific class a F1 car would fit into.
According to the article on autoweek's site, BAR will go for the record during speed weeks with everybody else. I'd love to go, though I'm sure I won't be able to. Just imagine seeing a modern F1 car next to budgeted grassroots cars together on the salt.
The F1 (and Indy) cars biggest obstacle in top speeds is the size and shape of the exposed tires. They create horrible air resistance and turbulance . I read about the teams doing all these aero tricks to the cars and to me it seems like choosing which shade of lipstick to put on the pig.
They should be able to go faster that 250 MPH hell the Cart car LAPPED Fontana at 242 or something close to that ! A lap, not a straight line !!!
But one thing that CART or IRL does is set the wings for lift not down force. I dont even think that an F1 car has any wings to make this happen.
If the car does become unstable and rocks from side to side or worse starts "fish tailing" the driver is in copious amounts of trouble. If an F1 car gets upside down at over 200 miles per hour, the car will fly into the air like a kite and then come crashing down like a rock. It may even go nearly straight up due to the new "up force" created by the inverted wings and then once forward motion is slowed {which would happen fairly quickly} the car would fall rear end first and the driver will be "driven" into the eatrh. Fingers crossed for a safe blast across the surface and if the unthinkable happens, finger crossed for a safe flight!
If you take a look at the Indy car configuration they use small thin single element wings. Most of the team to reduce the friction of the tire they will set the trailing edge of wing lower than the leading egde this lift the contact patch of the tire away from the track surface the. This is why we have had cars slipping over when they run over trash on the track. The negative AOA helps the car to lift up then the side pods lose the section and the car becomes a kite in the wind. F1 cars all use multi element wings The track that used a low downforce setup would be Imola and the old Hockenhiem track. But the cars are still running multi elements. The more elements you have the more downforce and drag. I doubt that any F1 team has even tested a single element wing configuration in the past 20 years.
I must say that I didn't understand most of your post as it was quite garbled. Are you actually saying that there are cars using wings for lift rather than downforce? I am sure this is wrong. I think you mean Monza and Hockenheim.
The past 5-6 years that the IRL has been running at Indy and superspeedways they have been setting up the car for wings to help lift up the cars as the tunnels are creating more down force than what is needed for the car to go around the track. With the limited rev's of the engine in order to get higher top speeds they have to reduce to contact patch of the tire therefore they use the wings to help lift the car up a bit reducing the frictional losses caused by the tire contact. It may sound strange but this is how they have been doing the car setup. thus this why we have had so many blow overs as of late
I find this very hard to believe. Why not remove the wings altogether if the downforce is excessive and thereby reduce drag? What you are talking about creates drag just like downforce on the wing does. Not criticizing you or calling you a fibber, but genuinely curious where you heard/read this.
A quote from the net: "In addition to front and rear wings, Champ cars and Indy cars both create downforce with the shape of their underbody. At 200 mph, this aerodynamic load can surpass three tons. These cars could easily run upside down on a ceiling, if you could find one big enough and a driver brave enough. But F1's more open rules allow them to make even more downforce. IRL cars are severely restricted with such things as common rear wings and gearboxes. Bodywork cannot be changed once the season begins. CART rules are more open than IRL, but not as free as F1. Pretty much anything goes for F1's 3.0-liter powerplants, which spin to an incredible 19,000 rpm to produce some 900 horsepower. And likely cost more than an entire ready-to-race Indy car".
