http://gb.zinio.com/reader.jsp?issue=416200691&o=int&prev=si page 7 Article is a month old now, sorry if repost.
Considering that the magazine is called "Racecar Engineering", from an engineering aspect I found the whole article disappointing as it seemed to overlook the fundamental concept of why teams go racing and instead concentrated on motorsport from the aspect of race fans. Take: "For the fans, increasing downforce has meant less interesting racing." Do the likes of Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes et al., go racing primarily to entertain the fans? - no , they go racing to win, end of! If they all turn up at Silverstone on race day and there's no one in the stands, would they volunteer to stay in their garages and not race because there's no one to entertain? - no!, they would be on track trying to win regardless. (The 2005 Indianapolis GP is a prime example: The FIA refused to alter the course of the track to suit the Michelin tyred cars who couldn't cope with the stresses of the banking and the Bridgestone tyred cars refused to pull out of the race with the Michelin runners, even though they were fully aware that what would follow would not be entertaining for the fans. Why should they?, it wasn't their fault the Michelin runners were unable to compete and for Ferrari in particular, it wasn't their fault that the remaining cars could not keep up). Then we get: "The formula1 situation became so bad that driver skill was substituted by the goal of more downforce for better lap times. For what purpose? No one cares about lap times. People pay to see sport entertainment from close competition, not a line of cars hoping to overtake at some artificial, rule induced pit stop". The highlighted part is not true in the slightest - The race teams care a great deal about lap times and they pay a greater amount of money than the fans do per race, not to entertain but to do better than their rivals and hopefully win. This is the primary principal of motorsport (or any serious sport come to that), to do better than your rivals and where possible win. Any entertainment that it may provide for the fans is secondary. The principal of F1 racing is to cover a distance of @ 305 Km in the fastest possible time (or complete as many laps as possible in a two hour period faster than than the opposition). There is nothing in the regulations that stipulates: "Whilst making it as entertaining as possible for the race fans". Next the article states: "Every penny and every second on the work 'negative lift' has been wasted, as no consumer car gets to travel to on public roads fast enough to warrant additional downforce, for safety or any other reason". Obviously the author has never heard of unrestricted autobahns in Germany or the Nürburgring for a start where such downforce technology is actually very useful for safety in a "consumer car". The lessons learned about downforce in all motorsport series has led to much more aero efficient cars that save the owners money in fuel due to less drag and does actually make them safer when driven at speed, where allowed. Whilst they are not as aero extreme as full blown race cars, they do still have an effect. Then the article states about DRS: ...the DRS antidote has no useful road car equivalent either, although it's inverse - raising a wing to create drag for emergency braking - is being seriously researched ". Well yes, DRS has no real relevance to road cars, especially as modern road cars (especially the likes of Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren et al.), are making more use of the aero underneath the car and their entire bodies are being designed to generate downforce without the aid of rear spoiler. But where is it stated that every development on an F1 must have a relevance to a road car? - No where! Like I say, the whole article fails to look at the development of aero from the race teams perspective (in order to win races), and merely whinges about the lack of entertainment for the fans. Races aren't engineered for entertainment - they're engineered to be as fast as possible and to win races!
You beat me to it! I was about to say pretty much the same thing. Further, what are they gonna do instead? I love the "ban all aero" posts - How exactly do you do that? Simple answer, you can't - Any time a body moves thru the air at speed aero will have a huge impact and it's their jobs to make best use of it. Cheers, Ian
lol I take it you don't read it regularly. Don't let the name fool you. It's like a R&T or Car & Driver -- each issue is 2 editorials, 2 very light technical columns, and a bunch of feature marketing pieces selling something, er sorry I meant articles. I'm sure they'd have much less readership and would be unsustainable if they had a true engineering focus. I'd disagree with that, but solely based on this article. I don't know personally. The article states that prior to the race for downforce, both street and race cars were focused on reducing drag. He almost explicitly states that that is where the effort should have stayed, that changing the focus to downforce has been detrimental. He's actually all about aero efficiency, but e.g. 5% more efficiency with 2x the downforce is still a net loser in drag and eats more fuel, which in fact does not save money.
Firstly let Me apologise: Should have read: "Race cars aren't engineered for entertainment - they're engineered to be as fast as possible and to win races!" (Not sure what happened there apart from - pure brain fade! ) Ah!, okay, that explains it! The main problem I have with the article is that the author has criticized motorsport (and F1 in particular), for going down the "aero road" without showing any real appreciation for their reasons for doing it. The whole article is: "It's made for dull racing for the fans!", and: "It's got no relevance to road cars!" As I posted previously, the primary goal of any race team is to complete a race distance faster than their competitors. They're not concerned with: "Is this entertaining for the fans?" (despite what the teams might say!), and they're not thinking: "Is this development of any relevance to road cars?" They're solely thinking: "Is this going to make us faster than the rest?" As for the part in the article about aero development before the mid-sixties and after, it's an over simplification as I see it. In motorpsport, yes the theory up to that point was to make the cars as drag free as possible because that was deemed to be the fastest way to achieve the goal but then it was discovered that you could go faster still if you made use of downforce. The article claims: Before the mid sixties aerodynamic research was aimed at reducing drag - useful work that led to road car improvements in function and style. Consumer car manufacturers realised they could make better looking cars with lower fuel consumption and quieter noise signatures by paying more attention to aerodynamics". Hang on though, if this is all true, how come a 1968 Dodge charger has a dead vertical recessed grill that's as aerodynamic as a house brick and creates a massive amount of drag on the front end of the car? Why does A 1977 Ford Cortina have all the aerodynamics of wooden crate! Could you claim a 1976 FIAT 128 or a '76 Ford Gran Torino is an aerodynamic master piece?, I don't think so! Up to the mid sixties, car designers weren't interested in aero efficiency, noise signatures etc., etc., they just wanted to make cars that were either good looking regardless of aero efficiency of just cheap to manufacture. After the mid sixties, the story was much the same, either make it cheap to produce or make it look good to the eye and hope the aerodynamics take care of themselves (on this one look at the Lamborghini Miura, devastatingly beautiful and looked aerodynamic but try driving it fast and feel the front wheels get lighter and lighter due to front end lift - and that's not exactly a "consumer car" is it?, or how about a 70's Tran am?, how many hours did that design spend in the wind tunnel? [and I love the Tran Am!, enough to own one once upon a time in the UK!], it looked good and it looked fairly aerodynamic but who knew how aerodynamic it was really?). Moving away from all the sixties talk, the late eighties/early nineties was the real era when aerodynamics became truly important to "consumer" car designers in the quest for aero and fuel efficiency, and has been ever since. At the end of the day, the needs of a modern F1 car and the needs of a modern road car are poles apart, so comparisons and complaints about F1 cars being relevant to road cars is pretty pointless as I see it. otherwise the F1 cars would not be allowed to get away with such sh*&ty gas mileage anymore! For F1 (and other motorsport series), downforce serves a valuable service in being able to go faster than your rivals, and like I have already said, in motorsport, that's the primary goal!
Yep, and I think you're right that his focus is on entertainment. I think his point is that being faster (via downforce) has become a losing proposition because the fans aren't there without lots of passing. He is a bit over the top but you have to be provocative. I think in his case it's a bad approach because the folks smart enough to even get his argument are going to protest at the wrong-ness of the details. You do need passing, and downforce is detrimental to passing, AND we're at the point where it's haves ($$$ for engineers and computer time) vs have nots and there are not as many haves these days, due to the expense. Partly because aero is still an art. For example, I like the Champ Car/Indy overtake button. I'm not as big a fan of the DRS button, but KERS (basically an Indy overtake button) on its own didn't bring enough. You're right that the primary focus of a race team is just to win, and that encourages efficient downforce, but the sport is in decline and part of that reason is believed to be less passing.
For Me, the whole article is flawed because it fails to take a balanced view of the reasons why F1 has gone down the aero path that it has and that makes it biased an in a way, incomplete. Had the author explained why F1 teams over the years have spent Millions upon Millions of Dollars on aero development to gain advantages over their rivals then it would have been a much better article but instead, he has just simply written off aero development as being crap because it doesn't make for exciting races and then he has tried to add to his argument by querying and rubbishing the aero developments based on their lack of relevance for road cars, as if the two have to be linked by some sort of racing Law. Don't get Me wrong, the author is not wrong in what he is stating. I totally agree that the aero development has played a big part in making for poorer racing in terms of cars being able to follow each other closely and to be able to overtake each other. Designers spend Millions every year to make sure that their aero package not only gets their car through the air as fast as possible but also so that when the air leaves the rear of their car, it's as unusable as possible for any car following. At the end of the day, they're not designing their car to help their rivals have a better race. It's unfortunate but that's the nature of the F1 beast! Sure the teams talk about "The Show" and how they need to make F1 more entertaining for the fans but then look at the reality for example: Brawn didn't design and fit the double diffuser because they thought it would make for better entertainment for the fans. McLaren didn't design and fit the F-duct because they thought it would make for better entertainment for the fans. Red Bull didn't design and fit the blown rear diffuser because they thought it would make for better entertainment for the fans. They all did it because they knew it would give them an advantage over their rivals and would hopefully make them uncatchable during the season. Okay, so now the FIA has introduced DRS and KERS to try to spice up the racing. Is it real racing though or is it a bit Mickey Mouse? For Me personally, I found it a bit of both to be honest. If you have an inferior car (which was the case for most of last season for Ferrari ), or a driver has made an error in qualifying or has suffered a mishap not of his own making (like Schumacher at Spa), then it gives you a bit of a chance for a decent result but at times it made things too easy: Just sit behind, wait for the DRS zone, press for DRS, press for KERS, breeze past and then try to break away from the overtaken car as soon as possible otherwise the next lap they'll simply do the same thing to you! In some ways it's an electronic version of allowing the following car to take a shortcut across the circuit to get past a rival X-amount of times in a race. It's not really true to the ethics of what F1 is supposed to be about. However, it has become a necessary evil to make "The Show" more entertaining for the fans , which to be fair, it has pretty much achieved. At the end of the day though, I prefer the proper F1 where if you're not fast enough then that's it - chances are you're not going to win!. It's not as entertaining and it's less of a "Show", but at least if you did manage to see an overtake it was for real and not because one driver was artificially boosted whilst the other was restrained! As for aero and road car relevance, I'm sure that there are an awful lot of lessons learned from F1 (and other motorsport series), that have made a great deal of difference to the cars we drive today. They may not be as extreme as an F1 cars Aero package, but I'm sure they are there and they do serve a purpose! (don't believe Me?, okay, lets look at Ferrari: For the last couple of years Ferrari have had front wings on their F1 cars that flex up and down as the car is driven, to adjust the front aero load. Now the 458 comes with flexing wings in the front grill for the exact same purpose! [The fact that they don't flap around like the F1 wing shows how less extreme the aero package is on the road car ]). Like I say, the article is flawed because it's not balanced. "Aero is crap" for the majority of races fans but it's the Holy Grail for F1 car designers.
