SB83 wrote: ↑4 years ago
Seeing all this just makes me wish we could go back to allowing tobacco sponsorship.
Maybe we should go even further back when skin magazines and condoms used to sponsor teams?
Not so sure that tobacco did not come before the condom and skin mag sponsorship.... Gold Leaf appeared on a Lotus in I think 1968, and other tobacco brands followed suit. The condom and skin mag sponsorship was not until the mid 1970's (1976) when Durex caused a stir by promoting the 'small family car', namely a Surtees F1. Penthouse Mag appeared on a Hesketh in 1977.
Gold Leaf Lotus 1968
Alan Jones in the Durex Surtees, British GP 1976
Rupert Keegan in the Hesketh 1977
* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left
“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)
* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
So ground effect could come in as a key driver in making cars follow each other better.
Is this a good idea? Not sure I fully understand the ground effect concept so I don't really know what impact it will have on cars passing each other. Would wings still be necessary on an F1 car or will designers instead focus on enhancing the ground effect?
Ground effect is already there at F1 cars. But not in the amount as they want it to be in 2021.
Ground effect occurs when air is forced underneath the bottom of the car (here an F1 car). The air speed rises and the air pressure drops. The car gets sucked to the ground. The lower the car the more the effect works. The advantage of ground effect is that is does not disturb the airflow behind the car. Also, there is no drag when using ground effect, in opposite of spoilers/wings.
In the late 70's, Colin Chapman designed the Lotus 80 in such a way that it (theoretically) did not need front and rear spoilers. In 1978, the Lotus 79 used lower wing settings, so it had less drag than any other non ground effect car.
Brian Redman: "Mr. Fangio, how do you come so fast?" "More throttle, less brakes...."
@erwin greven You seem to have a better understanding of these things than I do, but I was under the impression that the current ground effect was not underneath the entire car, but rather some elements of the undertray?
The whole car is running in ground effect conditions if we are really nitpicky about it. You'd have to run then with a metre of clearance to get them out of the effect the ground has on the aero dynamics.
In practice though the major parts that work the ground effect on the current cars is the undertray in conjuntion with the diffusor and the barge boards. The diffusor is extracting the air from the underside in a manner that helps lower the pressure under the floor while the barge boards seal up the sides via vortices against high pressure air entering along the sides.
What the new rules propose is to increase the proportion of downforce generated by the underfloor, which as Erwin mentioned, is less influenced by turbulent air. From previous GC cars the wings are then used to trim the car in case of the front wing and to help work the diffusor, similar to the Jaguar biplane wing or the beamwing from a couple of years ago. Although it will be interesting to see what the F1 aero minds have come up with in the last 40 years since they ran full GE cars.
The main risk associated with ground effect and why they did away with it was if you broke one of the flush bits that sealed the car off to the ground, you'd barrel into the corner expecting the same level of grip that the car generated before that bit broke and kill yourself. I guess they can have sensors to monitor that sort of stuff now.
SB83 wrote: ↑4 years ago
The main risk associated with ground effect and why they did away with it was if you broke one of the flush bits that sealed the car off to the ground, you'd barrel into the corner expecting the same level of grip that the car generated before that bit broke and kill yourself. I guess they can have sensors to monitor that sort of stuff now.
Really depends on how far you go with the ground effects. If you have venturi tunnels that don't extend all the way to the sidepods, the risk of damage is minimised.
The risk from a racing perspective is that you go too far with it - they go full ground effects that plant the car, plus keep decent amounts of aero, making the cars absolute rockets, which go so fast you can't really catch people in time before the next corner. Though that wouldn't be a problem at Baku!
Oscar Piastri in F1! Catch the fever! Vettel Hate Club. Life membership.
SB83 wrote: ↑4 years ago
The main risk associated with ground effect and why they did away with it was if you broke one of the flush bits that sealed the car off to the ground, you'd barrel into the corner expecting the same level of grip that the car generated before that bit broke and kill yourself. I guess they can have sensors to monitor that sort of stuff now.
And this led to suspensions that were pretty much non existent and rock hard, partly to save the skirts from damage but also to keep the ground clearance pretty consistent.... fluctuating ground clearance led to variations in downforce and what was known back in the day as porpoising, affecting balance front to rear as the ride height fluctuated. It kept them off the kerbs though as the stresses were too much for the stiffly sprung cars. Kerbs would launch the car in the air. A good example being Gilles Villeneuve at Woodcote, when he took out I think Jones, and De Crasheris went off because he could.
Cars like the beautiful Arrows A2 which ran no front wing and in some circuits no noticeable rear wing, with sufficient downforce generated through the floor and sidepods.
* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left
“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)
* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
SB83 wrote: ↑4 years ago
The main risk associated with ground effect and why they did away with it was if you broke one of the flush bits that sealed the car off to the ground, you'd barrel into the corner expecting the same level of grip that the car generated before that bit broke and kill yourself. I guess they can have sensors to monitor that sort of stuff now.
And this led to suspensions that were pretty much non existent and rock hard, partly to save the skirts from damage but also to keep the ground clearance pretty consistent.... fluctuating ground clearance led to variations in downforce and what was known back in the day as porpoising, affecting balance front to rear as the ride height fluctuated. It kept them off the kerbs though as the stresses were too much for the stiffly sprung cars. Kerbs would launch the car in the air. A good example being Gilles Villeneuve at Woodcote, when he took out I think Jones, and De Crasheris went off because he could.
Cars like the beautiful Arrows A2 which ran no front wing and in some circuits no noticeable rear wing, with sufficient downforce generated through the floor and sidepods.
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The A2 created that much downforce that its chassis could not cope with the forces on it.
Another problem was that the cars were extremely pitch sensitive. The center of downforce would shift constantly underneath the car. Drivers were quoted to feel sick (sea-sick) after races.
Nowadays active suspension could cancel that problem completely.
Brian Redman: "Mr. Fangio, how do you come so fast?" "More throttle, less brakes...."
Another problem was that the cars were extremely pitch sensitive. The center of downforce would shift constantly underneath the car. Drivers were quoted to feel sick (sea-sick) after races.
Nowadays active suspension could cancel that problem completely.
That is what I was referring to with the 'porpoising effect' I mentioned.
As you say I am sure with todays active suspensions and technology would overcome the historical issues.
* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left
“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)
* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
SB83 wrote: ↑4 years ago
The main risk associated with ground effect and why they did away with it was if you broke one of the flush bits that sealed the car off to the ground, you'd barrel into the corner expecting the same level of grip that the car generated before that bit broke and kill yourself. I guess they can have sensors to monitor that sort of stuff now.
That's the part that wont come back. Modern designs rely on vortex generators to seal the gap and should be a bit more resilient to that failure mode. CART ran ground effect for it's existence and apart from taking off when going backwards the problems of the early cars is understood as I understand it.
