F1 2013 - The begining of the end

It's not about dropping aero via regs, it's about opening up other places to spend the money via fewer regs as then teams will spend money there for a say 0.2s benefit instead of spending money on aero for 0.05s benefit
 
Oh christ, just what we need, someone else who now thinks he knows it all :(. And to think you were an arrogant naff before...

Let's see, I'm currently involved in designing two engines .. one being a V16 turbo that is going to be used as a prototype by some Americans, the other being a V-twin for our own use.
So I guess I know nothing about what it takes to make an engine that runs, etc.

Yes when you are pushing the boundaries and want to verify that you will be reliable then you will need to run 4 engine dynos 24/7 like Mercedes currently do. But then again their F1 engines can easily complete 24h of Le Mans at full power, so go figure.

But if you are not forced to find the last 0.05s due to being able to look at other areas then you will not have your engine be so marginal and as such costs are much lower, while still giving huge power.

So why don't you tell me why engine development is so expensive ... given how in days gone by when the rules were more open they were not as expensive
 
I don't see how this will make less room for innovation in the engines, they're going to get far more complicated, the lower rev limit will enable a lot of technology we actually have on road cars now which is unusable on a current F1 engine. When you see "limited to 600hp" it means "we'll tweak the intake size each year to keep the power at about that level", just like in WRC.
 
There is less room for innovation than if they simply said "use whatever you want, it has to last 5 weekends and you have a fuel limit of xxx per race that will be reduced by 5% each year", at the same time those little tweaks as you put it will cost progressively more and more as the rules are pretty narrow - and let's not forget the design freeze meaning that in order to get the tweaks in you have to disguise them as reliability tweaks, which again makes it more limited.
 
So everyone that's moaned about "too much aero grip" will apparently get their wish granted:

The major changes will be:

* Much smaller front and rear wings;

* A far greater proportion of the total downforce of the cars will be created by the underfloor, compared to the wings;

* A major reduction in the amount of total downforce created by the car;

* To achieve this, the underfloor of the cars will be shaped along its length to generate downforce for the first time since the 1982 season - currently cars have bottoms that are flat between the wheels;

* The average proportion of a lap that a driver is able to spend on full throttle to be cut from 70% in 2010 to 50% in 2013;

* Tyres will remain large and chunky to ensure cornering speeds remain high.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9307861.stm

Still the end of the world as we know it? (This being the internet, I'm sure the answer will be yes)
 
Bear in mind, that at this stage, the above, are just proposals. These proposed changes are not guaranteed to occur.

If memory serves me correct, for the 2010 season, aerodynamic downforce was supposed to be reduced radically. But because an agreement could not be reached, this was abandoned.

It remains to be seen if an agreement to reduce aero downforce will be reached, in time for 2013.
 
Still the end of the world as we know it? (This being the internet, I'm sure the answer will be yes)

yes, because there's still no development and still no sponsors for research into useful technology. Two things that should be at the forefront of F1.

* should have reduced aero, but never standadised
* more bhp so they spin the wheels up and can't be full throttle round a corner
* fuel tank size limited, with no refuelling
* no mandatory tyre change and no two compound rule
* removal of top 10 qualifying, race on the tyre you qualified with.
* no limitation on kers design.
*no limitation on engine design (although may need to be looked at again after a few years), ideally you want the set up we have, with cosworth making an engine for the poor teams and companys like Renault, mclaren, ferrari produce their own, may sale to one or two other teams.
* provision for fuel cells, nano metal, electric, possibly hydrogen and other alternative fuels.

Do this and I would expect heavy outside investment into things like kers, I would expect honda to come back into the sport. You just have to look at what companys are producing, energy saving engines, kers and the like
 
What is nano metal?
That sounds terrifically futuristic.


http://www.mng.org.uk/gh/renewable_energy/metal_NS_article.htm
Chunks of metal such as iron, aluminium or boron are the thing, he believes. Turn them into powder with grains just nanometres across and the stuff becomes highly reactive. Ignite it, and it releases copious quantities of energy. With a modified engine and a tankful of metal, Beach calculates that an average saloon car could travel three times as far as the equivalent petrol-powered vehicle. Better still, because of the way that this metal nano-fuel burns, it is almost completely non-polluting. That means no carbon dioxide, no dust, no soot and no nitrogen oxides. What's more, this fuel is fully rechargeable: treat your spent nanoparticles with a little hydrogen and the stuff can be burnt again and again. It could spell the start of a new iron age, and not just for cars. All kinds of engines, from domestic heating units to the turbines in power stations, could be adapted to burn metal.

Topping up your tank with what are essentially iron filings might sound bizarre, but vehicles can run on all sorts of materials, from methane to coal dust or gunpowder. So why not metal too? After all, burning a heap of powdered iron releases almost twice as much energy as the same volume of petrol. And replacing iron with boron gives you five times as much (see Graph).

whether an F1 team would explore it is a different matter, but all or most sources of future fuels should be written into the rules to allow development and use if a team/company so wishes. This is how I believe f1 will continue to secure large investments, along with kers. but only if companys can develop technology for real world use. At the moment and with the purposed regs, there is no development or real world use.
Slightly of topic, but it could be a future car power source, 4th gen nuclear power plants producing hydrogen, almost 100% recyclable nano metals powering car, using the hydrogen to de-oxidised the metal.
 
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Sounds good, but with the lower downforce AND low power engines the laptimes will come close to GP2 I would think :(

I do not believe that this will be the case. Since the early 90s, there have have been restrictions which have stifled development of the cars. Smaller engines, narrower tyres/wheels, greater restrictions on aerodynamics, etc. Although average speeds have gone down by a few mph, the decline in speed has not been perceptible to the viewing public.

What happens is that the restrictions slow the cars down and by the end of the year, the F1 development teams bring the car's overall speed back up to the level it was, before the said restrictions were introduced (tightened up).

F1 will always be considerably faster than GP2 and the FIA (who take advice from team principals, who in turn know what they are talking about when it comes to the performance of F1 vehicles), will always ensure that this is the case.
 
Trouble is the purposed regs are so strict, it will be almost impossible to make it up, revs, bhp for engine. kers limited by BHP and time, everythings limited and set in stone.
F1 engineers have got around regs by developing other areas like aero dynamics. It will be almost impossible for them to bend the new regs, when everything is so precisley set in stone.
 
So, far developers have always found new ways around the regs, to recover almost all of the lost performance (brought about by the newer tighter regs). Based on past performance, I think it reasonable to expect the developers to do the same in the next few years.

Given that in the last few decades, teams have always clawed back performance losses, I find it difficult to believe that all of a sudden, in 2011 - 2014, they will suddenly have lost this ability.
 
Given that in the last few decades, teams have always clawed back performance losses, I find it difficult to believe that all of a sudden, in 2011 - 2014, they will suddenly have lost this ability.

This isn;t the past though, talking about 2013 rules, where exactly are they going to make it up?
it is all outlined extremely tightly. 600bhp, revs, kers bhp, kers period of use, lower aero (which is near the limits of research), standard tyres, standard ecu, restricted gear boxes. inventive designs like f-duct and the likes banned, stricter rules for flexing. where are you expecting them to spend money to make up the huge loss in power and aero.
 
This isn;t the past though, talking about 2013 rules, where exactly are they going to make it up?

In years gone by, the general public would've said exactly the same thing...how/where are they going to make up the performance gap? Surely, this is an impossible task.

Once the season got underway, we all saw that over 90% of the performance was regained and by the end of the season, almost 100% of the performance was re-gained.

Designers are uber intelligent people (more than us) and they have knowledge that we do not possess. Given this, I am fairly confident that while F1 fans would be unable to regain the performance, F1 design teams will be able to regain the performance.

Only time will tell of course.
 
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