So we are all waiting with baited breath on the new 2021 rules- here's a good discussion about some progress- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZlEoE0Epgw
The one big thing that they have been indicated will happen- a big shift from wing based downforce to undertray ground effects, which is more robust to turbulence. Also, the barge boards and things that push air outside of the car will not be there, and the wings will be much simpler. The tire change to low profile tires should help low budget teams get their aero right thanks to a more predictable tire spring output.
Naturally, they report some big pushback from the teams. But if they want to continue to get money from fans, they do have to improve the raceability of the cars.
Rules are due in October for 2021.
All steps in the right direction I hope,don't understand why the teams are allowed as much input as they get though.
That's a surefire way to never reach an agreement.
Brawn knows how to make a cars floor work....generate the required target numbers for teams to work with and say there you are get to work.
These teams employ hundreds of smart folks all up to the challenge of doing something new.
Has to be cheaper to delete most of the the barge board/turning vane/front wing crazyness that exists now
codrus
UberDork
7/17/19 4:38 p.m.
kevlarcorolla said:
All steps in the right direction I hope,don't understand why the teams are allowed as much input as they get though.
That's a surefire way to never reach an agreement.
The short answer is because the teams are collectively spending about $3B to race in F1 and if the FIA waltzes off into la-la land with the rules in a way that doesn't justify that kind of investment they'll wind up with a lot more races like the US Grand Prix in 2005.
As for being cheaper to delete the barge boards/etc -- no. The general rule of thumb in F1 is that it's always more expensive to change the rules. Any time you change the rules you are throwing out the last N years of R&D and opening up whole new areas that need to be explored in order to find the optimal solution, and that costs money.
In reply to codrus :
At the same time, rule changes also resets the field.
Still, reducing the number of aero devices will reduce the cost of this car vs, the previous one- head to head. Yes, there will be a high cost of the first car, but all of the rest of hte cars will be less expensive- since there will be fewer areas to spend money.
They will spend at least as much money, because a car with restricted aero takes a lot more wind tunnel time to find the milliseconds.
They spend as much as they have.
In reply to codrus :
But they don't design all those little pcs once and call it job done,its a constant design/remould/rebuild/retest cycle anyways.
codrus
UberDork
7/17/19 7:04 p.m.
kevlarcorolla said:
In reply to codrus :
But they don't design all those little pcs once and call it job done,its a constant design/remould/rebuild/retest cycle anyways.
While that's true, what generally happens is that when the rules are stable for a while (say 5+ years) the designers have pretty much explored all the little nooks and crannies of the allowed designs and already grabbed all of the big gains. The teams generally converge on the best designs for those large wins and at that point each dollar you spend gets you a smaller and smaller increment of additional performance. The result is that the gap between the high end and the midfield tends to close down, and we get less of the "single team dominant" thing going on. You can't stop F1 teams from spending money, all you can do is reduce the size of the gains they get from it.
As for the "reset" effect, yes, that's true, but a reset benefits the teams with the most money because they can explore the new problem space quickly. And no, Brawn isn't a counter-example of this -- the Brawn car was the result of a huge amount of money spent by Honda the previous two years, which Ross Brawn bought for $1 after the Honda board decided to pull the plug. As it was, the huge reduction in R&D spending that came from this meant that they were quickly equaled and surpassed in performance by teams with more money, even though they managed to score enough points in the first few races to hang in for the championship. In 2009 there were only 17 races, if they'd had 21 (like 2019 does) then Vettel would probably have won that championship instead of Button.
