Lets see what everyone thinks is the best looking F1 car for the 2004 season. minardis picture should be up later today as they have realesed there 04 car.
Andreas; The Renault is my second choice. the only part of the car that distracts from its looks has to be the cooling stacks that hang out like an after thought. Even Jordan did a better job in this area by mounting winglets to them. Rob
You have a point there. I just hope what we'll see of the Ferrari by the time it reaches Melbourne will be different from what we saw at the presentation. Your contest is btw highly unfair: You're missing a Minardi shot...
IMO the Williams may be something different but it just looks gross. I picked Ferrari, it's conservative maybe but that might not be that bad of a thing. Im gueesing they've stumbled onto a pretty good formula and are wanting to keep it. I wouldnt be surprised though if it goes through some more changes before we see it race.
Andreas; The Minardi was released today but there are no pictures of it on the net that i have seen as soon as i get one i will post it. As for radical changes to the Ferrari. I doubt it since they would nore than likely have to go through another FIA crast test if they make radical changes to the nose or side pods. Rob
True, no radical changes will come. Besides now they have started testing, so we pretty much know what the car will look like. OTOH when you read about the McLaren's blowing up on every test day, maybe conservative isn't such a bad idea after all...I'm truly surprised McLaren isn't doing a better job, they're the ones who had the longest time available for testing and the thing still doesn't work. As far as the Minardi is concerned: Use last year's pictures. Or some shots from a former Arrows...
The only thing i cannot figure out is who are the 4 people that voted for the butt ugly Williams BMW?????
Im trying to figure that out as well. Dosnt seem they had the fortitude to post. I probally wouldnt either if I liked a car that looked like that. I hope it dosnt end up being a bad a$$ car and causing all the other companies to use that same design. The F1 races will start looking like Mad Max scenes.
Andreas; Ah ye of little faith. I have been hearing rumors that while the Williams BMW has been fast at times its lap time have not been consistant on long runs. Rob
I'm so afraid of that. I think the cars nowdays have that classic look that they had back in the golden years. Just a timeless design like the ones of the 50s or 60s. http://home.clara.net/nigelk/f-cars.htm
We'll see. I'm still shocked from the 1 sec per lap faster times they pulled off with this car on its first outing. I still think that showed the true potential and ever since they've been sandbagging.
Hey, I'm a Ferrari-addict, guess what I've voted for? Maybe conventional design, but it's RED and from Maranello! Nothing can beat that! And the Williams nose IS UGLY! But if this look proofs to be fast, a lot of teams, including Ferrari, WILL copy it. After all, an F1 car isn't about looking good, but about being the fastest! Greets, Alx
Just copying the Williams nose wouldn't do the trick. Rob has to jump in here, but from what I (as a NON CFD-trained person) know, the tusks of the nose are just part of a bigger concept on channeling the air around and under the car. That's why I think we're not just looking at an ugly car, but really at a quantum leap in aerodynamic design. Rob, btw you're not doing justice (me whining again) to the Renault: It's real beauty lies in the back portion of the car. The picture you're showing doesn't really differentiate it from the pack. That's why I like the Renault so much: They took Ferrari's design of the curvalinear design for the engine and transmission cover and took it a step further. Again I know nothing about CFD, but if the trend set a few years back continues, it looks like the more curvely you shape that area the better you're off. Maybe Rob should run a CFD study on that? I think it is all about how you stream the air around the rear section onto the rear wing and it looks like Renault went the extra mile on that one.
Andreas; You are correct in your thinking here. The Williams nose is part of a total package. The "Tusks" are creating a channel for the air to be directed to the nose area. creating extra down force in this area. if the angle of the nose is designed perfectly you can get an added plus of forcing high pressure air at the airbox intake. the excess will just head for the rear wing, Again creating more down force. Again you are correct in the assumption that the airflow can be used to direct more air to the rear wing. But also if the curving of the side pods are not correctly shaped you can end up with turbulent airflow destroying the down force created by the rear wing. One thing to remember is that the rear under body diffuser area creates over 40 % of the avaliable down force on a modern F1 car. That one might be a job for the new software that i am learning how to use since the airflow will be more dependent on the total packaging of the car. This will require a 3D surface model to be created and then run thru the virtual wind tunnel software. Some of the items that will have to be factored in wil be air flow thru the side pods and also Exhaust flow out of the exits on the body as these play a role in creating down force. I will give it a try but to be honest i think that a model of this type will take well over 2-4 weeks to solve the air flow. One of the sample flows that they supply is the airflow thru a computer case and around the porcessor and PC board. This solution takes about 18 hours to solve and it is a simple 3D model. Rob
I felt like it was cheating to pick the Ferrari so I went with Renault. Although it is hard to tell the difference between the cars... they are all mechanical works of art! And the differences are also very subtle.
I'm not totally sure on this, but I thought the underbody of the car is mostly predictated by the rules, so you don't have much room there for a competitive advantage.
Andreas, here is article 3.12.1 of the FIA regs. "All sprung parts of the car situated more than 330mm behind the front wheel center line and more than 330 mm forward of the rear wheel center line, and which are visible from underneath, must form surfaces which lie on one of two parallel planes. The reference plane or the step plane. the step plane must be 50mm above the reference plane. These planes must be flat" So what they are saying 330mm behind the centerline of the rear wheel anything goes. Controlling the airflow under the body to where there is not much turbulent flow can increase the deffuser's effectiveness. A properly shapped deffuser along with airflow control can create tremendious downforce. The reason it is so effective is that i creates downforce in the form of a vacum under the car. Unlike a wind the under body of the car does not create drag . Rob