Aero rules: 2 years on.
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The first time the new 2009 BWM roll out of the garage, I think it’s safe to say, we’ll all felt a little bit sick. The new wings were horrible looking and totally out of proportion.
I have gotten used to the new wings. I’d even go as far as to say that I’m beginning to like them. The fact that thing season, the teams have had more time to understand the new rules and that this season has been such a good one may have influenced my decision.
I look forward to the next two years when, besides tyres, the rules will be fairly stable, the racing will be even closer and one team doesn’t dominate over everyone. We don’t want that happening.
What are your thoughts on the new rules 2 years on?
I still maintain that by narrowing the potential shapes of a car, you therefore reduce the different design routes which a car an take, thus resulting in the teams pursing a very specific optimum design and spending ££££ on tenths, which engine equalisation was supposed to stop…
I still do not like the narrow, high rear wings and I don’t feel that cars are particularly easier to pass/be passed. A better design would be a test which all cars have to meet, e.g. laminar airflow (non-turbulent) must always occur one car length behind the car or similar.
Aesthetically I infinitely prefer the new cars to the previous ones.
I don’t buy into the argument about limiting creativity and freedom. It’s a racing formula, after all. Besides, in the days of “freedom” everyone would just copy the next innovation, much as they do today. And the truly big innovations, whilst genius, usually ended up in one dominant car.
The cars are still far too heavily dependant on aerodynamics and this will only get worse as the teams have already gained more than they lost in 2009. I’m disappointed the teams want to resort to gimmicks such as KERS and adjustable wings to skirt the problem, but without the dominance of aero there are few avenues they can exploit to try and get an advantage. The plans to further reduce the power-to-weight ratio beyond 2012 are also very disappointing.
I look forward to 2012 when the rules will have been mostly exploited to their full potential and we can go back to the close field of last year instead of relying on Red Bull to muck up to have a close season.
Aesthetically I infinitely prefer the new cars to the previous ones.
Same. I preferred them almost straight away; I’ve always thought the 2008 generation of cars looked like Christmas turkeys that came with extra legs – but not because they had been packed that way, but because the animal was genetically engineered to have more meat.
Here’s another vote for the 09-10 cars being aesthetically pleasing, they are almost a call back to the cars of the late 80s early 90s which I think are some of the best looking F1 cars ever.
Looking back at the 08 cars they now look squished with their low wings, I hated all the flip ups too…
The cars look so much better now. 2005-2008 were some of the most hideous F1 cars since some of the strange creations that cropped up in the 70’s.
I’m still totally baffled as to why anyone would say these cars are good looking. There’s a good reason most people thought they were hideous when that first BMW rolled out – they are. People’s instincts are usually right about this kind of thing…. I don’t know why you would think any different now.
I’m still really baffled about these regulations and why they happened in the first place… because they do look stupid, and yet the paddock always had a couple of teams that were seemingly very big on aesthetics… like Red Bull – I remember how gobsmacked I was when they first unveiled the Toro Rosso livery in 2006. Obviously a lot of effort went into that. And remember how much money McLaren put into their chrome paintjob…
Somehow in the space of four years we went from having the magnificent McLaren Mp4/20 to drool at, to 2009 where we had a championship winning Brawn car that had a ridiculously huge front wing hanging out the front, and a paintjob that looked like it had done in 30 seconds with a highlighter. I don’t know the hell that happened. F1 aesthetics just fell off a cliff edge, someone should do something about it.
I’m still really baffled about these regulations and why they happened in the first place… because they do look stupid, and yet the paddock always had a couple of teams that were seemingly very big on aesthetics… like Red Bull – I remember how gobsmacked I was when they first unveiled the Toro Rosso livery in 2006. Obviously a lot of effort went into that. And remember how much money McLaren put into their chrome paintjob..
Because the cars were producing too much downforce. You have to be going two or three seconds a lap to stand a chance of caching the guy in front.
Just be thankfull we didn’t get the Centerline Downwash Generating Wing. Although frankly downwash would have solved so many of our aero problems.
I still reckon this years cars are oversized, and the new regs have pretty much failed, the downforce is back. Still as long as the leaders are close on pace the racing is good, that really is what makes all the differance.
I have hope for the 2013 regulations when ground effect might make it’s comeback. Especially if the alternative powering solutions, like better KERS, keeps brining the power back up to a decent level.
Although frankly downwash would have solved so many of our aero problems.
In the early days of the Overtaking Working Group, they ran some wind tunnel tests on the CDG wing and showed that it didn’t do what it was supposed to do. It would hardly have helped the overtaking problem at all.
RobR, the teams have clawed back a lot of the downforce they lost in the 2009 regulation changes, but it’s being done in ways that produce less of an aerodynamic wake (such as through the diffuser). That allows the cars to run closer together. I still think the aerodynamic/mechanical grip ratio is skewed too heavily in favour of aero, though.
Fair point Andy, don’t quite know how you’d generate downwash from a wing with generating downforce, seems like a contradiction in terms. A good question I suppose is, now the horizontal decks on the diffuser are being done away with, will the cars be able to run even closer?
Actually it’ll probably be worse. The balance will shift even more to the front wing, which accounts for something like 75% of downforce in the current spec. The outwash front wing alone was the difference between McLaren coming 16th and coming 1st last year. Without the DDDs wakes will be even more of a problem.
Let’s not kid ourselves here, even though the class of 2010 are a huge improvement on 2009, they are still nowhere near as good looking as the cars they replaced. I really wasn’t a fan of the aero flip ups that sprung out of cars from 2005 – 2008, the elephant ears were a personal pet hate of mine, but they were so much better looking than the current generation of cars.
When I started watching my 2006 season review again I couldn’t thinking “God those cars look, well, right! Simply superb.” The Williams FW28, McLaren MP4-21 and the Honda RA106 were desperately pretty cars and nothing on the grid today can compare.
Roll on 2013!
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