We are just hours away from the showdown between Renault, BMW and Red Bull, Ferrari vs Williams, Toyota and Brawn GP on the controversial rear diffuser design. Without going too much into complicated mathematics and the physics of fluid and aerodynamics, the images below are a simple illustration of the areas under dispute.
Illustrations by F1-live.
Williams-Toyota's design.
Toyota F1's design
Brawn GP
They all feature a variation of an additional opening that is said to allow a greater volume of airflow into the rear diffuser, thus generating higher downforce pressure.
The simple summary of designing a good F1 car is that it is a game of exploiting the loopholes in the governing body FIA's regulations. The rule books will only say what you can't do. It doesn't say what you can do. Thus, Formula One has always been a game of interpreting the regulations to your advantage of building a faster car.
Now the issue with DDDs are slightly more complicated because it sits on a very grey area. Ross Brawn has previously mentioned that he is absolutely sure the diffusers are within regulation, but for obvious reason he can't reveal how do they work until the FIA appeal hearing.
Whatever it the outcome is, I am not too concerned about whether DDDs are legal or not. My own gripe in this whole issue is that as a motorsport enthusiast and a paying spectator, I want to see racing. Real wheel to wheel racing fought out on the track, not in the court room! Bring back the sort of driving between Gilles Villenueve and Rene Arnoux in Dijon at '79 or Nigel Mansell and the late Aryton Senna in Jerez of '86.
If the diffusers are approved for use then why bend under pressure mid-season, after some low performing teams grumble that they are not as fast as the winning cars? What does this say about the FIA's technical director's ability to discern what is within the rules and what is not?
Results of the Australian GP is already a joke. First Trulli was awarded a 3rd place finish, then he was stripped of his points after some idiot by the name of Hamilton tried to be funny with FIA and reported that Trulli overtook under safety car lap. And then FIA realised they were duped and reinstated his points. Fans are fed-up of race results being announced in the court room rather at the finish line.
If the DDDs were ruled illegal what happens to the race results in Australia and Malaysia? In the old days, this is not an issue as mid-season testing was allowed. FIA banned mid season testing in an effort to contain spiraling up cost. But this has almost no effect in keeping a lid on F1 competition cost as teams merely spent their money elsewhere to shave off that few more miliseconds off their lap time.
3 comments:
It is sad that regulations were once present to prevent Formula 1 cars from becoming too crazy to the point of being down right dangerous for spectator and driver. Such technology such as slicks, ground effect, and turbos, for an example see what became of Group B rallying.
Now there are just regulations just for the sake of keep the corporate bigwigs happy by doing what ever they can to get their names which are plastered onto their drivers onto the podium by any means possible.
The irony is that the new set of regulations were made to promote overtakings. Less about the car more about the driver - just like racing in the old days.
But now that the established hierarchy was turned upside down - teams started protesting.
We have seen such things happen before in the late 70s when ground effects cars first came to the scene.
Lotus pioneered it and the technicians cunningly "suggested" that they had some pretty advance transmission and differential. They made some good acting by hurrying to cover the rear of the car everytime the cars came into the pits - as though there were some fancy mechanical bits at the rear to hide.
When teams finally realised it was the skirts and ground effects - nobody bitched and everyone got down to business. But mid-season was still allowed in those days.
hahaha yea i remember those stories about the misleading ground effect cover-up.
looks like the other teams will have to play a guessing game now with mid-season testing gone.
Post a Comment