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Since it’s birth in 1950 the cars of the formula 1 racing championship have continually
got faster. Superior aerodynamics, more powerful engines and lighter materials have all contributed
to make track times plummet. The average speed for the Monaco Grand Prix rose from 104 km/h
in 1950 to 170 in 2007, but something strange happened in 2007. They stopped getting faster,,
not only that, they got slower. So what happened and what have the FIA done in 2017 to breath
some life into the championship again?
In the past decade there has been a massive shift in focus for the F1 championship. The
sky-rocketing cost of competing forced the FIA to bring in rules to even the playing
field and prevent better funded teams from bullying other teams out of the competition.
This change in attitude is earmarked by the 2007 engine development freeze and the cost
saving measures continued as Honda, BMW and Toyota were forced to withdraw from the championship
following the 2008 world economic crisis.
Newer rules have put tire saving and fuel efficiency at the forefront of design, which
has also forced drivers to be more conservative on the tracks,forcing the track times down.
Whether it is because of these changes or not, Formula 1’s popularity has been declining
and we need to remember that Formula 1 is itself a business. A business that has to
keep both the companies racing AND the fans happy.
So this year’s rule changes are focused on making the sport faster and more dramatic,
in the hopes of putting a stop to Formula 1’s declining popularity.
So what changes have been made and how do they affect the car's performance? The most
noticeable change to this year's Formula 1 cars is the overall width of the car. The
width of this years cars has increased from 1800 mm to 2000 mm. with a significant amount
of this additional width being allocated to facilitating wider tyres. This dramatically
increases the contact area of the tyres to the ground, which increases the traction the
tyre has.
Now, if you look at the equations for friction, you will see it is independent of area. Friction
is simply given as the coefficient of friction multiplied b y the weight of the car. So how
does a wider tyre increase traction? A wider contact area does affect the wear on the tyre,
meaning a narrower tyre will lose it’s grip material quicker. To counteract that the tyre
needs to be made of a harder material that won’t wear as quickly. F1 teams have 5 dry
weather materials to chose from during races, ranging from ultrasoft to hard. The softer
materials have higher coefficient of frictions, but don’t last very long. So in essence,
the wider tyres have allowed the softer higher grip tyres to last longer. Allowing drivers
to brake later and accelerate harder.
These wider tyres needed a wider front wing, as it’s primary purpose is not to generate
downforce, but to manipulate the incoming air to flow around the tires. The tyres can
generate a great deal of drag and also generate a huge amount of turbulent air, which would
prevent the aerodynamic surfaces downstream of the tyre from working correctly, so the
front wing is designed to direct the air to flow around the tyre.
One of the most beautiful applications of this air flow management is this vortex, named
the Y250 vortex. By F1 rules this central portion of the front wing is not allowed to
generate any downforce, but 250 mm from the centre you may.The vortex is a result of downforce
being generated by the front wing, BUT instead of just being a negative side-effect that
causes drag vortices have been carefully crafted to bend the air away from the tyres and to
where it is needed .
To learn more let’s look at some engineering simulations and compare the differences between
the 2016 and 2017 cars. These may look scary to an untrained eye, but here’s the gist
of what you need to know. Here we are looking at the air pressure along the car, with the
position being indicated here. Blue and green is low pressure air, yellow and red is higher
pressure air. An F1 car wants low pressure air below the car and high pressure air above
the car, as that is what generates downforce.
Let’s bring this simulation back to the start and see how these changes have affected
the performance of the car. Here you can see the Y250 vortex beginning to form as air rolls
from the upper surface of the wing to the lower surface. You can clearly see that the
Y250 vortex is larger this year as a result of the larger wing surface and it gets larger
as it travels down the vehicle, as the low pressure vortex sucks in the surrounding air
and the more air it consumes, the less air can get under the car, thus dropping the air
pressure. You can see this happening here as the floor structure begins.
You can also see the Y250 vortex begins to generate additional low pressure vortices
this year off the bargeboard, which steers the vortices and helps them generate new low
pressure vortices like this one being formed off this neat little aerofoil.
The bargeboard was not allowed last year in this location, as this area was an exclusion
zone, which is an area where structures are not allowed to be placed. Teams like Mercedes
have incredibly intricate bargeboards, much more complicated than the ones in this model.
Travelling further we can see the 2017 version is noticeably greener here, and thus is lower
pressure, this combined with the wider floor, allows the 2017 car to generate much more
downforce. .
Travelling further again we find the primary cause of this drop in pressure, the diffuser,
this part at the back of the car, which has increased in height and width. The diffuser
is essentially the exit nozzle for the air underneath the car, and by having a larger
opening the air exiting from underneath the car is forced to expand and accelerate to
fill the space, this causes the air pressure to drop even further, as Bernoulli's principle
tells us that an increase in the velocity of a fluid corresponds with a decrease in
air pressure.
The diffuser provides a huge amount of downforce, with very little drag. The same can’t be
said for the rear wing, which was placed high above the car in 2016, creating a lot of additional
drag. The rear wing has dropped down in 2017, reducing its effect on drag as it’s placed
in the air that has already been affected by the structures upstream. This was an effort
to maintain the top speed of the car, as drag has increased dramatically with the widening
of the car. The teams have been provided an additional 5 kilograms of fuel to counteract
this also.
As we are half-way through the 2017 season, we are able to see the effects these changes
have made on F1. Without a doubt we have some of the best looking cars F1 have seen in a
long time, and they are breaking records again, thanks to the additional traction provided
by the wider wheels and superior aerodynamics. But this additional speed in corners had to
sacrifice some of the exciting overtaking action, as the wider cars are generating a
great deal more dirty air behind them, making it difficult for followings cars get enough
downforce in corners. So have these changes made F1 more exciting to watch? I’ll leave
that to you to decide.
Many of you ask me what software I use to animate these videos and how I learned. In
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As usual thanks for watching and thank you to all my Patreon supporters. I just uploaded
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