I just watched the Aussi Grand Prix practice on the
 Speed Channel.
 That is the dumbest rear wing ever mounted on a race car.
 It is near pure drag. A total waste of fuel. Really stupid.

 They should of used a piece of plywood mounted perpendicular
 to the air stream. It would have done as well.

 Paul Lamar

 I agree...the whole car is an excercise in ugly...

 Ron

 Congratulations to the Honda engineers for wining the Australian
 Gran Prix first and second. Now called the Brawn team. Congratulations
 to the drivers as well.

 The Mercedes engine must have been the key as they did so poorly
 last year
 with the Honda engine. I always thought Honda was very good when
 it came
 to engines. Either that or the 2009 Honda car is a great leap forward.

 The only passing that I saw was when the mandatory extra soft tires
 went away after a couple of hot laps. That also led to a crash or
 two IMHO. Time will tell if the rear wing will help passing. I doubt
 it.

 The low wide front wing is too vulnerable so they
 need to mount one up high on the front of the car feeding the loads
 directly into the hub carriers like we did on Ron Grable's car
 at Mid Ohio. That would allow a conventional, more streamlined
 and better
 looking nose. I had no trouble designing, manufacturing and
 making suspension
 mounted wings work on dozens of race cars back in the early
 1970's. The current
 Formula 1 engineers can do it too. I'll help if they ask. The
 car will ride
 and corner better over the bumps with softer springs. They have
 got to get
 rid of that silly rear wing.

 The first two pictures are of Ron's car after we were forced to mount
 the wings on the chassis. The third picture is of Ron sitting on
 the left front
 tire with the high mounted front wing to his right. Sorry Ron
 about your
 head being cut off but the picture was damaged somehow. These
 are all
 I have. Do you have any better pictures you can scan and send me?

 Paul Lamar


Hi Paul and group,

The teams using the KERS are using batteries for the power boost, except
Williams which use...  Anyone got a link for that specific technology?

Marc Joseph

There was an article about it in Race Tech magazine this month.
I don't know of a link. Basically it is a large diameter electric
motor generator that acts as a flywheel to store the braking energy.
Williams choose not to use it for this race. The teams are having
difficulty getting the car weight down to the minimum with KERS.
Low weight is the be all and end all in Formula 1. It negatively
affects the cornering speed, the braking and the acceleration.

KERS gives an extra 80 HP but at the expense of about 100 pounds.
There is little choice on where to mount it so one can not shift
it around like one can with ballast to tune the cornering power
of the car. The CG of the KERS is also higher than that of ballast
and CG height is very important in terms of cornering power.

My guess is about half the teams choose not use it in this race.
The pay off was neutral. If there is any venue where KERS will pay
off it is road racing where the cars are either flat out or hard
on the brakes.

KERS will never pay off on the freeway as it will be a big negative
climbing hills due to its extra weight. There is no advantage when
coasting down the other side as the aero drag of the car is too high. The
car slows enough just coasting without using the brakes. The Prius
is not a good example as the car itself has been optimized for low
aero drag and tire rolling and aero resistance to begin with.

If the Prius technology was applied to all cars, all cars would
get better gas mileage. However people don't like riding around
on rock hard narrow tires that don't corner worth a damn. They
also don't like riding around in cars that all look like
Prius's :)

Formula 1 needs to recover some of the 50% waste energy
in the exhaust as that will affect all internal combustion
engines world wide in a positive manner. In other words
some form of turbo compounding. Little or no weight is added
while the fuel burn is reduced up to 20% or more in
the case of the Wankel. In some cases a smaller engine could
be used which will actually reduce the over all weight of
the vehicle.

----------------------------------

There may be another factor I forgot to mention.
Apparently engineers have been mounting KERS on the nose of the
crankshaft. If no motor generator clutch is used this adds to the
rotational inertia of the engine retarding the acceleration. If an MG clutch
is used when one presses the brake pedal the clutch must be engaged in
a fraction of a second spooling up the motor generator. A high rotational
inertia motor generator like Williams is using becomes more of a problem
for the clutch and the crankshaft life. It significantly changes the resonant
frequency of the entire drive train.

Another problem is the retarding affect the engine/motor/generator  has on the
cornering power of the rear wheels. This has always been a problem but more
so with KERS. This will vary over the speed range making it difficult to
balance the car for handling under braking at all speeds.  I could be wrong
but I think it is not allowed to computer control the braking effort between front
and rear brakes. AKA anti locking. The driver can do it manually however
but that adds to his work load. One mistake and you spin or crash when
you press on the brakes.

Paul Lamar