I just watched the Bahrain Form 1 GP on my TVIO.

The Honda, AKA Brawn, won again. The who's who of race
car builders were in the back of the back. Brawn is running the
same Mercedes engines as Mclaren but Mclaren with Hamilton is not doing nearly
as well. The down force is pretty much the same as they both have to run
the same stupid rear wing. They are also running the so called "super
diffuser" several other teams are also running. The Toyota's qualified first and
second with a couple of young fearless drivers. The guys driving
the Brawn are geezers by comparison :) Apparently the Honda engineers
did their home work last years when it comes to chassis dynamics.

They must have read and understood my 1968 AIAA paper I uploaded to
the ACRE web site last year :)

http://www.rotaryeng.net/AIAA-Paper.pdf

This paper was republished in December 2008 by Bernoulli Aerodynamics International.
http://www.racetechmag.com/bernoulli/index.asp
Not early soon enough to affect the Honda design.

Just to give you an idea how out to lunch some of the other F1 teams
are in this regard one team is asking for narrower front tires to improve
the balance. Shesss!

Quiz: Can anybody that has read my paper tell me why this is a bad idea? :)


Paul Lamar


 With all my respect, Paul.
Why do You think that reducing front tire width in order to alter overall balance is stupid?

BTW - in terms of downforce. With new ugly rear wing overall downforce levels
had not been reduced as much as anticipated. This years lap times suggest that.
One thing that BGP car is doing better than others is using their tire. Pure
speed - Toyota and RB are up there and even a bit better on single lap. But
race pace is another thing.

Cheers
Ted


Well I did not use that word in that context.
Did you read my paper?

Paul Lamar


Does it have anything to do with increased low speed
instability due to decreased tire loads?

Vlad

It's been 24 hours and nobody has figured it out so here is the answer.

One can always reduce the overall grip on the front regardless of the ratio of
front to rear tire grip. One can do this in several ways. One is increase
the roll stiffness on the front relative to the rear at low speed and/or
reduce the front down force at high speed relative to the rear. That
is obvious and trivial.

One Form 1 team  is running no rear side springs this year (along with no
rear roll bar, only rear center spring and damper) in an attempt to get
all the power over steer out of the car.

That silly high mounted/high drag rear wing is causing a huge aerodynamic
induced pitch up moment on the car. That unloads the front suspension.
A simple thing to do to reduce the high speed front grip is a slight
increase in rear wing angle. That of course increases the drag.

If that is not enough move some static weight forward.

A reduction in front tire width will be an overall reduction in grip.


Paul Lamar