.:: Formula 1 Technical Address ::.

To increase interest in the technical side of the sport and to help give an insight into the constant development within the Formula 1 fraternity I'm going to try and answer any question you might have about the technical issues the sport faces or develops :)

From engines and ECU to Aero and suspension I'll try to get you a full and informative answer :)

So please ask away!

NOTE: If you have any questions regarding the Sporting Regulations of Formula One, please ask in the Formula 1 Sporting Address.

Aw crap. I just typed a full response and it got deleted... Lame.. Right, so.

The new ECU's are supplied by McLaren Technologies (A seperate branch of the McLaren group) and are standardised. I.e. Every team now has the same ECU. The ECU will no longer feature Traction or Launch control taking some more dirver aids away from the driver. You will have noticed in the past from on board shots how cluttered the steering wheels were with knobs, dials and buttons all over them. Chances are the teams will still have cluttered steering wheels but TC wont be there among other things like engine braking control. Many drivers have complained during winter testing of this lack of engine braking.

In recent years with TV feeds becoming more detailed with G-Force meters and the like we can see under braking some cars and drivers blipping the throttle under brakes. This isn't an action of the driver usually, this is someting certain teams ECU's did on their own to match the revs during downshifts, much like heel-toeing in a manual road car with a clutch. This will be eliminated.

Brake bias control and differential settings as far as I know are still avaliable to the driver but are severely restricted. A photo of the Ferrari steering wheel shows three new diff setting dials labeled In, mid and out this could only indicate different diff settings as needed through a bend. Another dial is used to change engine settings required for different tyres Dry, Inters, Wet, Extreme Wet. Whoops, now I'm speaking too much of steering wheels.

Right, so new ECU's will get rid of TC, LC among other things.

Standard ECU's will level the field just a teensy bit, but the advantages gained by custom ECU's were exploited by all teams to more or less the same effect, it just comes down to how much the driver uses them, Schumacher Snr often twiddled the dials in race and quali to get the most from his car where as Massa would only really toy with brake bias when needed.

http://www.amalgamcollection.com/en/graphics/amalgam/products/M5132_1180437190.jpg__800__0.png

A picture of the RB3 Steering wheel form last year, most buttons are self explanatory, PIT for pitlane speed limiter, drink for a drink (of water, but.... it IS the RBR...) Dials down the bottom there are tricky, EB I assume is for engine braking TC Traction control DF Differential perhaps? EN fuel air mix maybe but that could also be the MX dial. You get the idea :D FAIL button was for a failsafe type mode kicking in the anti-stall among other things I believe. I'm not sue if the new ECU supports an Anti Stall come to think of it....

TABLE STRETCH ALERT!

Many thanks to manchild from F1T

There we are, a rather long winded spiel on the new ECU and somehow steering wheels.... Hope I answered what was wanted :)

Question: What do the different types of "Keel" mean (ie zero keel, single/double keel)?

oh and what the hell does a Keel do? :P

Keel is a term used to describe the way the bottom wishbone of the front suspension connects to the chassis. Ferrari for example, up to 2007, used a single keel which had a rather large "fixture" attatched to the bottom of the chassis for the suspension arms to connect to. (A link to a picture) http://filebox.vt.edu/users/forum/issue%20archive/2005_3_September/Images/clip_image002_0001.jpg

This gave plenty of leeway for suspension geometry and favoured a mechanical solution to front end grip. Twin keel was invented by the now deffunct Arrows team, this had two small humps or pillars at the bottom of the chassis to which the suspension arms would connect hence the name Twin Keel.

Ah, a picture from Scarbs (a Racecar engineering writer) http://www.scarbsf1.com/keels/twin-zero-keels.jpg

That picture will explain Twin Keel and Zero Keel, these were both more aerodynamic solutions but they limited suspension settings which is why they were never favoured until recently (Zero keel is used on ALL cars bar the Renault)

The Renault uses a unique "V" Keel which leaves just a V shaped bracket made of carbon "tubes" these disrupted airflow much less than a single keel and didn't limit suspension set-up too much thus why Renault favour it.

Hope that answered your question :)

As said, most teams are using a Zero keel layout but the only way to get a good look at how they're doing it is to see the car without the nose, or a very low angle shot looking up. I think I can find a picture for you. If you travel back to the aerodynamics forum here you will find ALOT of people who have been working with CFD and they'd be more able to find or make you a model for CFD testing. http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5180 The first picture shows the old MP4-20's Zero Keel but its not fantastically clear.

After re reading your post I see you're doing CAD not CFD whoops um, I have no idea about the measurements but I know someone on F1Technical will be able to hook you up. Sorry!

Keel is a term used to describe the way the bottom wishbone of the front suspension connects to the chassis. Ferrari for example, up to 2007, used a single keel which had a rather large "fixture" attatched to the bottom of the chassis for the suspension arms to connect to. (A link to a picture) http://filebox.vt.edu/users/forum/issue%20archive/2005_3_September/Images/clip_image002_0001.jpg

This gave plenty of leeway for suspension geometry and favoured a mechanical solution to front end grip. Twin keel was invented by the now deffunct Arrows team, this had two small humps or pillars at the bottom of the chassis to which the suspension arms would connect hence the name Twin Keel.

Ah, a picture from Scarbs (a Racecar engineering writer) http://www.scarbsf1.com/keels/twin-zero-keels.jpg

That picture will explain Twin Keel and Zero Keel, these were both more aerodynamic solutions but they limited suspension settings which is why they were never favoured until recently (Zero keel is used on ALL cars bar the Renault)

The Renault uses a unique "V" Keel which leaves just a V shaped bracket made of carbon "tubes" these disrupted airflow much less than a single keel and didn't limit suspension set-up too much thus why Renault favour it.

Hope that answered your question :)

KimisApprentice

Oh right, cool! Thanks :D

I'm wondering about the winglet-type things which are on the front wings of the car. Looking at the banner, there's:

Joined to the nosecone (Ferrari, Renault, Williams, Red Bull, Toyota & Force India)
Separate and just on the wing (BMW)
None at all (STR, Honda, Super Aguri)
Or over the nosecone (McLaren)

What's the benefits of each, and which would be the best to use?

Most teams this year are using a bridged wing like the McLaren in the banner, The bridge element tends to be very thin across the middle of the wing (above the nose) and thus cannot handle much stress which is why it doesn't have much angle on it. However, the whole upper element directs airflow (in a round about way) to the sidepods to improve cooling efficiency (Smaller sidepods, smaller cooling chimneys or even blanked off chimneys little things that improve overall aero efficiency in the end) The outer extremeities of the bridge element do have a decent angle on them and in Renault and McLaren's case they have a cutout to further aid in producing downforce.

So in short a bridged wing creates more downforce and improves cooling.

In Ferrari and Force India's case they have an upper element connecting to the nose, again the extremities help to improve downforce allowing for more front end grip. I'm not sure how well the help with cooling but I do think Ferrari's idea was by using their front wing and combining it with the "blades" or "knives" on the side of the cockpit they work together to improve cooling.

And now BMW the non conformist which so far throughout testing has been without it's upper elements. Thus a plain front wing like that on the Honda (haha Honda.... mmm) This is just a straight foward wing, but during winter testing BMW have introduced horns on the nose cone much like they have on the airbox, I think they function much like the central bit of the bridge on the McLaren (again to improve cooling).

What this would indicate then is that the BMW Front wing produces the most downforce on its own, but doesn't aid cooling so much (which for the BMW appears to not be a problem considering how tiny their sidepods are) The McLsren front wing probably helps the most with cooling (Not a surprise considering how volatile they have been in the past, they being the engines) The best front wing then if we ignore the rest of the car is probably the McLaren's for now. But all Aerodynamic devices work with eachother and influence eachother. The Ferrari for example is cleaner and produces less drag over all.

KA,say the teams put something (like a memory bank of some sort) between the accelerator and the ECU, could they programme it for different corners? So the little computer wouldn't let through any more acceleration than neccesary, thus stopping wheelspin. I think I've worded this really badly....

There an x number of fuel mixes and differential settings allowed by the SECU (Standard Electronic Control Unit) although I'm not sure you could have some kind of ROM remember these inputs around a circuit because if you wanted to back off the computer wouldn't allow it. The driver however can change Fuel - Air mixes and Diff settings himself legally to maximise his vehicle using the pre sorted settings that the SECU allows.

The FIA will be very strict on controlling this unit to stop anything foreign getting in so I don't see many teams being stupid enough to try and re programe or add to the SECU.

makes sense :)

But could the teams not have it that the computer can remap the ECU during the race, so they could have an endless amount of settings? Or is it impossible to remap it that quickly? Because a tiny computer system would be easy enough to conceal, so the FIA could have a tough time finding it.

That and pitlane to car telemetry is illegal. KimisApprentice

It is?? I thought that was how the teams got data about the tracks.....

Basically, the "Prime" tyre is the harder of the two compounds for the tyres. These are generally slower, but they wear down a lot longer than the "Option" tyres. The "Option" tyres are the softer compound, as indicated by the white line on them. These are usually 2-4 tenths per lap faster than the harder tyres, but they wear a lot quicker than the harder tyres.

Sorry KA, but it's one technical area I knew something aout :lol: I'm sure you could go into more detail though.

Appologies for only just noticing this! What redders has pointed out is completely correct, but to add to his post, many teams had troubles with graining (explained about 3 times per GP by Martin Brundle :D) on the "option" tyre in this weekends GP in Malaysia probably due to the high heats. McLaren had a big problem with this and saw them well off their usual pace. The harder a tyre compound the less prone to graining and blistering it is, but this comes at the cost of grip. Bridgestone has made leaps and bounds in its tyre compounds with very little complaints of blistering on tyres however this was a BIG problem back in 2005 with race long tyre compounds and pre 2005 with the lack of technology and what not leading to tyres more prone to blistering.

(Blistering being when the rubber on top of the tyre actually "boils" in places which more often than not leads to the rubber growing small bubbles which pop and damage the tyre lowering grip by a small percentage)

On any one circuit they will bring two compounds that are very closely related (i.e. Soft and Medium or Super-soft and Soft) Each track has different attributes, but generally street circuits offer little grip and aren't very abrasive thus in Monaco and Canada the Super-Soft tyres are used.

Other circuits however are more abrasive due to the kind of ashphalt used on the circuits Barcelona has, in the past, been hard on tyres. Indianapolis famously was increadibly tough, due to the banking on the last corner, on tyres.

Racing tracks tend to be made like this to increase the amount of grip offered however due to the dusty surrounds in Bahrain and the lack of use at Budapest leave the grip lacking in early stages of GP weekends however once the rubber gets laid on the racing line grip picks up to more "normal" levels.

A study has been done between porous ashphalt and non porous ashphalt for racing purposes not so long ago I remember reading about it at F1Tech but the idea was porous (holey like a sponge) ashphalt obviously drained far quicker but was more abrasive at this stage no F1 Circuits incorperate this ashphalt.

What up with Honda's aero? Engine cooling radical idea or something?

Er, specifically what are you wanting info on? I can only see a half picture and only the tiniest bit of the sidepods, although I do believe its the launch pic, in which case I'll have a look around for another picture.

Found one, the bargeboards are heavily sawtoothed to create many small vortices (air spinning like a vortex, comes off a squared edge like those on these bargeboards) which are beneficial on an F1 car if harnessed correctly, in the past with more normal bargeboards one large vortex would trail off the larger bargeboards and along the sidepod to the diffuser, but large vortices are harder to manage and control.

2006 showed the introduction of the sawtooth profiles on the Ferrari's bargeboards, are these what you were pointing out? These may aid cooling slightly, I'm uncertain, I figure some of the air would be directed to the sidepods but its not unusual anymore with Ferrari, McLaren, BMW and Red Bull also running similar bargeboards.

Another thing I'm noticing about Honda's aero package is how basic it is, I'm thinking they may just work on effeciency rather than generating more downforce given next years suspected rules whereby downforce will be reduced by 50%

Hmmm a tricky question! The Mercedes engine in the past has never shown itself to be particularly torquey, the Renault engine has been the engine to pick up those prizes so I'm not sure it would be due to being to tourquey although most all engines with the 19,000rpm limit will be optimised to make very similar amounts of power and torque and as such I dont think its an engine problem.

With all teams running the SECU its not a function of a better or worse ECU either which it could have been attributed to in the past.

Thus I think it was either a set-up problem affecting maybe just this GP (although in Malaysia McLaren also had a real problem with tyre degradation) or a problem with suspension geometry. If it were a problem with suspension set-up it wouldn't have been such a big problem for both cars as both drivers would (probably) have a different set-up, this could be quite wrong as I didn't see much of Heikki through the race seeing as he was racing alone largely. (admitedly this could be due to tyre problems)

So, after that deliberation I think the problem for McLaren is the suspension which is not able to be set-up soft enough in the rear to provide enough traction out of the low speed corners. Presumably McLaren know whatever the problem is and will have sorted it come Barcelona, suspension is well understood by the F1 Engineers and because it follows all rules laid down by physics to the t the problem should be easily discovered and, i imagine, will be ironed out in time for Barcelona

While I'm sure it is all bout downforce... What is with the F2008's "nostrils"?

During the times of Senna, Mansell, Prost and Piquet, The cars could fight side by side during high speed corners due to so much mechanical grip, will we start to see that sort of racing come back in a year or 2 due to the new rules or will their still be a few things left to address before we see such racing?

I know we certainly have the circuits, High speed straights and corners. So will that help?

The cars in the late 80's early 90's were wider and had slicks and this as you say increased mechanical grip. The cars in that era were FAR less aerodynamically effecient and were also less dependant on aerodynamic grip making them less sensitive to the upwash created by following another car the result was more slipstreaming at the expense of lower speeds through corners.

Now the problem with cars now is that there might only be all of 20hp here or there that makes a difference across the entire grid leaving teams with Aero as the next biggest maker or breaker of a teams performance. The cars are designed in a wind tunnel and thus are made to work at their best in clear air and all but one car will be running in clear air. Cornering speeds are up, slipstreaming battles are down.

Some people blame the winglets that pop up all over the place on the cars, and at first I found this to be just BS considering the air comes off the back of the Rear Wing and Diffuser and not the numerous winglets, but upon seeing cars in another cars slip stream for 900m and getting only 20m closer to the back of the leading car (if that) maybe there is truth in that. A big example is watching Sato overtaking Alonso in Montreal last year. The Super Aguri doesn't catch the McLaren at all, if anything the McLaren pulls away slightly but Sato had the balls to go down the inside slightly later on the brakes and took the inside line getting the position.

Mechanical grip will increase next year and in coming years, this COULD make racing more like those times, but we shall see. As for the circuits, tracks made recently have been made to try incorperate overtaking in this modern time, Long straight, tight bend. It's boring but thats what the cars need right now.

I heard one of the commentators today (Brundle I think) say that when Hamilton comes out of his pit-box, he doesn't have to apply his speed-limiter.

is there any advantage to not having to apply this?

Front of Heikki's car after crash

KA, What can you tell us about whats happened here, to me it seems the whole pedal box is open, and his feet could of been hanging out the front, should the monocoqe failed like this? or is it understandable because of the nature of the accident?

Your views would be very helpful :)

Yay for dial-up! Haha slowly loading, sloooowly :)

Before I see the picture I'll try to explain the ideas behind the crash structures in an F1 nose cone.

In a decent crash in Formula One we often see thousands upon thousands of carbon fibre shards flying in all different directions and you would be forgiven for thinking that the crash was huge and very dangerous. Truth is, that was the idea. Carbon fibre is applied in layers on an F1 car and if anyone has seen carbon fibre being worked you'll have noticed it's almost like well a roll of carpet. It's made of a matrix of carbon atoms in a way more closely relating to graphite (pencil lead) rather than the crystilline structure of diamond. Anyways, the rolls of carbon fibre are applied to a frame (much like plaster pottery) 1 sheet at a time followed by a layer of resin followed by another layer of fibre, etc etc, once the appropriate number of layers is achieved for strength, weight and flexibility the frame covered in fibre is fired in an oven. WHAT A FANSTASTIC PICTURE!

Right, back to the carbon fibre. In an accident the function of the C.F. (Im tired of typing carbon fibre) is to absorb as much of the impact energy as is physically possible. CF does this by first deforming, then secondly shattering rather than sending shockwaves through the entire monocoque structure. (The monocoque being the cockpit and area immediately behind the cockpit which houses the fuel cell.) Thus why in an accident we see all the shards of CF flying everywhere.

As for Heikki's crash, the monocoque appears to be largely intact. The crash was highly unusual in that the car dug UNDER the tyre barrier. I'm not certain but I'd imagine that is a large factor in why there was the damage that there was to the very front of the monocoque. I'd love to see a picture of the nose to see how much damage there is to it. What may have happened is that at the point at which the nose and the monocoque meet the impact of either the nose and the ground or the nose and a tyre could have snapped the connection between nose and monocoque. This would explain why we could see out of the nose when it was being towed away by the marshalls. A nosecone I imagine is not designed with this sort of impact in mind which is proabably why so much damage was done.

Upon closer inspection I realise how much nose was actually broken. I'm just going to find some more pictures of a non broken MP4-23 because right where the main barge board begins is where the "keel barge board" ends and where the rear most suspension part attatches to the body. You know how stupidly tricky this is? :( I'm resorting to MP4-22 images and if worse comes to worse I'll check my MP4-21 model for a rough idea.

Ah hah!

Right, so according to the regulations a drivers feet mustn't extend past the front axle (I think) and where the nose is snapped off in Kipi's pic is pretty much where the rear most suspension arm connects to the body! and probably the weakest part of the nose seeing as it's the least likely part of the nose cone/monocoque to be impacted. So in this instance Heikki's feet would have extended a little bit further foward of the end of the broken nose cone which is kinda dangerous and unexpected. So in short, the nose and monocoque should not have failed like this, but it can almost certainly be blamed on the freak accident it was involved in.

I know it's not really car aerodynamics as such, but it is still physics in a sense.

In Malaysia Brundle made a note of how Kubica leans his head outwards when taking corners. For anti-clockwise circuits such as Istanbul next weekend, is there any possibility that this could benefit Kubica or will it just be the same effect as the drivers who lean their heads in?

When you go around a corner at speed you feel pushed away from the corner thats centrepital force acting on your body. Your body is wanting to travel straight ahead when whatever is beneath you is going around the bend thats the feeling you get or why you slide across bench seats in a car. What Kubica does then is basically be lazy and allow his neck to be pushed outwards by the forces exerted upon him. I don't see it being a problem for him as he's very fit and it obviously works for him. Most other drivers lean there head into the corner, I imagine, so that they can keep their eyes on the apex and the line that they're taking.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong :D

Testing for Monaco started today at Paul Ricard - would you be able to keep an update on how the aero differences will assist the teams in Monaco?

First pic I have is of the (surprise surprise from me) Honda RA108 - looks like dumbo's had a bit of work:

EDIT: Looking at the McLaren's front wheel covers, they seem very interesting - from a picture I've seen, it appears to be extending past the side of the tyre and going around the front (covering part of the tyre) - is that even allowed, because if that fails there could be a possibility of a big crash surely?